FROM CONCEIVABILITY to POSSIBILITY an Essay in Modal Epistemology
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Logic in Action: Wittgenstein's Logical Pragmatism and the Impotence of Scepticism
This is the final, pre-publication draft. Please cite only from published paper in Philosophical Investigations 26:2 (April 2003), 125-48. LOGIC IN ACTION: WITTGENSTEIN'S LOGICAL PRAGMATISM AND THE IMPOTENCE OF SCEPTICISM DANIÈLE MOYAL-SHARROCK UNIVERSITY OF GENEVA 1. The Many Faces of Certainty: Wittgenstein's Logical Pragmatism So I am trying to say something that sounds like pragmatism. (OC 422) In his struggle to uncover the nature of our basic beliefs, Wittgenstein depicts them variously in On Certainty: he thinks of them in propositional terms, in pictorial terms and in terms of acting. As propositions, they would be of a peculiar sort – a hybrid between a logical and an empirical proposition (OC 136, 309). These are the so-called 'hinge propositions' of On Certainty (OC 341). Wittgenstein also thinks of these beliefs as forming a picture, a World-picture – or Weltbild (OC 167). This is a step in the right (nonpropositional) direction, but not the ultimate step. Wittgenstein's ultimate and crucial depiction of our basic beliefs is in terms of a know-how, an attitude, a way of acting (OC 204). Here, he treads on pragmatist ground. But can Wittgenstein be labelled a pragmatist, having himself rejected the affiliation because of its utility implication? But you aren't a pragmatist? No. For I am not saying that a proposition is true if it is useful. (RPP I, 266) Wittgenstein resists affiliation with pragmatism because he does not want his use of use to be confused with the utility use of use. For him, it is not that a proposition is true if it is useful, but that use gives the proposition its sense. -
Putnam's Theory of Natural Kinds and Their Names Is Not The
PUTNAM’S THEORY OF NATURAL KINDS AND THEIR NAMES IS NOT THE SAME AS KRIPKE’S IAN HACKING Collège de France Abstract Philosophers have been referring to the “Kripke–Putnam” theory of natural- kind terms for over 30 years. Although there is one common starting point, the two philosophers began with different motivations and presuppositions, and developed in different ways. Putnam’s publications on the topic evolved over the decades, certainly clarifying and probably modifying his analysis, while Kripke published nothing after 1980. The result is two very different theories about natural kinds and their names. Both accept that the meaning of a natural- kind term is not given by a description or defining properties, but is specified by its referents. From then on, Putnam rejected even the label, causal theory of reference, preferring to say historical, or collective. He called his own approach indexical. His account of substance identity stops short a number of objections that were later raised, such as what is called the qua problem. He came to reject the thought that water is necessarily H2O, and to denounce the idea of metaphysical necessity that goes beyond physical necessity. Essences never had a role in his analysis; there is no sense in which he was an essentialist. He thought of hidden structures as the usual determinant of natural kinds, but always insisted that what counts as a natural kind is relative to interests. “Natural kind” itself is itself an importantly theoretical concept, he argued. The paper also notes that Putnam says a great deal about what natural kinds are, while Kripke did not. -
Generalized Molecular Formulas in Logical Atomism
Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy An Argument for Completely General Facts: Volume 9, Number 7 Generalized Molecular Formulas in Logical Editor in Chief Atomism Audrey Yap, University of Victoria Landon D. C. Elkind Editorial Board Annalisa Coliva, UC Irvine In his 1918 logical atomism lectures, Russell argued that there are Vera Flocke, Indiana University, Bloomington no molecular facts. But he posed a problem for anyone wanting Henry Jackman, York University to avoid molecular facts: we need truth-makers for generaliza- Frederique Janssen-Lauret, University of Manchester tions of molecular formulas, but such truth-makers seem to be Kevin C. Klement, University of Massachusetts both unavoidable and to have an abominably molecular charac- Consuelo Preti, The College of New Jersey ter. Call this the problem of generalized molecular formulas. I clarify Marcus Rossberg, University of Connecticut the problem here by distinguishing two kinds of generalized Anthony Skelton, Western University molecular formula: incompletely generalized molecular formulas Mark Textor, King’s College London and completely generalized molecular formulas. I next argue that, if empty worlds are logically possible, then the model-theoretic Editors for Special Issues and truth-functional considerations that are usually given ad- Sandra Lapointe, McMaster University dress the problem posed by the first kind of formula, but not the Alexander Klein, McMaster University problem posed by the second kind. I then show that Russell’s Review Editors commitments in 1918 provide an answer to the problem of com- Sean Morris, Metropolitan State University of Denver pletely generalized molecular formulas: some truth-makers will Sanford Shieh, Wesleyan University be non-atomic facts that have no constituents. -
Redalyc.Logical Consequence for Nominalists
THEORIA. Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia ISSN: 0495-4548 [email protected] Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea España ROSSBERG, Marcus; COHNITZ, Daniel Logical Consequence for Nominalists THEORIA. Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia, vol. 24, núm. 2, 2009, pp. 147- 168 Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea Donostia-San Sebastián, España Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=339730809003 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative Logical Consequence for Nominalists Marcus ROSSBERG and Daniel COHNITZ BIBLID [0495-4548 (2009) 24: 65; pp. 147-168] ABSTRACT: It has repeatedly been argued that nominalistic programmes in the philosophy of mathematics fail, since they will at some point or other involve the notion of logical consequence which is unavailable to the nominalist. In this paper we will argue that this is not the case. Using an idea of Nelson Goodman and W.V.Quine's which they developed in Goodman and Quine (1947) and supplementing it with means that should be nominalistically acceptable, we present a way to explicate logical consequence in a nominalistically acceptable way. Keywords: Philosophy of mathematics, nominalism, logical consequence, inferentialism, Nelson Goodman, W.V. Quine. 1. The Argument from Logical Consequence We do not have any strong convictions concerning the question of the existence or non- existence of abstract objects. We do, however, believe that ontological fastidiousness is prima facie a good attitude to adopt. -
"Metaphysical" Possibility Revisited
Justin Clarke-Doane Columbia University “Metaphysical” Possibility Revisited Metaphysical Possibility: That alethic, non-deontic, modality whose necessities are supposed to include the likes of conceptual truths, (pure) mathematical truths, truths of fundamental ontology (such as that there are, or are not, propositions, properties, or possible worlds), mereological truths, identity truths, explanatorily basic normative truths, and grounding truths. o Sider: “We are told that logic…is metaphysically necessary. We are told that laws of nature are not….[I]t is metaphysically necessary that “nothing can be in two places at once”, and so on. This conception falls…short of a full criterion. But a thin conception is not in itself problematic. For when a notion is taken to be fundamental, one often assumes that the facts involving the notion will outrun one's conception [2011, 266].” It is widely agreed that the intelligibility of metaphysical modality has been vindicated. o Quine: “I do not myself make sense…of metaphysical necessity [1990, 224].” o Williamson: “[M]etaphysical modality is only one member of the extended family of objective modalities. Arguments for scepticism about metaphysical modality tend [implausibly] to generalize to other objective modalities [2016, 462].” But even if metaphysical modality is intelligible, it could lack much metaphysical significance. I will argue that this is the case, and will conclude with an alternative conception of possibility. Extant “Deflationist” Critiques Sidelle [1989] & Unger [2014]: “Twin Earth” thought experiments just concern the meaning of a word. We all agree what worlds there are. We just disagree about how to describe them. Problem: This critique is quite limited. -
A Defense of the Identity Theory by ©2013 Nicholas K. Simmons Submitted To
Why Sensations Must be Neurological Properties: A Defense of the Identity Theory by ©2013 Nicholas K. Simmons Submitted to the graduate degree program in Philosophy and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Chairperson, John Bricke John Symons Thomas Tuozzo Ben Eggleston Michael Vitevitch Date Defended: April 16, 2013 The Dissertation Committee for Nicholas K. Simmons certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Why Sensations Must be Neurological Properties: A Defense of the Identity Theory Chairperson, John Bricke Date Approved: April 16, 2013 ii ABSTRACT In this dissertation, I defend the thesis that qualitative mental states known as qualia (e.g., tastes, feelings, pains) are identical to physical properties. In Chapter 1, I argue that qualia have a functional role in the world, and that is to facilitate non-automatic mental processes. In Chapter 2, I demonstrate how non-reductive accounts of the mind fail. In Chapter 3, I demonstrate how my reductive account fares better than similar accounts with respect to common and contemporary objections. In Chapter 4, I address arguments against any view like mine which seeks to understand qualia in a physicalistic framework. iii CONTENTS Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 A BRIEF CHART OF THE TERRAIN ......................................................................... -
How to Make Possibility Safe for Empiricists Abstract 1. Introduction
Draft commenced August 31, 2020. Version of October 16, 26, November 4, 2020; January 12, February 21, March 1, 2021. Typo corrections, August 26, 2021 How to Make Possibility Safe for Empiricists John D. Norton1 Department of History and Philosophy of Science University of Pittsburgh http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton Abstract What is possible, according to the empiricist conception, is what our evidence positively allows; and what is necessary is what it compels. These notions, along with logical possibility, are the only defensible notions of possibility and necessity. In so far as nomic and metaphysical possibilities are defensible, they fall within empirical possibility. These empirical conceptions are incompatible with traditional possible world semantics. Empirically necessary propositions cannot be defined as those true in all possible worlds. There can be empirical possibilities without empirical necessities. The duality of possibility and necessity can be degenerate and can even be falsified. 1. Introduction What are “small-e” empiricist2 philosophers of science, like me, to make of possibilities? They are central to science. Our best theories of gravity and stellar structure tell us that it is 1 My thanks to Yemima Ben-Menahem, Jeremy Butterfield, Patrick Dürr, Carl Hoefer, Edouard Machery, Brian McLoone, James Norton, Matt Parker, Bryan Roberts, Margot Strohminger and Jim Woodward for helpful discussion. They bear no responsibility for the content of this paper other than for failing to talk me out of it. 2 A “small-e” empiricist holds that we can only learn contingent truths of the world from experiences of the world. A “big-E” Empiricist holds the stronger view that these experiences are all we can learn. -
An Argument for Completely General Facts: Generalized Molecular Formulas in Logical Atomism
An Argument for Completely General Facts: Generalized Molecular Formulas in Logical Atomism Abstract In his 1918 logical atomism lectures, Russell argued that there are no molecular facts. But he posed a problem for anyone wanting to avoid molecular facts: we need truth-makers for generalizations of molecular formulas, but such truth-makers seem to be both unavoidable and to have an abominably molecular character. We might call this the problem of generalized molecular formulas. I clarify the problem here by first distinguishing two cases: incompletely generalized molecular formulas and completely generalized molecular formulas. I next argue that, if empty worlds are logically possible, then the model- theoretic truth-functional considerations that are usually given address the first kind of formula, but not the second kind. I then show that the commitments Russell has already made provide an answer to the problem of completely generalized molecular formulas. An upshot of this discussion is that, assuming empty worlds are logically possible, some truth-makers will be general facts that have no constituents. Keywords logical atomism, truth maker, metaphysical nihilism, fact, empty worlds Russell argued in his 1918 logical atomism lectures that there are no molecular facts, though he held that there are positive and negative atomic facts, and that there are universal and existential facts. However, he posed a problem for anyone wanting to avoid molecular facts: we need truth-makers for generalizations of molecular formulas|formulas such that a molecular connective occurs in the scope of a quantifier. But such truth-makers seem to be have an abominably molecular character because some of the formulas that they make true seem ineliminably molecular. -
Logical Combinatorialism
Logical Combinatorialism Andrew Bacon* July 13, 2020 Abstract In explaining the notion of a fundamental property or relation, metaphysicians will often draw an analogy with languages. The fundamental properties and relations stand to reality as the primitive predicates and relations stand to a language: the smallest set of vocabulary God would need in order to write the `book of the world'. In this paper I attempt to make good on this metaphor. In order to do this I introduce a modality that, put informally, stands to propositions as logical truth stands to sentences. The resulting theory, formulated in higher-order logic, also vindicates the Humean idea that fundamental properties and relations are freely recombinable and a variant of the structural idea that propositions can be decomposed into their fundamental constituents via logical operations. Indeed, it is seen that, although these ideas are seemingly distinct, they are not independent, and fall out of a natural and general theory about the granularity of reality. Metaphysicians often theorize in terms of the notion of a property or relation being fundamental. When it comes to spelling out what this means, metaphors abound. According to one gloss, the fundamental properties and relations are the primitive constants in the language of reality, from which all other properties and relations can be defined; they are the vocabulary God would need in order to write the `book of the world' (Sider (2011)). The metaphor of reality as a language is one that is hard to make precise, and, taken too literally, has been shown to be subject to paradoxes.1 I take this as a warning to proceed cautiously, by codifying our metaphysics in a precise formal language where possible | in this case, higher-order logic | and employing model theoretic techniques to check for consistency. -
In Defense of Radical Empiricism
In Defense of Radical Empiricism A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts Ryan D. Ross May 2015 © 2015 Ryan D. Ross. All Rights Reserved. 2 This thesis titled In Defense of Radical Empiricism by RYAN D. ROSS has been approved for the Department of Philosophy and the College of Arts and Sciences by John W. Bender Professor of Philosophy Robert Frank Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3 Abstract ROSS, RYAN D., M. A., May 2015, Philosophy In Defense of Radical Empiricism Director of Thesis: John W. Bender Laurence BonJour defends a moderate version of rationalism against rivaling empiricist epistemologies. His moderate rationalism maintains that some beliefs are justified a priori in a way that does not reduce to mere analyticity, but he tempers this strong claim by saying that such justification is both fallible and empirically defeasible. With the aim of ruling out radical empiricism (the form of empiricism that repudiates the a priori), BonJour puts forth what he calls the “master argument.” According to this argument, the resources available to radical empiricists are too slender to allow for justified empirical beliefs that go beyond what is immediately available to sense- perception, e.g., what we see, hear, and taste. If so, then radical empiricists are committed to a severe form of skepticism, one in which it is impossible to have justified beliefs about the distant past, the future, unobserved aspects of the present, etc. Worse, radical empiricists, who pride themselves on their scientific worldview, would be unable to account for justified beliefs about the abstract, theoretical claims of science itself! Clearly, the master argument is intended to hit the radical empiricist where it hurts. -
Russellms Logical Atomism 1914P1918: Epistemological
Russell’sLogical Atomism 1914–1918: Epistemological Ontology and Logical Form Nino B. Cocchiarella May 23, 2017 Abstract Logical analysis, according to Bertrand Russell, leads to and ends with logical atomism, an ontology of atomic facts that is epistemologi- cally founded on sense-data, which Russell claimed are mind-independent physical objects. We …rst explain how Russell’s 1914–1918 epistemolog- ical version of logical atomism is to be understood, and then, because constructing logical forms is a fundamental part of the process of logical analysis, we brie‡y look at what has happened to Russell’s type theory in this ontology. We then turn to the problem of explaining whether or not the logical forms of Russell’s new logic can explain both the forms of atomic facts and yet also the sentences of natural language, especially those about beliefs. The main problem is to explain the logical forms for belief and desire sentences and how those forms do not correspond to the logical forms of the facts of logical atomism. According to Bertrand Russell all “philosophy is logic,”by which he meant that “every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and puri…cation, is found either to be not really philosophical, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical” (OKEW, 42). By necessary analysis Russell meant logical analysis, i.e., formally breaking up a complex whole into its separate parts or constituents, and then explaining the way the parts are held together in terms of a logical form (OKEW, 52). -
Modal Propositional Logic
6 Modal Propositional Logic 1. INTRODUCTION In this book we undertook — among other things — to show how metaphysical talk of possible worlds and propositions can be used to make sense of the science of deductive logic. In chapter 1, we used that talk to explicate such fundamental logical concepts as those of contingency, noncontingency, implication, consistency, inconsistency, and the like. Next, in chapter 2, while resisting the attempt to identify propositions with sets of possible worlds, we suggested that identity-conditions for the constituents of propositions (i.e., for concepts), can be explicated by making reference to possible worlds and showed, further, how appeal to possible worlds can help us both to disambiguate proposition-expressing sentences and to refute certain false theories. In chapter 3 we argued the importance of distinguishing between, on the one hand, the modal concepts of the contingent and the noncontingent (explicable in terms of possible worlds) and, on the other hand, the epistemic concepts of the empirical and the a priori (not explicable in terms of possible worlds). In chapter 4 we showed how the fundamental methods of logic — analysis and valid inference — are explicable in terms of possible worlds and argued for the centrality within logic as a whole of modal logic in general and S5 in particular. Then, in chapter 5, we tried to make good our claim that modal concepts are needed in order to make sound philosophical sense even of that kind of propositional logic — truth-functional logic — from which they seem conspicuously absent. Now in this, our last chapter, we concentrate our attention on the kind of propositional logic — modal propositional logic — within which modal concepts feature overtly.