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Truth and Meaning: The Dialectics of Theory and Practice
Koreň, Ladislav ; Peregrin, Jaroslav (advisor) ; Kolman, Vojtěch (referee) ; Edwards, James (referee)
Tarski's semantic conception of truth is arguably the most influential - certainly, most discussed - modern conception of truth. It has provoked many different interpretations and reactions, some thinkers celebrating it for successfully explicating the notion of truth, whereas others have argued that it is no good as a philosophical account of truth. The aim of the thesis is to offer a systematic and critical investigation of its nature and significance, based on the thorough explanation of its conceptual, technical as well as historical underpinnings. The methodological strategy adopted in the thesis reflects the author's belief that in order to evaluate the import of Tarski's conception we need to understand what logical, mathematical and philosophical aspects it has, what role they play in his project of theoretical semantics, which of them hang in together, and which should be kept separate. Chapter 2 therefore starts with a detailed exposition of the conceptual and historical background of Tarski's semantic conception of truth and his method of truth definition for formalized languages, situating it within his project of theoretical semantics, and Chapter 3 explains the formal machinery of Tarski's truth definitions for increasingly more complex languages. Chapters 4-7 form the core of the...
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The legacy of philosophical behaviourism: the concept of mind without minds
Soutor, Milan ; Kolman, Vojtěch (advisor) ; Hill, James (referee)
The epistemological problem of unity and its development in the philosophy of Bertrand Russell is the main subject of this essay. The first chapter is devoted to naïve realism developed by G. E. Moore and adopted by early Russell. I explain the notion of objective unity of proposition. The second chapter concerns Russell's departure from naïve realism and the multiple relation of judgment which Wittgenstein's criticism rendered as fatally unable to handle the problem of synthetic unity. The breakdown of this theory led Russell to naturalism, which is the topic of the last chapter. I pay special attention to the regressive argument proposed in slightly different versions by Moore, L. Wittgenstein and G. Ryle. Keywords realism, neutral monism, behaviorism, unity, consciousness
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Scientific Realism and the Natural World
Joseph, Jacques ; Palkoska, Jan (advisor) ; Kolman, Vojtěch (referee)
Jacques Joseph Scientific Realism and the Natural World M.A. thesis Abstract The main topic of this work is the relation between the natural world and the world of the natural sciences, and furthermore the relation of both these worlds to our conception of an external reality "as it really is". The core of the work is rooted mainly in the Anglo-American analytical philosophy of science, namely the debate concerning scientific realism, with a section dedicated to Husserl's conception of the relation between the natural world and natural sciences (as described in his Krisis). The goal of this work is to show scientific realism as broken beyond repair, and to then offer an alternative. The problems that plague realism run deep into its roots, many of which it shares with its opponents, the new alternative theory therefore needs to be completely different. This work suggests the "Natural ontological attitude" (NOA) presented by Arthur Fine, a theory that tries to salvage the intuitions that made realism seem so attractive. NOA is then developped, using texts by W. V. O. Quine and D. Davidson, as a minimalistic metaphysics based strongly on language that still manages to provide a relation to an extra-linguistic reality.
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The Body of Music
Galuška, Ondřej ; Petříček, Miroslav (advisor) ; Karfíková, Lenka (referee) ; Kolman, Vojtěch (referee)
The Body of Music examines in what sense we can and must ascribe some sort of a body to music, which has traditionally been considered the most ideal and metaphysical of arts, and it seeks to analyze different aspects of corporeality in music. Its aim is to show that the body of music cannot be reduced to mere physical vibrations or simply to the condition sine qua non of musical experience. The body is always somehow active in music, it co-creates it, inspires it, it forms its significance or signifiance. Simultaneously it is itself transformed by music, it is played out in and through music. First, the body becomes apparent when we look at music as a process and activity rather than as a product. The body of a musician is that of a perpetual learner, it transforms itself, it is forced to think by itself and while "performing" music it has to breathe life into it, actualize it. Second, confronted with the process of learning and a musical instrument we come across the body of sound: something like the obstinacy of the material, irreducible to the intelligible strata of the musical sound. Sound is a complex phenomenon, whose material layer is itself productive of meaning. Third, there is the body of the listener, which is similar to that of the musician in that it too has to "perform", compose the music....
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The (in)depence of elementary propositions in early Wittgenstein
Fořtová, Zuzana ; Kolman, Vojtěch (advisor) ; Palkoska, Jan (referee)
In my Master's thesis, I focus on the problem of dependence and independence of elementary propositions in the Tractatus and Some Remarks on Logical Form. The main issue I wish to analyze in my investigation is the question of whether the independence of elementary propositions (asserted in the Tractatus) is necessary for the maintenance of Tractarian truth-functional analysis of propositions. The motivation behind this is the fact that, in the SRLF, Wittgenstein explicitly rejects, after precise argumentation, the independence of elementary propositions concerning characteristics allowing gradation. After analyzing the essential arguments and precise rendering of independence of elementary propositions in the Tractatus and considering arguments for their dependence in the SRLF, I argue that (based on my analysis of both works) the mutual dependence of some elementary propositions is not problematic for Tractarian truth-functional analysis.
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The impossibility of private language
Hnyk, Tomáš ; Kolman, Vojtěch (advisor) ; Dostálová, Ludmila (referee)
Wittgenstein's argument against private language is subjected to scru- tiny in this thesis. Three arguments against private language are found. Private language would be impossible to imagine, would not have a function and would lack any criteria of right or wrong use. Next, several reactions by later philosophers are discussed leading to a better understanding of Wittgenstein's argumentation. Soames's and Ayer's objections help to point out that thought experiments are admissible only when respecting our forms of life. They also empha- size the fact that Wittgenstein was not concerned with truth condi- tions but with assertibility conditions. Last, Kripke's interpretation of Wittgenstein is mentioned briefly.
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Impredicativity and paradox
Glivická, Jana ; Kolman, Vojtěch (advisor) ; Dostálová, Ludmila (referee)
In the submitted thesis a role is examined of the concept of impredicativity in solu- tion suggestions for epistemological and logical paradoxes. We focus on the develo- pment of this concept in the way Russell and Poincaré contributed to it in the first stage. An introduction is given to Russell's theory of types based on the exclusion of impredicative principles and definitions, problems are mentioned related with this theory. We continue by offering Ramsey's modification of the theory of types sup- posed to solve the given problems. Connection is examined between impredicativity and diagonal construction and attention is paid to determination of conditions under which diagonal constructions and impredicative definitions are vicious, i.e. leading to contradictions. For this purpose a distinction is offered between out-picking and potentially constructing principles. In the conclusion the axiomatic set theory is mentioned which neutralizes the distinction between predicative and impredicative principles, and whose acceptance lead to disinterest in impredicativity.
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Truth between syntax and semantics
Procházka, Karel ; Peregrin, Jaroslav (advisor) ; Kolman, Vojtěch (referee) ; Awodey, Steve (referee)
The broad aim of this thesis is to clarify the relationship between syntax and semantics, mainly in connection with languages with exactly speci ed structure. The main questions we raise are: What is it that makes a semantic concept genuinely semantic? What exactly makes a merely semantic characterization of such a concept inadequate? What is the decisive step we have to make if we want to start speaking about the meaning-side of language? We approach these questions indirectly: via an analysis of a typically semantic concept, namely that of truth. Our principal question then becomes: What conceptual resources are required for a satisfactory de nition of truth? To investigate the concept of truth and di erent ways in which it can be de ned, we have chosen three individual systems: (a cumulative version of) Russell's rami ed theory of types, Zermelo's second-order set theory and Carnap's logical syntax. Each of the systems is studied in considerable detail. The presented thesis is, in e ect, a collection of three case-studies into the ways in which the concept of truth is explicitly de nable and into the requisite conceptual background, each study forming a more or less closed unity. It should be noted that we are not interested in a historically faithful representation of these systems; our goal is to get...
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