The purpose of this study is to discuss the appropriateness of a cognitive approach to Donald Davidson&#039 / s meaning theory. Davidson makes the bold proposal that a truth theory, modified for a natural language, may be treated as a meaning theory for that language. According to Davidson, a meaning theory is an empirical theory. Radical Interpretation is at the center of such an empirical inquiry which places restrictions on the truth theory to make it suitable as a meaning theory without appeal to semantic notions. Davidson&lsquo / s aim in presenting this bold proposal and radical interpretation is to shed light on the concept of meaning, not to define the actual semantic competence of language users. But what Davidson&lsquo / s project does not aim to define is the main thing that a cognitive approach must account for. Whether a truth theory can represent the semantic competence of language users is discussed in this work. It is concluded that, although there is no a priori reason for such a representation claim, the cognitive approach&mdash / with the right assumptions to make the claim testable&mdash / can lead to an empirical research programme.

Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit werden zwei allgemeine Ziele verfolgt: ein negatives und ein positives. Das negative Ziel besteht darin, den Nachweis zu liefern, daß auf der Grundlage einer deflationistischen Konzeption der Wahrheit keine angemessene philosophische Analyse der Wahrheit gegeben werden kann. Meine kritische Aufmerksamkeit galt dabei vor allem den Varianten dieser Art von Wahrheitskonzeption, die gegenwärtig auch tatsächlich (noch) vertreten werden. Das positive Ziel besteht darin, eine plausible und alternative Konzeption der Wahrheit zu entwickeln, die manche richtigen Beobachtungen deflationistischer Konzeptionen der Wahrheit in sich aufnimmt, aber vor allem die Fehler und Schwächen dieser Konzeptionen vermeidet und ausräumt.

BONFIM, Jonatan Henrique Pinho. A semântica de Davidson: verdade, referência e mundo. 2015. 100f. – Dissertação (Mestrado) – Universidade Federal do Ceará, Programa de Pós-graduação em Filosofia, Fortaleza (CE), 2015. / Submitted by Márcia Araújo (marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2015-12-14T15:25:22Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2015_dis_jhpbonfim.pdf: 570430 bytes, checksum: dd1853860ade8efbe993a541f0e4a9fc (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Márcia Araújo(marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2015-12-14T16:53:22Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2015_dis_jhpbonfim.pdf: 570430 bytes, checksum: dd1853860ade8efbe993a541f0e4a9fc (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-12-14T16:53:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2015_dis_jhpbonfim.pdf: 570430 bytes, checksum: dd1853860ade8efbe993a541f0e4a9fc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / É possível elaborar uma teoria do significado sem levar em conta o mundo como referência? Por meio dessa inquietação propormos analisar as críticas de Donald Davidson a teoria da verdade como correspondência e a semântica clássica, cujas entidades extralinguísticas e o mundo “desnudo” são determinantes para compor a significação. Por meio da investigação do seu programa – Programa de Davidson – indicaremos a) as possíveis soluções e dissoluções de problemas gerados por tais teorias, muitas vezes, provenientes da concepção de linguagem subjacente a elas e b) a construção de uma teoria adequada do significado que tem como ponto nevrálgico mostrar que na comunicação entre falantes competentes há uma construção de uma teoria da verdade para a linguagem do outro. Davidson convida-nos a trilhar outro percurso teórico que pensam os conteúdos, dentre eles a referência, sendo construído dentro da linguagem e não mais fora dela, sem, contudo, cair no problema da vacuidade da linguagem, portanto, de uma explicação da significação completamente desconectada do mundo.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / à possÃvel elaborar uma teoria do significado sem levar em conta o mundo como referÃncia? Por meio dessa inquietaÃÃo propormos analisar as crÃticas de Donald Davidson a teoria da verdade como correspondÃncia e a semÃntica clÃssica, cujas entidades extralinguÃsticas e o mundo âdesnudoâ sÃo determinantes para compor a significaÃÃo. Por meio da investigaÃÃo do seu programa â Programa de Davidson â indicaremos a) as possÃveis soluÃÃes e dissoluÃÃes de problemas gerados por tais teorias, muitas vezes, provenientes da concepÃÃo de linguagem subjacente a elas e b) a construÃÃo de uma teoria adequada do significado que tem como ponto nevrÃlgico mostrar que na comunicaÃÃo entre falantes competentes hà uma construÃÃo de uma teoria da verdade para a linguagem do outro. Davidson convida-nos a trilhar outro percurso teÃrico que pensam os conteÃdos, dentre eles a referÃncia, sendo construÃdo dentro da linguagem e nÃo mais fora dela, sem, contudo, cair no problema da vacuidade da linguagem, portanto, de uma explicaÃÃo da significaÃÃo completamente desconectada do mundo.

Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit werden zwei allgemeine Ziele verfolgt: ein negatives und ein positives. Das negative Ziel besteht darin, den Nachweis zu liefern, daß auf der Grundlage einer deflationistischen Konzeption der Wahrheit keine angemessene philosophische Analyse der Wahrheit gegeben werden kann. Meine kritische Aufmerksamkeit galt dabei vor allem den Varianten dieser Art von Wahrheitskonzeption, die gegenwärtig auch tatsächlich (noch) vertreten werden. Das positive Ziel besteht darin, eine plausible und alternative Konzeption der Wahrheit zu entwickeln, die manche richtigen Beobachtungen deflationistischer Konzeptionen der Wahrheit in sich aufnimmt, aber vor allem die Fehler und Schwächen dieser Konzeptionen vermeidet und ausräumt.

Two main questions are addressed in this dissertation, namely: 1. What is the correct higher-order modal theory; 2. What does it take for theories to be equivalent. The whole dissertation consists of an extended argument in defence of the joint truth of two higher-order modal theories, namely, Plantingan Moderate Contingentism, a higher-order necessitist theory advocated by Plantinga (1974) and committed to the contingent being of some individuals, and Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism, a higher-order necessitist theory advocated by Williamson (2013) and committed to the necessary being of every possible individual. The case for the truth of these two theories relies on defences of the following metaphysical theses: i) Thorough Serious Actualism, according to which no things could have been related and yet be nothing, ii) Higher-Order Necessitism, according to which necessarily, every higher-order entity is necessarily something. It is shown that Thorough Serious Actualism and Higher-Order Necessitism are both implicit commitments of very weak logical theories. Prima facie, Plantingan Moderate Contingentism and Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism are jointly inconsistent. The argument for their joint truth thus relies also on showing i) their equivalence, and ii) that the dispute between Plantingans and Williamsonians is merely verbal. The case for i) and ii) relies on the Synonymy Account, an account of theory equivalence developed and defended in the dissertation. According to the account, theories are equivalent just in case they have the same structure of entailments and commitments, and the occupiers of the places in that structure are the same propositions. An immediate consequence of the Synonymy Account is that proponents of synonymous theories are engaged in merely verbal disputes. The Synonymy Account is also applied to the debate between noneists and Quineans, revealing that what is in question in that debate is what are the expressive resources available to describe the world.

Is it possible to describe questing for truth as a fundamental moral claim? If so, in what meaning than? The goal of the submitted work is to find the answer to these questions. As the starting point of reflections serves a characteristic of a man as a person in spirit of dialogical personalism. This correspond with personal project conception of moral truth. That is put in connection with the life story of Jesus of Nazareth as a true man. With the assistence of the terms "conscience" and "liberty" is the final conception of moral truth set in a wider purview of ethical reflections and consequently confrontated with teaching of encyclical "Veritas splendor".

My thesis aims at contributing to classifying the Liar-like paradoxes (and related Truth-teller-like expressions) by clarifying distinctions and relationships between these expressions and arguments. Such a classification is worthwhile, firstly, because it makes some progress towards reducing a potential infinity of versions into a finite classification; secondly, because it identifies a number of new paradoxes, and thirdly and most significantly, because it corrects the historically misplaced distinction between semantic and set-theoretic paradoxes. I emphasize the third result because the distinction made by Peano [1906] and supported by Ramsey [1925] has been used to warrant different responses to the semantic and set-theoretic paradoxes. I find two types among the paradoxes of truth, satisfaction and membership, but the division is shifted from where it has historically been drawn. This new distinction is, I believe, more fundamental than the Peano-Ramsey distinction between semantic and set-theoretic paradoxes. The distinction I investigate is ultimately exemplified in a difference between the logical principles necessary to prove the Liar and those necessary to prove Grelling’s and Russell’s paradoxes. The difference relates to proofs of the inconsistency of naive truth and satisfaction; in the end, we will have two associated ways of proving each result. ¶ Another principled division is intuitively anticipated. I coin the term 'hypodox' (adj.: 'hypodoxical') for a generalization of Truth-tellers across paradoxes of truth, satisfaction, membership, reference, and where else it may find applicability. I make and investigate a conjecture about paradox and hypodox duality: that each paradox (at least those in the scope of the classification) has a dual hypodox.¶ In my investigation, I focus on paradoxes that might intuitively be thought to be relatives of the Liar paradox, including Grelling’s (which I present as a paradox of satisfaction) and, by analogy with Grelling’s paradox, Russell’s paradox. I extend these into truth-functional and some non-truth-functional variations, beginning with the Epimenides, Curry’s paradox, and similar variations. There are circular and infinite variations, which I relate via lists. In short, I focus on paradoxes of truth, satisfaction and some paradoxes of membership. ¶ Among the new paradoxes, three are notable in advance. The first is a non-truth functional variation on the Epimenides. This helps put the Epimenides on a par with Curry’s as a paradox in its own right and not just a lesser version of the Liar. I find the second paradox by working through truth-functional variants of the paradoxes. This new paradox, call it ‘the ESP’, can be either true or false, but can still be used to prove some other arbitrary statement. The third new paradox is another paradox of satisfaction, distinctly different from Grelling’s paradox. On this basis, I make and investigate the new distinction between two different types of paradox of satisfaction, and map one type back by direct analogy to the Liar, and the other by direct analogy to Russell's paradox.

A large amount of information is contained in textual records, which originate from a variety of sources such as handwritten records and digital media like audio and video files. The information contained in these records is unstructured and to visualise the content of the records is not a trivialtask.In order to visualise information contained in unstructured textual records, the information must be extracted from the records and transformed into a structured format. This research aimed to visualise the coherence of facts contained in textual sources in order to allow the user who make use of the visualisation to make an assumption about the validity of the textual records as a set. For the purpose of the study, it was contemplated that the coherence of facts contained in a document set was indicated by the multiple occurrences of the same fact over several documents in the set. The output of this research is a model that abstracts the process required to transform information contained in unstructured textual records into a structured format and the visual representation of the multiple occurrences of facts in order to support the process of making an assumption about the coherence of facts in the set. This assumption enables the user to make a decision.based on the coherence theory of truth.about the validity of the document set. The modelprovides guidance and practices for performing tasks on similar textualdocument sets containing secondary data. The development of the model was informed by a phased construction of three specific software solution instantiations.namely an initial information extraction, an intermediate visual representation and a final information visualisation instantiation. The final solution instantiation was demonstrated to research participants and was evaluated as well. A pragmatic design science research approach was followed in order to solve the research problem. In conducting the research an adaption of the Peffers et at. (2006) design research process model was followed. The result of the research is a model for the visual representation of the coherence of facts in a textual document set. Expert review of the model is added through a process of peer review and academic scrutiny by means of conference papers and a journal article. It is envisaged that the results of the research can be applied to a number of research fields such as Indigenous Knowledge, History and Law. / School of Computing / M. Sc. (Computing)

<p>The purpose of this dissertation is to provide a proper treatment for two groups of logical paradoxes: semantic paradoxes and set-theoretic paradoxes. My main thesis is that the two different groups of paradoxes need different kinds of solution. Based on the analysis of the diagonal method and truth-gap theory, I propose a functional-deflationary interpretation for semantic notions such as ‘heterological’, ‘true’, ‘denote’, and ‘define’, and argue that the contradictions in semantic paradoxes are due to a misunderstanding of the non-representational nature of these semantic notions. Thus, they all can be solved by clarifying the relevant confusion: the liar sentence and the heterological sentence do not have truth values, and phrases generating paradoxes of definability (such as that in Berry’s paradox) do not denote an object. I also argue against three other leading approaches to the semantic paradoxes: the Tarskian hierarchy, contextualism, and the paraconsistent approach. I show that they fail to meet one or more criteria for a satisfactory solution to the semantic paradoxes. For the set-theoretic paradoxes, I argue that the criterion for a successful solution in the realm of set theory is mathematical usefulness. Since the standard solution, i.e. the axiomatic solution, meets this requirement, it should be accepted as a successful solution to the set-theoretic paradoxes.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)