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1.
A formula is a contingent logical truth when it is true in every model M but, for some model M, false at some world of M. We argue that there are such truths, given the logic of actuality. Our argument turns on defending Tarski’s definition of
truth and logical truth, extended so as to apply to modal languages with an actuality operator. We argue that this extension
is the philosophically proper account of validity. We counter recent arguments to the contrary presented in Hanson’s ‘Actuality,
Necessity, and Logical Truth’ (Philos Stud 130:437–459, 2006). 相似文献
3.
This essay proposes a novel semantic account of demonstratives, aimed at clarifying the sense in which demonstratives are
semantically dependent on demonstrations. Its first two sections summarize the main views currently on the market. Section 3
argues that they are all vitiated by the same shortcomings, and yield incorrect results of ‘truth in virtue of character’
and entailment. Section 4 proposes a different account of the relationships between demonstratives and demonstrations, grounded
on the idea of truth-conditionally irrelevant aspects of the meaning of certain expressions. The resulting view of demonstratives
is consonant with the so-called ‘bare boned’ account of their truth-conditional role, but is also in the position to recognize
that the dependence of a demonstrative on a demonstration is, in some sense of the term, meaning-governed. The final section
of this essay discusses the distinction between ‘vacuous’ and ‘incomplete’ uses of demonstratives, and cases involving multiple
occurrences of these expressions. 相似文献
4.
Does general validity or real world validity better represent the intuitive notion of logical truth for sentential modal languages with an actuality connective? In (Philosophical Studies 130:436–459, 2006) I argued in favor of general validity, and I criticized the arguments of Zalta (Journal of Philosophy 85:57–74, 1988) for real world validity. But in Nelson and Zalta (Philosophical Studies 157:153–162, 2012) Michael Nelson and Edward Zalta criticize my arguments and claim to have established the superiority of real world validity. Section 1 of the present paper introduces the problem and sets out the basic issues. In Sect. 2 I consider three of Nelson and Zalta’s arguments and find all of them deficient. In Sect. 3 I note that Nelson and Zalta direct much of their criticism at a phrase (‘true at a world from the point of view of some distinct world as actual’) I used only inessentially in Hanson (Philosophical Studies 130:436–459, 2006), and that their account of the philosophical foundations of modal semantics leaves them ill equipped to account for the plausibility of modal logics weaker than S5. Along the way I make several general suggestions for ways in which philosophical discussions of logical matters–especially, but not limited to, discussions of truth and logical truth for languages containing modal and indexical terms–might be facilitated and made more productive. 相似文献
5.
In a recent paper Johan van Benthem reviews earlier work done by himself and colleagues on ‘natural logic’. His paper makes
a number of challenging comments on the relationships between traditional logic, modern logic and natural logic. I respond
to his challenge, by drawing what I think are the most significant lines dividing traditional logic from modern. The leading
difference is in the way logic is expected to be used for checking arguments. For traditionals the checking is local, i.e.
separately for each inference step. Between inference steps, several kinds of paraphrasing are allowed. Today we formalise
globally: we choose a symbolisation that works for the entire argument, and thus we eliminate intuitive steps and changes
of viewpoint during the argument. Frege and Peano recast the logical rules so as to make this possible. I comment also on
the traditional assumption that logical processing takes place at the top syntactic level, and I question Johan’s view that
natural logic is ‘natural’. 相似文献
6.
This paper attempts to locate, within an actualist ontology, truthmakers for modal truths: truths of the form <Possibly, p>
or <Necessarily, p>. In Sect. 1 I motivate the demand for substantial truthmakers for modal truths. In Sect. 2 I criticise
Armstrong’s account of truthmakers for modal truths. In Sect. 3 I examine essentialism and defend an account of what makes
essentialist attributions true, but I argue that this does not solve the problem of modal truth in general. In Sect. 4 I discuss,
and dismiss, a theistic account of the source of modal truth proposed by Alexander Pruss. In Sect. 5 I offer a means of (dis)solving
the problem. 相似文献
7.
The traditional point of view on analyticity implies that truth in virtue only of meaning entails a priori acceptability and vice versa. The argument for this claim is based on the idea that meaning as it concerns truth and meaning as it concerns competence are one and the same thing. In this paper I argue that the extensions of these notions do not coincide. I hold that truth in virtue of meaning — truth for semantic reasons—doesn't imply a priori acceptability, and that a priori reflection based only on knowledge of meaning—in the sense of competence—doesn't necessitate true conclusions.The main consequence of this view concerns conceptual analysis, as it presupposes we have a privileged—incorrigible in the face of empirical evidence—access to non-trivial truths about the world on the basis of mere a priori reflection founded on meaning. If, as I argue, such access is not incorrigible the project of conceptual analysis loses its special epistemological status. 相似文献
8.
According to Frank Jackson’s famous knowledge argument, Mary, a brilliant neuroscientist raised in a black and white room
and bestowed with complete physical knowledge, cannot know certain truths about phenomenal experience. This claim about knowledge,
in turn, implies that physicalism is false. I argue that the knowledge argument founders on a dilemma. Either (i) Mary cannot
know the relevant experiential truths because of trivial obstacles that have no bearing on the truth of physicalism or (ii)
once the obstacles have been removed, Mary can know the relevant truths. If we give Mary the epistemological capabilities
necessary to draw metaphysical conclusions about physicalism, she will, while trapped in the black and white room, be able
to know every truth about phenomenal experience. 相似文献
9.
Within the class of indexicals, a distinction is often made between “pure” or “automatic” indexicals on one hand, and demonstratives
or “discretionary” indexicals on the other. The idea is supposed to be that certain indexicals refer automatically and invariably
to a particular feature of the utterance context: ‘I’ refers to the speaker, ‘now’ to the time of utterance, ‘here’ to the
place of utterance, etc. Against this view, I present cases where reference shifts from the speaker, time, or place of utterance
to some other object, time, or place. I consider and reject the claim that these counterexamples to the automatic indexical
theory all involve non-literal uses of indexicals and argue that they cannot be explained away on the grounds that they involve
conversational implicature or pretense. 相似文献
10.
The claim that truth is mind dependent has some initial plausibility only if truth bearers are taken to be mind dependent
entities such as beliefs or statements. Even on that assumption, however, the claim is not uncontroversial. If it is spelled
out as the thesis that “in a world devoid of mind nothing would be true”, then everything depends on how the phrase ‘true
in world w’ is interpreted. If ‘A is true in w’ is interpreted as ‘A is true of
w’ (i.e. ‘ w satisfies A’s truth conditions’, the claim need not be true. If on the other hand it is interpreted as ‘A is true of w
and exists in w’ then the claim is trivially true, though devoid of any antirealistic efficacy. Philosophers like Heidegger and Rorty, who
hold that truth is mind dependent but reality is not, must regard such principles as “A if and only if it is true that A”
as only contingently true, which may be a good reason to reject the mind dependence of truth anyway. 相似文献
11.
Philosophers have tended to dismiss John Stuart Mill’s claim that ‘all silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility’.
I argue that Mill’s ‘infallibility claim’ is indeed open to many objections, but that, contrary to the consensus, those objections
fail to defeat the anti-authoritarian thesis which lies at its core. I then argue that Mill’s consequentialist case for the
liberty of thought and discussion is likewise capable of withstanding some familiar objections. My purpose is to suggest that
Mill’s anti-authoritarianism and his faith in thought and discussion, when taken seriously, supply the basis for a ‘public
interest’ account of ‘freedom of expression as the liberty of thought and discussion’ which is faithful to Mill in spirit,
if not to the precise letter. I outline such an account, which – as I say in conclusion – can serve as a valuable safeguard
against ad hoc, reactive legislation, and the demands of a spurious communitarianism. 相似文献
12.
In this paper, I seek to undermine G.A. Cohen’s polemical use of a metaethical claim he makes in his article, ‘Facts and Principles’,
by arguing that that use requires an unsustainable equivocation between epistemic and logical grounding. I begin by distinguishing
three theses that Cohen has offered during the course of his critique of Rawls and contractualism more generally, the foundationalism
about grounding thesis, the justice as non-regulative thesis, and the justice as all-encompassing thesis, and briefly argue
that they are analytically independent of each other. I then offer an outline of the foundationalism about grounding thesis,
characterising it, as Cohen does, as a demand of logic. That thesis claims that whenever a normative principle is dependent
on a fact, it is so dependent in virtue of some other principle. I then argue that although this is true as a matter of logic,
it, as Cohen admits, cannot be true of actual justifications, since logic cannot tell us anything about the truth as opposed
to the validity of arguments. Facts about a justification cannot then be decisive for whether or not a given argument violates
the foundationalism about grounding thesis. As long as, independently of actual justifications, theorists can point to plausible
logically grounding principles, as I argue contractualists can, Cohen’s thesis lacks critical bite. 相似文献
13.
Verificationism is the doctrine stating that all truths are knowable. Fitch’s knowability paradox, however, demonstrates that
the verificationist claim (all truths are knowable) leads to “epistemic collapse”, i.e., everything which is true is (actually)
known. The aim of this article is to investigate whether or not verificationism can be saved from the effects of Fitch’s paradox.
First, I will examine different strategies used to resolve Fitch’s paradox, such as Edgington’s and Kvanvig’s modal strategy,
Dummett’s and Tennant’s restriction strategy, Beall’s paraconsistent strategy, and Williamson’s intuitionistic strategy. After
considering these strategies I will propose a solution that remains within the scope of classical logic. This solution is
based on the introduction of a truth operator. Though this solution avoids the shortcomings of the non-standard (intuitionistic)
solution, it has its own problems. Truth, on this approach, is not closed under the rule of conjunction-introduction. I will
conclude that verificationism is defensible, though only at a rather great expense. 相似文献
14.
Non-reductive moral realism is the view that there are moral properties which cannot be reduced to natural properties. If moral properties exist, it is plausible that they strongly supervene on non-moral properties- more specifically, on mental, social, and biological properties. There may also be good reasons for thinking that moral properties are irreducible. However, strong supervenience and irreducibility seem incompatible. Strong supervenience entails that there is an enormous number of modal truths (specifically, truths about exactly which non-moral properties necessitate which moral properties); and all these modal truths must be explained. If these modal truths can all be explained, then it must be a fundamental truth about the essence of each moral property that the moral property is necessarily equivalent to some property that can be specified purely in mental, social and biological terms; and this fundamental truth appears to be a reduction of the moral property in question. The best way to resist this argument is by resorting to the claim that mental and social properties are not, strictly speaking, natural properties, but are instead properties that can only be analysed in partly normative terms. Acceptance of that claim is the price of non-reductive moral realism. 相似文献
15.
In this paper I argue that there are some sentences whose truth makes no demands on the world, being trivially true in that their truth-conditions are trivially met. I argue that this does not amount to their truth-conditions being met necessarily: we need a non-modal understanding of the notion of the demands the truth of a sentence makes, lest we be blinded to certain conceptual possibilities. I defend the claim that the truths of pure mathematics and set theory are trivially true, and hence accepting their truth brings no ontological commitment; I further defend the claim that the truths of applied mathematics and set theory do not demand the existence of numbers or sets. While the notion of a demand must not be reduced to anything modal, I nonetheless argue that sentences that are trivially true must also be necessary, lest we violate a very weak version of the principle that truth depends on the world. I further argue that all necessary truths are trivially true, lest we admit unexplained necessities. I end by showing one important consequence of this: I argue that if there are truthmakers for intrinsic predications, they must be states of affairs rather than tropes. 相似文献
16.
According to the scrutability argument against physicalism, an a priori gap between the physical and conscious experience entails a lack of necessitation and the falsity of physicalism. This paper investigates the crucial premise of the scrutability argument: the inference from an a priori gap to a lack of necessitation. This premise gets its support from modal rationalism, according to which there are important, potentially constitutive, connections between a priori justification and metaphysical modality. I argue against the strong form of modal rationalism that underwrites the scrutability argument and suggest a more moderate rationalist view. I offer a novel demonstrative reply to the scrutability argument, according to which demonstratives play a vital role in the generation of meaning for our representations of conscious experience. This connection between conscious experience and demonstratives, rather than a metaphysical gap generated by the truth of dualism, is the source of the epistemic gap between consciousness and the physical. 相似文献
17.
In the following I take issue with the allegation that liberalism must inevitably be guilty of ‘abstract individualism’. I
treat Michael Sandel’s well-known claim that there are ‘loyalties and convictions whose moral force consists partly in the
fact that living by them is inseparable from understanding ourselves as the particular persons we are’ as representative of
this widely held view. Specifically, I argue: (i) that Sandel’s account of the manner in which ‘constitutive’ loyalties function
as reasons for action presupposes the possibility of there being (what I call) ‘underivable particular obligations’, but that
such obligations are, in fact, a logical impossibility; and (ii) that Sandel’s account of the self as necessarily ‘encumbered’
presupposes an account of personal identity which confuses identification with definition, and which is, therefore, fundamentally
flawed.
For their constructive and insightful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, I owe a special debt of gratitude to the
following: Clare Chambers, Roger Crisp, Cécile Fabre, Paul Kelly, David Lloyd-Thomas. Thanks also go to Res Publica’s two anonymous referees. 相似文献
18.
I present a modal conception of vagueness and vague objects, according to which a vague object is a transworld object which coincides with one precise object in one world and with another precise object in another world. Such worlds are called precisifications; they are modal, worldly counterparts of the precisifications postulated in supervaluationism. I criticize Evans' argument against vague objects, admitting the validity of the argument, but rejecting its basic assumption that if there are vague objects, certain identity statements must be indefinite in truth value. I distinguish identity from coincidence, and claim that if there are vague objects, some statements of coincidence will be indefinite in truth-value, not statements of identity. To establish this point, I compare vagueness with temporal modality. 相似文献
19.
In this paper, I argue that those who accept the conceptualist view in the philosophy of perception should reject the traditional
view that colour indiscriminability is non-transitive. I start by outlining the general strategy that conceptualists have
adopted in response to the familiar ‘fineness of grain’ objection, and I show why a commitment to what I call the indiscriminability claim seems to form a natural part of this strategy. I then show how together, the indiscriminability claim and the non-transitivity claim –the claim that colour indiscriminability is non-transitive –entail a further, suspicious-looking claim that I call the problematic claim. My argument then splits into two parts. In the first part, I show why the conceptualist does indeed need to reject the problematic
claim. Given that this claim is jointly entailed by the indiscriminability claim and the non-transitivity claim, the conceptualist
is then left with a straight choice: reject the indiscriminability claim, or reject the non-transitivity claim. In the second
part, I then explain why the conceptualist should choose the latter option. 相似文献
20.
I give two arguments for the claim that all events which occur at the actual world and are such that they could be caused,
are also such that they must actually be caused. The first argument is an improvement of a similar argument advanced by Alexander
Pruss, which I show to be invalid. It uses Pruss’s Brouwer Analog for counterfactual logic, and, as a consequence, implies
inconsistency with Lewis’s semantics for counterfactuals. While (I suggest) this consequence may not be objectionable, the
argument founders on the fact that Pruss’s Brouwer Analog has a clear counterexample. I thus turn to a second, “Lewisian”
argument, which requires only an affirmation of one element of Lewis’s analysis of causation and one other, fairly weak possibility
claim about the nature of wholly contingent events. The final section of the paper explains how both arguments escape objections
from supposed indeterminacy in quantum physics. 相似文献
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