Meaning & Criteria
Meaning & Criteria

Author: Haig Khatchadourian

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 9780820488813

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This book aims to provide an in-depth understanding of linguistic meaning, a central theme in twentieth-century philosophy, and its various connections with criteria. Part I examines four major recent theories of meaning, linguistic rules and conventions, and practices. In Part II, after an extended analysis of the concept of criterion against the backdrop of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations and the post-Wittgenstein period, various connections between criteria and meaning are revealed in relation to both non-evaluative and evaluative concepts. The last chapter details various sorts of error and confusion in a host of important philosophical views resulting from an improper understanding of criteria, conditions, and evidence.

The Concept of Meaning
The Concept of Meaning

Author: Hill, Thomas E

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-02-25

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 1317828615

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First published in 2002. This is Volume VIII of seventeen in the Library of Philosophy series on Metaphysics. Written in 1974, the most significant studies of meaning are rightly focused upon restricted ranges of meanings, but occasional attempts to see the subject in larger perspective are also required. The present inquiry is concerned with meanings of words in languages and of spoken and written sentences, but it is also concerned with a wider spectrum including meanings of spoken and written sentences, of signs and symbols, of physical and historical events, of material objects and mental images, of poems and paintings, of sculptures and symphonies, and even of life and of the universe.

Psychology in Human Context
Psychology in Human Context

Author: Sigmund Koch

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1999-07

Total Pages: 452

ISBN-13: 0226449319

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Sigmund Koch (1917-1996) was one of the twentieth century's most penetrating and wide-ranging critics of the scientistic ambitions of psychology. Writing in a style sometimes scathing, sometimes witty, always lucid, he decried any psychology that attempted to eradicate the human dimension from the study, scientific and otherwise, of human experience and action. A philosopher and humanist by nature, Koch also sought to change the multifaceted field of psychology by moving it closer to the humanities and arts. The broad scope of essays in Psychology in Human Context—which began as the basis for the eagerly anticipated postscript to Koch's seminal Psychology: A Study of a Science—reveals his writings to be as fresh and relevant today as ever. Carefully edited by two of Koch's close associates, this collection places psychological and philosophical issues in the context of twentieth-century thought and provides intellectual and moral signposts for future travelers in what Koch regarded as the irreducibly rich and human realm of the psychological studies. Sigmund Koch was University Professor of Psychology and Philosophy at Boston University, the editor of the landmark six-volume series Psychology: A Study of a Science (1959-1963) and coeditor of A Century of Psychology as Science. He served as the president of three divisions of the American Psychological Association and was director of the Ford Foundation program in the Humanities and the Arts (1964-1967).

Pragmatics and the Philosophy of Mind: Thought in language
Pragmatics and the Philosophy of Mind: Thought in language

Author: Marcelo Dascal

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 1983-01-01

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 9027225036

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This volume deals with the relation between pragmatics and the philosophy of mind. Unlike most of the books written on the subject, it does not defend the view that a specific form of dependence holds between language and thought, to the exclusion of all other possible relations. Taking pragmatics in its original sense of “that part of semiotics that is concerned with the users of a semiotic system”, the book analyses the nature of the mental processes and states mirrored in language use. Drawing on results from cognitive psychology, the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, linguistics, etc., a unified view of the mental dimension in the use of language, both as an instrument of communication and as an instrument of thought, is offered. After offering a tour d'horizon of the relationship between language and mind, this volume deals with the way thought is manifested in language.

Pragmatics and the Philosophy of Mind
Pragmatics and the Philosophy of Mind

Author: Marcelo Dascal

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 1983-01-01

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 9027280371

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This volume deals with the relation between pragmatics and the philosophy of mind. Unlike most of the books written on the subject, it does not defend the view that a specific form of dependence holds between language and thought, to the exclusion of all other possible relations. Taking pragmatics in its original sense of “that part of semiotics that is concerned with the users of a semiotic system”, the book analyses the nature of the mental processes and states mirrored in language use. Drawing on results from cognitive psychology, the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, linguistics, etc., a unified view of the mental dimension in the use of language, both as an instrument of communication and as an instrument of thought, is offered. After offering a tour d’horizon of the relationship between language and mind, this volume deals with the way thought is manifested in language.

Philosophy of Science
Philosophy of Science

Author: Wang Wei

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-12-30

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 1317542304

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The book is a translation of the second edition of a much-used and research-based Chinese textbook. As a succinct and issue-based introduction to the Western philosophy of science, the book brings eight focal issues in the field to the fore and augments each topic by incorporating Chinese perspectives. Followed by an overview of the historical framework and logical underpinnings of the philosophy of science, the book thoroughly discusses eight issues in the discipline: (1) the criteria of cognitive meaning, (2) induction and confirmation, (3) scientific explanation, (4) theories of scientific growth, (5) the demarcation between science and pseudoscience, (6) scientific realism and empiricism; (7) the philosophy of scientific experimentation, (8) science and value. Not confined to Western mainstream discourse in this field, the book also introduces voices of Chinese philosophers of note and adopts a stance that productively combines logical empiricism and Kuhnianism, both of which tend to be covered in less detail by many English language textbooks. In the final chapter the author offers a prognosis regarding the future of the discipline based on recent trends. This book will be of value to students who study philosophy of science and hope to gain a better understanding of science and technology.

Equality Renewed
Equality Renewed

Author: Christine Sypnowich

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-12-19

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 1315458314

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How should we approach the daunting task of renewing the ideal of equality? In this book, Christine Sypnowich proposes a theory of equality centred on human flourishing or wellbeing. She argues that egalitarianism should be understood as seeking to make people more equal in the constituents of a good life. Inequality is a social ill because of the damage it does to human flourishing: unequal distribution of wealth can have the effect that some people are poorly housed, badly nourished, ill-educated, unhappy or uncultured, among other things. When we seek to make people more equal our concern is not just resources or property, but how people fare under one distribution or another. Ultimately, the best answer to the question, ‘equality of what?,’ is some conception of flourishing, since whatever policies or principles we adopt, it is flourishing that we hope will be more equal as a result of our endeavours. Sypnowich calls for both retrieval and innovation. What is to be retrieved is the ideal of equality itself, which is often assumed as a background condition of theories of justice, yet at the same time, dismissed as too homogenising, abstract and rigid a criterion for political argument. We must retrieve the ideal of equality as a central political principle. In doing so, she casts doubt on the value of focussing on cultural difference, and rejects the idea of neutrality that dominates contemporary political philosophy in favour of a view of the state as enabling the betterment of its citizens.

Reality? Knowledge? Philosophy!
Reality? Knowledge? Philosophy!

Author: Stephen Hetherington

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2019-07-30

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1474469124

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This textbook introduction offers a new way of approaching metaphysics and epistemology - via links to ethical and social questions. It asks questions such as: Fundamentally, what are we? And what, if anything, do we know?

Coherence and Verification in Ethics
Coherence and Verification in Ethics

Author: Ralph D. Ellis

Publisher: University Press of America

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9780819184115

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This book is an attempt to come to grips with the problem of the epistemological basis of ethical beliefs by building on criticisms of approaches to this problem which have been attempted in the recent past. Because of the extensive discussions and criticism of these various alternatives, the book may be useful to all who are concerned with the epistemology of ethics. Included are criticisms of the prescriptivist and emotivist alternatives growing out of the logical positivist tradition; various forms of intuitionism; the now popular coherentist approach; the rationalism of Gewirth and other is-ought derivations; and phenomenology (including its intuitionistic manifestations, as in Hartmna, and its anthropologist ones as in Scheler). Although each of these schools is found insufficient to accomplish the task alone, certain elements in each of them are necessary components of a workable moral epistemology.

Lines of Thought
Lines of Thought

Author: Claudio Ferreira Costa

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2014-06-30

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 1443863106

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Lines of Thought: Rethinking Philosophical Assumptions is a highly innovative and powerfully argued book. According to the author, noted Brazilian philosopher Claudio Costa, many philosophical ideas that today are widely seen as old-fashioned and outdated should not be dismissed, but instead should be extensively reworked and reformulated. This also means that contemporary analytical philosophy should begin to question many of its most cherished views and reconsider some of the current ways of looking at philosophy. Following this path, in the philosophy of language, the author suggests replacing the causal-historical view of proper names with a much more sophisticated form of descriptive-internalist theory able to meet Kripke’s challenges. In epistemology, he argues convincingly that we should return to the old traditional tripartite definition of knowledge, reformulated in a much more complex form in which Gettier’s problem would disappear. The correct response to skepticism about the external world should not be to adopt new and more fanciful views, but rather to carefully analyze the different kinds of reality attributions implied by the argument and responsible for its equivocal character. In metaphysics, he argues for a more complex reformulation of the traditional compatibilist approach of free will, relating it intrinsically with the causal theory of action and making it powerful enough to assimilate the best elements of hierarchical views. Finally, according to the author, contemporary analytic philosophy suffers from a lack of comprehensiveness. In response to this, the papers in this collection aim to restore something of a broader perspective, salvaging isolated insights by integrating them into more comprehensive views.