Williamson, Timothy (1955–)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Ball
Keyword(s):  
Classical Logic ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Philosophical Logic ◽  
Timothy Williamson ◽  
Principle Of Charity ◽  
Analytic Philosopher ◽  
Formal Techniques

Timothy Williamson is a British analytic philosopher, who has made major contributions in philosophical logic, epistemology, metaphysics, the philosophy of language and philosophical methodology. Williamson has defended classical logic in connection with the sorites (or heap) paradox, by appeal to epistemicism, the view that vagueness is ignorance. His knowledge first approach has reversed the traditional order of explanation in epistemology. In metaphysics, he has argued in favour of necessitism – the view that what there is (ontology) is metaphysically necessary, not contingent. In the philosophy of language, he has argued that one must (in a certain privileged sense, constitutive of assertion) assert only what one knows; and he has defended a principle of charity according to which the best interpretations of a language maximize the attribution of knowledge (rather than true belief) to its speakers. Methodologically, Williamson opposes naturalism and defends instead the use of ‘armchair’ methods to answer substantive questions; in practice, his work is often characterized by the application of formal techniques, both logical and mathematical, to traditional philosophical problems.

Logic and Philosophical Methodology

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. Burgess
Keyword(s):  
Set Theory ◽  
Model Theory ◽  
Classical Logic ◽  
Proof Theory ◽  
Recursion Theory ◽  
Theory Model ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Paraconsistent Logics ◽  
Philosophical Logic

This article explores the role of logic in philosophical methodology, as well as its application in philosophy. The discussion gives a roughly equal coverage to the seven branches of logic: elementary logic, set theory, model theory, recursion theory, proof theory, extraclassical logics, and anticlassical logics. Mathematical logic comprises set theory, model theory, recursion theory, and proof theory. Philosophical logic in the relevant sense is divided into the study of extensions of classical logic, such as modal or temporal or deontic or conditional logics, and the study of alternatives to classical logic, such as intuitionistic or quantum or partial or paraconsistent logics. The nonclassical consists of the extraclassical and the anticlassical, although the distinction is not clearcut.

Aboutness

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Yablo
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Library Science ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Major Advance ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Made In

Aboutness has been studied from any number of angles. Brentano made it the defining feature of the mental. Phenomenologists try to pin down the aboutness features of particular mental states. Materialists sometimes claim to have grounded aboutness in natural regularities. Attempts have even been made, in library science and information theory, to operationalize the notion. However, it has played no real role in philosophical semantics, which is surprising. This is the first book to examine through a philosophical lens the role of subject matter in meaning. A long-standing tradition sees meaning as truth conditions, to be specified by listing the scenarios in which a sentence is true. Nothing is said about the principle of selection—about what in a scenario gets it onto the list. Subject matter is the missing link here. A sentence is true because of how matters stand where its subject matter is concerned. This book maintains that this is not just a feature of subject matter, but its essence. One indicates what a sentence is about by mapping out logical space according to its changing ways of being true or false. The notion of content that results—directed content—is brought to bear on a range of philosophical topics, including ontology, verisimilitude, knowledge, loose talk, assertive content, and philosophical methodology. The book represents a major advance in semantics and the philosophy of language.

scholarly journals The Paradox of Charity

2012 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcin Lewiński
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Contextual Factors ◽  
Argumentation Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Basic Point ◽  
Important Principle ◽  
Principle Of Charity

The principle of charity is used in philosophy of language and argumentation theory as an important principle of interpretation which credits speakers with “the best” plausible interpretation of their discourse. I contend that the argumentation account, while broadly advocated, misses the basic point of a dialectical conception which approaches argumentation as discussion between (at least) two parties who disagree over the issue discussed. Therefore, paradoxically, an analyst who is charitable to one discussion party easily becomes uncharitable to the other. To overcome this paradox, I suggest to significantly limit the application of the principle of charity depending on contextual factors.

scholarly journals Pragmatics and philosophy: In search of a paradigm

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kasia M. Jaszczolt
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
List Type ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Philosophical Logic ◽  
Paradigm Shifts ◽  
Future Prospects ◽  
Philosophy Of Linguistics ◽  
Introductory Part ◽  
Methodology Of Science ◽  
Language Meaning

Abstract There is no doubt that pragmatic theory and philosophy of language are mutually relevant and intrinsically connected. The main question I address in this paper is how exactly they are interconnected in terms of (i) their respective objectives, (ii) explanans – explanandum relation, (iii) methods of enquiry, and (iv) drawing on associated disciplines. In the introductory part I attempt to bring some order into the diversity of use of such labels as philosophical logic, philosophical semantics, philosophical pragmatics, linguistic philosophy, or philosophy of linguistics, among others. In the following sections I focus on philosophical pragmatics as a branch of philosophy of language (pragmaticsPPL) and the trends and theories it gave rise to, discussing them against the background of methodology of science and in particular paradigms and paradigm shifts as identified in natural science. In the main part of the paper I address the following questions: How is pragmaticsPPL to be delimited?How do pragmatic solutions to questions about meaning fare vis-à-vis syntactic solutions? Is there a pattern emerging?and, relatedly,What are the future prospects for pragmaticsPPL in theories of natural language meaning? I conclude with a discussion of the relation between pragmaticsPPL and functionalism, observing that contextualism has to play a central role in functionalist pragmatics at the expense of minimalism and sententialism.

Gadādhara (1604–1709)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonardon Ganeri
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Language Philosophy ◽  
Pragmatic Theory ◽  
Case Grammar ◽  
Pronominal Anaphora

Gadādhara Bhaṭṭācārya was a seventeenth-century Indian philosopher belonging to a school of thinkers, Navya-Nyāya, noted for its extreme realism and its contributions to philosophical methodology. Though Gadādhara’s commentaries on the school’s key texts are recognized as among the latest, most detailed and innovative, his greater claim to fame is due to his composition of a number of independent tracts on topics in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, ethics and legal theory. He may be credited in particular with the discovery of a version of the pragmatic theory of pronominal anaphora. His work on case grammar and inferential fallacies is highly admired in India, while recent translations into English have begun to make him better known outside.

Assent and Truth

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth L. Pearce
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Adequate Theory

Berkeley’s contemporary Peter Browne objected that, on Berkeley’s philosophy of language, “Words may be Significant, tho’ they signify Nothing” with the result that “all Faith would terminate in the Ear.” The key problem for Berkeley is that even given an adequate theory of reference it is unclear, in the absence of ideas, how words can be put together into truth-evaluable propositions which are possible objects of belief. This chapter argues that Berkeley endorses a dispositional theory of assent (belief) which takes a believer to be a follower of certain rules. This theory of assent is combined with a radical holism about truth. Although true belief does involve a sort of fit with reality, this fit must be understood as involving feelings and actions and not only ideas.

scholarly journals Verdade, interpretação e objetividade em Donald Davidson

2005 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
José Maria Arruda
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Propositional Attitudes ◽  
Donald Davidson ◽  
Radical Interpretation ◽  
Analytic Tradition ◽  
Philosophical Hermeneutic ◽  
Principle Of Charity ◽  
Radical Interpreter ◽  
Philosophical Importance

Donald Davidson foi um dos filósofos mais influentes da tradição analítica da segunda metade do século. A unidade de sua obra é constituída pelo papel central que reflexão sobre como podemos interpretar os proferimentos de um outro falante desempenha para a compreensão da natureza do significado. Davidson adota o ponto de vista metodológico de um intérprete que não pode pressupor nada sobre o significado das palavras de um falante e que não possui nenhum conhecimento detalhado de suas atitudes proposicionais. Neste artigo, eu apresento inicialmente a estrutura e os pressupostos da filosofia da linguagem de Davidson; passo depois a uma discussão sobre a importância do princípio de caridade para seu projeto interpretativo e, por fim, procuro apontar as diferenças do projeto de Davidson com a hermenêutica filosófica. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Interpretação radical. Princípio de caridade. Hermenêutica. ABSTRACT Donald Davidson was one of the most influential philosophers in the analytic tradition in the last half of the twenthy century. The unity of his work lies in the central role that the reflection on how we are able to interpret the speech of another plays in undestanding the nature of meaning. Davidson adopts the standpoint of the interpreter of the speech of another whose evidence does not, at the outset, pressupose anything about what the speaker’s words mean or any datailed knowledge of his propositional attitudes. This is the position of the radical interpreter. In this paper, I begin with an account of the assumptions and structure of Davidson’s philosophy of language; after this I discuss the philosophical importance of the principle of charity for the theory of radical interpretation and, at the end, I compare Davidson’s interpretative project to the philosophical hermeneutic. KEY WORDS – Radical interpretation. Principle of charity. Hermeneutics.

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