The present crisis of truth, the "post-truth" crisis, puts the philosophy of truth in a new light. It calls for a reexamination of the tasks of the philosophy of truth and sets a new adequacy condition on this philosophy. One of the central roles of the philosophy of truth is to explain the importance of truth for human life and civilization. Among other things, it has to explain what is, or will be, lost in a post-truth era. Clearly, the deflationist (...) answer that the role of truth is to serve as a tool of generalization and oblique endorsement will not do. My account of truth in this paper addresses this task. Truth, I argue, is first and foremost a human value. Its importance to our life/civilization lies, not exclusively, but principally, in the centrality of this value to our humanity. I investigate the ramifications of this answer to the issues discussed in the contemporary philosophy of truth, and I end with a comparison of the substantivist and deflationist approaches to truth in light of this new perspective. (shrink)

August 2006 marked the 10th anniversary of landmark legislation when Israel’s parliament passed the unique Patient’s Rights Law. This law underscores the importance of medical ethics in Israeli society. During a seminar at the Shaare Zedek School of Nursing, third-year students performed a qualitative research study investigating ethical issues arising in the field of nursing, and how nursing staff dealt with these issues in relation to the law. The research was conducted using semistructured questionnaires. The results showed that the staff (...) participants knew the law, but did not differentiate between legal and ethical problems. The establishment of a framework for dealing with these issues would help to promote professional ethics, encourage broad-based agreements related to ethical decisions, reduce ethical conflict, and increase implementation of the law on patients’ rights. (shrink)

This is a critique of Michael P. Lynch’s functional pluralism with respect to truth. The paper is sympathetic to Lynch’s overall approach to truth, but is critical of (i) his platitudinous characterization of the general principles of truth, (ii) his excessive pluralism with respect to the “realizers” of truth, (iii) his treatment of atomic truth, and (iv) his analysis of “mixed” logical inferences. The paper concludes with a proposal for a functional pluralism that puts greater emphasis on the unity of (...) truth. For example: while Lynch regards truth as based on correspondence principles in some domains and on coherence principles in others, the current proposal regards truth as based on correspondence principles in all domains, restricting the plurality of truth to a plurality of correspondence principles. (shrink)

In his 1936 paper,On the Concept of Logical Consequence, Tarski introduced the celebrated definition oflogical consequence: “The sentenceσfollows logicallyfrom the sentences of the class Γ if and only if every model of the class Γ is also a model of the sentenceσ.” [55, p. 417] This definition, Tarski said, is based on two very basic intuitions, “essential for the proper concept of consequence” [55, p. 415] and reflecting common linguistic usage: “Consider any class Γ of sentences and a sentence which (...) follows from the sentences of this class. From an intuitive standpoint it can never happen that both the class Γ consists only of true sentences and the sentenceσis false. Moreover, … we are concerned here with the concept of logical, i.e.,formal, consequence.” [55, p. 414] Tarski believed his definition of logical consequence captured the intuitive notion: “It seems to me that everyone who understands the content of the above definition must admit that it agrees quite well with common usage. … In particular, it can be proved, on the basis of this definition, that every consequence of true sentences must be true.” [55, p. 417] The formality of Tarskian consequences can also be proven. Tarski's definition of logical consequence had a key role in the development of the model-theoretic semantics of modern logic and has stayed at its center ever since. (shrink)

Durante a Guerra Civil Espanhola, o governo regional basco começou a evacuar a população infantil para outros países europeus. A memória desse exílio infantil começou a se recuperar nos anos 60, tanto na Espanha quanto no exterior. Este artigo estabelece uma comparação entre as duas primeiras representações do exílio infantil basco na tela. Por um lado, analisa-se o romance, A outra árvore de Guernica, que reflete o discurso gerado nesse exílio em particular na Espanha de Franco. Por outro lado, é (...) analisado um capítulo de 1963 da série de televisão norte-americana Route 66, cujos protagonistas eram crianças exiladas bascas. Na comparação entre ambas as representações são identificadas as semelhanças e diferenças, bem como os diferentes conteúdos políticos em que se encaixam. (shrink)

Can humanity be divided into good and evil? And if so, is it possible for the good to vanquish the evil, eradicating it from the face of the Earth by declaring war on evildoers and bringing them to justice? Can we overcome evil by the power of memory? In _Memory as a Remedy for Evil_, Tzvetan Todorov answers these questions in the negative, arguing that despite all our efforts to the contrary, we cannot be delivered from evil. In this work (...) on evil, memory and justice, Todorov examines the uses of memory and the spate of memorial laws in France in order to show how memory has failed as a remedy against evil and how efforts to come to grips with past evil through trials and punitive justice have failed as well. Todorov locates the fatal flaw of all these approaches in our erroneous relationship with evil as alterity, the distinction that we draw between ourselves and others that allows us to imagine ourselves in the appealing role of hero and victim and confine others to the role of villain and criminal. Similarly, in his analysis of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge Tribunal, Todorov argues in favor of restorative justice, which “seeks not to punish but to restore relations that should never have been interrupted” between former perpetrators and former victims. _Memory as a Remedy for Evil_ is a powerful and timely work that asks that we recognize the good and evil within each of us—and reminds us that it is only by coming to terms with evil and trying to understand it that we can hope to tame it. (shrink)

Though the recent election of American President Barack Obama and his signing of the executive order to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay signals a considerable shift away from the policies of the Bush era, the lessons to be learned from the war on terror will remain relevant and necessary for many years to come. In the aftermath of 9/11, the United States government approved interrogation tactics for enemy combatant detainees that could be defined as torture, which was outlawed in (...) Europe in the eighteenth century as well as prohibited by the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Convention Against Torture. In conjunction with these policies, the Bush administration vocally defended torture as a necessary tool in its war on terror. In _Torture and the War on Terror_,_ _Tzvetan_ _Todorov argues that the use of the terms “war” and “terror” dehumanize the enemy and permit treatment that would otherwise be impermissible. He examines the implications and corrupting impact of the attempt to impose “good” through violence and the attempt to spread democratic values by unethical means. Todorov asks: Can violence overcome violence? Does the need to protect one’s own country justify violating human rights? Invalidating one by one the political and ethical arguments in favor of torture, Todorov likens institutional torture to a cancer that is eroding our society and undermining the very fundamental democratic ideas of justice and right. __ _Torture and the War on Terror _is a significant work in ethics, human rights, and political and social history by one of the world’s leading intellectuals, and its arguments will be influential in shaping our policies to come. (shrink)

This paper offers a response to William’s Hanson’s criticism of Sher’s formal-structural conception of logical consequence and logical constants.

"Well-being" signifies the good life, the life which is good for the person whose life it is. I have argued that well-being consists in a wholehearted and successful pursuit of valuable relationships and goals. This view, a little modified, is defended , but the main aim of the article is to consider the role of well-being in practical thought. In particular I will examine a suggestion which says that when we care about people, and when we ought to care about (...) people, what we do, or ought to, care about is their well-being. The suggestion is indifferent to who cares and who is cared for. People may care, perhaps ought to care, about themselves, and they may care, perhaps ought to care, about people with whom they have, or ought to have special bonds, and finally they may care, perhaps ought to care, about other people generally. In all cases what they care, or ought to care, about is the wellbeing of the relevant people, themselves or others. I will argue that the suggestion is misleading, and the role of well-being in both personal and ethical life is much more modest. (shrink)

In a recent paper, “The Concept of Logical Consequence,” W. H. Hanson criticizes a formal-structural characterization of logical consequence in Tarski and Sher. Hanson accepts many principles of the formal-structural view. Relating to Sher 1991 and 1996a, he says.

Recent data indicate that under a specific posthypnotic suggestion to circumvent reading, highly suggestible subjects successfully eliminated the Stroop interference effect. The present study examined whether an optical explanation could account for this finding. Using cyclopentolate hydrochloride eye drops to pharmacologically prevent visual accommodation in all subjects, behavioral Stroop data were collected from six highly hypnotizables and six less suggestibles using an optical setup that guaranteed either sharply focused or blurred vision. The highly suggestibles performed the Stroop task when naturally (...) vigilant, under posthypnotic suggestion not to read, and while visually blurred; the less suggestibles ran naturally vigilant, while looking away, and while visually blurred. Although visual accommodation was precluded for all subjects, posthypnotic suggestion effectively eliminated Stroop interference and was comparable to looking away in controls. These data strengthen the view that Stroop interference is neither robust nor inevitable and support the hypothesis that posthypnotic suggestion may exert a top-down influence on neural processing. (shrink)

In the early part of the 20th century the logical positivists launched a powerful attack on traditional philosophy, rejecting the very idea of philosophy as a substantive discipline and replacing it with a practical, conventionalist, meta-theoretical view of philosophy. The positivist critique was based on a series of dichotomies: the analytic vs. the synthetic, the external vs. the internal, the apriori vs. the empirical, the meta-theoretical vs. the object- theoretical, the conventional vs. the factual. Quine's attack on the positivists' dichotomies (...) was, by extension (if not by intention), also an attack on their critique of philosophy. Quine's own theory, however, in time took an extreme naturalistic turn that, if anything, deepened the schism between philosophy and knowledge. -/- In this paper I show that many of Quine's early philosophical ideas - his denial of the analytic-synthetic distinction, his thesis of the interconnectedness of knowledge, his universal revisability thesis, his principle of the inseparability of language and theory, his methodological pragmatism, and his realism - are in fact compatible with a substantive philosophy. Moreover, certain inner tensions in Quine's theory naturally lead to a new model of knowledge in which philosophy plays a substantive role: not as a "first philosophy", or as a "meta-science", or as a "chapter in psychology", but as an independent discipline in its own right, alongside, continuous with, and complementary to, science. (shrink)

Many philosophers are baffled by necessity. Humeans, in particular, are deeply disturbed by the idea of necessary laws of nature. In this paper I offer a systematic yet down to earth explanation of necessity and laws in terms of invariance. The type of invariance I employ for this purpose generalizes an invariance used in meta-logic. The main idea is that properties and relations in general have certain degrees of invariance, and some properties/relations have a stronger degree of invariance than others. (...) The degrees of invariance of highly-invariant properties are associated with high degrees of necessity of laws governing/describing these properties, and this explains the necessity of such laws both in logic and in science. This non-mysterious explanation has rich ramifications for both fields, including the formality of logic and mathematics, the apparent conflict between the contingency of science and the necessity of its laws, the difference between logical-mathematical, physical, and biological laws/principles, the abstract character of laws, the applicability of logic and mathematics to science, scientific realism, and logical-mathematical realism. (shrink)

Two central themes of Douglas Edwards’s The Metaphysics of Truth are anti-deflationism and substantial pluralism. In Part I of this paper I discuss Edwards’s grounds for rejecting deflationism and suggest a few additional grounds. In Part II I discuss Edward's truth-pluralism and respond to his criticism of my correspondence-pluralism. While these pluralisms share significant features, their differences also raise several important questions.

Gila Sher approaches knowledge from the perspective of the basic human epistemic situation—the situation of limited yet resourceful beings, living in a complex world and aspiring to know it in its full complexity. What principles should guide them? Two fundamental principles of knowledge are epistemic friction and freedom. Knowledge must be substantially constrained by the world (friction), but without active participation of the knower in accessing the world (freedom) theoretical knowledge is impossible. This requires a grounding of all knowledge, (...) empirical and abstract, in both mind and world, but the fall of traditional foundationalism has led many to doubt the viability of this ‘classical’ project. Sher challenges this skepticism, charting a new foundational methodology, foundational holism, that differs from others in being holistic, world-oriented, and universal (i.e., applicable to all fields of knowledge). Using this methodology, Epistemic Friction develops an integrated theory of knowledge, truth, and logic. This includes (i) a dynamic model of knowledge, incorporating some of Quine’s revolutionary ideas while rejecting his narrow empiricism, (ii) a substantivist, non-traditional correspondence theory of truth, and (iii) an outline of a joint grounding of logic in mind and world. The model of knowledge subjects all disciplines to demanding norms of both veridicality and conceptualization. The correspondence theory is robust and universal yet not simplistic or naive, admitting diverse forms of correspondence. Logic’s grounding in the world brings it in line with other disciplines while preserving, and explaining, its strong formality, necessity, generality, and normativity. (shrink)

Following Henkin's discovery of partially-ordered (branching) quantification (POQ) with standard quantifiers in 1959, philosophers of language have attempted to extend his definition to POQ with generalized quantifiers. In this paper I propose a general definition of POQ with 1-place generalized quantifiers of the simplest kind: namely, predicative, or "cardinality" quantifiers, e.g., "most", "few", "finitely many", "exactly α", where α is any cardinal, etc. The definition is obtained in a series of generalizations, extending the original, Henkin definition first to a general (...) definition of monotone-increasing (M↑) POQ and then to a general definition of generalized POQ, regardless of monotonicity. The extension is based on (i) Barwise's 1979 analysis of the basic case of M↑ POQ and (ii) my 1990 analysis of the basic case of generalized POQ. POQ is a non-compositional Ist-order structure, hence the problem of extending the definition of the basic case to a general definition is not trivial. The paper concludes with a sample of applications to natural and mathematical languages. (shrink)

The Bounds of Logic presents a new philosophical theory of the scope and nature of logic based on critical analysis of the principles underlying modern Tarskian logic and inspired by mathematical and linguistic development. Extracting central philosophical ideas from Tarski’s early work in semantics, Sher questions whether these are fully realized by the standard first-order system. The answer lays the foundation for a new, broader conception of logic. By generally characterizing logical terms, Sher establishes a fundamental result in semantics. Her (...) development of the notion of logicality for quantifiers and her work on branching are of great importance for linguistics. Sher outlines the boundaries of the new logic and points out some of the philosophical ramifications of the new view of logic for such issues as the logicist thesis, ontological commitment, the role of mathematics in logic, and the metaphysical underpinning of logic. She proposes a constructive definition of logical terms, reexamines and extends the notion of branching quantification, and discusses various linguistic issues and applications. (shrink)

Our interdisciplinary studies for over twenty years applied to the comparative history of the Romané Chavé (European Gypsies) with the high military castes of India (Rajputs and Kshatrivas), had come off, as from 1964, to the following conclusions: the more a language is similar on the lexical level to Hindi-Rajasthani and, on the morphological one to Jodhpuri, the more it is similar to Gypsy language—Romani, the more a culture is similar to the culture of the Rajputs and Kshatrivas, the more (...) it is similar to Romani culture; the more someone is similar to the members of the military castes of India and generally to the people of Hindu religion of North Western India, of the Delhi State and its surroundings (Haryana, Western Uttarprades, Rajasthan and Sindh), the more he is similar to a Romano Chavo. (shrink)

Recent data indicate that under a specific posthypnotic suggestion to circumvent reading, highly suggestible subjects successfully eliminated the Stroop interference effect. The present study examined whether an optical explanation could account for this finding. Using cyclopentolate hydrochloride eye drops to pharmacologically prevent visual accommodation in all subjects, behavioral Stroop data were collected from six highly hypnotizables and six less suggestibles using an optical setup that guaranteed either sharply focused or blurred vision. The highly suggestibles performed the Stroop task when naturally (...) vigilant, under posthypnotic suggestion not to read, and while visually blurred; the less suggestibles ran naturally vigilant, while looking away, and while visually blurred. Although visual accommodation was precluded for all subjects, posthypnotic suggestion effectively eliminated Stroop interference and was comparable to looking away in controls. These data strengthen the view that Stroop interference is neither robust nor inevitable and support the hypothesis that posthypnotic suggestion may exert a top-down influence on neural processing. (shrink)

The paper offers a new analysis of the difficulties involved in the construction of a general and substantive correspondence theory of truth and delineates a solution to these difficulties in the form of a new methodology. The central argument is inspired by Kant, and the proposed methodology is explained and justified both in general philosophical terms and by reference to a particular variant of Tarski's theory. The paper begins with general considerations on truth and correspondence and concludes with a brief (...) outlook on the "family" of theories of truth generated by the new methodology. (shrink)

Ranging over central issues of morals and politics and the nature of freedom and authority, this study examines the role of value-neutrality, rights, equality, ...

Gila Sher interviewed by Chen Bo: -/- I. Academic Background and Earlier Research: 1. Sher’s early years. 2. Intellectual influence: Kant, Quine, and Tarski. 3. Origin and main Ideas of The Bounds of Logic. 4. Branching quantifiers and IF logic. 5. Preparation for the next step. -/- II. Foundational Holism and a Post-Quinean Model of Knowledge: 1. General characterization of foundational holism. 2. Circularity, infinite regress, and philosophical arguments. 3. Comparing foundational holism and foundherentism. 4. A post-Quinean model of (...) knowledge. 5. Intellect and figuring out. 6. Comparing foundational holism with Quine’s holism. 7. Evaluation of Quine’s Philosophy -/- III. Substantive Theory of Truth and Relevant Issues: 1. Outline of Sher’s substantive theory of truth. 2. Criticism of deflationism and treatment of the Liar. 3. Comparing Sher’s substantive theory of truth with Tarski’s theory of truth. -/- IV. A New Philosophy of Logic and Comparison with Other Theories: 1. Foundational account of logic. 2. Standard of logicality, set theory and logic. 3. Psychologism, Hanna’s and Maddy’s conceptions of logic. 4. Quine’s theses about the revisability of logic. -/- V. Epilogue. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate how differences in approach to truth and logic (in particular, a deflationist vs. a substantivist approach to these fields) affect philosophers’ views concerning pluralism and normativity in these fields. My perspective on truth and logic is largely epistemic, focusing on the role of truth in knowledge (rather than on the use of the words “true” and “truth” in natural language), and my reference group includes Carnap (1934), Harman (1986), Horwich (1990), Wright (1992), Beall and Restall (...) (2006), Field (2009), Lynch (2009), and Sher (2016a).1 Whenever possible, I focus on positive rather than negative views on the issues involved, although in some cases this is not possible. (shrink)

What does it mean to assert or deny the existence of a legal system? How can one determine whether a given law belongs to a certain legal system? What kind of structure do these systems have, that is--what necessary relations obtain between their laws? The examination of these problems in this volume leads to a new approach to traditional jurisprudential question, though the conclusions are based on a critical appraisal, particularly those of Bentham, Austin, Kelsen, and Hart.

Branching quantifiers were first introduced by L. Henkin in his 1959 paper ‘Some Remarks on Infmitely Long Formulas’. By ‘branching quantifiers’ Henkin meant a new, non-linearly structured quantiiier-prefix whose discovery was triggered by the problem of interpreting infinitistic formulas of a certain form} The branching (or partially-ordered) quantifier-prefix is, however, not essentially infinitistic, and the issues it raises have largely been discussed in the literature in the context of finitistic logic, as they will be here. Our discussion transcends, however, the (...) resources of standard lst-order languages and we will consider the new form in the context of 1st-order logic with 1- and 2-place ‘Mostowskian` generalized quantifiers.2.. (shrink)

The construction of a systematic philosophical foundation for logic is a notoriously difficult problem. In Part One I suggest that the problem is in large part methodological, having to do with the common philosophical conception of “providing a foundation”. I offer an alternative to the common methodology which combines a strong foundational requirement with the use of non-traditional, holistic tools to achieve this result. In Part Two I delineate an outline of a foundation for logic, employing the new methodology. The (...) outline is based on an investigation of why logic requires a veridical justification, i.e., a justification which involves the world and not just the mind, and what features or aspect of the world logic is grounded in. Logic, the investigation suggests, is grounded in the formal aspect of reality, and the outline proposes an account of this aspect, the way it both constrains and enables logic, logic's role in our overall system of knowledge, the relation between logic and mathematics, the normativity of logic, the characteristic traits of logic, and error and revision in logic. (shrink)