No detailed description available for "Concepts and language".

Factive predicates (like ‘-matters’, ‘discover-’, ‘realizes-’) take NPs that refer to facts, propositional predicates (like ‘-seems’, ‘believes-’, ‘-likely’) take NPs that refer to propositions, and eventive predicates (like ‘-occurs’, ‘-take place’, ‘-causes-’) take NPs that refer to events (broadly speaking, including states, processes, conditions, ect.). Logically speaking at least two out of the three categories (facts, propositions, and events) can be eliminated. So, if all three kinds of referents turn out to be required for natural language semantics, their postulation is (...) empirically significant since a priori logical considerations do not require all of them.Pronominalization evidence inter alia raises questions about the distinctness of facts, events, and propositions. Two proposals for resolving the pronominalization dilemmas are, first, that abstract elements exist which contain the genuine antecedents for the pronouns (co-reference remaining both syntactic and semantic) and second, that syntactic co-reference is simply distinct from semantic co-reference. The first proposal hardly works at all, since it requires the postulation of many abstract elements and associated unmotivated deletion (or insertion) rules. The second proposal works for all the examples considered. Prior to discussing the two proposals, I show how any two of the three categories can be logically eliminated, a demonstration which also produces some hypothetical abstract elements of use in discussing both proposals. I conclude with some brief remarks on reference versus coreference. (shrink)

Consider syllogisms in which fraction (percentage) quantifiers are permitted in addition to universal and particular quantificrs, and then include further quantifiers which are modifications of such fractions (such as "almost ½ the S are P" and "Much more than ½ the S are P"). Could a syllogistic system containing such additional categorical forms be coherent? Thompson's attempt (1986) to give rules for determining validity of such syllogisms has failed; cf. Carnes & Peterson (forthcoming) for proofs of the unsoundness and incompleteness (...) of Thompson's rules. Building on Peterson (1985), the coherence of such a syllogistic can, however, be demonstrated with an algebra which provides its semantics; e.g., "almost ¾ the S arc P'" is represented as " -(3(SP) » SP)". (shrink)

Intermediate Quantitifiers presents and analyzes the logical and linguistic features of intermediate quantifiers, in a fashion typical of traditional logic. Intermediate quantifiers express logical quantities which fall between Aristotle's two quantities of categorical propositions - the universal and the particular. This book is the first to use traditional methods to integrate the logic and semantics of intermediate quantifiers with the two traditional quantities. Few, many and most express the most commonly referred to intermediate quantities, yet in this book Peterson argues (...) that an infinite number of additional quantities can be understood through a deeper examination of the logical nature of all intermediate quantifiers. Drawing on the work of Robert Carnes and taking a critical look at James McCawley's grammatical analysis, Peterson concludes that a new approach to foundations of mathematics based on the syllogistic logic of quantifiers is possible.Offering invaluable insights for those studying across areas of logic, linguistics, and the philosophy or semantics of natural language, this book presents the completion of an explanation for extending traditional syllogistic logic to handle intermediate quantifiers. (shrink)

What is “the relation of logic to philosophy?” Is “the traditional bond between logic and philosophy severed?” That the field of logic has evolved away from philosophy proper is supported by the apparent fact that most logic research today is carried out by members of university departments other than philosophy with the main logical concern of philosophy departments being elementary logic instruction. So, it appears to many observers that logic used to be a part of philosophy, but that at the (...) leading edge of its research and study it is no longer a basic or pure component of the field of philosophy. Although I myself do not believe this assessment, I will presume for the sake of discussion that it is widely believed. Against this supposed separation of logic from philosophy, I will show how to re-establish the connection. (shrink)

I would try to reduce the anxiety to realizing that seemingly the same proposition is really different when it is false by pointing out that the contents of two of our beliefs can be different when we think they are the same as well as being the same when we think they are different. That is, belief contents are not infallibly known or knowable in conscious reflective awareness of beliefs. Trying or wanting to accurately perceive what you are thinking does (...) not guarantee success. We can be wrong even about what we believe our beliefs are we don't and maybe can't realize that two beliefs are contradictory). (shrink)

In “Real Logic in Philosophy” I argued that the study of logic be conceived to be the study of the human faculty for correct reasoning. I relabeled the field of study, as well as the object studied, “real logic”- thereby introducing an ambiguity akin to that found with ‘grammar’. ‘Grammar’ is a term for both a field of study and for the object studied. The parallel to grammar and ‘grammar’ was not accidental. I proposed that the faculty for correct reasoning (...) is analogous to the faculty for natural language understanding. So, just as one’s knowlege of a NL can be usefully thought of as an “internalized” grammar, so one’s faculty for Reasoning Logically—or for “real logic” —can be thought of as an “internalized” system. The faculty for correct inference is, then, an internalized real logic. (shrink)

What is “the relation of logic to philosophy?” Is “the traditional bond between logic and philosophy severed?” That the field of logic has evolved away from philosophy proper is supported by the apparent fact that most logic research today is carried out by members of university departments other than philosophy with the main logical concern of philosophy departments being elementary logic instruction. So, it appears to many observers that logic used to be a part of philosophy, but that at the (...) leading edge of its research and study it is no longer a basic or pure component of the field of philosophy. Although I myself do not believe this assessment, I will presume for the sake of discussion that it is widely believed. Against this supposed separation of logic from philosophy, I will show how to re-establish the connection. (shrink)

I would try to reduce the anxiety to realizing that seemingly the same proposition is really different when it is false by pointing out that the contents of two of our beliefs can be different when we think they are the same as well as being the same when we think they are different. That is, belief contents are not infallibly known or knowable in conscious reflective awareness of beliefs. Trying or wanting to accurately perceive what you are thinking does (...) not guarantee success. We can be wrong even about what we believe our beliefs are we don't and maybe can't realize that two beliefs are contradictory). (shrink)

What is the logical form of a semantically emphasized causal sentence like the following?

The distinctions among facts, propositions, and events are supported by linguistic analyses segregating factive, propositional, and eventive predicates. The concepts of fact, proposition, and event may be basic categories of human understanding, as well as being ontologically significant. FPE theory was developed in part to reject the identification of facts with true propositions. The degree of ‘fineness’ of individuations within each category results from how closely event-, fact-, or proposition-individuation mirrors linguistic semantic structure. Event structure is not reflected in many (...) event phrases. Fact- and proposition-structure typically does reflect semantic structures of factive and propositional clauses. The relevant properties for event individuation are all expressible by eventive predicates. Fact and proposition individuation is not as straightforward, because so many factives and propositionals do not express properties relevant to the Leibnizian principle. The intractability of proposition individuation may be overcome through an explanation of fact cognition. (shrink)

Some critics believe Quine's semantic indeterminacy (indeterminacy of radical translation at home as well as abroad) thesis is true, but innocent, since it is just scientific underdetermination in linguistics. The Quinean reply is that in scientific underdetermination cases there are facts of the matter making claims true or false (whether knowable or not), whereas in semantic indeterminacy cases there simply are not. The critics' rejoinder that there are such facts, studied in linguistics, is met by the final reply that linguistics (...) either on the whole or in part is riddled with appeals to "meanings" and is, thereby, as suspect as analyticity and radical translation. I recommend "saving"(?) linguistics by holding that it is permanently entangled in epistemology. Finally, the argument the critics should have made concerns paralleling semantic indeterminacy to indeterminacies in current quantum mechanics. (shrink)

This thesis offers a re-definition of Kantian a priorism by expanding the notions surrounding it from within a Piagetian genetic epistemological viewpoint. ;In particular, the notion of "noumenon" is re-examined from within this viewpoint, and extended to all structural facets of the genetic epistemological knowing "situation". ;By means of these re-examinations of classical epistemological notions, the various forms of knowledge characteristically produced from within the bounds of that knowing "situation" can then be structurally located with respect to intent and focus (...) of the knowing activity, thereby making it possible to show the phenomenological connection between all these forms of knowledge, as well as to legitimize each form under the canopy of a common set of functional principles, such as truth, objectivity, progress, etc. This in turn allows for a re-definition of the Piagetian scientifically oriented "epistemic subject" into what I call the "complete epistemic subject", which takes account of all the forms of knowing occurring within the structure of the genetic epistemological "situation". ;Particularly are art and science focused upon as test cases for the re-oriented a priorism presented. ;Following the epistemological argument, the classical Progressive educational argument will be re-examined to determine whether any altered approaches and educational ideals result from analyzing the meaning of the "natural man" and "democratic man" and how these analyses can be seen to refer to an expanded type of knowing subject, the "complete epistemic subject". (shrink)

My recently developed Fact-Proposition-Event (FPE) Theory can help to begin the clarification of D.A. Armstrong's account of natural laws-that laws are relationships among certain universals. FPE Theory makes careful description of laws possible, distinguishing them from law propositions (or statements), law facts, and states-of-affairs with which they might be confused. Initial inspection of Armstrong's proposal forces a choice between taking a law to be a certain kind of state (an event- or state-kind) and taking it to be a determinate kind (...) of relation (a relation-kind instantiated by ordered pairs of concrete events and/or states). On both alternatives, new kinds of events and states arise (abstract ones and event-pairs, among others). (shrink)

D.A. Armstrong’s account (1983, intimately influenced by Tooley 1977 and Swoyer 1982) of natural laws is that they arerelations between universals.Armstrong doesn’t simply hold that laws are some relationships or other between universals. He also holds that they are first-order universals themselves (1983, pp. 89-90). Each ordinary law-say,causallaw-is numerically identical to some first-order universal. This is a striking, seemingly incredible hypothesis. What is Armstrong thinking of when he says (1983, p. 90):I propose that the state of affairs, the law, N(F,G), (...) is a dyadic universal, that is, a relation, holding between states of affairs. Suppose that a particular object, a, is F, and so, because of the law N(F,G), it, a, is also G. This state of affairs, an instantiation of the law, has the form Rab, where R = N(F,G), a = a’s being F, and b, = b’s being G:(N(F,G))(a's being F, b's being G). (shrink)