HOW TO TALK TO YOURSELF OR KRIPKE's WITTGENSTEIN's SOLITARY LANGUAGE ARGUMENT AND WHY IT FAILS

Abstract: In Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Kripke's Wittgenstein argues that it is possible for individuals in communities to speak a language and otherwise follow rules, but impossible for a single, conceptually isolated individual to do so. I show that the roots of the argument lie in his general account of the legitimacy of practices, and that he actually argues for two distinct conclusions: (a) solitary individuals cannot have useful practices of rule‐following and (b) solitary individuals cannot place substantive restrictions on their own behavior. I show that if it is, in fact, possible for individuals in communities to use language and follow rules, then both of Kripke's Wittgenstein's anti‐solitary language arguments fails; and, furthermore, that his general account not only fails to exclude the possibility of solitary language‐use and rule‐following, it actually guarantees their possibility.     

Structural alterations of an ambiguous musical figure: the scale illusion revisited.

The scale illusion (Deutsch, 1975) shows the importance of frequency range in the perceptual organization of a sequence of notes. This paper includes three experiments on the scale illusion. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that if the structure of the pattern of notes used in the original scale illusion study is altered slightly, by adding or subtracting a pair of notes from the ends of the sequence, there is a significant decrease in the rate of frequency-based responses, suggesting a weaker illusion. Experiment 3 investigated two features of the note patterns that may have led to this change. Specifically, it asked whether the decrease in the strength of the illusion is due to (1) the nature of the notes at the extremes of the frequency range and/or (2) the nature of the notes at the crossing point of the two scales. While both sources were found to affect the strength of the scale illusion, the former had a greater influence.     

Neurochemical knowledge in electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)

The paper is concerned with an attempt to generalize and categorize current hypotheses on the biochemical basis of ECT. The hypotheses are critically evaluated with respect to the relevance of their experimental fundamentals. Thus, certain hypotheses are valid only in a qualified sense. Particular interest is focussed on those conceptions which try to correlate ECT-induced changes in synaptic receptor sensitivities (up-/down-regulation) with super- resp. subsensitivity hypotheses of psychoses. In this connection, noradrenergic and opioid systems on the one hand, and the axis hypothalamus-hypophysis on the other hand seem to play a dominant role.     

The effects of area and perimeter on detection rates

The detection of luminance increments in a homogeneously lighted field was studied as a function of the area and perimeter of the luminance increment. Sixteen targets representing all possible combinations of four values of area and four values of perimeter were foveally presented. Exposure durations were short (25 to 40 msec). Results of both an analysis of variance and linear discriminant analysis indicated that detection probability increases as area increases, but neither variations in perimeter nor perimeter-area combinations produced effects that were significant oyer the experiment as a whole. The linear discriminant analysis revealed individual differences in the effects of perimeter and area on detection probability. Results were contradictory to Kristofferson’s (1957) “element contribution theory” and gave only slight support to Hecht’s (Lamar, Hecht, Shlaer, & Hendley, 1947) “border-quantum theory.”     

My path into the profession

Contemporary Family Therapy -     

Isotonic ordinal probabilistic models (ISOP)

The concept of an ordinal instrumental probabilistic comparison is introduced. It relies on an ordinal scale given a priori and on the concept of stochastic dominance. It is used to define a weakly independently ordered system, or isotonic ordinal probabilistic (ISOP) model, which allows the construction of separate sample-free ordinal scales on a set of subjects and a set of items. The ISOP-model is a common nonparametric theoretical structure for unidimensional models for quantitative, ordinal and dichotomous variables.Fundamental theorems on dichotomous and polytomous weakly independently ordered systems are derived. It is shown that the raw score system has the same formal properties as the latent system, and therefore the latter can be tested at the observed empirical level.I wish to thank 3 reviewers and 2 editors who contributed a lot to the readability and precision of the article.     

Discursive logic towards a logic of rational discourse

Both logic and philosophy of science investigate formal aspects of scientific discourse, i.e. properties of (non-monotonic) consequence operations for discursive logic. In the present paper we handle two of them: paraconsistency and enthymematycity.Supported by grants from the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, form the Fulbright-Foundation and from the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh.Presented byJan Zygmunt