Semantic Indeterminacy and Scientific Underdetermination

1984 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 464-487 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip L. Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Indeterminacy

Locke on Fixing Ideas

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Wörner
Keyword(s):  
General Term ◽  
Complex Idea ◽  
Semantic Indeterminacy

AbstractI argue that Locke’s distinction between ‘determined’ and ‘undetermined’ ideas incorporates an account of semantic indeterminacy: if the complex idea to which a general term is annexed is ‘undetermined’, the term lacks a determinate extension. I propose that a closer look at this account of semantic indeterminacy illuminates various charges of confusion, misuse and abuse of language Locke levels against his philosophical contemporaries.

Drawing Our Fish in the Sand: Secret Biblical Allusions in the Music of U2

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deane Galbraith
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Discrete Groups ◽  
Rock Band ◽  
Semantic Indeterminacy ◽  
Biblical Allusions

AbstractConfronted with a popular music subculture which is predominantly antipathetic to Christianity, the charismatic-evangelical members of rock band U2 double code their lyrics in such a manner that Christian references are hidden from mainstream listeners and media while being readily recognizable to their Christian fans. The device of allusion is especially amenable to this end, as the meaning of an allusion can only be considered by a reader or listener who possesses the requisite competency in respect of the evoked text(s). Through their utilization of biblical allusions, U2 therefore construct two different, perhaps even irreconcilable, groups of listeners—a knowledgeable Christian in-group and an unknowledgeable non-Christian out-group. With detailed reference to U2's songs, this paper examines the covert tendencies of allusion and the manner by which it is able to engage the listener's intertextual imagination. The paper also distinguishes a secret or hidden allusion from a generic allusion on pragmatic and socio-cultural grounds, and demonstrates the potential of secret allusions to increase semantic indeterminacy. Lastly, the paper examines some examples of the reception of the U2 song 'Magnificent' which demonstrate the effectiveness of U2's secret biblical allusions in creating two largely discrete groups of listeners.

Sources of legal indeterminacy

2021 ◽  
Vol 138 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-151
Author(s):  
Quentin du Plessis
Keyword(s):  
Case Law ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Hard Case ◽  
Semantic Indeterminacy

Traditional analyses characterise or identify vagueness and ambiguity as the sole or primary sources of legal indeterminacy. In this article, I identify and characterise various other sources of legal indeterminacy. In addition to the semantic indeterminacy of vagueness and ambiguity, philosophers of language have identified conversational, pragmatic, and contextual indeterminacy, each of which is capable of generating a ‘hard case’ as applied to the legal sphere. Nor is all legal indeterminacy linguistic in nature. Following Henry Prakken, I identify non-monotonicity, or the fact that legal inferences are defeasible, as a final source of legal indeterminacy. Each source of legal indeterminacy thus identified includes case-law examples to aid in the discussion.

Vagueness

2021 ◽  
pp. 271-292
Author(s):  
Crispin Wright
Keyword(s):  
Borderline Cases ◽  
Semantic Indeterminacy ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
The Way

This chapter centres on what it terms the Vagueness Trilemma: that what may impress as the only three possible types of view about what vagueness is—namely, that it is a matter of semantic indeterminacy, that it originates in rebus, and the epistemicist idea that it is a matter of our ineluctable ignorance about fully determinate matters— are each open to serious, indeed arguably fatal, objections. The chapter is organized about the possible attitudes to three interrelated, nodal theses. Bivalence—are borderline statements bivalent? Third possibility—do they possess some third alethic status—lack of truth value or some third truth value? And Verdict Exclusion: is knowledge of truth value precluded in borderline cases? It is argued that there are five consistent combinations of acceptance and non-acceptance of the three nodal issues, and that an attitude of agnosticism to all three, and a consequent broadly intuitionistic attitude to vagueness, is the way out of the Trilemma.

Semantic indeterminacy and the realist stance

Erkenntnis ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ron Wilburn
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Indeterminacy

scholarly journals Conditions for a Digital Metaphysic

eTopia ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
DD Young
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Programming Languages ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
Digital Humanities ◽  
Digital Code ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Digital Text ◽  
Semantic Indeterminacy ◽  
Media Systems

Through an interpretation of Plato and Aristotle, I argue that the founding values of traditional metaphysics were made possible by speci c conditions of language and metaphor. Using the premises drawn from these Greek philosophers, I evaluate the ways digital media do and do not diverge from those conditions. In order to comprehend the novelty of digital media theoretically, we must first understand which features of ‘thought’ are conserved between different media systems. My position contrasts particularly with that of N. Katherine Hayles who, in My Mother was a Computer (2005), asserts that the novelty of digital media renders the conceptual resources of ‘traditional media’ inadequate to theorize it. Most of Hayles’s analysis and comparison is devoted to the properties of digital code and the interaction between code and hardware. I argue, by employing a semiotic division of language between syntagmatic and associative axes, that programming languages lack the semantic indeterminacy required to constitute a new worldview, as Hayles proposes. Finally, I argue that Hayles’s argument fails to articulate specifically how epiphenomena come to affect thinking. While there are differences between print and digital text, instead of looking to epiphenomenal causation, I propose a line of inquiry that would compare their histories as systems. Far from casting off traditional metaphysics, digital technology may actually better approximate some of their goals, for it enables a more thorough self-erasure of its own material which never comes into a phenomenal purview. KEYWORDS: Media eory, Digital Humanities, Metaphysics, Visual Culture 

Forms of Indeterminacy

2019 ◽  
pp. 4-61
Author(s):  
David Lanius
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Lexical Ambiguity ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
General Definition ◽  
Syntactic Ambiguity ◽  
Semantic Indeterminacy ◽  
Linguistic Content

In the first chapter, linguistic indeterminacy is defined in terms of unclarity in linguistic content. Based on this general definition, three main forms of linguistic indeterminacy are differentiated:there is semantic indeterminacy, pragmatic indeterminacy, and conversational vagueness. Lexical ambiguity, syntactic ambiguity and polysemy as well as semantic vagueness are forms of semantic indeterminacy. Speech act ambiguity, presupposition indeterminacy, and implicature indeterminacy obscure what the utterance's illocutionary force is, what it presupposes, and what it implicates, respectively. They are forms of pragmatic indeterminacy. Another form is impliciture indeterminacy, which is most relevant when a contextually valued standard is implicited, i.e., in the form of standard-relativity. Conversational vagueness, finally, appears most commonly when an utterance is unclear due to the over-generality of its expressions.

scholarly journals How Vague Can Your Patent Be? Vagueness Strategies in U.S. Patents

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (48) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Ismael Arinas
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Desirable Characteristic ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Semantic Indeterminacy ◽  
The One ◽  
Scope Of Protection

Patent claims define the protection scope of the intellectual property sought by the patent applicant or patentee. Broad claims are valuable as they can describe more expansive rights to the invention. Therefore, if these claims are too broad a potential infringer will more easily argue against them. But if the claims are too narrow the scope of protection of the intellectual property is greatly reduced. Patent claims have to be, on the one hand, determinate and precise enough and, on the other hand, as inclusive as possible. Therefore patent applicants must find a balance in the broadness of the scope defined by their claims. This balance can be achieved by the choice of words with a convenient degree of semantic indeterminacy, by the choice of modifiers or other strategies. In fact, vagueness in patent claims is a desirable characteristic for such documents. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of a corpus of 350 U.S. patents provides a promising starting point to understand the linguistic instruments used to achieve the balance between property claim scope and precision of property description. To conclude, some issues relating vagueness and pragmatics are suggested as a line of further research.

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