Barry Stroud
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199252145
- eISBN:
- 9780191598487
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199252149.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Contains thirteen essays published by Barry Stroud between 1965 and 2000 on central topics in the philosophy of language and epistemology. In a volume that generally deals with the philosophical ...
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Contains thirteen essays published by Barry Stroud between 1965 and 2000 on central topics in the philosophy of language and epistemology. In a volume that generally deals with the philosophical questions of meaning, understanding, necessity, and the intentionality of thought, there are some papers devoted to specific questions of Wittgenstein's philosophy, as well as papers on Quine, Searle, Davidson, and David Pears.The tenor of the essays on meaning is critical of reductive attempts to elucidate meaning and understanding ‘from outside’—i.e. without summoning intentional vocabulary referring to what speakers mean and understand in relation to each other. In view of considerations regarding the indispensably semantical nature of explanatory accounts of meaning, an appeal to speakers’ conformity to linguistic practice must satisfy the requirements of a thick, semantical description of the meaning of words in a community. There will be no satisfactory theories of meaning solely in terms of non‐semantic, non‐intentional regularities. In the author's estimation, this idea runs close to Wittgenstein's treatment of ‘inner’ or ‘private’ objects. The first essay in this collection addresses the attribution of a ‘conventionalist’ position to Wittgenstein in summation of his thought on necessity and logical truth. The author looks askance at Michael Dummett's conventionalist reading of Wittgenstein and takes it to task accordingly. ‘Inference, Belief and Understanding’ (essay 2) re‐examines the question of being ‘forced’ to a conclusion in the context of Lewis Carroll's ‘What the Tortoise said to Achilles’. It is argued, here and throughout, that it is important to grasp the implications of the kind of regress besetting Achilles for a theory of understanding and the mind. The threat of regress is a key constraint on philosophical accounts of understanding viewed as a capacity possessed by the speaker. In his third essay ‘Evolution and the Necessity of Thought’, the author asks whether we can hold steadfast to a notion of necessity and an evolutionary or historical story of the acquisition of human knowledge. Wittgenstein's arguments against the existence of a private language are treated in the fifth and again, in more detail, in the final essay in this volume— the author notes his intention to look at the question relatively unencumbered by existing scholarship in the hope of drawing out the very idea of what Wittgenstein was doing in his philosophy. The collection of essays on Wittgenstein includes a study of Wittgenstein on meaning, understanding, and community (essay 6), which partly overlaps with an essay on translation that additionally revisits the problem of regress and its implications for semantic competence (essay 8). It is argued that the indeterminacy of meaning with respect to a certain class of facts has the consequence that meaning is indeterminate tout court only if those facts are the only available facts; but a ‘community practice’ view of meaning has no such consequence. A fuller treatment of some of these topics is given in ‘Mind, Meaning and Practice’ (essay 11), which examines the idea of meaning as use, and ostensive teaching in relation to Wittgenstein's discussion of meaning and distorted conception of the mental.The essays on Quine (essay 7 and 10) consider the doctrine of physicalism and the question of conceptual schemes respectively. Searle's theory of intentionality (‘background’) supposes that there are attitudes that are mental, though pre‐intentional and non‐representational; considerations are brought against Searle in essay 9. The work on Davidson provides the renewed occasion for attacking the idea that linguistic competence or understanding is a matter of applying general rules or conventions to particular utterances (essay 12). A central theme of this book—the threat of regress and the pressure it exerts on semantic theory—is brought out with reference to the theory of understanding, which locates linguistic competence in the application of general knowledge to particular utterances. It is argued that such theories invariably fall foul of regress. A profitable semantic theory should combine the insight that explaining understanding and meaning is aptly fulfilled by invoking speakers’ abilities and knowledge, yet without positing additional mental entities, with a recognition that the abilities and knowledge in question go beyond mere relations between expressions.Less
Contains thirteen essays published by Barry Stroud between 1965 and 2000 on central topics in the philosophy of language and epistemology. In a volume that generally deals with the philosophical questions of meaning, understanding, necessity, and the intentionality of thought, there are some papers devoted to specific questions of Wittgenstein's philosophy, as well as papers on Quine, Searle, Davidson, and David Pears.
The tenor of the essays on meaning is critical of reductive attempts to elucidate meaning and understanding ‘from outside’—i.e. without summoning intentional vocabulary referring to what speakers mean and understand in relation to each other. In view of considerations regarding the indispensably semantical nature of explanatory accounts of meaning, an appeal to speakers’ conformity to linguistic practice must satisfy the requirements of a thick, semantical description of the meaning of words in a community. There will be no satisfactory theories of meaning solely in terms of non‐semantic, non‐intentional regularities. In the author's estimation, this idea runs close to Wittgenstein's treatment of ‘inner’ or ‘private’ objects. The first essay in this collection addresses the attribution of a ‘conventionalist’ position to Wittgenstein in summation of his thought on necessity and logical truth. The author looks askance at Michael Dummett's conventionalist reading of Wittgenstein and takes it to task accordingly. ‘Inference, Belief and Understanding’ (essay 2) re‐examines the question of being ‘forced’ to a conclusion in the context of Lewis Carroll's ‘What the Tortoise said to Achilles’. It is argued, here and throughout, that it is important to grasp the implications of the kind of regress besetting Achilles for a theory of understanding and the mind. The threat of regress is a key constraint on philosophical accounts of understanding viewed as a capacity possessed by the speaker. In his third essay ‘Evolution and the Necessity of Thought’, the author asks whether we can hold steadfast to a notion of necessity and an evolutionary or historical story of the acquisition of human knowledge. Wittgenstein's arguments against the existence of a private language are treated in the fifth and again, in more detail, in the final essay in this volume— the author notes his intention to look at the question relatively unencumbered by existing scholarship in the hope of drawing out the very idea of what Wittgenstein was doing in his philosophy. The collection of essays on Wittgenstein includes a study of Wittgenstein on meaning, understanding, and community (essay 6), which partly overlaps with an essay on translation that additionally revisits the problem of regress and its implications for semantic competence (essay 8). It is argued that the indeterminacy of meaning with respect to a certain class of facts has the consequence that meaning is indeterminate tout court only if those facts are the only available facts; but a ‘community practice’ view of meaning has no such consequence. A fuller treatment of some of these topics is given in ‘Mind, Meaning and Practice’ (essay 11), which examines the idea of meaning as use, and ostensive teaching in relation to Wittgenstein's discussion of meaning and distorted conception of the mental.
The essays on Quine (essay 7 and 10) consider the doctrine of physicalism and the question of conceptual schemes respectively. Searle's theory of intentionality (‘background’) supposes that there are attitudes that are mental, though pre‐intentional and non‐representational; considerations are brought against Searle in essay 9. The work on Davidson provides the renewed occasion for attacking the idea that linguistic competence or understanding is a matter of applying general rules or conventions to particular utterances (essay 12). A central theme of this book—the threat of regress and the pressure it exerts on semantic theory—is brought out with reference to the theory of understanding, which locates linguistic competence in the application of general knowledge to particular utterances. It is argued that such theories invariably fall foul of regress. A profitable semantic theory should combine the insight that explaining understanding and meaning is aptly fulfilled by invoking speakers’ abilities and knowledge, yet without positing additional mental entities, with a recognition that the abilities and knowledge in question go beyond mere relations between expressions.
John Heil
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199259748
- eISBN:
- 9780191597657
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199259747.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Chapter 2 Levels of RealityMany philosophers, especially self‐described ‘non‐reductive materialists’, embrace the idea that reality is hierarchical: the world comprises levels of being. Examples of ...
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Chapter 2 Levels of RealityMany philosophers, especially self‐described ‘non‐reductive materialists’, embrace the idea that reality is hierarchical: the world comprises levels of being. Examples of such philosophers are given, details of the conception made explicit, and difficulties mentioned.Less
Chapter 2 Levels of RealityMany philosophers, especially self‐described ‘non‐reductive materialists’, embrace the idea that reality is hierarchical: the world comprises levels of being. Examples of such philosophers are given, details of the conception made explicit, and difficulties mentioned.
Robert J. Fogelin
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199739998
- eISBN:
- 9780199895045
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199739998.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Figuratively Speaking (1986) examines figures of speech that concern meaning—irony, hyperbole, understatement, similes, metaphors, and others—to show how they work and to explain their ...
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Figuratively Speaking (1986) examines figures of speech that concern meaning—irony, hyperbole, understatement, similes, metaphors, and others—to show how they work and to explain their attraction. Building on the ideas of Paul Grice and Amos Tversky, this work shows how figurative language derives its power from its insistence that the reader participate in the text, looking beyond the literal meaning of the figurative language to the meanings that are implied. With examples ranging from Shakespeare, John Donne, and Jane Austen to e.e. cummings, Bessie Smith, and Monty Python, this work shows that the intellectual and aesthetic force of figurative language is not derived from inherent magical power, but instead from the opportunity it provides for unlimited elaboration in the hands of those gifted in its use. A distinctive feature of this work is that it presents a modern restatement of the view, first put forward by Aristotle, that metaphors are to be treated as elliptical similes. In a generalized form, this restatement of the Aristotelian view treats both metaphors and similes (and a number of other tropes) as figurative comparisons. The book then offers a detailed defense of this “comparativist” view of metaphors in response to the almost universal rejection of it by eminent philosophers. This new edition has extended the notion of figurative comparisons to cover synecdoche. It also ventures into new territory by considering two genres, fables and satires.Less
Figuratively Speaking (1986) examines figures of speech that concern meaning—irony, hyperbole, understatement, similes, metaphors, and others—to show how they work and to explain their attraction. Building on the ideas of Paul Grice and Amos Tversky, this work shows how figurative language derives its power from its insistence that the reader participate in the text, looking beyond the literal meaning of the figurative language to the meanings that are implied. With examples ranging from Shakespeare, John Donne, and Jane Austen to e.e. cummings, Bessie Smith, and Monty Python, this work shows that the intellectual and aesthetic force of figurative language is not derived from inherent magical power, but instead from the opportunity it provides for unlimited elaboration in the hands of those gifted in its use. A distinctive feature of this work is that it presents a modern restatement of the view, first put forward by Aristotle, that metaphors are to be treated as elliptical similes. In a generalized form, this restatement of the Aristotelian view treats both metaphors and similes (and a number of other tropes) as figurative comparisons. The book then offers a detailed defense of this “comparativist” view of metaphors in response to the almost universal rejection of it by eminent philosophers. This new edition has extended the notion of figurative comparisons to cover synecdoche. It also ventures into new territory by considering two genres, fables and satires.
Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199231195
- eISBN:
- 9780191710810
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199231195.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter begins with a discussion of the two most serious versions of the Use Theory, namely Saka's and Recanati's Use Theories respectively. It then covers the history of Use Theories and the ...
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This chapter begins with a discussion of the two most serious versions of the Use Theory, namely Saka's and Recanati's Use Theories respectively. It then covers the history of Use Theories and the evaluation of Use Theories. It argues that the practice of quotation incorporates a wide array of exceedingly confusing and complex data. It is doubtful that any theory will be able to account for all of this in anything remotely like an elegant and simple manner.Less
This chapter begins with a discussion of the two most serious versions of the Use Theory, namely Saka's and Recanati's Use Theories respectively. It then covers the history of Use Theories and the evaluation of Use Theories. It argues that the practice of quotation incorporates a wide array of exceedingly confusing and complex data. It is doubtful that any theory will be able to account for all of this in anything remotely like an elegant and simple manner.
Mark D. White
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195376685
- eISBN:
- 9780199776306
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195376685.003.0013
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
Economists, psychologists, and philosophers have written extensively on the causes of procrastination. While their work helps us understand why people procrastinate, it does not explain how they can ...
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Economists, psychologists, and philosophers have written extensively on the causes of procrastination. While their work helps us understand why people procrastinate, it does not explain how they can resist the urge to procrastinate. This chapter argues that this is a result of a refusal to acknowledge a faculty of choice, or a will, separate from preferences or desires, which can overwhelm their pull. Based on the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant, as well as contemporary work in volitionism, this chapter applies to procrastination a Kantian-economic model of decision making that emphasizes strength of character and willpower, which can serve as alternatives to the coping strategies offered elsewhere in the literature.Less
Economists, psychologists, and philosophers have written extensively on the causes of procrastination. While their work helps us understand why people procrastinate, it does not explain how they can resist the urge to procrastinate. This chapter argues that this is a result of a refusal to acknowledge a faculty of choice, or a will, separate from preferences or desires, which can overwhelm their pull. Based on the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant, as well as contemporary work in volitionism, this chapter applies to procrastination a Kantian-economic model of decision making that emphasizes strength of character and willpower, which can serve as alternatives to the coping strategies offered elsewhere in the literature.
Mark Johnston
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199289769
- eISBN:
- 9780191711046
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199289769.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter discusses the function of sensory awareness for perception in two ways. First, it addresses how sensory awareness functions so as to make available external items as objects of immediate ...
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This chapter discusses the function of sensory awareness for perception in two ways. First, it addresses how sensory awareness functions so as to make available external items as objects of immediate demonstration. Second, it addresses how sensory awareness serves as grounding for that which is judged and predicated of the external items. These issues are taken up with the aid of an analogy between perception and digestion. In particular, it is argued that the function of sensory experience is to directly present truthmakers which guarantee the truth of the immediate judgments made about the sensed scenarios. Sensory experience provides us with direct awareness of environmental particulars, and immediate perceptual judgments of some feature of an environmental particular are then grounded in that direct sensory awareness. In this way, what is sensed can make true what is immediately judged on the basis of sensing.Less
This chapter discusses the function of sensory awareness for perception in two ways. First, it addresses how sensory awareness functions so as to make available external items as objects of immediate demonstration. Second, it addresses how sensory awareness serves as grounding for that which is judged and predicated of the external items. These issues are taken up with the aid of an analogy between perception and digestion. In particular, it is argued that the function of sensory experience is to directly present truthmakers which guarantee the truth of the immediate judgments made about the sensed scenarios. Sensory experience provides us with direct awareness of environmental particulars, and immediate perceptual judgments of some feature of an environmental particular are then grounded in that direct sensory awareness. In this way, what is sensed can make true what is immediately judged on the basis of sensing.
Anthony Brueckner
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199585861
- eISBN:
- 9780191595332
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199585861.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter examines the viability of using Tyler Burge's anti-individualism as the basis for an anti-sceptical strategy. Anti-individualism seems to hold that if an intentional mental state has a ...
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This chapter examines the viability of using Tyler Burge's anti-individualism as the basis for an anti-sceptical strategy. Anti-individualism seems to hold that if an intentional mental state has a specific determinate content, then this requires that certain physical conditions in one's environment obtain. Which? That is a question that is difficult to explore. Various answers are discussed and rejected. For example, the anti-individualist isn't committed to holding that in order for one to think that water is dripping, water must exist at some time in one's causal environment. But could the anti-individualist argue that in order to think that thought, there must at least be a physical world, to ‘nail down’ its determinate content? A ‘No’ answer is argued in this chapter.Less
This chapter examines the viability of using Tyler Burge's anti-individualism as the basis for an anti-sceptical strategy. Anti-individualism seems to hold that if an intentional mental state has a specific determinate content, then this requires that certain physical conditions in one's environment obtain. Which? That is a question that is difficult to explore. Various answers are discussed and rejected. For example, the anti-individualist isn't committed to holding that in order for one to think that water is dripping, water must exist at some time in one's causal environment. But could the anti-individualist argue that in order to think that thought, there must at least be a physical world, to ‘nail down’ its determinate content? A ‘No’ answer is argued in this chapter.
Robert D. Rupert
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195379457
- eISBN:
- 9780199869114
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195379457.003.0011
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
The chapter argues that, contrary to the claims of the proponents of the embodied approach, embodied cognitive modeling does not underwrite a new view of the fundamental relation between mind and ...
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The chapter argues that, contrary to the claims of the proponents of the embodied approach, embodied cognitive modeling does not underwrite a new view of the fundamental relation between mind and body. The standard complaints lodged against computationalism are shown to follow largely from mistaken interpretations of functionalism, computationalism, and the associated accounts of realization. It is argued that although the embodied approach may rightly place special emphasis on imagistic representation, the empirical work on embodiment does not support very strongly a distinctively imagistic account of cognitive processing. The lessons of the chapter are briefly applied to Searle's Chinese Room argument and Harnad's concern about symbol grounding.Less
The chapter argues that, contrary to the claims of the proponents of the embodied approach, embodied cognitive modeling does not underwrite a new view of the fundamental relation between mind and body. The standard complaints lodged against computationalism are shown to follow largely from mistaken interpretations of functionalism, computationalism, and the associated accounts of realization. It is argued that although the embodied approach may rightly place special emphasis on imagistic representation, the empirical work on embodiment does not support very strongly a distinctively imagistic account of cognitive processing. The lessons of the chapter are briefly applied to Searle's Chinese Room argument and Harnad's concern about symbol grounding.
Samuel Guttenplan
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- July 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780199280896
- eISBN:
- 9780191602627
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199280894.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter has three aims: (i) to offer a comprehensive and transparent tripartite classification of philosophical accounts of metaphor; (ii) to consider three truths about metaphor which cannot be ...
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This chapter has three aims: (i) to offer a comprehensive and transparent tripartite classification of philosophical accounts of metaphor; (ii) to consider three truths about metaphor which cannot be jointly accommodated by familiar accounts in this classification, for example, those of Black, Searle and Davidson; (iii) to carve out a space for a further account which fits the classificatory scheme but which does accommodate these features of metaphor. The truths concern: the aptness of metaphor for assertion and truth, the inappropriateness of paraphrase of metaphor, and what is called the transparency of the understanding of metaphor. There is a brief description of the view offered in subsequent chapters, suggesting that it fills a void left by other accounts.Less
This chapter has three aims: (i) to offer a comprehensive and transparent tripartite classification of philosophical accounts of metaphor; (ii) to consider three truths about metaphor which cannot be jointly accommodated by familiar accounts in this classification, for example, those of Black, Searle and Davidson; (iii) to carve out a space for a further account which fits the classificatory scheme but which does accommodate these features of metaphor. The truths concern: the aptness of metaphor for assertion and truth, the inappropriateness of paraphrase of metaphor, and what is called the transparency of the understanding of metaphor. There is a brief description of the view offered in subsequent chapters, suggesting that it fills a void left by other accounts.
Ariel Glucklich
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195108798
- eISBN:
- 9780199853434
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195108798.003.0011
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Phenomenology and system theory are the foundations of the “magical experience.” They offer a way out of the body/mind impasse. Magic, taken as an experience rather than as a doctrine, is the very ...
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Phenomenology and system theory are the foundations of the “magical experience.” They offer a way out of the body/mind impasse. Magic, taken as an experience rather than as a doctrine, is the very consciousness of an overall interactional system that defies the logic of composite parts. The philosophical and anthropological underpinnings of this claim can be found in part in the systemic thinking of John Searle in philosophy, Gerald Edelman in neurology, and Roy Rappaport in anthropology. The concept of emergent property explains the products of systems in terms of internal causal interaction. Mind, according to Searle, is such an “emergent property” of the system of neurons in the brain. The “objectivist fallacy” is responsible for our mistaken view that the body is objective while the mind is subjective and that on account of this fact the two must be distinct and separate. Gerald Edelman, a Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist, has followed Searle's philosophical guidelines in trying to explain how a mind emerges from the brain by proposing a theory called “neuro-Darwinism.”.Less
Phenomenology and system theory are the foundations of the “magical experience.” They offer a way out of the body/mind impasse. Magic, taken as an experience rather than as a doctrine, is the very consciousness of an overall interactional system that defies the logic of composite parts. The philosophical and anthropological underpinnings of this claim can be found in part in the systemic thinking of John Searle in philosophy, Gerald Edelman in neurology, and Roy Rappaport in anthropology. The concept of emergent property explains the products of systems in terms of internal causal interaction. Mind, according to Searle, is such an “emergent property” of the system of neurons in the brain. The “objectivist fallacy” is responsible for our mistaken view that the body is objective while the mind is subjective and that on account of this fact the two must be distinct and separate. Gerald Edelman, a Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist, has followed Searle's philosophical guidelines in trying to explain how a mind emerges from the brain by proposing a theory called “neuro-Darwinism.”.
Richard Swinburne
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198236986
- eISBN:
- 9780191598593
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198236980.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Thoughts are understood as passive conscious events consisting in entertaining propositions. They may be accompanied by sensory images of written or spoken sentences; but such sentences never contain ...
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Thoughts are understood as passive conscious events consisting in entertaining propositions. They may be accompanied by sensory images of written or spoken sentences; but such sentences never contain the whole content of the thought. New Appendix B discusses Fodor's ‘language of thought’ hypothesis.Less
Thoughts are understood as passive conscious events consisting in entertaining propositions. They may be accompanied by sensory images of written or spoken sentences; but such sentences never contain the whole content of the thought. New Appendix B discusses Fodor's ‘language of thought’ hypothesis.
Richard Swinburne
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198236986
- eISBN:
- 9780191598593
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198236980.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Intentional actions consist in agents purposing, that is ‘trying’, to bring about effects (where ‘trying’ carries no implication of difficulty or failure) or allowing some effect to occur. Purposing ...
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Intentional actions consist in agents purposing, that is ‘trying’, to bring about effects (where ‘trying’ carries no implication of difficulty or failure) or allowing some effect to occur. Purposing is an active state of exerting causal influence, and cannot be analysed in terms of passive states such as desires. We have infallible beliefs about our own purposes, but only fallible beliefs about the purposes of others. Purposes have effects, and so epiphenomenalism is false.Less
Intentional actions consist in agents purposing, that is ‘trying’, to bring about effects (where ‘trying’ carries no implication of difficulty or failure) or allowing some effect to occur. Purposing is an active state of exerting causal influence, and cannot be analysed in terms of passive states such as desires. We have infallible beliefs about our own purposes, but only fallible beliefs about the purposes of others. Purposes have effects, and so epiphenomenalism is false.
Richard Swinburne
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198236986
- eISBN:
- 9780191598593
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198236980.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Beliefs are people's maps of the world. They are passive and involuntary; agents have infallible beliefs about their own beliefs, but only fallible beliefs about the beliefs of others. All other ...
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Beliefs are people's maps of the world. They are passive and involuntary; agents have infallible beliefs about their own beliefs, but only fallible beliefs about the beliefs of others. All other mental events, such as memories and emotions, can be analysed in terms of the five components of the mental life – sensations, thoughts, and purposes (which are all conscious events in that we are aware of them while we have them) and beliefs and desires (which are both mental states that continue and we are unaware of them).Less
Beliefs are people's maps of the world. They are passive and involuntary; agents have infallible beliefs about their own beliefs, but only fallible beliefs about the beliefs of others. All other mental events, such as memories and emotions, can be analysed in terms of the five components of the mental life – sensations, thoughts, and purposes (which are all conscious events in that we are aware of them while we have them) and beliefs and desires (which are both mental states that continue and we are unaware of them).
Barry Stroud
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199252145
- eISBN:
- 9780191598487
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199252149.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Examines Searle's theory of intentionality. The author argues that the three reasons given by Searle in support of his hypothesis of a background, which underlies our intentional states, are ...
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Examines Searle's theory of intentionality. The author argues that the three reasons given by Searle in support of his hypothesis of a background, which underlies our intentional states, are inconclusive at best.Less
Examines Searle's theory of intentionality. The author argues that the three reasons given by Searle in support of his hypothesis of a background, which underlies our intentional states, are inconclusive at best.
Rohit Parikh
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195139167
- eISBN:
- 9780199833214
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019513916X.003.0016
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Parikh discusses recent developments in computer science, especially in the areas of program correctness, dynamic logic, and temporal logic. He then develops a meaning theory for a natural language ...
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Parikh discusses recent developments in computer science, especially in the areas of program correctness, dynamic logic, and temporal logic. He then develops a meaning theory for a natural language versus the actual linguistic and nonlinguistic behavior of the members of a speech community, exploring three arguments concerned with the social character of language: Quine’s thesis of the indeterminacy of translation, Kripke’s skeptical paradox (derived from Wittgenstein) concerning the notion of following a rule, and John Searle’s Chinese room puzzle. Parikh argues that each of these apparently skeptical arguments is concretely realized in the programmer’s efforts to devise and apply a programming language. In thinking through the relation between high-level programming languages and the machine languages into which they must be translated in order to be implemented, computer scientists can offer significant insights into philosophical issues. A pragmatic approach to meaning theory in which uniformity in individual speakers’ usage of a communal language is not assumed, and in which there is no common underlying notion of truth—in which, ultimately, large portions of language are admitted which are not informational at all—is defended, with suggestions of applications to problems of vagueness.Less
Parikh discusses recent developments in computer science, especially in the areas of program correctness, dynamic logic, and temporal logic. He then develops a meaning theory for a natural language versus the actual linguistic and nonlinguistic behavior of the members of a speech community, exploring three arguments concerned with the social character of language: Quine’s thesis of the indeterminacy of translation, Kripke’s skeptical paradox (derived from Wittgenstein) concerning the notion of following a rule, and John Searle’s Chinese room puzzle. Parikh argues that each of these apparently skeptical arguments is concretely realized in the programmer’s efforts to devise and apply a programming language. In thinking through the relation between high-level programming languages and the machine languages into which they must be translated in order to be implemented, computer scientists can offer significant insights into philosophical issues. A pragmatic approach to meaning theory in which uniformity in individual speakers’ usage of a communal language is not assumed, and in which there is no common underlying notion of truth—in which, ultimately, large portions of language are admitted which are not informational at all—is defended, with suggestions of applications to problems of vagueness.
Herman Philipse
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199697533
- eISBN:
- 9780191738470
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199697533.003.0014
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Six C-inductive arguments for and against the existence of God are critically discussed in this chapter: the Argument from Consciousness, the Argument from Moral Truth, the Argument from Moral ...
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Six C-inductive arguments for and against the existence of God are critically discussed in this chapter: the Argument from Consciousness, the Argument from Moral Truth, the Argument from Moral Awareness, the Argument from Providence, the Argument from Evil, and the Argument from Hiddenness. The first four are either not correct C-inductive arguments for the existence of God because the relevance condition is not satisfied, or not good C-inductive arguments for the existence of God because the evidence has not been established. However, both the many prima facie pointless evils in the world, and the fact of God’s hiddenness, provide strong C-inductive arguments against God’s existence, in spite of the various defences put forward by Richard Swinburne.Less
Six C-inductive arguments for and against the existence of God are critically discussed in this chapter: the Argument from Consciousness, the Argument from Moral Truth, the Argument from Moral Awareness, the Argument from Providence, the Argument from Evil, and the Argument from Hiddenness. The first four are either not correct C-inductive arguments for the existence of God because the relevance condition is not satisfied, or not good C-inductive arguments for the existence of God because the evidence has not been established. However, both the many prima facie pointless evils in the world, and the fact of God’s hiddenness, provide strong C-inductive arguments against God’s existence, in spite of the various defences put forward by Richard Swinburne.
John R Taylor
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199290802
- eISBN:
- 9780191741388
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199290802.003.0010
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
Critically examines the standard definition of polysemy as the association of two or more related meanings with a single linguistic form. Each of the terms of definition turns out to be problematic. ...
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Critically examines the standard definition of polysemy as the association of two or more related meanings with a single linguistic form. Each of the terms of definition turns out to be problematic. Instead, it is argued that words have uses, and polysemy is a matter of a word's contextual profile(s), learned through exposure to usage events.Less
Critically examines the standard definition of polysemy as the association of two or more related meanings with a single linguistic form. Each of the terms of definition turns out to be problematic. Instead, it is argued that words have uses, and polysemy is a matter of a word's contextual profile(s), learned through exposure to usage events.
John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780195075106
- eISBN:
- 9780197560303
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780195075106.003.0010
- Subject:
- Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction
Innovative design for the workplace runs up against inadequate understanding of both work and design practices. Ideas about work practices comprise an odd mixture of ...
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Innovative design for the workplace runs up against inadequate understanding of both work and design practices. Ideas about work practices comprise an odd mixture of folklore and explicit, programmatic descriptions. Thus, paradoxically, a call for union members to “work to rule” can bring a workplace to a complete hall: no set of rules can describe or define what work really is. Conventional ideas about design practices are similarly limited. Indeed, Thackera (1988b) suggests that the whole concept of design is expanding so rapidly that an entirely new term is needed to encompass the range of issues designers now confront. Our purpose in this chapter is to bring some of the implicit character of work and design into the daylight, as a first step towards making design for the workplace more valid. We explore thirteen topics that we believe are central to understanding design for the workplace. We suggest that conventional design approaches often mask powerful but unnoticed resources that, if tapped, can contribute significantly to successful design. For example, a focus on explicit instruction obscures many other ways in which designs actually rely on valuable implicit understanding. Similarly, a focus on individual users conceals the community of users that develops around successful work systems or processes and is crucial to their successful use. To examine the important collateral resources that conventional design overlooks, we pair such concepts as individual-social, narrow-broad, centerperiphery. This is not to establish rigid dichotomies and thus threaten to shift existing imbalances from one inadequate extreme to another, but to expand the region of the “thinkable” in relation to work and design practices. In an insightful discussion of the way such dichotomies may tighten a noose rather than release it, Bourdieu (1989) describes “paired oppositions” as little more than “colluding adversaries” that “tend to delimit the space of the thinkable by excluding the very intention to think beyond the divisions they institute”. But the elements of most of our pairs (though not all, for a few remained stubborn) are presented here as mutually constitutive components of good design.
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Innovative design for the workplace runs up against inadequate understanding of both work and design practices. Ideas about work practices comprise an odd mixture of folklore and explicit, programmatic descriptions. Thus, paradoxically, a call for union members to “work to rule” can bring a workplace to a complete hall: no set of rules can describe or define what work really is. Conventional ideas about design practices are similarly limited. Indeed, Thackera (1988b) suggests that the whole concept of design is expanding so rapidly that an entirely new term is needed to encompass the range of issues designers now confront. Our purpose in this chapter is to bring some of the implicit character of work and design into the daylight, as a first step towards making design for the workplace more valid. We explore thirteen topics that we believe are central to understanding design for the workplace. We suggest that conventional design approaches often mask powerful but unnoticed resources that, if tapped, can contribute significantly to successful design. For example, a focus on explicit instruction obscures many other ways in which designs actually rely on valuable implicit understanding. Similarly, a focus on individual users conceals the community of users that develops around successful work systems or processes and is crucial to their successful use. To examine the important collateral resources that conventional design overlooks, we pair such concepts as individual-social, narrow-broad, centerperiphery. This is not to establish rigid dichotomies and thus threaten to shift existing imbalances from one inadequate extreme to another, but to expand the region of the “thinkable” in relation to work and design practices. In an insightful discussion of the way such dichotomies may tighten a noose rather than release it, Bourdieu (1989) describes “paired oppositions” as little more than “colluding adversaries” that “tend to delimit the space of the thinkable by excluding the very intention to think beyond the divisions they institute”. But the elements of most of our pairs (though not all, for a few remained stubborn) are presented here as mutually constitutive components of good design.
John G. Gunnell
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226661278
- eISBN:
- 9780226661308
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226661308.003.0008
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter is devoted to a fuller account of conventional realism and of what Wittgenstein said about conventions. It begins with a detailed analysis of how the philosophers and social theorists ...
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This chapter is devoted to a fuller account of conventional realism and of what Wittgenstein said about conventions. It begins with a detailed analysis of how the philosophers and social theorists John Searle and Charles Taylor, who had been deeply involved in the defense of mentalism and realism, have recently acknowledged some of the problems with these positions and embraced some of the criticisms. They have, however, proceeded by trying to solve the problems attributed to mentalism and realism rather than rejecting the framework in which the problems have arisen.Less
This chapter is devoted to a fuller account of conventional realism and of what Wittgenstein said about conventions. It begins with a detailed analysis of how the philosophers and social theorists John Searle and Charles Taylor, who had been deeply involved in the defense of mentalism and realism, have recently acknowledged some of the problems with these positions and embraced some of the criticisms. They have, however, proceeded by trying to solve the problems attributed to mentalism and realism rather than rejecting the framework in which the problems have arisen.
Robert J. Fogelin
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199739998
- eISBN:
- 9780199895045
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199739998.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
There has been almost universal agreement that Aristotle's so-called reduction of metaphors to similes is hopelessly inadequate. The philosophers who have lined up against Aristotle are an impressive ...
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There has been almost universal agreement that Aristotle's so-called reduction of metaphors to similes is hopelessly inadequate. The philosophers who have lined up against Aristotle are an impressive group of leading philosophers, including Max Black, John Searle, Nelson Goodman, and Donald Davidson. Their criticisms are examined in close detail and rejected. At bottom, they all seem to turn on the same mistake, namely, that Aristotle's treatment of metaphors as elliptical similes amounts to reducing metaphors to literal comparisons when, in fact, Aristotle holds that similes are themselves figurative. The chapter takes over Tversky's account of the relationship between literal and figurative comparisons, taking the notion of salience as central.Less
There has been almost universal agreement that Aristotle's so-called reduction of metaphors to similes is hopelessly inadequate. The philosophers who have lined up against Aristotle are an impressive group of leading philosophers, including Max Black, John Searle, Nelson Goodman, and Donald Davidson. Their criticisms are examined in close detail and rejected. At bottom, they all seem to turn on the same mistake, namely, that Aristotle's treatment of metaphors as elliptical similes amounts to reducing metaphors to literal comparisons when, in fact, Aristotle holds that similes are themselves figurative. The chapter takes over Tversky's account of the relationship between literal and figurative comparisons, taking the notion of salience as central.
