False Proposition Research Articles

Defending Russell’s Theory of Definite Descriptions Against a Strawsonian Attack

Although Russell’s theory of definite descriptions is highlyappreciated in the area of philosophy of language, it has faced some objections from different angles. One of the major objections is known as the objection arising from incomplete definite descriptions. According to this objection, a speaker by his/her utterance of a sentence containing an incomplete definite description often succeeds in saying something true despite the fact that such a sentence always expresses a false proposition. This particular objection against Russell’s theory arises because of an ignorance concerning the distinction between the meaning of a sentence and the assertion made by a speaker by using that sentence in a particular context. To address this distinction between meaning and assertion Scott Soames’ theory concerning the connection between meaning and assertion has been adopted. With the help of this theory, it has been shown that the problem arising from incomplete definite descriptions does not pose a genuine threat to Russell’s theory. Philosophy and Progress, Vol#73-74; No#1-2; Jan-Dec 2023 P 317-336

A third realm ontology? Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī and the nafs al-amr

ABSTRACT The standard interpretation of Avicenna's correspondence theory of truth posits that propositions either correspond to what exists extramentally or otherwise their truthmaker is mental existence. An influential post-Avicennian philosopher, Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d. 1274) points to the insufficiency of the above division of propositions and their respective truthmakers. He mentions the possibility of conceiving false propositions, such as ‘One is not half of two’ and postulates the necessity of the existence of another truthmaking domain for their true counterparts which he calls nafs al-amr. It is where objective and timeless entities, such as mathematical propositions, are located. While some claim that Ṭūsī's identification of this domain with the first Separate Intellect is a testimony to his Avicennian convictions, Ṭūsī's solution is a conspicuous departure from Avicenna that not only helps him remedy the insufficiency of Avicenna's theory of truth but is consistent with his critique of Avicenna's theory of God’s knowledge.

Explanation, representation and information

The ontic conception of explanation is predicated on the proposition that “explanation is a relation between real objects in the world” and hence, according to this approach, scientific explanation cannot take place absent such a premise. Despite the fact that critics have emphasized several drawbacks of the ontic conception, as for example its inability to address the so-called “abstract explanations”, the debate is not settled and the ontic view can claim to capture cases of explanation that are non-abstract, such as causal relations between events. However, by eliminating the distinction between abstract and non-abstract explanations, it follows that ontic and epistemic proposals can no longer contend to capture different cases of explanation and either all are captured by the ontic view or all are captured by the epistemic view. On closer inspection, it turns out that the ontic view deals with events that fall outside the scientists’ scope of observation and that it does not accommodate common instances of explanation such as explanations from false propositions and hence it cannot establish itself as the dominant philosophical stance with respect to explanation. On the contrary, the epistemic conception does account for almost all episodes of explanation and can be described as a relation between representations, whereby the explanans transmit information to the explanandum and that this information can come, dependent on context, in the form of any of the available theories of explanation (law-like, unificatory, causal and non-causal). The range of application of the ontic view thus is severely restricted to trivial cases of explanation that come through direct observation of the events involved in an explanation and explanation is to be mostly conceived epistemically.

Buridan on ‘Ex impossibili quodlibet’, ‘Ex contradictione quodlibet’, and ‘Ex falso quodlibet’

ABSTRACT Buridan endorsed the principles that any impossible, and a fortiori any self-contradictory, proposition entails each proposition. These principles are usually referred to as ‘Ex impossibili quodlibet’ (EIQ) and ‘Ex contradictione quodlibet’ (ECQ). Buridan further considered the instance ECCQ according to which any proposition follows from the conjunction of two contradictory propositions. Buridan showed how ECCQ can be proven by means the usual laws of conjunction and disjunction. Furthermore, he discovered that EIQ can be derived from ECCQ by means of the principle that if a conclusion q follows from two premises, one of which is necessary, then q follows from the other premise alone. Buridan thought that this principle would be provable; but his proof turned out to be circular since it presupposed EIQ. Nevertheless, EIQ is validated by the definition of a ‘bona consequentia’. Somewhat more exactly, according to Buridan one may distinguish between inferences which are formally valid, ‘materially’ valid, and valid ‘as of now’. It is shown that formally valid inferences satisfy ECQ while ‘materially’ valid inferences satisfy EIQ. Furthermore, inferences which are valid ‘as of now’ satisfy the principle ‘Ex falso quodlibet’ saying that any false proposition ‘as of now’ entails every proposition.

Incrimination Through Innuendo

Abstract: Research by Wegner et al. (1981) suggests that incriminating innuendo in questions can negatively affect attitudes and opinions. Two preregistered studies ( N = 506) provide a close replication of Study 1 of Wegner et al., additionally testing whether question-innuendo effects are moderated by partisanship. Replicating the original findings of Wegner et al., questions insinuating something negative about a target person reduced favorable impressions of the target. Counter to the novel hypotheses that effects of incriminating questions would be reduced for political-ingroup targets and enhanced for political-outgroup targets, question-innuendo effects did not differ across target groups. The findings suggest that merely asking a question about a false proposition can influence public opinion in the absence of incorrect assertions that could be deemed misinformation.

Reflection, fallibilism, and doublethink

ABSTRACT A distinctive feature of Juan Comesaña's epistemological account is the possibility of an agent possessing a false proposition as evidence. Comesaña argues that there are a number of theoretical virtues of his account once we accept this possibility, however, one might expect that there are particular vices of his account as well. Littlejohn and Dutant (2021. “Even if it Might not be True, Evidence Cannot be False.” Philosophical Studies 179 (3): 801-827. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-021-01695-0) claim that a reflective agent who accepts Comesaña's view is rationally compelled to update their credences differently than unreflective agents, or else they will be guilty of a problematic kind of doublethink: evidence in general can be false, but my evidence is never false. I argue that parallel reasoning applies to any epistemological view that says that it is possible for a rational agent to be wrong about what their evidence is. When a rational agent reflectively accepts that they could be wrong about their evidence they are rationally compelled to update their credences differently than unreflective agents, or else they will be guilty of a problematic kind of doublethink: even though rational agents in general are wrong about their evidence, I'm never wrong about my evidence. Reflecting on a particular challenge to Comesaña's view ultimately reveals a general challenge to fallibilism.

A Formal Framework for Knowledge Acquisition: Going beyond Machine Learning.

Philosophers frequently define knowledge as justified, true belief. We built a mathematical framework that makes it possible to define learning (increasing number of true beliefs) and knowledge of an agent in precise ways, by phrasing belief in terms of epistemic probabilities, defined from Bayes’ rule. The degree of true belief is quantified by means of active information : a comparison between the degree of belief of the agent and a completely ignorant person. Learning has occurred when either the agent’s strength of belief in a true proposition has increased in comparison with the ignorant person (), or the strength of belief in a false proposition has decreased (). Knowledge additionally requires that learning occurs for the right reason, and in this context we introduce a framework of parallel worlds that correspond to parameters of a statistical model. This makes it possible to interpret learning as a hypothesis test for such a model, whereas knowledge acquisition additionally requires estimation of a true world parameter. Our framework of learning and knowledge acquisition is a hybrid between frequentism and Bayesianism. It can be generalized to a sequential setting, where information and data are updated over time. The theory is illustrated using examples of coin tossing, historical and future events, replication of studies, and causal inference. It can also be used to pinpoint shortcomings of machine learning, where typically learning rather than knowledge acquisition is in focus.

Kant on the Status of Ideas and Principles of Reason

Abstract In the Transcendental Dialectic of the first Critique, Kant famously claims that even if ideas and principles of reason cannot count as cognitions of objects, they can play a positive role when they are used “regulatively” with the aim of organizing our empirical cognitions. One issue is to understand what assuming “regulatively” means. What kind of attitude does this “assuming” imply? Another issue is to characterize the status of ideas and principles themselves. It is to this second issue that this article is dedicated. Some interpreters have suggested that ideas and principles that can be assumed regulatively consist of propositions that we know are false. Others have suggested that at least some regulative ideas, as for example the idea of the homogeneity of nature, consist of propositions that we know are true but are indeterminate. Still others argue that, in assuming regulative ideas and principles, we assume propositions that cannot be proved true, but are nonetheless possibly true. In this article, I reject the view that regulative ideas consist of true but indeterminate propositions. Moreover, I argue that it is wrong to presuppose that only one of the remaining two options can apply to Kant’s account of regulative ideas and principles. By contrast, I submit that while in some cases assuming regulative ideas and principles does involve assuming some propositions that we know are false, this is not true for all regulative ideas and principles. More specifically, assuming regulative ideas involves assuming false propositions when assuming them means assuming that a “totality of appearances” is given.

Image enhancement with luminance preserving is a false proposition and others

The “image enhancement with luminance preservation” is a self-conflict proposition. Researchers, including propositional proposer Kim, gave the index AMBE (absolute mean luminance error) to judge if the “luminance preserving”, however, which just proved that the image enhancement with “luminance preserving” cannot be realized. We have proved that the visual quality of an image is a function of the image average luminance with convex feature. The image cannot be enhanced with luminance preservation, and the luminance cannot be preserved with image being enhanced. The visual perception quality of an image is not equal to the image contrast. We can experimentally prove what the higher the contrast of the image, the better the visual quality of the image is not true.

Can clarifying instructions mitigate the effects of multifaceted questions on susceptibility to suggestion?

AbstractWhen cross‐examining witnesses, lawyers will sometimes use complex questions to “trip‐up” witnesses and thus cast doubt on their testimony. Extending prior research, the present study showed that multifaceted test questions (which contain both a true and false proposition) reduced accuracy for both misled and control participants but had a disproportionate impact on the former. Although misled participants accurately rejected blatant suggestions when tested with simple questions, there was a two‐fold increase in false assents when multifaceted questions were used (Experiment 1). Providing participants with explicit instructions on how to respond to multifaceted questions (i.e., respond “yes” only if all parts of the question are true) improved accuracy slightly but did not mitigate the magnitude of the misinformation effect (Experiment 2). Collectively, the results underscore the importance of assessing eyewitness suggestibility in contexts that mimic those witnesses are likely to encounter in the real world.

The persistence of political myths and ideologies

Why do groups of even well-educated individuals sometimes persistently believe in political myths and ideologies? We follow cognition psychology in its finding that individuals sometimes stick with intuitive but false propositions. We maintain, however, that they challenge their intuition when the consequences for their individual welfare are sufficiently severe. We embed the underlying evidence in a model of social interaction that determines the conditions of a myth equilibrium, in which almost all individuals deeply believe in a certain myth and stick with its ex-post rationalization, or those of a truth equilibrium in which all individuals pursue ex-ante reasoning that aims to get as close to the truth as possible. We show how myths are clustered around certain groups and why groups are more likely to stick with political myths than individuals, which challenges the generality of Condorcet’s jury theorem.

Students’ ability to determine the truth value of mathematical propositions in the context of operation meanings

The aim of this study was to reveal 5th class middle school students’ determination skills on the truth value of mathematical propositions about multiplication and division. These skills were evaluated in the context of operation meanings preferred and arguments constructed by the students in the process. The research group consisted of 95 fifth-grade students studying at a state middle school in Turkey. The study an example of sequential explanatory from mixed research designs. The data of the study were collected in three stages. In the first and the second stage, quantitative data of the study were gathered with Awareness Questionnaire (AQ) and Proposition Evaluation Test (PET) developed by the researchers. In the third stage, semi-structured task-based interviews were conducted. As a result of the study, it was revealed that students had more difficulty in selecting false mathematical propositions. Most of the students used counterexample and deductive warrants for the falsity of the propositions, and inductive warrants for the truth of the propositions. These results showed that determining the false propositions was an important ability and students preferring operational meanings had disadvantages in this process.

The ‘Cardinality of the Continuum’ Is False in Non-Euclidean Geometries

According Georg Cantor's Cardinality of the Continuum, as proved in Euclidean geometry, any segment (not inclusive of its two end points) has as many points as an entire line. This theorem is an underlying assumption of the Hypothesis, that conjectures that every infinite subset of the continuum of real numbers $\mathbb{R}$ is either equivalent to the set of natural numbers $\mathbb{N}$, or to $\mathbb{R}$ itself. However, the proof in Euclidean geometry uses parallel lines, and therefore assumes that Euclid's Parallel Postulate is true. But in Non-Euclidean geometries, Euclid's Parallel Postulate is false. In Hyperbolic geometry, at any point off of a given line, there are a plurality of lines parallel to the given line. In Elliptic geometry (which includes Spherical geometry), no lines are parallel, so two lines always intersect. Absolute geometry has neither Euclid's parallel postulate nor either of its alternatives. We provide examples in Spherical geometry and in Hyperbolic geometry where the Cardinality of the Continuum is false. Therefore it is also false in Absolute geometry. So it is a false proposition, as is the Hypothesis, that falsely assumes that the Cardinality of the Continuum is true. Concepts in theory, such as the number line of real numbers, cannot be limited to Euclidean geometry.

REFERENSI COVER MAJALAH TEMPO EDISI 14 SEPTEMBER: KARIKATUR WAJAH JOKOWI DENGAN BAYANGAN HIDUNG PANJANG – JANJI TINGGAL JANJI

The objective of this study is to identify and describe the respondent's reference to the cover of Tempo: The 2019 September 14th edition of the appointment. Data is obtained from respondents through google forms shared via WhatsApp chat that is examined using the triangle of Odgen & Richards and truth table Keith Allan. Number of respondents 130 people. According to the three meanings of Odgen & Richards, it is considered a liar because it is reference to Pinokio which has the concept of a long nose-like wooden doll that is lying. Moreover, it is considered as an important appointment because it is reference to the appointment of a promise that has a concept of attitude that does not keep the promise. While based on truth table Keith Allan, a liar is a proposition false (F) because the first proposition (P) is the proposition False (F) and the second proposition (Q) is the proposition True (T) so that the straightness of the proposition can be concluded is a false proposition (F). It can be concluded that the pairing of the same with Pinocchio and the promise of appointment is not something absolute and identical with the lies.

Swyneshed, Aristotle and the Rule of Contradictory Pairs

Roger Swyneshed, in his treatise on insolubles (logical paradoxes), dating from the early 1330s, drew three notorious corollaries from his solution. The third states that there is a contradictory pair of propositions both of which are false. This appears to contradict what Whitaker, in his iconoclastic reading of Aristotle’s De Interpretatione, dubbed “The Rule of Contradictory Pairs” (RCP), which requires that in every such pair, one must be true and the other false. Whitaker argued that, immediately after defining the notion of a contradictory pair, in which one statement affirms what the other denies of the same thing, Aristotle himself gave counterexamples to the rule. This gives some credence to Swyneshed’s claim that his solution to the logical paradoxes is not contrary to Aristotle’s teaching, as many of Swyneshed’s contemporaries claimed. Insolubles are false, he said, because they falsify themselves; and their contradictories are false because they falsely deny that the insoluble itself is false. Swyneshed’s solution depends crucially on the revision he makes to the acount of truth and falsehood, brought out in his first thesis: that a false proposition can signify as it is, or as Paul of Venice, who took up and developed Swyneshed’s solution some sixty years later, puts it, a false proposition can have a true significate. Swyneshed gave a further counterexample to (RCP) when he claimed that some insolubles, like future contingents, are neither true nor false. Dialetheism, the contemporary claim that some propositions are both true and false, is wedded to the Rule, and in consequence divorces denial from the assertion of the contradictory negation. Consequently, Swyneshed’s logical heresy is very different from that found in dialetheism.

Expert Deference about the Epistemic and Its Metaepistemological Significance

AbstractThis paper focuses on the phenomenon of forming one’s judgement about epistemic matters, such as whether one has some reason not to believe false propositions, on the basis of the opinion of somebody one takes to be an expert about them. The paper pursues three aims. First, it argues that some cases of expert deference about epistemic matters are suspicious. Secondly, it provides an explanation of such a suspiciousness. Thirdly, it draws the metaepistemological implications of the proposed explanation.

The Linguistic Representation of Insincerity in Russian and English

The paper discusses insincerity, as well as the types and methods of its manifestation. Details reflect the characteristics of a lying person and his manner of behavior in an insincere atmosphere. The paper is aimed at explaining the linguistic mechanisms underlying the expression of insincerity, and developing a general theoretical understanding of the role of insincerity in verbal communication. Insincerity is understood as a discursive strategy of a linguistic personality, aimed at the intentional expression of false propositions and their corresponding linguistic design. The research discusses a set of types associated with the separate consideration of falsity as properties of propositions, that is, such knowledge of some possible world, which contradicts the objective picture of the world, and insincerity as a characteristic of the speaking subject related to its communicative intentions and features of the communication situation. The linguistic representation of insincerity is revealed.

Possibility Versus Possible Worlds

It is a common idea in philosophy that some false propositions such as (C) that Charlottesville is the largest city in Virginia, have the property of being possibly true. It is not a clear idea but an important one which has inspired considerable effort at clarification. One suggestion is that there exist (really, not just possibly) “possible worlds” in which C or some suitable facsimile is true. One further attempt at clarification on offer is that there exists (again, really) a maximal consistent set of propositions containing C. It is argued here that these attempts at clarification are profoundly erroneous. There exist actual powers of imaginative construction which would yield a scenario sufficiently detailed to be recognized by competent reviewers as one in which C is true. (The depiction might be in film or narrative and would avoid analytic falsehoods.) This is a frail clarification, vulnerable to questions, but is the best possible direction for a clear idea of the possibility of the proposition. The notion of possible worlds is associated with very valuable work in mathematical logic. It can only improve our appreciation of this excellent work to separate it from cloudy metaphysics.

Accuracy and the Imps

Recently several authors have argued that accuracy-first epistemology ends up licensing problematic epistemic bribes. They charge that it is better, given the accuracy-first approach, to deliberately form one false belief if this will lead to forming many other true beliefs. We argue that this is not a consequence of the accuracy-first view. If one forms one false belief and a number of other true beliefs, then one is committed to many other false propositions, e.g., the conjunction of that false belief with any of the true beliefs. Once we properly account for all the falsehoods that are adopted by the person who takes the bribe, it turns out that the bribe does not increase accuracy.

Do Divine Conceptualist Accounts Fail?

William Lane Craig’s God over All argues against the kind of “divine conceptualism” about abstract objects which I defend. In this conference presentation I note several points of agreement with and appreciation for Craig’s important work. I then turn to five points of critique and response pertaining to: the sovereignty-aseity intuition, the reality of false propositions, God’s having “inappropriate” thoughts, propositions being purely private and incommunicable, and a consistent view of God’s own ontological commitments. I conclude by summarizing our two key differences, indicating that we may have much more in common than first appears (both theologically and metaphysically).