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Non-rigid Designator
In the philosophy of language and modal logic, a term is said to be a non-rigid designator (or flaccid designator) or connotative term if it does not extensionally designate (denote, refer to) the same object in all possible worlds. This is in contrast to a rigid designator, which does designate the same object in all possible worlds in which that object exists, and does not designate anything else in those worlds in which that object does ''not'' exist. The term was coined by Saul Kripke in his 1970 lecture series at Princeton University, later published as the book ''Naming and Necessity''. Examples As an example, consider the phrase "The 43rd President of the United States, President of the United States of America": while the 43rd President of the United States is ''actually'' George W. Bush, things might have been different. Bush might have lost the election, meaning that the 43rd President might have been Al Gore or Ralph Nader instead. (''How remote'' these possible worlds are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophy Of Language
In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning, intentionality, reference, the constitution of sentences, concepts, learning, and thought. Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell were pivotal figures in analytic philosophy's "linguistic turn". These writers were followed by Ludwig Wittgenstein ('' Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus''), the Vienna Circle, logical positivists, and Willard Van Orman Quine. In continental philosophy, language is not studied as a separate discipline. Rather, it is an inextricable part of many other areas of thought, such as phenomenology, structural semiotics, language of mathematics, hermeneutics, existentialism, deconstruction and critical theory. History Ancient philosophy In the West, inquiry into language stretches back to the 5th century BC with Socrates, Plato, Aristotl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Many-worlds Interpretation
The many-worlds interpretation (MWI) is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that asserts that the universal wavefunction is objectively real, and that there is no wave function collapse. This implies that all possible outcomes of quantum measurements are physically realized in some "world" or universe. In contrast to some other interpretations, such as the Copenhagen interpretation, the evolution of reality as a whole in MWI is rigidly deterministic and local. Many-worlds is also called the relative state formulation or the Everett interpretation, after physicist Hugh Everett, who first proposed it in 1957.Hugh Everettbr>Theory of the Universal Wavefunction Thesis, Princeton University, (1956, 1973), pp 1–140 Bryce DeWitt popularized the formulation and named it ''many-worlds'' in the 1970s. See also Cecile M. DeWitt, John A. Wheeler eds, The Everett–Wheeler Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, ''Battelle Rencontres: 1967 Lectures in Mathematics and Physics'' (1968)Bryce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Names
A name is a term used for identification by an external observer. They can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. The entity identified by a name is called its referent. A personal name identifies, not necessarily uniquely, a ''specific'' individual human. The name of a specific entity is sometimes called a proper name (although that term has a philosophical meaning as well) and is, when consisting of only one word, a proper noun. Other nouns are sometimes called "common names" or ( obsolete) "general names". A name can be given to a person, place, or thing; for example, parents can give their child a name or a scientist can give an element a name. Etymology The word ''name'' comes from Old English ''nama''; cognate with Old High German (OHG) ''namo'', Sanskrit (''nāman''), Latin '' nomen'', Greek (''onoma''), and Persian (''nâm''), from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) ''*h₁nómn̥''. Outside Indo-European, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophy Of Language
In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning, intentionality, reference, the constitution of sentences, concepts, learning, and thought. Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell were pivotal figures in analytic philosophy's "linguistic turn". These writers were followed by Ludwig Wittgenstein ('' Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus''), the Vienna Circle, logical positivists, and Willard Van Orman Quine. In continental philosophy, language is not studied as a separate discipline. Rather, it is an inextricable part of many other areas of thought, such as phenomenology, structural semiotics, language of mathematics, hermeneutics, existentialism, deconstruction and critical theory. History Ancient philosophy In the West, inquiry into language stretches back to the 5th century BC with Socrates, Plato, Aristotl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modal Logic
Modal logic is a collection of formal systems developed to represent statements about necessity and possibility. It plays a major role in philosophy of language, epistemology, metaphysics, and natural language semantics. Modal logics extend other systems by adding unary operators \Diamond and \Box, representing possibility and necessity respectively. For instance the modal formula \Diamond P can be read as "possibly P" while \Box P can be read as "necessarily P". Modal logics can be used to represent different phenomena depending on what kind of necessity and possibility is under consideration. When \Box is used to represent epistemic necessity, \Box P states that P is epistemically necessary, or in other words that it is known. When \Box is used to represent deontic necessity, \Box P states that P is a moral or legal obligation. In the standard relational semantics for modal logic, formulas are assigned truth values relative to a ''possible world''. A formula's truth value at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concepts In Logic
Concepts are defined as abstract ideas. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of the concept behind principles, thoughts and beliefs. They play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied by several disciplines, such as linguistics, psychology, and philosophy, and these disciplines are interested in the logical and psychological structure of concepts, and how they are put together to form thoughts and sentences. The study of concepts has served as an important flagship of an emerging interdisciplinary approach called cognitive science. In contemporary philosophy, there are at least three prevailing ways to understand what a concept is: * Concepts as mental representations, where concepts are entities that exist in the mind (mental objects) * Concepts as abilities, where concepts are abilities peculiar to cognitive agents (mental states) * Concepts as Fregean senses, where concepts are abstract objects, as opposed to mental obje ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books by decree in 1586, it is the second oldest university press after Cambridge University Press. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics known as the Delegates of the Press, who are appointed by the vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford. The Delegates of the Press are led by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as OUP's chief executive and as its major representative on other university bodies. Oxford University Press has had a similar governance structure since the 17th century. The press is located on Walton Street, Oxford, opposite Somerville College, in the inner suburb of Jericho. For the last 500 years, OUP has primarily focused on the publication of pedagogical texts and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gareth Evans (philosopher)
Michael Gareth Justin Evans (12 May 1946 – 10 August 1980) was a British people, British philosopher who made substantial contributions to logic, philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. He is best known for his posthumous work ''The Varieties of Reference'' (1982), edited by John McDowell. The book considers different kinds of theory of reference, reference to objects, and argues for a number of conditions that must obtain for reference to occur. Life Gareth Evans was born in London on 12 May 1946. He was educated at Dulwich College and University College, Oxford (1964–67) where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE). His philosophy tutor was Peter Strawson, one of the most eminent Oxford philosophers of the time. Evans became close friends with philosopher Derek Parfit and other prominent members of his academic field such as Christopher Peacocke and Crispin Wright. He was a senior scholar at Christ Church, Oxford (1967–68) and a Kennedy Scholar a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proper Name
A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa'', ''Jupiter'', '' Sarah'', ''Microsoft)'' as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, planet, person, corporation'') and may be used when referring to instances of a specific class (a ''continent'', another ''planet'', these ''persons'', our ''corporation''). Some proper nouns occur in plural form (optionally or exclusively), and then they refer to ''groups'' of entities considered as unique (the ''Hendersons'', the ''Everglades'', ''the Azores'', the ''Pleiades''). Proper nouns can also occur in secondary applications, for example modifying nouns (the ''Mozart'' experience; his ''Azores'' adventure), or in the role of common nouns (he's no ''Pavarotti''; a few would-be ''Napoleons''). The detailed definition of the term is problematic and, to an extent, governed by convention. A distinction is normally made in current lin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Definite Description
In formal semantics and philosophy of language, a definite description is a denoting phrase in the form of "the X" where X is a noun-phrase or a singular common noun. The definite description is ''proper'' if X applies to a unique individual or object. For example: " the first person in space" and " the 42nd President of the United States of America", are proper. The definite descriptions "the person in space" and "the Senator from Ohio" are ''improper'' because the noun phrase X applies to more than one thing, and the definite descriptions "the first man on Mars" and "the Senator from some Country" are ''improper'' because X applies to nothing. Improper descriptions raise some difficult questions about the law of excluded middle, denotation, modality, and mental content. Russell's analysis As France is currently a republic, it has no king. Bertrand Russell pointed out that this raises a puzzle about the truth value of the sentence "The present King of France is bald." The sen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Counterfactual Thinking
Counterfactual thinking is a concept in psychology that involves the human tendency to create possible alternatives to life events that have already occurred; something that is contrary to what actually happened. Counterfactual thinking is, as it states: "counter to the facts". These thoughts consist of the "What if?" and the "If only..." that occur when thinking of how things could have turned out differently. Counterfactual thoughts include things that – in the present – now could never happen in reality because they solely pertain to events that have occurred in the past. Overview The term ''"Counterfactual"'' is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as contrary to the facts. A counterfactual thought occurs when a person modifies a factual prior event and then assesses the consequences of that change. A person may imagine how an outcome could have turned out differently, if the antecedents that led to that event were different. For example, a person may reflect upon h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader (; born February 27, 1934) is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes. The son of Lebanese immigrants to the United States, Nader attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School. He first came to prominence in 1965 with the publication of the bestselling book ''Unsafe at Any Speed'', a highly influential critique of the safety record of American automobile manufacturers. Following the publication of ''Unsafe at Any Speed'', Nader led a group of volunteer law students—dubbed "Nader's Raiders"—in an investigation of the Federal Trade Commission, leading directly to that agency's overhaul and reform. In the 1970s, Nader leveraged his growing popularity to establish a number of advocacy and watchdog groups including the Public Interest Research Group, the Center for Auto Safety, and Public Citizen. Two of Nader's most notable targets were the C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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