Though largely unnoticed, in “Two Dogmas” Quine himself invokes a distinction: a distinction between logical and analytic truths. Unlike analytic statements equating ‘bachelor’ with ‘unmarried man’, strictly logical tautologies relating two word-tokens of the same word-type, e.g., ‘bachelor’ and ‘bachelor’ are true merely in virtue of basic phonological form, putatively an exclusively non-semantic function of perceptual categorization or brute stimulus behavior. Yet natural language phonemic categorization is not entirely free of interpretive semantic considerations. “Phonemic reductionism” in both its linguistic and (...) behavioral, Newbury Park, CA, Sage Publications, 164–167) guise is false. The semantic basis of phonological equivalence, however, has repercussions vis-à-vis Quine’s critique of analyticity. A consistent rejection of meaning-based equivalencies eliminates not only analyticity, but imposes a form of phonological eliminativism too. Phonological eliminativism is the reductio result of applying Quinean meaning skepticism to the phonological typing of natural language. But unlike analyticity, phonology is presumably not subject to philosophical dismissal. The semantic basis of natural language phonology serves to neutralize Quine’s argument against analyticity: without the semantics of meaning, more than just synonymy is lost; basic phonology must also be forfeited. Let’s begin with the fact that even Quine has to admit that it is possible for two tokens of the same orthographic type to be synonymous, for that much is presupposed by his own account of logical truth. Paul Boghossian. (shrink)
Though largely unnoticed, in "Two Dogmas" Quine himself invokes a distinction: a distinction between logical and analytic truths. Unlike analytic statements equating 'bachelor' with 'unmarried man', strictly logical tautologies relating two word-tokens of the same word-type, e.g., 'bachelor' and 'bachelor' are true merely in virtue of basic phonological form, putatively an exclusively non-semantic function of perceptual categorization or brute stimulus behavior. Yet natural language phonemic categorization is not entirely free of interpretive semantic considerations. "Phonemic reductionism" in both its linguistic and (...) behavioral, Newbury Park, CA, Sage Publications, 164-167) guise is false. The semantic basis of phonological equivalence, however, has repercussions vis-à-vis Quine's critique of analyticity. A consistent rejection of meaning-based equivalencies eliminates not only analyticity, but imposes a form of phonological eliminativism too. Phonological eliminativism is the reductio result of applying Quinean meaning skepticism to the phonological typing of natural language. But unlike analyticity, phonology is presumably not subject to philosophical dismissal. The semantic basis of natural language phonology serves to neutralize Quine's argument against analyticity: without the semantics of meaning, more than just synonymy is lost; basic phonology must also be forfeited. (shrink)
Aaron Gurwitsch's The Field of Consciousness develops with great care a phenomenological "field theory of conscience." The explorations of various aspects of, and approaches to, experience include extensive references to the literature; both mention and use are made of the work of Husserl, James, Piaget, von Ehrenfels, Stumpf, Koffka, Bergson, Ward, G. F. Stout, and Merleau-Ponty. Out of this research a phenomenological basis is provided for the concepts of an objective space, time, and existence. Roman Ingarden's Time and Modes of (...) Being, a translation of part of the first volume of his two-volume Spór o istnienie swiata, published in Polish in 1946-7, is concerned with developing for metaphysical use the concepts of all possible modes of being, once time, space, and individual existence are granted. Gurwitsch and Ingarden use highly sophisticated phenomenological tools originating with Husserl to gain phenomenological and ontological results. Nathan Rotenstreich in Spirit and Man, 1963, uses introspection as his method, accommodating himself to a number of the distinctions of phenomenology, e.g., intentionality; but the puristic stance of the phenomenologist is missing; hence the average number of conclusions per paragraph is notably higher than in either of the other works. Rotenstreich begins with awareness, like Gurwitsch; like Ingarden he discusses modes of being; but his purpose lies in discovering and interrelating the basic themes appropriate to certain conclusions about man's status in and over against the space-time world. (shrink)
The conceptual framework of religion is more like the frame of a picture than the frame of a house; and what goes on within the frame is other than conceptual. This is the hypothesis motivating the analysis which follows. Given the hypothesis, the problem is to conceive what religion is - this other-than-conceptual enterprise which tends to attract conceptual frames. A possible answer is available in Wittgensteinian ‘seeing-as’. A number of philosophers of religion have recently exercised this option. The present (...) paper adds to their work by comparing a number of types of religious seeing-as with the instances of visual ambiguity drawn on by Wittgenstein. (shrink)
Walter Reese-Schäfer, Karl-Otto Apel, Zur Einführung (with an Afterword by Jürgen Habermas), Junis Verlag GmbH, Hamburg 1990, 176pp. DM 17.80 -/- The author, presently a freelance writer published in the newspaper “Die Zeit” and the magazine “Stern,” provides in this small book a clear and concise introduction to sources, themes and conclusions in the philosophy of Karl-Otto Apel. Apel, Emeritus Professor at Frankfurt, and close colleague of Habermas, characterizes his viewpoint as a “transcendental pragmatism” in which a Kantian concern (...) for question regarding “the conditions for the possibility of something,” (p.10) mixes with deontological discourse-ethics, semeiotic themes from Peirce, an approach to fallibilism, the demand for “final justifications” (Letztbegründung) and German hermeneutics. In view of the “density and concentration” of Apel’s texts, which often have a “deterrent effect” upon those not already at home with “the philosophical language game,” it is the announced aim of this book to provide a work of translation and clarification of Apel’s specialized efforts --in effect an orientation to Apel’s work. The book divides into an Introduction, 8 chapters and a summary conclusion --with Habermas’ appreciation, “A Master Builder with Hermeneutic Feeling --The Way of Philosopher Karl-Otto Apel,” bringing up the rear. There is also a bibliography of primary and secondary sources and a short table outlining highlights of Apel’s career. The “Introduction” provides a good overview of the aims of the book and gets one started on central themes. (shrink)
We provide a new interpretation of Zeno’s Paradox of Measure that begins by giving a substantive account, drawn from Aristotle’s text, of the fact that points lack magnitude. The main elements of this account are the Axiom of Archimedes which states that there are no infinitesimal magnitudes, and the principle that all assignments of magnitude, or lack thereof, must be grounded in the magnitude of line segments, the primary objects to which the notion of linear magnitude applies. Armed with this (...) account, we are ineluctably driven to introduce a highly constructive notion of measure based exclusively on the total magnitude of potentially infinite collections of line segments. The Paradox of Measure then consists in the proof that every finite or potentially infinite collection of points lacks magnitude with respect to this notion of measure. We observe that the Paradox of Measure, thus understood, troubled analysts into the 1880’s, despite their knowledge that the linear continuum is uncountable. The Paradox was ultimately resolved by Borel in his thesis of 1893, as a corollary to his celebrated result that every countable open cover of a closed line segment has a finite sub-cover, a result he later called the “First Fundamental Theorem of Measure Theory.” This achievement of Borel has not been sufficiently appreciated. We conclude with a metamathematical analysis of the resolution of the paradox made possible by recent results in reverse mathematics. (shrink)
Wittgenstein’s concepts shed light on the phenomenon of schizophrenia in at least three different ways: with a view to empathy, scientific explanation, or philosophical clarification. I consider two different “positive” wittgensteinian accounts―Campbell’s idea that delusions involve a mechanism of which different framework propositions are parts, Sass’ proposal that the schizophrenic patient can be described as a solipsist, and a Rhodes’ and Gipp’s account, where epistemic aspects of schizophrenia are explained as failures in the ordinary background of certainties. I argue that (...) none of them amounts to empathic-phenomenological understanding, but they provide examples of how philosophical concepts can contribute to scientific explanation, and to philosophical clarification respectively. (shrink)
