Showing papers in "Synthese in 1976"
TL;DR: In this article, L'A. recuse les argumentations par lesquelles d'autres ont appuye leur reponse negative a cette question.
Abstract: Une theorie causale de la perception est-elle philosophiquement viable? L'A. recuse les argumentations par lesquelles d'autres ont appuye leur reponse negative a cette question.
91 citations
TL;DR: Georgescu-Roegen as discussed by the authors argued that a knowledge of the past history of an object is necessary in order to predict future changes in the social sciences, not only as a subject matter, but also as a means for studying the present and predicting the future.
Abstract: In this review article I shall explore the implications of some remarks offered by Georgescu-Roegen (1967,1971) on the concept of hysteresis and its importance for the social sciences. Georgescu-Roegen has stres sed the unique importance of history in the social sciences, not (or not only) as a subject matter, but as a means for studying the present and predicting the future. The ideal of the natural sciences is to be able to predict the future from a knowledge of the present only, even if this ideal has not been attained in all cases. Magnetic and elastic hysteresis are among the more important cases where a knowledge of the past history of an object is necessary in order to predict future changes. In the social sciences, according to Georgescu-Roegen, this situation is typical rather than exceptional. He has argued this point in a general manner (Georgescu-Roegen 1971, p. 123 sq.) and sketched an application to the theory of consumer behaviour (Georgescu-Roegen 1967, p. 171 sq.). I believe this idea to be a very important one, even if I shall argue that Georgescu-Roegen tends to overstate his case. In what follows I shall attempt a further analysis of the notion of hysteresis. Firstly I shall point to some passages in the work of Leibniz, who to my knowledge was the first to raise the general problem of hysteresis vs. equations of state. Secondly I shall make a distinction between ontological and epistemolog ical hysteresis and, within the latter, a further distinction between a weak and a strong form. Thirdly, and most importantly, I shall proceed to give a number of examples in order to bring out the relevance of the notion of hysteresis. I shall argue that the problem arises not only in the context of consumer theory, where it has been quite extensively discussed, but also in such extremely different settings as the capital controversy, the interpretation of historical materialism and the mathematical theory of
56 citations
TL;DR: The Weakened Law of Excluded Middle as discussed by the authors is a variant of the Law of Noncontradiction, which states that every conjunction of the form 'P and not-P' is false.
Abstract: It is now a commonplace that the Law of Excluded Middle, which says that every disjunction of the form T or not-P' is true, can be distin guished from the Principle of Bivalence, which says that any statement is either true or false. Although presumably one cannot hold the Principle of Bivalence without being committed to the Law of Excluded Middle, the converse does not hold. Not everyone who works on the logic and semantics of vagueness agrees that the Principle of Bivalence should be abandoned. Among those who agree that it should be abandoned, there is disagreement about the retention of the Law of Excluded Middle. There is agreement, however, that no disjunction of form 'P or not-P' is false, a thesis which I shall call the Weakened Law of Excluded Middle. I believe that the phenomena of vagueness do not call for the rejection of the regular Law of Excluded Middle and do call for the rejection of the Principle of Bivalence. Although I shall presently offer some reasons in favor of these views, I do not expect the arguments to convince anyone who has already adopted a contrary opinion. My main purpose in this paper is to sketch further disagreements about the logic and semantics of vagueness which can divide those who agree in rejecting the Principle of Bivalence and retaining the Law of Excluded Middle. I shall, in particu lar, defend a many-value semantics as useful for dealing with vagueness and object to a semantics of supervaluations or super-truth. Just as the Law of Excluded Middle can be distinguished from the Principle of Bivalence, the Law of Noncontradiction, which says that every conjunction of the form 'P and not-P' is false, can be distinguished from what we may call the Principle of Biexclusion, which says that no statement is both true and false. Rejection of the Law of Excluded Middle goes hand-in-hand with the rejection of the Law of Noncontradiction, as does the retention of the Weakened Law of Excluded Middle with the
32 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the causal conditions of sense-perception have been investigated in the context of the meaning of the verb 'to perceive' in the sense of senses of perception.
Abstract: What are the causal conditions of sense-perception? If this is a question about causal conditions that are part of the meaning of'sense-perception', it is unlikely to get a precise answer, because science enriches pre-scientific concepts continually, and, at any given time, not very determinately I shall simplify the discussion by concentrating on sight The results may be generalized without much alteration so that they will apply to the other four senses There are two questions which will serve to introduce the topic Both are questions about the meaning of the verb 'to perceive', and the second is the converse of the first
27 citations
19 citations
TL;DR: The notion that knowledge requires foundations is too well known to need a long introduction as discussed by the authors, and it has received far too little attention, and I am not aware that it has even been distinctly stated.
Abstract: The nature of our sensory experience, and the role it plays in our knowledge of the world, is one of the most discussed questions in recent epistemology. Whether the view of it which I present in this paper is a new one, I am unsure; what is certainly true is that it has received far too little attention, and I am not aware that it has even been distinctly stated. That this is so may well be a consequence of the fact that it threatens conflict with some basic and widespread assumptions in the philosophy of mind, but although its neglect may thereby become more understandable, it also becomes proportionately less desirable. The doctrine that knowledge requires foundations is too well known to need long introduction. It has very frequently been held that if we know anything there must be some truths which we know immediately, directly, intuitively, or without the possibility of error. And very many who have held this have also held the more specific view that, at least for our knowledge of any contingent fact, these foundational truths were truths about our sense-experience or sense-data. Direct attacks on this theory are more recent, but by no means lacking: Popper suggested an alterna tive in The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Quinton has written against it in a number of articles, Austin opposed it in Sense and Sensibilia. The most systematic and comprehensive treatment of the subject is that provided by Quinton, and it is his work I shall begin by considering, so taking the opportunity to examine an attempt to establish the radical conclusion that there is no such thing as sensory experience at all. This will provide a negative application, so to speak, of the central contention of the paper, inasmuch as the attempt turns out to be based on a mistaken notion, which I shall try to correct, of what sensory experience must be if there is any.
18 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, it was said that if I remove a single peanut from a bowl with many peanuts in it, there will still be many left. But wait! It will always be true.
Abstract: Mother told me that I must not touch the peanuts. But there are so many she will never notice if I eat just one_That was good and see, there are still many peanuts left. Perhaps I can eat another. There will still be many left_Yes, that one was good also, and there are still many left. But wait! It will always be true that if I remove a single peanut from a bowl with many peanuts in it, there will still be many left. So I can eat all the peanuts I want as long as I eat them one at a time. There will always be many left. Mother will never know_
15 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors define the logic of propositional knowledge and belief as a modal logic of modalities which are relativized to agents and certain occasions, expressing what the agents on certain occasions then believe or know.
Abstract: Perception is a species of judgment. So far as logic goes, there is nothing very special about perception. Of course, there is plenty that is intriguing about perception, and puzzling. But so far as logic goes perception is just a kind of knowing and believing. And the logic which governs our ascrip tions of knowledge and belief to things is pretty much a matter of book keeping. It is mainly a matter of keeping the references and concepts of those of us who are scribes, recording the occurrences of psychical happen ings, distinct from those of the agents to whom we ascribe mental events. It is of course part of the bookkeeping to recognize that scribes are also agents, and, often enough, conversely as well. Current fashion construes the logic of propositional knowledge and belief as a modal logic.1 It is a logic of modalities which are relativized to agents and certain occasions, expressing what the agents on certain occasions then believe or know. If perception is a species of judgment, then the logic of perception is but a species of this more general modal logic of knowledge and belief. We say that a psychical agent indeed sees, or, other times, perhaps merely thinks he sees, that his surroundings are thus and so. For perception, thus, we ascribe knowledge or belief to the agent in a suitably qualified way; e.g., he knows, sees, that this. Or he believes, thinks he hears, that that. We ascribe knowledge or belief in a suitably qualified way, as sensuous knowledge or belief. Perceptions are visual or tactual, auditory or olfactory, instances of propositional knowledge or belief. Accordingly, perceptual knowledge or belief is but a certain kind of knowledge or belief, qualified by reference to the manner in which it is attained.
13 citations
TL;DR: In a follow-up article as mentioned in this paper, the same authors pointed out that Sober's functional characterization of pictures does not capture important aspects of pictorial representation, and suggested that the way of characterizing pictures is less adequate than he supposes.
Abstract: Elliott Sober has written an interesting paper containing striking generalizations and speculations that relate pictures, language, and perception. His inquiries display an admirable breadth and imagination, and I think that we must immediately grant some of his major points. Sober is right, for example, to reject the traditional objections which he considers to postulating mental pictures. He also seems correct in holding that the currently available evidence-for postulating pictures in the brain is, as he presents it, at best inconclusive. Nevertheless, not all of Sober's views are beyond challenge. In the present essay, I will question (i) whether Sober's functional characterization of pictures captures important aspects of pictorial representation, (ii) how he understands the notion of a picture's content, (iii) whether, as Sober claims, every picture is representational, (iv) the Sober-Berkeley thesis that pictures have a peculiar specificity, (v) Sober's idea that concatenation can achieve pictorial conjunction, and (vi) his account of logical form and pictures. I will also state, quite informally, my own position on some of these topics. A general consequence of my criticisms is that Sober's way of characterizing pictures is less adequate than he supposes. This consequence, to which I will not return below, suggests that Sober's own reasons for not now postulating mental pictures may need re-examination. Some of the following discussion is supported by the results in my 'The Logical Structure of Pictorial Representation. '1 But none of my present observations presupposes any familiarity with that paper.
11 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors distinguish Tarskian and Fitchean notions of universality in such a way that the claim that no language is universal in the sense of Tarski is compatible with accepting fitchean universality.
Abstract: We began by distinguishing Tarskian and Fitchean notions of universality in such a way that the claim that no language is universal in the sense of Tarski is compatible with accepting Fitchean universality. Then we examined a proposal involving two truth concepts — one that fit the Fitchean notion and another that followed Tarski's views on truth — finding little advantage in such generosity. We attempted a reformulation of Herzberger's argument for the negative view — the view that no language is universal in Tarski's sense — but found it unsuccessful when the language of the argument's formulation was brought under consideration. A more persuasive argument for EI was found, free of the defect of the previous one. EI was then shown to have unsettling consequences, prompting us to inquire about avoiding it. We found this possible, noting that EI is itself a solution to the semantic paradoxes, to which there are alternatives that avoid the unwelcome aspects of EI. However, whether any such alternative is ultimately preferable to EI remains to be seen.
8 citations
TL;DR: The epistemological significance and achievement of the chapter lies in seeing the problem and trying to begin its analysis and the formulation of what has to be demanded of adequate answers not in the answers themselves.
Abstract: 0.2. The epistemological significance and achievement of the chapter lies in seeing the problem and trying to begin its analysis and the formulation of what has to be demanded of adequate answers not in the answers themselves. Today it is not difficult to see that Kant's answers are for the most part immanently unsatisfactory because they are not up to his problem analysis and do not fulfill his own demands as to what a schema has to contain. Also, looked at from today's 'knowledge' about the problem of pattern recognition, it is rather obvious that his answers could not possibly be even approximately adequate because he and his time simply lacked the necessary means (especially logic of relations, theory of information, cybernetic systemstheory). It seems quite possible that we still lack some of the necessary means for an adequate solution even today.
TL;DR: The authors regard this paper as a substitute for the famous unwritten paper [7] of Scott and Solovay, and introduced a major technical change in their approach by substituting Shoenfield's definition of forcing [8] for the original Scott-Solovay definition.
Abstract: This article is meant to serve as a brief introduction to Boolean-valued set theory. Our acquaintance with this subject began in January 1966 in a seminar conducted by Professor Dana Scott. This seminar included several lectures by Scott himself and by Kenneth Kunen. We have since benefited greatly from papers by Solovay, Solovay and Tennenbaum, and Shoenfield, as well as various classes, seminars, and private discussions. Our purpose here is to summarize the main theoretical aspects of the subject as we have learned it and synthesized it from these sources. The authors regard this paper as a substitute for the famous unwritten paper [7] of Scott and Solovay. We have set ourselves the goal of writing that paper as we would like to have seen it. In order to do this, we have introduced a major technical change in their approach by substituting Shoenfield's definition of forcing [8] for the original Scott-Solovay definition. This has made the proof of Lemma 1.9 a pedagogical possibility; previously it has usually been left to the reader. We have also gone beyond the Scott-Solovay treatment by including a section on the independence of Martin's axiom. We feel it is important to present this application within our framework, in contrast to the treatment of Solovay and Tennenbaum [11] using the system from [8]. It is our intention that this paper be regarded as sequel to Krivine's book Introduction to Axiomatic Set Theory [4], and we assume that the reader is familiar with that text.
TL;DR: In a recent article, "Laying the Ravens to Rest", J. L. Pollock [11] presented his solution to Hempel's [8-1] famous 'paradox' of confirmation as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In a recent article, 'Laying the Ravens to Rest', J. L. Pollock [11] presents his solution to Hempel's [8-1 famous 'paradox' of confirmation. From the title, it is obvious that Pollock believes he has definitively settled the issue. However, so many wise people have offered so many different and often convincing opinions about the raven paradox, that I would, at least prima facie, seriously doubt whether the issue could be settled to the satisfaction of all as simply as Pollock claims it can. Indeed having read Pollock's paper, I find it difficult to discern in what way his solution differs so radically from his many predecessors'. Thus Pollock argues that a search among green plastic garbage cans for non-black ravens is 'unfair', for the sample is obviously already prejudiced against there being any ravens in it. Only when we randomly select items from a sample not so prejudiced, only then, feels Pollock, will we be impressed by the non-black non-ravens. And only then will we take them as evidence for the law that all non-blacks are non-ravens. Hempel [8-1, hewever, already in his original article, takes note of this argument and rejects it, or rather feels that it misses his fundamental point. For when we reject a green plastic garbage can as evidence for the law, 'All ravens are black', we illicitly (for Hempel's purposes) take into account background information that the item is a plastic garbage can and then correctly conclude that no further evidence can be adduced from the item's characteristics. But, says Hempel (in an adaption of his words to our example), \"given some object a (it happens to be a plastic garbage can, but this fact is not included in the evidence), and given the fact that a is not black and is not a raven: does a then constitute confirming evidence for the hypothesis? And now no matter whether a is a plastic garbage can or some other substance it is clear that the answer has to be in the affirmative...\" (p. 20). Presumably then, Pollock's reply is that the background information
TL;DR: The Output of the Apparatus is a series of structures called a linguistic derivation, and a schema of the Output is shown, shown in Figure 1 (next page).
Abstract: The Output of the Apparatus is a series of structures called a linguistic derivation. A schema of the Output is shown in Figure 1 (next page). For the purposes of discussion, two sorts of derivational structures may be distinguished, terminal and intermediate. Terminal structures are Deep Structure, Surface Structure, Semantic Representation and Phonetic Representation. Intermediate structures are simply those structures which are not terminal structures.
TL;DR: The authors provide an account of tenses and dates together in a unified framework and criticise the notion of a propositional modal operator with variable truth value, which is in direct opposition to those encompassed in my thesis.
Abstract: However, the point of maintaining such a thesis may seem far from clear. It will become clearer, I hope, after a brief exposition of the views of Arthur Prior which are in direct opposition to those encompassed in my thesis. There will emerge a principle that the point of view of the speaker dominates all subordinate clauses which I maintain and Prior rejects. This leads me to oppose the Priorean approach of considering tenses along the lines of propositional modal operators and in particular to criticise the notion of a proposition with variable truth value. It will be important to appreciate that my discussion concerns not only tenses, but also dates. My object is to provide an account of tenses and dates together in a unified framework.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors define a Spinozistic partitioning of a sequence of ordinals, where the cardinality (or length) of the sequence A is a cardinality measure.
Abstract: Def: A is a Spinozistic partitioning2 (Sp) of Y if and only if A is an infinite sequence satisfying the following conditions : (i) Y={J?
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors use 'vague' in two senses: 'indeterminate' and 'indefinite' in the sense of being indeterminate, i.e. lacking definite boundaries as e.g. between a mountain and a valley, between day and night.
Abstract: 'Vague ' is vague. 1 It also has many senses. I mean 'senses ' in the non-technical use of that word: the one employed e.g. in \" I use here 'great ' in the sense of comparat ively large in size, not in the sense of large in number. ' '2 The advantage of the non-technical use of 'sense' here is that it avoids needless talk about the ambiguity of 'vague' . In what follows I shall use 'vague ' in two senses. First, 'vague ' in the sense of being indefinite, i.e. lacking definite boundaries as e.g. between a mountain and a valley, between day and night, etc. I shall also use 'vague ' in the sense of being indeterminate, as applies to mountains vis-a-vis hills 3. Indefiniteness has to do with things which are on a continuum; not so indeterminacy. The sense of 'vague ' I shall not use is that of being obscure, i.e. the sense in which a te rm lacks clear cases for its application and for its misapplication. The word 'experience ' , for example, is notoriously obscure in just this sense. 4 Thus, the contrasting words to my use of 'vague ' are 'de terminate ' and 'definite'. I believe that these are in fact the common 'senses ' of 'vague ' in the philosophical li terature in which it occurs as a technical term.
TL;DR: In this paper, the relativistic law for the addition of velocities, namely u+o + o + o, is characterized. But it does not characterize the relatival law for concatenation structures with maximal elements.
Abstract: A QUALITATIVE EQUIVALENT TO THE RELATIVISTIC ADDITION LAW FOR VELOCITIES Luce and Marley (1969) used relativistic velocity as a motivating example for their discussion of concatenation structures with maximal elements. They did not, however, characterize the relativistic law for the addition of velocities, namely, u+o
TL;DR: The question of the basis of quantum mechanics has been a source of concern to physicists and philosophers from the beginning as mentioned in this paper, and a number of attempts have been made towards replacing the original conceptions (centered around the "correspondence principle" by ones more accessible to systematic inquiry.
Abstract: The question of the basis of quantum mechanics has been a source of concern to physicists and philosophers from the beginning. In recent times a number of attempts have been made towards replacing the original conceptions (centered around the ‘correspondence principle’) by ones more accessible to systematic inquiry. Most of these attempts are framed in the language of lattice theory, and only those will concern us here. Basic to each of these attempts is some conception of a yes-no experiment. Let us write ‘hne’ for ‘yes-no experiment’. In these pages I propose to inquire critically into the majority view regarding the concept of a hne.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors locate and discuss a number of problems involved in a proposal to revise very considerably what may fairly be called the received account of Freud as scientist manqu?.
Abstract: In this paper I locate and discuss a number of problems involved in a proposal to revise very considerably what may fairly be called the received account of Freud as scientist manqu?. My purpose is in no way exegetical or antiquarian. It is because of the attention currently (and properly) paid to him by certain philosophers that I choose Freud as a vehicle for raising what I take to be philosophical issues of very general importance. For this reason, I find it necessary to make at the outset certain limited assumptions about Freud's methods and procedure. My concern is with what is to be said if these assumptions are correct. Except in the somewhat unglamorous discussion of Section II, I reach few firm conclusions. My hope is that I indicate where the problems lie, and how they might be resolved.
TL;DR: In this article, a method to calculate a degree of validity for the proof of a statement which is derived from empirical statements by means of logic conclusions is proposed, where the empirical statements are assumed not to be completely valid or their validity to be doubtful.
Abstract: This paper suggests a method to calculate a degree of validity for the proof of a statement which is derived from empirical statements by means of logic conclusions. The empirical statements are assumed not to be completely valid or their validity to be doubtful. The suggested rules are consistent with two-valued logic, yield decreasing validities with increasing number of applications of modus ponens and obey the law of the excluded middle. The actual calculation of validity values, the relation of the suggested method to some truth tables of multi-valued logic and to fuzzy logic are discussed.