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Opaque Context
An opaque context or referentially opaque context is a linguistic context in which it is not always possible to substitute "co-referential" expressions (expressions referring to the same object) without altering the truth of sentences. The expressions involved are usually grammatically singular terms. So, substitution of co-referential expressions into an opaque context does not always preserve truth. For example, "Lois believes x is a hero" is an opaque context because "Lois believes Superman is a hero" is true while "Lois believes Clark Kent is a hero" is false, even though 'Superman' and 'Clark Kent' are co-referential expressions. Usage The term is used in philosophical theories of reference, and is to be contrasted with referentially transparent context. In the opaque case, "Mary believes that Cicero is a great orator" gives rise to an opaque context; although Cicero was also called 'Tully',Tully is anglicised historic name from Tullius, source: we can't simply substitu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Context (language Use)
In semiotics, linguistics, sociology and anthropology, context refers to those objects or entities which surround a ''focal event'', in these disciplines typically a communicative event, of some kind. Context is "a frame that surrounds the event and provides resources for its appropriate interpretation". It is thus a relative concept, only definable with respect to some focal event within a frame, not independently of that frame. In linguistics In the 19th century, it was debated whether the most fundamental principle in language was contextuality or compositionality, and compositionality was usually preferred.Janssen, T. M. (2012) Compositionality: Its historic context', in M. Werning, W. Hinzen, & E. Machery (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of compositionality', pp. 19-46, Oxford University Press. Verbal context refers to the text or speech surrounding an expression (word, sentence, or speech act). Verbal context influences the way an expression is understood; hence the norm of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Box
In science, computing, and engineering, a black box is a system which can be viewed in terms of its inputs and outputs (or transfer characteristics), without any knowledge of its internal workings. Its implementation is "opaque" (black). The term can be used to refer to many inner workings, such as those of a transistor, an engine, an algorithm, the human brain, or an institution or government. To analyze an open system with a typical "black box approach", only the behavior of the stimulus/response will be accounted for, to infer the (unknown) ''box''. The usual representation of this "black box system" is a data flow diagram centered in the box. The opposite of a black box is a system where the inner components or logic are available for inspection, which is most commonly referred to as a white box (sometimes also known as a "clear box" or a "glass box"). History The modern meaning of the term "black box" seems to have entered the English language around 1945. In electroni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
Transitivity Of Identity
In metaphysics, identity (from , "sameness") is the relation each thing bears only to itself. The notion of identity gives rise to many philosophical problems, including the identity of indiscernibles (if ''x'' and ''y'' share all their properties, are they one and the same thing?), and questions about change and personal identity over time (what has to be the case for a person ''x'' at one time and a person ''y'' at a later time to be one and the same person?). It is important to distinguish between ''qualitative identity'' and ''numerical identity''. For example, consider two children with identical bicycles engaged in a race while their mother is watching. The two children have the ''same'' bicycle in one sense (''qualitative identity'') and the ''same'' mother in another sense (''numerical identity''). This article is mainly concerned with ''numerical identity'', which is the stricter notion. The philosophical concept of identity is distinct from the better-known notion of id ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Referential Transparency
In analytic philosophy and computer science, referential transparency and referential opacity are properties of linguistic constructions, and by extension of languages. A linguistic construction is called ''referentially transparent'' when for any expression built from it, Rewriting, replacing a subexpression with another one that Denotation, denotes the same value does not change the value of the expression. Also: Otherwise, it is called ''referentially opaque''. Each expression built from a referentially opaque linguistic construction states something about a subexpression, whereas each expression built from a referentially transparent linguistic construction states something not about a subexpression, meaning that the subexpressions are ‘transparent’ to the expression, acting merely as ‘references’ to something else. For example, the linguistic construction ‘_ was wise’ is referentially transparent (e.g., ''Socrates was wise'' is equivalent to ''The founder of Weste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pure Function
In computer programming, a pure function is a function that has the following properties: # the function return values are identical for identical arguments (no variation with local static variables, non-local variables, mutable reference arguments or input streams, i.e., referential transparency), and # the function has no side effects (no mutation of non-local variables, mutable reference arguments or input/output streams). Examples Pure functions The following examples of C++ functions are pure: Impure functions The following C++ functions are impure as they lack the above property 1: The following C++ functions are impure as they lack the above property 2: The following C++ functions are impure as they lack both the above properties 1 and 2: I/O in pure functions I/O is inherently impure: input operations undermine referential transparency, and output operations create side effects. Nevertheless, there is a sense in which a function can perform inpu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masked-man Fallacy
In philosophical logic, the masked-man fallacy (also known as the intensional fallacy or epistemic fallacy) is the false assumption that a knowledge or a belief about an object (an intension) can be used to correctly tell it apart from another object (as opposed to facts, that can be used to correctly tell two objects apart). It is committed when one makes an illicit use of Leibniz's law in an argument. Leibniz's law states that if A and B are the same object, then A and B are indiscernible (that is, they have all the same properties). By ''modus tollens'', this means that if one object has a certain property, while another object does not have the same property, the two objects cannot be identical. The fallacy is "epistemic" because it posits an immediate identity between a subject's knowledge of an object with the object itself, failing to recognize that Leibniz's Law is not capable of accounting for intensional contexts. Examples The name of the fallacy comes from the example: * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inscrutability Of Reference
The inscrutability or indeterminacy of reference (also referential inscrutability) is a thesis by 20th century analytic philosophy, analytic philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine in his book ''Word and Object''. The main claim of this theory is that any given sentence can be changed into a variety of other sentences where the parts of the sentence will change in what they reference, but they will nonetheless maintain the meaning of the sentence as a whole. The Reference, referential relation is inscrutable, because it is subject to the background language and ontological commitments of the speaker. Overview Along with the holophrastic indeterminacy, the inscrutability of reference is the second kind of indeterminacy that makes up Quine's thesis about the indeterminacy of translation, indeterminacy of (radical) translation. While the inscrutability of reference concerns itself with single words, Quine does not want it to be used for propositions, as he attacks those in another ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fuzzy Concept
A fuzzy concept is an idea of which the boundaries of application can vary considerably according to context or conditions, instead of being fixed once and for all. This means the idea is somewhat vague or imprecise. Yet it is not unclear or meaningless. It has a definite meaning, which can be made more exact only through further elaboration and specification — including a closer definition of the context in which the concept is used. The colloquial meaning of a "fuzzy concept" is that of an imprecise idea which is "somewhat vague" for any kind of reason, or which is "approximately true" in a situation. The inverse of a "fuzzy concept" is a "crisp concept" (i.e. a precise concept). Fuzzy concepts are often used to navigate imprecision in the real world, when exact information is not available, but where an indication is sufficient to be helpful. Although the linguist George Philip Lakoff already defined the semantics of a fuzzy concept in 1973, inspired by an unpublished 197 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aberrant Decoding
Aberrant decoding or aberrant reading is a concept used in fields such as communication and media studies, semiotics, and journalism about how messages can be interpreted differently from what was intended by their sender. The concept was proposed by Umberto Eco in an article published first in 1965 in Italian and in 1972 in English. Concept Every communication act requires that the messages must be encoded into a set of signs by the sender. These signs must then be transmitted and decoded by the receiver to understand the contained messages. The code system must be shared by both the sender and the receiver in order for the communication to succeed. For example, thoughts must be encoded into words, transmitted through air, and then be decoded back to thoughts. Often the sender has a certain meaning to convey with his message, hoping the receiver will interpret it correctly. This right interpretation can be called the ''preferred decoding'' or ''preferred reading''. When the i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Singular Term
A singular term is a paradigmatic referring device in a language. Singular terms are defined as expressions that purport to denote or designate particular individual people, places, or other objects. They contrast with ''general terms'' (such as "car" or "chair") which can apply to more than one thing. Singular terms are of philosophical importance for philosophers of language, because they ''refer'' to things in the world, and the ability of words to refer calls for scrutiny. Overview There are various kinds of singular terms: proper names (e.g. "Matthew"), definite descriptions (e.g. "the second fisherman in the boat"), singular personal pronouns (e.g. "she"), demonstrative pronouns (e.g. "this"), etc. Historically, various definitions for "singular term" have been offered: # A term that tells us which individual is being talked about. (John Stuart Mill, Arthur Prior, P. F. Strawson) # A term that is grammatically singular, i.e. a proper name (''proprium nomen''), a demonst ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operator (programming)
In computer programming, an operator is a programming language construct that provides functionality that may not be possible to define as a user-defined function (i.e. sizeof in C) or has syntax different than a function (i.e. infix addition as in a+b). Like other programming language concepts, ''operator'' has a generally accepted, although debatable meaning among practitioners while at the same time each language gives it specific meaning in that context, and therefore the meaning varies by language. Some operators are represented with symbols characters typically not allowed for a function identifier to allow for presentation that is more familiar looking than typical function syntax. For example, a function that tests for greater-than could be named gt, but many languages provide an infix symbolic operator so that code looks more familiar. For example, this: if gt(x, y) then return Can be: if x > y then return Some languages allow a language-defined operator to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
