Thesis (Revise). / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Carleton University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 195-207). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2005. / Supervisor: Nicholas Asher. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

In a famous paper of 1931, Gödel proved that any formalization of elementary Arithmetic is incomplete, in the sense that it contains statements which are neither provable nor disprovable. Some two years before this, Presburger proved that a mutilated system of Arithmetic, employing only addition but not multiplication, is complete. This essay is partly an exposition of a system such as Presburger's, and partly an attempt to gain insight into the source of the incompleteness of Arithmetic, by linking Presburger's result with Gödel's.

Orientador: Zeljko Loparic / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-13T05:03:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Meirelles_AgostinhodeFreitas_D.pdf: 1015958 bytes, checksum: 5de95c6cae7f4a98ca1b2073d66a1608 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Resumo: Em nossa pesquisa defendemos a tese do projeto de Crítica da razão de Kant (1781-7), no qual, inicialmente, a problemática histórica é abordada de modo pouco elucidativo. O filósofo, segundo nos parece, nunca admitiu a existência de uma ciência histórica, e, por este motivo, jamais pretendeu fundar uma filosofia da história, apesar de o capítulo final da primeira Crítica receber o título de Historia da razão pura, onde Kant menciona a necessidade de examinar a referida história da filosofia segundo a perspectiva transcendental. Motivos não faltarão para duvidar da solidez da Doutrina transcendental do método (segunda parte da primeira Crítica), os quais serão, posteriormente, fornecidos pelo próprio filósofo. No que se refere à segunda Crítica (1788) nenhuma concepção de história se insinua. Em seus textos de filosofia prática escritos após essa obra, os quais abordam, direta ou indiretamente, a questão histórica, não há o apelo à consciência moral do sujeito e muito menos à idéia de uma vontade pura. Estes elementos, constitutivos do domínio da moralidade, são plenamente aceitáveis quando examinada a possibilidade do imperativo categórico. O principal objetivo da filosofia transcendental direcionada para o âmbito moral consiste somente em demonstrar que a lei moral, nos seres finitos, não é uma simples quimera, e que o acatamento subjetivo ao princípio objetivo não é só possível, mas real. Porém, quando a reflexão filosófica kantiana se vê obrigada a responder a respeito da possibilidade de a razão ser efetivamente prática, isto é, provar-se enquanto poder de determinação na natureza humana situada historicamente, o problema a resolver pela filosofia transcendental, como já dissemos, exige outro tipo de análise. Talvez este seja o teste mais difícil enfrentado pela filosofia crítica kantiana. A última centúria de nossa pesquisa visa apontar na terceira Crítica (1790-3) o aplainamento do caminho que facilitará o acesso da filosofia transcendental ao território indemarcável da história. Com a última Crítica, Kant consegue conferir à razão a orientação que necessitava para efetivar definitivamente o Giro copernicano em filosofia / Abstract: In our research we defend the thesis of Kant's Critique of Reason (1781-7), where, initially, the historic issue is approached in an insufficiently elucidative way. The philosopher, in our point of view, never admitted the existence of a historical science, and, for this reason, have never intended to create a philosophy of history, despite the fact that the final chapter of the first Critique is entitled History of pure reason, where Kant mentions the need to examine the aforesaid history of philosophy in conformity with the transcendental perspective. Certainly arguments will arise to bring doubts to the consistency of the transcendental Doctrine of the method (second part of the first Critique), which will, afterwards, be furnished by the philosopher himself. Regarding the second Critique (1788), no conception of history is suggested. His texts about practical philosophy written after the treatise, which approaches, direct or indirectly the historic issue, present no appeal to the moral conscience of the subject and also to the concept of a pure will. These elements, constitutive of the domain of morality, are fully acceptable when the possibility of a categorical imperative is examined. The main objective of transcendental philosophy directed towards the moral scope consists only in the demonstration that the moral law, in the finite existence, is not a simple chimera, and that the subjective acceptance to the objective principle is not only possible, but real. However, when the Kantian philosophic reflection faces the need to given an answer regarding the possibility of the reason being effectively practical, that is, to prove itself as a power of determination in the human nature historically placed, the problem to be solved by transcendental philosophy, as we mentioned before, requires another type of analysis. Perhaps this is the most difficult test faced by Kantian critical philosophy. The last centennial of our research aims to point out in the third Critique (1790-3) the leveling of the pathway, which will make it easier to access the transcendental philosophy to the non-limited territory of history. With the last Critique, Kant was successful in the task to grant to the reason the orientation required to complete the Copernican Revolution in philosophy / Doutorado / Filosofia / Doutor em Filosofia

Orientador: Zeljko Loparic / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-08T21:59:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Faggion_AndreaLuisaBucchile_D.pdf: 1765247 bytes, checksum: 66d0eedab94ae9f69896c902e4f5ddc1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / Resumo: A expressão ¿Revolução Copernicana¿, usada por Kant para enfatizar a ruptura entre a filosofia crítica e a metafísica tradicional, leva-nos, acima de tudo, a considerar o objeto do conhecimento de uma nova maneira. Agora, o problema da relação entre uma representação e seu objeto tem um conceito do último similar a uma construção matemática como sua condição de solubilidade. Em outras palavras, a forma do objeto é considerada como sendo constituída por operações cognitivas. Explorando a Dedução Transcendental e o Esquematismo Transcendental, nós acreditamos ter descoberto que, mais do que a possibilidade de que um objeto em sentido ¿forte¿ seja constituído por operações cognitivas, Kant teve sucesso mesmo em provar que, em princípio, nós sempre temos que poder executar aquelas operações (desde que nós temos intelecto discursivo e intuição sensível). Isto é o mesmo que dizer que nossa leitura pretende compatibilizar a Semântica Trasncendental, enquanto uma Semântica Construtivista, com uma leitura anti-cética dos fins da Analítica Transcendental / Abstract: The expression ¿Copernican Revolution¿, used by Kant to emphasize the rupturebetween critical philosophy and metaphysical tradition, takes us, above all, to consider the object of knowledge in a new way. Now, the problem of the relation between a representation and its object has a concept of the later which is similar to a mathematical construction as its solvability condition. In other words, the form of the object is taken as constituted by cognitive operations. By exploring the Transcendental Deduction and the Transcendental Schematism, we believe to have discovered that, more than the possibility that an object in the ¿weighty¿ sense be constituted by cognitive operations, Kant has even succeed in proving that, in principle, we always have to be able to execute those operations (since we have discursive intellect and sensible intuition). This amounts to say that our reading intends to make Transcendental Semantic as a Constructive Semantic compatible with an anti-skeptical reading of Transcendental Analytic¿s goals / Doutorado / Doutor em Filosofia

Orientador: Walter Carnielli / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-12T05:55:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Podiacki_Rodrigo_M.pdf: 538726 bytes, checksum: 3a51529177d89ce92122bde746a321c3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / Resumo: Esta dissertação tem como objetivo desenvolver uma semântica correta e completa para uma classe de lógicas de primeira ordem conhecidas como Lógicas da Inconsistência Formal (LIFs). Após uma elucidação geral sobre semânticas paraconsistentes e de primeira ordem, uma LIF particular, chamada QmbC, será caracterizada axiomaticamente. Em seguida será construída uma semÂntica que se demonstrará correta e completa para a LIF em questão. Por fim, uma série de LIFs com propriedades sintáticas interessantes serão caracterizadas axiomaticamente, e será visto como a semântica construída para QmbC pode ser estendida para todas essas lógicas. / Abstract: This dissertation aims to develop a sound and complete semantics for a class of first-order logics known as Logics of Formal Inconsistency (LFIs). After general explanation about paraconsistent and first-order semantics, a particular LFI, labeled QmbC, will be characterized by means of an axiom system. Then a sound and complete semantics for it will be constructed. Finally, a variety of LFIs having nice syntactic properties will be axiomatically defined, and it will be shown how the semantics proposed for QmbC can be extended for all these logics. / Mestrado / Filosofia / Mestre em Filosofia

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This is a study of the work of John Locke and his ideas relating to the field of semantics.

The overarching topic of this dissertation is the semantics and pragmatics of definite descriptions. It focuses on the question whether sentences such as ‘the king of France is bald’ literally assert the existence of a unique king (and therefore are false) or simply presuppose the existence of such a king (and thus fail to express propositions). One immediate obstacle to resolving this question is that immediate truth value judgments about such sentences (sentences with non-denoting descriptions) are particularly unstable; some elicit a clear intuition of falsity whereas others simply seem awkward or strange. Because of these variations, truth value judgments are generally considered unreliable. In the first chapter of the dissertation, an explanation of this phenomenon is developed. It is observed that when these types of sentences are considered in the context of a discourse, a systematic pattern in judgments emerges. This pattern, it is argued, should be explained in terms of certain pragmatic factors, e.g. whether a speaker’s utterance is interpreted as cooperative. A detailed and general explanation of the phenomenon is then presented which draws importantly on recent research in the semantics and pragmatics of questions and focus. It is shown that the behavior of these judgments can be systematically explained, that truth value judgments are not as unreliable as standardly assumed, and that the proposed explanation best supports the conclusion that definite descriptions presuppose rather than assert existence. In the second chapter, the following problem is investigated. If definite descriptions are assumed to literally assert existence, a sentence such as ‘Hans wants the ghost in his attic to be quiet’ is incorrectly predicted to be true only if Hans wants there to be a (unique) ghost in his attic. This prediction is often considered evidence against Russell’s quantificational analysis and evidence in favor of the referential analysis of Frege and Strawson. Against this claim, it is demonstrated that this problem is a general problem about the existence commitments of natural language determiners, i.e. not an argument in favor of a referential analysis. It is shown that in order to avoid these undesirable predictions, quite radical changes to the semantic framework are required. For example, it must be assumed that a sentence of the form ‘The F is G’ has the open sentence ‘x is G’ as its asserted content. A uniform quantificational and presuppositional analysis of definites and indefinites is outlined which by exploiting certain features of so-called dynamic semantics unproblematically assumes that the asserted contents indeed are open sentences. In view of the proposed quantificational/presuppositional analysis, the dissertation is concluded by a rejection of the argument put forward by Reimer (1998) and Devitt (2004) that definite descriptions are ambiguous between attributive (quantificational) and referential (indexical) uses. Reimer and Devitt’s argument is (in contrast to Donnellan, 1966) based primarily on the assumption that definite descriptions are conventionally used to communicate singular thoughts and that the conventional meaning of a definite description therefore must be fundamentally indexical/directly referential. I argue that this argument relies crucially on tacit assumptions about semantic processing for which no empirical evidence is provided. I also argue that the argument is too general; if sound, it would be an argument for an indexical treatment of most, if not all, other determiners. I then conclude by demonstrating that the view does not explain any new data and thus has no clear motivation. In short, this dissertation provides a detailed pragmatic explanation of a long-standing puzzle about truth value judgments and then outlines a novel dynamic semantic analysis of definites and indefinites. This analysis solves a significant problem about existence commitments — a problem that neither Russell’s nor the Frege/Strawson analysis are equipped to handle. This analysis is then defended against the claim that definite descriptions are ambiguous.