The commonplaces, all grammatically confused, are that ?conditionals? are ternary in structure, have ?antecedents? and conform to the traditional taxonomy. It is maintained en route that ?The bough will not break? is consistent with ?If the bough breaks ??, that there is no logical difference between ?future indicatives? and ?subjunctives?, and that there is a difference between the logic of propositions (e.g. ?The bough broke?) and that of judgments (?The bough will/might/could/should/must/needn't break?).

For frege, To define a symbol is to show how to do without it. Frege originated the distinction between metalanguage and object language. But he formulates his definitions within the begriffsschrift itself, Not seeing that, According to his own account of them, They go better in the metalanguage.

Any semantic theory is bound to presume some structure in the messages it analyses, and the success of the theory depends on getting this structure right. But discovering this structure is the business of grammar. Therefore grammar is a necessary preliminary to semantics. Semantic theories of conditionals vividly illustrate this. All presume a provably untenable ternary structure: antecedent, operator, consequent. And all can be shown committed as a result to a thoroughly unbelievable set of connections between sentences and their informational (...) burdens. Actually, a conditional has five immediate factors, none of them an antecedent or a consequent. (shrink)

It is urged (1) that geach is correct in his claim ("assertion", "philosophical review", 74, (1965), Page 449) that what he calls 'the frege point' is logically independent of frege's doctrine that sentences are names of objects, And (2) that frege's 'propositions of begriffsschrift' are neither truths nor falsehoods.

Received doctrine has an 'antecedent' message encoded within a conditional clause, such as the string comprising the first five words of the sentence 'If the bough had broken the cradle would have fallen'. Criticisms of mine of this tenet were recently challenged by Stephen Barker. In the course of responding to his examination, I venture a snappy demonstration that the 'conditionals' such sentences encode can have neither 'antecedents' nor 'consequents'. Also, less happily, I urge a binary outermost structure for these (...) conditionals. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article:F.H. Bradley, Collected Works Volumes 1–5.

This brief note shows that the following three tenets, All to be found in frege's "on sense and reference", Form an inconsistent triad: (1) two proper names express the same sense iff their identity-Sentence "contains no actual knowledge"; (2) sentences are proper names; (3) if in a sentence we replace one proper name by another having a different sense, "we see that in such a case the thought changes".

It is argued that it is a misinterpretation of frege to construe his talk of the bedeutungen of sentences and of predicates in an ontologically innocent way.

Purpose. The knowledge influence analysis on the formation process of new anthropological images of man in the contexts of scientific achievements and innovative technologies is the basis of this study. It involves the solution of the following tasks: 1) explication of the ontological content of knowledge in the anthropo-cultural senses of the epoch; 2) analysis of the knowledge influence on the process of forming a new type of man; 3) characteristics of the modern anthropological situation in the context of digital (...) culture; 4) substantiation of interrelation of phatic communication with post-truth society in the dimensions of anthropo-social transformations of the present. Theoretical basis. Ontological content of knowledge determines the anthropo-cultural context of the epoch by forming a system of intellectual, value, social meanings of human life. The assertion of new anthropological types of man is caused by the changes in social and cultural space in the context of the growing influence of achievements in scientific knowledge and technology. Digital revolution as the process of expanding the possibilities of informational-digital reality, the substitution of knowledge for information gives rise to Homo digitalis – the digital man. He focuses on phatic communication, which in its intellectual meaninglessness is commensurate with the anthropological dimensions of post-truth society. Originality. It is substantiated that Homo digitalis is the result of a complex set of heterogeneous effects of scientific knowledge, which in modern post-truth conditions appears as different communicative practices. A condition for the formation of a new anthropological type of man in the perspective of scientific and technological progress is the affirmation of ethical wisdom. Conclusions. Knowledge in the process of evolution of socio-cultural life acquires constitutive significance for the process of formation of anthropological situations that manifest themselves in new images of man. Today, he is commensurate with the demands of digital culture, in which human life practices are increasingly becoming information and digital clusters embedded in the reality of a post-truth society. The means of overcoming the passivity of digital man is the formation of a new anthropological type based on a rethinking of the value system. (shrink)

_Purpose._ The basis of the presented research is a philosophical and methodological analysis of the human-centrism concept as a new intellectual strategy of comprehending and understanding the prospects of human existence in a situation of information-digital reality, which provides for the consistent solution of the following problems: 1) to make an explication of the conceptual content and semantic loading of human-centrism in the discourses of social philosophy and philosophical anthropology; 2) to analyse the theoretical significance and methodological role of human-centrism (...) in the information-digital reality; 3) to characterize the main parameters of the problematic field of human-centrism in overcoming the crisis of identity and preserving the system of universal human values. _Theoretical basis__._ The objective logic of unfolding of the modern information-digital world transforms philosophical anthropology into a new level of comprehending the human existence. Human-centrism interacts with philosophical anthropology and evaluates it from the point of its metaphilosophical, axiological-existential and methodological content. The assertion of human-centrism is caused by the identity crisis in the context of civilizational transformations, which as a result of the cumulative effect of information technology have a powerful influence on all aspects of human life and thinking. The philosophy of human-centrism as a life-affirming factor determines the development and adaptation of human self-consciousness to the modern socio-cultural environment, determined by information and technological processes. _Originality__._ It is substantiated that human-centrism as a new strategy of modern philosophical and anthropological discourses opens new cognition perspectives of the essence of human in the information-digital reality and contributes to the construction and implementation of new dimensions of identity in interaction with a qualitatively different level of world attitude. _Conclusions__._ The assertion of information-digital reality gives rise to a new type of philosophical and anthropological paradigm, a qualitative manifestation of which is the theory and methodology of human-centrism. It is characterized by a modern level of philosophical reflection, which allows preserving and at the same time renewing the system of universal human values. On this basis, human-centrism is a way of complementarity of all aspects of human life, who reconstructs themselves in a situation of new anthropological dimensions. (shrink)

In "Disabilities and First-Person Testimony: A Case of Defeat?" Hilary Yancey argues that in at least some cases we have “no significant reason to distrust” the evidential value of first-person testimony concerning the impact of a physical disability on that individual’s well-being. Her argument is premised on a defeasible principle of trust: One should trust the testimony of others regarding p whenever one recognizes that the testifier is in a position to know p. Since the subjective component of wellbeing is (...) fist-person privileged, that is, ordinarily the subject herself is in the best position to know, an audience to such testimony must be aware of a defeater in order to shift the burden of proof and block the testimony from counting as evidence. In the body of the paper Yancey argues that 1) conflicting first-person testimony does not constitute an inescapable content defeater and 2) neither irrational adaptive preferences nor low life expectations inescapably undercuts the reliability of these testifiers regarding matters of their own subjective well-being. The burden of proof is not globally shifted by either kind of defeater, Yancey argues, so at least some first-person testimony about disability must inform our beliefs about the nature of disabilities. In my comment I ask and attempt to answer three questions on Yancy’s behalf, then invite her to set me straight if I have it wrong. I go Kantian along the way. 1. Whence arises the worry, and why focus on these defeaters? 2. How common is PNT, anyway, and why does it matter? 3. On what grounds should we distrust PNT in particular cases? (shrink)