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Direct Reference
A direct reference theory (also called referentialism or referential realism)Andrea Bianchi (2012) ''Two ways of being a (direct) referentialist'', in Joseph Almog, Paolo Leonardi, ''Having in Mind: The Philosophy of Keith Donnellan''p. 79/ref> is a theory of language that claims that the meaning of a word or expression lies in what it points out in the world. The object denoted by a word is called its referent. Criticisms of this position are often associated with Ludwig Wittgenstein.Severin Schroeder (2006), ''Wittgenstein''p. 30 "This view that the meaning of a word has to be explained in terms of what it stands for, its reference, I shall call referentialism." In the 19th century, mathematician and philosopher Gottlob Frege argued against it, and contrasted it with mediated reference theory.Emery J. Hyslop-Margison, Ayaz Naseem (2007), ''Scientism and Education: Empirical Research as Neo-Liberal Ideology''pp. 83–4/ref> In 1953, with his ''Philosophical Investigations'', Wittgen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meaning (philosophy Of Language)
In semantics, semiotics, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and metasemantics, meaning "is a relationship between two sorts of things: signs and the kinds of things they intend, express, or signify". The types of meanings vary according to the types of the thing that is being represented. Namely: *There are the things in the world, which might have meaning; *There are things in the world that are also signs of other things in the world, and so, are always meaningful (i.e., natural signs of the physical world and ideas within the mind); *There are things that are necessarily meaningful such as words and nonverbal symbols. The major contemporary positions of meaning come under the following partial definitions of meaning: *Psychological theories, involving notions of thought, intention, or understanding; *Logical theories, involving notions such as intension, cognitive content, or sense, along with extension, reference, or denotation; *Message, content, information, or communicati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frege–Russell View
A mediated reference theory (also indirect reference theory)Leszek Berezowski, ''Articles and Proper Names'', University of Wrocław, 2001, p. 67. is any semantic theory that posits that words refer to something in the external world, but insists that there is more to the meaning of a name than simply the object to which it refers. It thus stands opposed to direct reference theory. Gottlob Frege is a well-known advocate of mediated reference theories. Similar theories were widely held in the middle of the twentieth century by philosophers such as Peter Strawson and John Searle. Saul Kripke, a proponent of direct reference theory, in his ''Naming and Necessity'' dubbed mediated reference theory the Frege–Russell view and criticized it. Subsequent scholarship refuted the claim that Bertrand Russell's views on reference theory were the same as Frege's, since Russell was also a proponent of direct reference theory.Howard Wettstein, "Frege-Russell Semantics?", ''Dialectica'' 44(1/2), 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Entity Realism
Entity realism (also selective realism), sometimes equated with referential realism, is a philosophical position within the debate about scientific realism. It is a variation of realism (independently proposed by Stanford School philosophers Nancy Cartwright and Ian Hacking in 1983) that restricts warranted belief to only certain entities.Psillos, Stathis, ''Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth'', Routledge, 1999, p. 247. Overview Whereas traditional scientific realism argues that our best scientific theories are true, or approximately true, or closer to the truth than their predecessors, entity realism does not commit itself to judgments concerning the truth of scientific theories. Instead, entity realism claims that the theoretical entities that feature in scientific theories, e.g. 'electrons', should be regarded as real if and only if they refer to phenomena that can be routinely used to create effects in domains that can be investigated independently. 'Manipulative succe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Descriptivist Theory Of Names
In the philosophy of language, the descriptivist theory of proper names (also descriptivist theory of reference) is the view that the meaning or semantic content of a proper name is identical to the descriptions associated with it by speakers, while their referents are determined to be the objects that satisfy these descriptions. Bertrand Russell and Gottlob Frege have both been associated with the descriptivist theory, which is sometimes called the ''mediated reference theory'' or ''Frege–Russell view''. In the 1970s, this theory came under attack from causal theorists such as Saul Kripke, Hilary Putnam and others. However, it has seen something of a revival in recent years, especially under the form of what are called two-dimensional semantic theories. This latter trend is exemplified by the theories of David Chalmers, among others. The descriptive theory and its merits A simple descriptivist theory of names can be thought of as follows: for every proper name ''p'', there is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Context Principle
In the philosophy of language, the context principle is a form of semantic holism holding that a philosopher should "never ... ask for the meaning of a word in isolation, but only in the context of a proposition" (Frege 884/1980x). Analysis The context principle is one of Gottlob Frege's "three fundamental principles" for philosophical analysis, first discussed in his Introduction to ''The Foundations of Arithmetic'' (''Grundlagen der Arithmetik'', 1884). Frege argued that many philosophical errors, especially those related to psychologism in the philosophy of logic and philosophy of mathematics, could be avoided by adhering carefully to the context principle. The view of meaning expressed by the context principle is sometimes called semantic contextualism. This view need not be contrasted with the view that the meanings of words or expressions can (or must) be determined prior to, and independently of, the meanings of the propositions in which they occur, which is often referred ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contextualism
Contextualism, also known as epistemic contextualism, is a family of views in philosophy which emphasize the ''context'' in which an action, utterance, or expression occurs. Proponents of contextualism argue that, in some important respect, the action, utterance, or expression can only be understood relative to that context.Price (2008). Contextualist views hold that philosophically controversial concepts, such as "meaning P", "knowing that P", "having a reason to A", and possibly even "being true" or "being right" only have meaning relative to a specified context. Other philosophers contend that context-dependence leads to complete relativism. In ethics, "contextualist" views are often closely associated with situational ethics, or with moral relativism. Contextualism in architecture is a theory of design where modern building types are harmonized with urban forms usual to a traditional city. In epistemology, contextualism is the treatment of the word 'knows' as context-sensi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Causal Theory Of Reference
A causal theory of reference or historical chain theory of reference is a theory of how terms acquire specific referents based on evidence. Such theories have been used to describe many referring terms, particularly logical terms, proper names, and natural kind terms. In the case of names, for example, a causal theory of reference typically involves the following claims: * a name's referent is fixed by an original act of naming (also called a "dubbing" or, by Saul Kripke, an "initial baptism"), whereupon the name becomes a rigid designator of that object. * later uses of the name succeed in referring to the referent by being linked to that original act via a causal chain. Weaker versions of the position (perhaps not properly called "causal theories"), claim merely that, in many cases, events in the causal history of a speaker's use of the term, including when the term was first acquired, must be considered to correctly assign references to the speaker's words. Causal theories of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Logical Truth
Logical truth is one of the most fundamental concepts in logic. Broadly speaking, a logical truth is a statement which is true regardless of the truth or falsity of its constituent propositions. In other words, a logical truth is a statement which is not only true, but one which is true under all interpretations of its logical components (other than its logical constants). Thus, logical truths such as "if p, then p" can be considered tautologies. Logical truths are thought to be the simplest case of statements which are analytically true (or in other words, true by definition). All of philosophical logic can be thought of as providing accounts of the nature of logical truth, as well as logical consequence. Logical truths are generally considered to be ''necessarily true''. This is to say that they are such that no situation could arise in which they could fail to be true. The view that logical statements are necessarily true is sometimes treated as equivalent to saying that log ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Possible Worlds
Possible Worlds may refer to: * Possible worlds, concept in philosophy * ''Possible Worlds'' (play), 1990 play by John Mighton ** ''Possible Worlds'' (film), 2000 film by Robert Lepage, based on the play * Possible Worlds (studio) * ''Possible Worlds'', poetry book by Peter Porter * ''Possible Worlds'', book by J. B. S. Haldane * ''Possible Worlds'', 1995 album by Markus Stockhausen Markus Stockhausen (born May 2, 1957) is a German trumpeter and composer. His recordings and performances have typically alternated between jazz and chamber or opera music, the latter often in collaboration with his father, composer Karlheinz Sto ... See also * * * Possible (other) * World (other) {{dab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rigid Designator
In modal logic and the philosophy of language, a term is said to be a rigid designator or absolute substantial term when it designates (picks out, denotes, refers to) the same thing in ''all possible worlds'' in which that thing exists. A designator is ''persistently rigid'' if it also designates nothing in all other possible worlds. A designator is ''obstinately rigid'' if it designates the same thing in every possible world, period, whether or not that thing exists in that world. Rigid designators are contrasted with ''connotative terms'', ''non-rigid'' or ''flaccid designators'', which may designate different things in different possible worlds. History The Scholastic philosophers in the Middle Ages developed a theory of properties of terms in which different classifications of concepts feature prominently. Concepts, and the terms that signify them, can be divided into absolute or connotative, according to the mode in which they signify. If they signify something absolutely, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tag Theory Of Names
Ruth Barcan Marcus (; born Ruth Charlotte Barcan; 2 August 1921 – 19 February 2012) was an American academic philosopher and logician best known for her work in modal and philosophical logic. She developed the first formal systems of quantified modal logic and in so doing introduced the schema or principle known as the Barcan formula. (She would also introduce the now standard "box" operator for necessity in the process.) Marcus, who originally published as Ruth C. Barcan, was, as Don Garrett notes "one of the twentieth century's most important and influential philosopher-logicians". Timothy Williamson, in a 2008 celebration of Marcus' long career, states that many of her "main ideas are not just original, and clever, and beautiful, and fascinating, and influential, and way ahead of their time, but actually – I believe – ''true''". Academic career and service Ruth Barcan (as she was known before marrying the physicist Jules Alexander Marcus in 1942 Gendler, T. S."Ruth B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synthese
''Synthese'' () is a scholarly periodical specializing in papers in epistemology, methodology, and philosophy of science, and related issues. Its subject area is divided into four specialties, with a focus on the first three: (1) "epistemology, methodology, and philosophy of science, all broadly understood"; (2) "foundations of logic and mathematics, where 'logic', 'mathematics', and 'foundations' are all broadly understood"; (3) "formal methods in philosophy, including methods connecting philosophy to other academic fields"; and (4) "issues in ethics and the history and sociology of logic, mathematics, and science that contribute to the contemporary studies". As of 2022, according to Google Scholar's metrics ( h-5 index and h-5 index median), it is the top philosophy journal, but other metrics do not rank the journal as highly. Overview Published articles include specific treatment of methodological issues in science such as induction, probability, causation, statistics, symboli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |