Meaning and verification

By Hart, W.D.

The verifiability theory of meaning says that meaning is evidence. It is anticipated in, for example, Hume’s empiricist doctrine of impressions and ideas, but it emerges into full ...

Holism: mental and semantic

By Block, Ned

Mental (or semantic) holism is the doctrine that the identity of a belief content (or the meaning of a sentence that expresses it) is determined by its place ...

Private states and language

By Craig, Edward

Something is ’private’ if it can be known to one person only. Many have held that perceptions and bodily sensations are in this sense private, being knowable only ...

Ross, Alf (1899–1979)

By Pattaro, Enrico

Famous for his contribution to Scandinavian legal realism, Alf Niels Christian Ross was among the major philosophers of the latter half of the twentieth century. He was Kelsen’s ...

Transcendental arguments

By Harrison, Ross

Transcendental arguments seek to answer scepticism by showing that the things doubted by a sceptic are in fact preconditions for the scepticism to make sense. Hence the scepticism ...

Realism and antirealism

By Craig, Edward

The basic idea of realism is that the kinds of thing which exist, and what they are like, are independent of us and the way in which we ...

Paradoxes, epistemic

By Kvanvig, Jonathan L.

The four primary epistemic paradoxes are the lottery, preface, knowability, and surprise examination paradoxes. The lottery paradox begins by imagining a fair lottery with a thousand tickets in ...

Metaphysics

By Craig, Edward

Metaphysics is a broad area of philosophy marked out by two types of inquiry. The first aims to be the most general investigation possible into the nature of ...

Behaviourism, analytic

By Braddon-Mitchell, David

Analytical behaviourism is the doctrine that talk about mental phenomena is really talk about behaviour, or tendencies to behave. For an analytical behaviourist, to say that Janet desires ...

Experiment

By Morrison, Margaret C.

Experiment, as a specific category of scientific activity, did not emerge until the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. Seen primarily as an arbiter in theory choice, there ...

Putnam, Hilary (1926–2016)

Putnam’s work spans a broad spectrum of philosophical interests, yet nonetheless reflects thematic unity in its concern over the question of realism. The dynamic nature of Putnam's thought ...

Concepts

By Rey, Georges

The topic of concepts lies at the intersection of semantics and philosophy of mind. A concept is supposed to be a constituent of a thought (or ‘proposition’) rather ...

Intuitionistic logic and antirealism

By Pagin, Peter

The law of excluded middle (LEM) says that every sentence of the form A∨¬A (‘A or not A’) is logically true. This law is accepted in classical logic, ...

Japanese philosophy

By Kasulis, Thomas P.

The most distinctive characteristic of Japanese philosophy is how it has assimilated and adapted foreign philosophies to its native worldview. As an isolated island nation, Japan successfully resisted ...

Operationalism

By Suppe, Frederick

‘Operationalism’, coined by the physicist Percy W. Bridgman (1927), has come to designate a loosely connected body of similar but conflicting views about how scientific theories or concepts ...

Peirce, Charles Sanders (1839–1914)

By Hookway, Christopher

Peirce was an American philosopher, probably best known as the founder of pragmatism and for his influence upon later pragmatists such as William James and John Dewey. Personal ...

Phenomenalism

By Fumerton, Richard

On its most common interpretation, phenomenalism maintains that statements asserting the existence of physical objects are equivalent in meaning to statements describing sensations. More specifically, the phenomenalist claims ...

Religious language

By Alston, William P.

The main philosophical interest in religious language is in the understanding of what purport to be statements about God. Can they really be what they seem to be ...

Ayer, Alfred Jules (1910–89)

By MacDonald, Graham

A.J. Ayer made his name as a philosopher with the publication of Language, Truth and Logic in 1936, a book which established him as the leading English representative ...

Carnap, Rudolf (1891–1970)

By Creath, Richard

Carnap was one of the most significant philosophers of the twentieth century, and made important contributions to logic, philosophy of science, semantics, modal theory and probability. Viewed as ...

James, William (1842–1910)

By Putnam, Ruth Anna

The American William James was motivated to philosophize by a desire to provide a philosophical ground for moral action. Moral effort presupposes that one has free will, that ...

Language, philosophy of

By Crimmins, Mark

Philosophical interest in language, while ancient and enduring (see Language, ancient philosophy of; Language, medieval theories of; Language, Renaissance philosophy of; Language, early modern philosophy of), has blossomed ...

Semantics

By Crimmins, Mark

Semantics is the systematic study of meaning. Current work in this field builds on the work of logicians and linguists as well as of philosophers. Philosophers are interested ...

Meaning and understanding

By Rumfitt, Ian

The existence of a close connection between the notions of meaning and understanding can hardly be denied. I may be said to understand you, on a given occasion ...

Dummett, Michael Anthony Eardley (1925–2011)

By Taylor, Barry

For Michael Dummett, the core of philosophy lies in the theory of meaning. His exploration of meaning begins with the model proposed by Gottlob Frege, of whose work ...