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Review

Review. The Idea Theory. Partly Resembles. Dog. Sees. Dog. Mind. Idea of a Dog. Connotes. Dog. Dog. Mind. Idea of a Dog. Conventional Relation. Dog. Dog. Mind. Idea of a Dog. Conventional Relation. Dog. Natural Relation (Resemblance). Dog. Mind. Idea of a Dog. Denotes. Dog.

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Review

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  1. Review

  2. The Idea Theory

  3. Partly Resembles Dog Sees Dog Mind Idea of a Dog

  4. Connotes Dog Dog Mind Idea of a Dog

  5. Conventional Relation Dog Dog Mind Idea of a Dog

  6. Conventional Relation Dog Natural Relation (Resemblance) Dog Mind Idea of a Dog

  7. Denotes Dog Dog Mind Idea of a Dog

  8. Problems for Idea/ ResemblanceTheory • Can’t distinguish concepts and propositions. • Resemblance is an equivalence relation, representation is not. • Resemblance is in some ways more and in some ways less determinate than representation.

  9. 1. Concepts and Propositions The idea theory seems to have trouble distinguishing concepts and propositions. Are mental pictures truth-evaluable? • If they are, then concepts aren’t ideas. • If they aren’t, then propositions aren’t ideas.

  10. 2. Resemblance as an Equivalence Relation Resemblance, like identity, is an equivalence relation, meaning it’s reflexive, symmetric, and transitive: • Reflexive: for all X, X resembles X. (Everything resembles itself.) • Symmetric: for all X and Y, if X resembles Y, then Y resembles X. • Transitive: for all X, Y, and Z, if X resembles Y and Y resembles Z, then X resembles Z.

  11. 2. Representation Is Not and Eq. Relation Problem for the idea theory: resemblance is an equivalence relation, but representation is not. Therefore representation ≠ resemblance.

  12. 3. Pictures and Determinacy

  13. Verificationism

  14. Verificationist Semantics #1. The meaning of a sentence is the set of experiences that would verify it. #2. Observation sentences are directly connected with their verification conditions: we can immediately tell whether they are verified in any particular circumstance.

  15. Immediate Experience RED LOUD PAIN THREE

  16. Non-Observation Sentences #3 All the other meaningful sentences (according to the verificationist) are defined in terms of the protocol sentences and the logical vocabulary (AND, OR, NOT, ALL, SOME, NO, etc.).

  17. Example: Definition of ‘Arthropod’ ‘That is an arthropod’ := • That is an animal • AND it has a jointed body • AND it has segmented legs

  18. Perfectly correlates with “Dagger” Experiences Dagger Mind Experience of a wound

  19. Connotes “Dagger” Dagger Mind Experience of a wound

  20. Conventional Realation “Dagger” Dagger Mind Experience of a wound

  21. Connotes “Dagger” Natural Relation (Correlation) Dagger Mind Experience of a wound

  22. Denotes “Dagger” Dagger Mind Experience of a wound

  23. Too Little Is Meaningless If youthink “The Absolute is Perfect” and “God exists” are meaningless, then you probably think “Either some socks are cotton or the Absolute is Perfect” and “Either God exists or snow is purple” are also meaningless. But the latter two clearly have conditions that would verify them.

  24. Too Much Is Meaningless A bigger focus of criticism, however, was that according too the verifiability criterion, too much is meaningless, including: • Statements about the past or future. • Negative existentials. • Positive universals. • Certain positivist doctrines.

  25. 4. The Verifiability Criterion Itself Consider the verifiability criterion: “a sentence is meaningless unless some finite procedure can conclusively verify its truth.” If this criterion is meaningful, then it must be that some finite procedure can conclusively verify this claim. But what procedure would that be?

  26. The Problem For many theoretical terms, it took years or decades after their introduction for us to discover any way of verifying claims about them. Consider the claim: “DNA has a double-helical structure.” This claim seems to be meaningful.

  27. The Problem But Watson and Crick had to discover how to verify it.

  28. TheProblem The reason we discover methods of verification, rather than stipulate them in advance, is that confirmation is theory dependent. Our theories advance, and according to the new theories, certain experiences confirm certain phenomena.

  29. TheProblem If our theories change, those same experiences may no longer confirm those same phenomena. The experiences that confirm a statement shouldn’t be tied to its meaning unless we want to accept that meaning is theory-dependent.

  30. The Problem So positivism seems to suggest that claims about DNA, electrons, positrons, mesons, or whatever did not mean anything until we discovered ways of verifying them. At that time we discovered their meanings.

  31. Definitions Theory

  32. Partly Resembles Dog Sees Dog Mind Idea of a Dog

  33. Connotes Dog Dog Mind Idea of a Dog

  34. Conventional Relation Dog Dog Mind Idea of a Dog

  35. Denotation But there’s another sense in which the word ‘dog’ means dogs (those furry smelly barking things): it applies to dogs and it’s true of dogs (and false of everything else). Denotation involves the relation between words and the world– what words apply to/ are true of.

  36. Conventional Relation Dog Natural Relation (Resemblance) Dog Mind Idea of a Dog

  37. Denotes Dog Dog Mind Idea of a Dog

  38. Circularity For any finite set of definitions containing only words that have definitions in the set: some word w defines w. (For example, “ambagious” defines “ambagious”) So in order to learn what w is true of, I have to already know what w is true of.

  39. Particular Definition Theories The way to go then is to adopt a particular definition theory. On such an account, not every word has a definition for its meaning, only some particular subclass of all the words.

  40. The Problem of Examples Philosophers are fond of ‘bachelors are unmarried men.’ Why? Because it’s really hard to find examples of definitions that work– where the defining part means the same thing as the defined part. ‘Bachelor’ isn’t even obvious (is the pope a bachelor? Are 14 year-olds?). Kinship terms and animal terms are about the only good bets.

  41. The Causal-Historical Theory

  42. The Mirror Universe

  43. Secondary Qualities

  44. Possibility of Massive Error

  45. The Causal-Historical Theory Let’s call that baby ‘Feynman’ Feynman Feynman Feynman Feynman

  46. The Causal-Historical Theory Let’s call that baby ‘Feynman’ Feynman Feynman Feynman Feynman Historical Chain of Transmission

  47. The Causal-Historical Theory Feynman Feynman Feynman Feynman Denotation

  48. Natural Kinds

  49. The Causal-Historical Theory Let’s call that thing a “tiger.” TIGER TIGER TIGER TIGER

  50. The Story of Madagascar Let’s call that place ‘Mogadishu’ Madagascu Madagishu Madagascar Madagasceir

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