Relativized Propositions and the Fregean Orthodoxy

This paper answer the question how propositions whose truth is relativized to times, places, asserters or assessers can, despite their relativity, be used to represent the world.     

A Measurement Theoretic Account of Propositions

In the first section of this paper I review Measurement Theoretic Semantics – an approach to formal semantics modeled after the application of numbers in measurement, e.g., of length. In the second section it is argued that the measurement theoretic approach to semantics yields a novel, useful conception of propositions. In the third section the measurement theoretic view of propositions is compared with major other accounts of propositional content.     

A Three-Valued Fregean Quantification Logic

Journal of Philosophical Logic - Kripke’s Fregean quantification logic FQ fails to formalize the usual first-order logic with identity due to the interpretation of the conditional operator....     

The Buridanian Account of Inferential Relations between Doubly Quantified Propositions: a Proof of Soundness

On the basis of passages from John Buridan's Summula Suppositionibus and Sophismata, E. Karger has reconstructed what could be called the ‘Buridanian theory of inferential relations between doubly quantified propositions’, presented in her 1993 article ‘A theory of immediate inference contained in Buridan's logic’. In the reconstruction, she focused on the syntactical elements of Buridan's theory of modes of personal supposition to extract patterns of formally valid inferences between members of a certain class of basic categorical propositions. The present study aims at offering semantic corroboration—a proof of soundness—to the inferential relations syntactically identified by E. Karger, by means of the analysis of Buridan's semantic definitions of the modes of personal supposition. The semantic analysis is done with the help of some modern logical concepts, in particular that of the model. In effect, the relations of inference syntactically established are shown to hold also from a semantic point of view, which means thus that this fragment of Buridan's logic can be said to be sound.     

Colour constancy and Fregean representationalism

All representationalists maintain that there is a necessary connection between an experience’s phenomenal character and intentional content; but there is a disagreement amongst representationalists regarding the nature of those intentional contents that are necessarily connected to phenomenal character. Russellian representationalists maintain that the relevant contents are composed of objects and/or properties, while Fregean representationalists maintain that the relevant contents are composed of modes of presentation of objects and properties. According to Fregean representationalists such as David Chalmers and Brad Thompson, the Fregean variety of the view is preferable to the Russellian variety because the former can accommodate purported counterexamples involving spectrum inversion without illusion and colour constancy while the latter cannot. I maintain that colour constancy poses a special problem for the Fregean theory in that the features of the theory that enable it handle spectrum inversion without illusion cannot be extended to handle colour constancy. I consider the two most plausible proposals regarding how the Fregean view might be developed in order to handle colour constancy—one of which has recently been defended by Thompson (Australas J Philos 87:99–117, 2009)—and argue that neither is adequate. I conclude that Fregean representationalism is no more able to accommodate colour constancy than is Russellian representationalism and, as such, ought to be rejected.     

An Agent-Centered Account of Rightness: The Importance of a Good Attitude

This paper provides a sketch of an agent-centered way of understanding and answering the question, “What’s wrong with that?” On this view, what lies at the bottom of judgments of wrongness is a bad attitude; when someone does something wrong, she does something that expresses a bad, or inappropriate, attitude (where inappropriateness is understood, tentatively, as a failure to recognize the separateness of others). In order to motivate this account, a general Kantian agent-centered ethics is discussed, as well as Michael Slote’s agent-based ethics, in light of analysis of the grounding role of attitudes in the evaluation of two core cases. In light of these discussions, it is argued that there are advantages to preserving the grounding of the appropriateness of attitudes in facts about their objects (as opposed to Slote’s sentimentalism), while cutting such an agent-centered ethics away from a Kantian grounding.     

Affect in Dyadic Negotiation: A Model and Propositions

The topic of affect has been described as an important, but underexplored area of the social psychology of negotiation. In this paper we seek to advance thinking about affective processes in two-party negotiation through an integration and conceptual extension of existing research. We briefly review conceptualizations and operationalizations of affect, and highlight findings relevant to the social-cognitive underpinnings of negotiation. A dynamic model of affect in two-party negotiation analyzes the role of moods and emotions that bargainers bring to and evolve within the negotiation encounter. The model illustrates how affect states influence (and in some cases are influenced by) one's decision to negotiate, selection of an opponent, formulation of expectations and offers, choice of tactics used within bargaining, economic and social-cognitive outcomes, and proclivity to comply with settlement terms. We develop specific research propositions that describe these influences and discuss their implications for broader questions about the role of affect in bargaining.     

Propositions: Individuation and Invirtuation

The pressure to individuate propositions more finely than intensionally—that is, hyper-intensionally—has two distinct sources. One source is the philosophy of mind: one can believe a proposition without believing an intensionally equivalent proposition. The second source is metaphysics: there are intensionally equivalent propositions, such that one proposition is true in virtue of the other but not vice versa. I focus on what our theory of propositions should look like when it's guided by metaphysical concerns about what is true in virtue of what. In this paper I articulate and defend a metaphysical theory of the individuation of propositions, according to which two propositions are identical just in case they occupy the same nodes in a network of invirtuation relations. Invirtuation is here taken to be a primitive relation of metaphysical explanation exemplified by propositions that, in conjunction with truth, defines the notion of true in virtue of. After formulating the theory, I compare it with a view that individuates propositions by cognitive equivalence, and then defend the theory from objections.     

Divine thoughts and Fregean propositional realism

Anderson and Welty have recently advanced an argument for the claim that the laws of logic are ontologically dependent upon a necessarily existent mind, i.e. God. In this paper I argue that a key premise of Anderson and Welty’s argument—viz., a premise which asserts that \(x\) is intrinsically intentional only if \(x\) is mind-dependent—is false, for on a broadly Fregean account of propositions, propositions are intrinsically intentional but not mind-dependent.