Permutations and foster problems: two puzzles or one?

How are permutation arguments for the inscrutability of reference to be formulated in the context of a Davidsonian truth-theoretic semantics? Davidson (1979) takes these arguments to establish that there are no grounds for favouring a reference scheme that assigns London to ‘Londres’, rather than one that assigns Sydney to that name. We shall see, however, that it is far from clear whether permutation arguments work when set out in the context of the kind of truth-theoretic semantics which Davidson favours. The principle required to make the argument work allows us to resurrect Foster problems against the Davidsonian position. The Foster problems and the permutation inscrutability problems stand or fall together: they are one puzzle, not two

A unified theory of granularity, vagueness and approximation

Abstract: We propose a view of vagueness as a semantic property of names and predicates. All entities are crisp, on this semantic view, but there are, for each vague name, multiple portions of reality that are equally good candidates for being its referent, and, for each vague predicate, multiple classes of objects that are equally good candidates for being its extension. We provide a new formulation of these ideas in terms of a theory of granular partitions. We show that this theory provides a general framework within which we can understand the relation between vague terms and concepts and the corresponding crisp portions of reality. We also sketch how it might be possible to formulate within this framework a theory of vagueness which dispenses with the notion of truth-value gaps and other artifacts of more familiar approaches. Central to our approach is the idea that judgments about reality involve in every case (1) a separation of reality into foreground and background of attention and (2) the feature of granularity. On this basis we attempt to show that even vague judgments made in naturally occurring contexts are not marked by truth-value indeterminacy. We distinguish, in addition to crisp granular partitions, also vague partitions, and reference partitions, and we explain the role of the latter in the context of judgments that involve vagueness. We conclude by showing how reference partitions provide an effective means by which judging subjects are able to temper the vagueness of their judgments by means of approximations

Solving Frege’s Substitution Puzzle: Analyzing it in Light of Descriptivism and Direct Reference Theory

Although replacing one proper name with another that refers to the same person does not change the truth-value of a declarative statement, it affects the truth-value of propositional attitude reports, which are cognitive relations that people hold towards propositions. Frege’s Substitution Puzzle about propositional attitude reports essentially asks an important question: if two proper names co-refer in a certain linguistic community, then why does their intersubstitutability produce propositional attitude reports (that contain those proper names) with opposite truth-values? This paper attempts to explain how Description Theory of Names and Direct Reference Theory, two theories of proper names, solve Frege’s Substitution Puzzle. According to the Description Theory of Names, a proper name has both a sense and a reference. In other words, a proper name expresses its sense as a descriptive meaning and it designates a specific referent. Descriptivists solve the puzzle by rejecting the Principle of Intersubstitutability of names due to their reference shift in attitude contexts; because two proper names do not entail the same sense, they cannot co-refer in attitude context and therefore are not intersubstitutable in indirect discourse. Contrary to the Description Theory of Names, Direct Reference Theory argues that a proper name is a rigid designator without any connotative attributes. It simply picks out objects and living things in possible worlds. Direct Reference Theorist solve the puzzle by stating that the seeming contradiction in the truthvalues of propositional attitude reports containing co-referential names occurs because of the differing truth-values of the pragmatically implicated statements. Furthermore, this essay concludes with an argument for why Direct Reference Theory is a stronger view than Description Theory of Names

Are Eyebrows Going to Be Talked of in Connection with the Eye of God? Wittgenstein and Certainty in the Debate between Science and Religion

In this paper I will argue that we can chart such a middle course through an exploration of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s thought (particularly that advanced in On Certainty and Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief). I will use his thesis that meaning and certainty are context dependent to investigate how meaning is produced in science and in religion. I will start with the recognition that any system of thought must take certain basic propositions as criteria for further investigation and explore how Wittgenstein defines this idea. Next I will try to establish that religion and science do, indeed, function as two different systems or language games by illustrating their differing criteria for truth. In so doing I will reference both Wittgenstein’s works and that of some anthropologists of religion, whose work has explored a definition of religion through its use, which mirrors Wittgenstein’s location of meaning. I will then discuss how we can pick between systems within a given context by requiring that a system stand up to the criteria of justification set up for that situation

Time for "justice" : Research to inform the development of a human rights framework for the design and implementation of an "acknowledgement and accountability forum" on historic abuse of children in Scotland

In 2002, Chris Daly raised a petition to the Scottish Executive (PE535) calling for an independent inquiry into the historic abuse of children in Scotland. This led to the setting up of a reference group in 2003, in order to explore the role of a truth and reconciliation process that was identified as an important step in dealing with historic abuse. In 2004, there was an apology for such abuse by the then First Minister, Jack McConnell. In 2005, Tom Shaw led the Historic Abuse Systemic Review. This covered the period 1950 – 1995 and was completed in 2007. In 2006, a sub-group of the reference group that was set up in 2003 identified the need for a service for survivors. This led to the funding of ‘In Care Survivor Scotland’ in 2008, under the umbrella of ‘Open Secret’. It is important to see this current report in this context. Eight years on from the initial petition, it is clear that this process has been seen by many as a long road to acknowledging the need to address outstanding human rights issues in relation to the historic abuse of children in care in Scotland

Astrology and truth: a context in contemporary epistemology

This thesis discusses and gives philosophical context to claims regarding the truth-status of astrology – specifically, horoscopic astrology. These truth-claims, and reasons for them, are sourced from advocates and critics of astrology and are taken from extant literature and interviews recorded for the thesis. The three major theories of truth from contemporary Western epistemology are the primary structure used to establish philosophical context. These are: the correspondence, coherence, and pragmatic theories. Some alternatives are discussed in the process of evaluating the adequacy of the three theories. No estimation of astrology’s truth-status was found which could not be articulated by reference to the three. From this follows the working assumption that the three theories of truth suffice as a system of analysis with which to define and elucidate the issues that have arisen when astrology’s truth-status has been considered. A feature of recent discourse regarding astrology has been the argument that it should be considered a form of divination rather than as a potential science. The two accounts that embody these approaches – astrology-as-divination, and astrology-as-science – are central throughout the thesis. William James’s philosophy is discussed as a congenial context for astrology-as-divination. This includes his understanding of the pragmatic theory of truth and other elements, such as radical empiricism, which comprise his pluralist pantheistic philosophy. Compelling reasons from numerous commentators are presented according to which astrology should be judged not true. These generally presuppose that contemporary scientific modes of analysis suffice for such an evaluation. A case could be built upon James’s philosophy under which the individual would have a right to believe in astrology as a source of truth – albeit, this would not be the intersubjective or scientifically-validated truth which critics typically insist upon

Reframing Emotional Arguments in Ads in the Culture of Informal Logic

This paper examines, in studies utilizing Gilbert’s Multi-Modal Argumentation Model, processing of emotional arguments in ads which, due to Western Society’s bias, has tended toward logical analysis, even though they are emotional arguments. It explores reframing the analysis in the culture of Informal Logic, with particular reference to issues of the alethic status of premises, the ethics of claims, the context of assumptions, and the question of what constitutes truth in the context of emotion

Towards a Semantic Perceptual Image Metric

We present a full reference, perceptual image metric based on VGG-16, an artificial neural network trained on object classification. We fit the metric to a new database based on 140k unique images annotated with ground truth by human raters who received minimal instruction. The resulting metric shows competitive performance on TID 2013, a database widely used to assess image quality assessments methods. More interestingly, it shows strong responses to objects potentially carrying semantic relevance such as faces and text, which we demonstrate using a visualization technique and ablation experiments. In effect, the metric appears to model a higher influence of semantic context on judgments, which we observe particularly in untrained raters. As the vast majority of users of image processing systems are unfamiliar with Image Quality Assessment (IQA) tasks, these findings may have significant impact on real-world applications of perceptual metrics

Experimenting with the king of France: Topics, verifiability and definite descriptions

International audienceDefinite descriptions with reference failure have been argued to give rise to different truth-value intuitions depending on the local linguistic context in which they appear. We conducted an experiment to investigate these alleged differences, thereby contributing new data to the debate. We have found that pragmatic strategies dependent on verification and topicalisation, suggested in the context of trivalent/partial theories, indeed play a role in people's subjective judgments. We discuss the consequences of these findings for all major approaches to definite descriptions (i.e. Russellian, Strawsonian, pragmatic). Finally, we offer a discussion of the relative contribution of verificational and topicality effects on truth values, reaching the conclusion that verification is primarily relevant and topicality is dependent on that. We thus support von Fintel's (2004) position on the primacy of verification, but not his dismissal of topicality as a facto

Mahasiswa Sebagai Agen Kebenaran dalam Usaha Menciptakan Kelancaran Pemilu 2024 Di Indonesia Berdasarkan Kebenaran René Descartes

The focus of this paper is to discuss the role of students as agents of truth in an effort to encourage the smooth running of the 2024 General Elections in Indonesia, with reference to the concept of truth according to René Descartes. Through an interdisciplinary approach that combines philosophy and political context, this research considers how Descartes' view of truth can be applied by students to facilitate a fair and transparent election process. Through conceptual analysis and mapping the application of Descartes' ideas, this research explores how students can use the concept of truth to encourage ethical political participation, fight for justice, and minimise uncertainty in the democratic process, especially in the 2024 General Election. This research highlights the important role of students as actors as well as thought leaders who bring positive changes and foster public trust, so that fraud and injustice do not occur in the 2024 Election process in Indonesia