Linguistic Epiphenomenalism ‐ Davidson and Chomsky on the Status of Public Languages

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isaac Nevo
Keyword(s):  
Formal Theory ◽  
Linguistic Meaning ◽  
Historical Reality ◽  
Social Fact ◽  
The Status ◽  
Systematic Structure ◽  
Formal Theories

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to highlight an individualist streak in both Davidson’s conception of language and Chomsky’s. In the first part of the paper, I argue that in Davidson’s case this individualist streak is a consequence of an excessively strong conception of what the compositional nature of linguistic meaning requires, and I offer a weaker conception of that requirement that can do justice to both the publicity and the compositionality of language. In the second part of the paper, I offer a comparison between Davidson’s position on the unreality of public languages, and Chomsky’s position regarding the epiphenomenal status of “externalized” languages. In Chomsky’s case, as in Davidson’s, languages are individuated in terms of the formal theories that serve to account for their systematic structure, and this assumption rests upon a similarly strong and similarly questionable understanding of what it is to employ finite means in pursuit of an infinite task. The alternative, at which I can only hint, is a view of language as a social and historical reality, i.e., a realm of social fact that cannot be exhausted by any formal theory and cannot be reduced to properties of individual speakers.

scholarly journals Invisible Hands and Fine Calipers: A Call to Use Formal Theory as a Toolkit for Theory Construction

2021 ◽  
pp. 174569162097469
Author(s):  
Donald J. Robinaugh ◽  
Jonas M. B. Haslbeck ◽  
Oisín Ryan ◽  
Eiko I. Fried ◽  
Lourens J. Waldorp
Keyword(s):  
Theory Development ◽  
Formal Theory ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Theory Testing ◽  
Theory Construction ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Collaborative Construction ◽  
The Status ◽  
Formal Theories

In recent years, a growing chorus of researchers has argued that psychological theory is in a state of crisis: Theories are rarely developed in a way that indicates an accumulation of knowledge. Paul Meehl raised this very concern more than 40 years ago. Yet in the ensuing decades, little has improved. We aim to chart a better path forward for psychological theory by revisiting Meehl’s criticisms, his proposed solution, and the reasons his solution failed to meaningfully change the status of psychological theory. We argue that Meehl identified serious shortcomings in our evaluation of psychological theories and that his proposed solution would substantially strengthen theory testing. However, we also argue that Meehl failed to provide researchers with the tools necessary to construct the kinds of rigorous theories his approach required. To advance psychological theory, we must equip researchers with tools that allow them to better generate, evaluate, and develop their theories. We argue that formal theories provide this much-needed set of tools, equipping researchers with tools for thinking, evaluating explanation, enhancing measurement, informing theory development, and promoting the collaborative construction of psychological theories.

Bayle, the Bible, and the Remonstrant Tradition at the Time of the Commentaire philosophique

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria-Cristina Pitassi
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reason ◽  
Natural Light ◽  
Biblical Criticism ◽  
Absolute Norm ◽  
Historical Reality ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Status

Bayle’s equivocal relationship to Arminianism is here examined from the perspective of the status of the Bible. Though rejecting the doctrine that every word was to be considered divinely inspired, Bayle did defend the divinity of Scripture in his polemic with Jean Le Clerc. For Le Clerc, biblical criticism could solve theological conflicts by discovering the authentic meaning of Scripture, but Bayle insisted that natural light precedes exegesis, and revelation is limited to those matters that do not conflict with reason. He dissociates himself from Socinianism by distinguishing moral from speculative reason. Only moral reason offers an absolute norm. Bayle disregards the Arminian distinction between what is against reason and what is beyond reason. His Commentaire philosophique juxtaposes the natural light that can identify divine elements in the Bible with our historical reality that frustrates its capacity for apprehending religious truths. Thus Bayle inevitably clashes with the Arminian tradition.

scholarly journals The Status of the Social Fact

2017 ◽  
Vol 119 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah A. Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Social Fact ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status

scholarly journals The Right of Thirst: Water as a Human Right and as a Commons

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 637-645 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Present Condition ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Social Fact ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Status ◽  
Economic Good ◽  
The Right

<p>Water is not only a vital natural resource but is also a social symbol that makes it a ‘total social fact’. ‘Hydroschizophrenia’ is a term that characterizes the present condition of the status of water and reflects a disconnection between water and society. Liberal environmentalism considers the environment as an economic good. The privatization of water invokes a wide range of reactions, social movements and protests. The primary concepts that underlie the movement against the privatization are the human right to water and water as a commons. These concepts are traced to the idea of the ancient ‘right of thirst’.</p>

From Metaphor to Metonymy

2020 ◽  
pp. 87-126
Author(s):  
Evgeny Dobrenko
Keyword(s):  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
Historical Reality ◽  
Artistic Conception ◽  
Revolutionary Romanticism ◽  
The Status ◽  
Ivan The Terrible

This chapter explores the 1946 criticism of Sergei Eisenstein's and Vsevolod Pudovkin's films about Ivan the Terrible and Admiral Nakhimov. It investigates how Eisenstein's and Pudovkin's films defined the status of Russia's most important director named Mikheil Chiaureli, who directed “Admiral Ushakov” in 1953. The chapter emphasizes how historicism had to become part of Soviet aesthetic doctrine, part of the system of flexible, dialectically contradirectional principles of Socialist Realism, and to become a hybrid of “the truth of life” and “revolutionary romanticism.” It discusses the historicism of Leninist teaching as a scientific conceptualization of actual historical reality based on a correlation of man with history. It also explains Socialist Historicism, which is the artistic conception of life from the standpoint of the Communist ideal that facilitates a vivid reproduction of life in its historical perspective and historical retrospection.

Desacralization of Marriage in the Islamic Community of Javanese Farmers

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 89
Author(s):  
Sardjuningsih Sardjuningsih
Keyword(s):  
Social Process ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
Community Leaders ◽  
Social Facts ◽  
Social Fact ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Better Than ◽  
The Ideal

<p><strong><em>Field research with a phenomenological approach, in the District of Kabuh-Jombang. The barren rural socio-geographical setting makes tradition basics a reference and measure of norms of action. The uniqueness of this study with previous research is the process of reducing the sacredness of marriage by placing the status of Widower or Widow better than the status of an old spinster or old age. Research with a Phenomenological approach with Robert Merton's Structural-Functional analysis knife rests on deep interview techniques of 20 informants consisting of couples who experience young and divorced couples, families, and community leaders. produce conclusions that the tradition of underage marriage is a social fact, a habit that still continues to this day, constructed with noble and sacred meaning. In the social process the Nobleness of meaning is not supported by other social facts, that being a widower or widow is better than being an old woman or old woman. This puts divorce better than maintaining marriage. This pragmatic outlook is contrary to the ideal ideals of a sacred marriage. The result of a complex divorce is a negative new social fact that is neglecting the rights of children to be paid by their parents. This negative social fact is due to the dysfunctional social control and social structure of the process of adaptation to change.</em></strong></p>

Toward a Formal Theory of Transactions and Transvections

1965 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wroe Alderson ◽  
Miles W. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Formal Theory ◽  
Marketing Channels ◽  
System Behavior ◽  
Marketing System ◽  
Basic Concepts ◽  
Formal Theories

This article presents the initial steps in the formalization of a partial theory of marketing. The partial theory pertains to the movement of goods and information through marketing channels, and the theory utilizes two basic concepts of marketing system behavior, namely, transactions and transvections. Current approaches to the problem of constructing formal theories are compared and reasons are given for choosing the “molar” approach.

THE ARITHMETIC OF THE EVEN AND THE ODD

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 359-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
VICTOR PAMBUCCIAN
Keyword(s):  
Formal Theory ◽  
Image Position ◽  
Formal Theories

AbstractWe present several formal theories for the arithmetic of the even and the odd, show that the irrationality of $\sqrt 2$ can be proved in one of them, that the proof must involve contradiction, and prove that the irrationality of $\sqrt {17}$ cannot be proved inside any formal theory of the even and the odd.

scholarly journals Modeling Psychopathology: From Data Models to Formal Theories

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas M B Haslbeck ◽  
Oisín Ryan ◽  
Donald Robinaugh ◽  
Lourens Waldorp ◽  
Denny Borsboom
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Formal Theory ◽  
Data Models ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Prediction And Control ◽  
Using Data ◽  
And Control ◽  
Formal Theories

Over the past decade there has been a surge of empirical research investigating mental disorders as complex systems. In this paper, we investigate how to best make use of this growing body of empirical research and move the field toward its fundamental aims of explaining, predicting, and controlling psychopathology. We first review the contemporary philosophy of science literature on scientific theories and argue that fully achieving the aims of explanation, prediction, and control requires that we construct formal theories of mental disorders: theories expressed in the language of mathematics or a computational programming language. We then investigate three routes by which one can use empirical findings (i.e., data models) to construct formal theories: (a) using data models themselves as formal theories, (b) using data models to infer formal theories, and (c) comparing empirical data models to theory-implied data models in order to evaluate and refine an existing formal theory. We argue that the third approach is the most promising path forward. We conclude by introducing the Abductive Formal Theory Construction (AFTC) framework, informed by both our review of philosophy of science and our methodological investigation. We argue that this approach provides a clear and promising way forward for using empirical research to inform the generation, development, and testing of formal theories both in the domain of psychopathology and in the broader field of psychological science.

Diplomacy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Sharp
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Usual Sense ◽  
Social Fact ◽  
The Status ◽  
Careful Handling ◽  
Over Time

Both historical and contemporary trends suggest that the meaning of diplomacy varies considerably over time and across space. Diplomacy is defined neither by the types of actors on behalf of which it is undertaken nor by the status of those actors vis-à-vis one another, in the sense of their being, for example, sovereign and equal. There are, however, four common threads underlying these historical variations on diplomacy. The first is an assumption about the necessarily plural character of social relations, namely that people live in groups which regard themselves as separate from, yet needing or wanting relations with, one another. The second is that this plural social fact gives rise to relations that are somehow distinctive to and different from relations within groups. People believe and feel themselves to be under fewer obligations to those whom they regard as others than to those whom they regard as their own. Third, therefore, if these relations are to remain peaceful and productive, they require careful handling by specialists who should be treated neither as one’s own nor, at least in the usual sense, as others. Fourth, these specialists develop a measure of solidarity as the managers of relations in worlds distinguished by the plural social fact. Where these four elements are in play, then there emerges a system of relations which can be recognized as having the character of diplomacy.

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