A Question for Verificationists

Let’s call verificationism the thesis that the meaning of any sentence expressing a synthetic proposition is just its method of empirical verification. It follows that a statement is meaningless if it has no method of empirical verification, and if neither it nor its negation is an analytic truth. (Obviously, this characterization of verificationism could be fleshed out, and most if not all verificationists would refine it in some way.) Empirical verifiability (or falsifiability – I’ll henceforth refer to the former term for ease of explication) is a matter of a proposition’s having some sort of probabilistic or deductive relationship with observable states of affairs. For example, a statement regarding the existence or behavior of an unobservable entity can still be empirically verifiable if it entails or has some sort of probabilistic relationship with observable states of the world (see, for example, Ayer 1952: 13, 38; Carnap 1936: 425-427). Thus, a statement about, say, an atom, can be empirically verifiable if it is evidentially related to observation sentences – things like “under such-and-such conditions the cloud chamber will look like this,” or “under such-and-such conditions the screen connected to a scanning tunneling microscope will look like this.” Alright, here’s my question: what does the verificationist mean by “observable” and “unobservable”? Or, more specifically, because these are the terms the verificationist is more likely to use, what does the verificationist mean by “possibly observable” and “possibly unobservable”?

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Wittgenstein

I found segments on youtube of Derek Jarman’s 1989 film “Wittgenstein.” The rest can be found on youtube. Enjoy!

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Digging Deeper Into the Text

The following post constitutes an edited transposition of a series of comments found in another thread on this site. In the event that I have uncharitably edited this material from its origin, I depend upon my peers to alert me to the fact. You can find the original post here. While the title of this post refers to two individuals (for purely archival purposes…and I think it’s a clever title), it is not my desire to exclude others from the discourse; in fact, I hope that those who are interested in this topic will get involved in this conversation.
Context: Some commentators and analysts argue that undergraduates emerge from the contemporary American system with weak critical engagement skills. Specifically, some students express difficulty in determining the cohesive meaning of the sum of their intellectual exploits. In other words, some students become frustrated when they are unable to find (satisfactory) connections between different and seemingly disparate courses, ideas, and arguments.  Does this difficulty result from weak critical methodology? Should educators be more explicit or direct in their efforts to get students to hone their critical skills? If so, how could educators go about doing this?

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Whatever Makes a Person Human Seemed Somehow Missing*

JJ at Feminist Philosophers posted a recent case of a child who appears to have had little social contact for the first five or six years of her life. As JJ notes, feral children, while thankfully rare, are interesting to theorists for a variety of reasons. Questions about the nature of language, human capacity for language and various capabilities associated with human development are among the issues associated with feral children. JJ has also linked to a paper by Lila Gleitman about language development in which the case of feral children is considered.

*This title is adapted from a passage in the St. Petersburg Times article; second link above.

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ya tusahyatekhwahlakhwa tslatok^hti tslata•sé•

And you thought translating German was hard!

According to this article, the title of this post is a single Oneida word that means, “the two of them went around to the other side of the altar again.”

The word is formed, according to linguist Cliff Abbot, by “add[ing] nine prefixes to the simple root verb “-tase-“, which means “to go around” — all without forgetting that the final sounds might need to be whispered.”

And so I ask you this: “Chahta imanumpa ish anumpola hinla ho?”

For most people in the world, the answer to that question is “No.” For me, the answer is, “A teensy, weensy bit. Hardly enough, really, to count for much.” For some people I know, it is, “Yep. Fluently.”

Read the article I’ve linked to above in order to see why it’s unfortunate that more people I know don’t answer the last way. Refer to my previous posts on Indian Boarding Schools to see some of the causes of native language endangerment. And, finally, click here to translate the question I’ve asked.

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This is a Very Pleasant Pineapple

Looks like you can watch the whole film, “Wittgenstein,” here.

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Predication, Quantification and Individuation

Predication is one of the most basic features of our language. To use a predicate in discussion of the actual world is to make a claim about the way the world (or whatever specific part of it we happen to be speaking about) is. It’s obvious that word-world connections such as those we see in predication are (or at least should be) at the root of general semantic theories.

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A connection between modality and an epistemology of intensions of predicate terms (part IV).

Given the discussion of parts I, II and III, I want to propose a way to understand intensions which may end up speaking to certain questions about modal semantics. As an introduction, let’s recall that Carnap engaged in a similar project in Meaning and Necessity. In that work, state-descriptions were to play the functional role of possible worlds, where a state-description is a “maximal” collection of atomic sentences. In other words, for every one-place predicate term φ1 and every singular term α, a state-description is such that it contains either ‘φ₁(α)’ or ‘~φ₁(α)’, for every two-place predicate term φ2 and arbitrary singular terms α and β, a state-description is such that it contains either ‘φ₂(α, β)’ or ‘~φ₂(α, β)’, and similarly for n-place predicate terms where n > 2.

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A connection between modality and an epistemology of intensions of predicate terms (part III).

The difficulty for using a “conceptually prior” class of possible worlds — more about what is meant by the phrase in scare quotes in a moment — to the purpose of giving an account of the intension of predicate terms (at least one which is epistemically responsible) is more apparent. Say we assume, as Lewis does, that for the purposes of explaining the truth of modal claims, there are possible worlds as he understands them and there is a class of all such worlds. If this account of modality is to be a reductive one, then to avoid circularity in it, we must assume that the worlds exist independently of our conceiving of them, else we would be attempting to reduce the modal to a class that was delimited with the aid of some sort of modal ability (our conceiving of the these worlds — this is why I say that the worlds must be “conceptually prior”). But, if we have a mind-independent class of possible worlds to explain the truth of modal claims, then we’re unable to use this class of worlds to explicate the intension of predicate terms given that we understand those intensions.

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A connection between modality and an epistemology of intensions of predicate terms (part II)

In part I of this series, I promised to outline what I felt were shortcomings of the view according to which we could provide a genuine modal semantics (semantics for a language with modal operators) under the presupposition that this language was “antecedently meaningful” — which I take to mean at a minimum that at least some predicate terms are meaningful, or have an intension that might be grasped. In this post, I’ll consider an example of this sort of approach (I’ll call it the ‘antecedently meaningful language as a prerequisite (for genuine modal semantics)’ approach or ‘AMLAP’ for convenience.), and try to point why I believe it to be problematic, or at least not as helpful as an approach to modal semantics might be.

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A connection between modality and an epistemology of intensions of predicate terms (part I)

One thread of philosophy of language intersects, in at least a few places, with a thread of philosophical considerations about modality. Once we begin considering how to provide an account of understanding the meaning or intension of a predicate such as ‘is ψ’, we realize that we must consider possible circumstances or imaginary scenarios in which the use of `is ψ’ is appropriate. Simply put, one can only be said to understand completely the predicate `is ψ’ if one knows exactly when it is appropriate to use this predicate in conversation about actual or counterfactual situations. It should be of little surprise then, that philosophers often put to use possible worlds (however they’re to be understood) in the service of giving an account of intensions.

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Philosophers’ Carnival #53

Class is officially in session for the 53rd Philosophers‘ Carnival!

Since we at the Florida Student Philosophy Blog have recently returned to class, we thought you should too. We would like to thank all those who submitted, and we hope that you find the current selection as engaging as we did. Courses (or posts if you prefer) are organized by major subject, so go straight to your specialty or feel free to survey the catalog.

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For Rigid Designation, Essentialism Out = Essentialism In

Whatever other implications there are from a theory according to which at least some singular referring terms are directly referring and proper names are rigid designators, one take-home lesson is properly semantic: if there’s anything to the notion of rigid designation, and if proper names are in fact rigid designators, then the semantics of proper names are given in a certain, particular way.

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Sam Harris’s Reasons for Belief Argument

I’ve been reading Sam Harris’s Letter to a Christian Nation, which has been in the news quite a bit recently.  Early in the book, Harris puts forward an argument to the effect that Christians are inconsistent in claiming, on the one hand, that they have good reasons for holding Christianity while believing, on the other, that Muslims do not have good reasons for believing Islam.  Maintaining consistency, concludes Harris, requires Christians to reject Christianity.  I thought it was an interesting argument.  So, I’ve been thinking about a possible response, and thought I would share what I’ve come up with so far.

As I understand it, Harris’s argument, when boiled down to its essentials, can be put thus:

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“Vagueness and Truth”

… a colloquium featuring Mark Colyvan (University of Sydney) at the University of Miami, Friday, May 11th.

- Rico Vitz

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“Skepticism about Explanation and the Semantics of Explanatory Discourse”

… a colloquium featuring Bernhard Nickel (Harvard) at the University of Miami, Thursday, April 26th.

- Rico Vitz

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“Some Thoughts about Names”

… a colloquium featuring Michael Jubien at the University of Florida, Monday, April 16th.

- Rico Vitz

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Concept Possession and the Ability to Sort

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry on concepts explains three commonly held views of concepts. On the first, concepts are taken to be psychological entities that serve as constituents of the mental representations that feature in the representational theory of mind. On the second, concepts are understood in terms of concept possession which is explained as a sort of ability had by cognitive agents. Finally, on the third, concepts are understood as abstract objects roughly identified with the constituents of propositions. On this view, a concept can be said to contribute a Fregean sense to the thought which is the proposition of which it is a constituent. In this post, I want to suggest that, if we accept some prima facie unobjectionable claims about mental representations and the representative character of language, then on either of these three understandings of concepts we are left with the result that concepts, cognizers and individuals (that is, concrete, abstract or mental objects) stand in the following relation: concepts are (or can be used as) sortals of individuals for cognizers.

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A Trouble for Possible Worlds as Maximally Consistent Sets of Propositions or for Propositions Simpliciter?

The notion of possible worlds has proved incredibly frutiful in providing formal semantics for various systems of quantified modal logic. Perhaps so fruitful that philosophers interested in related issues such as semantics for the terms ‘necessarily’ and ‘possibly’ of natural language or in the metaphysical nature of necessity and possibility often make use of the notion of possible worlds to frame their discussions. In terms of a formal system of quantified modal logic, possible worlds serve only as a kind of index in the mathematical structure which provides semantics for the system. If possible worlds are employed in more properly philosophical discussions of natural language semantics or modality, one might wonder (with good motivation!) about the ontological status of these possible worlds. Are they concrete just as the actual universe is as David Lewis suggests? Or are they in some sense or other abstract?

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