Since it has generally been accepted that to Spinoza attributes are real features of substance, the interpretation of his attribute definition has become a notorious problem. The reason is that interpreters have failed to see that the definition formulates a purely epistemological account of the state of affairs. The article presents and justifies such an interpretation. It will be shown that the definition in spite of its epistemological character implies a real ontological definition, which specifies (...) the critical features of an attribute. As to the reason why Spinoza has stated the definition in an ‘indirect way’, it is shown that it is likely that he has done so in order to have a more efficient, a more unambiguous and a more elegant definition. The relevance of the new interpretation is not only that it provides us with an interpretable, transparent attribute definition, but it also contributes to the establishment of a coherent picture of Spinoza’s metaphysics around this definition. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that given Donnellan’s formulation of the attributive uses of definite descriptions, as well as Kripke’s [6] and Salmon’s [10] generalized accounts, most uses of definite descriptions that are taken to be attributive turn out not to be so. In building up to my main thesis, I first consider certain problematic cases of uses of definite descriptions that do not neatly fit into any category. I then argue that, in general, a complete definite description we use (...) is complex, in which there is an embedded singular term that is used referentially. From this I conclude that an attributive use of a definite description is an extremely rare linguistic phenomenon, much less frequent than what Donnellan, Kripke, and Salmon have presupposed; so much so that the standard examples given by Donnellan of the attributive use of definite descriptions do not qualify as attributive. (shrink)

The scope of this short paper is to show that the examples Ilhan Inan uses to undermine Donnellan's distinction (primarily, the attributive uses of definite descriptions in general) fall short on account of wrong interpretation those examples were provided with in his paper. Whilst Ilhan Inan showed how complex definite descriptions (having an embedded referential term) may cause doubts as to which category they should be put in, these referring terms only play a secondary role. I argue that all of (...) his three key examples are, in fact, sheer attributive uses of definite descriptions and have to be taken as such, which seriously diminishes the pedestal Inan places his argument on. (shrink)

The hierarchical analysis of existence attribution is Fregean in its endorsement of senses, understood as guises. Furthermore, the hierarchical analysis makes an essential use of the Russellian analysis (9′) as a means to understand what it is for a sense to present a given entity (cf. biconditional (11) above). The hierarchical analysis, on the other hand, is more general than the Russellian one and hence - in accordance with natural language usage - allows for a wider range of applications.

In this essay I argue that given Donnellan’s formulation of the attributive uses of definite descriptions, as well as Kripke’s [6] and Salmon’s [10] generalized accounts, most uses of definite descriptions that are taken to be attributive turn out not to be so. In building up to my main thesis, I first consider certain problematic cases of uses of definite descriptions that do not neatly fit into any category. I then argue that, in general, a complete definite description we use (...) is complex, in which there is an embedded singular term that is used referentially. From this I conclude that an attributive use of a definite description is an extremely rare linguistic phenomenon, much less frequent than what Donnellan, Kripke, and Salmon have presupposed; so much so that the standard examples given by Donnellan of the attributive use of definite descriptions do not qualify as attributive. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that given Donnellan’s formulation of the attributive uses of definite descriptions, as well as Kripke’s [6] and Salmon’s [10] generalized accounts, most uses of definite descriptions that are taken to be attributive turn out not to be so. In building up to my main thesis, I first consider certain problematic cases of uses of definite descriptions that do not neatly fit into any category. I then argue that, in general, a complete definite description we use (...) is complex, in which there is an embedded singular term that is used referentially. From this I conclude that an attributive use of a definite description is an extremely rare linguistic phenomenon, much less frequent than what Donnellan, Kripke, and Salmon have presupposed; so much so that the standard examples given by Donnellan of the attributive use of definite descriptions do not qualify as attributive. (shrink)

The scope of this short paper is to show that the examples Ilhan Inan uses to undermine Donnellan's distinction fall short on account of wrong interpretation those examples were provided with in his paper. Whilst Ilhan Inan showed how complex definite descriptions may cause doubts as to which category they should be put in, these referring terms only play a secondary role. I argue that all of his three key examples are, in fact, sheer attributive uses of definite descriptions and (...) have to be taken as such, which seriously diminishes the pedestal Inan places his argument on. (shrink)

Spinoza’s definition of ‘attribute’ has been described as ‘one of the most puzzling passages in the Ethics’ and ‘a longstanding worry’ for Spinoza interpreters. Its puzzling status stems from its apparent ‘subjectivist’ character and the dominant understanding of Spinoza’s notion of attribute as an ‘objectivist’ notion. The paper aspires to remove this puzzlement by proposing and defending a reading of E1d4 in which it is understood to have two senses. First, I defend the objectivist character of Spinoza’s (...) notion of attribute, and explain why E1d4 is problematic within the framework of an objectivist interpretation of the Spinozistic attribute. Second, I propose a reading of E1d4 as having two senses and explain the cause of an apparent contradiction in E1d4. Finally, I devote the largest part of the paper to a defence of the Two-Sense Reading of E1d4. More specifically, I draw on four sources for this defence: the structure of E1d1 and E1d3, the content and form of E1p4 and its demonstration, Spinoza’s doctrine of parallelism and Descartes’ treatment of attribute and its influence on Spinoza. (shrink)

Legal definitions will be examined from three perspectives: their pragmatic function, their propositional structure, and their argumentative role. In law, definitions can be used for different pragmatic purposes: they can be uttered to describe a concept, or to establish a new meaning for a term. The propositional content of definitional speech acts can be different. In law, like in ordinary conversation, there might be different types of definition: we can define by providing examples, or showing the fundamental characteristics of (...) the concept defined, or listing the constituent parts of the denotatum. All these definitions play different argumentative roles in legal discourse. At a third level, definitions can be thought of as premises in complex patterns of reasoning (for the subject of reasoning from definition in law, see Aarnio 1977; Moore 1980; Lindahl, 2004). They constitute the fundamental element of argument from classification, namely a pattern of inference in which a new property (or a name) is attributed to an entity on the basis of other properties. (shrink)

Contextualism, Pragmatics and Definite Descriptions Very few philosophers and linguists doubt that definite descriptions have attributive uses and referential uses. The point of disagreement concerns whether the difference in uses is grounded on a difference in meaning. The Ambiguity Theory holds while the Implicature Theory denies that definite descriptions are ambiguous expressions, having an attributive meaning and a referential meaning. Contextualists have attempted to steer between the Ambiguity Theory and the Implicature Theory. I claim that the early contextualist account provided (...) by Recanati and Bezuidehnout based on the idea that definite descriptions are semantically underdetermined and in need of a completion from the contextually available information through an optional top-down pragmatic process suffers from an explanatory gap. (shrink)

There is a core to the referential/attributive distinction that reveals a propositional ambiguity that is scope-related and rooted in syntax.

I here describe meanings attributed to the term consciousness, extracted from the literature and from recent online discussions. Forty such meanings were identified and categorized according to whether they were principally about function or about experience; some overlapped but others were apparently mutually exclusive - and this list is by no means exhaustive. Most can be regarded as expressions of authors' views about the basis of con-sciousness, or opinions about the significance of aspects of its con-tents. The prospects for reaching (...) any single, agreed, theory independent definition of consciousness thus appear remote. How-ever, much confusion could be avoided if authors were always to spec-ify which aspects of consciousness they refer to when using the term. An example is outlined of how this can be done. (shrink)

Three kinds of things may be creative: persons, processes, and products. The standard definition of creativity, used nearly by consensus in psychological research, focuses specifically on products and says that a product is creative if and only if it is new and valuable. We argue that at least one further condition is necessary for a product to be creative: it must have been produced by the right kind of process. We argue furthermore that this point has an interesting epistemological (...) implication: when you judge a product to be creative--attributing creativity--you are not just judging it to be new and valuable. Even if you did not witness how it was produced, you are also making a judgement about how it was produced. (shrink)

Holography, the three-dimensional imaging technology, was portrayed widely as a paradigm of progress during its decade of explosive expansion 1964–73, and during its subsequent consolidation for commercial and artistic uses up to the mid 1980s. An unusually seductive and prolific subject, holography successively spawned scientific insights, putative applications and new constituencies of practitioners and consumers. Waves of forecasts, associated with different sponsors and user communities, cast holography as a field on the verge of success—but with the dimensions of success repeatedly (...) refashioned. This retargeting of the subject represented a degree of cynical marketeering, but was underpinned by implicit confidence in philosophical positivism and faith in technological progressivism. Each of its communities defined success in terms of expansion, and anticipated continual progressive increase. This paper discusses the contrasting definitions of progress in holography, and how they were fashioned in changing contexts. Focusing equally on reputed ‘failures’ of some aspects of the subject, it explores the varied attributes by which success and failure were linked with progress by different technical communities. This important case illuminates the peculiar post-World War II environment that melded the military, commercial and popular engagement with scientific and technological subjects, and the competing criteria by which they assessed the products of science. (shrink)

The principal question asked in this paper is: in the case of attributive usage, is the definite description to be analyzed as Russell said or is it to be treated as a referring expression, functioning semantically as a proper name? It answers by defending the former alternative.

I argue that the contextualist account of the referential/attributive interpretation of definite descriptions, presented by Recanati and Bezuidehnout and based on the idea that definite descriptions are semantically underdetermined and in need of completion through optional top-down pragmatic processes, suffers from an explanatory gap. I defend the contextualist view but hold that the determination of the content of definite descriptions is a mandatory, linguistically driven process based on saturation rather than on optional pragmatic processes.

According to the prevailing view, Russell’s theory of descriptions provides an adequate semantic account of sentences with definite descriptions in the attributive use. The author challenges this assumption. Firstly, he presents two general ‘Straw­sonian’ objections to Russell’s theory, which, as he argues, are valid in the case of attributive assertions. Those are arguments against the so called existential reading and the uniqueness-reading of an attributively used sentence of the form “The F is G”. Finally, the author presents his own objection (...) which appeals to the fact that the Russellian analysis does not account for an intuitive inferential property of attributive assertions. (shrink)

Briefly, I presented two distinct objections against the notion of an existence attribute, or for brevity, e-attribute: first, there is no way of adequately unpacking the analysans of ; but, second, even if there should be an acceptable formulation of, there is no general procedure for deciding which attributes satisfy this definition. Now the second of these objections, I want to say, remains sound for the reasons given in the paper cited above. Unfortunately my attempt to establish (...) the first objection fails and the reason for the failure should not go unnoticed. (shrink)

I argue that there are two meanings of ‘attribute’ for Spinoza. It can refer to 1) an essential feature of substance, or 2) a perception by the infinite intellect of such a feature. I put this forth as a reading of Spinoza’s definition of ‘attribute’ (E1d4), which is notoriously framed in terms of the perceptions of the intellect. The primary benefit of this reading is that it provides a uniquely powerful and much-needed answer to the puzzle of (...) how the mentalistic character of E1d4 is consistent with an “objectivist” picture of Spinoza’s metaphysics and epistemology. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on the relationships between language, definition and being in Antisthenes. I start from Plato’s Sophist 251b–c, in which the reference to the ὀψιμαθεῖς stands out, and I conclude that it is not possible to identify these characters with Antisthenes. The conception of ὀψιμαθεῖς provides for the exclusive legitimacy of identical judgments, exploiting in an eristic sense an evident Eleatic legacy. But this position, rather than concordances, reveals serious opposition to what is surely known to (...) us of the logical and linguistic doctrines of Antisthenes. The most explicit testimony about the relationship between language and being in Antisthenes is handed down by Porphyry, who attributes to Antisthenes the equation λέγειν = λέγειν τι = λέγειν τὸ ὄν. My analysis intends to show that this equation is assumed by Antisthenes through a Socratic mediation and has a double objective: to ensure an objective reference of language, as opposed to Gorgias’ self-referential conception of language, and to nullify the antilogy, which is typical of sophistic argumentation. To it Antisthenes contrasts the ἐπίσκεψις τῶν ὀνομάτων, which is a development of Socratic ἐξετάζειν, and whose aim is to reach, at the end of the examination, no longer just a ὁμολογία, but a definition valid once and for all. Antisthenes is aware that there is a distinction between essence and quality, and with this, he moves a first important step beyond the univocal conception of being proper to Parmenides. The doxography will sum up Antisthenes’ position by describing him as the first philosopher to advance a definition of logos, i. e., definition. He bases his theory of definition on the identification of that attribute which is ἴδιον καὶ οἰκεῖον of the proposed object. Antisthenes coined the phrase τὸ τί ἦν to designate what the predicate is meant to say in a definition, i. e., the proper quality. This expression does not seem to identify the general notion of a predicate as such, but rather to indicate the determination or qualification necessary to actually define the object in question. In the final part of my article, I examine some testimonies that show how, with his theory of definition, Antisthenes is, and was considered already in antiquity, the precursor of the Stoic theory of definition, whose objective is, according to Chrysippus’ formula, to provide the explanation of what is proper (ἰδίου ἀπόδοσις). (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that contrary to the approach widely taken in the literature, it is possible to retain Russell's theory of definite descriptions and grant some semantic significance to the distinction between the attributive and the referential use. The core of the argumentation is based on recognition of the so-called "roundabout" way in which the use of a definite description may be significant to the semantic features of the sentence: it is a case where the use of a (...) description contributes to the semantics of the sentence by affecting another expression of that sentence. I offer an appropriate example which illustrates the case in question and I demonstrate that the semantic difference between the two uses can be easily captured by Russell's account. (shrink)

In their book on Descartes’s Changing Mind, Peter Machamer and J. E. McGuire argue that Descartes discarded dualism to embrace a kind of monism. Descartes famously proposed that there are two separate substances, mind and body, with distinct attributes of thought and extension. According to Machamer and McGuire, because of the limitations of our intellect, we cannot have insight into the nature of either substance. After reviewing their argument in some detail, I will argue that Descartes did not relinquish his (...) favorite doctrine but may have actually fooled himself about the nature of his dualism. It is my contention that the problem with Cartesian dualism stems from the definition of mind and body as substances and the role of their respective attributes—thought and extension—in the definition of substances. (shrink)

Since the microbiological revolution, most infectious diseases have been defined and classified according to an etiologic criterion, i.e. the identification of single, external necessary causes (for example, Mycobacterium for tuberculosis). This is not the case with cancer. Not only external necessary causes of cancer have not been identified, but also the morphological classification cannot be based on univocal criteria. Although neoplasia and anaplasia appear to be universal attributes of cancer, these events are only quantitative. Neoplastic growth can be fast or (...) slow (development may take weeks or years), and tissue pathologies are difficult to detect from normal tissue in some cancers but are obvious in others. Common special properties of anaplasia appear to be concealed in the wide range of morphologies. In the absence of a coherent morphological definition, and of external necessary causes (such as bacteria for infectious diseases), a mechanistic definition could be adopted. However, unless molecular biology discovers specific mechanistic steps in carcinogenesis, which indicate the existence of necessary events in carcinogenesis, we cannot adopt a univocal (monothetic) definition of cancer. The alternative is to use a polythetic definition, according to Wittgenstein's model of a long rope twisted together out of many shorter fibres. (shrink)

Is there a distinction between referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions? I think most philosophers who approach Donnellan’s distinction from the point of view of the theory of speech acts, those who see reference as a type of speech act, would say that there is no such distinction and that the cases he presents can be accounted for as instances of the general distinction between speaker meaning and sentence meaning: both alleged uses are referential in the sense that they (...) are cases of referring to objects, the only difference is in the degree to which the speaker makes his intentions fully explicit in his utterance. Such objections are in fact quite commonly made, both in the literature and in the oral tradition, but I have never seen a version of the objection I was fully satisfied with and the main aim of this article is to attempt to provide one. (shrink)

Definite articles and demonstratives share many features in common including a related etymology and a number of parallel communicative functions. The following paper is concerned with developing a novel proposal on how to distinguish the two types of expression. First, crosslinguistic evidence is presented to argue that demonstratives contain locational markers that are employed in deictic uses to force contrastive focus and accentuate an intended referent against a contextual background. Conversely, definite articles lack such markers. Demonstratives are thus more likely (...) to force referential interpretations, whereas definite descriptions are more open to attributive ones. Second, an analysis of determiner phrases is provided to illustrate that certain syntactic projections capture deictic differences between the two expressions. Semantic correlates of the proposal are then considered before it is situated with respect to contemporary work distinguishing the two categories on the basis of a non‐redundancy condition (that the overt noun phrase complement of a demonstrative may not denote a singleton set), which I suggest is derivative on the presence of contrastive deictic markers in demonstratives. (shrink)

In his recently published John Locke Lectures, Saul Kripke attempts to capture Keith Donnellan’s referential/attributive distinction for definite descriptions using a distinction between general and specific intentions. I argue that although Kripke’s own way of capturing the referential/attributive distinction is inadequate, we can use general and specific intentions to successfully capture the distinction if we also distinguish between primary and secondary intentions. An attributive use is characterized by the fact that the general intention is either the primary or only designative (...) intention, whereas a referential use occurs when a specific intention is either the primary or only designative intention. Along the way, accounts of the referential/attributive distinction offered by John Searle and by Kepa Korta and John Perry come in for criticism as well, and we’ll also discuss Michael O’Rourke’s dual-aspect uses of definite descriptions. (shrink)

The concept of “life” certainly is of some use to distinguish birds and beavers from water and stones. This pragmatic usefulness has led to its construal as a categorical predicate that can sift out living entities from non-living ones depending on their possessing specific properties—reproduction, metabolism, evolvability etc. In this paper, we argue against this binary construal of life. Using text-mining methods across over 30,000 scientific articles, we defend instead a degrees-of-life view and show how these methods can contribute to (...) experimental philosophy of science and concept explication. We apply topic-modeling algorithms to identify which specific properties are attributed to a target set of entities (bacteria, archaea, viruses, prions, plasmids, phages and the molecule of adenine). Eight major clusters of properties were identified together with their relative relevance for each target entity (two that relate to metabolism and catalysis, one to genetics, one to evolvability, one to structure, and—rather unexpectedly—three that concern interactions with the environment broadly construed). While aligning with intuitions—for instance about viruses being less alive than bacteria—these quantitative results also reveal differential degrees of performance that have so far remained elusive or overlooked. Taken together, these analyses provide a conceptual “lifeness space” that makes it possible to move away from a categorical construal of life by empirically assessing the relative lifeness of more-or-less alive entities. (shrink)

I critically examine an argument, due to howard wettstein, purporting to show that sentences containing definite descriptions are semantically ambiguous between referential and attributive readings. Wettstein argues that many sentences containing nonidentifying descriptions--descriptions that apply to more than one object--cannot be given a Russellian analysis, and that the descriptions in these sentences should be understood as directly referential terms. But because Wettstein does not justify treating referential uses of nonidentifying descriptions differently than attributive uses of nonidentifying descriptions, his argument fails.

According to Donnellan the characteristic mark of a referential use of a definite description is the fact that it can be used to pick out an individual that does not satisfy the attributes in the description. Friends and foes of the referential/attributive distinction have equally dismissed that point as obviously wrong or as a sign that Donnellan's distinction lacks semantic import. I will argue that, on a strict semantic conception of what it is for an expression to be a genuine (...) referential device, Donnellan is right: if a use of a definite description is referential, it must be possible for it to refer to an object independently of any attributes associated with the description, including those that constitute its conventional meaning. (shrink)

Reichenbach's Philosophy of Space and Time (1928) avoids most of the logical positivist pitfalls it is generally held to exemplify, notably both conventionalism and verificationism. To see why, we must appreciate that Reichenbach's interest lies in how mathematical structures can be used to describe reality, not in how words like 'distance' acquire meaning. Examination of his proposed "coordinative definition" of congruence shows that Reichenbach advocates a reductionist analysis of the relations figuring in physical geometry (contrary to common readings that (...) attribute to him a holistic conventionalism), while embracing a thoroughly holistic understanding of empirical confirmation (contrary to rival operationalist readings). (shrink)

The arguments of Fodor, Garret, Walker and Parkes [(1980) Against definitions, Cognition, 8, 263-367] are the source of widespread skepticism in cognitive science about lexical semantic structure. Whereas the thesis that lexical items, and the concepts they express, have decompositional structure (i.e. have significant constituents) was at one time "one of those ideas that hardly anybody [in the cognitive sciences] ever considers giving up" (p. 264), most researchers now believe that "[a]ll the evidence suggests that the classical [(decompositional)] view is (...) wrong as a general theory of concepts" [Smith, Medin & Rips (1984) A psychological approach to concepts: comments on Rey, Cognition, 17, 272], and cite Fodor et al. (1980) as "sounding the death knell for decompositional theories" [MacNamara & Miller (1989) Attributes of theories of meaning, Psychological Bulletin, 106, 360]. I argue that the prevailing skepticism is unmotivated by the arguments in Fodor et al. Fodor et al. misrepresent the form, function and scope of the decompositional hypothesis, and the procedures they employ to test for the psychological reality of definitions are flawed. I argue, further, that decompositional explanations of the phenomena they consider are preferable to their primitivist alternatives, and, hence, that there is prima facie reason to accept them as evidence for the existence of decompositional structure. Cognitive scientists would, therefore, do well to revert to their former commitment to the decompositional hypothesis. (shrink)

In this paper my aim is to approach the referential¿attributive distinction in the interpretation of definite descriptions, originally discussed by Donnellan (1966), from a cognitive perspective grounded in Sperber and Wilson¿s Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson 1986/95). In particular, I argue that definite descriptions encode a procedural semantics, in the sense of Blakemore (1987), which is neutral as between referential and attributive readings (among others). On this account, the distinction between referential and attributive readings arises as a result of the (...) differing links that exist between different types of mental representation and the world, rather than as a result of the differing links between language and mental representations. (shrink)

In this paper my aim is to approach the referential–attributive distinction in the interpretation of definite descriptions, originally discussed by Donnellan, from a cognitive perspective grounded in Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory. In particular, I argue that definite descriptions encode a procedural semantics, in the sense of Blakemore, which is neutral as between referential and attributive readings. On this account, the distinction between referential and attributive readings arises as a result of the differing links that exist between different types of (...) mental representation and the world, rather than as a result of the differing links between language and mental representations. (shrink)

A distinction is developed between two uses of definite descriptions, the "attributive" and the "referential." the distinction exists even in the same sentence. several criteria are given for making the distinction. it is suggested that both russell's and strawson's theories fail to deal with this distinction, although some of the things russell says about genuine proper names can be said about the referential use of definite descriptions. it is argued that the presupposition or implication that something fits the description, present (...) in both uses, has a different genesis depending upon whether the description is used referentially or attributively. this distinction in use seems not to depend upon any syntactic or semantic ambiguity. it is also suggested that there is a distinction between what is here called "referring" and what russell defines as denoting. definite descriptions may denote something, according to his definition, whether used attributively or referentially. (shrink)

This paper challenges the first Gettier counterexample to the tripartite account of knowledge. Noting that 'the man who will get the job' is a description and invoking Donnellan's distinction between their 'referential' and 'attributive' uses, I argue that Smith does not actually believe that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. Smith's ignorance about who will get the job shows that the belief cannot be understood referentially, his ignorance of the coins in his pocket (...) shows that it cannot be understood attributively. An explanation for why Smith appeared to have justified true belief is given by distinguishing between 'belief' and 'belief in truth'. Smith believes the sentence 'the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket' to be true (he mistakenly believes that Jones will get the job, of whom he knows that he has ten coins in his pocket) (hence his 'belief'), the sentence is true (hence 'truth'), and he has sufficient reason to assent to it (hence his 'justification'). But he does not believe the proposition expressed. Hence he does not know it either. (shrink)

D’après Bolzano, une proposition est logiquement analytique si et seulement si elle est soit logiquement valide, soit logiquement non valide. Bolzano dit aussi parfois qu’une proposition est logiquement valide si et seulement si elle est et reste vraie sous toute variation simultanée et uniforme de ses parties non logiques. C’est essentiellement la même définition que donne Quine dans son article « Carnap and Logical Truth » où il attribue à ce dernier l’idée qu’un énoncé logiquement vrai est un énoncé au (...) sein duquel seuls les termes logiques sont essentiels. Mais qu’en est-il des propositions et des énoncés vrais qui sont composés exclusivement de parties logiques ? Selon la définition précédente, elles s’avèreraient toutes logiquement valides ou logiquement vraies. Une proposition telle que « Il y a quelque chose » n’est toutefois manifestement pas logiquement valide selon Bolzano. La définition courante de la validité logique doit être modifiée de manière à répondre aux intuitions bolzaniennes. Dans cet article, je propose une telle modification.A proposition is logically analytic according to Bolzano if and only if it is either logically valid or logically non-valid. And a proposition is sometimes said to be logically valid according to Bolzano if and only if it is true and remains true under all simultaneous and uniform variations of all of its non-logical parts. Basically the same definition is provided by Quine in his paper “Carnap and Logical Truth” where he attributes to Carnap the view that a logically true sentence is a true sentence which involves only logical words essentially. But, what about true propositions and sentences which are composed exclusively of logical parts ? Due to the definition mentioned above, all of them will trivially turn out as logically valid or logically true. A proposition like “There is something”, however, is clearly not logically valid according to Bolzano. The common definition of logical validity must be modified in order to match Bolzano’s intuitions. In this paper, such a modification is presented. (shrink)

In their book on Descartes’s changing mind, Peter Machamer and J.E McGuire argue that Descartes discarded dualism to embrace a kind of monism. It is intriguing to investigate if the master of dualism could have changed his mind about the central aspect of his system. After reviewing the position of the authors, we will consider how and in what terms Descartes did not go back on his favorite doctrine but may have fooled himself about the nature of his dualism. It (...) is my contention that the so-called problematic Cartesian dualism has its origin in the lack of proper definition of mind and body as substances and the role of their respective attributes, thought and extension in the definition of the substances. The main answer to Machamer and McGuire’s thesis is that Descartes could develop his epistemology of mind and body independently of a metaphysics of substance and its attributes. In other words not only did Descartes not change his mind, but he persevered and enriched his dualist metaphysics. The subsidiary answer to the authors is that the concessions given by Descartes to the opponents of his dualism can be found in earlier works, but, pace the authors, they did not cause him not to develop his dualism in the first place. (shrink)

In the philosophy of mathematical practice, the aim is to understand the various aspects of this practice. Even though definitions are a central element of mathematical practice, the study of this aspect of mathematical practice is still in its infancy. In particular, there is little empirical evidence to substantiate claims about definitions in practice. In this article, we address this gap by reporting on an empirical investigation on how mathematicians create definitions and which roles and properties they attribute to (...) them. On the basis of interviews with thirteen research mathematicians, we provide a broad range of relevant aspects of definitions. In particular, we address various roles of definitions and show that definitions are not just a product of mathematical factors, but also of social and contingent factors. Furthermore, we provide concrete examples of how mathematicians interact and think about definition. This broad empirical basis with a variety of examples provides an optimal starting point for future investigations into definitions in mathematical practice. (shrink)

What is it for an attribute to be psychological? One clever and inventive, albeit somewhat Byzantine answer to this vexing philosophical question has lately been proposed by Roderick M. Chisholm. Chisholm’s approach is to take a small number of technical philosophical notions as given and then employ these in a series of definitions which together yield an account of the psychological. I examine Chisholm’s account and show that it doesn’t work.

This paper challenges the first Gettier counterexample to the tripartite account of knowledge. Noting that 'the man who will get the job' is a description and invoking Donnellan's distinction between their 'referential' and 'attributive' uses, I argue that Smith does not actually believe that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. Smith's ignorance about who will get the job shows that the belief cannot be understood referentially, his ignorance of the coins in his pocket (...) shows that it cannot be understood attributively. An explanation for why Smith appeared to have justified true belief is given by distinguishing between 'belief' and 'belief in truth'. Smith believes the sentence 'the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket' to be true (he mistakenly believes that Jones will get the job, of whom he knows that he has ten coins in his pocket) (hence his 'belief'), the sentence is true (hence 'truth'), and he has sufficient reason to assent to it (hence his 'justification'). But he does not believe the proposition expressed. Hence he does not know it either. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES IN AQUINAS IN THIS PAPER I discuss principally the claim of Aquinas that the divine attribute which is the formal constituent of the divine nature is es.'!e. I also discuss the consequent attribute of simplicity, with some reflections on this relation of consequence. I conclude with some remarks on philosophical realism in general, which I take to be the necessary background to this theory (...) or, as I argue, discovery. * * * In St. Thomas's Summa Theologiae we are confronted first, not with a study of the attributes of God, but with Five Ways of knowing that God exists. Strictly consequent upon this, there are then two basic movements of thought upon which, to mix the metaphor, the next structure after the Five Ways, that of the attributes, is laid. The first step is to find just one attribute which can be put forward as the formal constituent of the divine natura, its essentia (this will be the so-called metaphysical essence, since the real divine essence is one with the simple and hence constituentless divine nature). This is come upon through an immanent logic arising strictly out of conclusions reached through the Five Ways, and is in fact subsisting existence, ipsum esse subsistens, often called Being, confusingly, since this translates ens as well as esse. If it were not this there would be unexplained composition in God, at least between His nature and His act of existing. The second step is then to derive whatever attributes can be strictly deduced from this conception of God as subsistent esse, while a subsidiary step is to divide these into what commentators later called entitative and operative attributes. The first step identifies the nature of God with His aot of existing, 37 38 liTEPHEN THERON actus essendi, stressing that as pure ad He is not in any genus, not to be grasped in an abstract idea, even though the theory of the attributes must go on to say He is truth, is goodness and so on. The saving grace of these attributions, however, is that they do not imply limitation, even though it is a general principle of the Thomistic interpretation of things that form is what places a limitation on being, so that in being a man I cannot be an elephant. Of course the necessary infinity of these absolutely simple perfections entails that each of them is really identical with the divine nature, itself identical with His esse, His actus essendi. There can only be one reality in God, understood as the infinite. But my intention here is not to run through all the well-known arguments yet again. Thus that God, any God, must be subsisting Existence, I take to be well established. We can't have a divine essence capable of receiving existence, and for God to be love, say, He has first to be. I can make no sense of saying that this is merely chosen as appropriate to our way of thinking. I would rather say it thinks itself, once we 'let being be' (Heidegger's inspired definition of thinking). Of course God is not being identified with ens in commune, that almost cynical error of pantheism. God is identified with His own act of existing, proper to Him alone. Since this is, as divine, an act without limitation, we then go on to say that this cannot be an existence shared with any other existing, that God must exist in a uniquely eminent way, that that act of existing which He himself is, is transcendent. In the sense in which God exists, nothing else does, as the doctrine of analogy should bring out rather than obscure.1 Nonetheless, we need to enquire into the significance and implications of it being just existence which is the formal attribute 1 Cf. Leo J. Elders, Die Metaphysik de Thomas von Aquin, I, Salzburg 1985, p. 133: 'Das ens commune ist das geschaffene Seiende... Gott fallt nicht unter das ens commune: Er ist das ganz Andere, von dem wir wohl wissen konnen, daB Er ist, nicht aber, was Er ist.' THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES IN AQUINAS 39 of the divine nature, something to which both Kant and Aristotle... (shrink)

Disagreements over the meaning of the thermodynamic entropy and how it should be defined in statistical mechanics have endured for well over a century. In an earlier paper, I showed that there were at least nine essential properties of entropy that are still under dispute among experts. In this paper, I examine the consequences of differing definitions of the thermodynamic entropy of macroscopic systems.Two proposed definitions of entropy in classical statistical mechanics are (1) defining entropy on the basis of probability (...) theory (first suggested by Boltzmann in 1877), and (2) the traditional textbook definition in terms of a volume in phase space (also attributed to Boltzmann). The present paper demonstrates the consequences of each of these proposed definitions of entropy and argues in favor of a definition based on probabilities. (shrink)

This study investigates to what extent the amount of variation in a visual scene causes speakers to mention the attribute color in their definite target descriptions, focusing on scenes in which this attribute is not needed for identification of the target. The results of our three experiments show that speakers are more likely to redundantly include a color attribute when the scene variation is high as compared with when this variation is low (even if this leads to (...) overspecified descriptions). We argue that these findings are problematic for existing algorithms that aim to automatically generate psychologically realistic target descriptions, such as the Incremental Algorithm, as these algorithms make use of a fixed preference order per domain and do not take visual scene variation into account. (shrink)

Kaplan, Stalnaker and Wettstein all urge a two-stage theory of language whereon the propositions expressed by sentences are generated prior to being evaluated. A new ambiguity for sentences emerges, propositional rather syntactic or semantic. Kaplan and Wettstein then propose to explain Donnellan's referential/attributive ambiguity as simply being two-stage propositional ambiguity. This is tacitly seen as further confirmation for two-stage theory. Modal ambiguities are prime motivators for two-stage theory which distinguishes local from exotic evaluation to explain them. But if sentences can (...) be found which exhibit both modal and referential/attribute ambiguity, an apparent paradox arises for a two-stage account. The theory recognizes both singular and general propositions, in Kaplan's senses. But reflecting one sense of such a doubly ambiguous sentence, two-stage theory would seem to need a proposition both singular and general with respect to a definite description attributively used. Since modal operators will come into rendering the problem sentences, an obvious idea is to let scope distinctions rescue two-stage theory from the apparent paradox. But while a rescue based on multiple renderings is proposed, it is not strictly a scope rescue, though different scopes are involved. Readers are asked to trust the author on missing formalities of an intuitively transparent two-sorted modal language that is employed. Two-stage theorists explicitly oppose scope treatments of modal ambiguities seeing them as rivals. Stalnaker, in particular, argues against them. But his arguments are shown not to count against the proposed rescue, on which the anticipated rivalry proves to be minimal. (shrink)