In this book, the author defends a unified externalists account of propositional attitudes and reference, and formalizes this view within possible world semantics. He establishes a link between philosophical analyses of intentionality and reference and formal semantic theories of discourse representation and context change. Stalnakerian diagonalization plays an important role here. Anaphora are treated as referential expressions, while presupposition is seen as a propositional attitude. The relation between belief change and the semantic analyses of conditional sentences and evidential...
In this book, the author defends a unified externalists account of propositional attitudes and reference, and formalizes this view within possible ...
Abductive Reasoning: Logical Investigations into Discovery and Explanation is a much awaited original contribution to the study of abductive reasoning, providing logical foundations and a rich sample of pertinent applications. Divided into three parts on the conceptual framework, the logical foundations, and the applications, this monograph takes the reader for a comprehensive and erudite tour through the taxonomy of abductive reasoning, via the logical workings of abductive inference ending with applications pertinent to scientific explanation, empirical progress,...
Abductive Reasoning: Logical Investigations into Discovery and Explanation is a much awaited original contribution to the study of...
Theories about the ontological structure of the world have generally been described in informal, intuitive terms. This book offers an account of the general features and methodology of formal ontology. The book defends conceptual realism as the best system to adopt based on a logic of natural kinds. By formally reconstructing an intuitive, informal ontological scheme as a formal ontology we can better determine the consistency and adequacy of that scheme.
Theories about the ontological structure of the world have generally been described in informal, intuitive terms. This book offers an account of th...
I have been thinking about the philosophical issue of truth for more than two decades. It is one of several fascinating philosophical issues that motivated me to change my primary re ective interest to philosophy after receiving BS in mathem- ics in 1982. Some serious academic work in this connection started around the late eighties when I translated into Chinese a dozen of Donald Davidson's representative essays on truth and meaning and when I assumed translator for Adam Morton who gave a series of lectures on the issue in Beijing (1988), which was co-sponsored by my then institution...
I have been thinking about the philosophical issue of truth for more than two decades. It is one of several fascinating philosophical issues that moti...
The first monograph on the philosophy of game theory, this is a bold attempt to combine insights from epistemic logic and the philosophy of science to assess the applicability of game theory in such fields as economics, philosophy and strategic consultancy.
The first monograph on the philosophy of game theory, this is a bold attempt to combine insights from epistemic logic and the philosophy of science to...
This volume brings together a selection of the most philosophically significant papers of Arthur Pap. As Sanford Shieh explains in the Introduction to this volume, Pap s work played an important role in the development of the analytic tradition. This role goes beyond the merely historical fact that Pap s views of dispositional and modal concepts were influential. As a sympathetic critic of logical empiricism, Pap, like Quine, saw a deep tension in logical empiricism at its very best in the work of Carnap. But Pap s critique of Carnap is quite different from Quine s, and represents the...
This volume brings together a selection of the most philosophically significant papers of Arthur Pap. As Sanford Shieh explains in the Introduction...
Can the straight line be analysed mathematically such that it does not fall apart into a set of discrete points, as is usually done but through which its fundamental continuity is lost? And are there objects of pure mathematics that can change through time?
Mathematician and philosopher L.E.J. Brouwer argued that the two questions are closely related and that the answer to both is "yes''. To this end he introduced a new kind of object into mathematics, the choice sequence. But other mathematicians and philosophers have been voicing objections to choice sequences from the...
Can the straight line be analysed mathematically such that it does not fall apart into a set of discrete points, as is usually done but through whi...
This book approaches its subject matter in a way that combines a strong analytical and critical perspective with a historical and sociological framework for the understanding of the emergence of Science Studies. This is a novelty, since extant literature on this topic tends either to narrate the history of the field, with little criticism, or to criticize Science Studies from a philosophical platform but with little interest in its historical and social context. The book provides a critical review of the most prominent figures in Science Studies (also known as Science and Technology Studies)...
This book approaches its subject matter in a way that combines a strong analytical and critical perspective with a historical and sociological framewo...
Realism in Action is a selection of essays written by leading representatives in the fields of action theory and philosophy of mind, philosophy of the social sciences and especially the nature of social action, and of epistemology and philosophy of science. Practical reason, reasons and causes in action theory, intending and trying, and folk-psychological explanation are some of the topics discussed by these leading participants. A particular emphasis is laid on trust, commitments and social institutions, on the possibility of grounding social notions in individual social...
Realism in Action is a selection of essays written by leading representatives in the fields of action theory and philosophy of mind, ...
In Representational Ideas: From Plato to Patricia Churchland Watson argues that all intelligible theories of representation by ideas are based on likeness between representations and objects. He concludes that 17th century materialist criticisms of having' mental representations in the mind apply to contemporary material representations in the brain, as proposed by neurophilosophers. The argument begins with Plato, with particular stress on Descartes, Malebranche, and Arnauld. He then proceeds with an examination of the picture theory developed by Wittgenstein, Carnap, and Goodman,...
In Representational Ideas: From Plato to Patricia Churchland Watson argues that all intelligible theories of representation by ideas are base...
