This paper explores the difference between Connectionist proposals for cognitive a r c h i t e c t u r e a n d t h e s o r t s o f m o d e l s t hat have traditionally been assum e d i n c o g n i t i v e s c i e n c e . W e c l a i m t h a t t h (...) e m a j o r d i s t i n c t i o n i s t h a t , w h i l e b o t h Connectionist and Classical architectures postulate representational mental states, the latter but not the former are committed to a symbol-level of representation, or to a ‘language of thought’: i.e., to representational states that have combinatorial syntactic and semantic structure. Several arguments for combinatorial structure in mental representations are then reviewed. These include arguments based on the ‘systematicity’ of mental representation: i.e., on the fact that cognitive capacities always exhibit certain symmetries, so that the ability to entertain a given thought implies the ability to entertain thoughts with semantically related contents. We claim that such arguments make a powerful case that mind/brain architecture is not Connectionist at the cognitive level. We then consider the possibility that Connectionism may provide an account of the neural (or ‘abstract neurological’) structures in which Classical cognitive architecture is implemented. We survey a n u m b e r o f t h e s t a n d a r d a r g u m e n t s t h a t h a v e b e e n o f f e r e d i n f a v o r o f Connectionism, and conclude that they are coherent only on this interpretation. (shrink)

Orthologic is defined by weakening the axioms and rules of inference of the classical propositional calculus. The resulting Lindenbaum-Tarski quotient algebra is an orthoimplication algebra which generalizes the author's implication algebra. The associated order structure is a semi-orthomodular lattice. The theory of orthomodular lattices is obtained by adjoining a falsity symbol to the underlying orthologic or a least element to the orthoimplication algebra.

A series of papers on different aspects of practical knowledge by Roderick Chisholm, Rudolf Haller, J. C. Nyiri, Eva Picardi, Joachim Schulte Roger Scruton, Barry Smith and Johan Wrede.

In Spandrels of Truth, Beall concisely presents and defends a modest, so-called dialetheic theory of transparent truth.

Consequence is at the heart of logic, and an account of consequence offers a vital tool in the evaluation of arguments. This text presents what the authors term as 'logical pluralism' arguing that the notion of logical consequence doesn't pin down one deductive consequence relation; it allows for many of them.

A good argument is one whose conclusions follow from its premises; its conclusions are consequences of its premises. But in what sense do conclusions follow from premises? What is it for a conclusion to be a consequence of premises? Those questions, in many respects, are at the heart of logic (as a philosophical discipline). Consider the following argument: 1. If we charge high fees for university, only the rich will enroll. We charge high fees for university. Therefore, only the rich (...) will enroll. There are many different things one can say about this argument, but many agree that if we do not equivocate (if the terms mean the same thing in the premises and the conclusion) then the argument is valid, that is, the conclusion follows deductively from the premises. This does not mean that the conclusion is true. Perhaps the premises are not true. However, if the premises are true, then the conclusion is also true, as a matter of logic. This entry is about the relation between premises and conclusions in valid arguments. (shrink)

Las reflexiones recogidas en este volumen constituyeron, en su mayor parte, el contenido del Seminario de Semántica celebrado en la Universidad de Oviedo, y uno de los textos ("Léxico y cognición: ¿hay términos de base?") formó parte del programa de conferencias de Año Europeo de las Lenguas. Conforme al espíritu de esas jornadas centradas en la pluralidad lingüística, esta publicación se hace simultáneamente en dos lenguas: español y francés. Aunque se tomen como referencia aspectos concretos de dos lenguas concretas, la (...) española y la francesa, los problemas que aquí se suscitan son de índole general, ya que afectan, y de manera crucial, a todas las lenguas. (shrink)

The Liar paradox raises foundational questions about logic, language, and truth (and semantic notions in general). A simple Liar sentence like 'This sentence is false' appears to be both true and false if it is either true or false. For if the sentence is true, then what it says is the case; but what it says is that it is false, hence it must be false. On the other hand, if the statement is false, then it is true, since it (...) says (only) that it is false. -/- How, then, should we classify Liar sentences? Are they true or false? A natural suggestion would be that Liars are neither true nor false; that is, they fall into a category beyond truth and falsity. This solution might resolve the initial problem, but it beckons the Liar's revenge. A sentence that says of itself only that it is false or beyond truth and falsity will, in effect, bring back the initial problem. The Liar's revenge is a witness to the hydra-like nature of Liars: in dealing with one Liar you often bring about another. -/- JC Beall presents fourteen new essays and an extensive introduction, which examine the nature of the Liar paradox and its resistance to any attempt to solve it. Written by some of the world's leading experts in the field, the papers in this volume will be an important resource for those working in truth studies, philosophical logic, and philosophy of language, as well as those with an interest in formal semantics and metaphysics. (shrink)

This paper critically examines the argument structure of Fodor's theory of modularity. Fodor claims computational autonomy as the essential properly of modular processing. This property has profound consequences, burdening modularity theory with corollaries of rigidity, non-plasticity, nativism, and the old Cartesian dualism of sensing and thinking. However, it is argued that Fodor's argument for computational autonomy is crucially dependent on yet another postulate of Fodor's theory, viz. his thesis of strong modularity, ie. the view that functionally (...) distinct modules must also have physical counterparts in the neural architecture of the brain. Yet, Fodor offers little or no independent support for this neurological speculation. Moreover, due to the cognitivist underpinnings of Fodor's theory his view of modules as 'mental organs'faces an untenable dilemma that is to be traced back to the earliest history of modem cognitive science, viz. to the rationalist-computationalist research program initiated by Descartes and Male-branche. The tension characteristic for the Cartesian program was one that arose between information correlation and information processing accounts of the transactions between body and mind. Similarly, the tension characteristic for Fodor's theory of modularity is one between a causal account of modules on the model of simple detection mechanisms, and an information processing account of modules on the model of vast and elaborate cognitive systems. It is argued that the resulting concept of a cognitive module Fodorian style constitutes an amalgam of incompatible desiderata that fails to stake out a natural kind for cognitive science. As an alternative account, the final section shows connectionism to be capable of encompassing both Gibsonian and 'new look' accounts of cognitive achievements within one theoretical perspective, thus providing a fruitful interfield theory capable of combining the theoretical resources of the ecological approach with the indispensable theoretical complement provided by psychological processing accounts. This change of perspective would ultimately involve recasting the symbo-functionalist notion of cognitive function along bio-psychological lines. (shrink)

The paper reviews a number of approaches for handling restricted quantification in relevant logic, and proposes a novel one. This proceeds by introducing a novel kind of enthymematic conditional.

: Jerry Fodor proposes a solution to Quine's inscrutability–of–reference problem for certain naturalized semantic theories, thereby defending such theories from charges that they cannot discriminate meanings finely enough. His proposal, combining elements of informational and inferential–role semantics, is to eliminate non–standard interpretations by testing predicate compatibility relations. I argue that Fodor's proposal, understood as primarily aimed at Mentalese, withstands Ray's and Gates's objections but nonetheless fails because of unwarranted assumptions about ontological homogeneity of target language predicates, and problems (...) with Fodor's reliance on predicate conjunction to resolve ambiguity. Naturalized semantics thus remains without an answer to the inscrutability objection. (shrink)

Extensively classroom-tested, Possibilities and Paradox provides an accessible and carefully structured introduction to modal and many-valued logic. The authors cover the basic formal frameworks, enlivening the discussion of these different systems of logic by considering their philosophical motivations and implications. Easily accessible to students with no background in the subject, the text features innovative learning aids in each chapter, including exercises that provide hands-on experience, examples that demonstrate the application of concepts, and guides to further reading.

In his book The Austrian Mind (1972) W. M. Johnston observes that between 1861 and 1938 a striking number of Austrian intellectuals committed uicide. He also remarks that prior to 1920 suicide was relatively rare among Hungarian intellectuals, and as a possible explanation he refers to their more intensive political activity. The present paper investigates relations between a society's intellectual life and its general suicidal tendencies. In so doing it takes up a central theme of T. G. Masaryk's Suicide as (...) a Social Mass Phenomenon of Modern Civilization, published in Vienna in 1881. (shrink)

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

Semantic and soritical paradoxes challenge entrenched, fundamental principles about language - principles about truth, denotation, quantification, and, among others, 'tolerance'. Study of the paradoxes helps us determine which logical principles are correct. So it is that they serve not only as a topic of philosophical inquiry but also as a constraint on such inquiry: they often dictate the semantic and logical limits of discourse in general. Sixteen specially written essays by leading figures in the field offer new thoughts and arguments (...) about the paradoxes. (shrink)

A major obstacle to formulating a broad-content intentional psychology is the occurrence of ''Frege cases'' - cases in which a person apparently believes or desires Fa but not Fb and acts accordingly, even though "a" and "b" have the same broad content. Frege cases seem to demand narrow-content distinctions to explain actions by the contents of beliefs and desires. Jerry Fodor ( The elm and the expert: Mentalese and its semantics , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994) argues that an (...) explanatorily adequate broad-content psychology is nonetheless possible because Frege cases rarely occur in intentional-explanatory contexts, and they are not systematically linked to intentional laws in a way that demands intentional explanation. Thus, he claims, behaviors associated with Frege cases can be considered ceteris-paribus exceptions to broad-content intentional laws without significantly decreasing the explanatory power of intentional psychology. I argue that Frege cases are plentiful and systematically linked to intentional laws in a way that requires intentional explanation, specifically in the explanation of why certain actions are not performed. Consequently, Frege-case behaviors cannot be construed as ceteris-paribus exceptions to intentional laws without significantly eroding the explanatory power of intentional psychology and reducing the rationality of the agent. Fodor thus fails to save broad-content psychology from the prima facie objections against it based on Frege cases. (shrink)

In a series of articles and in a recent book, What Darwin Got Wrong, Jerry Fodor has objected to Darwin’s principle of natural selection on the grounds that it assumes nature has intentions.1 Despite the near universal rejection of Fodor’s argument by biologists and philosophers of biology (myself included),2 I now believe he was almost right. I will show this through a historical examination of a principle that Darwin thought as important as natural selection, his principle of divergence. (...) The principle was designed to explain a phenomenon obvious to any observer of nature, namely, that animals and plants form a hierarchy of clusters. Theodosius Dobzhansky made this the motivating observation of his great synthesizing work, Genetics and the Origin of Species (1937): “the living world is not a single array of individuals in which any two variants are connected by a series of intergrades, but an array of more or less distinctly separate arrays, intermediates between which are absent or at least rare. . . Small.. (shrink)

Semantic and soritical paradoxes challenge entrenched, fundamental principles about language - principles about truth, denotation, quantification, and, among others, 'tolerance'. Study of the paradoxes helps us determine which logical principles are correct. So it is that they serve not only as a topic of philosophical inquiry but also as a constraint on such inquiry: they often dictate the semantic and logical limits of discourse in general. Sixteen specially written essays by leading figures in the field offer new thoughts and arguments (...) about the paradoxes. (shrink)

The dominating theologian in Europe between Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus, Henry of Ghent produced a massive Summa of Ordinary Questions as well as fifteen quodlibets during his long tenure at the University of Paris. His work constituted a new synthesis of faith and reason which competed with that of Thomas Aquinas and influenced the history of both philosophy and theology. The first five articles of the Summa, dealing with various issues associated with human knowledge, constitute an adequate introduction (...) to Henry's thought. In them we find his approach to fundamental principles and themes developed in detail in the rest of his corpus. Of the five, only article one has appeared as a whole in English translation. The next four articles reinforce and develop the findings of the first article, providing additional treatments that indicate Henry's principles and orientation. In fact, these four articles alone provide a condensed but remarkably rich portrait of Henry's basic thought, and so are an invaluable resource for beginning and advanced students alike. Articles 2-5 include important positions on knowledge and reality, a conception of humanity's ultimate purpose and the pursuits most conducive to it, and an approach to faith and reason. These four articles are presented here for the first time in English translation with an introduction and notes. Along with the translation, the volume includes the Latin text of the modern critical edition. --Book cover. (shrink)

Fodor's doubts about neo‐Darwinism are driven by something other than familiarity with evolutionary biology, so they should be set aside. His claim that a theory of intentionality cannot be constructed on an evolutionary foundation because there is no representation in the process of natural selection reveals that he has been blind to the chief beauty of Darwin's vision: its capacity to explain not just how the living can come, gradually, from the non‐living, but also how meaning can come, by (...) incremental steps, out of the meaningless. (shrink)

We are pluralists about logical consequence [1]. We hold that there is more than one sense in which arguments may be deductively valid, that these senses are equally good, and equally deserving of the name deductive validity. Our pluralism starts with our analysis of consequence. This analysis of consequence is not idiosyncratic. We agree with Richard Jeffrey, and with many other philosophers of logic about how logical consequence is to be defined. To quote Jeffrey.