Role Of Criteria Research Articles

Role of Criterion II in accreditation.

Role of Criterion II in accreditation.

The Role of Criteria in Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy

Although the literature on Wittgenstein's notion of criteria is extensive, it seems unsatisfactory. Most interpretations of criteria not only misrepresent Wittgenstein; more importantly, they misconstrue the relation between a mental state and the behavior characteristic of that state. If by “criteria” Wittgenstein meant what he has been taken to mean, it is unlikely that any mental states have criteria. In this paper I shall argue that a proper interpretation of Wittgenstein's notion provides an account of the relation between some mental states and the behavior characteristic of them which is at least approximately correct.According to current interpretations of criteria the relation between a form of behavior C and the mental state of which it is a criterion, S, is such that the proposition “A person displaying C is (or: very likely is) in S” is either a necessary truth, known a priori to be true, or “true in virtue of a definition, convention, or rule of language.”

Criteria and other minds

The analogical inference to other minds has competitors other than the scientific inference to other minds. They all seem to me to fail. I shall examine them successively beginning with that “approach” to other minds which depends on the notion of criteria. The classical role of criteria in epistemology has, indeed, been to justify belief in other minds. Often this has proceeded in two stages. First the analogical inference to other minds is attacked and thoroughly discredited thereby exposing a vacuum. Criteria are then invoked to fill this vacuum. Given that there is such a strategy, the consequent urgency of the need has, I think, been responsible for the fact that criteria have been rushed in without due care and attention. This chapter will give them that due care and attention.