scholarly journals States of Affairs as Structured Extensions in Free Logic

2020 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Hans-Peter Leeb
Keyword(s):  
Free Logic ◽  
States Of Affairs

Are there Non-Propositional Intentional States?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Searle
Keyword(s):  
Intentional State ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Intentional States ◽  
The World ◽  
Essential Idea ◽  
Limited Class ◽  
The Mind

Intentionality is that feature of the mind by which it is directed at or about objects and states of affairs in the world. Intentionality is simply aboutness or directedness. “Proposition” is more difficult, but the essential idea is this: every intentional state has a content. Sometimes it seems that the content just enables a state to refer to an object. So if John loves Sally, then it appears that the content of his love is simply “Sally”. But if John believes that it is raining, then the specification of the content requires an entire “that” clause. “Are there non-propositional intentional states?” amounts to the question, “Are there intentional states whose content does not require specification with a ‘that’ clause?” This chapter explores whether there are any non-propositional states, and suggest that a very limited class, such as boredom, is in fact non-propositional.

Attachment and Axiology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Scheffler
Keyword(s):  
Future Generations ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Relative Value ◽  
Optimal Population ◽  
Population Axiology

Many discussions of future generations attempt to identify a satisfactory population axiology: a principle that would enable us to assess the relative value of total states of affairs that differ in population-related respects. Such an axiology would in turn supply the basis for a principle of beneficence, which would spell out our responsibilities for promoting optimal population outcomes. By contrast, the approach defended in this book is predominantly attachment-based. The reasons for caring about the fate of future generations discussed in previous chapters all depend on our existing values and evaluative attachments and on our conservative disposition to preserve and sustain the things that we value. This chapter appeals to the nature of valuing to clarify these forms of dependence, and it explores the contrast between the axiological and attachment-based approaches.

Everything and Nothing

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Jago
Keyword(s):  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Difficult Cases

What should we say about the ‘difficult’ cases of truthmaking, involving general and negative existential truths, modal truths, counterfactual truths, analytic truths, and temporal truths? The toughest cases are the general and negative existential truths. I’ll argue that we can’t account for them without introducing new bits of ontology (§5.2 and §5.3). Armstrong’s totality states of affairs are not the best option (§5.4). Negative states of affairs are a better bet (§5.5), although their metaphysical analysis is difficult (§5.6). I’ll discuss the remaining cases – modal truths, counterfactual truths, analytic truths, and temporal truths – in §5.7.

scholarly journals Anger stinks in Seri: Olfactory metaphor in a lesser-described language

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn O’Meara ◽  
Asifa Majid
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Resources ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Valuable Data ◽  
Metaphor And Metonymy

AbstractPrevious studies claim there are few olfactory metaphors cross-linguistically, especially compared to metaphors originating in the visual and auditory domains. We show olfaction can be a source for metaphor and metonymy in a lesser-described language that has rich lexical resources for talking about odors. In Seri, an isolate language of Mexico spoken by indigenous hunter-gatherers, we find a novel metaphor for emotion never previously described – “anger stinks”. In addition, distinct odor verbs are used metaphorically to distinguish volitional vs. non-volitional states-of-affairs. Finally, there is ample olfactory metonymy in Seri, especially prevalent in names for plants, but also found in names for insects and artifacts. This calls for a re-examination of better-known languages for the overlooked role olfaction may play in metaphor and metonymy. The Seri language illustrates how valuable data from understudied languages can be in highlighting novel ways by which people conceptualize themselves and their world.

Lewis' Indexical Argument for World-Relative Actuality

Dialogue ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard M. Gale
Keyword(s):  
David Lewis ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
The Other ◽  
Abstract Entity ◽  
Modal Realism ◽  
Possible World ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Reductio Ad Absurdum ◽  
Critical Scrutiny

David Lewis has shocked the philosophical community with his original version of extreme modal realism according to which “every way that a world could possibly be is a way that some world is”. Logical Space is a plenitude of isolated physical worlds, each being the actualization of some way in which a world could be, that bear neither spatiotemporal nor causal relations to each other. Lewis has given independent, converging arguments for this. One is the argument from the indexicality of actuality, the other an elaborate cost-benefit argument of the inference-to-the-best explanation sort to the effect that a systematic analysis of a number of concepts, including modality, causality, propositions and properties, fares better under his theory than under any rival one that takes a possible world to be either a linguistic entity or an ersatz abstract entity such as a maximal compossible set of properties, propositions or states of affairs. Lewis' legion of critics have confined themselves mostly to attempts at a reductio ad absurdum of his theory or to objections to his various analyses. The indexical argument, on the other hand, has not been subject to careful critical scrutiny. It is the purpose of this paper to show that this argument cannot withstand such scrutiny. Its demise, however, leaves untouched his argument from the explanatory superiority for his extreme modal realism.

scholarly journals Why do we accept a narrative discourse ascribed to a “third-person narrator” as true? The classical, and a cognitive approach

Semiotica ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 (203) ◽  
Author(s):  
Erzsébet Szabó
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Architecture ◽  
Narrative Discourse ◽  
Narrative Comprehension ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Linguistic Representation ◽  
Free Representation ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Literary Narrative

AbstractThe aim of the present paper is to discuss the question of why readers accept a literary narrative discourse attributed traditionally to an “omniscient third-person narrator” unconditionally as true. I will advocate two theses. First, that this characteristic of narrative comprehension is a consequence of a grammatical feature of the narrative discourse, namely, the absence of the “narrating-I.” This format mimics what Cosmides and Tooby label as scope-free representation, i.e., a representation that is not bound by scope-operators and thus treated by a cognitive architecture as architecturally true. Second, narrative discourse ascribed traditionally to a third person narrator should be understood as the linguistic representation of the true states of affairs of a narrative world.

Intuitive Cognition, Certainty, and Scepticism in William Ockham

Traditio ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 389-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilyn McCord Adams
Keyword(s):  
Logical Possibility ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
William Ockham ◽  
Etienne Gilson

Ockham's doctrine of intuitive cognition lies at the heart of his epistemology. As Philotheus Boehner and Sebastian Day have quite rightly observed, one of the central aims of this doctrine is to answer the question how the intellect can have certain knowledge of contingent states of affairs (including the existence or non-existence of material particulars). A number of scholars, including Etienne Gilson and Anton Pegis, have charged, however, that far from achieving this goal, Ockham's doctrine (and especially what he says about the logical possibility of intuitive cognition of non-existents) leads to scepticism. Coming to Ockham's defense, Boehner and Day have rejected these criticisms as resting on misinterpretations of Ockham. I believe Boehner and Day have done much to clarify what Ockham actually meant. I should like to reopen the discussion, however, because I believe not all the consequences of Oekham's doctrine have been accurately drawn.

scholarly journals Tree Trimming: Four Non-Branching Rules for Priest’s Introduction to Non-Classical Logic

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilynn Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Modal Logic ◽  
Classical Logic ◽  
Variable Domain ◽  
Free Logic ◽  
Intuitionist Logic ◽  
Branching Rule ◽  
Branching Rules ◽  
Graham Priest

In An Introduction to Non-Classical Logic: From If to Is Graham Priest (2008) presents branching rules in Free Logic, Variable Domain Modal Logic, and Intuitionist Logic. I propose a simpler, non-branching rule to replace Priest’s rule for universal instantiation in Free Logic, a second, slightly modified version of this rule to replace Priest’s rule for universal instantiation in Variable Domain Modal Logic, and third and fourth rules, further modifying the second rule, to replace Priest’s branching universal and particular instantiation rules in Intuitionist Logic. In each of these logics the proposed rule leads to tableaux with fewer branches. In Intuitionist logic, the proposed rules allow for the resolution of a particular problem Priest grapples with throughout the chapter. In this paper, I demonstrate that the proposed rules can greatly simplify tableaux and argue that they should be used in place of the rules given by Priest.

scholarly journals The Indispensable Role of Systematic Philosophical Reflection in Scholarship

Phronimon ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 95-114
Author(s):  
Daniel Francois Strauss
Keyword(s):  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Philosophical View ◽  
Philosophical Reflection ◽  
Formal Schemes ◽  
Constant Change ◽  
Theoretical Thinking ◽  
Philosophical Orientations ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Systematic Thinking

Sometimes systematic theoretical thinking is identified with abstract (formal) schemes. This opposition is also found in Malan and Goosen’s dismissal of Dooyeweerdian reformational thinking. This article aims at making a contribution to this issue by analysing the indispensable role of systematic philosophical reflection within the world of scholarship. One way in which systematic thinking could be justified is to highlight the need for consistency and the role of logical principles in achieving it. It is argued that, since we are living in the same world, all philosophical orientations have to account for shared states of affairs. At this point attention is given to the question whether or not these “states of affairs” are “static or dynamic.” An alternative for the distinction between static and dynamic is proposed by alternatively considering the relationship between constancy and change. Von Weizsäcker articulates the problem aptly by pointing out that although our experience exhibits constant change, something exists that remains unchanged through all these changes. In conclusion it is pointed out that scholars have only two options: either they give an account of the philosophical presuppositions and systematic distinctions with which they work—in which case they have a philosophical view of reality, or implicitly (and uncritically) they proceed from one or another philosophical view of reality—in which case they are the victims of a philosophical view. The primary aim of this article is, therefore, to highlight the indispensability of systematic thought by referring to some of the main distinctions included in such a system of thought.

scholarly journals Genidentity and Biological Processes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Pradeu
Keyword(s):  
Process Approach ◽  
Biological Processes ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Main Interest ◽  
Living World ◽  
Hans Reichenbach ◽  
David Hull ◽  
Continuous States ◽  
Process View ◽  
Kurt Lewin

A crucial question for a process view of life is how to identify a process and how to follow it through time. The genidentity view (first proposed by Kurt Lewin and later elaborated by Hans Reichenbach) can contribute decisively to this project. It says that the identity through time of an entity X is given by a well-identified series of continuous states of affairs. Genidentity helps address the problem of diachronic identity in the living world. This chapter describes the centrality of the concept of genidentity for David Hull and proposes an extension of Hull’s view to the ubiquitous phenomenon of symbiosis. Finally, using immunology as a key example, it shows that the genidentity view suggests that the main interest of a process approach is epistemological rather than ontological and that its principal claim is one of priority, namely that processes precede and define things, and not vice versa.

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