What accounts for how we know that certain rules of reasoning, such as reasoning by Modus Ponens, are valid? If our knowledge of validity must be based on some reasoning, then we seem to be committed to the legitimacy of rule-circular arguments for validity. This paper raises a new difficulty for the rule-circular account of our knowledge of validity. The source of the problem is that, contrary to traditional wisdom, a universal generalization cannot be inferred just on (...) the basis of reasoning about an arbitrary object. I argue in favor of a more sophisticated constraint on reasoning by universal generalization, one which undermines a rule-circular account of our knowledge of validity. (shrink)
The revisionary approach to semantic paradox is commonly thought to have a somewhat uncomfortable corollary, viz. that, on pain of triviality, we cannot affirm that all valid arguments preserve truth (Beall2007, Beall2009, Field2008, Field2009). We show that the standard arguments for this conclusion all break down once (i) the structural rule of contraction is restricted and (ii) how the premises can be aggregated---so that they can be said to jointly entail a given conclusion---is appropriately understood. In addition, we briefly rehearse (...) some reasons for restricting structural contraction. (shrink)
All aesthetic judgements, whether descriptive, evaluative or some combination of the two, and whatever they might be about, whether works of art, artefacts of other kinds, or natural things, declare themselves to be, not mere announcements or expressions of personal responses to the objects of judgement, but claims meriting the agreement of others. Despite the frequent appeal in everyday life to the nihilistic interpretation of the saying It's all a matter of taste, the doctrine of aesthetic nihilism—the view that such (...) claims are never warranted—does not merit serious attention. What is needed is an articulation of the various kinds of content of aesthetic judgements, one that will reveal what their claim to intersubjective validity amounts to and enable an assessment of what the proper limits of the claim might be. This clarification is what I attempt to provide. After some introductory definitions and classifications, the principal focus of the first part of the paper is descriptive aesthetic judgements, and one issue that figures large is the proper understanding of those judgements of this kind which are expressed in sentences that are intended to be understood metaphorically. A short bridge passage identifies an aesthetic judgement whose content is indicative of the content of evaluative aesthetic judgements of all kinds, and in particular evaluative aesthetic judgements about works of art, which the second part of the paper focuses on. Real illumination of these requires an identification of the aim of art (as such): I offer an account of this aim, which I defend against certain objections that it is liable to attract, and I use it to throw light not just on singular but also on comparative judgements of artistic value. I conclude with some remarks about purely aesthetic value and specifically artistic value and about similarities and differences between evaluative aesthetic judgements of works of art and evaluative aesthetic judgements of works of nature. (shrink)
We investigate the philosophical significance of the existence of different semantic systems with respect to which a given deductive system is sound and complete. Our case study will be Corcoran’s deductive system D for Aristotelian syllogistic and some of the different semantic systems for syllogistic that have been proposed in the literature. We shall prove that they are not equivalent, in spite of D being sound and complete with respect to each of them. Beyond the specific case of syllogistic, the (...) goal is to offer a general discussion of the relations between informal notions—in this case, an informal notion of deductive validity—and logical apparatuses such as deductive systems and (model-theoretic or other) semantic systems that aim at offering technical, formal accounts of informal notions. Specifically, we will be interested in Kreisel’s famous ‘squeezing argument’; we shall ask ourselves what a plurality of semantic systems (understood as classes of mathematical structures) may entail for the cogency of specific applications of the squeezing argument. More generally, the analysis brings to the fore the need for criteria of adequacy for semantic systems based on mathematical structures. Without such criteria, the idea that the gap between informal and technical accounts of validity can be bridged is put under pressure. (shrink)
In this paper I argue against the commonly received view that Kripke’s formal Possible World Semantics (PWS) reflects the adoption of a metaphysical interpretation of the modal operators. I consider in detail Kripke’s three main innovations vis-à-vis Carnap’s PWS: a new view of the worlds, variable domains of quantification, and the adoption of a notion of universal validity. I argue that all these changes are driven by the natural technical development of the model theory and its related notion of (...)validity: they are dictated by merely formal considerations, not interpretive concerns. I conclude that Kripke’s model theoretic semantics does not induce a metaphysical reading of necessity, and is formally adequate independently of the specific interpretation of the modal operators. (shrink)
In what follows I will consider Kant's and Habermas's conceptions of moral validity in a comparative and critical way. First, I will reconstruct Habermas's discursive or deliberative reformulation of Kant's moral theory (sec.1). And, second, I will introduce some comparative critical considerations (2). I will contend that, though much is gained with Habermas's intersubjectivist reformulation of Kant's moral philosophy, some problems emerge that could be treated with the help of certain Kantian insights. I will focus on Kant's and Habermas's (...) strictly moral writings. The issue of political validity or legitimacy (i.e., of the validity of norms that are to be enforced by a coercive state apparatus) is of course of great importance, but I will not address it here. (shrink)
In jurisprudential literature, the adjective ‘defeasible’ appears as a predicate of many terms: concepts, laws, rules, reasoning, justification, proof, and so on. In this paper, we analyze the effects of some versions of the thesis of the defeasibility of legal norms on the reconstruction of the notion of legal validity. We analyze some possible justifications of this thesis considered as a claim concerning validity, and enquire into two possible sets of problems related to the defeasibility of the criteria (...) of identification of a legal system. We also provide a formalization of some options regarding defeasible criteria of identification, which can be used as a tool for meta-jurisprudential analysis. Finally, the thesis according to which defeasibility is better conceived of as a feature of legal application is examined and questioned. (shrink)
This paper claims that there is a plausible sense in which validity is a matter of truth preservation relative to interpretations of the sentences that occur in an argument, although it is not the sense one might have in mind. §1 outlines three independent problems: the first is the paradox of the sorites, the second concerns the fallacy of equivocation, and the third arises in connection with the standard treatment of indexicals. §2 elucidates the claim about validity, while (...) §§3-5 show how the three problems outlined can be handled in accordance with it. §6 explains how the claim squares with the traditional idea that validity is related to formality, and in particular with a broadly accepted definition based on that idea, the model-theoretic definition of logical consequence. Unlike other works on the subject, this paper does not focus on necessity. It is not its intention to provide a characterization of necessity that conforms to some ideal of rigour or to some pre-theoretical understanding of validity. What follows can be taken as conditional on the assumption that such a characterization can be provided. (shrink)
Richard Rorty challenges Jurgen Habermas's belief that validity-claims raised within context-bound discussions contain a moment of universality validity. Rorty argues that immersion within contingent languages prohibits any neutral, context-independent ground, that one cannot predict the defense of one's assertions before any audience, and that philosophy can no more escape its contextual limitations than strategic counterparts. Alfred Schutz's phenomenological account of motivation, the reciprocity of perspectives, and the theoretical province of meaning can articulate Habermas's intuitions.Since any claim can be (...) analyzed from an observer's perspective for its because-motives, it can always be shown to be context-related; but to the participant involved in the in-order-to project of establishing a claim's validity, the claim appears objectively valid until counter-evidence surfaces. Rorty, even when explaining what it is to make a truth claim, resorts to the observer perspective and omits reference to the in-order-to perspective, within which alone unconditional validity becomes visible. Furthermore, the expectation that one's claim is universally valid depends not on an empirical prediction that one''s claim can survive hypothesized future possible audiences. Rather, because of the reciprocity of perspectives, making possible communication and a common life, theoreticians assume that others will recognize what they take to be objective or valid, independently of diverse biographical circumstances. Finally, within the theoretical province requiring relevances different from those of everyday life, philosophy articulates claims with a greater potential to arrive at universal validity than projects that aim less universally, in spite of the fact that its theoretical context is always susceptible to because motive analysis. (shrink)
: Judgment -- Moral and ethical aspects. The application of "thick" ethical concepts is best understood as a process of reflective rather than deductive judgment. Taking the form "B is as X as A," where X is a thick ethical concept and A and B are narrative wholes unified through X (for example, "Those who hid Jews from the Nazis were as brave as Achilles"), reflective judgment opens thick ethical concepts to transformation. Though interpretive, such reflective judgment may still be (...) able to provide validity without recourse to "thin," purportedly context-neutral terms. (shrink)
A number of recent works consider treating validity as a primitive notion rather than one defined in some standard manner. There seem to have been three motivations. First, to understand how truth and validity interact in potentially paradoxical settings. Second, to argue that validity is in fact afflicted with paradoxes analogous to the semantic paradoxes. Third, to develop a ‘deflationary’ conception of validity or consequence. This article treats the notion of validity as a primitive notion (...) and shows how to provide a consistent theory of classical validity (and self-applicative truth), conservative over Peano arithmetic. (shrink)
Take a formula of first-order logic which is a logical consequence of some other formulae according to model theory, and in all those formulae replace schematic letters with English expressions. Is the argument resulting from the replacement valid in the sense that the premisses could not have been true without the conclusion also being true? Can we reason from the model-theoretic concept of logical consequence to the modal concept of validity? Yes, if the model theory is the standard one (...) for sentential logic; no, if it is the standard one for the predicate calculus; and yes, if it is a certain model theory for free logic. These conclusions rely inter alia on some assumptions about possible worlds, which are mapped into the models of model theory. Plural quantification is used in the last section, while part of the reasoning is relegated to an appendix that includes a proof of completeness for a version of free logic. (shrink)
Even though the concept of a 'validity claim' is central to Habermas's theory of communicative action, he has never given a precise definition of the term. He has stated only that truth is a type of validity claim, and that rightness and sincerity are analogous to truth. This paper explores the basis of this analogy, arguing that rightness and sincerity must share at least two characteristics with the truth predicate: each must be the designated value in an appropriate (...) system of logic, and each must serve as the 'central notion' in a theory of meaning for some corresponding class of speech acts. It is these two characteristics that establish the internal connec tion between understanding and justification that Habermas's more general project requires. However, there is an unnoticed tension between these two characteristics, since the relative autonomy of linguistic meaning from specific contexts of use appears to require that speech acts be governed by a uniform logic, and thus by a single validity claim. Key Words: communicative action • - Habermas • - pragmatics • - speech act theory • - truth • - validity claim. (shrink)
This paper aims to clarify the nature and contents of 'civil ethics' and the source of the binding force of its obligations. This ethics should provide the criteria for evaluating the moral validity of social, legal and morally valid law. The article starts with observing that in morally pluralist Western societies civil ethics already exists, and has gradually started to play the role of guiding the law. It is argued that civil ethics should not be conceived as 'civic morals' (...) which is in fact rather 'state ethics', nor as 'public ethics' which is said to reach its perfection when it becomes law, nor as ethics applicable primarily to the basic structure of a society (political liberalism), but instead as a citizens' ethics. Subsequently the paper attempts to show what the contents of this ethics are, and which ethical theory would be able to ground its obligations. (shrink)
The standard approach to what I call “proof-theoretic semantics”, which is mainly due to Dummett and Prawitz, attempts to give a semantics of proofs by defining what counts as a valid proof. After a discussion of the general aims of proof-theoretic semantics, this paper investigates in detail various notions of proof-theoretic validity and offers certain improvements of the definitions given by Prawitz. Particular emphasis is placed on the relationship between semantic validity concepts and validity concepts used in (...) normalization theory. It is argued that these two sorts of concepts must be kept strictly apart. (shrink)
At the heart of Jürgen Habermas's explication of communicative rationality is the contention that all speech acts oriented to understanding raise three different kinds of validity claims simultaneously: claims to truth, truthfulness, and normative rightness. This paper argues that Habermas presents exactly three distinct, logically independent arguments for his simultaneity thesis: an argument from structure; an argument from criticizability/rejectability; and an argument from understanding/reaching understanding. It is further maintained that the simultaneity thesis receives cogent support only from the Argument (...) from understanding/reaching understanding, and only if the notion of 'understanding' is expanded to that of 'agreement'. (shrink)
Besides pure declarative arguments, whose premises and conclusions are declaratives (“you sinned shamelessly; so you sinned”), and pure imperative arguments, whose premises and conclusions are imperatives (“repent quickly; so repent”), there are mixed-premise arguments, whose premises include both imperatives and declaratives (“if you sinned, repent; you sinned; so repent”), and cross-species arguments, whose premises are declaratives and whose conclusions are imperatives (“you must repent; so repent”) or vice versa (“repent; so you can repent”). I propose a general definition of argument (...)validity: an argument is valid exactly if, necessarily, every fact that sustains its premises also sustains its conclusion, where a fact sustains an imperative exactly if it favors the satisfaction over the violation of the imperative, and a fact sustains a declarative exactly if, necessarily, the declarative is true if the fact exists. I argue that this definition yields as special cases the standard definition of validity for pure declarative arguments and my previously defended definition of validity for pure imperative arguments, and that it yields intuitively acceptable results for mixed-premise and cross-species arguments. (shrink)
A central point of contention between Critical Theory and Heideggerian thinking concerns the question of truth. Whereas Martin Heidegger orients his conception of truth towards the ongoing disclosure of Being, Jürgen Habermas regards truth as one dimension of validity in 'communicative action'. Unlike Habermas, who usually emphasizes validity at the expense of disclosure, Heidegger tends to emphasize disclosure at the expense of validity. The essay uses Heidegger's 'The Origin of the Work of Art' as its point of (...) departure. While reclaiming elements from his account of artistic truth, I criticize his reactionary conception of art's vocation, and I propose a notion of aesthetic validity that does justice to modern and contemporary art. Key Words: aesthetics • art • Critical Theory • disclosure • Jürgen Habermas • Martin Heidegger • imagination • responsibility • truth • validity. (shrink)
Although the use of possible worlds in semantics has been very fruitful and is now widely accepted, there is a puzzle about the standard definition of validity in possible-worlds semantics that has received little notice and virtually no comment. A sentence of an intensional language is typically said to be valid just in case it is true at every world under every model on every model structure of the language. Each model structure contains a set of possible worlds, and (...) models are defined relative to model structures, assigning truth-values to sentences at each world countenanced by the model structure. The puzzle is why more than one model structure is used in the definition of validity. There is presumably just one class of all possible worlds and just one model structure defined on this class that does correctly the things that model structures are supposed to do. (These include, but need not be limited to, specifying the set of individuals in each world as well as various accessibility relations between worlds.) Why not define validity simply as truth at every world under every model on this one model structure? What is the point of bringing in more model structures than just this one?
We investigate these questions in some detail and conclude that for many intensional languages the puzzle points to a genuine difficulty: the standard definition of validity is insufficiently motivated. We begin (Section 1) by showing that a plausible and natural account of validity for intensional languages can be based on a single model structure, and that validity so defined is analogous in important respects to the standard account of validity for extensional languages. We call this notion of validity "validity!", and in Section 2 we contrast it with the standard notion, which we call "validity2". Several attempts are made to discover a rationale for the almost universal acceptance of validity2, but in most of these attempts we come up empty-handed. So in Section 3 we investigate validity! for some intensional languages. Our investigation includes providing axiomatizations for several propositional and predicate logics, most of which are provably complete. The completeness proofs are given in the Appendix, which also contains a sketch of a compactness proof for one of the predicate logics. (shrink)
Stephen Read has presented an argument for the inconsistency of the concept of validity. We extend Read’s results and show that this inconsistency is but one half of a larger problem. Like the concept of truth, validity is infected with what we call semantic pathology, a condition that actually gives rise to two symptoms: inconsistency and indeterminacy. After sketching the basic ideas behind semantic pathology and explaining how it manifests both symptoms in the concept of truth, we present (...) cases that establish the indeterminacy of validity and that link this indeterminacy with the concept’s inconsistency. Our conclusion is that an adequate treatment of the semantic pathology thus revealed must deal with both of its symptoms. Further, it must extend to the occurrences of this condition elsewhere: in the concept of truth, in the other central semantic notions, and even in certain philosophical concepts outside semantics. (shrink)
Most ethics studies employing accounting subjects have utilized the Defining Issues Test (DIT), generally finding the moral judgment abilities of accounting students and accountants to be less advanced than those of the general population (Ponemon and Gabhart, 1994). This study assesses the validity of the DIT by examining whether an individual can achieve a higher moral judgment score on the DIT by responding from the role of a political liberal. Accounting undergraduates, defining themselves as liberal, moderate or conservative, (...) completed the DIT once from their own perspective and once from either an "extremely conservative" or "extremely liberal" perspective.The results indicate that DIT scores can be influenced by an aspect of political ideology not reflecting maturation in moral judgment. Subjects decreased their moral judgment scores when responding to the DIT dilemmas from a conservative perspective. Contrary to moral development theory, subjects were able to increase their moral judgment scores when responding from the perspective of a political liberal. These results imply that, given the generally conservative political orientation of the profession, the DIT may systematically understate the moral judgment abilities of accounting students and accountants. (shrink)
Gigerenzer’s ‘external validity argument’ plays a pivotal role in his critique of the heuristics and biases research program (HB). The basic idea is that (a) the experimental contexts deployed by HB are not representative of the real environment and that (b) the differences between the setting and the real environment are causally relevant, because they result in different performances by the subjects. However, by considering Gigerenzer’s work on frequencies in probability judgments, this essay attempts to show that there are (...) fatal flaws in the argument. Specifically, each of the claims is controversial: whereas (b) is not adequately empirically justified, (a) is inconsistent with the ‘debiasing’ program of Gigerenzer’s ABC group. Therefore, whatever reason we might have for believing that the experimental findings of HB lack experimental validity, this should not be based on Gigerenzer’s version of the argument. (shrink)
This paper argues that a prominent—and oft-thought to be persuasive—argument against general validity as the best account of validity for languages containing the actuality operator is flawed, the flaw arising out of inadequate attention to the formalisation of mood distinctions.
Reason is precariously positioned in the Critique of Pure Reason. The Transcendental Analytic leaves no entry for reason in the cognitive process, and the Transcendental Dialectic restricts reason to noncognitive roles. Yet, in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic, Kant contends that the ideas of reason can be used in empirical investigation and eventually knowledge acquisition. Given what Kant has said, how is this possible? Kant attempts to answer this in A663–A666/B691–B694 in the Appendix, where he argues that principles of (...) reason “have objective but indeterminate validity.” In Part I of this paper, I explain the full motivation behind this section. In Part II, I provide an exegesis of it. In particular, to reach his conclusion that principles of reason have objective but indeterminate validity, I interpret Kant as making three arguments from analogy. Finally, in Part III, I show that the first and third arguments fail—and what this means for Kant’s project. (shrink)
Carroll (1991) encouraged researchers in Social Issues Management (SIM) to continue to measure Corporate Social Performance (CSP) from a variety of different perspectives utilizing a variety of different measures. In addition, Wolfe and Aupperle (1991) (and others) have asserted that there is no, single best way to measure CSP and that multiple measures and perspectives help develop the field. However, Pfeffer (1993) suggest that a lack of consistent measurement has constrained organization studies (and by implication, the field of social issues (...) management,) in its development as a field. It may be in the best interest of social issues management researchers to try to development a common body of measures and data. Recently, Kinder, Lydenberg and Domini & Co. (KLD — a social choice investment advisory firm) has made available their social performance database. The KLD data have potential to become a widely accepted set of CSP measures. The purpose of this paper is to present a construct validity study comparing the KLD data to other measures of CSP. (shrink)
Contemporary philosophical stances toward `artistic truth' derive from Kant's aesthetics. Whereas philosophers who share Kant's emphasis on aesthetic validity discount art's capacity for truth, philosophers who share Hegel's critique of Kant render artistic truth inaccessible. This essay proposes a critical hermeneutic account of aesthetic validity that supports a non-esoteric notion of artistic truth. Using Gadamer and Adorno to read Kant through Hegelian eyes, I reconstruct the aesthetic dimension from three polarities in modern Western societies. Then I describe aesthetic (...)validity as an horizon of imaginative cogency governing the exploration, presentation and creative interpretation of aesthetic signs. The essay argues that aesthetic processes, so construed, are crucial to cultural pathfinding, and that aesthetic validity-claims in art talk contribute significantly to this pursuit. Aesthetic validity, cultural orientation and art talk constitute the hermeneutical matrix from which questions of artistic truth emerge. Key Words: Theodor W. Adorno • aesthetics • art • Hans-Georg Gadamer • Jürgen Habermas • hermeneutics • imagination • Immanuel Kant • language • validity. (shrink)
It is sometimes argued that experimental economists do not have to worry about external validity so long as the design sticks closely to a theoretical model. This position mistakes the model for the theory. As a result, applied economics designs often study phenomena distinct from their stated objects of inquiry. Because the implemented models are abstract, they may provide improbable analogues to their stated subject matter. This problem is exacerbated by the relational character of the social world, which also (...) sets epistemic limits for the social science laboratory more generally. (shrink)
How does one scientifically verify a psychometric instrument designed to assess the mental competence of medical patients who are asked to consent to medical treatment? Aside from satisfying technical requirements like statistical reliability, results yielded by such a test must conform to at least some accepted pretheoretical desiderata; for example, determinations of competence, as measured by the test, must capture a minimal core of accepted basic intuitions about what competence means and what a theory of competence is supposed to do. (...) The concepts of “face validity” and “content validity” are both important here. Face validity “indicates that an instrument appears to test what it is supposed to and that it is a plausible method for doing so” (Portney and Watkins 2000, 82). Content validity “means that the test contains all the elements that reflect the variable being studied” (Portney and.. (shrink)
Experimental “localism” stresses the importance of context‐specific knowledge, and the limitations of universal theories in science. I illustrate Latour's radical approach to localism and show that it has some unpalatable consequences, in particular the suggestion that problems of external validity (or how to generalize experimental results to nonlaboratory circumstances) cannot be solved. In the last part of the paper I try to sketch a solution to the problem of external validity by extending Mayo's error‐probabilistic approach.
A weak and a strong version of discourse theory can be distinguished. In the strong version the only source of normative validity in the nonspecific sense is rational consensus, where all parties concerned accept a norm for the same reasons, which are rationally convincing in the same way for all. In the weak version both rational and overlapping consensus can be sources of validity in the nonspecific sense. It is argued that the weak version is the (...) more adequate, since it can accommodate cases which the strong version cannot, and which it is unreasonable to view as cases of compromise. Discourse theory needs a weaker general discourse principle and a more flexible notion of normative consensus than is found in Habermas's Between Facts and Norms (1996). (shrink)
External validity refers to the generalization of research findings, either from a sample to a larger population or to settings and populations other than those studied. While definitions vary, discussions generally agree that experiments are lower in external validity than other methodological approaches. Further, external validity is widely treated as an issue to be addressed through methodological procedures. When testing theories, all measures are indirect indicators of theoretical constructs, and no methodological procedures taken alone can produce external (...)validity. External validity can be assessed through determining (1) the extent to which empirical measures accurately reflect theoretical constructs, (2) whether the research setting conforms to the scope of the theory under test, (3) our confidence that findings will repeat under identical conditions, (4) whether findings support the theory being tested, and (5) the confirmatory status of the theory under test. In these ways, external validity is foremost a theoretical issue and can only be addressed by an examination of the interplay between theory and methods. (shrink)
This paper argues that judges assessing the scientific validity and the legal admissibility of forensic science techniques ought to privilege testing over explanation. Their evaluation of reliability should be more concerned with whether the technique has been adequately validated by appropriate empirical testing than with whether the expert can offer an adequate description of the methods she uses, or satisfactorily explain her methodology or the theory from which her claims derive. This paper explores these issues within two specific contexts: (...) latent fingerprint examination and the use of breath tests for the detection of alcohol. Especially in the forensic science arena, I suggest courts have often been seduced by superficially plausible explanations and descriptions of a technique or method, and permitted these to serve as a substitute for empirical testing. Thinking through these two examples illustrates both why evaluating the extent of testing should be the most important method by which courts assess reliability, and why, when other forms of explanatory evidence are readily available, we may nonetheless elect to make use of them. This paper suggests that these descriptions and explanations may at times usefully supplement evidence of testing, but should not generally be substituted for it. Finally, this paper embraces a kind of evidentiary pragmatism, in which the quantum of evidence required to establish legal reliability is determined not in the abstract, but in relation to the evidence that is, or ought to be, available as a result of reasonable research and investigation. (shrink)
This paper treats entailment as a subrelation of classical consequence and deducibility. Working with a Gentzen set-sequent system, we define an entailment as a substitution instance of a valid sequent all of whose premisses and conclusions are necessary for its classical validity. We also define a sequent Proof as one in which there are no applications of cut or dilution. The main result is that the entailments are exactly the Provable sequents. There are several important corollaries. Every unsatisfiable set (...) is Provably inconsistent. Every logical consequence of a satisfiable set is Provable therefrom. Thus our system is adequate for ordinary mathematical practice. Moreover, transitivity of Proof fails upon accumulation of Proofs only when the newly combined premisses are inconsistent anyway, or the conclusion is a logical truth. In either case Proofs that show this can be effectively determined from the Proofs given. Thus transitivity fails where it least matters — arguably, where it ought to fail! We show also that entailments hold by virtue of logical form insufficient either to render the premisses inconsistent or to render the conclusion logically true. The Lewis paradoxes are not Provable. Our system is distinct from Anderson and Belnap''s system of first degree entailments, and Johansson''s minimal logic. Although the Curry set paradox is still Provable within naive set theory, our system offers the prospect of a more sensitive paraconsistent reconstruction of mathematics. It may also find applications within the logic of knowledge and belief. (shrink)
Many preventive intervention studies with adolescents address high-risk behaviors such as drug and alcohol use, and unprotected sex. Randomized controlled trials (RCT) are the gold standard methodology used to test the effectiveness of these behavioral interventions. Interventions outside the rigidly described protocol are prohibited. However, there are ethical challenges to implementing inflexible intervention protocols, especially when the target population is young, experiences many stressful events, and lives in a resource-poor environment. Teens who are at high risk for substance use or (...) sexual risk behaviors tend to be at risk for other problems such as exposure to violence, sexual and physical abuse, depression, and homelessness. How should investigators deal with the psychological and social needs of teenagers in prevention programs in an ethically appropriate way and at the same time preserve the validity of RCT results? We have identified program characteristics, participant characteristics, interaction with parents, and problems with adolescents not in the study as sources of ethical dilemmas in RCT with at-risk adolescents. As a result of our experience, we recommend that every behavioral intervention study develop an ethics protocol, which should include rules for providing help to participants, has contact information for experts to provide guidance, and an emergency procedure for dealing with life threatening situations. In addition, studies should have a resource manual, train research staff in these ethical issues, and work with a data safety and monitoring board or ethics committee. (shrink)
The following four theses all have some intuitive appeal: (I) There are valid norms. (II) A norm is valid only if justified by a valid norm. (III) Justification, on the class of norms, has an irreflexive proper ancestral. (IV) There is no infinite sequence of valid norms each of which is justified by its successor. However, at least one must be false, for (I)--(III) together entail the denial of (IV). There is thus a conflict between intuition and logical possibility. This (...) paper, after distinguishing various conceptions of a norm, of validity and of justification, argues for the following position. (I) is true. (II) is false for legislative justification and true for epistemic justification. (III) is true for legislative and false for epistemic justification. (IV) is true for legislative justification; for epistemic justification (IV) is true or false depending on the conception taken of a norm. Our intuition in favour of (II) must therefore be abandoned where justification is conceived legislatively. Our intuition in favour of (III) must be abandoned, and our intuition in favour of (IV) qualified, where justification is conceived epistemically. (shrink)
This paper deals with the simple paradoxes of validity and with the possibility of solving them in terms of Bradwardinian-Buridanian semantics. The paradoxes of validity as conceived here are cases of semantic pathology, which result due to the use of terms signifying the validity of inference. Semantic paradoxes are a semantico-epistemological phenomenon which is a symptom of the need to revise several apparently acceptable semantic assumptions. The analysis of possible solutions to the paradoxes focuses on Bradwardinian-Buridanian semantics (...) and as a result on the closed, token-based semantic theories that assume the existence of an implicit meaning of propositions. The key theses, as far as the solution to the paradoxes is concerned, are the principle of truth-implication which claims that every proposition expresses or implies its own truth and the closure principle which claims that every proposition asserts or expresses everything that follows from it logically. The present paper advances on recent research in claiming that (with certain reservations) the application of these principles can effectively solve inconsistency-paradoxes but not indeterminacy-paradoxes of validity.Haec dissertatio circa simplices “consequentias insolubiles” modumque eos solvendi iuxta doctrinam semanticam Bradwardiniano-Buridanianam versatur. Consequentiae insolubiles, quae hic considerantur, “pathologiam semanticam” exhibunt, quae ex usu terminorum validitatem consequentiae significantium resultat. Insolubilia ut phaenomenon semantico-epistemologicum necessitatem corrigendi nonnula principia semantica, quae secundum primam suiapparentiam bona esse videntur. Inquisitio in divorsos modos solvendi ista insolubilia praecipue doctrinas semanticas Thomae de Bradwardino Ioannisque Buridani respicit, scilicet doc trinas semanticas “clausas” (seu distinctionem inter “meta-linguam” et “linguam obiectualem” non ponentes), nominalisticas, propositionibus etiam significationem quandam “implicitam” ascribentes. Assertiones principales, ex quibus huiusmodi insolubilium solutio pendet, sunt duo: 1. ex omni propositione assertionem sequi sui ipsius veritatis; 2. omnem propositionem quodcumque ex ea logice sequatur asserere. Extendentes investigationem recentiorum conclusionem tractatione nostra defendimus, principiis praedictis adhibendis bene solvi posse consequentias insolubiles ratione inconsistentiae, non tamen consequentias insolubiles ratione indeterminationis. (shrink)
By lopsided majorities, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a series of cases, persistently commanded the lower courts to condition the admission of proffered expert testimony on the demonstrated validity of the proponents’ claims of expertise. In at least one broad area – the so-called forensic sciences – the courts below have largely evaded the Supreme Court's holdings. This paper aims to try to explain this massive defiance by the lower courts in terms of social epistemology.
The purpose of this paper is to show how the degree of experimental validity of scientific procedures is crucially involved in determining two typical pragmatic modes in science, namely, the preservation of useful procedures and the disposal of useless ideas. The term 'pragmatic' will here be used following Schurz's characterisation of being internally pragmatic, as referring to that which proves useful for scientific or epistemic goals. The first part of the paper consists in a characterisation of the notion of (...) experimental validity. The second part is focused on several historical examples illustrating how the above pragmatic modes relate to the question of experimental validity. The Michelson-Morley experiment is presented as a case of a highly valid and useful experiment preserved through the development of different theories (like, on the one hand, the ether theory, upheld by Fitzgerald and Lorentz, and, on the other hand, Einstein's special theory of relativity). The concept of caloric will be discussed as an example of an idea that was discarded once it became useless, after heat was understood as a form of energy within the new frame provided by the kinetic theory of heat towards the middle of the 19th century. (shrink)
Some important meta-theoretical insights about experimental psychology are integrated into the "conjectures and refutations" framework in order to reinforce a realist's view of scientific methodology. Some issues which may be difficult for the realist's position are discussed. It is argued that there is no need for the evidential observation to mimic the phenomenon of interest; such a mimicry may even be counter-productive. A case is also made that questions about ecological validity are not relevant to the rationale of experimentation.
This explores the role of intention in interpreting designed artefacts. The relationship between how designers intend products to be interpreted and how they are subsequently interpreted has often been represented as a process of communication. However, such representations are attacked for allegedly implying that designers' intended meanings are somehow ‘contained’ in products and that those meanings are passively received by consumers. Instead, critics argue that consumers actively construct their own meanings as they engage with products, and therefore that designers' intentions (...) are not relevant to this process. In contrast, this article asserts the validity and utility of relating intention to interpretation by exploring the nature of that relationship in design practice and consumer response. Communicative perspectives on design are thereby defended and new avenues of empirical enquiry are proposed. (shrink)
This article examines Robert Alexy's account of legal validity. It concludes that Alexy's account of legal validity lacks sufficient support given the author's methodological commitments. To reach that conclusion, it assesses the plausibility of simultaneously maintaining that the participant's perspective has conceptual privilege in the explanation of the nature of law, that legal discourse is a special case of general practical discourse, and that unjust considerations can be legally valid norms.
Note posted 9 Jun 08 : Modifications made today include a new section on predictive validity, and addition of recently published article and in in-press article, both by Nosek & Hansen, under the "CULTURE VS. PERSON" heading, which replaces a previously listed unpublished ms. of theirs. I continue to encourage all interested to send material that they are willing to be included on this page. Please also to let me know about errors, including faulty links.
External validity is the problem of generalizing results from laboratory to non?laboratory conditions. In this paper we review various ways in which the problem can be tackled, depending on the kind of experiment one is doing. Using a concrete example, we highlight in particular the distinction between external validity and robustness, and point out that many experiments are not aimed at a well?specified real?world target but rather contribute to a ?library of robust phenomena?, a body of experimental knowledge (...) to be applied case by case. (shrink)
The notions of internal and external validity of an experiment, coined by Donald T. Campbell in the context of social scientific quasi-experimentation more than 50 years ago, are still central in the debates around the experimental method, both for practitioners and for philosophers of science. This paper points at the more problematic aspects of the distinction between the internal and external validity of experiments and, with a focus on the field of behavioural economics, traces the many misunderstandings that (...) surround the internal/external dyad in the philosophical and social scientific literature. (shrink)
The author investigates how the conception of legal validity as a specific mode of existence, adopted by Kelsen in Allgemeine Theorie der Normen (General Theory of Norms), can be reconciled with a conception of the legal system in which conflicts of legal norms remain of logical concern. To this end he makes use of Ludwig Wittgenstein's picture theory of the proposition as set out in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The conclusion is that in order to reconcile the two conceptions, the (...) legal system itself must be conceived of as consisting of three sub-systems, namely, (i) a sub-system of perceptible legal judgments, (ii) a sub-system of valid legal conditions, and (iii) a sub-system of observable social practices. (shrink)
The paper argues for viewing legal validity as a doxastic obligation, i.e. as the obligation to accept a rule in legal reasoning. This notion of legal validity is shown to be both sufficient for the laywers' needs and neutral in regard to various theories of the grounds of validity, i.e. theories intended to identify what rules are legally valid, by proposing different grounds for attributing validity. All of these theories, rather then being alternative definitions of (...) class='Hi'>validity, presuppose the notion here provided.This notion is purely normative, but it allows for the construction of theories of the grounds of validity which give due importance to social expectations and institutions. As an example of how this may happen, one such theory is also provided. This theory, which is presented through a detailed example of a judicial debate, is based upon the recognition of the (instrumental) value of co-ordination, as the necessary way to achieve the most valuable purposes of the law. (shrink)
The artificiality of a laboratory situation is placed in the context of the tension between external and internal validity. Most economists consider internal validity to be most important. A proper evaluation of the ?artificiality criticism? (a lack of external validity) requires distinguishing the various goals experimentalists pursue. External validity is relatively more important for experiments searching for empirical regularities than for theory?testing experiments. As experimental results are being used more often in the development of new theories, (...) a methodological discussion of their external validity is becoming more important. (shrink)
The author investigates how the conception of legal validity as a specific mode of existence, adopted by Kelsen in Allgemeine Theorie der Normen (General Theory of Norms), can be reconciled with a conception of the legal system in which conflicts of legal norms remain of logical concern. To this end he makes use of Ludwig Wittgenstein's picture theory of the proposition as set out in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The conclusion is that in order to reconcile the two conceptions, the (...) legal system itself must be conceived of as consisting of three sub-systems, namely, (i) a sub-system of perceptible legal judgments, (ii) a sub-system of valid legal conditions, and (iii) a sub-system of observable social practices. (shrink)
The Mīmāṃsāka doctrine of "svatah prāmānya" ("intrinsic validity") has seldom been given the serious philosophical attention it deserves. This doctrine in fact grows out of a sophisticated critique of epistemological foundationalism. This critique, as well as the larger project that it serves, has striking similarities with the philosophical project advanced in William Alston's "Perceiving God". A comparison of the two helps to highlight the strengths and the problems of both projects, and shows, perhaps more importantly, that the Mīmāṃsāka doctrine (...) is in fact still relevant, as it resembles one of the more interesting positions currently in play in contemporary philosophy. (shrink)
Validity was first given a more specifically scientific meaning by psychologists in the early twentieth century in the contexts of psychological tests. Following the classification of different validity-types in the American Psychological Association's Technical Recommendations (1954), validity travelled from psychological tests to psychological experiments through the work of Donald Campbell. Thus the idea was introduced that also experiments could be more or less valid. In addition, a distinction was made between the internal and the external validity (...) of an experiment. Of the two domains in which validity was employed in psychology, only the internal and external validity of experimental methodology travelled to economics. The initial implementation of validity in economic experimentation was reluctant, and focused upon showing how external validity in particular was not problematic in economic experiments. However, the gradual adoption of validity by economists working with experiments eventually led to the clear, analytical definition of internal validity by Francesco Guala, a definition that was subsequently taken over by other economists. In its travels from psychological tests to psychological experiments to economic experiments the concept of validity generally retained its meaning as the accuracy of a scientific procedure. At the same time, however, it was put to use in dissimilar ways and elicited different discussions in the scientific realms in which it was applied. (shrink)
The semantical structures called T x W frames were introduced in (Thomason, 1984) for the Ockhamist temporal-modal language, $[Unrepresented Character]_{o}$ , which consists of the usual propositional language augmented with the Priorean operators P and F and with a possibility operator ◇. However, these structures are also suitable for interpreting an extended language, $[Unrepresented Character]_{so}$ , containing a further possibility operator $\lozenge^{s}$ which expresses synchronism among possibly incompatible histories and which can thus be thought of as a cross-history 'simultaneity' operator. (...) In the present paper we provide an infinite set of axioms in $[Unrepresented Character]_{so}$ , which is shown to be strongly complete for T x W-validity. Von Kutschera (1997) contains a finite axiomatization of T x W-validity which however makes use of the Gabbay Irreflexivity Rule (Gabbay, 1981). In order to avoid using this rule, the proof presented here develops a new technique to deal with reflexive maximal consistent sets in Henkin-style constructions. (shrink)
Much of the methodological discussion around experiments in economics and other social sciences is framed in terms of the notions of internal and external validity. The standard view is that internal validity and external validity stand in a relationship best described as a trade-off. However, it is also commonly heldthat internal validity is a prerequisite to external validity. This article addresses the problem of the compatibility of these two ideas and analyzes critically the standard arguments (...) about the conditions under which a trade-off between internal and external validity arises. Our argument stands against common associations of internal validity and external validity with the distinction between field and laboratory experiments and assesses critically the arguments that link the artificiality of experimental settings done in the laboratory with the purported trade-off between internal and external validity. We conclude that the idea of a trade-off or tension between internal and external validity seems, upon analysis, far less cogent than its intuitive attractiveness may lead us to think at first sight. (shrink)
This paper makes an attempt at the conceptual foundation of descriptive ethical theories in terms of evolutionary anthropology. It suggests, first, that what human social actors tend to accept to be morally valid and legitimate ultimately rests upon empirical authority relations and, second, that this acceptance follows an evolved pattern of hierarchical behaviour control in the social animal species. The analysis starts with a brief review of Thomas Hobbes'' moral philosophy, with special emphasis on Hobbes'' authoritarian view of moral (...) class='Hi'>validity and of the common political origins and ultimate basis of legitimacy of moral and legal systems. Hobbes'' philosophical conceptions are then put into the context of Max Weber''s influential empirical theory of legitimacy, especially charismatic revelation and authority as the ultimate source of all moral, legal and religious obligations. Weber''s concept of charismatic authority is given a biobehavioural interpretation in terms of ritualised status signals indicating an individual''s superior physical and emotional dispositions to control the social actions of others. Various conclusions are drawn concerning the concept of moral validity and its possible evolutionary interpretations. (shrink)
Este artículo examina eI significado de los términos biológicos “epigénesis” y “preformación” en eI desarrollo imelectual de Kant, así como sus implicaciones epistemológicas. De hecho, las ideas de espontaneidad y sistema, centrales en la teoría kantiana de la mente, encontraron su analogía empírica en la idea de epigénesis de la naturaleza, una noción que Kant utiliza para dar respuesta a la cuestión de la genesis y validez de las represenraciones puras. Para el autor, la idea de epigénesis compendia la revolución (...) copernicana de Kant en la medida en que aquélla ilustra el papel productivo del entendimiento humano en la constitución de la experiencia.This paper explores the meaning of the biological terms “epigenesis” and “preformation” in Kant’s intellectual development, as well as its epistemological implications. In fact, spontaneity and system, two central ideas in Kant’s theory of mind, found their empirical analogy in the idea of epigenesis in nature, a notion that Kant uses to give answer to the question of the genesis and validity of the pure representations. For the author, epigenesis summarizes Kant’s Copernican Revolution in the measure in which that idea illustrates tbe productive role of the human understanding in the constitution of experience. (shrink)
In this short paper, I introduce two central notions for argument evaluation. The presentation is completely informal. It is possible to develop formal methods for working with validity and souneness, but it is also possible to apply the informal notions directly to problems in philosophy and beyond. In either case, it is important to understand the basic notions, in order to understand what is accomplished in reasoning. Exercises are included, with answers to selected exercises at the end.
We distinguish three different readings of the intuitionistic notions of validity, soundness, and completeness with respect to the quantification occurring in the notion of validity, and we establish certain relations between the different readings. For each of the meta-logical notions considered we suggest that the most natural reading (which is not the same for all cases) is precisely the one which is required by the recent intuitionistic completeness theorems for IPC.
This review of 122 research reports (184 independent samples, 14,900 subjects) found average r ϭ .274 for prediction of behavioral, judgment, and physiological measures by Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures. Parallel explicit (i.e., self-report) measures, available in 156 of these samples (13,068 subjects), also predicted effectively (average r ϭ .361), but with much greater variability of effect size. Predictive validity of self-report was impaired for socially sensitive topics, for which impression..
Building on philosophy of science literature and two original studies, this paper argues for the necessity of incorporating all three portions of Wood''s (1991) theoretical model of corporate social performance (CSP) into its measurement. It begins by describing the two studies of an organizational phenomenon not commonly studied – internal fund drives to employees. Insights from these studies of corporate PAC and United Way campaigns are then used to illustrate how important it is to incorporate all three portions of Wood''s (...) model into the measurement of CSP to prevent drawing faulty conclusions. The paper concludes by providing a matrix for use in testing the validity of CSP measures. (shrink)
This paper suggests a method to calculate a degree of validity for the proof of a statement which is derived from empirical statements by means of logic conclusions. The empirical statements are assumed not to be completely valid or their validity to be doubtful. The suggested rules are consistent with two-valued logic, yield decreasing validities with increasing number of applications of modus ponens and obey the law of the excluded middle. The actual calculation of validity values, the (...) relation of the suggested method to some truth tables of multi-valued logic and to fuzzy logic are discussed. (shrink)
I know that it is difficult for some students to distinguish the truth of premises from the validity of an argument. They think that a valid argument has all true statements, and an invalid one a false premise. Clearly, the teaching of validity requires introducing the idea of an argument form, for it is the form which is the vehicle of validity, not what is put in the form. An argument form does not contain statements (but statement (...) forms), so there is nothing in the form to be true or false. Yet the form has the property of validity, which is the property of truth preservation. This is to say that a valid form will never allow the premise forms to be filled with true statements and the conclusion form to be filled with a false statement. (shrink)
The paper attempts to account for the confusion over the validity of the concept of schizophrenia in terms of two closely related aspects of conceptual indeterminacy. Firstly, it is identified on the basis of a breakdown in intelligibility, but what constitutes such a breakdown is indeterminate. Secondly, the concept sits between the categories of natural disease or illness on the one hand, and character trait or moral failing or gift on the other. This entails an indeterminacy in attempting to (...) define the role that physiological explanation could have. Light may be thrown on the concept by exploring a distinction between a life story in which the schizophrenic condition emerges as the conclusion of the story and a causal process in which the condition is the end result or final consequence. (shrink)
Business ethics has gained much attention over the past decade in both work and educational settings. This study used a version of Lysonski and Gaidis' (1991) ethical vignettes to examine by gender the ethical views of 165 Canadian undergraduate management students, to examine the psychometric properties and construct validity of the instrument, and to determine if the instrument is a useful tool for introducing undergraduates to the topic of ethics in management practice. Results showed that while the instrument (...) is a useful teaching tool, it has psychometric and validity inadequacies that need to be corrected. (shrink)
A formula is (materially) valid iff all its instances are true sentences; and an axiomatic system is called (materially) sound and complete iff it proves all and only valid formulas. These are 'natural' concepts of validity and completeness, which were, however, in the course of the history of modern logic, stealthily replaced by their formal descendants: formal validity and completeness. A formula is formally valid iff it is true under all interpretations in all universes; and an axiomatic system (...) is called formally sound and complete iff it proves all and only formulas valid in this sense. Though the step from material to formal validity and completeness may seem to be merely an unproblematic case of explication, I argue that it is not; and that mistaking the latter concepts for the former ones may lead to serious conceptual confusions. (shrink)
Researchers studying depression often encounter research participants in serious preexisting distress. Examining investigators' ethical responsibilities to these subjects, Stanton and New (1988) found that depression researchers reported actions that ranged from doing nothing to contacting both the distressed subject and a significant other. By experimentally manipulating consent form information regarding potential treatment referral, we examined whether subjects (n = 357) adjusted their responses on depression measures as a function of the (...) level of follow-up they expected to receive. Results reveal that subjects who potentially could receive the most intrusive intervention (i.e., experimenter contact with the subject and a significant other) were less likely to report depressive symptoms than were subjects who anticipated less intrusive follow-up. Willingness to report depressive symptoms in particular conditions varied in part as a function of subject sex. Thus, ethical safeguards used in studies with subjects in preexisting distress may have consequences for the validity of self-report depression measures. (shrink)
Computerized medical personal registers are created for administrative purposes but are frequently used in research. It can be shown that this divergence of aims deeply affects the validity of the diagnosis in register research. The diagnostic process is embedded within the process of creating the data base. This process is guided by the aims for making diagnosis.Five different aims for making diagnosis in clinical practice have been analysed and eight suggestions for validity control are proposed on the basis (...) of the study. (shrink)
Although less observable than the overt actions of fighting and assault, covert antisocial behaviors such as stealing and property destruction comprise an important subclass of externalizing behavior patterns, displaying considerable predictive power toward delinquency in adolescence. I discuss a laboratory paradigm for objective observation of such behaviors in children that has shown impressive concurrent and predictive validity among samples of boys with and without attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Addressed herein are crucial questions regarding the ethics of tempting children to (...) steal objects and small amounts of money and to deface property as well as the types of informed consent and debriefing procedures utilized in research with this paradigm. Weighing ethical considerations alongside the ability to predict delinquent behavior presents provocative issues for those interested in understanding the development of antisocial behavior. (shrink)
Colleges of business rankings purport to address relative performance on programs such as sustainability. The primary criticism of rankings is that providers have not established reliability or validity of the ranking. This study examines whether The Global 100 sustainability ranking is sufficiently unique to claim that it is based on attributes not used for non-sustainability ranking (divergent validity) and whether it is appropriately related to independent characteristics expected to measure this attribute (convergent validity).
Law is a powerful force in human civilization. The growth and stability in society are generally linked with the gradual development of a system of legal rules, in addition to the instruments for their regular and effective enforcement. Law can be used to protect or harm the interest of man. This dimension raises the issue of the ‘validity of law’. The legal positivists posit that law is a ‘moral-neutral’ entity, and once it is enacted by the appropriate authority, it (...) cannot be adjudged immoral or unjust, by any standard outside the province of the law in question. The valid law for the legal positivists is law as enacted by the appropriate authority within agiven legal system. The Naturalists think otherwise. Cicero for instance believes that the validity of law is rooted on right reason in agreement with nature. In this paper I am more persuaded by the arguments of the Naturalists. I however present liberally the standpoints of the two opposing schools of thought – The naturalists and the positivists, with emphasis on the works of John Kelsen, Justice Homles, Cicero and Aquinas. (shrink)
Nyāya, which is one of the orthodox Brahmanical schools in India, accepts the authority of both the Vedic scriptures and God as its composer. Nyāya has specialized in logic and argumentation from ancient times while at the same time gradually strengthening its theistic tendency. Nyāya polemicist, Udayana, is famous for his contribution to the rational proof of the existence of God. In this paper, I will consider a tiny part of his proof of the existence of God given in his (...) theistic monograph, the Nyāyakusumāñjali, and in particular a topic called prāmāṇyavāda, or the Theory of Validity, from the viewpoint of the historical development of this argument. In this topic, it is argued how we justify our cognition and undertake actions. Nyāya polemicists preceding Udayana argued this topic in order to justify the Vedic scriptures and to encourage people to perform the Vedic rituals. And this topic has had little relationship with theological context. However, Udayana seems to link this argument to his theory of theology in an implicit way. I will suppose in his argument the implicit linkage between the prāmāṇyavāda and the assumption of an omniscient being. (shrink)
Two recent high-quality articles, including one in this journal, have challenged the Inclusivist and Incorporationist varieties of legal positivism. David Lefkowitz and Michael Giudice, writing from perspectives heavily influenced by the work of Joseph Raz, have endeavored—in sophisticated and interestingly distinct ways—to vindicate Raz's contention that moral principles are never among the law-validating criteria in any legal system nor among the laws that are applied as binding bases for adjudicative and administrative decisions in such a system. The present article (...) responds to their defenses of Raz's Exclusive Legal Positivism. (shrink)
It is often said that an argument is valid if and only if it is impossible for its premises to be jointly true and its conclusion false. Usually there is little harm in saying this but it places the concept of truth at the very heart of logic and, given how complex and obscure that concept is, one might wonder if trouble arises from this.It does — in at least two contexts. One of these was explored in the first half (...) of the fourteenth century by Jean Buridan and by the mysterious figure known as the Pseudo-Scotus of the Questions on the Prior Analytics printed in the edition of Scotus's works edited by Luke Wadding. Buridan thought that the bearers of truth were particular sentence-tokens; he thought of truth as a .. (shrink)
I express my dissatisfaction with the common ways to treat the semantic paradoxes. Not only do they give rise to revenge paradoxes, they ignore the wisdom contained in the ordinary reaction to paradoxes. I instead propose an account that vindicates the ordinary reaction to paradox by putting the blame on us philosophers. It is the wrong conception of what a valid inference is, one that is central to “the ideal of deductive logic” that gives rise to the problem. The solution (...) outlined gives us a new way to accept defeat in light of the paradoxes: the arguments that lead to them are based on valid forms of reasoning, but their conclusions are nonetheless rationally rejected. (shrink)
The concept of transliminality (''a hypothesized tendency for psychological material to cross thresholds into or out of consciousness'') was anticipated by William James (1902/1982), but it was only recently given an empirical definition by Thalbourne in terms of a 29-item Transliminality Scale. This article presents the 17-item Revised Transliminality Scale (or RTS) that corrects age and gender biases, is unidimensional by a Rasch criterion, and has a reliability of .82. The scale defines a probabilistic hierarchy of items that address magical (...) ideation, mystical experience, absorption, hyperaesthesia, manic experience, dream interpretation, and fantasy proneness. These findings validate the suggestions by James and Thalbourne that some mental phenomena share a common underlying dimension with selected sensory experiences (such being overwhelmed by smells, bright lights, sights, and sounds). Low scores on transliminality remain correlated with ''tough mindedness'' in on Cattell 16PF test, as well as ''self-control'' and ''rule consciousness,'' whereas high scores are associated with ''abstractedness'' and an ''openness to change'' on that test. An independent validation study confirmed the predictions implied by our definition of transliminality. Implications for test construction are discussed. (shrink)
An argument can be superficially valid and rhetorically effective even if what is plausibly meant, what is derived from what, and how it is derived is not at all clear. An example of such an argument is provided by Socrates’s famous refutation of Euthyphro’s second definition of holy, which is generally regarded as clearly valid and successful. This paper provides a stricter logical analysis than the ones in the literature. In particular, it is shown that the argument contains a syntactically (...) ambiguous expression, a passage that needs to be read charitably, and a previously unnoticed but crucial shift between two notions of unholy. Different analyses may be provided, depending on how these interpretation problems are solved. The conditions under which the refutation is valid and successful are far from obvious, and are here explicitly specified. (shrink)
How good is psychotherapy as a tool of research into human nature? There is an orthodox defence of it as a research tool, which relies on showing that interpretations are true of the patient when they satisfy certain criteria. This defence is examined and rejected. The reply is considered that an interpretation which 'keeps things moving' is true, or an approximation to the truth. This reply is rejected by comparing and contrasting an interpretation in psychotherapy with one from brainwashing sessions. (...) Two suppositions about psychotherapy (which weaken its discovery powers) are deliberately adopted — the suppositions that the material produced is 'perspective' and 'method' dependent. An unorthodox defence of psychotherapy is then offered — by means of a watery sense of 'discover'. This enables us to outline a weak sense in which psychotherapy is a valid enterprise, but one which is still strong enough for research purposes. (shrink)
Though it is standardly assumed that supervaluationism applied to vagueness is committed to global validity, Achille Varzi (2007) argues that the supervaluationist should take seriously the idea of adopting local validity instead. Varzi’s motivation for the adoption of local validity is largely based on two objections against the global notion: that it brings some counterexamples to classically valid rules of inference and that it is inconsistent with unrestricted higher-order vagueness. In this discussion I review these objections and (...) point out ways to address them not considered in Varzi’s paper. (shrink)
Three studies investigated implicit brand attitudes and their relation to explicit attitudes, prod- uct usage, and product differentiation. Implicit attitudes were measured using the Implicit As- sociation Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). Study 1 showed expected differ- ences in implicit attitudes between users of two leading yogurt brands, also revealing significant correlations between IAT-measured implicit attitudes and explicit attitudes. In Study 2, users of two fast food restaurants (McDonald’s and Milk Bar) showed implicit attitudi- nal preference for their (...) favorite restaurant. In Study 3, implicit attitudes of users of two soft drinks (Coca-Cola and Pepsi) predicted brand preference, product usage, and brand recognition in a blind taste test. A meta-analytic combination of the three studies showed that the use of IAT measures increased the prediction of behavior relative to explicit attitude measures alone. (shrink)
The Pinocchio paradox, devised by Veronique Eldridge-Smith in February 2001, is a counter-example to solutions to the Liar that restrict the use or definition of semantic predicates. Pinocchio’s nose grows if and only if what he is stating is false, and Pinocchio says ‘My nose is growing’. In this statement, ‘is growing’ has its normal meaning and is not a semantic predicate. If Pinocchio’s nose is growing it is because he is saying something false; otherwise, it is not growing. ‘Because’ (...) stands here for a non-semantic relation; it might be supposed to be causal or of some other nature, but it is not semantic. The paradox is discussed in relation to Tarski’s and Kripke’s theories of truth. Although the paradox is not necessarily a counter-example to a theory of a truth predicate, it is a problem for a theory of truth of the kind preserved by validity. (shrink)
Since more than 50 years Kant scholars debate the question whether the Law of Right as introduced in the Metaphysics of Morals by Kant can be justified by the Categorical Imperative. On the one hand we have those who think that Kant's theory of right depends from the Categorical Imperative, on the other hand we find a growing group of scholars who deny this. However, the debate has been flawed by confusion and misunderstanding of the crucial terms and principles. Therefore, (...) my first task will be to clarify these terms and principles by introducing distinctions that have been neglected too often. After this I try to show a) that the Law of Right can in fact be justified by using the testing method the Categorical Imperative prescribes and b) that there is no other way to justify it. Doing this I criticize in detail the new arguments adherents of the independence thesis have recently put forward. (shrink)
Recent scholarship has shown that the success of Pascal’s wager rests on precarious grounds. To avoid notorious problems, it must appeal to considerations such as what probability we assign to the existence of various gods and what religion we think provides the greatest happiness in this life. Rational judgments concerning these matters are subject to change over time. Some claim that the wager therefore cannot support a steadfast commitment to God. I argue that this conclusion does not follow. By drawing (...) upon the line of reasoning employed in getting married, I explain how unstable considerations can provide a sufficient rational foundation for a stable commitment. (shrink)
It is often claimed that the conclusion of a deductively valid argument is contained in its premises. Popper refuted this claim when he showed that an empirical theory can be expected always to have logical consequences that transcend the current understanding of the theory. This implies that no formalisation of an empirical theory will enable the derivation of all its logical consequences. I call this result ‘Popper-incompleteness.’ This result appears to be consistent with the view of deductive reasoning as a (...) process of unfurling the content of the premises; but I suggest that the result about validity impugns this theory of reasoning. (shrink)
A theory of reference may be either an analysis of reference or merely an account of the correct use of the verb "refer". If we define the validity of arguments in the standard way, in terms of assignments of individuals and sets to the nonlogical vocabulary of the language, then we will be committed to seeking an analysis of reference. Those who prefer a metalinguistic account, therefore, will desire an alternative to standard semantics. One alternative is the Quinean conception (...) of logical validity as essentially a matter of logical form. Another alternative is Leblanc's truth-value semantics. But these prove to be either inadequate for purposes of metatheory or philosophically unsatisfactory. This paper shows how validity (i.e., semantic consequence) may be defined in a way that avoid the problems facing these other alternatives to standard semantics and also permits a metalinguistic account of reference. The validity of arguments is treated as a matter of logical form, but validity for forms is defined on analogy with the definition of semantic consequence in truth-value semantics. (A more radical kind of semantics without reference is the context logical approach represented in several of my other publications.). (shrink)
The need to distinguish between logical and extra-logical varieties of inference, entailment, validity, and consistency has played a prominent role in meta-ethical debates between expressivists and descriptivists. But, to date, the importance that matters of logical form play in these distinctions has been overlooked. That’s a mistake given the foundational place that logical form plays in our understanding of the difference between the logical and the extra-logical. This essay argues that descriptivists are better positioned than their expressivist rivals to (...) provide the needed account of logical form, and so better able to capture the needed distinctions. This finding is significant for several reasons: First, it provides a new argument against expressivism. Second, it reveals that descriptivists can make use of this new argument only if they are willing to take a controversial—but plausible—stand on claims about the nature and foundations of logic. (shrink)
This paper centers upon the issue, within the project of analytic jurisprudence, of how to construe the status of the legal activities of a state when there is a disjuncture between a nation's formal legal commitments, such as those stated within a bill or charter of rights, and the way in which its officials actually engage in the practice of law, i.e., legislation and adjudication. Although there are two positions within contemporary legal theory which focus directly on this issue (Inclusive (...) and Exclusive Legal Positivism), neither is able to offer an acceptable descriptive-explanatory account of the variety of legal activities at play within such situations. Thus, tensions between legal formality and practice, existent in many legal systems today, can be used to delineate a theoretical gap in regard to our understanding of law. This paper serves to acknowledge that point, and suggests a possible constructive solution to the positivists' descriptive-explanatory problem. Furthermore, in taking seriously the gap between the normative orientation of a legal system and its de facto practice, this paper also suggests other areas within analytic jurisprudence that might be meaningfully informed by that issue. (shrink)
An invalid promise is one whose breach does not wrong the promisee. I describe two different accounts of why duress and deception invalidate promises. According to the fault account duress and deception invalidate a promise just when it was wrong for the promisee to induce the promisor to promise in that way. According to the injury account, duress and deception invalidate a promise just when by inducing the promise in that way the promisee wrongs the promisor. I demonstrate that the (...) injury account is superior. I then argue that in this respect promising is like any exercise of a normative power. I conclude by distinguishing two theories of promissory obligation, a widely held view which I call the information interest theory and an alternative which I call the authority interest theory. I argue that the points established earlier support the authority interest theory over its rival. (shrink)
