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| 2
December (Wednesday)
5:00 PM
Room 226 |
Thomas
Benda
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Institute
of Philosophy of Mind
National Yang Ming University,
Taipei, Taiwan
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| The
logical form
of physical
statements |
The problem of logical
representation of physical
statements is given a novel
account, described in an informal
manner below.
Physical entities are not sharply
defined and the ultimate physical
theory--if it exists--is not
known. Mathematical formulations
of physical theories speak of
models rather than physical
reality itself. They are logically
precise, but are at best perceived
as mere approximations to some
physical reality. Their limits of
accuracy are accepted by working
physicists as long as they appear
to be successful. The same applies
to daily observations. Here,
however, even anti-realists
generally don't doubt an
underlying matter of fact which is
only approximately described in
our daily observational language.
I propose to take the apparent
inaccuracy of both observational
and scientific statements serious
as inevitable when we search for
the proper logical form of
physical statements; furthermore,
to adopt an agnostic stance
regarding truth of statements
about a supposed underlying
physical reality--statements we do
not have anyway. Thus we
acknowledge that all physical
statements concern entities that
are parts of models. Their
corresponding theories have
theorems that are evaluated not
semantically--strictly speaking,
they would be false--but by
degrees of credence. The latter
are preserved within theories and
vary between theories according to
context.
Degrees of credence of physical
statements form a partial order.
The complete structure also
contains statements with fixed
credence, e.g., "0 = 0". Thereby,
our practice of assigning credence
to scientific and everyday
physical statements is well
represented.
The proposed stance is not
necessarily anti-realistic, but
merely concerns the proper logical
form of physical statements.
Success of theories is aligned
with beliefs, including
observations, and theory relations
are treated logically on an object
level. The well-known riddle of
physical theories being successful
yet logically false thereby has a
good prospect of being solved.
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| 9
December (Wednesday)
5:00 PM
Room 226 |
Zsófia
Zvolenszky
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Department
of Logic, Institute of
Philosophy
Eötvös University, Budapest
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| Fictional
Characters and
Goodman’s
Inadvertent
Creation
Challenge |
According to
artifactualism about fictional
characters, Andrei Bolkonsky in War
and Peace is an abstract
artifact. I will explore a recent
challenge to this view by Jeffrey
Goodman (2014)—which I will call
the inadvertent creation
challenge—that is originally posed
for those who hold that fictional
characters and mythical objects
alike are abstract artifacts. The
crux of the challenge is this: if
we think that astronomers like Le
Verrier, in mistakenly
hypothesizing the planet Vulcan,
inadvertently created an abstract
artifact, then the “inadvertent
creation” element turns out to be
inescapable yet theoretically
unattractive. Based on
considerations about actually
existing concrete objects being
featured in fictional works (as
Napoleon is in War and Peace),
I argue that regardless of where
one stands on mythical objects,
admitting fictional characters as
abstract artifacts is enough to
give rise to the inadvertent
creation challenge; yet this very
set of considerations serves to
undermine the challenge,
indicating that inadvertent
creation is not nearly as
worrisome after all as Goodman is
suggesting. Taking fictional
characters (and mythical objects)
to be abstract artifacts therefore
remains a viable option.
Goodman, Jeffrey 2014. Creatures
of Fiction, Objects of Myth. Analysis
74 (1), 35–40.
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