NATURALISM AND THE PARADOX OF REVISABILITY

Abstract:  This paper examines the paradox of revisability. This paradox was proposed by Jerrold Katz as a problem for Quinean naturalised epistemology. Katz employs diagonalisation to demonstrate what he takes to be an inconsistency in the constitutive principles of Quine's epistemology. Specifically, the problem seems to rest with the principle of universal revisability which states that no statement is immune to revision. In this paper it is argued that although there is something odd about employing universal revisability to revise itself, there is nothing paradoxical about this. At least, there is no paradox along the lines suggested by Katz.     

ON A PARADOX OF CHRISTIAN LOVE

The two love commands attributed to Jesus clearly show the basic feature of Christianity as a “religion of love.” However, it may be argued that there is conflict between these commands, so that the Christian idea of love confronts a deep paradox: on the one hand, it takes loving God as the ultimate foundation of loving one's neighbor and loving one's neighbor as the perfect manifestation of loving God. On the other hand, it gives supremacy to loving God over loving one's neighbor, with the result that, in cases of conflict, Christianity has to sacrifice loving one's neighbor to loving God and thus to negate the second great command by the first.     

THE DIMENSIONALITY PARADOX IN COMPARATIVE JUDGMENT: A RESOLUTION

S jöberg , L. The dimensionality paradox in comparative judgment: a resolution. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1968, 9, 97–108. — It has often been possible to erect unidimensional scales although stimuli have been clearly multidimensional. This fact is surprising since one expects the multidimensional structure to be reflected in data. It is suggested that this structure might be recovered from dispersions of comparative judgments. The suggestion is shown to be valid on three sets of paired comparison data. Implications for uni- and multidimensional scaling are discussed.     

A PARADOX IN THE PERCEPTION OF LUMINANCE GRADIENTS. II

The first paper in this series was a study on a brightness paradox in the perception of luminance gradients in space. This study tests the hypothesis that an inducing field of higher or lower luminance having a luminance acceleration in space is a necessary condition for the paradox to appear. A magnitude estimation and a constant-sum method were used. The main result was a falsification of the hypothesis. A luminance acceleration across the inducing field was not necessary but it enhanced the paradox. The results are discussed in relation to theories on neural inhibition.     

A PARADOX IN THE PERCEPTION OF LUMINANCE GRADIENTS. I

Under certain conditions subjects looking at a luminance gradient report a physically darker part of the gradient to be brighter than an adjacent area of higher luminance. This brightness paradox was studied in a series of experiments using a magnitude estimation method. The main results were that both the changing sign of the second derivative of the luminance function (Mach's hypothesis) and the higher or lower luminance of an adjacent area (McDougall's drainage theory) are critical conditions for the appearance of the paradox. In the present study none of these conditions per se resulted in a brightness paradox.