Matter Of Correspondence Research Articles

Irrealist Cognitivism

This paper argues that normative claims are truth‐apt contents of cognition – propositions about what there is reason to believe, to do or to feel – but that their truth is not a matter of correspondence or representation. We do not have to choose between realism about the normative and non‐cognitivism about it. The universality of reasons, combined with the spontaneity of normative responses, suffices to give normative claims the distinctive link to a ‘convergence commitment’ which characterises any genuine judgement; an accurate epistemology of normative discourse need postulate no faculty of receptivity to a special domain of normative fact. Some general arguments for the view that cognitivism about a domain of discourse imposes realism about it are considered and rejected.

Through the Looking-Glass: Coleridge and Post-Kantian Philosophy

This is revealing statement, and not the least so because of its diverging implications. The general picture-of Coleridge having harmonized all systems of knowledge in grand synthesis by bringing out what was half true in each-is strikingly Hegelian in appearance. This is offset, however, by the image of the philosopher framing perfect mirror, suggesting an underlying notion of truth as matter of correspondence between the mind and something other than itself, rather than the coherentist theory defended by Hegel. A similar tension is evident between Coleridge's conviction that he has succeeded in assembling unified system and his awareness of the fragmentary, incomplete nature of the knowledges that have gone into its construction. Elsewhere, indeed, he cites the very limitations of consciousness as evidence of the constitutive role of conscience in knowledge. Without the involvement of free act of will (or faith), the self was merely, as he noted in 1825, a Proteus, modifiable into thousand forms, each of which was a representation, of somewhat that is not myself, or kind of endlessly deferred, self-conscious self-sentient lookingglass (Notebooks 4: note 5280). Remarks such as these bear witness to the delicate balance that Coleridge's later thought attempted to maintain between two major themes in postKantian German philosophy: the methodology of dialectic and the ontology of will. That an English poet of the period would undertake such an enterprise is remarkable, and in Coleridge's case all the more so, since his acquain-

Heidegger and Virtual Reality: The Implications of Heidegger's Thinking for Computer Representations

This author addresses the assumptions that underlie most research into virtual reality (VR) and other interactive computer systems. These assumptions relate to tensions between views of perception as a matter of data input versus the notion of perception as mental construction. Similarly, there is a tension between the assumption that pictures are meaningful as representations of things and the opposing idea that pictures are meaningful as socially constructed human practices. Aspects of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger are invoked as a means of cutting through these dilemmas. This reading of Heidegger presents truthful representation as a matter of correspondence only when the truth is understood as a means of disclosing a world . The article concludes with practical suggestions for VR research and development appropriated from a Heideggerian perspective.