Proposition (philosophy)
A proposition is a statement that can be either true or false. It is a central concept in the philosophy of language, semantics, logic, and related fields. Propositions are the object s denoted by declarative sentences; for example, "The sky is blue" expresses the proposition that the sky is blue. Unlike sentences, propositions are not linguistic expressions, so the English sentence "Snow is white" and the German "Schnee ist weiß" denote the same proposition. Propositions also serve as the objects of belief and other propositional attitudes, such as when someone believes that the sky is blue. Formally, propositions are often modeled as functions which map a possible world to a truth value. For instance, the proposition that the sky is blue can be modeled as a function which would return the truth value T if given the actual world as input, but would return F if given some alternate world where the sky is green. However, a number of alternative formalizations have been ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Philosophy Of Language
Philosophy of language refers to the philosophical study of the nature of language. It investigates the relationship between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of Meaning (philosophy), meaning, intentionality, reference, the constitution of sentences, concepts, learning, and thought. Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell were pivotal figures in analytic philosophy's "linguistic turn". These writers were followed by Ludwig Wittgenstein (''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus''), the Vienna Circle, Logical positivism, logical positivists, and Willard Van Orman Quine. History Ancient philosophy In the West, inquiry into language stretches back to the 5th century BC with philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. Linguistic speculation predated systematic descriptions of grammar which emerged in India and in Greece. In the dialogue ''Cratylus (dialogue), Cratylus'', Plato considered the question of whether ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Folk Psychology
Folk psychology, commonsense psychology, or naïve psychology is the ordinary, intuitive, or non-expert understanding, explanation, and rationalization of people's behaviors and Cognitive psychology, mental states. In philosophy of mind and cognitive science, it can also refer to the academic study of this concept. Processes and items encountered in daily life such as pain, pleasure, excitement, and anxiety use common linguistic terms as opposed to technical or scientific jargon. Folk psychology allows for an insight into social interactions and communication, thus stretching the importance of connection and how it is experienced. Traditionally, the study of folk psychology has focused on how everyday people—those without formal training in the various academic fields of science—go about attributing mental states. This domain has primarily been centered on intentional states reflective of an individual's beliefs and desires; each described in terms of everyday language and conc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Set (mathematics)
In mathematics, a set is a collection of different things; the things are '' elements'' or ''members'' of the set and are typically mathematical objects: numbers, symbols, points in space, lines, other geometric shapes, variables, or other sets. A set may be finite or infinite. There is a unique set with no elements, called the empty set; a set with a single element is a singleton. Sets are ubiquitous in modern mathematics. Indeed, set theory, more specifically Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, has been the standard way to provide rigorous foundations for all branches of mathematics since the first half of the 20th century. Context Before the end of the 19th century, sets were not studied specifically, and were not clearly distinguished from sequences. Most mathematicians considered infinity as potentialmeaning that it is the result of an endless processand were reluctant to consider infinite sets, that is sets whose number of members is not a natural number. Specific ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Predicate Logic
First-order logic, also called predicate logic, predicate calculus, or quantificational logic, is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantified variables over non-logical objects, and allows the use of sentences that contain variables. Rather than propositions such as "all humans are mortal", in first-order logic one can have expressions in the form "for all ''x'', if ''x'' is a human, then ''x'' is mortal", where "for all ''x"'' is a quantifier, ''x'' is a variable, and "... ''is a human''" and "... ''is mortal''" are predicates. This distinguishes it from propositional logic, which does not use quantifiers or relations; in this sense, propositional logic is the foundation of first-order logic. A theory about a topic, such as set theory, a theory for groups,A. Tarski, ''Undecidable Theories'' (1953), p. 77. Studies in Logic and the Foundation of Mathematics, North-Holland or a formal theory ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ambiguity
Ambiguity is the type of meaning (linguistics), meaning in which a phrase, statement, or resolution is not explicitly defined, making for several interpretations; others describe it as a concept or statement that has no real reference. A common aspect of ambiguity is uncertainty. It is thus an Attribute grammar, attribute of any idea or statement whose intention, intended meaning cannot be definitively resolved, according to a rule or process with a finite number of steps. (The prefix ''wikt:ambi-#Prefix, ambi-'' reflects the idea of "2 (number), two", as in "two meanings"). The concept of ambiguity is generally contrasted with vagueness. In ambiguity, specific and distinct interpretations are permitted (although some may not be immediately obvious), whereas with vague information it is difficult to form any interpretation at the desired level of specificity. Linguistic forms Lexical ambiguity is contrasted with semantic ambiguity. The former represents a choice between a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic philosophy.Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy"Bertrand Russell", 1 May 2003. He was one of the early 20th century's prominent logicians and a founder of analytic philosophy, along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege, his friend and colleague G. E. Moore, and his student and protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein. Russell with Moore led the British "revolt against British idealism, idealism". Together with his former teacher Alfred North Whitehead, A. N. Whitehead, Russell wrote ''Principia Mathematica'', a milestone in the development of classical logic and a major attempt to reduce the whole of mathematics to logic (see logicism). Russell's article "On Denoting" has been considered a "paradigm of philosophy". Russell was a Pacifism, pacifist who ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Inquisitive Semantics
Inquisitive semantics is a framework in logic and Formal semantics (linguistics), natural language semantics. In inquisitive semantics, the semantic content of a sentence captures both the information that the sentence conveys and the issue that it raises. The framework provides a foundation for the linguistic analysis of statements and questions. It was originally developed by Ivano Ciardelli, Jeroen Groenendijk, Salvador Mascarenhas, and Floris Roelofsen. Basic notions The essential notion in inquisitive semantics is that of an ''inquisitive proposition''. * An ''information state'' (alternately a ''classical proposition'') is a set of possible worlds. * An ''inquisitive proposition'' is a nonempty downward closure, downward-closed set of information states. Inquisitive propositions encode informational content via the region of logical space that their information states cover. For instance, the inquisitive proposition \ encodes the information that is the actual world. The ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Inverse Image
In mathematics, for a function f: X \to Y, the image of an input value x is the single output value produced by f when passed x. The preimage of an output value y is the set of input values that produce y. More generally, evaluating f at each element of a given subset A of its domain X produces a set, called the "image of A under (or through) f". Similarly, the inverse image (or preimage) of a given subset B of the codomain Y is the set of all elements of X that map to a member of B. The image of the function f is the set of all output values it may produce, that is, the image of X. The preimage of f is the preimage of the codomain Y. Because it always equals X (the domain of f), it is rarely used. Image and inverse image may also be defined for general binary relations, not just functions. Definition The word "image" is used in three related ways. In these definitions, f : X \to Y is a function from the set X to the set Y. Image of an element If x is a member of X, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Indicator Function
In mathematics, an indicator function or a characteristic function of a subset of a set is a function that maps elements of the subset to one, and all other elements to zero. That is, if is a subset of some set , then the indicator function of is the function \mathbf_A defined by \mathbf_\!(x) = 1 if x \in A, and \mathbf_\!(x) = 0 otherwise. Other common notations are and \chi_A. The indicator function of is the Iverson bracket of the property of belonging to ; that is, \mathbf_(x) = \left x\in A\ \right For example, the Dirichlet function is the indicator function of the rational numbers as a subset of the real numbers. Definition Given an arbitrary set , the indicator function of a subset of is the function \mathbf_A \colon X \mapsto \ defined by \operatorname\mathbf_A\!( x ) = \begin 1 & \text x \in A \\ 0 & \text x \notin A \,. \end The Iverson bracket provides the equivalent notation \left x\in A\ \right/math> or that can be used instead of \mathbf_\ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Internalism
Internalism and externalism are two opposite ways of integrating and explaining various subjects in several areas of philosophy. These include human motivation, knowledge, justification, meaning, and truth. The distinction arises in many areas of debate with similar but distinct meanings. Internal–external distinction is a distinction used in philosophy to divide an ontology into two parts: an internal part concerning observation related to philosophy, and an external part concerning question related to philosophy. Internalism is the thesis that no fact about the world can provide reasons for action independently of desires and beliefs.Giuseppina D'Oro"Collingwood, psychologism and internalism,"''European Journal of Philosophy'' 12(2):163–177 (2004). Externalism is the thesis that reasons are to be identified with objective features of the world. Moral philosophy Motivation In contemporary moral philosophy, motivational internalism (or moral internalism) is the view that ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Platonist
Platonism is the philosophy of Plato and philosophical systems closely derived from it, though contemporary Platonists do not necessarily accept all doctrines of Plato. Platonism has had a profound effect on Western thought. At the most fundamental level, Platonism affirms the existence of abstract objects, which are asserted to exist in a third realm distinct from both the sensible external world and from the internal world of consciousness, and is the opposite of nominalism." Philosophers who affirm the existence of abstract objects are sometimes called platonists; those who deny their existence are sometimes called nominalists. The terms "platonism" and "nominalism" have established senses in the history of philosophy, where they denote positions that have little to do with the modern notion of an abstract object. In this connection, it is essential to bear in mind that modern platonists (with a small 'p') need not accept any of the doctrines of Plato, just as modern nominal ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gottlob Frege
Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic philosophy, concentrating on the philosophy of language, philosophy of logic, logic, and Philosophy of mathematics, mathematics. Though he was largely ignored during his lifetime, Giuseppe Peano (1858–1932), Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), and, to some extent, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) introduced his work to later generations of philosophers. Frege is widely considered to be the greatest logician since Aristotle, and one of the most profound philosophers of mathematics ever. His contributions include the History of logic#Rise of modern logic, development of modern logic in the ''Begriffsschrift'' and work in the foundations of mathematics. His book the ''Foundations of Arithmetic'' is the seminal text of the logicist project, and is ci ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |