The Twin Earth Chronicles

The Twin Earth Chronicles PDF Author: Andrew Pessin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315284790
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 486

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Book Description
In 1975, Putnam published a paper called The Meaning of 'Meaning', which challenged the orthodox view in the philosophies of language and mind. The article's Twin Earth conclusions about meaning, thought and knowledge were shocking. This work contains writings on the subject of Twin Earth.

The Twin Earth Chronicles

The Twin Earth Chronicles PDF Author: Andrew Pessin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315284790
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 486

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Book Description
In 1975, Putnam published a paper called The Meaning of 'Meaning', which challenged the orthodox view in the philosophies of language and mind. The article's Twin Earth conclusions about meaning, thought and knowledge were shocking. This work contains writings on the subject of Twin Earth.

The Twin Earth Chronicles

The Twin Earth Chronicles PDF Author: Andrew Pessin
Publisher: M.E. Sharpe
ISBN: 9781557787200
Category : Language and languages
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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Book Description


Conceptual Atomism and the Computational Theory of Mind

Conceptual Atomism and the Computational Theory of Mind PDF Author: John-Michael Kuczynski
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027252050
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 542

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Book Description
What is it to have a concept? What is it to make an inference? What is it to be rational? On the basis of recent developments in semantics, a number of authors have embraced answers to these questions that have radically counterintuitive consequences, for example: • One can rationally accept self-contradictory propositions (e.g. Smith is a composer and Smith is not a composer).• Psychological states are causally inert: beliefs and desires do nothing. • The mind cannot be understood in terms of folk-psychological concepts (e.g. belief, desire, intention). • One can have a single concept without having any others: an otherwise conceptless creature could grasp the concept of justice or of the number seven. • Thoughts are sentence-tokens, and thought-processes are driven by the syntactic, not the semantic, properties of those tokens. In the first half of Conceptual Atomism and the Computational Theory of Mind, John-Michael Kuczynski argues that these implausible but widely held views are direct consequences of a popular doctrine known as content-externalism, this being the view that the contents of one's mental states are constitutively dependent on facts about the external world. Kuczynski shows that content-externalism involves a failure to distinguish between, on the one hand, what is literally meant by linguistic expressions and, on the other hand, the information that one must work through to compute the literal meanings of such expressions. The second half of the present work concerns the Computational Theory of Mind (CTM). Underlying CTM is an acceptance of conceptual atomism – the view that a creature can have a single concept without having any others – and also an acceptance of the view that concepts are not descriptive (i.e. that one can have a concept of a thing without knowing of any description that is satisfied by that thing). Kuczynski shows that both views are false, one reason being that they presuppose the truth of content-externalism, another being that they are incompatible with the epistemological anti-foundationalism proven correct by Wilfred Sellars and Laurence Bonjour. Kuczynski also shows that CTM involves a misunderstanding of terms such as “computation”, “syntax”, “algorithm” and “formal truth”; and he provides novel analyses of the concepts expressed by these terms. (Series A)

Empty Ideas

Empty Ideas PDF Author: Peter Unger
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019069601X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
During the middle of the twentieth century, philosophers generally agreed that, by contrast with science, philosophy should offer no substantial thoughts about the general nature of concrete reality. Instead, philosophers offered conceptual truths. It is widely assumed that, since 1970, things have changed greatly. This book argues that's an illusion that prevails because of the failure to differentiate between "concretely substantial" and "concretely empty" ideas.

Philosophy of Chemistry

Philosophy of Chemistry PDF Author: Jaap Brakel
Publisher: Leuven University Press
ISBN: 9789058670632
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
This book addresses themes in the newly emerging discipline of philosophy of chemistry, in particular issues in connection with discussions in general philosophy of science on natural kinds, reduction and ceteris paribus laws. The philosophical issue addressed in all chapters is the relation between, on the one hand, the manifest image (the daily practice or common-sense-life-form) and on the other the scientific image, both of which claim to be the final arbiter of "everything."With respect to chemistry, the question raised is this: Where does this branch of science fit in, with the manifest or scientific image? Most philosophers and chemists probably would reply unhesitatingly, the scientific image. The aim of this book is to raise doubts about that self-evidence. It is argued that chemistry is primarily the science of manifest substances, whereas "micro" or "submicro" scientific talk--though important, useful, and insightful--does not change what matters, namely the properties of manifest substances.These manifest substances, their properties and uses cannot be reduced to talk of molecules or solutions of the Schrödinger equation. If "submicroscopic" quantum mechanics were to be wrong, it would not affect all (or any) "microlevel" chemical knowledge of molecules. If molecular chemistry were to be wrong, it wouldn't disqualify knowledge of, say, water--not at the "macrolevel" (e.g. its viscosity at 50 C), nor at the pre- or protoscientific manifest level (e.g. ice is frozen water).

Logic, Set-theory, and Philosophy of Mathematics

Logic, Set-theory, and Philosophy of Mathematics PDF Author: John-Michael Kuczynski
Publisher: John-Michael Kuczynski
ISBN:
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
This collection of papers contains original work in mathematical logic and in the philosophy of mathematics. It also contains unusually clear and precise discussions, both mathematical and philosophical, of the central concepts of arithmetic and analysis. The first chapter is a list of logical and set-theoretic laws, making it useful for students and instructors.

Empiricism and the Foundations of Psychology

Empiricism and the Foundations of Psychology PDF Author: John-Michael Kuczynski
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027273855
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 487

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Book Description
Intended for philosophically minded psychologists and psychologically minded philosophers, this book identifies the ways that psychology has hobbled itself by adhering too strictly to empiricism, this being the doctrine that all knowledge is observation-based. In the first part of this two-part work, we show that empiricism is false. In the second part, we identify the psychology-relevant consequences of this fact. Five of these are of special importance: (i) Whereas some psychopathologies (e.g. obsessive-compulsive disorder) corrupt the activity mediated by one’s psychological architecture, others (e.g. sociopathy) corrupt that architecture itself. (ii) The basic tenets of psychoanalysis are coherent. (iii) All propositional attitudes are beliefs. (iv) Selves are minds that self-evaluate. And: (v) It is by giving our thoughts a perceptible form that we enable ourselves to evaluate them, and it is by expressing ourselves in language and art that we give our thoughts a perceptible form. (Series A)

Hilary Putnam

Hilary Putnam PDF Author: Lance P. Hickey
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1441134166
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
This book offers an overview of Putnam's ideas, his key writings and his contributions to the various fields of philosophy. Thematically organized, the book begins with Putnam's work in the philosophy of language and shows how his theory of semantic externalism serves as a lynchpin for understanding his thought as a whole. Crucially, the author also examines the ways in which Putnam has shifted his position on some key philosophical issues and argues that there is in fact more unity to Putnam's thought than is widely believed. An entire chapter is devoted to Putnam's pragmatism and the possibilities this provides for revitalizing contemporary philosophy. This is the ideal companion to study of this hugely influential thinker.

Analytic Philosophy

Analytic Philosophy PDF Author: John-Michael Kuczynski
Publisher: John-Michael Kuczynski
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 825

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Book Description
Philosophy is the science of the science and therefore the analysis of the assumptions underlying empirical inquiry. Given that these assumptions cannot possibly be examined or even identified on the basis of empirical data, it follows that philosophy is a non-empirical discipline. And given that our linguistic and cultural practices cannot possibly be examined or even identified except on the basis of empirical data, it follows that philosophical questions are not linguistic questions and do not otherwise concern our conventions or our cultural practices. This entails that philosophical truths are not tautologous or otherwise trivial. It also entails that empiricism is false and, therefore, that Platonism is correct. Given a clear understanding of why Platonism is correct and of what this implies, a number of shibboleths of contemporary analytic philosophy are speedily demolished and are no less speedily replaced with independently corroborated and intuitively plausible alternatives. New answers are given to age-old questions concerning scientific explanation, causal and logical dependence, linguistic meaning, personal identity, the structure of the psyche, and the nature of personal responsibility. Existing answers to these question are thoroughly considered and duly extended, modified, or replaced. Every technical term is defined; every philosophy-specific concept is explained; and the positions defended are consistent with commonsense, so far as their being consistent with the relevant data allows them to be. Therefore, this book is intelligible to philosophically minded laymen. At the same time, it is appropriate for advanced scholars, given that it defends original viewpoints and given also that, even though it discusses old viewpoints, it does so in new ways. Because it is clearly written, it is intelligible to neophytes; but it is not an introductory text and it is not a textbook. There are two appendices: the first, a thorough exposition of the rudiments of formal logic, along with the conceptual underpinnings of that discipline; the second, a definition and analytic discussion of each technical term that occurs in the text.

Meaning and Morality

Meaning and Morality PDF Author: Alan Tapper
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004218084
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
The essays in this volume address the importance of Kovesi's work on moral philosophy and concept formation. The essays extend Kovesi's insights on moral philosophy into braoder areas and compares and contrasts his work with that of key ancient and contemporary thinkers.