Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy最新文献

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Pub Date : 2013-01-01 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0400

Holger Andreas

{"title":"Theoretical Terms in Science","authors":"Holger Andreas","doi":"10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0400","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0400","url":null,"abstract":"What is a theoretical term? This question can be answered in at least two different ways. First, a theoretical term is simply a non-observational term. Second, a theoretical term is one whose meaning depends on the axioms of a scientific theory. According to the first explanation, a theoretical term cannot be applied using just unaided perception, without drawing inferences. This explanation defines the notion of theoreticity merely as the absence of observability. The second explanation, by contrast, has the virtue of giving a positive characterization of the notion of theoreticity. Both explanations stand in the need of further elaboration. If we characterize theoretical terms by non-observability, we need to explain what an observational term is. There is no consensus in the literature as to whether and, if so, to what extent it is feasible to draw the theory-observation distinction. On the one hand, critics of the theory-observation distinction have often attacked only weak proposals of how to draw the distinction in question. On the other hand, the extreme skepticism by Thomas S. Kuhn, Paul K. Feyerabend, and Norwood R. Hanson concerning the distinction is increasingly losing consensus among contemporary philosophers of science. This is evidenced, for example, by attempts at exploiting the formal semantics of theoretical terms in one version of structural realism. If we explain the notion of a theoretical term by way of semantic dependency upon a scientific theory, we need to give an account of this semantic relation. How does a theory determine the meaning of a theoretical term? What, if any, are the differences between theoretical terms and defined terms? How can we distinguish, in a sensible way, between the synthetic assertions of a scientific theory about the world and meaning postulates determining the meaning of theoretical terms? Various formal semantics of theoretical terms have been devised in order to answer these questions. Notably, the idea that the meaning of a theoretical term is determined by a scientific theory, or a set of such theories, has already been expressed by Pierre Duhem and Henrie Poincaré. The theory-observation distinction can be applied to syntactic and semantic entities. Thus, we can speak of theoretical terms and theoretical concepts. Moreover, we can speak of theoretical entities, in the sense of specific objects that are the referents of theoretical concepts. Philosophical research on theoreticity concerns syntactic aspects inasmuch as semantic aspects of theoreticity.","PeriodicalId":30000,"journal":{"name":"Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"61152756","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 32

Feminist Perspectives on Rape 女性主义视角下的强奸

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Pub Date : 2009-05-13 DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-4090-9.ch014

R. Whisnant

引用次数: 40

The logic of action 行动的逻辑

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Pub Date : 2009-03-31 DOI: 10.2307/j.ctv1c7zfsc.6

K. Segerberg, J. Meyer, M. Kracht

{"title":"The logic of action","authors":"K. Segerberg, J. Meyer, M. Kracht","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv1c7zfsc.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1c7zfsc.6","url":null,"abstract":"In this article we provide a brief overview of the logic of action in philosophy, linguistics, computer science and artificial intelligence. The logic of action is the formal study of action in which formal languages are the main tool of analysis. The concept of action is of central interest to many disciplines: the social sciences including economics, the humanities including history and literature, psychology, linguistics, law, computer science, artificial intelligence, and probably others. In philosophy it has been studied since the beginning because of its importance for epistemology and, particularly, ethics; and since a few decades it is even studied for its own sake. But it is in the logic of action that action is studied in the most abstract way. The logic of action began in philosophy. But it has also played a certain role in linguistics. And currently it is of great importance in computer science and artificial intelligence. For our purposes it is natural to separate the accounts of these developments. 1 The logic of action in philosophy 1.1 Historical overview Already St Anselm studied the concept of action in a way that must be classified as logical; had he known symbolic logic, he would certainly have made use of it. (Cf. [33] and [101].) In modern times the subject was introduced by, among others, Alan Ross Anderson, Frederick B. Fitch, Stig Kanger, and Georg Henrik von Wright; Kanger’s work was further developed by his students Ingmar Porn and Lars Lindahl. The first clearly semantic account was given by Brian F. Chellas in [11]. (For a more detailed account, see [83] or the mini-history in [8].) Today there are two rather different groups of theories that may be described as falling under the term logic of action. One, the result of the creation of Nuel Belnap and his many collaborators, may be called stit theory (a term that will be explained in the next paragraph). The other is dynamic logic. Both are connected","PeriodicalId":30000,"journal":{"name":"Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68788515","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 49

The Repugnant Conclusion 令人反感的结论

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Pub Date : 2004-01-01 DOI: 10.1002/9781444367072.WBIEE484

G. Arrhenius, J. Ryberg, T. Tännsjö

引用次数: 84

Freedom of Speech 言论自由

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Pub Date : 2002-11-29 DOI: 10.4135/9781608712434.n609

D. Mill

引用次数: 183