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John-Michael Kuczynski [203]John-Michael M. Kuczynski [3]
  1. Two concepts of "form" and the so-called computational theory of mind.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2006 - Philosophical Psychology 19 (6):795-821.
    According to the computational theory of mind , to think is to compute. But what is meant by the word 'compute'? The generally given answer is this: Every case of computing is a case of manipulating symbols, but not vice versa - a manipulation of symbols must be driven exclusively by the formal properties of those symbols if it is qualify as a computation. In this paper, I will present the following argument. Words like 'form' and 'formal' are ambiguous, as (...)
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  2.  80
    Non-declarative sentences.John-Michael Kuczynski - forthcoming - Principia.
    If S is any well-formed and significant question or command having the form "...the phi...", Russell's Theory of Descriptions entails (i) that S is syntactically ambiguous, and (ii) that there is at least one disambiguation of S that is syntactically ill-formed. Given that each of (i) and (ii) is false, so is the Theory of Descriptions.
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  3. Counterfactuals: The Epistemic Analysis.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2005 - Philosophia Scientiae 9 (1):83-126.
    En temps normal, les contrefactuels sont conçus comme produisant des énoncés portant sur des états de choses, mais des états de choses se trouvant dans des mondes simplement possibles ou alternes. Analysés ainsi, il s’avère que presque tous les contrefactuels sont incohérents. Tout contrefactuel analysé de la sorte exige qu’il y ait un monde métaphysiquement (et pas épistémiquement seulement) possible w où les lois sont les mêmes qu’ici, et où la quasi-totalité des faits sont les mêmes qu’ici. (Les différences factuelles (...)
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  4. Non-Declarative Sentences and the Theory of Definite Descriptions.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2004 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 8 (1):119–154.
    This paper shows that Russell’s theory of descriptions gives the wrong se-mantics for definite descriptions occurring in questions and imperatives. Depending on how that theory is applied, it either assigns nonsense to per-fectly meaningful questions and assertions or it assigns meanings that di-verge from the actual semantics of such sentences, even after all pragmatic and contextual variables are allowed for. Given that Russell’s theory is wrong for questions and assertions, it must be wrong for assertoric state-ments; for the semantics of (...)
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  5. The concept of a symbol and the vacuousness of the symbolic conception of thought.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2005 - Semiotica 2005 (154 - 1/4):243-264.
    Linguistic expressions must be decrypted if they are to transmit information. Thoughts need not be decrypted if they are to transmit information. Therefore thought-processes do not consist of linguistic expressions: thought is not linguistic. A consequence is that thought is not computational, given that a computation is the operationalization of a function that assigns one expression to some other expression (or sequence of expressions).
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  6. Mathematics as the Science of Pure Structure.John-Michael Kuczynski - manuscript
    A brief but rigorous description of the logical structure of mathematical truth.
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  7. Does Possible World Semantics Turn all Propositions into Necessary ones?John-Michael Kuczynski - 2007 - Journal of Pragmatics 39 (5):972-916.
    "Jim would still be alive if he hadn't jumped" means that Jim's death was a consequence of his jumping. "x wouldn't be a triangle if it didn't have three sides" means that x's having a three sides is a consequence its being a triangle. Lewis takes the first sentence to mean that Jim is still alive in some alternative universe where he didn't jump, and he takes the second to mean that x is a non-triangle in every alternative universe where (...)
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  8. Another argument against the thesis that there is a language of thought.John-Michael M. Kuczynski - 2004 - Communication and Cognition: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly Journal 37 (2):83-103.
    One cannot have the concept of a red object without having the concept of an extended object. But the word "red" doesn't contain the word "extended." In general, our concepts are interconnected in ways in which the corresponding words are not interconnected. This is not an accidental fact about the English language or about any other language: it is inherent in what a language is that the cognitive abilities corresponding to a person's abilities to use words cannot possibly be reflected (...)
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  9. The Mind-body Problem.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2016 - JOHN-MICHAEL KUCZYNSKI.
    In this book, each of the possible positions concerning the relationship between mind and body is clearly explained and thoroughly critiqued. It is concluded that, although mental events are identical with physical events, mentalistic statements are not equivalent with physicalistic statements. It is also shown that the way in which mentalistic statements are non-equivalent with physicalistic statements is deeper than the way in which biological statements are non-equivalent with microphysical statements. In other words, the sense in which mind and body (...)
     
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  10. What is Literal Meaning?John-Michael Kuczynski - 2014 - Communication and Cognition: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly Journal 46 (1-4).
    The meaning of morpheme (a minimal unit of linguistic significance) cannot diverge from what it is taken to mean. But the meaning of a complex expression can diverge without limit from what it is taken to mean, given that the meaning of such an expression is a logical consequence of the meanings of its parts, coupled with the fact that people are not infallible ratiocinators. Nonetheless, given Chomsky’s distinction between competence (ability) and performance (ability to deploy ability), what a complex (...)
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  11. Formal operations and simulated thought.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2006 - Philosophical Explorations 9 (2):221-234.
    A series of representations must be semantics-driven if the members of that series are to combine into a single thought: where semantics is not operative, there is at most a series of disjoint representations that add up to nothing true or false, and therefore do not constitute a thought at all. A consequence is that there is necessarily a gulf between simulating thought, on the one hand, and actually thinking, on the other. A related point is that a popular doctrine (...)
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  12. Intensionality, Modality, Rationality: Some Presemantic Considerations.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2010 - Journal of Pragmatics 42 (8):2314-2346.
    On the basis of arguments put forth by (Kripke, 1977a) and (Kripke, 1980), it is widely held that one can sometimes rationally accept propositions of the form "P and not-P" and also that there are necessary a posteriori truths. We will find that Kripke's arguments for these views appear probative only so long as one fails to distinguish between semantics and presemantics—between the literal meanings of sentences, on the one hand, and the information on the basis of which one identifies (...)
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  13. (1 other version)THE ANALOGUE-DIGITAL DISTINCTION AND THE COGENCY OF KANT'S TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENTS.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2006 - Existentia: An International Journal of Philosophy (3-4):279-320.
    Hume's attempt to show that deduction is the only legitimate form of inference presupposes that enumerative induction is the only non-deductive form of inference. In actuality, enumerative induction is not even a form of inference: all supposed cases of enumerative induction are disguised cases of Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE), so far as they aren't simply cases of mentation of a purely associative kind and, consequently, of a kind that is non-inductive and otherwise non-inferential. The justification for IBE lies (...)
     
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  14. Implicit comparatives and the Sorites.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2006 - History and Philosophy of Logic 27 (1):1-8.
    A person with one dollar is poor. If a person with n dollars is poor, then so is a person with n + 1 dollars. Therefore, a person with a billion dollars is poor. True premises, valid reasoning, a false a conclusion. This is an instance of the Sorites-paradox. (There are infinitely many such paradoxes. A man with an IQ of 1 is unintelligent. If a man with an IQ of n is unintelligent, so is a man with an IQ (...)
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  15. Boguslawski's Analysis of Quantification in Natural Language.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2010 - Journal of Pragmatics 42 (10):2836-2844.
    The semantic rules governing natural language quantifiers (e.g. "all," "some," "most") neither coincide with nor resemble the semantic rules governing the analogues of those expressions that occur in the artificial languages used by semanticists. Some semanticists, e.g. Peter Strawson, have put forth data-consistent hypotheses as to the identities of the semantic rules governing some natural-language quantifiers. But, despite their obvious merits, those hypotheses have been universally rejected. In this paper, it is shown that those hypotheses are indeed correct. Moreover, data-consistent (...)
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  16. Does the idea of a "Language of Thought" make sense?John-Michael Kuczynski - 2002 - Communication and Cognition: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly Journal 35 (4):173-192.
    Sense-perceptions do not have to be deciphered if their contents are to be uploaded, the reason being that they are presentations, not representations. Linguistic expressions do have to be deciphered if their contents are to be uploaded, the reason being that they are representations, not presentations. It is viciously regressive to suppose that information-bearing mental entities are categorically in the nature of representations, as opposed to presentations, and it is therefore incoherent to suppose that thought is mediated by expressions or, (...)
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  17. A quasi-materialist, quasi-dualist solution to the mind-body problem.John-Michael M. Kuczynski - 2004 - Kriterion: Journal of Philosophy 45 (109):81-135.
  18. What Is A Proposition?John-Michael Kuczynski - 2002 - Existentia 12 (3-4):265-279.
     
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  19.  59
    Are any of our beliefs about ourselves non-inferential or infallible?John-Michael Kuczynski - 2001 - Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 21 (1):20-45.
    We are aware of truths (e.g. the truth that the shoes I'm now wearing are uncomfortably tight) and also of states of affairs (e.g. the uncomfortable tightness of said shoes). My awareness of the tightness of my shoes---not, be it emphasized, of the corresponding truth, but of the shoe-related mass-energy-distribution underlying that truth---is an instance, not of truth-awareness, but of fact-awareness or, as I prefer to put, object-awareness. The aforementioned truth-awareness corresponding to that object-awareness is the result of my conceptualizing (...)
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  20.  56
    A Solution to the Paradox of Analysis.John-Michael Kuczynski - 1998 - Metaphilosophy 29 (4):313-330.
    This essay attempts to solve the so‐called paradox of analysis: if one is to have any questions about x, one must know x; but if one knows x, one has no questions about x. The obvious solution is this: one can inquire into x if one knows some, but not all, of x's parts. But this solution is erroneous. Let x′ be those parts of x with which one is acquainted, and let S be the percipient in question. As with (...)
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  21.  81
    Two objections to materialism.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2000 - Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 20 (2):122-139.
    This paper puts forth two reasons to hold that at least some mental entities are not physical entities. First argument: Some mental entities (namely, pains and other qualia) cannot possibly differ from how they seem to be, and since this cannot possibly be true of any non-mental entity, it follows that some mental entities are not physical. Second argument: It is necessarily on theoretical grounds, as opposed to strictly experiential grounds, that mental entities are identified with physical entities. Water is (...)
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  22. Aggression is Frustrated Power-lust.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2020 - La Crosse, WI, USA: Freud Institute.
    A number of psychologists hold that aggression is a basic instinct, meaning that it is a primitive drive and therefore cannot be derived from, or decomposed into, other drives. The truth is that aggression is not a basic drive. Desire for power is a basic drive, and aggression is what results when that desire is frustrated.
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  23. An Illustration of the Fractal Character of Institutions.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2017 - Madison, WI, USA: Freud Institute.
    The behavior of individuals who compose an institution tends to mirror the behavior of that institution as a whole. This short work illustrates this principle.
     
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  24. Ask Me Anything about Psychopathy!John-Michael Kuczynski - 2018 - Madison, WI, USA: Freud Institute.
    A series of sharp, deep answers to hard-hitting questions about psychopathy, with embedded link to the author real-timing it.
     
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  25.  74
    A non-Russellian treatment of the referential-attributive distinction.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2004 - Pragmatics and Cognition 12 (2):253-294.
    Kripke made a good case that “…the phi…” is not semantically ambiguous between referential and attributive meanings. Russell says that “…the phi…” is always to be analyzed attributively. Many semanticists, agreeing with Kripke that “…the phi…” is not ambiguous, have tried to give a Russellian analysis of the referential-attributive distinction: the gross deviations between what is communicated by “…the phi..”, on the one hand, and what Russell’s theory says it literally means, on the other, are chalked up to implicature. This (...)
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  26.  28
    All of the Psychological Deviations That Now Exist Have Always Existed.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2017 - Madison: Philosophypedia.
    The modern age has not given rise to any new psychopathologies. But modern social configurations have withdrawn some of the constraints that in times past inhibited the development of latent psychopathology.
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  27.  85
    (1 other version)A proof of the partial anomalousness of the mental.John-Michael Kuczynski - 1998 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 36 (4):491-504.
    Ontologically, brains are more basic than mental representations. Epistemologically, mental representations are more basic than brains and, indeed, all other non-mental entities: it is, and must be, on the basis of mental representations that we know anything about non-mental entities. Since, consequently, mental representations are epistemically more fundamental than brains, the former cannot possibly be explained in terms of the latter, notwithstanding that the latter are ontologically more fundamental than the former. There is thus an explanatory gap, notwithstanding the presumptive (...)
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  28.  57
    A Solution to the Paradox of Inquiry.John-Michael Kuczynski - 1998 - Southwest Philosophy Review 14 (2):125-138.
  29. Are we computers?: A Wittgensteinian approach.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2003 - Existentia 13 (3-4):219-238.
  30. Brokesters.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2018 - Madison, WI, USA: Freud Institute.
    An explanation of the psychology of the bureaucrat and of bureaucratic institutions.
     
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  31. Boringness as Camouflage for Pseudo-scholars.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2018 - Madison, WI, USA: Freud Institute.
    Sometimes, when a given person and/or his scholarly work are boring, it is intentional: that person is deliberately being boring so that nobody bothers to scrutinize, or therefore discover, the emptiness of either him or his work.
     
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  32.  26
    Bureaucrats Make Civilization Possible.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2017 - Madison: Philosophypedia.
    If more than a tiny minority of people were non-bureaucrats, civilization would not be possible.
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  33. Conceptual atomism and the computational theory of mind: a defense of content-internalism and semantic externalism.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2007 - John Benjamins & Co.
    Contemporary philosophy and theoretical psychology are dominated by an acceptance of content-externalism: the view that the contents of one's mental states are constitutively, as opposed to causally, dependent on facts about the external world. In the present work, it is shown that content-externalism involves a failure to distinguish between semantics and pre-semantics---between, on the one hand, the literal meanings of expressions and, on the other hand, the information that one must exploit in order to ascertain their literal meanings. It is (...)
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  34. Christopher Langan and the Pseudo-realism of the Intellectual with the Dead-end Job.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2018 - Madison, WI, USA:
    For intellectuals, and probably others, one form of escapism is a kind of constricted and shallow hyper-realism—the hyper-realism of having a dead-end job, even though one has a PhD or an IQ of 170. And that sort of hyper-realism is pseudo-realism, because realism is not about having a bad life; it is having the courage to have a good life, which the intellectual with the dead end job does not have.
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  35. Campbell's Law in Relation to the State of Higher Education.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2018
    The greater the extent to which a given system rewards the absence of merit, the greater the incentive that people within that system have to perpetuate that system. People who are falsely rewarded have a double stake in the perpetuation of whatever it is that falsely rewarded them. First, without that system and all of the lies surrounding it, such people lose their wealth and their social status. Second, without that system, such people lose their self-respect. The more a given (...)
     
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  36. Can One Grasp Propostions Without Knowing a Language?John-Michael Kuczynski - 2005 - Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 24 (2).
    Wittgenstein and Brandom both say that knowledge of a language constitutes one's ability to think. Further, they say that a language is an essentially public entity: so to know a language, and to be able to think, consist in one's being embedded in a public practice of some kind. Wittgenstein provides two famous arguments for this: his "private-language" and "rule-following" arguments. Brandom develops these arguments. In this paper, I argue that the Wittgenstein-Brandom view strips anyone of the ability to mean (...)
     
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  37. Chomsky's Two Contributions to Philosophy.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2018 - Madison, WI, USA:
    Chomsky's arguments for the existence of pre-experiential knowledge, and for the existence of sub-personal cognition, are clearly stated and shown to be cogent.
     
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  38. Dictionary of Analytic Philosophy.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2019 - Madison Wisconsin: Philosophypedia.
    Key terms of analytic philosophy defined.
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  39.  70
    Davidson on Turing: Rationality Misunderstood?John-Michael Kuczynski - 2005 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 9 (1-2):111–124.
    Alan Turing advocated a kind of functionalism: A machine M is a thinker provided that it responds in certain ways to certain inputs. Davidson argues that Turing’s functionalism is inconsistent with a cer-tain kind of epistemic externalism, and is therefore false. In Davidson’s view, concepts consist of causal liasons of a certain kind between subject and object. Turing’s machine doesn’t have the right kinds of causal li-asons to its environment. Therefore it doesn’t have concepts. Therefore it doesn’t think. I argue (...)
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  40.  71
    Empiricism and the Foundations of Psychology.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2012 - John Benjamins Pub. Co.
    Intended for philosophically minded psychologists and psychologically minded philosophers, this book identifies the ways that psychology has hobbled itself by adhering too strictly to empiricism, this being the doctrine that all knowledge is observation-based. In the first part of this two-part work, it is shown that empiricism is false. In the second part, the psychology-relevant consequences of this fact are identified. Five of these are of special importance. First, whereas some psychopathologies (e.g. obsessive-compulsive disorder) corrupt the activity mediated by one’s (...)
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  41.  5
    Elements of Virtualism: A Study in the Philosophy of Perception.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2002 - Dartford: Traude Junghans Cuxhaven Verlag.
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  42.  19
    Half-belief leads to Half-action.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2017 - Madison: Philosophypedia.
    Dishonesty with oneself makes one unable to act. Honesty with oneself makes one able to act.
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  43. Identity.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2016
    It is said what it is to persist in time, and on that basis it is shown that time-travel, teleportation, and other mainstays of science fiction are impossible.
     
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  44.  24
    Is There Non-Epistemic Vagueness?John-Michael Kuczynski - 2003 - Indian Philosophical Quarterly 30 (2):153-176.
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  45. Is Time Travel Possible?John-Michael Kuczynski - 2018
    It is proved that time travel is impossible.
     
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  46. Jesus vs. Socrates: Religious vs. Secular Perspectives.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2020 - Madison, WI, USA: Freud Institute.
    This short work puts forth two answers to the question: In what ways are Jesus and Socrates similar? One of these answers is put forth by a Christian and embodies a deeply Christian perspective, and the other is put forth by two non-Christians, working jointly, and embodies a decidedly secular perspective. The question was first raised by the Christian author.
     
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  47. Knowledge as Metaknowledge.John-Michael Kuczynski - unknown
    Do I know that my chair won’t sprout wings and fly away? I know that it would be needlessly anomaly-generative to believe that it will. Setting aside limiting-cases, such as my knowledge that I am conscious, what we refer to as knowing that such-and-such is really knowledge that it would be needlessly anomaly-generative to believe otherwise. Consequently, what we typically refer to knowing that such-and-such is the case is really meta-knowledge to the effect that granting such-and-such eliminates mysteries and denying (...)
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  48. Life as Counter-entropy.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2017 - Madison: Philosophypedia.
    Non-biological systems are entropic systems. Biological systems are counter-entropic systems.
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  49. Logic and Formal Truth.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2018 - Madison, WI, USA: Freud Institute.
    It is explained what it is for a statement to be logically true and it is thereby explained what it is for a statement to be formally true. It is also explained how logical truth differs from formal truth. Further, it is explained what a system of logic is. Finally, the nature of entailment is explained and, in particular, it is explained how formal entailment differs from analytic entailment.
     
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  50. Materialism, causation, and the mind-body problem.John-Michael M. Kuczynski - 2001 - Prima Philosophia 14 (1):69-90.
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