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Gödel: Facts and Descriptions

Stephen Neale

in Facing Facts

Sets out Kurt Gödel's slingshot (collapsing) argument. The original argument—or, at least, the premisses of the argument that Neale attributes to Gödel—can be found in a fleeting footnote to a ... More

Sets out Kurt Gödel's slingshot (collapsing) argument. The original argument—or, at least, the premisses of the argument that Neale attributes to Gödel—can be found in a fleeting footnote to a discussion of the relationship between Bertrand Russell's Theory of Descriptions and Theory of Facts. Usually each theory is viewed as quite independent of the other, but Gödel argues otherwise: that the viability of the latter depends upon the viability of the former (or at least upon the viability of some non‐referential theory of descriptions). Neale summarizes Gödel's standpoint as follows: ‘if a true sentence stands for a fact, then in order to avoid the collapse of all facts into one, the friend of facts must give up either (a) an intuitive and straightforward Fregean Principle of Composition or (b) the idea that definite descriptions are expressions that purport to stand for things.’ The sections of the chapter are: Elimination (linguistic and ontological); Facts and Descriptions; Identities in the Matrix; and The Eleatic One (the collapse of all facts into one).Less

Russell: Facts and Descriptions

Stephen Neale

in Facing Facts

Examines the work of Bertrand Russell. It looks at Russell's idea that true sentences stand for facts (rather than truth‐values) and the philosophical and formal details of his Theory of Facts (the ... More

Examines the work of Bertrand Russell. It looks at Russell's idea that true sentences stand for facts (rather than truth‐values) and the philosophical and formal details of his Theory of Facts (the theory of facts as complexes) and Theory of Descriptions, both of which Neale describes as being poorly understood to this day. The six sections of the chapter are: Facts and their Parts; Representing Russellian Facts; The Theory of Descriptions; Abbreviation; Scope; Quantification and Notation. An appendix to the book looks further at Russell's definition of descriptions as incomplete symbols.Less

Introduction

Patrick R. Crowley

in The Phantom Image: Seeing the Dead in Ancient Rome

This introduction outlines two major claims that structure the argument of the book. First, it identifies the shared vocabulary for ghosts and images to argue that images of ghosts recursively depict ... More

This introduction outlines two major claims that structure the argument of the book. First, it identifies the shared vocabulary for ghosts and images to argue that images of ghosts recursively depict the challenge of depiction and even of seeing itself, giving physical form to conflicting and overlapping systems of knowledge and classification. Second, it argues that such depictions acquire a particular salience in the Second Sophistic, a periodization coined in antiquity that identified a renaissance of Classical (i.e., fifth and fourth centuries BCE) Greek culture in the second and third centuries CE that was inflected by an intense historical self-consciousness and a spectral logic of untimely chronologies. Situating these issues through the lens of historical epistemology, it makes the case that images of ghosts are neither illustrations of ancient belief-patterns about the supernatural nor the afterlife more generally.Less

Writing Her Life: Mrs. Rudd’s Life Stories

Donna T. Andrew and Randall McGowen

in The Perreaus and Mrs. Rudd: Forgery and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century London

This chapter describes Mrs. Rudd's writings of her life. It notes that Mrs. Rudd wrote the first version of her life, her “Case”, just after her arrest in February. It adds that after the brothers' ... More

This chapter describes Mrs. Rudd's writings of her life. It notes that Mrs. Rudd wrote the first version of her life, her “Case”, just after her arrest in February. It adds that after the brothers' trial and her remand to Newgate she wrote another version, published this time as a pamphlet, “Facts”. It observes that a number of themes appeared repeatedly in her publications noting that the most prominent among the themes was the discussion she offered of her “two families”. It describes the two families where one family consisted of the aristocratic connections she claimed for herself, which played the largest role in constituting her own identity; the other was the family she had created with Daniel and their three children including the other Perreaus.Less

Introduction

Jeannette E. Brown

in African American Women Chemists in the Modern Era

When I wrote my first book African American Women Chemists I neglected to state that it was a historical book. I researched to find the first African American woman who had studied chemistry in ... More

When I wrote my first book African American Women Chemists I neglected to state that it was a historical book. I researched to find the first African American woman who had studied chemistry in college and worked in the field. The woman that I found was Josephine Silane Yates who studied chemistry at the Rhode Island Normal School in order to become a science teacher. She was hired by the Lincoln Institute in 1881 and later was, I believe, the first African American woman to become a professor and head a department of science. But then again there might be women who traveled out of the country to study because of racial prejudice in this country. The book ended with some women like myself who were hired as chemists in the industry before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Therefore, I decided to write another book about the current African American women chemists who, as I say, are hiding in plain sight. To do this, I again researched women by using the web or by asking questions of people I met at American Chemical Society ACS or National Organization for the Professional Advances of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) meetings. I asked women to tell me their life stories and allow me to take their oral history, which I recorded and which were transcribed thanks to the people at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia, PA. Most of the stories of these women will be archived at the CHF in their oral history collection. The women who were chosen to be in this book are an amazing group of women. Most of them are in academia because it is easy to get in touch with professors since they publish their research on the web. Some have worked for the government in the national laboratories and a few have worked in industry. Some of these women grew up in the Jim Crow south where they went to segregated schools but were lucky because they were smart and had teachers and parents who wanted them to succeed despite everything they had to go through. Less

Five Facts: Stating the Case

Paul W. Kahn

in Making the Case: The Art of the Judicial Opinion

This chapter argues that the most important facts in the opinion are not those established by a trial court as it builds the record. Rather, the important facts are constitutive of the context or ... More

This chapter argues that the most important facts in the opinion are not those established by a trial court as it builds the record. Rather, the important facts are constitutive of the context or horizon from within which the relevant law is to be seen. A case often involves a conflict over the appropriate context. For example, do we see abortion against the horizon of infanticide or that of reproductive freedom? The work of establishing a horizon is often done through the use of analogies–a dominant form of legal argument. Less

A Human Rat Hole

Krister Dylan Knapp

in William James: Psychical Research and the Challenge of Modernity

Chapter four examines James's role as an investigator of physical mediums purporting to levitate tables and materialize ghostly forms of the deceased, and recounts the instances when he revealed ... More

Chapter four examines James's role as an investigator of physical mediums purporting to levitate tables and materialize ghostly forms of the deceased, and recounts the instances when he revealed several of them to be frauds including the notorious Eusapia Palladino.Less

Facts: Stating the Case

Paul W. Kahn

in Making the Case: The Art of the Judicial Opinion

This chapter argues that the most important facts in the opinion are not those established by a trial court as it builds the record. Rather, the important facts are constitutive of the context or ... More

This chapter argues that the most important facts in the opinion are not those established by a trial court as it builds the record. Rather, the important facts are constitutive of the context or horizon from within which the relevant law is to be seen. A case often involves a conflict over the appropriate context. For example, do we see abortion against the horizon of infanticide or that of reproductive freedom? The work of establishing a horizon is often done through the use of analogies–a dominant form of legal argument.Less

Compositional Facts

Arianna Betti

in Against Facts

This chapter fixes what compositional facts are and what they are for. Five semantic roles are distinguished that entities can play in the theoretical space at the intersection of language and world, ... More

This chapter fixes what compositional facts are and what they are for. Five semantic roles are distinguished that entities can play in the theoretical space at the intersection of language and world, and compositional facts are characterized as entities able to play two such roles (sentence-object, and truthmaker). A reconstruction of Armstrong’s argument in favor of compositional facts as truthmakers is then offered, and in this connection, seven ontological characteristics are individuated that facts are taken to possess. These ontological characteristics distinguish facts from neighboring entities (propositions, states of affairs, tropes, events, integral wholes and complexes) and form, taken together, the seven conditions of the (working) definition of the notion of compositional fact. A compositional fact is characterized as a complex entity with a fixed number of constituents (minimally two) that is part of the furniture of the world, and whose composition is formal, nonmereological, and heterogeneous both from the ontological point of view and from the point of view of the categories involved.Less

The Unity Problem

Arianna Betti

in Against Facts

This Chapter introduces the Unity Problem: what is the ontological ground of the difference between two objects taken together (their mereological sum or ‘mere aggregate’) and their real unity (the ... More

This Chapter introduces the Unity Problem: what is the ontological ground of the difference between two objects taken together (their mereological sum or ‘mere aggregate’) and their real unity (the ‘really unified’ complex of the two objects)? The attempts at answering this question are presented by means of a Master Argument, and ranked using a flow chart, which shows as best Armstrong’s solution accepting compositional facts as primitive unities of their constituents with a special nonmereological composition. A first step to dismiss Armstrong’s solution as ad hoc is taken in this chapter by drawing upon elements of the debate on material constitution, and concluding that there are no direct or indirect arguments in favor of the special nonmereological composition of facts that are independent of the need to solve the unity problem. The last section of the chapter establishes that states of affairs are, a fortiori, more problematic entities than facts with respect to the Unity Problem.Less

Reductio

Arianna Betti

in Against Facts

This chapter argues that there is no reference to facts by means of that-clauses because that-clauses are non-referential parts of speech. Four necessary conditions for an expression to be a singular ... More

This chapter argues that there is no reference to facts by means of that-clauses because that-clauses are non-referential parts of speech. Four necessary conditions for an expression to be a singular term are discussed and shown not to apply to that-clauses. It is also argued that the expression ‘the fact that p’ is not a singular term and that the expression ‘is a fact’ is not a predicate. With this, the first condition of the Quine-like criterion of ontological commitment in the argument from nominal reference for facts is shown to be unmet, and the argument as not going through.Less

Conclusion: Farewell to Facts

Arianna Betti

in Against Facts

The Conclusion sums up Against Facts’ main findings: in part I and II Armstrong’s truthmaker argument and the argument from nominal reference have been shown to be unsound. The two kinds of ... More

The Conclusion sums up Against Facts’ main findings: in part I and II Armstrong’s truthmaker argument and the argument from nominal reference have been shown to be unsound. The two kinds of methodology used in the two parts of the book are highlighted, and certain enterprises in language-based descriptive metaphysics are criticised, namely enterprises that pretends to discover something about metaphysical entities by citing natural language analyses. It is argued that at least in case of technical philosophical terms like ‘fact’, ‘proposition’, ‘event’, and the like, reference collapses into fixing by stipulation a semantic value for those terms. The methodological proposal is made that we are entitled to take certain (categories of) entities as semantic value of certain expressions only if these entities are best-explanation players for the theoretical roles we deemed must indispensably be played, where indispensability is decided by criteria of theory choice agreed upon by the largest scientific community. It is concluded that defenders of facts have so far failed to show that facts should be given any place in metaphysics.Less

Right-Wing Broadcasting’s Supreme Individualist: Dan Smoot and the Tactics of Constitutional Conservatism

Heather Hendershot

in What's Fair on the Air?: Cold War Right-Wing Broadcasting and the Public Interest

This chapter focuses on Dan Smoot, who was one of the most influential extremist broadcasters in the Cold War period. He was an ultraconservative, skilled at conducting verbal assaults on politicians ... More

This chapter focuses on Dan Smoot, who was one of the most influential extremist broadcasters in the Cold War period. He was an ultraconservative, skilled at conducting verbal assaults on politicians and policies he seemed to disagree with. Despite failing in his bid for public office, Smoot became a successful figure as a radio and television pundit. He started as the voice and face of H.L Hunt’s Facts Forum, but he resigned from the post and created his own. His weekly newsletter, the Dan Smoot Report also became a fifteen-minute radio program that aired in 1957. From this point on, Smoot decided to take the stance of the constitutional conservative, which is an ideology that opposes civil rights, communism, foreign aid, United Nations, and even the then Chief Justice Earl Warren.Less

Basic Concepts in Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action

in Habermas: The Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy

In his Theory of Communicative Action, Jürgen Habermas proposes a theory of “communicative action” and sets it within a concept of society he calls “lifeworld.” In both his Theory of Communicative ... More

In his Theory of Communicative Action, Jürgen Habermas proposes a theory of “communicative action” and sets it within a concept of society he calls “lifeworld.” In both his Theory of Communicative Action and later in Between Facts and Norms, Habermas describes the “lifeworld” as the basic conception of society, to be amended or supplemented only for cause. In addition, Habermas argues that in the course of social evolution, systems of economic and political action arise whereby action is coordinated by the consequences of self-interested action, rather than consensual understanding. This chapter explores Habermas's idea of such “systems” based on his reading of Talcott Parsons. It also examines how Habermas integrates the lifeworld and system concepts into his model of system/lifeworld interchange. It argues that the critical model developed by Habermas in Theory of Communicative Action is more functionalist than straightforwardly normative.Less

After Between Facts and Norms: Religion in the Public Square, Multiculturalism, and the “Postnational Constellation”

in Habermas: The Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy

Following the publication of his Between Facts and Norms, Jürgen Habermas has joined the growing discussion about the role of religion in public political discourse. This endeavor was prompted in ... More

Following the publication of his Between Facts and Norms, Jürgen Habermas has joined the growing discussion about the role of religion in public political discourse. This endeavor was prompted in part by his 1995 debate with John Rawls, whose 1993 book Political Liberalism sparked controversy. Habermas has also sought to come to terms with multiculturalism and has explored the possibilities of democracy in the so-called “postnational constellation,” focusing his attention on the integration project of the European Union. His discussion of the postnational constellation extends to a reformulation of Immanuel Kant's program of “perpetual peace.” This chapter examines each of these extensions of Habermas's project, first by looking at Rawls's political liberalism and the views of Robert Audi, Paul Weithman, and Nicholas Wolterstorff. It then tackles Habermas's arguments about multiculturalism and constitutional patriotism before concluding with an analysis of democracy, postnational constellation, nation-states, and the constitutionalization of international law.Less

Politics, Travel, and Writing

Henry G. Gole

in Exposing the Third Reich: Colonel Truman Smith in Hitler's Germany

Chapter Twenty follows the publishing of Smith's autobiography, The Facts of Life, a list of some of his major pieces of writing, and a number of the vacations and cruises the Smith's took in their ... More

Chapter Twenty follows the publishing of Smith's autobiography, The Facts of Life, a list of some of his major pieces of writing, and a number of the vacations and cruises the Smith's took in their later years. It also covers Smith's last trip to Germany shortly before the assassination of President Kennedy. Numerous letters and the names of Smith's correspondents are showcased, including Clare Boothe Luce and Herbert Hoover.Less

Food, Nutrients, and Health: An Overview

George C. Davis and Elena L. Serrano

in Food and Nutrition Economics: Fundamentals for Health Sciences

Chapter 1 begins by covering key concepts in nutrition, including the function of nutrients and foods in overall health and the leading causes of death in the US. It then discusses the major ... More

Chapter 1 begins by covering key concepts in nutrition, including the function of nutrients and foods in overall health and the leading causes of death in the US. It then discusses the major nutrition recommendation formats designed to ideally simplify healthy food choices, such as the Nutrition Facts Label, MyPlate, and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The chapter closes with a presentation and discussion of some of the most common nutrition indices used in practice and research for measuring overall nutrient and diet quality.Less

Making sense of numbers about health risks—The Facts Box

Michelle McDowell

in Shared Decision Making in Health Care: Achieving evidence-based patient choice

People are frequently faced with the task of making a variety of health decisions, from decisions about preventative screening, to taking medications, or deciding whether or not to have a surgical ... More

People are frequently faced with the task of making a variety of health decisions, from decisions about preventative screening, to taking medications, or deciding whether or not to have a surgical procedure. For many health decisions, there is no single best option, and people need to be informed about their chances of experiencing the benefits and harms of each option. However, risk information is not always easy to find and numbers can be used to mislead, emphasizing benefits or reducing harms. Balanced and transparent presentation of risk information is essential for promoting risk literacy to help people understand and make good decisions about health risks. The Facts Box is a simple decision tool that presents data about the benefits and harms of treatments in a summary table and has been shown to facilitate comprehension and understanding of health information. Facts Boxes can be used by patients and health professionals alike.Less