Thomas Sattig
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199279524
- eISBN:
- 9780191604041
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199279527.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
An account of temporal supervenience requires an account of temporal predication: a semantic account of the language in which facts about ordinary time are stated. For the detenser, the problem of ...
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An account of temporal supervenience requires an account of temporal predication: a semantic account of the language in which facts about ordinary time are stated. For the detenser, the problem of temporal predication is essentially the task of giving an account of the semantic function of the modifier ‘at t’ in ‘a is F at t’. In the project of explaining temporal supervenience, an account of temporal predication functions as an analysis of ordinary temporal facts, which is required to build an explanatory bridge from these temporal facts to their spatiotemporal supervenience base. This chapter discusses various accounts of temporal predication that share the common feature that temporal supervenience cannot be explained on the basis of them, because these accounts allow no plausible explanatory link between the facts of persistence and change and any facts about spacetime.Less
An account of temporal supervenience requires an account of temporal predication: a semantic account of the language in which facts about ordinary time are stated. For the detenser, the problem of temporal predication is essentially the task of giving an account of the semantic function of the modifier ‘at t’ in ‘a is F at t’. In the project of explaining temporal supervenience, an account of temporal predication functions as an analysis of ordinary temporal facts, which is required to build an explanatory bridge from these temporal facts to their spatiotemporal supervenience base. This chapter discusses various accounts of temporal predication that share the common feature that temporal supervenience cannot be explained on the basis of them, because these accounts allow no plausible explanatory link between the facts of persistence and change and any facts about spacetime.
Mark Wilson
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199269259
- eISBN:
- 9780191710155
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199269259.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
Many ‘pre-pragmatist’ opponents of the classical picture begin with a suspicion that such doctrines place unrealistic demands upon human capacity: that when we grasp a collection of vocabulary, its ...
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Many ‘pre-pragmatist’ opponents of the classical picture begin with a suspicion that such doctrines place unrealistic demands upon human capacity: that when we grasp a collection of vocabulary, its syntax rarely becomes as firmly attached to the world as the classical story promises. In overreaction, thinkers such as W. V. Quine frequently become sceptical that the world independently possesses attributes to which language might potentially attach at all. Such doubts are impossibly radical, but a pre-pragmatist can plausibly argue on engineering grounds that it is not easy to set classical-style semantic attachments in place. Confronted with these practical impediments, over time language often develops into more complicated forms of semantic arrangement than classical thinking anticipates.Less
Many ‘pre-pragmatist’ opponents of the classical picture begin with a suspicion that such doctrines place unrealistic demands upon human capacity: that when we grasp a collection of vocabulary, its syntax rarely becomes as firmly attached to the world as the classical story promises. In overreaction, thinkers such as W. V. Quine frequently become sceptical that the world independently possesses attributes to which language might potentially attach at all. Such doubts are impossibly radical, but a pre-pragmatist can plausibly argue on engineering grounds that it is not easy to set classical-style semantic attachments in place. Confronted with these practical impediments, over time language often develops into more complicated forms of semantic arrangement than classical thinking anticipates.
Pieter A. M. Seuren
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199559473
- eISBN:
- 9780191721137
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199559473.003.0006
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
The Fregean and the modern schemata for extensions and intensions of terms, predicates, and propositions are subjected to a new critique and are revised accordingly, whereby an intensional ontology ...
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The Fregean and the modern schemata for extensions and intensions of terms, predicates, and propositions are subjected to a new critique and are revised accordingly, whereby an intensional ontology of virtual objects and facts is developed, in the light of the original Fregean problem of substitution salva veritate. Categories of reference values are defined for terms and for propositional structures.Less
The Fregean and the modern schemata for extensions and intensions of terms, predicates, and propositions are subjected to a new critique and are revised accordingly, whereby an intensional ontology of virtual objects and facts is developed, in the light of the original Fregean problem of substitution salva veritate. Categories of reference values are defined for terms and for propositional structures.
Wayne A. Davis
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199261659
- eISBN:
- 9780191603099
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199261652.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter focuses on word reference, and shows that the meaning of an expression cannot be identified with its reference to things in the world, rather than its expression of ideas in the mind. It ...
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This chapter focuses on word reference, and shows that the meaning of an expression cannot be identified with its reference to things in the world, rather than its expression of ideas in the mind. It looks at extensionalist versions of the referential theory that focus on objects in the actual world and sets thereof, as well as intensionalist versions that consider other possible worlds and/or properties and relations. It examines the Davidsonian theory, which used a Tarski-style axiomatization for languages to describe the compositionality of language. Truth-theoretic properties can be systematized in an ideational theory using a generative theory of thought, with phrase structure rules and Tarskian reference rules.Less
This chapter focuses on word reference, and shows that the meaning of an expression cannot be identified with its reference to things in the world, rather than its expression of ideas in the mind. It looks at extensionalist versions of the referential theory that focus on objects in the actual world and sets thereof, as well as intensionalist versions that consider other possible worlds and/or properties and relations. It examines the Davidsonian theory, which used a Tarski-style axiomatization for languages to describe the compositionality of language. Truth-theoretic properties can be systematized in an ideational theory using a generative theory of thought, with phrase structure rules and Tarskian reference rules.
Wayne A. Davis
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199261659
- eISBN:
- 9780191603099
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199261652.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter begins an argument against the ‘Frege-Mill dichotomy’, the assumption that names have either a descriptive sense or no sense at all. Millian theories denying that names have a sense are ...
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This chapter begins an argument against the ‘Frege-Mill dichotomy’, the assumption that names have either a descriptive sense or no sense at all. Millian theories denying that names have a sense are considered, as well as Millian theories identifying sense with reference. Russell’s and Frege’s problems are the principal objections. Modal version of Millianism that identifies the meaning of a name with an intension or character function cannot avoid these problems without unrealistic existence and identity assumptions.Less
This chapter begins an argument against the ‘Frege-Mill dichotomy’, the assumption that names have either a descriptive sense or no sense at all. Millian theories denying that names have a sense are considered, as well as Millian theories identifying sense with reference. Russell’s and Frege’s problems are the principal objections. Modal version of Millianism that identifies the meaning of a name with an intension or character function cannot avoid these problems without unrealistic existence and identity assumptions.
Wayne A. Davis
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199261659
- eISBN:
- 9780191603099
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199261652.003.0014
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter shows that the treatment of names as having nondescriptive, indefinable senses does not preclude a powerful formal semantics; that the referential properties of names can be treated ...
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This chapter shows that the treatment of names as having nondescriptive, indefinable senses does not preclude a powerful formal semantics; that the referential properties of names can be treated formally without identifying the meaning of a name with its reference; and that names can be handled within an ideational semantics, or by situation and possible worlds semantics. The key to avoiding both Russell’s and Frege’s problems is to drop the assumption that the elements of the ordered n-tuples representing situations, or the values of intension functions representing meanings, are the referents of the terms whose meanings are being represented, and to rely on the formal character of formal semantics.Less
This chapter shows that the treatment of names as having nondescriptive, indefinable senses does not preclude a powerful formal semantics; that the referential properties of names can be treated formally without identifying the meaning of a name with its reference; and that names can be handled within an ideational semantics, or by situation and possible worlds semantics. The key to avoiding both Russell’s and Frege’s problems is to drop the assumption that the elements of the ordered n-tuples representing situations, or the values of intension functions representing meanings, are the referents of the terms whose meanings are being represented, and to rely on the formal character of formal semantics.
Donald Davidson
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199246298
- eISBN:
- 9780191715181
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199246297.003.0014
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
In this essay, Davidson sets out to demonstrate that successful communication or mutual interpretability indicates the presence of a shared, and largely true, view of the world. Beliefs must be ...
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In this essay, Davidson sets out to demonstrate that successful communication or mutual interpretability indicates the presence of a shared, and largely true, view of the world. Beliefs must be shared for the attribution of error or disagreement can only occur against a widely shared background: error and disagreement can only be local and never massive or total (Essay 13). Truth is no longer relative to conceptual schemes but only to languages that can be shown to be largely correct about the world. Consequently, by studying one's language one can derive ontological conclusions: a truth theory (such as that developed in Essay 2) will reveal the overall ontology required by a particular language, and while quotations and intensions can be dispensed with as distinct entities (on a proper analysis of them, given in Essays 1, 6, and 7), an ontology of events cannot, provided the language contains causal statements (Essays 6 and 8 of Essays on Actions and Events). By eliminating the concepts of satisfaction and denotation from our truth theories (cf Essay 15), Davidson can eliminate their concomitant ontology (cf Essay 3) as well as avoid extending the ideology of the interpreter's language too much beyond that of the language to be interpreted (Essay 4).Less
In this essay, Davidson sets out to demonstrate that successful communication or mutual interpretability indicates the presence of a shared, and largely true, view of the world. Beliefs must be shared for the attribution of error or disagreement can only occur against a widely shared background: error and disagreement can only be local and never massive or total (Essay 13). Truth is no longer relative to conceptual schemes but only to languages that can be shown to be largely correct about the world. Consequently, by studying one's language one can derive ontological conclusions: a truth theory (such as that developed in Essay 2) will reveal the overall ontology required by a particular language, and while quotations and intensions can be dispensed with as distinct entities (on a proper analysis of them, given in Essays 1, 6, and 7), an ontology of events cannot, provided the language contains causal statements (Essays 6 and 8 of Essays on Actions and Events). By eliminating the concepts of satisfaction and denotation from our truth theories (cf Essay 15), Davidson can eliminate their concomitant ontology (cf Essay 3) as well as avoid extending the ideology of the interpreter's language too much beyond that of the language to be interpreted (Essay 4).
Frank Jackson
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198250616
- eISBN:
- 9780191597787
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198250614.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Work by Hilary Putnam and Saul Kripke has made us sensitive to the distinction between metaphysical necessity and conceptual necessity, and between being necessary and being a priori. This chapter ...
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Work by Hilary Putnam and Saul Kripke has made us sensitive to the distinction between metaphysical necessity and conceptual necessity, and between being necessary and being a priori. This chapter relates these matters to the discussion of conceptual analysis given in Ch. 2 and uses the apparatus of two‐dimensional modal logic and the associated distinction between A‐intensions and C‐intensions (or primary and secondary intensions, respectively, in David Chalmers’ terms) to argue that physicalism is committed to the thesis that the mental is in principle a priori derivable from the physical.Less
Work by Hilary Putnam and Saul Kripke has made us sensitive to the distinction between metaphysical necessity and conceptual necessity, and between being necessary and being a priori. This chapter relates these matters to the discussion of conceptual analysis given in Ch. 2 and uses the apparatus of two‐dimensional modal logic and the associated distinction between A‐intensions and C‐intensions (or primary and secondary intensions, respectively, in David Chalmers’ terms) to argue that physicalism is committed to the thesis that the mental is in principle a priori derivable from the physical.
Edward Craig
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198238799
- eISBN:
- 9780191597237
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198238797.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Raises two problems for the standard approach to the concept of knowledge, which consists in attempting to provide an analysis in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. First, it is difficult ...
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Raises two problems for the standard approach to the concept of knowledge, which consists in attempting to provide an analysis in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. First, it is difficult to make intuitive ‘extensional’ ascriptions of knowledge mesh with ‘intensional’ intuitions about what makes for knowledge. Second, the approach gives no answer as to why the concept of knowledge enjoys such widespread use and to which needs of human life and thought it answers. The suggested alternative approach is the naturalistic one of practical explication, i.e. to start with a reasoned hypothesis about the answer to this last question by considering the state of nature, and then to ask what conditions would govern the application of such a concept.Less
Raises two problems for the standard approach to the concept of knowledge, which consists in attempting to provide an analysis in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. First, it is difficult to make intuitive ‘extensional’ ascriptions of knowledge mesh with ‘intensional’ intuitions about what makes for knowledge. Second, the approach gives no answer as to why the concept of knowledge enjoys such widespread use and to which needs of human life and thought it answers. The suggested alternative approach is the naturalistic one of practical explication, i.e. to start with a reasoned hypothesis about the answer to this last question by considering the state of nature, and then to ask what conditions would govern the application of such a concept.
W. V. Quine
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195139167
- eISBN:
- 9780199833214
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019513916X.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
In this essay, Quine reflects on his philosophical development, taking a steadfast adherence to extensionalism as a unifying principle of his whole philosophy starting as far back as the 1930s. Quine ...
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In this essay, Quine reflects on his philosophical development, taking a steadfast adherence to extensionalism as a unifying principle of his whole philosophy starting as far back as the 1930s. Quine calls two sentences coextensive if they have the same truth value, two general terms or predicates coextensive if they are true of just the same objects, and two singular terms coextensive if they designate the same object. Extensionalism is the general doctrine that no distinction is clear and philosophical significant if it cannot be captured by differences in extensions. Intensionalism, by contrast, takes distinctions of meaning as irreducible and prior to distinctions of extension. The philosophical origin his extensionalism Quine takes to be his seeing that the intensional ontology of propositional functions not only does no mathematical work in Russell’s and Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica, but, in addition, had no clear criteria of individuation. Quine’s doctoral dissertation was thus concerned with reinterpreting the Principia extensionally. Much of the rest of his career consisted of meeting other philosophically significant challenges to extensionalism. The most important challenges discussed in this essay are the idiom of logical implication, predicates of irreferential singular terms, and propositional attitude ascriptions. The two most important strategies for meeting these challenges are the elimination of singular terms via Russell’s theory of descriptions and semantic ascent.Less
In this essay, Quine reflects on his philosophical development, taking a steadfast adherence to extensionalism as a unifying principle of his whole philosophy starting as far back as the 1930s. Quine calls two sentences coextensive if they have the same truth value, two general terms or predicates coextensive if they are true of just the same objects, and two singular terms coextensive if they designate the same object. Extensionalism is the general doctrine that no distinction is clear and philosophical significant if it cannot be captured by differences in extensions. Intensionalism, by contrast, takes distinctions of meaning as irreducible and prior to distinctions of extension. The philosophical origin his extensionalism Quine takes to be his seeing that the intensional ontology of propositional functions not only does no mathematical work in Russell’s and Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica, but, in addition, had no clear criteria of individuation. Quine’s doctoral dissertation was thus concerned with reinterpreting the Principia extensionally. Much of the rest of his career consisted of meeting other philosophically significant challenges to extensionalism. The most important challenges discussed in this essay are the idiom of logical implication, predicates of irreferential singular terms, and propositional attitude ascriptions. The two most important strategies for meeting these challenges are the elimination of singular terms via Russell’s theory of descriptions and semantic ascent.
Ray L. Hart
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226359625
- eISBN:
- 9780226359762
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226359762.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
The figure of the hermeneutical circle is problematic on the grounds that a circle can only bring one back to where one started, with a slight enhancement of understanding. The hermeneutical spiral, ...
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The figure of the hermeneutical circle is problematic on the grounds that a circle can only bring one back to where one started, with a slight enhancement of understanding. The hermeneutical spiral, by contrast, is a figure that itself embodies hermeneutics as a thinking in which neither of the two terms nor their relation is fixed; rather, the relation is unfinished because the circuiting motion proceeds through differing planes. The inverse relation between intension and extension is what makes the hermeneutical spiral move. God godself in extension is enduringly indeterminate, and any presentation or re-presentation of God in intension, qua sign or trace, is temporally determinate and subject to both the ravages and the increments of time. The mental mood of the person who reflects on God and the human person is a Stimmung, a voicing mood, of relinquishing and releasement, in which one hears the receding sound of the relinquished, the tonality of releasement. One relinquishes the blind dogmatisms of the Abrahamic religions and the vain certitudes of the modern natural sciences. This thought-experiment has sought to interrelate two mood-worlds, that of the modern natural sciences and that of the human religious enchantments, each with its own imaginary.Less
The figure of the hermeneutical circle is problematic on the grounds that a circle can only bring one back to where one started, with a slight enhancement of understanding. The hermeneutical spiral, by contrast, is a figure that itself embodies hermeneutics as a thinking in which neither of the two terms nor their relation is fixed; rather, the relation is unfinished because the circuiting motion proceeds through differing planes. The inverse relation between intension and extension is what makes the hermeneutical spiral move. God godself in extension is enduringly indeterminate, and any presentation or re-presentation of God in intension, qua sign or trace, is temporally determinate and subject to both the ravages and the increments of time. The mental mood of the person who reflects on God and the human person is a Stimmung, a voicing mood, of relinquishing and releasement, in which one hears the receding sound of the relinquished, the tonality of releasement. One relinquishes the blind dogmatisms of the Abrahamic religions and the vain certitudes of the modern natural sciences. This thought-experiment has sought to interrelate two mood-worlds, that of the modern natural sciences and that of the human religious enchantments, each with its own imaginary.
Scott Soames
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199693764
- eISBN:
- 9780191761126
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199693764.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
The chapter argues that traditional theories of structured propositions of Frege and Russell can’t solve the “problem of the unity of the proposition,” which is to explain how they can be intrinsic, ...
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The chapter argues that traditional theories of structured propositions of Frege and Russell can’t solve the “problem of the unity of the proposition,” which is to explain how they can be intrinsic, conceptually primary bearers of truth conditions. It further argues that possible-worlds conceptions of propositions can’t bear their truth conditions intrinsically, that they are too coarse-grained even to model propositions, and that theories of truth at a world implicitly presuppose genuine non-possible worlds propositions in order to provide information about meaning.Less
The chapter argues that traditional theories of structured propositions of Frege and Russell can’t solve the “problem of the unity of the proposition,” which is to explain how they can be intrinsic, conceptually primary bearers of truth conditions. It further argues that possible-worlds conceptions of propositions can’t bear their truth conditions intrinsically, that they are too coarse-grained even to model propositions, and that theories of truth at a world implicitly presuppose genuine non-possible worlds propositions in order to provide information about meaning.
David J. Lobina
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- July 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198785156
- eISBN:
- 9780191827235
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198785156.003.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology
The study of cognitive phenomena is best approached in an orderly manner. It must begin with an analysis of the function in intension at the heart of any cognitive domain (its knowledge base), then ...
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The study of cognitive phenomena is best approached in an orderly manner. It must begin with an analysis of the function in intension at the heart of any cognitive domain (its knowledge base), then proceed to the manner in which such knowledge is put into use in real-time processing, concluding with a domain’s neural underpinnings, its development in ontogeny, etc. Such an approach to the study of cognition involves the adoption of different levels of explanation/description, as prescribed by David Marr and many others, each level requiring its own methodology and supplying its own data to be accounted for. The study of recursion in cognition is badly in need of a systematic and well-ordered approach, and this chapter lays out the blueprint to be followed in the book by focusing on a strict separation between how this notion applies in linguistic knowledge and how it manifests itself in language processing.Less
The study of cognitive phenomena is best approached in an orderly manner. It must begin with an analysis of the function in intension at the heart of any cognitive domain (its knowledge base), then proceed to the manner in which such knowledge is put into use in real-time processing, concluding with a domain’s neural underpinnings, its development in ontogeny, etc. Such an approach to the study of cognition involves the adoption of different levels of explanation/description, as prescribed by David Marr and many others, each level requiring its own methodology and supplying its own data to be accounted for. The study of recursion in cognition is badly in need of a systematic and well-ordered approach, and this chapter lays out the blueprint to be followed in the book by focusing on a strict separation between how this notion applies in linguistic knowledge and how it manifests itself in language processing.
Thomas Ede Zimmermann
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- August 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198739548
- eISBN:
- 9780191864100
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198739548.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Mind
Two distinctive features of Frege’s approach to compositionality are reconstructed in terms of the theory of extension and intension: (i) its bias in favour of extensional operations; and (ii) its ...
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Two distinctive features of Frege’s approach to compositionality are reconstructed in terms of the theory of extension and intension: (i) its bias in favour of extensional operations; and (ii) its resort to indirect senses in the face of iterated opacity. While (i) has been preserved in current formal semantics, it proves to be stronger than a straightforward extensionality requirement in terms of Logical Space, the difference turning on a subtle distinction between extensions at particular points and extensions per se. (ii) has traditionally been dismissed as redundant, and is shown to lead to a mere ‘baroque’ reformulation of ordinary compositionality. Nevertheless, whatever Frege’s motive, the very idea of having opaque denotations keep track of the depth of their embedding gives rise to a fresh view at certain scope paradoxes that had previously been argued to lie outside the reach of a binary distinction between extension and intension.Less
Two distinctive features of Frege’s approach to compositionality are reconstructed in terms of the theory of extension and intension: (i) its bias in favour of extensional operations; and (ii) its resort to indirect senses in the face of iterated opacity. While (i) has been preserved in current formal semantics, it proves to be stronger than a straightforward extensionality requirement in terms of Logical Space, the difference turning on a subtle distinction between extensions at particular points and extensions per se. (ii) has traditionally been dismissed as redundant, and is shown to lead to a mere ‘baroque’ reformulation of ordinary compositionality. Nevertheless, whatever Frege’s motive, the very idea of having opaque denotations keep track of the depth of their embedding gives rise to a fresh view at certain scope paradoxes that had previously been argued to lie outside the reach of a binary distinction between extension and intension.
James A. Hampton
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- October 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198803331
- eISBN:
- 9780191841521
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198803331.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Semantic memory tasks can focus on intensions (features and properties) or extensions (reference and categorization). The two aspects, intension and extension, should in principle be closely related. ...
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Semantic memory tasks can focus on intensions (features and properties) or extensions (reference and categorization). The two aspects, intension and extension, should in principle be closely related. It is in virtue of possessing the intensional properties of a concept that an individual entity will be included in the extension of that concept. For example, any feathered creature that hatches from eggs and has two legs and a beak will be a bird, and any creature lacking any of these features will be something else. There is evidence for stable individual differences in each of these tasks, but these differences do not correspond across tasks. Two further studies show that, under certain conditions, the correspondence can be demonstrated. This chapter discusses reasons for the lack of connection in terms of different systems for conceptual understanding involving similarity versus theory-based conceptualization.Less
Semantic memory tasks can focus on intensions (features and properties) or extensions (reference and categorization). The two aspects, intension and extension, should in principle be closely related. It is in virtue of possessing the intensional properties of a concept that an individual entity will be included in the extension of that concept. For example, any feathered creature that hatches from eggs and has two legs and a beak will be a bird, and any creature lacking any of these features will be something else. There is evidence for stable individual differences in each of these tasks, but these differences do not correspond across tasks. Two further studies show that, under certain conditions, the correspondence can be demonstrated. This chapter discusses reasons for the lack of connection in terms of different systems for conceptual understanding involving similarity versus theory-based conceptualization.
Øystein Linnebo
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- June 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780199641314
- eISBN:
- 9780191863806
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199641314.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics
Any abstractionist approach to thin objects faces the threat of paradox, as illustrated by Frege’s inconsistent Basic Law V. The neo-Fregeans Hale and Wright respond by severely restricting the class ...
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Any abstractionist approach to thin objects faces the threat of paradox, as illustrated by Frege’s inconsistent Basic Law V. The neo-Fregeans Hale and Wright respond by severely restricting the class of acceptable abstraction principles. Their approach is static in the sense that they hold the domain fixed. This approach to abstraction is criticized, and an alternative approach is developed which permits abstraction on a vast class of equivalence relations. This alternative approach is dynamic in the sense that abstraction on an extensionally specified domain (i.e. a domain specified by means of a plurality of objects) may result in a larger such domain. A form of absolute generality is nevertheless possible, provided that the associated domain is understood in an intensional sense (i.e. it cannot be specified by means of a plurality).Less
Any abstractionist approach to thin objects faces the threat of paradox, as illustrated by Frege’s inconsistent Basic Law V. The neo-Fregeans Hale and Wright respond by severely restricting the class of acceptable abstraction principles. Their approach is static in the sense that they hold the domain fixed. This approach to abstraction is criticized, and an alternative approach is developed which permits abstraction on a vast class of equivalence relations. This alternative approach is dynamic in the sense that abstraction on an extensionally specified domain (i.e. a domain specified by means of a plurality of objects) may result in a larger such domain. A form of absolute generality is nevertheless possible, provided that the associated domain is understood in an intensional sense (i.e. it cannot be specified by means of a plurality).