Online research in philosophy

Line 1: The statement on line one is false. Line 2: All statements on line two are false. p and not-p Line 3: All statements on line 3 are true, or all of them are false. p and not-p Line 4: The statement on line 4 is false, or (p and not-p). Line 5: The statement on line 5 is true if and only if (p and not p). Line 6: All statements on line 6 are false. p. Line 7: All statements on line 7 are false. Not-p. Line 8: The statement on 9 is true. Line 9: The statement on line 8 is false. Line 10: The statement on line 11 is true if and only if the statement on line 12 is true. Line 11: The statement on line 10 is true and p. Line 12: The statement on line 10 is true and not-p..

The debate over physicalism in philosophy of mind can be seen as concerning an inconsistent tetrad of theses: (1) if physicalism is true, a priori physicalism is true; (2) a priori physicalism is false; (3) if physicalism is false, epiphenomenalism is true; (4) epiphenomenalism is false. This paper argues that one may resolve the debate by distinguishing two conceptions of the physical: on the theory-based conception, it is plausible that (2) is true and (3) is false; on the object-based conception, it is plausible that (3) is true and (2) is false. The paper also defends and explores the version of physicalism that results from this strategy.

The story goes that Epimenides, a Cretan, used to claim that all Cretans are always liars. Whether he knew it or not, this claim is odd. It is easy to see it is odd by asking if it is true or false. If it is true, then all Cretans, including Epimenides, are always liars, in which case what he said must be false. Thus, if what he says is true, it is false. Conversely, suppose what Epimenides said is false. Then some Cretan at some time speaks truly. This might not tell us anything about Epimenides. But if, to make the story simple, he were the only Cretan ever to speak, and this was the only thing he ever said, then indeed, he would have to speak truly. And we would then have shown that if what he said was false, it must be true.

Here is the liar paradox. We have a sentence, (L), which somehow says of itself that it is false. Suppose (L) is true. Then things are as (L) says they are. (For it would appear to be a mere platitude that if a sentence is true, then things are as the sentence says they are.) (L) says that (L) is false. So, (L) is false. Since the supposition that (L) is true leads to contradiction, we can assert that (L) is false. But since this is just what (L) says, (L) is then true. (For it would appear to be a mere platitude that if things are as a given sentence says they are, the sentence is true.) So (L) is true. So (L) is both true and false. Contradiction.

John Stuart Mill famously argued in his essay On Liberty that every opinion should be allowed free expression. The opinion, whose nature cannot now be known for certain, may be true. Or it may be false. Or it may be true in part and false in part. If it is true, there is reason for its being heard. If it is false, there is also reason for hearing it -- its being heard and examined will result in a fuller understanding and greater effect of the contrary true opinion. If it is partly true and partly false, there are both reasons for its being heard.

How do people imagine the possibilities in which an assertion would be true and the possibilities in which it would be false? We argue that the mental representation of the meanings of connectives, such as "and", "or", and "if", specify how to construct the true possibilities for simple assertions containing just a single connective. It follows that the false possibilities are constructed by inference from the true possibilities. We report converging evidence supporting this account from four experiments in which the participants had to list the true and the false possibilities for various sorts of assertion. Their systematic errors, response times, and think-aloud protocols corroborated the theory's predictions. Not even true possibilities are immediately available for complex assertions containing two or more different connectives. The task of listing the true possibilities then becomes difficult, and the task of listing the false possibilities almost impossible.

four ancestry, is that there are . A proposition may be true (and true only), false (and false only), both true and false, neither true nor false , ,.

Jenkins (2007) charges that the language advanced in Beall (2007) is either expressively impoverished, or inconsistent. We argue that Jenkins’ objections are based on unreasonably strong constraints on formal theories of truth. Our primary concern is not to defend the ‘paranormal’ framework advanced in Beall, but to respond to a common – and implausible – ‘revenge’-style charge directed at a certain class of formal theories of truth and paradox.