A Defense of Semantic Conventionalism

The purpose of this dissertation is to argue that semantic conventionalism of a, more or less, Dummettian variety is unjustly neglected in contemporary philosophy. The strategy for arguing this is to make a conjecture about why people ignore it; there seem to be two plausible reasons: 1) there are (what people take to be) obviously preferable candidates on offer; 2) there are (what people take to be) knock-down arguments against semantic conventionalism. In response to 1), I consider intentionalist Gricean semantics, and argue it is at least no better off than conventionalist theories. Of course, any number of theories could be used oppose semantic conventionalism. But the Gricean theory is seen as particularly strong, and showing that it is no better off makes my case for the viability of semantic conventionalism all the more compelling. For 2) I consider three possible reasons for thinking that conventionalism has been refuted. Chapter Three concerns the objection that semantic conventionalism depends on the existence of ``luminous'' psychological states, of which there are none (according to Williamson's anti-luminosity argument). I agree with Williamson, and reject luminosity as part of a viable conventionalist theory. Chapter Four supposes that semantic conventionalist theories depend on the (untenable) analytic/synthetic distinction to avoid collapse into holism. However, I also reject the analytic/synthetic distinction for a more favourable distinction. In Chapter Five, the objection I consider is that semantic conventionalism involves an epistemically constrained notion of truth and so collapses into incoherence because of the knowability paradox. However, my response to this is that the semantic conventionalist should be happy with such an epistemic account of truth and that it does not lead to the knowability paradox. The paradox can, and is, resolved in this chapter. So, (1) and (2) are false. The concluding chapter brings together all that we have learned throughout the dissertation about what a defensible version of conventionalism might look like

Dialetheism in Action: A New Strategy for Solving the Equal Validity Paradox

This paper starts from the Equal Validity Paradox, a paradoxical argument connected to the so-called phenomenon of faultless disagreement. It is argued that there are at least six strategies for solving the paradox. After presenting the first five strategies and their main problems, the paper focuses on the sixth strategy which rejects the assumption that every proposition cannot be both true a false. Dialetheism is the natural candidate for developing strategy six. After presenting strategy six in detail, we formulate a normative problem for the dialetheist and offer a tentative solution to it. We then elaborate further considerations connecting strategy six to pluralism about truth and logic. Even if strategy six is a hard path to take, its scrutiny highlights some important points on truth, logic and the norms for acceptance and rejection

A UNIFYING FIELD IN LOGICS: NEUTROSOPHIC LOGIC. NEUTROSOPHY, NEUTROSOPHIC SET, NEUTROSOPHIC PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS - 6th ed.

It was a surprise for me when in 1995 I received a manuscript from the mathematician, experimental writer and innovative painter Florentin Smarandache, especially because the treated subject was of philosophy - revealing paradoxes - and logics. He had generalized the fuzzy logic, and introduced two new concepts: a) “neutrosophy” – study of neutralities as an extension of dialectics; b) and its derivative “neutrosophic”, such as “neutrosophic logic”, “neutrosophic set”, “neutrosophic probability”, and “neutrosophic statistics” and thus opening new ways of research in four fields: philosophy, logics, set theory, and probability/statistics. It was known to me his setting up in 1980’s of a new literary and artistic avant-garde movement that he called “paradoxism”, because I received some books and papers dealing with it in order to review them for the German journal “Zentralblatt fur Mathematik”. It was an inspired connection he made between literature/arts and science, philosophy. We started a long correspondence with questions and answers. Because paradoxism supposes multiple value sentences and procedures in creation, antisense and non-sense, paradoxes and contradictions, and it’s tight with neutrosophic logic, I would like to make a small presentation

Neo-Carnapian Quietism: A global framework

This thesis explores the highly contested ontological question of what exists, and aims to deflate ontological debates in a quietist fashion, whilst providing an original, positive account of how to proceed by drawing upon ideas from Fictionalism, Meinongianism, and Dialetheism. I follow Rudolf Carnap with respect to the metaontological question of how ontology should be understood and practised, by developing a critique of the traditional realist/antirealist positions and reframing the ontological debate accordingly. Carnap argues that it is not meaningful to question reality in an external sense in order to assess what really exists, rather it is only meaningful to talk in an internal sense within a framework about what exists according to the framework rules. I use the concept of fictions in place of Carnap’s frameworks to argue that we ought to treat much seemingly ontologically committing language as consisting in nothing more than a useful heuristic and as being simply fictional. This reframes ontological debates as being based around the practical advantages of utilizing a way of speaking about existence in a pragmatic fictionalist manner. The aim of my thesis is thus to resurrect Carnap’s metaontology in the form of a unique and global fictionalism, that is divorced from the antirealism usually associated with fictionalism and based on quietism instead. My Neo-Carnapian position is influenced by the Meinongian view of non-existent objects, as I take ontological commitment as distinct from quantificational commitment in order to allow for our quantificational use of language to be ontologically neutral and metaphysically quiet. I further argue that the quietist position results in dialetheism as it finds itself in contradictory realms – in drawing a limit to meaningful metaphysics, it ends up going beyond such limits. My thesis therefore concludes that in redirecting metaphysics towards quietism, metametaphysics is redirected towards dialetheism, in the form of a position I call ‘Neo-Carnapian Quietism’

Rethinking inconsistent mathematics

This dissertation has two main goals. The first is to provide a practice-based analysis of the field of inconsistent mathematics: what motivates it? what role does logic have in it? what distinguishes it from classical mathematics? is it alternative or revolutionary? The second goal is to introduce and defend a new conception of inconsistent mathematics - queer incomaths - as a particularly effective answer to feminist critiques of classical logic and mathematics. This sets the stage for a genuine revolution in mathematics, insofar as it suggests the need for a shift in mainstream attitudes about the rolee of logic and ethics in the practice of mathematics

Islamic contradictory theology

There are two overarching aims of the five collated papers that make up my thesis. The first is to demonstrate that making sense of an ineffable Islamic God in virtue of classical logic and various truth theories (under the purview of analytic philosophy) motivates a theological contradiction. The second is to offer a solution to this problem. I spend a substantial part of my thesis establishing the first of these aims. The reason for this is twofold. Firstly, it is to illustrate the incompatibility between an ineffable God of Islam and various modes of logical and metaphysical inquiry that fall under the purview of analytic philosophy. Although, it becomes increasingly evident that we cannot philosophically make sense of an absolute ineffable God, my inquiry still bears relevance. It offers a comprehensive insight into the logical and metaphysical perspectives that are responsible for motivating the theological contradiction in question. Secondly, fleshing out the various logical and metaphysical perspectives helps lay the theoretical groundwork for the solution. It is not my aim to establish the ineffability of God within the Islamic tradition. That is, I do not engage with Islamic theology beyond referring to, and teasing out, an ineffable view of God from selected Islamic theological sources. The primary focus of my work is to establish that theological contradictions are motivated when assessing them against certain (analytic) philosophical modes. This brings me to the second aim of my thesis, namely, the solution. After having established how an Islamic theological contradiction is motivated, it begs a solution. Prior to offering my solution, I evaluate the recent work on Christian contradictory theology by Jc Beall (2019, 2021). Beall’s proposed solution to the fundamental problem of Christology is what he calls ‘Contradictory Christology’. Although this may seem like a plausible solution for an Islamic theological contradiction, I argue to the contrary. Finally, I propose my own solution to the problem. I call this ‘Islamic Mystical Dialetheism’

Replacing truth

Kevin Scharp proposes an original account of the nature and logic of truth, on which truth is an inconsistent concept that should be replaced for certain theoretical purposes. He argues that truth is best understood as an inconsistent concept; develops an axiomatic theory of truth; and offers a new kind of possible-worlds semantics for this theory

A Unifying Field in Logics: Neutrosophic Logic: Neutrosophy, Neutrosophic Set, Neutrosophic Probability

Neutrosophy considers a proposition, theory, event, concept, or entity, "A" in relation to its opposite, "Anti A" and that which is not A, "Non-A", and that which is neither "A" nor "Anti-A", denoted by "Neut-A". Neutrosophy is the basis of neutrosophic logic, neutrosophic probability, neutrosophic set, and neutrosophic statistics