Non-Factualism about Abstract Objects

2021 ◽  
pp. 123-160
Author(s):  
Mark Balaguer
Keyword(s):  
Abstract Objects ◽  
Abstract Object ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
Argument Proceeds

Chapter 5 provides an argument for a non-factualist view of the abstract-object question; in other words, it argues that there’s no fact of the matter whether there are any such things as abstract objects like numbers and sets and propositions (where an abstract object is a non-physical, non-mental, unextended, acausal, non-spatiotemporal object). Roughly speaking, the argument proceeds by showing that the sentence ‘There are abstract objects’ is catastrophically unclear and indeterminate—i.e., that it’s so unclear that it doesn’t have any truth conditions and, hence, doesn’t have a truth value. In addition, the chapter also argues against necessitarian versions of platonism and anti-platonism.

A Neo-Formalist Approach to Mathematical Truth

1998 ◽  
pp. 41-47
Author(s):  
Alan Weir
Keyword(s):  
Ontological Commitment ◽  
Abstract Objects ◽  
Mathematical Truth ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
The Status ◽  
Formal Calculus

I outline a variant on the formalist approach to mathematics which rejects textbook formalism's highly counterintuitive denial that mathematical theorems express truths while still avoiding ontological commitment to a realm of abstract objects. The key idea is to distinguish the sense of a sentence from its explanatory truth conditions. I then look at various problems with the neo-formalist approach, in particular at the status of the notion of proof in a formal calculus and at problems which Gödelian results seem to pose for the tight link assumed between truth and proof.

Object recognition and content

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-226
Author(s):  
LYDIA SÁNCHEZ ◽  
MANUEL CAMPOS
Keyword(s):  
Object Recognition ◽  
Direct Reference ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Attitude Reports ◽  
Central Elements ◽  
Recognition Of Objects ◽  
Truth Value

Puzzles concerning attitude reports are at the origin of traditional theories of content. According to most of these theories, content has to involve some sort of conceptual entities, like senses, which determine reference. Conceptual views, however, have been challenged by direct reference theories and informational perspectives on content. In this paper we lay down the central elements of the more relevant strategies for solving cognitive puzzles. We then argue that the best solution available to those who maintain a view of content as truth conditions is to abandon the idea that content is the only element of mental attitudes that can make a difference as to the truth value of attitude reports. We finally resort to means of recognition of objects as one obvious element that helps explain differences in attitudes.

scholarly journals BELATED COMMENT to: `What is Informatics?' (2007)

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Gruner
Keyword(s):  
Finite Automata ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Abstract Objects ◽  
Abstract Object ◽  
Engineering Discipline ◽  
Letter To The Editor ◽  
New Type ◽  
Heinz Zemanek

When I wrote my above-mentioned letter to the editor of SACJ several years ago (2007), I had not been aware of the fact that the Austrian computer pioneer Heinz Zemanek (1920-2014) had published an article of the same title already in the year 1972 in the Management Informatics journal. In that publication, Zemanek had characterised informatics as a new type of an engineering discipline - i.e.: the informatician emerges as new type of engineer for abstract objects (instead of material devices). His notion of 'abstract object' Zemanek had defined already four years earlier in the journal Elektronische Rechenanlagen (1968): abstract objects can generally represent both the structure of linguistic expressions as well as the various sub-states of finite automata. Zemanek reconfirmed his point of view in the Nachrichtentechnische Zeitschrift (1973), in which he stated with regard to the goals and purposes of informatics: "man braucht dazu Ingenieure neuer Art: sie hantieren mit abstrakten Objekten, wie sie bisher nur in der Mathematik vorkamen". Though further definitions of the term 'informatics' have been numerous since then, Zemanek's early definition continues to possess (i.m.h.o.) a true core, and is also by-and-large compatible with the opinion which I had expressed previously about this topic in this journal.

scholarly journals The search for truth: Appositives weigh in

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 180
Author(s):  
Margaret Kroll ◽  
Amanda Rysling
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Work ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Theoretical Point ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Value Judgments ◽  
Complex Sentences ◽  
Highly Sensitive ◽  
Truth Conditional ◽  
Task Features ◽  
Truth Value

The semantic and pragmatic contribution of appositives to their containing sentence is a subject of continuing debate. While unidimensional semantic accounts propose that appositives contribute their truth conditions to their containing sentence, multidimensional accounts predict that they do not. In three experiments, we directly compared judgments of the truth of sentences containing appositives and sentences containing conjunctions. Our findings contribute both a method- ological and a theoretical point. First, we show that no conclusions about the truth-conditional contributions of appositives can be drawn from experimental work without further investigation of how participants provide truth value judgments for complex sentences. Second, we show that while appositives appear to contribute truth values to their containing sentences, participants are highly sensitive to task features when they compute the truth value of sentences with appositives and also, crucially, with conjunctions. Specifically, we show that both sentences containing appositives and those containing conjunctions can be judged true even when the appositive or one conjunct is patently false. We conclude that it is unlikely that these results reflect semantic judgments, and suggest that they reflect truth only at the speech-act level.

scholarly journals Ascent and fallacy of semantic descent

2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 99-109
Author(s):  
Jelena Pavlicic
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Attribution ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
Knowledge Claims ◽  
Analysis Point

A substantial share of recent semantic and epistemological debates is focused on the description and analysis of ways to defend the thesis that changes in truth conditions of knowledge claims enfold on the back of subjective parameters. The broad popularity of this thesis - which runs contrary to the notion that variation in truth value is independent of informal factors - is a result of the belief that it offers a sustainable methodological framework for responding to the skeptic?s doubts. This paper begins by sketching the key points which serve to illustrate the nature of this antiskeptical strategy. Further on, the paper describes three problems the strategy faces, as well as attempts to address them by articulating a meta-linguistical thesis on truth conditions of knowledge attribution sentences. The aim of the paper is to reconstruct the project of the meta-linguistical analysis, point to its specifics and flaws, and answer the question of what it achieves.

The Metaphysics of Meaning: Propositions and Possible Worlds

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Soames
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Abstract Objects ◽  
Possible World ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Theories Of Truth ◽  
Cognitive States

This chapter examines two crucial aspects of the metaphysics of meaning—propositions and possible world-states. It reviews why propositions—needed as meanings of sentences and objects of the attitudes—can neither be extracted from theories of truth conditions, nor defined in terms of possible world-states, It then explains why they also cannot be the mysterious, inherently representational, abstract objects they have traditionally been taken to be. Instead of explaining the representationality of sentences and cognitive states in terms of their relations to the supposedly prior and independent representationality of propositions, we must explain the representationality of propositions in terms of the representationality of the cognitive states with which they are connected. A new account of is presented along these lines.

scholarly journals Truth-Graph Method: a Handy Method Different from that of Leśniewski’s

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-111
Author(s):  
Lei Ma
Keyword(s):  
Visual Representation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Truth Values ◽  
Graph Method ◽  
Convenient Tool ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
The One ◽  
Truth Tables

Abstract The paper presents a method of truth-graph by truth-tables. On the one hand, the truth-graph constituted by truth value coordinate and circumference displays a more visual representation of the different combinations of truth-values for the simple or complex propositions. Truth-graphs make sure that you don’t miss any of these combinations. On the other hand, they provide a more convenient tool to discern the validity of a complex proposition made up by simple compositions. The algorithm involving in setting up all the truth conditions is proposed to distinguish easily among tautologous, contradictory and consistent expressions. Furthermore, the paper discusses a certain connection between the truth graphs and the symbols for propositional connectives proposed by Stanisław Leśniewski.

Abstract Objects

Philosophy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Balaguer
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Abstract Objects ◽  
Abstract Object ◽  
Mathematical Objects ◽  
Fictional Objects ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Vast Literature ◽  
Mental Objects ◽  
Existence Question ◽  
Mental Object

An abstract object is a non-physical, non-mental object that exists outside of space and time and is wholly unextended. For example, one might think that numbers are abstract objects; e.g., it is plausible to think that if the number 3 exists, then it is not a physical or mental object, and it does not exist in space and time. Likewise, one might think that properties and relations are abstract objects; e.g., it is plausible to think that if redness exists, over and above the various red balls and red houses and so on, then it is an abstract object—i.e., it is non-physical, non-mental, non-spatiotemporal, and so on. Other kinds of objects that are often taken by philosophers to be abstract objects are propositions, sentence types, possible worlds, logical objects, and fictional objects. The view the that there are abstract objects—known as platonism—is of course extremely controversial. Many philosophers think there are just no such things as abstract objects. Philosophers who endorse this antiplatonist view have to endorse some other view of objects of the above kinds—i.e., numbers, properties, propositions, etc.; in particular, in connection with each of these kinds of objects, they have to say either that these objects are physical or mental objects or that there are just no such things. There is a vast literature on the existence and nature of abstract objects. This article focuses mostly (but not entirely) on the existence question—that is, the question of whether there are any such things as abstract objects. In addition, it focuses to some extent (though, again, not entirely) on the specific version of this question that is concerned with the existence of abstract mathematical objects.

scholarly journals Why and How to Be a Dialetheist

2008 ◽  
pp. 208-227
Author(s):  
Manuel Bremer
Keyword(s):  
Basic Principles ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
Argument Proceeds

In the first part the paper rehearses the main arguments why to be a dialetheist (i.e. why to assume that some contradictions are true). Dialetheism, however, has been criticised as irrational or self-refutating. Therefore the second part of the paper outlines one way to make dialetheism rational assertable. True contradictions turn out to be both believable and assertable. The argument proceeds by setting out basic principles of assertion and denial, and employing bivalent truth value operators.

Propositions, attitudinal objects, and the distinction between actions and products

2013 ◽  
Vol 43 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 679-701 ◽  
Author(s):  
Friederike Moltmann
Keyword(s):  
Propositional Attitudes ◽  
Abstract Objects ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Artistic Creation ◽  
Shared Objects ◽  
Cognitive Accessibility ◽  
The Law

Propositions as mind-independent abstract objects raise serious problems such as their cognitive accessibility and their ability to carry essential truth conditions, as a number of philosophers have recently pointed out. This paper argues that ‘attitudinal objects’ or kinds of them should replace propositions as truth bearers and as the (shared) objects of propositional attitudes. Attitudinal objects, entities like judgments, beliefs, and claims, are not states or actions, but rather their (spatio-temporally coincident) products, following the distinction between actions and products introduced by Twardowski (1912). The paper argues that the action–product distinction is not tied to particular terms in a particular language, but is to be understood as the more general distinction between an action and the (abstract or physically realized) artifact that it creates. It thus includes the distinction between the passing of a law and the law itself and an act of artistic creation and the created work of art.

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