Showing papers in "Theoria in 2008"

Are we free to break the laws

Abstract: Soft determinism seems to have an incredible consequence. It seems to imply, given certain acceptable further premises, that sometimes people are able to act in such a way that the laws of nature are broken. Soft determinism is the doctrine that sometimes one freely does what one is predetermined to do; and that in such a case one is able to act otherwise though past history and the laws of nature determine that one will not act otherwise. Compatibilism is the doctrine that soft determinism may be true. The Weak Thesis, which as a soft determinist the author accept, is the thesis that he could have rendered a law false in the weak sense. The Strong Thesis, which the author rejects, is the thesis that he could have rendered a law false in the strong sense. The weak thesis is controversial, to be sure, but a soft determinist should not mind being committed to it.

Seeing To it That: A Canonical Form for Agentives

Abstract: J. L. Austin told us that “The beginning of sense, not to say wisdom, is to realize that ‘doing an action’, as used in philosophy, is a highly abstract expression — it is a stand-in used in the place of any (or almost any) verb with a personal subject...” [Austin56; p. 178].1 In that paper he tried to throw light on the question of “doing an action” by looking at the range of cases in which excuses are offered both in everyday usage and in the law, and to arrive at a proper vocabulary for action by “induction” on the proper uses of words. Many years have passed, the lesson has been learned, and it is time for philosophy to go beyond the mere beginnings of sense and progress toward a deeper understanding of an agent doing an action. How should we proceed? Our suggestion is that the next step in the progression toward greater sense and wisdom is to have available the sort of clean and well honed linguistic resource that Austin, and other philosophers, have realized to be necessary. We think that the most promising path to a deeper understanding of an agent making a choice among alternatives that lead to action is to augment the language with a class of sentences whose fundamental syntactic and semantic structures are so well designed and easily understood that they illuminate not only their own operations but the nature and structure of the linguistic settings in which they function.

Actualism and possible worlds

Abstract: THE IDEA of possible worlds has both promised and, I believe, delivered understanding and insight in a wide range of topics. Pre-eminent here, I think, is the topic of broadly logical possibility, both de t the function of proper names and definite descriptions; the nature of counterfactuals; time and temporal relations; causal determinism; in philosophical theology, the ontological argument, theological determinism, and the problem of evil (see [7], chapters IV-X). In one respect, however, the idea of possible worlds may seem to have contributed less to clarity than to confusion; for if we take this idea seriously, we may find outselves committed to the dubious notion that there are or could have been things that do not exist. Let me explain.

Meaning and proofs: on the conflict between classical and intuitionistic logic

Abstract: it is claimed that nothing less than the total use of the language determines the meaning of an individual sentence. This is to give up the possibility of finding any other fundamental principle of meaning. A second common kind of meaning thoery modifies such a drastically holistic view by singling out a class of sentences that are given individual contents independent of the use of the rest of the language. Typically, there are sentences that are decidable, e.g., by observation, or in matematics, by calculation, and their meaning can thus be understood as determined by their truth-conditions in the classical sense. This is of course a common view in the philosophy of science where the meaning of theoretical sentences is reduced in this way to that of observational sentences. In the case of mathematics, this view was held by Hilbert. A view of this kind immediately makes criticism of use possible because the total use of the sentences cannot be allowed to be used to infer privileged sentences that are false according to the meaning given to them. What may make revisions necessary here is that there are two situations in which privileged sentences can be asserted: whan they are found to be true according to their individual meaning, and when they can be inferred from other sentences. When there is a conflict between these two frounds for asserting a sentence, the first on has the priority; i.e., the first kind of use is the central one that determines meaning.

Democratic Equality and Respect

Abstract: The article seeks to show that the liberal idea of securing an equal liberty for all must be reexamined in the two sets of discussions around the sought-for balance between liberty and equality, so as to avoid the separation both of liberty and equality and of the domains opposing formal and substantive claims. These must be rather regarded in their correlated conditions, required for an effective, democratic exercise of citizens’ private and public autonomy, as Habermas suggested. The article shows that the question of equality of condition cannot avoid the difficult questions raised in the so-called “difference” debate and attempts to go “beyond equality and difference” or to “reconstruct” an ideal of equal citizenship in a democracy must address considerations raised in the discussions concerning equality of condition and respect.

Modality and Quantification

Abstract: Most branches of logic may be studied by means of two different (although related) methods or sets of methods which are usually called syntactical and semantical, respectively. In this paper, I shall outline some basic ideas of a semantical theory of modal logic, including quantified modal logic. Since a fuller treatment is easy to carry out on the basis of this outline, I shall omit most of the proofs.1

Frege's Theory of Sense and Reference: Some Exegetical Notes

Abstract: : Frege's theory of indirect contexts and the shift of sense and reference in these contexts has puzzled many. What can the hierarchy of indirect senses, doubly indirect senses, and so on, be? Donald Davidson gave a well-known ‘unlearnability’ argument against Frege's theory. The present paper argues that the key to Frege's theory lies in the fact that whenever a reference is specified (even though many senses determine a single reference), it is specified in a particular way, so that giving a reference implies giving a sense; and that one must be ‘acquainted’ with the sense. It is argued that an indirect sense must be ‘immediately revelatory’ of its reference. General principles for Frege's doctrine of sense and reference are sated, for both direct and indirect quotation, to be understood iteratively. I also discuss Frege's doctrine of tensed and first person statements in the light of my analysis. The views of various other authors are examined. The conclusion is to ascribe to Frege an implicit doctrine of acquaintance similar to that of Russell.

On artifacts and works of art

Abstract: L'A. analyse la nature des artefacts et la facon dont les objets d'art et d'autres objets de la culture y sont lies. Selon lui, c'est la maniere la plus appropriee d'etudier l'ontologie des differents types d'objets culturels

Completeness and decidability of three logics of counterfactual conditionals1

Abstract: A sentence Q] 0-t y is intended to mean, roughly, that y holds in certain of the possible worlds in which Q] holds: those of them that are most closely similar to our actual world. We could capture this intention most straightforwardly by positing a function f which selects, for any sentence 9 and world i, a set f(v, i) of worlds regarded as the set of worlds most closely similar to i out of the worlds in which Q] holds. But this approach is open to objection. Just as no real number greater than 1 is closest to 0, so it may be that none of the worlds in which Q] holds is most closely similar to i. It may be that for each of them, there is another still closer. To meet this difficulty, we could introduce the notion of degrees of similarity between worlds, and take Q] 0-t y to mean that, unless no worlds in which v holds are similar to any degree to our actual world, there is some degree of similarity to our actual world within which there are