Vagueness

2021 ◽  
pp. 271-292
Author(s):  
Crispin Wright
Keyword(s):  
Borderline Cases ◽  
Semantic Indeterminacy ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
The Way

This chapter centres on what it terms the Vagueness Trilemma: that what may impress as the only three possible types of view about what vagueness is—namely, that it is a matter of semantic indeterminacy, that it originates in rebus, and the epistemicist idea that it is a matter of our ineluctable ignorance about fully determinate matters— are each open to serious, indeed arguably fatal, objections. The chapter is organized about the possible attitudes to three interrelated, nodal theses. Bivalence—are borderline statements bivalent? Third possibility—do they possess some third alethic status—lack of truth value or some third truth value? And Verdict Exclusion: is knowledge of truth value precluded in borderline cases? It is argued that there are five consistent combinations of acceptance and non-acceptance of the three nodal issues, and that an attitude of agnosticism to all three, and a consequent broadly intuitionistic attitude to vagueness, is the way out of the Trilemma.

“Down-to-Earth TV dramas”: The reception of authenticity, reality, and modality in Danish TV dramas

2021 ◽  
pp. 174960202110463
Author(s):  
Yeşim Kaptan
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Television Viewing ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Focus Group Interviews ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
Group Interviews ◽  
Empirical Material ◽  
The Way

This article investigates how Turkish audiences conceptualize authenticity in their engagement with foreign television (TV) productions in the case of Danish TV dramas. The theoretical notion of authenticity is juxtaposed with empirical material from fieldwork interactions, focus group interviews, and one-on-one interviews conducted with Turkish audiences between 2016 and 2018. By employing a semiotic analysis of fieldwork data, I argue that Turkish audiences attribute authenticity to the Danish TV drama series according to a socially created modality (truth value of a sign). This article draws on accounts about modality markers in TV drama series such as authentic portrayals of Danish TV characters and plausible-realistic depictions as a verisimilitudinous representation of everyday life. In the context of cross-cultural television viewing practices, the way Turkish audiences attribute meaning to Danish TV series in terms of authenticity, realism, and modality reveals a distinct differentiation between Danish TV dramas and other nationally and globally circulating media products.

scholarly journals When “one” can be “two”: Cross-linguistic differences affect children’s interpretation of the numeral one

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-313
Author(s):  
Sarah Dolscheid ◽  
Franziska Schleussinger ◽  
Martina Penke
Keyword(s):  
Judgment Task ◽  
Value Judgment ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Linguistic Difference ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
Do So ◽  
The Way

In English, a lexical distinction is drawn between the indefinite determiner “a” and the numeral “one”. English-speaking children also interpret the two terms differently, with an exact, upper bounded interpretation of the numeral “one”, but no upper bounded interpretation of the indefinite determiner “a”. Unlike English, however, German does not draw a distinction between the indefinite determiner and the numeral one but instead uses the same term “ein/e” to express both functions. To find out whether this cross-linguistic difference affects children’s upper bounded interpretation of “ein/e”, we tested German-speaking children and adults in a truth-value-judgment task and compared their performance to English-speaking children. Our results revealed that German-speaking children differed from both English children and German adults. Whereas the majority of German adults interpreted “ein/e” in an upper bounded way (i.e. as exactly one, not two), the majority of German-speaking children favored a non-upper bounded interpretation (thus accepting two as a valid response to “ein/e”). German-speaking children’s proportion of upper bounded responses to “ein/e” was also significantly lower than English children’s upper bounded responses to “one”. However, German children’s rate of upper bounded responses increased once a number-biasing context was provided. These findings suggest that German-speaking children can interpret “ein/e” in an upper bounded way but that they need additional cues in order to do so. When no such cues are present, German-speaking children differ from both German-speaking adults and from their English-speaking peers, demonstrating that cross-linguistic differences can affect the way speakers interpret numbers.

The Goals of Philosophy of Religion: A Reply to Ireneusz Zieminski

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 187
Author(s):  
Kirk Lougheed
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Recent Article ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Epistemic Standard ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Essentialist Definition ◽  
The Way

In a recent article, Ireneusz Zieminski (2018) argues that the main goals of philosophy of religion are to (i) define religion; (ii) assess the truth value of religion and; (iii) assess the rationality of a religious way of life. Zieminski shows that each of these goals are difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. Hence, philosophy of religion leads to scepticism. He concludes that the conceptual tools philosophers of religion employ are best suited to study specific religious traditions, rather than religion more broadly construed. But it’s unclear whether the goals Zieminski attributes to philosophy of religion are accurate or even necessary for successful inquiry. I argue that an essentialist definition of religion isn’t necessary for philosophy of religion and that philosophers of religion already use the conceptual analysis in the way Zieminski suggests that they should. Finally, the epistemic standard Zieminski has in view is often obscure. And when it is clear, it is unrealistically high. Contemporary philosophers of religion rarely, if ever, claim to be offering certainty, or even evidence as strong as that found in the empirical sciences.

Contingency and the Symbolic Experience of Christian Extreme Metal

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Peter Unger
Keyword(s):  
Western Culture ◽  
Visual Features ◽  
Apparent Contradiction ◽  
Late Modernity ◽  
Religious Symbols ◽  
Extreme Metal ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
The Way

This chapter explores Christian extreme metal as a window on the way religion is expressed in contemporary Western culture, drawing on continental theorists of the post-secular. Christian extreme metal lyrics, sonic and structural musical features, and visual features are remarkably continuous with “secular” extreme metal, which positions itself in explicit opposition to Christianity and the “mainstream” world. But Christian extreme metal fans see Christian metal as qualitatively different from “secular” extreme metal. This apparent contradiction shows powerfully how religious symbols circulate in Western late modernity: religious symbols (e.g., biblical texts, stories, languages, and characters—and their symbolic inversions and opposites, drawn on in “secular” extreme metal) have been divested of their truth value and instead circulate as symbols, as meanings with experiential consequences. This allows for a surprising flow of symbols and meanings between secular and Christian extreme metal, and at the same time for qualitatively unique experiences.

Vagueness and the Evolution of Consciousness

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Tye
Keyword(s):  
Animal Behavior ◽  
Complex I ◽  
Central Element ◽  
Fundamental Feature ◽  
Borderline Cases ◽  
Evolution Of Consciousness ◽  
The Brain ◽  
The Way

Either consciousness appeared suddenly in living beings so that its appearance is like that of a light switch being turned on or it arose through intermediate stages. On the former view, consciousness is an on/off matter, but once it arose, it became richer and richer through time rather as a beam of light may become brighter and broader in its sweep. On the latter view, consciousness is not an on/off matter. There are shades of gray. Consciousness arose gradually just as life did, becoming richer through time as animal brains became more complex. I argue that both these views encounter insuperable difficulties and thus that a kind of paradox arises. The way out of the paradox is to accept that the various species of consciousness are vague, admitting of borderline cases, and are to be accounted for within a representationalist view of conscious states but that consciousness itself, or rather a central element of consciousness I call “consciousness*”, is sharp. Consciousness*, I claim, is a fundamental feature of micro-reality, and thus it did not evolve, unlike conscious states. The view with which I end up presents novel solutions to three important problems (of undirected consciousness, of combination, and of tiny, psychological subjects). It also takes up the question of how consciousness can be causally efficacious with respect to animal behavior. The final chapter of the book turns to the question of where in the brain macro-consciousness is located and which animal brains so evolved as to support conscious states.

Political Theory beyond the Rhetoric–Reason Divide: Hobbes, Semantic Indeterminacy, and Political Order

2011 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 561-580
Author(s):  
Daniel Skinner
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Political Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
Common View ◽  
Semantic Indeterminacy ◽  
The Common ◽  
Rational Order ◽  
The Way ◽  
Political Logic

AbstractThis article engages the longstanding debate over Hobbes's use of rhetoric, with the aim of rethinking both the political logic ofLeviathanand the way contemporary theorists approach rhetoric in relation to reason. Rhetoric was a particularly acute problem for Thomas Hobbes, whose pursuit of a stable political order may appear to require the absence of rhetoric and the presence of a purely rational order. This appearance is misleading, and it is suggested therefore that political theorists rethink how they understand rhetoric to grasp more fully Hobbes's understanding of political order. The common view that Hobbes resolves the problem of semantic indeterminacy must be questioned. Hobbes in effect understands that stable meaning structures are impossible to attain, even under Leviathan. This reworking suggests the need for refining our understanding of Hobbes, who envisions political order not by privileging reason over rhetoric, but by moving beyond engagements with language altogether.

Socialist Realism and the Study of Rural Life, 1945–1958

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-219
Author(s):  
Maya Haber
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
Rural Life ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Socialist Realist ◽  
Research Objects ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
The Way

The campaign against cosmopolitanism (1946–1953) forced social scientists to develop a methodology that captured socialist transformation in a socialist realist vernacular. The article examines the way socialist realism served as a prism through which to identify, categorize, and order research objects. Focusing primarily a 1951 ethnographic expedition to Voronezh province and its search for a “typical” village, the article argues that ethnographers, like other social scientists, perceived themselves as social engineers and their mission as molding soviet society into a socialist realist form. In this sense, scientists used socialist realism as a mechanism to distill reality into socialism. The article suggests that rather than discuss the truth value of soviet social scientific knowledge, historians should conceptualize these scholars’ work as manifestations of a unique soviet impulse to transform society.

Knowledge and Evaluation

1974 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Malinovich
Keyword(s):  
Moral Evaluation ◽  
Borderline Cases ◽  
Evaluative Criteria ◽  
The Will ◽  
Metaphysics Of Morals ◽  
Good For ◽  
Criteria For Evaluation ◽  
The Way

According to an accepted view of the nature of evaluation, which many trace to Hume, knowledge does not provide us with the criteria for judging whether something is good. For this, it is said, we need something like a pro-attitude such as C. L. Stevenson argues for, or a decision such as R. M. Hare argues for. Some act of the will is required to create the criteria for evaluation. I shall argue against this view. I shall argue that the criteria for evaluating something are identical with the criteria for classifying it and that, therefore, the knowledge which provides us with the criteria for classification provides us with the criteria for evaluation.In Section I, I give a brief account of the way in which knowledge provides the criteria for a classification and the significance of borderline cases and degree differences in classification. In Section II, I develop the idea of degree differences in classification and tie it to the idea of evaluation. In Section III, I defend my account of evaluative criteria by contrasting it with R. M. Hare's account, and I argue that the criteria for the class concept of man are at the basis of moral evaluation. I end with a brief illustration of my thesis from Kant's Metaphysics of Morals.

The Objectivity of Morality

Philosophy ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 51 (195) ◽  
pp. 5-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. G. Swinburne
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Referring Expressions ◽  
Strong Argument ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
The Way

If I say “we are now living in England” or “grass is green in summer’ or ‘the cat is on the mat’ what I say will normally be true or false—the statements are true if they correctly report how things are, or correspond to the facts; and if they do not do these things, they are false. Such a statement will only fail to have a truth-value if its referring expressions fail to refer (e.g. there is no object to which ‘the cat’ can properly be taken to refer); or if the statement lies on the border between truth and falsity (e.g. the grass is blue-green) so that it is as true to say that the statement is true as to say that it is false. Are moral judgments normally true or false in the way in which the above statements are true or false? I will term the view that they are objectivism and the view that they are not subjectivism. The objectivist maintains that it is as much a fact about an action that it is right or wrong as that it causes pain or takes a long time to perform. The subjectivist maintains that saying than an action is right or wrong is not stating a fact about it but merely expressing approval of it or commending it or doing some such similar thing. I wish in this paper, first, to show that all arguments for subjectivism manifestly fail, and secondly to produce a strong argument for objectivism. But, to start with, some preliminaries.

Self-sacrifice for in-group's history: A diachronic perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Babińska ◽  
Michal Bilewicz
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Psychology ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Emotional Events ◽  
Reciprocal Process ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe problem of extended fusion and identification can be approached from a diachronic perspective. Based on our own research, as well as findings from the fields of social, political, and clinical psychology, we argue that the way contemporary emotional events shape local fusion is similar to the way in which historical experiences shape extended fusion. We propose a reciprocal process in which historical events shape contemporary identities, whereas contemporary identities shape interpretations of past traumas.

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