Naturalistic philosophers aim to understand the world on the basis of science. A naturalist takes empirical evidence to be the ultimate arbiter of our beliefs. As naturalists, our investigations of the nature of truth itself should respect this empiricist methodology. In this essay, I argue that the existence and character of truth are open empirical questions, to be answered by scientific inquiry. I then argue against an a priori proof of the existence of truth. / text

In this thesis, Semantics, Meta-Semantics, and Ontology, I provide a critique of the method of truth in metaphysics. Davidson has suggested that we can determine the metaphysical nature and structure of reality through semantic investigations. By contrast, I argue that it is not semantics, but meta-semantics, which reveals the metaphysically necessary and sufficient truth conditions of our claims. As a consequence I reject the Quinean (semantic) criterion of ontological commitment. In Part I, chapter 1, I argue that the metaphysically primary truth bearers are not propositions, but rather concrete representations, either beliefs or sentences. I show, in chapter 2, that we can give sense to a truth predicate applying to sentences, given a truth operator and quantification into sentence position. I argue that this strategy does not commit us to the existence of propositions serving as truth bearers. In Part II I argue that although we must assign semantic values to sentences and/or predicates, the meaningfulness of these expressions is not thereby explained. In chapter 3 I articulate Davidson’s problem of predication and his solution, but argue that he was wrong to attribute this solution to Tarski. In chapter 4 I examine the semantics of modal languages; I conclude that although they require semantic values for predicates and/or sentences we should be instrumentalists about these theories. In Part III I consider the relationship between truth and existence. In chapter 5, I defend Pluralism about truth: in some (though not all) domains of discourse, I claim, semantic reference plays a merely instrumental role in explaining truth. In chapter 6, I show that Hume’s Principle, which is committed by the Quinean criterion to the existence of numbers, can be true even though numbers do not exist. In doing so, I appeal to meta-semantic and diachronic considerations. In the conclusion I compare my views on ontology and commitment to Jody Azzouni’s; and in the appendix I suggest how one might pursue diachronic linguistics.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 215-219).

Thesis (Ph.D.) in History--University of Maine, 2008. / Includes vita. Abstract, table of contents in French and English. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 320-360).

Richard Rorty's seminal work, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), a text that critiques the foundationalist aspirations of philosophy, locates John Locke within a line of thinkers primarily concerned with discerning and accurately representing either the external "reality" of the world or the internal essence of human beings. Such thinkers, according to Rorty, have perpetuated the conception of philosophy as foundational-that is, mediating between "reality" and all other claims to knowledge in order to adjudicate accuracy of representation. Contending that the conception of philosophy as foundational derives from an obsolete vocabulary inherited from the seventeenth century, Rorty locates philosophic texts on par with all other texts, whose relation to the world is functional rather than foundational. Rorty then proposes that philosophy assume a more pragmatic cultural role as the promoter, but not the arbiter, of more fruitful redescriptions of ourselves to deal with the historically specific complexity of the world. Rorty's conception of language as a tool that underpins his argument that texts bear a functional as opposed to foundational relation to the world forms the theoretical framework for my analysis of John Locke's An Essay concerning Human Understanding. Although the putative impetus of Locke's Essay is discerning the origin of our ideas as the foundations of all knowledge, this thesis proffers an alternate reading of Locke's Essay by attending to its rhetorical structure. More specifically, I argue that the Essay is an experiential and experimental text that insistently involves the reader in the textual exegesis of mind. Based on my reading of the rhetorical movements and literal denotation of the Essay, I propose that the primary aim of the text was not to represent accurately the cognitive processes of the mind forming ideas about the world as the foundations of all knowledge; rather, I suggest that the Essay self-consciously functions metaphorically by proffering a new vocabulary with which to think about mind, world, language, and society as a viable alternative to endless sectarian strife. Using Rorty's vocabulary to redescribe Locke's rhetorical project in the Essay, I suggest that Locke's text not only embodies an awareness of its own contingency, but functions within its historical context in the role which Rorty proposes for philosophy. In this regard, Locke and Rorty become aligned on an imaginative continuum in their shared rhetorical project of redescription with specifically pragmatic aims. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Contemporary scholars of Indian philosophy are of the opinion that the Vedas are purely ritualistic. This opinion finds support in the translations and commentaries of Sayanacharya and Mahidhara, on which their scholarship is based. The interpretation of the Vedas by the above mentioned authors is against the root derivatives of the words and antagonistic to the expositions of the various hymns given by the Vedic sages and Riahia. In order to be a valid translation it has to be in conformity with the ideas and derivatives contained in Vedanga, Alteraya, Shatpatha, Brahmans, etc. Sayanacharys says that all the four Vedas em- phasize the Karmakand (rituale), only.| However, it can easily be seen that amongst the many topics, the Vedas deal with four Important ones, namely: (I) Karma, (2) Vijuana, (3) worship (upasana) sod (4) Jana. Mundak Upanisad in part says:

The purpose of this thesis is to attempt to answer the question why chatbot computer programs are often not very good at communicating in human natural language. It is argued that one possible reason why chatbots are often not good conversationalists is because they model communication in terms of only encoding and decoding processes. Human communication, however, involves making inferences about the mental states of others. Chapter one begins by exploring a popular theory about how communication works called the code model of communication. The code model describes human communication as having to do with speakers encoding thoughts into utterances and listeners decoding utterances to recover a representation of the thought that the speaker wanted to communicate. A variation on the code model is also explained; this is referred to as the information-theoretic code model. Two arguments against the code model will then be presented. Finally, an alternative to the code model is considered, called the ostensive-inferential model of communication. Chapter two begins with an explanation of how chatbots work. Chatbots are made up of several different components. The language model component provides chatbots with the ability to produce and interpret utterances. Next, an explanation of how language models work, and how chatbots can represent the meanings of words is provided. The chapter concludes by documenting the fact that chatbots communicate using only encoding and decoding processes – that is, that chatbots communicate within the paradigm of the code model of communication. Chapter three explains how the fact that chatbots communicate using only encoding and decoding processes can help explain why chatbots often cannot communicate effectively in human natural language. The poor conversational abilities of chatbots are a result of the fact that chatbots only access linguistic context, whereas listeners need access to non-linguistic context to be able to grasp utterance meaning. The question of whether chatbots are able to make inferences about non-linguistic properties of context at all is also considered. It is argued that they cannot, precisely because the neural language models that they rely upon for their linguistic competence are natural codes that merely associate percepts with output behaviours using encoding and decoding processes. / Thesis / Master of Philosophy (MA) / The purpose of this thesis is to explore the question why chatbot computer programs are often not very good at communicating in human natural language. It is argued that one possible reason why chatbots are often not good conversationalists is because they model communication in terms of only encoding and decoding processes. Human communication, however, involves making inferences about the mental states of others.

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This thesis calls for a reconfiguration of hate speech as a primarily normative phenomenon. All hate speech strives to weaken the social-moral normative status of its targets and in doing, justifies violence against its target. In light of this normative function, the harm of hate speech is reconsidered. Against traditional defenders of hate speech regulation, I claim that individual and collective harm is a highly likely, but not a necessary consequence of hate speech, while intrinsic harm and reckless risk necessarily follow from hate speech’s normative capacity. In light of the normative origin of such harms, a societal response with normative clout is required. However, while individual responses are insufficient to block the normativity of hate speech, I suggest that the legal system is characteristically well-suited to do so. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

The problem of induction is most famously discussed by David Hume, though he himself has never resorted to the notion of “induction.” As part of Hume’s overall project of identifying the logical fallacy of causal relations, the problem of induction is identified as the problem of “the unobservable matters of fact.“ Hume argues that, as empirical beings, we can believe in two types of knowledge with confidence: relations of ideas and observable matters of facts. We can be certain about the relations of ideas, since by analyzing the relation itself we can come to necessarily true conclusions about such relations. On the other hand, we do not need to question observable matters of fact, since such are the content of our experience, and empirical matters such as “tables” and “chairs” are not subject to truth or falsity: it would be quite meaningless to argue that “it is true that table.” Though our perceptive experience easily invites another interesting philosophical discussion - most famously discusses by Descartes - that is, the external world scepticism, that is not something that this paper would address. Hume’s point, in the end, is to show that when we infer any unobservable matters of fact - that is, inductive inferences - from observable matters of facts, we are committing to a logical fallacy where the true premises of the inference does not guarantee the truth of the conclusion.