20
votes
Comedy we play everyday and pretend everything is fine?
The first person who comes to mind is Albert Camus who won the 1957 Nobel Prize for literature, and authored many writings that contributed to the ideas in the philosophy known as absurdism.
"......
- 301
12
votes
Accepted
Do Wittgenstein and Quine give the same criticisms of semantics?
Yes and no. They both criticize a certain approach to semantic theory that can be called realism about meaning. Roughly, realists see meanings as some kind of entities, although there is a wide range ...
- 42k
12
votes
What fallacy infers motivation from mere description?
The issue in the example seems to be that the word "dominate" is used in two different senses. When this is done in an argument (it is not clear that this is so here) the fallacy is called ...
- 42k
11
votes
Accepted
How does Putnam's twin earth thought experiment disprove functionalism?
The Twin Earth argument undercuts functionalism because it undercuts the identification of the mental with the functional. But the problem is not with creating "meanings", but with capturing them ...
- 42k
10
votes
Accepted
Is there a point to arguing about the meaning of words?
In many situations there is. Strictly speaking, a definition can never be "wrong", unless it is incoherent or contains a contradiction, like "dry wetness". But it can be awkward, cumbersome, confusing,...
- 42k
8
votes
Accepted
Is there an idea of linguistic realism similar to moral realism?
Your view is similar to that of late Wittgenstein, after the so-called "linguistic turn". In Philosophical Investigations published in 1953 he writes “For a large class of cases of the employment of ...
- 42k
8
votes
Is verificationism dead?
There is nothing without prefiguration in philosophy; and the dead usually rise from their graves. So, to follow Mauro's lead:
According to the standard textbook account, verificationism is a
...
- 35.2k
6
votes
How does Putnam's twin earth thought experiment disprove functionalism?
I will focus here on the first part of the question, which pertains to Putnam's argument to the effect that "meanings ain't in the head". I take this (rather than functionalism) to be the main issue.
...
- 7,281
6
votes
Why are some communication failures regarded as important opinions in philosophy?
I'll try to provide a partial answer as I do think this is an interesting question about philosophy.
Reasons Philosophy is Hard to Understand
First, I would say that you might be losing something in ...
- 24.4k
6
votes
Can a life have a trivial meaning if it's all there is?
The whole discussion whether life is trivial or meaningful seems to me to be based on the wrong assumption that significance or insignificance is a property inherent to life, that life qua life is ...
- 20.7k
6
votes
What fallacy infers motivation from mere description?
My interpretation is that the original statements are not necessarily fallacious, but rather a question of the semantics carried by the word "dominate." To dominate can mean colloquially that one ...
- 161
6
votes
What's the name of the argumentation position / logical fallacy of saying "well prove it doesn't exist"
It's called shifting the burden of proof.
burden of proof
You said that the burden of proof lies not with the person making the claim, but with someone else to disprove.
- yourlogicalfallacyis....
- 450
6
votes
Accepted
With infinite language would the meaning of words collapse?
Isn't every natural language an infinite language in the sense that it can generate infinitely many sentences and infinitely many word-tokens ? This is the case even if most of these sentences are ...
- 35.2k
4
votes
Is Peirce's pragmatic maxim self-evident?
Not exactly. Peirce himself considered it a distillation of "common sense", but he offered it as an alternative to the then dominant Cartesian foundationalism. Many disputed the pragmatic ...
- 42k
4
votes
Accepted
How are you intended to interpret x.R and x.S in Davidson "Truth and Meaning"?
The phrase x̂(x=x) means 'the x such that x=x'. This is just a way of forming a singular term that refers to something. The . is conjunction ('and').
So x̂(x=x.R)=x̂(x=x) is logically equivalent to ...
- 6,388
4
votes
Accepted
Would a pragmatist allow that meaning is representational of things in its use?
I do not think that there is any issue with viewing signification as an activity, in fact this is how pragmatists view it since Peirce. In modern terms, pragmatism asserts semantic and epistemological ...
- 42k
4
votes
Accepted
Can there be a sufficient account of meaning without an account of intentionality?
I think that any comprehensive account of meaning must include an account of intentionality, but the real challenge is to give an account of both meaning and intentionality in non-intentional terms. ...
- 42k
4
votes
Accepted
What are the relations between externalism (Kripke, Putnam) and holism (Quine) about meaning?
Holism is an epistemological position, and externalism is a semantic one. Of course, some degree of interaction is to be expected, but not only is it possible to hold them together, it is not ...
- 42k
4
votes
Can purpose be attributed to events without grounding in agency
To answer the title question:
Can purpose be attributed to events without grounding in agency?
Yes. There are several examples:
Daniel Dennett in several of his lectures explains how nature ...
- 26.8k
4
votes
If I think life has meaning, then does that mean life is not meaningless?
'Meaning of life' questions are exceptionally difficult, at any rate I find them so. I'm inclined to say that life is not meaningless merely because (or if) you believe it to have meaning. If, for ...
- 35.2k
4
votes
Is verificationism dead?
The answer by Geoffrey Thomas is helpful, but a point made in the text deserves amplification. It could reasonably be said that verificationism lives on. But only because the question of "...
- 528
4
votes
Do we have to know certain things in order to die authentically happily?
"There are those who do not realize that one day we all must die. But
those who do realize this settle their quarrels." -from the opening
section of The Dhammapada
"I don't know why we ...
- 16.2k
3
votes
Accepted
What is the difference between propositional sign and proposition in Wittgenstein's Tractatus?
See Frank Plumpton Ramsey, The Foundations of mathematics (1931), page 274:
A propositional sign is a sentence ; but this statement must be qualified, for by 'sentence' may be meant something of ...
- 35.5k
3
votes
Accepted
Was indeterminacy of linguistic meaning, as understood by Quine, anticipated by the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition?
I see two separate issues here, the determinateness of meanings and Quine's behaviorist route to rejecting it. While the latter is indeed subject to much criticism it is not conjoined at the hip to ...
- 42k
3
votes
How does Derrida explain the possibility of meaningful communication and linguistic coordination?
The question is a powerful one. You might consider the possibility that Derrida never achieves what you suggest he should, and that he is in fact most of the time playing the sort of intra-...
- 208
3
votes
Is "A and not-A" meaningful (and false) or meaningless?
In dealing with 3-valued logic, statements of the form "A and Not A" can be judged either false or equivocal. It is easy to imagine states of affairs "The light is and not on", when it is flickering, "...
- 574
3
votes
What is the difference between responsibility and commitment?
Both concepts are vague and often used interchangeably, and their dictionary definitions are almost indistinguishable:"the state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something" vs. "the state ...
- 42k
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