Synthese 

About: Synthese is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Philosophy of science & Philosophy of language. It has an ISSN identifier of 0039-7857. Over the lifetime, 7238 publication(s) have been published receiving 117366 citation(s).

Fuzzy logic and approximate reasoning

Abstract: The term fuzzy logic is used in this paper to describe an imprecise logical system, FL, in which the truth-values are fuzzy subsets of the unit interval with linguistic labels such as true, false, not true, very true, quite true, not very true and not very false, etc. The truth-value set, ℐ, of FL is assumed to be generated by a context-free grammar, with a semantic rule providing a means of computing the meaning of each linguistic truth-value in ℐ as a fuzzy subset of [0, 1]. Since ℐ is not closed under the operations of negation, conjunction, disjunction and implication, the result of an operation on truth-values in ℐ requires, in general, a linguistic approximation by a truth-value in ℐ. As a consequence, the truth tables and the rules of inference in fuzzy logic are (i) inexact and (ii) dependent on the meaning associated with the primary truth-value true as well as the modifiers very, quite, more or less, etc. Approximate reasoning is viewed as a process of approximate solution of a system of relational assignment equations. This process is formulated as a compositional rule of inference which subsumes modus ponens as a special case. A characteristic feature of approximate reasoning is the fuzziness and nonuniqueness of consequents of fuzzy premisses. Simple examples of approximate reasoning are: (a) Most men are vain; Socrates is a man; therefore, it is very likely that Socrates is vain. (b) x is small; x and y are approximately equal; therefore y is more or less small, where italicized words are labels of fuzzy sets.

Special sciences (or: The disunity of science as a working hypothesis)

Abstract: A typical thesis of positivistic philosophy of science is that all true theories in the special sciences should reduce to physical theories in the long run. This is intended to be an empirical thesis, and part of the evidence which supports it is provided by such scientific successes as the molecular theory of heat and the physical explanation of the chemical bond. But the philosophical popularity of the reductivist program cannot be explained by reference to these achievements alone. The development of science has witnessed the proliferation of specialized disciplines at least as often as it has witnessed their reduction to physics, so the widespread enthusiasm for reduction can hardly be a mere induction over its past successes. I think that many philosophers who accept reductivism do so primarily because they wish to endorse the generality of physics vis d vis the special sciences: roughly, the view that all events which fall under the laws of any science are physical events and hence fall under the laws of physics. 1 For such philosophers, saying that physics is basic science and saying that theories in the special sciences must reduce to physical theories have seemed to be two ways of saying the same thing, so that the latter doctrine has come to be a standard construal of the former. In what follows, I shall argue that this is a considerable confusion. What has traditionally been called 'the unity of science' is a much stronger, and much less plausible, thesis than the generality of physics. If this is true it is important. Though reductionism is an empirical doctrine, it is intended to play a regulative role in scientific practice. Reducibility to physics is taken to be a constraint upon the acceptability of theories in the special sciences, with the curious consequence that the more the special sciences succeed, the more they ought to disappear. Methodological problems about psychology, in particular, arise in just this way: the assumption that the subject-matter of psychology is part of the subject-matter of physics is taken to imply that psychological theories must reduce to physical theories, and it is this latter principle

Cognition, Construction of Knowledge, and Teaching

Abstract: The existence of objective knowledge and the possibility of communicating it by means of language have traditionally been taken for granted by educators. Recent developments in the philosophy of science and the historical study of scientific accomplishments have deprived these presuppositions of their former plausibility. Sooner or later, this must have an effect on the teaching of science. In this paper I am presenting a brief outline of an alternative theory of knowing that takes into account the thinking organism’s cognitive isolation from ‘reality’. This orientation was proposed by Vico at the beginning of the 18th century, disregarded for two hundred years, and then propounded independently by Piaget as a developmentaly grounded constructivist epistemology. The paper focuses specifically on the adaptive function of cognition, Piaget’s scheme theory, the process of communication, and the subjective perspective on social interaction. In the concluding section it then suggests some of the consequences the shift of epistemological presuppositions might have for the practice of teaching.

Indirect Speech Acts

Abstract: In this paper, we address several puzzles concerning speech acts,particularly indirect speech acts. We show how a formal semantictheory of discourse interpretation can be used to define speech actsand to avoid murky issues concerning the metaphysics of action. Weprovide a formally precise definition of indirect speech acts, includingthe subclass of so-called conventionalized indirect speech acts. Thisanalysis draws heavily on parallels between phenomena at the speechact level and the lexical level. First, we argue that, just as co-predicationshows that some words can behave linguistically as if they're `simultaneously'of incompatible semantic types, certain speech acts behave this way too.Secondly, as Horn and Bayer (1984) and others have suggested, both thelexicon and speech acts are subject to a principle of blocking or ``preemptionby synonymy'': Conventionalized indirect speech acts can block their`paraphrases' from being interpreted as indirect speech acts, even ifthis interpretation is calculable from Gricean-style principles. Weprovide a formal model of this blocking, and compare it withexisting accounts of lexical blocking.

The illusion of conscious will

Abstract: Wegner (Wegner, D. (2002). The illusion of conscious will. MIT Press) argues that conscious will is an illusion, citing a wide range of empirical evidence. I shall begin by surveying some of his arguments. Many are unsuccessful. But one—an argument from the ubiquity of self-interpretation—is more promising. Yet is suffers from an obvious lacuna, offered by so-called ‘dual process’ theories of reasoning and decision making (Evans, J., & Over, D. (1996). Rationality and reasoning. Psychology Press; Stanovich, K. (1999). Who is rational? Studies of individual differences in reasoning. Lawrence Erlbaum; Frankish, K. (2004). Mind and supermind. Cambridge University Press). I shall argue that this lacuna can be filled by a plausible a priori claim about the causal role of anything deserving to be called ‘a will.’ The result is that there is no such thing as conscious willing: conscious will is, indeed, an illusion.