School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemThe evolution of Wittgenstein's views of meaning( 1999)The problems of meaning and language play a crucial role in Wittgenstein's philosophy. Wittgenstein believes that philosophical problems are rooted in language, and that they can be understood and resolved when questions about linguistic meaning and the way language relates to reality are properly addressed. During his philosophical development Wittgenstein held different approaches to the problem of meaning and language. A clear view about his view about meaning is necessary in order for us to be in position to understand assess his philosophy. The aim of my thesis is to explore different accounts of meaning in different periods of the development of Wittgenstein's thought. In his first account of meaning, known as the Picture Theory of Meaning in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein developed a highly sophisticated and complex picture-theory which is the basis of his contention that language is a mirror of reality. At this early stage Wittgenstein had been influenced by the thoughts of Frege and Russell. In the Picture Theory of Meaning the notion of logical form plays a crucial role. Just as each proposition must share its logical form with the state of affairs it depicts, so language, the totality of propositions, must share logical form with what it depicts the. The harmony between language and reality which makes representation is - possible is logical-pictorial isomorphism, the structural identity between what represents and what is represented. Just as the elements in a picture correspond to a possible arrangement of objects in reality, so sentences contain names, which correspond to objects in the world; and the arrangement of names in the sentence corresponds to a possible arrangement of objects in the world. Meaning is possible because language mirrors reality in this way: from the structure of language we can read off the structure of reality. In other words we can learn about the structure of reality from sentences of language. In his early view, Wittgenstein believed that fact-stating discourse is really all the meaningful discourse there is. But in the later works it turns out that fact-stating discourse is just one type of discourse among many other types, just one type of language game along with a countless number of other types of language-game. So in his later works, Wittgenstein abandoned the picture theory of meaning in favour of a use account of meaning. He urges us to think of words as tools, think of sentences as instruments. To get a correct account of language and meaning we need simply to look at how it functions in real life; we need to look at what people do with words. Whereas the Tractatus envisioned a logical structure as the essential form and link of language and world, in the later works there are flexible constraints connected with human activities, with language-games and forms of life as the basis and structure of language. A shift has occurred from a pictorial structural approach to use-activity approach. Language is not just words and rules but words and rules in the practice of use. Meaning is understood as a social phenomenon. The meaning of words should be found in the practical context of everyday life, in the stream of thought and activity, in which a given use of words is embedded.
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ItemAesthetics, subjectivity and the sublime( 1999)Three main issues will be addressed in this thesis. The first is the status of aesthetics; what is the relevance and scope of a contemporary philosophical aesthetics?; Can philosophy be distinguished from philosophy of art?; Is philosophy of art different from aesthetics?; Can philosophy be distinguished from art or aesthetics?; If so can any of these be distinguished from other philosophy such as epistemology or metaphysics. The second issue is the question whether any particular aesthetic concept such as beauty or the sublime can have any contemporary philosophical relevance. Thirdly, the sublime will be considered as a possible aesthetic concept that might preserve Kant's original concern to provide a transcendental aesthetic theory which demonstrates the obdurately essential element of aesthetic judgement in any experience. Notwithstanding Kant's prioritising of the aesthetic, and "feeling" in the Critique of Judgement, it is argued that Kant's theory remains pertinent because it maintains a critical, qua transcendental, position, and its insights should not be ignored by metaphysical, analytic, phenomenological or hermeneutic philosophy. Kant's sublime is explored, as are other aesthetic issues, by examining Kant 's theory of judgement. The Critique of Judgement will be presented as a theory of judgement which prefigures much contemporary philosophy and provides both support and interesting edification of the advanced views of Quine, Derrida and Wittgenstein. The concept of the sublime is presented as particularly prophetic of the contemporary complexities regarding self-consciousness, subjectivity and meaning.
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ItemLaws of nature( 1994)
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ItemA defence of formalism( 1998)
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ItemA science of cognition? : an investigation of consciousness, belief, and embodiment from the perspectives of cognitive science and Buddhism( 1994)This thesis is primarily concerned with three enduring topics that demand attention from contemporary Cognitive Science-namely: consciousness, belief, and embodiment. Of these three topics, it is embodiment which has received the least amount of attention until only very recently in the work of Lakoff, Johnson, and Varela et al. Belief, on the other hand, has-and is-the subject of much analysis although most of this privileges its propositional characterisation. It is argued here that once beliefs are conceived of in deeper and broader structural and functional terms then representationalism is not a sufficient foundation for a genuine science of cognition. Consciousness, a contentious concept if ever there were one, continues to be avoided by most of mainstream cognitive science because it is seen as a topic useful only to philosophers. Despite its lack of relevance to information processing engineering (what could be called Cognitive Technology) consciousness will continue to be a "problem" until it is scrutinised thoroughly by science. In order to do this the very methods of science itself will require renewed reassessment. Following Varela et al, it is argued that resources for this reassessment can be found within certain elements of Buddhist discourse and tradition. At the same time, given that there is a wide context of philosophical interpretation of Buddhist thought, this argument in no way suggests an abandonment of one "system" for another. If the common claim to conceive of cognitive science as inter-disciplinary is accurate then dialogue across all relevant disciplines will be what drives it.
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ItemSome theories of verisimilitude( 1991)In this thesis it was decided to concentrate on the work of Sir Karl Popper and, in particular, his concept of verisimilitude. In this connection, a result in Harris' 1974 paper was considered in error. In chapter 1 Tich?'s demonstration that Popper's probabilistic definitions of verisimilitude are inadequate is discussed. The same is discussed with respect to Popper's logical definitions of verisimilitude in chapter 2. Such criticisms of Tich? cast doubt on the idea of verisimilitude or at least as it had been formulated by Popper. Chapter 3 considers the relationship between verisimilitude and language. Chapter 4 considers, in particular, the role weak theories can play, and the promise offered by a distance-from-the-truth function of Tich?. The results are summarised in the conclusion (chapter 5).
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ItemRealism( 1989)This thesis argues for realism. It argues for realism on the basis of considerations of language. It does not assert that we can know realism to be correct, so it is realism as a possible position. It does argue that we can have every confidence that what our language tells us about our world is accurate (with an important proviso in the realm of science). Consequently, I dub it a "possible strong realism". It is a form of realism because it argues fur the proposition that our language is the world at one remove, that it metaphorically is the world, and that our use of language is good evidence both that we are getting the way the world is, right, and that there is a world in what we describe. If there was not a world, we could not make sense of the aboutness of our speech, and, more importantly, if there was not a world which was independent of our possible formulation of it, and larger than our formulation of it, then, once again, no sense could be made of our seeming to make sense. But there is no one-to-one formal correspondence between our terms and "object," in the world; there is no causal, physical link between the two at an individual level, since language is not literal. It is a strong realism because it argues for a full-blooded acceptance of language as being an accurate account of the world at one remove, namely metaphorically. It is important to note that language is not a picture of the world in the conventional sense, because a picture is a literal representation, and language is not a picture. It is the world at one remove. Or I argue that it is best taken that way. We make the inference from language to the world. It is a possible realism because it asserts that we can never know that realism is correct, because to think that one can know that it is correct is to seek to be on both sides of the line at once, to be at once inside language and outside it, and that we cannot be. That might seem to make us prisoners of language, but a possible strong realism allows the possibility that when we speak of that which is ostensibly about us, there is an isomorphism which means that when we do so speak, we can be confident that our speech or marks are capturing something of the way the world is apart from our concerns, concepts and terms. only on the basis of such a supposition can we make sense of the world postulated within our language. Or at least this is what I shall argue. But this isomorphism, this assertion of accuracy, can only be a possibility, and by possibility I don't mean the possibility of error. What I mean is that we can never know realism to be correct, on the account of realism here given, since part of what realism means is that there may be parts of reality which will always escape us. In' chapter 1, I argue that we can make a transcendental inference from language to the world. It is easier to make if the meaning of our words is not wholly determined in their use, but the inference can still be made if use does exhaust meaning. I argue that use does not in fact exhaust meaning. T contend that a view of language as "peculiar metaphor" is a good base on which to build realism, as it avoids on the one hand the eliminative view of the meaning of words being solely in their use, and, on the other hand, it also avoids the insistent attractiveness of language as picture (the contrast between the later and earlier Wittgenstein). Language as metaphor has the added virtues of being a good model for the explanation of the growth of language, and introducing a mental element to meaning. Chapter 2 turns to a consideration of the status of sub-microscopic scientific entities through looking mainly at the anti-realism of van Fraassen with respect to those entities, and argues that the distinction between observables and unobservables, on which distinction he relies for his anti-realism, will not stand up. Possible strong realism asserts that, as well as good metaphor within language, there can be bad metaphor, and the metaphor of language with respect to the macro objects of everyday life is inappropriately applied to the alleged "existence" of the sub-microscopic "particles" of science. The model of existence at the macro level is an inappropriate one at the micro level. Language can be systematically misleading with respect to the world, or part of it, because 0f our nature, as well as systematically leading. Chapter 3 explores the contrasting views of Devitt and Taylor. Along the way, T contrast Devitt's view to Quine's, in order to show the difference in the importance accorded to ontology. A possible strong realism argues for the world of objects that Devitt wants, at least at the macro level, but starts from a different point, from language. Starting from a different point, it comes to a different conclusion, that, while we can be ontologically confident, as Quine claims, to talk of the independent and objective existence of objects is to be a metaphysical realist. The view of language that I advocate does net go outside language for its confidence. My realism also argues that everyday objects at least are not theoretical constructions, as Quine claims Its starting point is once again different from Taylor's, whose position seems to imply that we move from the truth of sentences to the constitution of the world. That is veering too close to anti-realism, and the "truth" used in my realism is both co-extensive with, yet larger than, Taylor's epistemic truth.
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ItemOn painting a picture( 1982)