School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemMeaningless statements( 195-?)My first interest was in the logical status of statements, "nothing can be red and blue all over, at the same time"; "An object cannot be in two places at once", and such like. These statements appear to me to have a specific 'unpidgeonholed' Iogical status. I wanted then to investigate their logical character. However, in whichever direction I turned, I met the irritating logico-positistic all purpose argument: 'This sentence is, strictly speaking, meaningless, and therefore does not even merit discussion'. However irritating such argument is, and however unplausible is the very existence of such general all-purpose knock-down answer to almost everything, it has to be answered, and whatever plausibility it possesses must be, perhaps implicitly, accounted for, in such at answer. I was driven, by these considerations, into serious investigation of the question, "What do we say, when we say, that a statement is meaningless?" Subsequently I found that this inquiry will have to fill out my present work. This then, is the subject of the thesis.
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ItemThe definition of truth : an examination with special reference to Franz Brentano( 1962)This thesis comprises:- three main parts; (1,2 and 3); and introduction; concluding remarks; and a special Part (4) devoted to appendices and bibliography. The first section is devoted to an investigation of some papers of the German philosopher Franz Brentano (first-published work 1862, died 1917) who devoted considerable time to the problem of truth. This part serves a double purpose. On the one hand it is used to introduce the problem without concealing its considerable complexity and difficulty. On the other hand it helps to determine the field of inquiry more narrowly as well as producing some arguments, important but preliminary t the main argument of this thesis. The main argument is contained in Part 2; this argument draws to its conclusion, in section VII and VIII. Part 3 follows with some discussion of recent contributions to the philosophical problem of truth. It is the purpose of this part to support the final position further, by showing that these proposed solutions are unsatisfactory. Part 4, which follows the concluding remarks contains 4 appendices and bibliography. 3 appendices are translations of Brentano's papers, and the last comprises a discussion of the proper interpretation of the works of F. Brentano. The translations are provided primarily because no English texts of Brentano's work are available, the single exception being a short work on ethics, however even this dates from Brentano's early period. In contrast all translated papers came from the later period, this provides another reason for their inclusion. Appendix "A" comprises 3 letters to Anton Marty published in "Wahrheit and Evidenz" (ed.0.Kraus.). These deal with the problems of entia irrealia and present views most characteristic of Brentano's later period. Appendix "B" and "C" are translations of unpublished papers, which are discussed in Part 2, Section IV. Part 2, Section III comprises discussion of another unpublished paper, of which translation is not provided. The Bibliography does not mention all titles relevant to the problem discussed in this thesis, but it mentions many works which I have not considered in any detail, and which are not mentioned in text. I provide this because there are a great many works Which do look relevant if only the title is known, but even a cursory glance at the text shows that this appearance is misleading, it seems therefore useful to mention those that seem to have some genuine relevance. The number of contributions made it necessary to select. Even so this selection, is very rough. It is based: firstly on whether the article or book has in fact influenced my thinking; secondly on whether it represents a view worth notice; thirdly on whether it has exercised an appreciable influence; and fourthly, if an article, whether it appears in a well known journal. I am aware that using the same general principles a different selection could be made. The Bibliography even though not exhaustive is fairly long. To present it in the form of a long list in alphabetical order would be non-transparent. I have therefore divided it into four sections. The first contains a complete bibliography of all published works of F. Brentano. The second comprises a selection of unpublished manuscripts of F. Brentano, here again I am aware that a different selection Is possible. In the third the titles arc related to questions on which they bear - the stress is on references to the work of Alfred Tarski, because a large proportion of seemingly relevant articles concerning his work have no philosophical relevance whatever. I have not been able to obtain some of the titles relevant to Tarski, my knowledge of them comes from his own references - I include these because this is where a mere title can be particularly misleading. The fourth comprises a short list of books in alphabetical order, and a longer list of articles arranged in journal-volume order.