The Very Idea of Truth by Convention

2020 ◽  
pp. 171-194
Author(s):  
Jared Warren
Keyword(s):  
Logical Truth ◽  
Master Argument ◽  
The Third ◽  
Linguistic Conventions ◽  
Famous Argument

This chapter answers various influential arguments against truth by convention, in general, and logical conventionalism, in particular. The first argument discussed claims that the contingency of our linguistic conventions is incompatible with the necessity of logical truth. The second claims that while conventions can be used to determine the content of a sentence, they cannot possibly make that content be the case (I call this “the master argument” against conventionalism, because of its influence). The third argument discussed is Quine’s famous argument against logical conventionalism. The fourth is a variation on Quinean themes, related to the later Wittgenstein’s radical conventionalism and Dummett’s discussions of Wittgenstein’s views. The fifth and final objection is Williamson’s argument against understanding-assent links. The chapter’s discussion shows that each of these arguments against conventionalism has decisive failings.

Logical Conventionalism

2020 ◽  
pp. 95-124
Author(s):  
Jared Warren
Keyword(s):  
Logical Truth ◽  
Semantic Completeness ◽  
Linguistic Conventions ◽  
Normativity Of Logic ◽  
Plausible Theory

This chapter argues that logical truth, validity, and necessity in any language can be fully explained in terms of the language’s linguistic conventions. More particularly, it is demonstrated that unrestricted logical inferentialism is a version of logical conventionalism by arguing for conventionalism in detail and answering various objections involving the role of metasemantic principles and semantic completeness in the conventionalist argument. The chapter then discusses how this account relates to the deflationist accounts offered by Field and others, before turning to the metaphysics and normativity of logic, which it discusses on conventionalist grounds. Overall, this chapter shows that conventionalism leads to a naturalistically acceptable and philosophically plausible theory of logic.

scholarly journals A Constructional Perspective on the Rise of Metatextual Discourse Markers

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 01-25
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Closs Traugott
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
The Third ◽  
Pragmatic Markers ◽  
Linguistic Conventions ◽  
Truth Conditional ◽  
Knowledge Of Language

Cognitive linguistics seeks to account for “a speaker’s knowledge of the full range of linguistic conventions” (LANGACKER, 1987; also GOLDBERG, 2006). It is surprising therefore that little attention has been paid in cognitive linguistics to the linguistic conventions called “discourse markers” (SCHIFFRIN, 1987) or “pragmatic markers” (FRASER, 2009, et passim). Pragmatic markers include signals of attention to social relationships (well, please), beliefs (I think, in fact), and discourse management (after all, anyway). Members of the third subtype are metatextual connectors of discourse segments (“discourse markers” in Fraser’s taxonomy). I argue that because pragmatic markers in general play a major role in negotiating meaning, they are an important part of speakers’ knowledge of language. Pragmatic markers are well-known not to have truth-conditional meaning, and not to be syntactically integrated with the host clause. However, they have conventional pragmatic meanings (HANSEN, 2012; FINKBEINER, 2019). I exemplify my recent research on the historical development in English of metatextual discourse markers with a diachronic construction grammar perspective on by the way (TRAUGOTT, 2020). Focus will be on the importance of routinized, replicated contexts in change (CROFT, 2001; BYBEE, 2010).

Elegant Interpretations

2020 ◽  
pp. 148-164
Author(s):  
J. Robert G. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Mental Content ◽  
Correct Interpretation ◽  
Linguistic Representation ◽  
Language And Thought ◽  
The Third ◽  
Linguistic Conventions ◽  
The Way

This chapter is the third of three that sets out a metaphysics of linguistic representation, and the focus here is on the way that correct linguistic interpretation is selected. The correct interpretation is the best theory of the linguistic conventions, and the best theory optimizes simplicity (elegance) and fit with the data. It is argued that elegance should be understood relative to the language-users’ pooled conceptual repertoire, and the combined theory of representation in language and thought is wielded to resolve indeterminacy puzzles. The appeal to simplicity/elegance in this context is compared to appeals to simplicity/elegance in the context of the metaphysics of mental content, where a rather different approach was examined. The compatibility of the two approaches is assessed.

Counter-Conceivability Again

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Crispin Wright
Keyword(s):  
Phenomenal Concept ◽  
Metaphysical Possibility ◽  
The Third ◽  
Essential Nature ◽  
Famous Argument ◽  
Naming And Necessity

This chapter is concerned with the epistemology of metaphysical possibility implicit in the famous argument against physicalism about the mental outlined in the third lecture of Saul Kripke’s Naming and Necessity. Kripke’s argument presupposes that conceivability remains the best possible indicator of possibility, even where it is metaphysical possibilities, rather than conceptual possibilities, that are concerned. The chapter argues that this principle is good only when the concepts which frame the relevant imaginative exercise are adequate to the essential nature of the items for which a putative possibility is being entertained. The result is that metaphysical impossibilities may, in certain circumstances, be perfectly lucidly conceivable; and hence that the conceivability of pain’s coming apart from any particular supposed physical identification of it is no indication of a genuine possibility for pain unless the phenomenal concept of pain is adequate to the nature of pain—which physicalism denies.

Three Identities of One Action

1975 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Robert W. Jenson
Keyword(s):  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
The Third ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
Famous Argument ◽  
Conceptual Revolution ◽  
The Trinity

The following speculations do not pretend to state a complete doctrine of the Trinity, though they do state decisive parts of one. The first section is an account of what is, in my view, the function of a Trinity-doctrine, and will to some extent repeat work also published elsewhere. The second section is an interpretation of the trinitarian word ‘hypostasis’, that tries to display the conceptual revolution made by the traditional trinitarian assertion of ‘three hypostases of God’. The third considers the oneness of God, by analysing a famous argument of Gregory of Nyssa. And the fourth draws some further conclusions.

scholarly journals Conceptual representations and figurative language in language shift

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maïa Ponsonnet
Keyword(s):  
Figurative Language ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
The Body ◽  
Conceptual Representation ◽  
Northern Australia ◽  
Conceptual Representations ◽  
The Third ◽  
Linguistic Conventions

AbstractThis article explores the correlations between linguistic figurative features and their corresponding conceptual representations, by considering their respective continuities and discontinuities in language shift. I compare the figurative encoding of emotions in Kriol, a creole of northern Australia, with those of Dalabon, one of the languages replaced by this creole, with a particular focus on evidence from metaphorical gestures. The conclusions are three-fold. Firstly, the prominent figurative association between the body and the emotions observed in Dalabon is, overall, not matched in Kriol. Secondly, although this association is not prominent in Kriol, it is not entirely absent. It surfaces where speakers are less constrained by linguistic conventions: in non-conventionalized tropes, and gestures in particular. Indeed, some of the verbal emotion metaphors that have disappeared with language shift are preserved as gestural metaphors. Thus, Kriol speakers endorse the conceptual association between emotions and the body, in spite of the lower linguistic incidence of this association. The third conclusion is that therefore, in language shift, conceptual figurative representations and linguistic figurative representations are independent of each other. The former can persist when the latter largely disappear. Conversely, the fact that speakers endorse a certain type of conceptual representation does not entail that they will use corresponding linguistic forms in the new language. The transfer of linguistic figurative representations seems to depend, instead, upon purely linguistic parameters.

Progress report on 21-cm observations at low latitude between longitudes (l 11) 0° and 66°

1967 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 177-179
Author(s):  
W. W. Shane
Keyword(s):  
Preliminary Report ◽  
Progress Report ◽  
Galactic Centre ◽  
Low Latitude ◽  
The Third ◽  
Introductory Lecture ◽  
Centre Region

In the course of several 21-cm observing programmes being carried out by the Leiden Observatory with the 25-meter telescope at Dwingeloo, a fairly complete, though inhomogeneous, survey of the regionl11= 0° to 66° at low galactic latitudes is becoming available. The essential data on this survey are presented in Table 1. Oort (1967) has given a preliminary report on the first and third investigations. The third is discussed briefly by Kerr in his introductory lecture on the galactic centre region (Paper 42). Burton (1966) has published provisional results of the fifth investigation, and I have discussed the sixth in Paper 19. All of the observations listed in the table have been completed, but we plan to extend investigation 3 to a much finer grid of positions.

The orbit of Pluto over a long interval of time

1966 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 227-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Brouwer
Keyword(s):  
Periodic Orbit ◽  
Numerical Integration ◽  
Restricted Problem ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
The Third ◽  
Circular Restricted Problem ◽  
Resonance Relation

The paper presents a summary of the results obtained by C. J. Cohen and E. C. Hubbard, who established by numerical integration that a resonance relation exists between the orbits of Neptune and Pluto. The problem may be explored further by approximating the motion of Pluto by that of a particle with negligible mass in the three-dimensional (circular) restricted problem. The mass of Pluto and the eccentricity of Neptune's orbit are ignored in this approximation. Significant features of the problem appear to be the presence of two critical arguments and the possibility that the orbit may be related to a periodic orbit of the third kind.

Monte Carlo Algorithms for Moments of Transition Arrays

1988 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 79-81
Author(s):  
A. Goldberg ◽  
S.D. Bloom
Keyword(s):  
Monte Carlo ◽  
State Vector ◽  
Basis Vector ◽  
Collective State ◽  
Dispersion Characteristics ◽  
Dipole Strength ◽  
The Third ◽  
Monte Carlo Algorithms ◽  
Third Moment ◽  
Very High

AbstractClosed expressions for the first, second, and (in some cases) the third moment of atomic transition arrays now exist. Recently a method has been developed for getting to very high moments (up to the 12th and beyond) in cases where a “collective” state-vector (i.e. a state-vector containing the entire electric dipole strength) can be created from each eigenstate in the parent configuration. Both of these approaches give exact results. Herein we describe astatistical(or Monte Carlo) approach which requires onlyonerepresentative state-vector |RV> for the entire parent manifold to get estimates of transition moments of high order. The representation is achieved through the random amplitudes associated with each basis vector making up |RV>. This also gives rise to the dispersion characterizing the method, which has been applied to a system (in the M shell) with≈250,000 lines where we have calculated up to the 5th moment. It turns out that the dispersion in the moments decreases with the size of the manifold, making its application to very big systems statistically advantageous. A discussion of the method and these dispersion characteristics will be presented.

Probe size and 5th-order aberration

1987 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 134-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhifeng Shao
Keyword(s):  
Electron Probe ◽  
Spherical Aberration ◽  
Wave Length ◽  
Cylindrical Symmetry ◽  
Electron Wave ◽  
Third Order ◽  
The Third ◽  
Probe Radius ◽  
Small Probe ◽  
Probe Size

A small electron probe has many applications in many fields and in the case of the STEM, the probe size essentially determines the ultimate resolution. However, there are many difficulties in obtaining a very small probe.Spherical aberration is one of them and all existing probe forming systems have non-zero spherical aberration. The ultimate probe radius is given byδ = 0.43Csl/4ƛ3/4where ƛ is the electron wave length and it is apparent that δ decreases only slowly with decreasing Cs. Scherzer pointed out that the third order aberration coefficient always has the same sign regardless of the field distribution, provided only that the fields have cylindrical symmetry, are independent of time and no space charge is present. To overcome this problem, he proposed a corrector consisting of octupoles and quadrupoles.

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