DOCSLIB.ORG

Donald Davidson

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Donald Davidson Donald Davidson Edited by KIRK LUDWIG University of Florida PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia Ruiz de Alarcon´ 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa http://www.cambridge.org C Cambridge University Press 2003 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2003 Printed in the United States of America Typefaces Janson Text Roman 10/13 pt. and ITC Officina Sans System LATEX2ε [TB] A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data Donald Davidson / edited by Kirk Ludwig. p. cm. – (Contemporary philosophy in focus) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-521-79043-3 – ISBN 0-521-79382-3 (pbk.) 1. Davidson, Donald, 1917– I. Ludwig, Kirk, 1959– II. Series. B945.D384 D65 2003 191 – dc21 2002035082 ISBN 0 521 79043 3 hardback ISBN 0 521 79382 3 paperback Contents List of Contributors page xi Introduction 1 kirk ludwig 1 Truth and Meaning 35 ernest lepore and kirk ludwig 2 Philosophy of Action 64 alfred r. mele 3 Radical Interpretation 85 piers rawling 4 Philosophy of Mind and Psychology 113 jaegwon kim 5 Semantics and Metaphysics of Events 137 paul pietroski 6 Knowledge of Self, Others, and World 163 ernest sosa 7 Language and Literature 183 samuel c. wheeler iii Bibliography of Davidson’s Publications 207 Selected Commentary on Davidson 214 Bibliographic References 216 Name Index 233 Subject Index 235 ix Contributors JAEGWON KIM is William Herbert Perry Faunce Professor of Philosophy at Brown University. He is the author of Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical Essays (Cambridge University Press, 1993), Philosophy of Mind (1996), Mind in a Physical World: An Essay on the Mind-Body Problem and Mental Causation (1998), Supervenience (2001), and of numerous articles in the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. He is coeditor of Values and Morals: Essays in Honor of William Frankena, Charles Stevenson, and Richard Brant, with Alvin Goldman (1978); Emergence or Reduction? Essays on the Prospects of Non-reductive Physicalism, with A. Beckerman and H. Flohr (1992); and, with Ernest Sosa, of A Companion to Metaphysics (1995), Metaphysics: An Anthology (1999), and Epistemology: An Anthology (2000). ERNEST LEPORE is Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University and di- rector of the Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science. He is the author of Meaning and Argument: An Introduction to Logic through Language (2000); coauthor, with Jerry Fodor, of Holism: A Shopper’s Guide (1992); and the author of numerous articles in the philosophy of language, philosoph- ical logic, philosophy of mind, and metaphysics. He is the editor of Truth and Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson (1986) and New Directions in Semantics (1987). He is coeditor of Actions and Events: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson, with B. McLaughlin (1985); John Searle and His Critics, with Robert Van Gulick (1991); Holism: A Con- sumer Update, with Jerry Fodor (1993); and What Is Cognitive Science?, with Zenon Pylyshyn (1999). KIRK LUDWIG is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Florida. He is the author of numerous articles in the philosophy of lan- guage, philosophical logic, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. His recent publications include “The Semantics and Pragmatics of Complex Demonstratives,” with Ernest Lepore, in Mind (2000); “What Is the Role of a Truth Theory in a Meaning Theory?,” in Truth and Meaning: Topics xi xii Contributors in Contemporary Philosophy (2001); “What Is Logical Form?,” with Ernest Lepore, in Logical Form and Language (2002); “Outline of a Truth Condi- tional Semantics for Tense,”with Ernest Lepore, in Tense, Time and Reference (2002); “The Mind-Body Problem: An Overview,” in The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Mind (2002); and “Vagueness and the Sorites Paradox,” with Greg Ray, Philosophical Perspectives (2002). He is completing a book with Ernest Lepore titled Donald Davidson: Meaning, Truth, Language and Reality (forthcoming). ALFRED R. MELE is the William H. and Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University. He is the author of Irrationality: An Essay on Akrasia, Self-deception, and Self-control (1987), Springs of Action: Understanding Intentional Behavior (1992), Autonomous Agents: From Self- control to Autonomy (1995), Self-Deception Unmasked (2001), Motivation and Agency (forthcoming), and of numerous articles in the philosophy of action and philosophy of mind. He is the editor of The Philosophy of Action (1997) and coeditor of Mental Causation, with John Heil (1993), and of Rationality, with Piers Rawling (forthcoming). PAUL PIETROSKI is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Linguistics at the University of Maryland. He is the author of Causing Actions (2000), Events and Semantic Architecture (forthcoming), and of numerous articles in the philosophy of language, semantics, and philosophy of mind. His recent ar- ticles include “On Explaining That,” Journal of Philosophy (2000); “Nature, Nurture, and Universal Grammar,” with Stephen Crain, Linguistics and Phi- losophy (2001); “Function and Concatenation,” in Logical Form and Language (2002); and “Small Verbs,Complex Events: Analyticity without Synonymy,” in Chomsky and His Critics (2002). PIERS RAWLING is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University. He is the author of numerous articles in areas ranging from ethics and the philosophy of language to game theory, decision theory, and quantum computing. His recent publications include “Orthologic and Quantum Logic: Models and Computational Elements,” with Stephen Selesnick, Journal of the Association of Computing Machinery (2000); “The Exchange Paradox, Finite Additivity, and the Principle of Dominance,” in Logic, Probability and the Sciences (2000); “Achievement, Welfare and Consequentialism,” with David McNaughton, Analysis (2001); “Davidson’s Measurement-Theoretic Reduction of Mind,” in Interpreting Davidson (2001); “Deontology,” with David McNaughton, Ethics (2002); “Condi- tional Obligations,” with David McNaughton, Utilitas (forthcoming); and Contributors xiii “Decision Theory and Degree of Belief,” in Companion to the Philosophy of Science (forthcoming). He is coeditor, with Alfred Mele, of Rationality (forthcoming). ERNEST SOSA is Romeo Elton Professor of Natural Theology and Pro- fessor of Philosophy at Brown University. He is the author of numerous articles in epistemology and metaphysics. His recent publications in- clude “Reflective Knowledge in the Best Circles,” Journal of Philosophy (1997); “Man the Rational Animal?,” with David Galloway, Synthese (2000); “Human Knowledge, Animal and Reflective,” Philosophical Studies (2001); and “Thomas Reid,” with James Van Cleve, in The Blackwell Guide to the Modern Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche (2001). He is editor or coeditor of fifteen books, including A Companion to Epistemology, with Jonathan Dancy (1992); Causation, with Michael Tooley (1993); A Com- panion to Metaphysics, with Jaegwon Kim (1995); Cognition, Agency, and Rationality, with Kepa Korta and Xabier Arrazola (1999); The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, with John Greco (1999); Metaphysics: An Anthology, with Jaegwon Kim (1999); Epistemology: An Anthology, with Jaegwon Kim (2000); and Skepticism, with Enrique Villanueva (2000). SAMUEL C. WHEELER is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut. He is the author of Deconstruction as Analytic Philosophy (2000) and of articles in a wide range of areas of philosophy, from ancient philos- ophy, literary theory, philosophical logic, and the philosophy of language to metaphysics and ethics. His publications include “Metaphor According to Davidson and De Man,” in Redrawing the Lines (1989); “True Figures: Metaphor, Social Relations, and the Sorites,” in The Interpretive Turn (1991); “Plato’s Enlightenment: The Good as the Sun,” History of Philosophy Quar- terly (1997); “Derrida’sDifferance and Plato’sDifferent,” Philosophy and Phe- nomenological Research (1999); “Arms as Insurance,” Public Affairs Quarterly (1999); and “Gun Violence and Fundamental Rights,” Criminal Justice Ethics (2001). Introduction KIRK LUDWIG Donald Davidson has been one of the most influential philosophers work- ing in the analytic tradition in the last half of the twentieth century. He has made seminal contributions to a wide range of subjects: the philos- ophy of language and the theory of meaning, the philosophy of action, the philosophy of mind, epistemology, metaphysics, and the theory of ra- tionality. His principal work, spread out in a series of articles stretching over nearly forty years, exhibits a unity rare among philosophers contribut- ing to so many different topics. His essays are elegant, but they are also noted for their compact, sometimes cryptic style, and for their difficulty. Themes and arguments in different essays overlap, and later papers often presuppose familiarity with earlier work. Together, they form a mosaic that presents a systematic account of the nature
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Mind and World: Beyond the Externalism/Internalism Debate
    Research Proposal Mind and World: Beyond the Externalism/Internalism Debate Sanjit Chakraborty Research Scholar Department of Philosophy Jadavpur University Background For the last few years the concept of the natural kind terms has haunted me. My main concern has been regarding the location of the meaning of these terms. Are meanings of the natural kind terms in the head or in the world? This question has been the most pressing in Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Language. I have realized that we cannot separate mind from the world. I had in the beginning only a layman‟s conception regarding mind, meaning and the world. When I entered the field of philosophy inspired by Hilary Putnam, I found that semantic externalism is a vexing issue involving a vast area. The location of content is at the core of the metaphysical debate regarding internalism and externalism in the sense that internalists believe that mental proprieties are intrinsic only if they preserve across world identity of internal replicas. Externalism is opposed to this thinking. For externalists, mental properties are in many cases dependent on physical or social environment. The linguistic strategy also maintains a difference between internalism and externalism regarding the mental content. Descriptivism focuses on general terms that consist in descriptive content and leads to mode of presentation of reference through sense. Besides, the causal theory of reference refutes descriptivism to ensure that there is a causal chain of reference between words and 1 objects that help us to identify agent‟s thought through an identification of its relation with external environment.
    [Show full text]
  • Ernest Sosa and Virtuously Begging the Question
    University of Windsor Scholarship at UWindsor OSSA Conference Archive OSSA 9 May 18th, 9:00 AM - May 21st, 5:00 PM Ernest Sosa and virtuously begging the question Michael Walschots University of Windsor Scott F. Aikin Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/ossaarchive Part of the Philosophy Commons Walschots, Michael and Aikin, Scott F., "Ernest Sosa and virtuously begging the question" (2011). OSSA Conference Archive. 38. https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/ossaarchive/OSSA9/papersandcommentaries/38 This Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the Conferences and Conference Proceedings at Scholarship at UWindsor. It has been accepted for inclusion in OSSA Conference Archive by an authorized conference organizer of Scholarship at UWindsor. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Ernest Sosa and virtuously begging the question MICHAEL WALSCHOTS Department of Philosophy University of Windsor 401 Sunset Ave. Windsor, ON N9P 3B4 Canada [email protected] ABSTRACT: This paper discusses the notion of epistemic circularity, supposedly different from logical circu- larity, and evaluates Ernest Sosa’s claim that this specific kind of circular reasoning is virtuous rather than vicious. I attempt to determine whether or not the conditions said to make epistemic circularity a permissible instance of begging the question could make other instances of circular reasoning equally permissible. KEYWORDS: begging the question, circular reasoning, Ernest Sosa, epistemic circularity, petitio principii, reliabilism. 1. INTRODUCTION In 1986, William Alston introduced the idea of ‘epistemic circularity’, which involves assuming the reliability of a given source of belief during the process of proving the reli- ability of that same source.
    [Show full text]
  • Eternity and Immortality in Spinoza's Ethics
    Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XXVI (2002) Eternity and Immortality in Spinoza’s Ethics STEVEN NADLER I Descartes famously prided himself on the felicitous consequences of his philoso- phy for religion. In particular, he believed that by so separating the mind from the corruptible body, his radical substance dualism offered the best possible defense of and explanation for the immortality of the soul. “Our natural knowledge tells us that the mind is distinct from the body, and that it is a substance...And this entitles us to conclude that the mind, insofar as it can be known by natural phi- losophy, is immortal.”1 Though he cannot with certainty rule out the possibility that God has miraculously endowed the soul with “such a nature that its duration will come to an end simultaneously with the end of the body,” nonetheless, because the soul (unlike the human body, which is merely a collection of material parts) is a substance in its own right, and is not subject to the kind of decomposition to which the body is subject, it is by its nature immortal. When the body dies, the soul—which was only temporarily united with it—is to enjoy a separate existence. By contrast, Spinoza’s views on the immortality of the soul—like his views on many issues—are, at least in the eyes of most readers, notoriously difficult to fathom. One prominent scholar, in what seems to be a cry of frustration after having wrestled with the relevant propositions in Part Five of Ethics,claims that this part of the work is an “unmitigated and seemingly unmotivated disaster..
    [Show full text]
  • Identity, Personal Continuity, and Psychological Connectedness Across Time and Over
    1 Identity, Personal Continuity, and Psychological Connectedness across Time and over Transformation Oleg Urminskyi, University of Chicago University of Chicago, Booth School of Business Daniel Bartels, University of Chicago University of Chicago, Booth School of Business Forthcoming, Handbook of Research on Identity Theory in Marketing 2 ABSTRACT: How do people think about whether the person they’ll be in the future is substantially the same person they’ll be today or a substantially different, and how does this affect consumer decisions and behavior? In this chapter, we discuss several perspectives about which changes over time matter for these judgments and downstream behaviors, including the identity verification principle (Reed et al. 2012) — people’s willful change in the direction of an identity that they hope to fulfill. Our read of the literature on the self-concept suggests that what defines a person (to themselves) is multi-faceted and in almost constant flux, but that understanding how personal changes relate to one’s own perceptions of personal continuity, including understanding the distinction between changes that are consistent or inconsistent with people’s expectations for their own development, can help us to understand people’s subjective sense of self and the decisions and behaviors that follow from it. 3 A person’s sense of their own identity (i.e., the person’s self-concept) plays a central role in how the person thinks and acts. Research on identity, particularly in social psychology and consumer behavior, often views a person’s self-concept as a set of multiple (social) identities, sometimes characterized in terms of the category labels that the person believes apply to themselves, like “male” or “high school athlete” (Markus and Wurf 1987).
    [Show full text]
  • David Lewis on Convention
    David Lewis on Convention Ernie Lepore and Matthew Stone Center for Cognitive Science Rutgers University David Lewis’s landmark Convention starts its exploration of the notion of a convention with a brilliant insight: we need a distinctive social competence to solve coordination problems. Convention, for Lewis, is the canonical form that this social competence takes when it is grounded in agents’ knowledge and experience of one another’s self-consciously flexible behavior. Lewis meant for his theory to describe a wide range of cultural devices we use to act together effectively; but he was particularly concerned in applying this notion to make sense of our knowledge of meaning. In this chapter, we give an overview of Lewis’s theory of convention, and explore its implications for linguistic theory, and especially for problems at the interface of the semantics and pragmatics of natural language. In §1, we discuss Lewis’s understanding of coordination problems, emphasizing how coordination allows for a uniform characterization of practical activity and of signaling in communication. In §2, we introduce Lewis’s account of convention and show how he uses it to make sense of the idea that a linguistic expression can come to be associated with its meaning by a convention. Lewis’s account has come in for a lot of criticism, and we close in §3 by addressing some of the key difficulties in thinking of meaning as conventional in Lewis’s sense. The critical literature on Lewis’s account of convention is much wider than we can fully survey in this chapter, and so we recommend for a discussion of convention as a more general phenomenon Rescorla (2011).
    [Show full text]
  • Metaphysics: an Anthology, 2Nd Edition Jaekwon Kim (Editor), Daniel Z
    To purchase this product, please visit https://www.wiley.com/en-cx/9781444331011 Metaphysics: An Anthology, 2nd Edition Jaekwon Kim (Editor), Daniel Z. Korman (Editor), Ernest Sosa (Editor) Paperback 978-1-444-33102-8 August 2011 Print-on- $65.50 demand Hardcover 978-1-444-33101-1 August 2011 Print-on- $126.75 demand DESCRIPTION Thoroughly updated, the second edition of this highly successful textbook continues to represent the most comprehensive and authoritative collection of canonical readings in metaphysics. In addition to updated material from the first edition, it presents entirely new sections on ontology and the metaphysics of material objects. • One of the most comprehensive and authoritative metaphysics anthologies available – now updated and expanded • Offers the most important contemporary works on the central issues of metaphysics • Includes new sections on ontology and the metaphysics of material objects, as well as readings on the topics of fictionalism, fundamentality, tropes, vague identity, temporary intrinsics, stage theory, and composition • Surpasses other anthologies in its combination of contributions from leading metaphysicians and a younger generation of "rising- stars" ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jaegwon Kim is William Perry Faunce Professor of Philosophy at Brown University. His publications include a number of influential papers on metaphysics and philosophy of mind. He is the author of Supervenience and Mind (1993), Mind in a Physical World (1998), Physicalism, or Something Near Enough (2005), and Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind (2010) and the co-editor of Blackwell's Epistemology: An Anthology, second edition (2008). Ernest Sosa taught from 1964 to 2007 at Brown University, and is currently Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University.
    [Show full text]
  • 2. Aristotle's Concept of the State
    Page No.13 2. Aristotle's concept of the state Olivera Z. Mijuskovic Full Member International Association of Greek Philosophy University of Athens, Greece ORCID iD: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5950-7146 URL: http://worldphilosophynetwork.weebly.com E-Mail: [email protected] Abstract: In contrast to a little bit utopian standpoint offered by Plato in his teachings about the state or politeia where rulers aren`t “in love with power but in virtue”, Aristotle's teaching on the same subject seems very realistic and pragmatic. In his most important writing in this field called "Politics", Aristotle classified authority in the form of two main parts: the correct authority and moose authority. In this sense, correct forms of government are 1.basileus, 2.aristocracy and 3.politeia. These forms of government are based on the common good. Bad or moose forms of government are those that are based on the property of an individual or small governmental structures and they are: 1.tiranny, 2.oligarchy and 3.democracy. Also, Aristotle's political thinking is not separate from the ethical principles so he states that the government should be reflected in the true virtue that is "law" or the "golden mean". Keywords: Government; stat; , virtue; democracy; authority; politeia; golden mean. Vol. 4 No. 4 (2016) Issue- December ISSN 2347-6869 (E) & ISSN 2347-2146 (P) Aristotle's concept of the state by Olivera Z. Mijuskovic Page no. 13-20 Page No.14 Aristotle's concept of the state 1.1. Aristotle`s “Politics” Politics in its defined form becomes affirmed by the ancient Greek world.
    [Show full text]
  • Daniel C. Dennett
    Last updated 2002 Curriculum Vitae DANIEL C. DENNETT PERSONAL: Born, March 28, 1942. Married to Susan Bell Dennett; two children. ADDRESS: 20 Ironwood Road, No. Andover, MA 01845 U.S.A. EDUCATION: B.A., Harvard University, 1963 D. Phil. (philosophy), Oxford, 1965 FELLOWSHIPS: Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, 1963 (declined, to study at Oxford). Guggenheim Fellowship, 1973-74 (declined in favor of next two items). Santayana Fellowship, Harvard University, 1974 (honorary). N. E. H. Younger Humanist Fellowship, 1974. Fulbright Research Fellowship to the University, Bristol, England, 1978. Visiting Fellowship, All Souls College, Oxford, 1979. N. E. H. Senior Fellowship, 1979. Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, 1979-80. Guggenheim Fellowship, 1986-87. Fellow, Zentrum für Interdisciplinäre Forschung, Bielefeld, Germany, 1990. Writer in Residence, Bellagio Study and Conference Center, Italy, 1990. Visiting Erskine Fellow, Univ. of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, 1995. SPECIAL LECTURESHIPS: Taft Lectures, University of Cincinnati, 1978. Luce Distinguished Lecture in Cognitive Science, University of Rochester, 1979. Herbert Spencer Lecture, Oxford University, 1979. Princeton University Annual Philosophy Lectures, 1980. Sloan Visiting Scientist Lectures, Dept. of Computer Science, Yale University, 1980. Council for Philosophical Studies, Summer Institute on Psychology and the Philosophy of Mind, Univ. of Washington, Seattle, July 1981. John Locke Lectures, Oxford University, April, May, 1983. Gavin David Young Lectures, University of Adelaide, Australia, June, July, 1984. Gramlich Memorial Lecture, Philosophy Department, Dartmouth College, April 24, 1985. Visiting Professor, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, May, 1985. John Dewey Lecture, University of Vermont, February 13, 1986. Distinguished Lecture Series, MIT Laboratory of Computer Science, March 13, 1986. Tanner Lecture, University of Michigan, November 6, 1986.
    [Show full text]
  • Curriculum Vitae
    JAMES VAN CLEVE [email protected] October 17, 2018 Addresses School of Philosophy Home: Summer: University of Southern California 458 Stanford Drive 98 Sefton Drive Los Angeles, CA 90089 Claremont, CA 91711 Cranston, RI 02905 213-740-4084 909-625-5473 401-941-6513 Education B.A., The University of Iowa, 1969 M.A., The University of Rochester, 1972 Ph.D., The University of Rochester, 1974 (Dissertation Title: The Role of the Given in Empirical Knowledge) Professional Appointments University of Southern California: Professor of Philosophy, beginning Fall 2005. Visiting Professor of Philosophy, 2002-2003, Spring 2004, and Spring 2005. Brown University, Adjunct Professor, 2005-2018 Brown University: Professor of Philosophy, 1987-2005. Chair, Department of Philosophy, 1986-1991 and 1999-2003. Associate Professor, 1979-87; Assistant Professor, 1973-1979. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Visiting Professor, Fall 2018 University of Iowa: Visiting Professor of Philosophy, Spring 2002. Duke University: Visiting Professor of Philosophy, Spring 1989, Fall 1991, and Spring 1993. Jadavpur University (Calcutta, India): Fulbright Visiting Professor, July 1980- February 1981. Honors and Awards Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellowship, 1972-73. Brown University Summer Stipend for Faculty Research, 1974. Brown University Wriston Fellowship ("to recognize significant previous accomplishments in innovative teaching or curricular improvement"), 1978. Fulbright Award to Lecture in India, July 1980 through January 1981. American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, February 1981 through July 1981. Wayland Collegium Incentive Grant (to develop the course "Science, Perception, and Reality"), 1984. 2 National Humanities Center Fellowship, 1990-91. National Endowment for the Humanities grant to teach a Summer Seminar for College Teachers during July and August of 2000.
    [Show full text]
  • Externalism Is a View About the Conditions for Our Thoughts and Words to Refer to Things
    Semantic Internalism and Externalism in the Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Language, ed. by Barry C. Smith and Ernest Lepore. Oxford University Press 2006. pp. 323-40. Katalin Farkas Central European University, Budapest 1. Three claims about meaning In a sense, the meaning of our words obviously depends on circumstances outside us. ‘Elm’ in English is used to talk about elms, and though I could decide – perhaps as a kind of code – to use the word ‘elm’ to talk about beeches, my decision would hardly change the English language. The meaning of ‘elm’ depends on conventions of the language speaking community, and these are certainly beyond my control. In this sense, no-one will disagree that meaning is determined by factors outside the individual. At the same time, it seems that it is up to me what I mean by my words; and in fact, the meaning of a word in the language is simply a result of what most of us mean by it. Another way of putting this point is that even if the meaning of an expression is determined by social agreement, grasping the meaning of the word is an individual psychological act. I may grasp the usual public meaning correctly, or I may – willingly or accidentally – mean something different by the word, but it looks that meaning in this sense depends entirely on me. It is also plausible to assume that in some sense, our physical environment contributes to what our words mean. If I am right in assuming that before Europeans arrived to Australia, English had had no word which meant the same as the word ‘kangaroo‘ does nowadays, this is easily explained by the fact that people at that time hadn’t encountered kangaroos.
    [Show full text]
  • Waldomiro José Silva Filho1 Marcos Antonio Alves2
    Presentation Editorial / Editorial PRESENTATION Waldomiro José Silva Filho 1 Marcos Antonio Alves 2 It is with great happiness and honor that we present this special issue of Trans/Form/Ação: Unesp journal of philosophy in honor of Ernest Sosa. One of the most influential voices in the contemporary philosophy, Ernest Sosa was born in Cárdenas, Cuba, on June 17, 1940. He earned his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) and Master of Arts (M.A.) from the University of Miami and his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) from the University of Pittsburgh in 1964. Since 2007, he has been Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. There is no doubt that Sosa is responsible for one of the revolution in Epistemology that will mark the history of philosophy. However, he also opened new paths in several central issues of philosophy, such as Metaphysics, Philosophy of Language and Philosophy of Mind. In 2020, the world philosophical community on all continents joined with his close friends and family to celebrate Ernie’s 80th birthday. Dozens of publications, books, journals, and webinars were held, even amidst the humanitarian devastation of the pandemic. The journal Trans/Form/Ação 1 Full Professor at the Philosophy Department of Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), Salvador, BA – Brazil. Researcher of the CNPq, Brazil. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0874-9599 E-mail: [email protected] 2 Editor da Trans/Form/Ação: Unesp journal of Philosophy. Professor at the Philosophy Department of and Coordinator of Post Graduation Program in Philosophy – São Paulo State University (UNESP), Marília, SP – Brazil.
    [Show full text]
  • Action Verbs
    ACTION VERBS Accepts To receive as true; to regard as proper, normal, inevitable Accounts To give a report on; to furnish a justifying analysis or explanation Accumulates To collect; to gather Achieves To bring to a successful conclusion Acknowledges To report the receipt of Acquires To come into possession of Activates To mobilize; to set into motion Acts To perform a specified function Adapts To suit or fit by modification Adjusts To bring to a more satisfactory state; to bring the parts of something to a true or more effective position Administers To manage or direct the execution of affairs Adopts To take up and practice as one's own Advises To recommend a course of action; to offer an informed opinion based on specialized knowledge Advocates To recommend or speak in favor of Affirms To assert positively; to confirm Aligns To arrange in a line; to array Allots To assign as a share Alters To make different without changing into something else Amends To change or modify for the better Analyzes To separate into elements and critically examine Answers To speak or write in reply Anticipates To foresee and deal with in advance Applies To put to use for a purpose; to employ diligently or with close attention Appoints To name officially Appraises To give an expert judgment of worth or merit Approves To accept as satisfactory; to exercise final authority with regard to commitment of resources Arranges To prepare for an event; to put in proper order Ascertains To find out or discover through examination; to find out or learn for a certainty
    [Show full text]