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41. Grazer Philosophische Studien: Volume > 12/13
Adrienne Lehrer Observation Statements in the Social Sciences
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Philosophers have assumed that observational statements in the sciences are unproblematic and that statements like "X is blue" or "Y is salty" have the same meaning for everyone. Four fields are examined (oncology, phonetics, enology, and psychology) where there is evidence that observational language is not used consensually by practicioners in the field, even though they share the same theory and use the same vocabulary. Enology and psychology are developing sciences, so that agreement on what vocabulary is appropriate is still being developed. The precise use of observational expressions must be carefully taught and supervised. Linguistic consensus and reHability cannot be assumed.
42. Grazer Philosophische Studien: Volume > 12/13
Paul Weingartner A System of Rational Belief, Knowledge and Assumption
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The first part of the papaer contains desiderata for a realistic epistemic system as opposed to idealistic ones. One of the main characteristics of idealistic epistemic systems is their deductive infallibility or deductive omniscience. The system presented avoids deductive infallibility though having a strong concept of knowledge. The second part contains the theorems of the system. The system is detailed in so far as it distinguishes between two concepts of belief and one of assumption and interrelates them to the concept of knowledge. Though all concepts satisfy certain consistency criteria the strongest ones hold for the concept of knowledge; whereas a belief in or a assumption (assertion) of a proposition which has inconsistent consequences (not known or believed or assumed by the believer or assumer) does not entail the commitment of believing in (or assuming of) an explicit contradiction. Moreover the system contains a lot of distinctions and details concerning propositions with a second person involved like "a knows that b knows whether p is the case" etc. The third part of the paper contains the semantics of the system which consists of many-valued truth-tables. Since the matrices are finite the system is consistent and decidable.
43. Grazer Philosophische Studien: Volume > 12/13
Ryszard Wójcicki Is There Any Need for Non-Classical Logic in Science?
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The role of classical logic as the base of formalized scientific theories seems to be unshakable. Yet legitimate doubts about its universal applicability in science have resulted in the development of alternative systems, among which constructive and modal logic are discussed in syntactic and semantic terms.
44. Grazer Philosophische Studien: Volume > 12/13
Rudolf Haller Preface
45. Grazer Philosophische Studien: Volume > 14
Daniel Hunter Reference and Meinongian Objects
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Terence Parsons has recently given a consistent formahzation of Meinong's Theory of Objects. The interest in this theory lies in its postulation of nonexistent objects. An important implication of the theory is that we commonly refer to nonexistent objects. In particular, the theory is committed to taking fictional entities as objects of reference. Yet it is difficult to see how reference to fictional entities can be estabHshed if Parsons' theory is correct. This difficulty diminishes the attractiveness of the theory and also raises questions as to the ability of the theory to give a satisfactory account of intentional attitudes towards fictional entities.
46. Grazer Philosophische Studien: Volume > 14
Wüliam J. Rapaport How to make the World Fit Our Language: An Essay in Meinongian Semantics
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Natural languages differ from most formal languages in having a partial, rather than a total, semantic interpretation function; e.g., some noun phrases don't refer. The usual semantics for handling such noun phrases (e.g., Russell, Quine) require syntactic reform. The alternative presented here is semantic expansion, viz., enlarging the range of the interpretaion function to make it total. A specific ontology based on Meinong's Theory of Objects, which can serve as domain on interpretation, is suggested, and related to the work of Castaneda, Frege, Katz and Fodor, Parsons, and Scott.
47. Grazer Philosophische Studien: Volume > 14
Robert J. Richmann Because God Wills It
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A divine approval theory in ethics may be construed as one of a class of subjective-reaction theories, those which hold that the rightness or wrongness of actions is constituted by the response to these actions (e.g., approval or disapproval) on the part of some person or persons, actual or ideal. There are peculiar difficulties connected with a divine approval theory, arising from God's omnipotence. But waiving difficulties which apply especially or peculiarly to a divine approval account, we can see by a simple argument that the entire set of subjective-reaction theories is subject to the logical difficulty that taking attitudes as definitive or otherwise constitutive of ethical value is self-defeating.
48. Grazer Philosophische Studien: Volume > 14
Herlinde Studer Conditions of Knowledge
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Since Edmund L. Gettier's famous paper a series of counterexamples has been raised against the traditional analysis of knowledge in terms of justified true belief. Some of these (not only Gettier-type) counterexamples can be ruled out by adding a fourth condition to the traditional account which demands a causal connection between the belief of a person and the fact the person believes. This causal connection is specified in a particular way so that counterexamples put forward against causal accounts of knowledge are likewise eliminated.
49. Grazer Philosophische Studien: Volume > 14
George Englebretsen A Journey to Eden: Geach on Aristotle
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Peter Geach has charged Aristotle with the sin of corrupting logic by initiating a process which led to the view that a sentence consists logically of just two names. This charge can only result from a clearly mistaken view of Aristotle's theory of logical syntax. Aristotle, unlike Geach, was careful to distinguish subjects from subject-terms and predicates from predicate-terms. He took both subjects and predicates as syntactical complexes. Geach, following Frege, holds a very different theory of logical syntax which takes predicates, but not subjects, as syntactically complex.
50. Grazer Philosophische Studien: Volume > 14
Wilhelm Vossenkuhl Free Agency: A Non-Reductionist Causal Account
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Free agency can be explained causally if the causal approach does not imply reductionism. A non-reductionist account of action is possible along the lines of Davidsonian 'anomalous monism'. Mental events, i.e. prepositional attitudes activated by indexical beliefs, are the causes of actions. Free agency presupposes a special type of causes to be analysed as rational causes allowing human agents to be self-determinant, autonomous agents in Kantian terms. An action is free if it has rational causes not to be ruled out by natural causes. With causes of actions being activated prepositional attitudes their rationality is analysed in terms of the coherence of prepositional attitudes. Principles of rational choice are not the basic ingredients of free i.e. rational action but have to conform to the prepositional attitudes of the human agent.
51. Grazer Philosophische Studien: Volume > 14
Peter M. Simons Unsaturatedness
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Frege's obscure key concept of the unsaturatedness of functions is clarified with the help of the concepts of dependent and independent parts and foundation relations used by Husserl in describing the ontology of complex wholes. Sentential unity in Frege, Husserl and Wittgenstein: all have a similar explanation. As applied to linguistic expressions, the terms 'unsaturated' and 'incomplete' are ambiguous: they may mean the ontological property of Unselbständigkeit, inability to exist alone, or the property of being what categorial grammar calls a functor. Separation of these two senses resolves a dispute between Dummett and Geach on the nature of predicates.
52. Grazer Philosophische Studien: Volume > 15
Bertil Rolf Körner on Vagueness and Applied Mathematics
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Körner's notion of vagueness, its relation to ostension and the alledged gulf between logic and experience are examined. Ostension is seen not to cause vagueness ~ there are precise concepts of mathematics which can be ostensively mtroduced. A distinction is drawn between classical logic not applymg to the vague world and not applymg to the vague language. The claims about logic and the vague world are unverifiable claims about existence. Körner's attempt to elimmate the seeming incompatibility between vague language and logic leads to a Protagorean relativism which is rejected. It is denied that the incompatibility between vagueness and classical logic causes a gulf between two sublanguages; mstead, ordinary language is held to contam both and so to be inconsistent.
53. Grazer Philosophische Studien: Volume > 15
Stephan Körner Reply to Dr. Rolf
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The Reply to Dr. Rolfs essay makes the following main points: (1) The logic of inexactness has the same syntax as Kleene's three-valued logic. Its semantics is different in that the third truth-value can by choice be correctly turned into either truth or falsehood. (2) The definition of resemblance classes includes, but is not exhausted by, ostensive rules. (3) The application of classical mathematics to sense-experience consists in the limited identification of non-isomorphic structures. (4) There are exact perceptual and vague mathematical concepts. (5) The distinction between my categorial framework, a categorial framework and the true categorial framework, if any, is neither relativistic nor absolutistic.
54. Grazer Philosophische Studien: Volume > 15
Joseph Tolliver Basing Beliefs on Reasons
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I propose to analyze the concept of basing beliefs on reasons. The concept is an important one in understanamg the so-called "inferential" or "indirect" knowledge. After briefly stating the causal analyses of this concept given by D.M. Armstrong and Marshall Swain I will present two cases which show these analyses to be too strong and too weak. Finally, I will propose an analysis which avoids these twin difficulties.
55. Grazer Philosophische Studien: Volume > 15
Dale Jacquette Meinong's Theory of Defective Objects
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Meinong's theory of defective objects in On Emotional Presentation is ambiguous in ways which give rise to a dilemma. It is not clear whether or not defective objects are supposed to be a special kind of intentional object. If they are intentional objects, then a strengthened version of Mally's paradox about self-referential thought can be given which contradicts the intentionality thesis. But if they are not intentional objects, then thoughts with defective objects themselves constitute immediate counter-examples to the intentionality thesis. In either case, the theory of defective objects cannot be made logically consistent with both the possibility of self-referential thought and the intentionality thesis in its full generality.
56. Grazer Philosophische Studien: Volume > 15
Thomas Pogge The Interpretation of Rawl's First Principle of Justice
57. Grazer Philosophische Studien: Volume > 16/17
Herman Tennessen Qualms About Otto Neurath's Cabby Language
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Otto Neurath's everyday "cabby"-language would only have preserved its appearance of a conceptual (etc.) system-neutrality to the extent at which it were to retain its semantic amorphousness as well as its user's shallow pragmatic mtentions. This (pseudo) neutrality would be irretrievably lost the moment the constituent parts of the everyday "cabby"-language were to be precised to a degree which transcended all conceivable pragmatic mtentions reasonably attributable to a cabman or to any other everyday speaker-. Dilemma: Either we settle for a semantically and pragmatically unambitious, superficial chatter, typical of a cabman, whereby we shall gam conceptual (philosophical, theoretical etc....) neutrality, or we relinquish all aspirations towards system neutrality in favor of a higher level of preciseness, which might in turn open the possibüities for some sort of meaningful, even philosophically relevant, discourse.
58. Grazer Philosophische Studien: Volume > 16/17
Aldo Gargani Schlick and Wittgenstein: Language and Experience
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Schlick and Wittgenstein througli their criticism of the theory of synthetic a priori judgments assume language as a system of internal relations regulating the use of language in order to get an univocal description of states of affairs. This conception, in connection with Wittgenstein's doctrine of intentional acts, is at the basis of Schlick's intervention in the debate on protocol sentences through his notion of Konstatiemng or Beobachtungssatz. Therefore, the doctrine of internal relations, the notion of meaning as use and the principle of verification are closely related in Wittgenstein's and Schlick's works during the early Thirties.
59. Grazer Philosophische Studien: Volume > 16/17
Keith Lehrer Schlick and Neurath: Meaning and Truth
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Schlick and Neurath shared a common assumption, what I call the verification theory of truth, as well as the verification of meaning. It is the claim that the truth of a sentence is the method of it's verification. For Neurath, the method of scientific verification must be interpersonal, and, therefore, private experience is precluded. This leads hmi to the doctrme that there is no truth beyond intersubjective agreement. Schlick, on the contrary, regarded it as obvious that certain sentences, even if they were not sentences in a conventional language, were confirmations or Konstatierungen verified by the private experiences they described. These sentences, which Schlick called basic contrasted with the protocol sentences of Neurath m that the truth of the former is determined by private experience and that of latter by interpersonal test. It is argued that once one distinguishes between the facts that make a sentence true and the meaning of a sentence one need not accept either the position of Schlick or that of Neurath. One may hold that the meaning of a sentence is interpersonal even if the fact described by a sentence is a personal experience. This theory yields a form of falliblism according to which the best method of verification of a sentence need not eliminate all possibüity of error.
60. Grazer Philosophische Studien: Volume > 16/17
Roderick M. Chisholm Schlick on the Foundations of Knowing
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Schlick held that our knowledge is founded upon certain contingent apprehensions which he described as follows: "I grasp their meaning at the same time that I grasp their truth." He cites as an example the apprehension expressed by "Yellow here now." When such apprehensions are expressed in syntactically well-formed sentences, they can be seen to have certain psychological states as their objects - and therefore to be similar in all essential respects to what members of the Brentano school had called "inner perceptions."