|
De Dicto And De Re
''De dicto'' and ''de re'' are two phrases used to mark a distinction in intensional statements, associated with the intensional operators in many such statements. The distinction is used regularly in analytical metaphysics and in philosophy of language. The literal translation of the phrase ''de dicto'' is "about what is said", whereas ''de re'' translates as "about the thing". The original meaning of the Latin locutions may help to elucidate the living meaning of the phrases, in the distinctions they mark. The distinction can be understood by examples of intensional contexts of which three are considered here: a context of thought, a context of desire, and a context of modality. Context of thought There are two possible interpretations of the sentence "Peter believes someone is out to get him": On the ''de dicto'' interpretation, 'someone' is unspecific and Peter suffers a general paranoia; he believes that it is true that a person is out to get him, but does not necessaril ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intensional Statement
In any of several fields of study that treat the use of signs—for example, in linguistics, logic, mathematics, semantics, semiotics, and philosophy of language—an intension is any property or quality connoted by a word, phrase, or another symbol. In the case of a word, the word's definition often implies an intension. For instance, the intensions of the word ''plant'' include properties such as "being composed of cellulose (not always true)", "alive", and "organism", among others. A '' comprehension'' is the collection of all such intensions. Overview The meaning of a word can be thought of as the bond between the ''idea the word means'' and the ''physical form of the word''. Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) contrasts three concepts: # the ''signifier'' – the "sound image" or the string of letters on a page that one recognizes as the form of a sign # the ''signified'' – the meaning, the concept or idea that a sign expresses or evokes # the ''referent' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quantifier (logic)
In logic, a quantifier is an operator that specifies how many individuals in the domain of discourse satisfy an open formula. For instance, the universal quantifier \forall in the first-order formula \forall x P(x) expresses that everything in the domain satisfies the property denoted by P. On the other hand, the existential quantifier \exists in the formula \exists x P(x) expresses that there exists something in the domain which satisfies that property. A formula where a quantifier takes widest scope is called a quantified formula. A quantified formula must contain a bound variable and a subformula specifying a property of the referent of that variable. The most commonly used quantifiers are \forall and \exists. These quantifiers are standardly defined as duals; in classical logic: each can be defined in terms of the other using negation. They can also be used to define more complex quantifiers, as in the formula \neg \exists x P(x) which expresses that nothing has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dichotomies
A dichotomy () is a partition of a whole (or a set) into two parts (subsets). In other words, this couple of parts must be * jointly exhaustive: everything must belong to one part or the other, and * mutually exclusive: nothing can belong simultaneously to both parts. If there is a concept A, and it is split into parts B and not-B, then the parts form a dichotomy: they are mutually exclusive, since no part of B is contained in not-B and vice versa, and they are jointly exhaustive, since they cover all of A, and together again give A. Such a partition is also frequently called a bipartition. The two parts thus formed are complements. In logic, the partitions are opposites if there exists a proposition such that it holds over one and not the other. Treating continuous variables or multicategorical variables as binary variables is called dichotomization. The discretization error inherent in dichotomization is temporarily ignored for modeling purposes. Etymology The term ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concepts In The Philosophy Of Language
A concept is an abstract idea that serves as a foundation for more concrete principles, thoughts, and beliefs. Concepts play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied within such disciplines 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, cognitive science. In contemporary philosophy, three understandings of a concept prevail: * mental representations, such that a concept is an entity that exists in the mind (a mental object) * abilities peculiar to cognitive agents (mental states) * Fregean senses, abstract objects rather than a mental object or a mental state Concepts are classified into a hierarchy, higher levels of which are termed "superordinate" and lower levels termed "subordinate". Additi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latin Logical Phrases
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area around Rome, Italy. Through the expansion of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language in the Italian Peninsula and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. It has greatly influenced many languages, including English, having contributed many words to the English lexicon, particularly after the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons and the Norman Conquest. Latin roots appear frequently in the technical vocabulary used by fields such as theology, the sciences, medicine, and law. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had evolved into standardized Classical Latin. Vulgar Latin refers to the less prestigious colloquial registers, attested in inscriptions and some literary works such as those of the comic playwrights Plautus and Terence and the author Petronius. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Temperature Paradox
The Temperature paradox or Partee's paradox is a classic puzzle in formal semantics and philosophical logic. Formulated by Barbara Partee in the 1970s, it consists of the following argument, which speakers of English judge as wildly invalid. # The temperature is ninety. # The temperature is rising. # Therefore, ninety is rising. (invalid conclusion) Despite its obvious invalidity, this argument would be valid in most formalizations based on traditional extensional systems of logic. For instance, the following formalization in first order predicate logic would be valid via Leibniz's law: # t=90 # R(t) # R(90) (valid conclusion in this formalization) To correctly predict the invalidity of the argument without abandoning Leibniz's Law, a formalization must capture the fact that the first premise makes a claim about the temperature at a particular point in time, while the second makes an assertion about how it changes over time. One way of doing so, proposed by Richard Montague ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sense And Reference
In the philosophy of language, the distinction between sense and reference was an idea of the German philosopher and mathematician Gottlob Frege in 1892 (in his paper "On Sense and Reference"; German: "Über Sinn und Bedeutung"), reflecting the two ways he believed a singular term may have meaning. The reference (or "referent"; ''Bedeutung'') of a ''proper name'' is the object it means or indicates (''bedeuten''), whereas its sense (''Sinn'') is what the name expresses. The reference of a ''sentence'' is its truth value, whereas its sense is the thought that it expresses."On Sense and Reference" Über Sinn und Bedeutung" '' Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik'', vol. 100 (1892), pp. 25–50, esp. p. 31. Frege justified the distinction in a number of ways. #Sense is something possessed by a name, whether or not it has a reference. For example, the name "Odysseus" is intelligible, and therefore has a sense, even though there is no individual object (its refer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quantifier Raising
In generative grammar, the technical term operator denotes a type of expression that enters into an a-bar movement dependency.Chomsky, Noam. (1981) Lectures on Government and Binding, Foris, Dordrecht.Haegeman, Liliane (1994) Introduction to Government and Binding Theory. Blackwell.Koopman, H., & Sportiche, D. (1982). Variables and the Bijection Principle. ''The Linguistic Review, 2'', 139-60. One often says that the operator "binds a variable". Cinque, Guglielmo (1991) Types of A-Bar Dependencies. MIT Press. Operators are often determiners, such as interrogatives ('which', 'who', 'when', etc.), or quantifiers ('every', 'some', 'most', 'no'), but adverbs such as sentential negation ('not') have also been treated as operators.Zanuttini, R. (1997) Negation and Clausal Structure: A Comparative Study of Romance Languages, Oxford University Press. It is also common within generative grammar to hypothesise phonetically empty operators whenever a clause type or construction exhibits s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modal Scope Fallacy
The modal fallacy or modal scope fallacy is a type of formal fallacy that occurs in modal logic. It is the fallacy of placing a proposition in the wrong modal scope, most commonly confusing the scope of what is ''necessarily'' true. A statement is considered necessarily true if and only if it is impossible for the statement to be untrue and that there is no situation that would cause the statement to be false. Some philosophers further argue that a necessarily true statement must be true in all possible worlds. In modal logic, a proposition P can be necessarily true or false (denoted \Box P and \Box\lnot P, respectively), meaning that it is necessary that it is true or false; or it could be possibly true or false (denoted \diamond P and \diamond\lnot P), meaning that it is true or false, but it is not logically necessary that it is so: its truth or falseness is '' contingent''. The modal fallacy occurs when there is a confusion of the distinction between the two. A fallacy of nece ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latitudinarianism (philosophy)
In philosophy, Latitudinarianism is a position concerning ''de dicto'' and ''de re'' (propositional) attitudes. Latitudinarians think that ''de re'' attitudes are not a category distinct from ''de dicto'' attitudes; the former are just a special case of the latter. The term was introduced into discussions of ''de dicto'' and ''de re'' attitudes by Roderick Chisholm Roderick Milton Chisholm ( ; November 27, 1916 – January 19, 1999) was an American philosopher known for his work on epistemology, metaphysics, free will, value theory, deontology, deontic logic and the philosophy of perception. Richard and ... in his "Knowledge and Belief: 'De Dicto' and 'De Re'" (1976). Latitudinarianism has since also sometimes been called an "unrestricted exportation" view. References and further reading * Baker, Lynne Rudder (1982). "De Re Belief in Action" ''The Philosophical Review'', Vol. 91, No. 3, pp. 363–387. * Chisholm, Roderick (1976). "Knowledge and Belief: 'De Dicto' and 'D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evaluation Strategy
In a programming language, an evaluation strategy is a set of rules for evaluating expressions. The term is often used to refer to the more specific notion of a ''parameter-passing strategy'' that defines the kind of value that is passed to the function for each parameter (the ''binding strategy'') and whether to evaluate the parameters of a function call, and if so in what order (the ''evaluation order''). The notion of reduction strategy is distinct, although some authors conflate the two terms and the definition of each term is not widely agreed upon. A programming language's evaluation strategy is part of its high-level semantics. Some languages, such as PureScript, have variants with different evaluation strategies. Some declarative languages, such as Datalog, support multiple evaluation strategies. The calling convention consists of the low-level platform-specific details of parameter passing. Example To illustrate, executing a function call f(a,b) may first evaluat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
