bas van fraassen’s philosophy blog

Compositionality. A Reflection on Team Semantics

The principle of compositionality, stated most crudely, is just this: “the meaning of a compound sentence is determined by the meanings of its constituents and the way they are put together to form the sentence” (Hodges 1997: 540; see also Janssen 1996). Linguists and philosophers tend to scoff at the notion of meaning, but in…

by Bas van Fraassen

Classical logic, FDE, and topology

My plan here is to explore how classical logic and the paraconsistent logic FDE are both similar and different.  Thinking about how some concepts from topology could apply led me to specific questions about the relevant spaces of valuations.  I will leave the topology to just a short note at the end, and raise these questions directly..[0]  …

by Bas van Fraassen

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2 thoughts on “bas van fraassen’s philosophy blog”

  1. Dear Prof van Fraassen,

    In modern science there is a shift in focus from final causes to the search for efficient/mechanical causes. People spoke about “laws” of nature and extended this view to human society. August Comte represents this view and via him it influenced sociology (Emile Durkheim) and perhaps also public relations (Edward Bernays).  Could you comment upon this?

    Thank you.

    Leendert Brouwer

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  2. I think that:

    – knowledge starts with the experience of facts of Nature,

    – we can formulate hypotheses, but as long as they are not confirmed by asking Nature, they are just hypotheses,

    – Nature doesn’t have to answer all of our questions to her,

    – sometimes we don’t get an answer from Nature,

    – when we don’t get an answer, this is never a license to invent an answer,

    – the only decent attitude is recognize “I don’t know” and stop there.

    (I’m skipping identifying the “metaphysical” positions in all this, which I’ll deny is metaphysics at all, but will accept as “hypotheses” till verified)

    Am I a constructive empiricist?

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