Language and Time

Language and Time PDF Author: Quentin Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780195348187
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
This book offers a defense of the tensed theory of time, a critique of the New Theory of Reference, and an argument that simultaneity is absolute. Although Smith rejects ordinary language philosophy, he shows how it is possible to argue from the nature of language to the nature of reality. Specifically, he argues that semantic properties of tensed sentences are best explained by the hypothesis that they ascribe to events temporal properties of futurity, presentness, or pastness and do not merely ascribe relations of earlier than or simultaneity. He criticizes the New Theory of Reference, which holds that "now" refers directly to a time and does not ascribe the property of presentness. Smith does not adopt the old or Fregean theory of reference but develops a third alternative, based on his detailed theory of de re and de dicto propositions and a theory of cognitive significance. He concludes the book with a lengthy critique of Einstein's theory of time. Smith offers a positive argument for absolute simultaneity based on his theory that all propositions exist in time. He shows how Einstein's relativist temporal concepts are reducible to a conjunction of absolutist temporal concepts and relativist nontemporal concepts of the observable behavior of light rays, rigid bodies, and the like.

Language and Time

Language and Time PDF Author: Quentin Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780195348187
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
This book offers a defense of the tensed theory of time, a critique of the New Theory of Reference, and an argument that simultaneity is absolute. Although Smith rejects ordinary language philosophy, he shows how it is possible to argue from the nature of language to the nature of reality. Specifically, he argues that semantic properties of tensed sentences are best explained by the hypothesis that they ascribe to events temporal properties of futurity, presentness, or pastness and do not merely ascribe relations of earlier than or simultaneity. He criticizes the New Theory of Reference, which holds that "now" refers directly to a time and does not ascribe the property of presentness. Smith does not adopt the old or Fregean theory of reference but develops a third alternative, based on his detailed theory of de re and de dicto propositions and a theory of cognitive significance. He concludes the book with a lengthy critique of Einstein's theory of time. Smith offers a positive argument for absolute simultaneity based on his theory that all propositions exist in time. He shows how Einstein's relativist temporal concepts are reducible to a conjunction of absolutist temporal concepts and relativist nontemporal concepts of the observable behavior of light rays, rigid bodies, and the like.

Action, Decision, and Intention

Action, Decision, and Intention PDF Author: Robert Audi
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400946961
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
Most of the papers in this collection are contributions to action theory intended to be of some relevance to one or another concern of decision theory, particularly to its application to concrete human behavior. Some of the papers touch only indirectly on problems of interest to decision theorists, but taken together they should be of use to both decision theorists and philosophers of action. Robert Audi's paper indicates how a number of questions in action theory might bear on problems in decision theory, and it suggests how some action-theoretic results may help in the construction or interpretation of theories of decision, both normative and empirical. Carl Ginet's essay lays foundations for the conception of action. His volitional framework roots actions internally and conceives them as irreducibly connected with intentionality. Hugh McCann's essay is also foundational, but stresses intention more than volition and lays some of the groundwork for assessing the rationality of intention and intentional action. In William Alston's paper, the notion of a plan as underlying (intentional) action is central, and we are given both a con ception of the structure of intentional action and a set of implicit goals and beliefs - those whose content is represented in the plan - which form an indispensable part of the basis on which the rationality of the action is to be judged.

The Tensed Theory of Time

The Tensed Theory of Time PDF Author: W.L. Craig
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401593450
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 465

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Book Description
he present book and its companion volume The Tenseless Theory of Time: a T Critical Examination are an attempt to adjudicate what one recent discussant has called "the most fundamental question in the philosophy of time," namely, "whether a static or a dynamic conception of the world is correct. "! I had originally intended to treat this question in the space of a single volume; but the study swelled into two. I found that an adequate appraisal of these two of time requires a wide-ranging discussion of issues in competing theories metaphysics, philosophy of language, phenomenology, philosophy of science, philosophy of space and time, and even philosophy of religion, and that this simply could not be done in one volume. If these volumes succeed in making a contribution to the debate, it will be precisely because of the synoptic nature of the discussion therein. Too often the question of the nature of time has been prematurely answered by some philosopher or physicist simply because he is largely ignorant of relevant discussions outside his chosen field of expertise. In these two complementary but independent volumes I have attempted to appraise what I take to be the most important arguments drawn from a variety of fields for and against each theory of time.

Thought, Language, and Ontology

Thought, Language, and Ontology PDF Author: Francesco Orilia
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401150524
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
The late Hector-Neri Castañeda, the Mahlon Powell Professor of Philosophy at Indiana University, and founding editor of Noûs, has deeply influenced current analytic pjilosophy with diverse contributions, including guise theory, the theory on indicators and quasi-indicators, and the proposition/practition theory. This volume collects 15 papers - for the most part previously unpublished - in ontology, philosophy of language, cognitive science and related areas by ex-students of Professor Castañeda, most of whom are now well-known researchers or even distinguished scholars. The authors share the conviction that Castañeda's work must continue to be explored and that his philosophical methodology must continue to be applied in an effort to further illuminate all the issues that he so deeply investigated. The topics covered by the contributions include intensional contexts, possible worlds, quasi-indicators, guise theory, property theory, Russell's substitutional theory of propositions, event theory, the adverbial theory of mental attitudes, existentialist ontology, and Plato's, Leibniz's, Kant's and Peirce's ontologies. An introduction by the editors relates all these themes to Castañeda's philosophical interests and methodology.

ECAI 2000

ECAI 2000 PDF Author: Werner Horn
Publisher:
ISBN: 9784274903885
Category : Artificial intelligence
Languages : en
Pages : 796

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Book Description


Making Sense Of Social Movements

Making Sense Of Social Movements PDF Author: Crossley, Nick
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
ISBN: 0335206026
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
This book offers a clear and comprehensive overview of the key sociological approaches to the study of social movements. The author argues that each of these approaches makes an important contribution to our understanding of social movements but that none is adequate on its own. In response he argues for a new approach which draws together key insights within the solid foundations of Pierre Bourdieu's social theory of practice.

Evolution Of Language, The - Proceedings Of The 7th International Conference (Evolang7)

Evolution Of Language, The - Proceedings Of The 7th International Conference (Evolang7) PDF Author: Andrew D M Smith
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814472492
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 531

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Book Description
This volume comprises refereed papers and abstracts from the 7th International Conference on the Evolution of Language (EVOLANG7), held in Barcelona in March 2008. As the leading international conference in the field, the biennial EVOLANG meeting is characterized by an invigorating, multidisciplinary approach to the origins and evolution of human language, and brings together researchers from many fields including anthropology, archeology, artificial life, biology, cognitive science, computer science, ethology, genetics, linguistics, neuroscience, paleontology, primatology, psychology and statistical physics.The latest theoretical, experimental and modeling research on language evolution is presented in this collection. It includes contributions from leading scientists such as Derek Bickerton, Rudolf Botha, Camilo Cela Conde, Francesco d'Erico, Susan Goldin-Meadow, Simon Kirby, Gary Marcus, Friedemann Pulvermüller and Juan Uriagereka./a

Software Engineering and Algorithms

Software Engineering and Algorithms PDF Author: Radek Silhavy
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030774422
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 741

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Book Description
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Software Engineering and Algorithms section of the 10th Computer Science On-line Conference 2021 (CSOC 2021), held on-line in April 2021. Software engineering research and its applications to intelligent algorithms take an essential role in computer science research. In this book, modern research methods, application of machine and statistical learning in the software engineering research are presented.

Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning

Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning PDF Author: Jon Doyle
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
ISBN:
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 680

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Book Description
The proceedings of KR '94 comprise 55 papers on topics including deduction an search, description logics, theories of knowledge and belief, nonmonotonic reasoning and belief revision, action and time, planning and decision-making and reasoning about the physical world, and the relations between KR

Agent-Based Evolutionary Search

Agent-Based Evolutionary Search PDF Author: Ruhul A. Sarker
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642134254
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Agent based evolutionary search is an emerging paradigm in computational int- ligence offering the potential to conceptualize and solve a variety of complex problems such as currency trading, production planning, disaster response m- agement, business process management etc. There has been a significant growth in the number of publications related to the development and applications of agent based systems in recent years which has prompted special issues of journals and dedicated sessions in premier conferences. The notion of an agent with its ability to sense, learn and act autonomously - lows the development of a plethora of efficient algorithms to deal with complex problems. This notion of an agent differs significantly from a restrictive definition of a solution in an evolutionary algorithm and opens up the possibility to model and capture emergent behavior of complex systems through a natural age- oriented decomposition of the problem space. While this flexibility of represen- tion offered by agent based systems is widely acknowledged, they need to be - signed for specific purposes capturing the right level of details and description. This edited volume is aimed to provide the readers with a brief background of agent based evolutionary search, recent developments and studies dealing with various levels of information abstraction and applications of agent based evo- tionary systems. There are 12 peer reviewed chapters in this book authored by d- tinguished researchers who have shared their experience and findings spanning across a wide range of applications.