The utterance model is a popular basis for theories of interpretation in the contemporary analytic philosophy of literature. This model suggests that interpretation should be constrained by a work's identity‐relevant factors in its context of production because a work, like an utterance, acquires its identity and content in part from its relations with that context. From a descriptive point of view, I argue that the implied author account of interpretation best describes critical practice following the current positions (...) based on the utterance model. That is, people who interpret in accordance with these positions end up interpreting an implied author. (shrink)

Debates between historians show that they expect descriptions of past people and events, and interpretations of historical subjects, and genetic explanations of historical changes, to be fair and not misleading. Sometimes unfair accounts of the past are the result of historians' bias, of their preferring one account over others because it accords with their interests. It is useful to distinguish history which is misleading by accident from that which is the result of personal bias; and to distinguish personal bias from (...) cultural bias and general cultural relativity.This paper explains what fair descriptions, interpretations, and explanations are like in order to clarify the senses in which they can be biased. It then explains why bias is deplorable, and after noting those who regard it as more or less inevitable, considers how personal bias can be avoided. It argues that it is not detachment that is needed, but commitment to standards of rational inquiry.Some might think that rational standards of inquiry will not be enough to avoid bias if the evidence available to the historian is itself biased. In fact historians often allow for bias in evidence, and even explain it when reconstructing what happened in the past.The paper concludes by noting that although personal bias can be largely avoided, cultural bias is not so easy to detect or correct. (shrink)

One branch of Alvin Goldman's proposed "scientific epistemology" is devoted to the scientific study of how folk epistemic evaluators acquire and deploy the concepts of knowledge and justified belief. The author argues that such a "descriptive epistemology," as Goldman calls it, requires a more sophisticated theory of interpretation than is provided by the simulation theory Goldman adopts. The author also argues that any adequate account of folk epistemic concepts must reconstruct the intersubjective conceptual roles those concepts play in discursive (...) practices. In other words, descriptive epistemology also requires a theory of communicative action and an account of the practical abilities agents must have to engage in discursive practices. (shrink)

This dissertation is an attempt at harmonizing hermeneutics. In particular, what I term the normative and descriptive approaches are explored and brought together. A normative approach is one concerned with providing the correct method for gaining knowledge of the meaning of a text. Beardsley's normative method of relying on the "text itself" is considered and rejected. Hirsch's normative method of relying on authorial intention is considered, criticized, and used as a springboard to my own normative method of urinterpretation. Propaedeutic to (...) the articulation of urinterpretation is an answer to the question: What is an author? After a survey of theories of authorship, I propose my own author construct--the urauthor. In constructing the urauthor we go back as far as possible to the model of the original. In urinterpretation we seek authorial intention on the basis of the urauthor. It is argued that through this method we secure the meaning of a text. ;Descriptive hermeneutics is concerned with describing the phenomenon of interpretive understanding. It eschews questions of epistemological method, which are at the center of a normative approach, in favor of an ontology of interpretive understanding. Gadamer's Truth and Method is the most complete philosophical account of descriptive hermeneutics to date, and accordingly our attention to descriptive hermeneutics is largely a critique of Gadamer's work. It is argued that both normative and descriptive hermeneutics can and should coexist, but to facilitate scholarship each should be explored separately. ;Interpretation and criticism are also harmonized. Interpretation is understood as the project of seeking the meaning of a text. The meaning of a text, it is argued, is discovered by seeking authorial meaning through the urauthor. Criticism is understood as the project of seeking the significance of a text. The significance of a text, it is argued, is its meaning-as-related-to: to me, to you, to our time, etc. The harmonization of interpretation and criticism is briefly explored in typical philosophical, literary, theological, and legal texts. (shrink)

In the first two decades of the twentieth century, the figure of the adolescent (Jugendlicher) was introduced into public discourse in the German-speaking world. The adolescent soon became an epistemic object for the still loosely defined field of psychology. Actors in the slowly differentiating scientific field of youth psychology were primarily interested in the normal development of adolescent subjects and sought out new materials and methods to research the inner life of young people. In order to access this inner life, (...) they turned to the interpretation of diaries and other self-descriptions. This article takes up the questions of how diaries were used in the scientific context of psychology, and how diary writing was psychologically interpreted and theorized. The theoretical and methodological contexts of psychological knowledge production grouped around the subject of the diary will be examined in keeping with Hans-Jörg Rheinberger’s concept of historical epistemology. This analysis is carried out by using the example of three central actors who were in conversation with each other during the 1920s and 1930s: the developmental psychologist Charlotte Bühler (1893–1974), the psychologist and founder of personalistic psychology William Stern (1871–1938), and the youth activist Siegfried Bernfeld (1892–1953), who was influenced by Freudian psychoanalysis. (shrink)

This paper proposes a theoretical approach to discuss the relations among reality, chemists’ interactions with it, and the resulting interpretation and representation of the acquired scientific knowledge. Taking into account that such relations are of semiotic nature, this paper aims at discussing in the light of Peirce’s theory of signs different descriptions of chemical activity and chemical education proposed by Alex Johnstone and elaborated by other science educators. In order to discuss the contributions and limitations of the proposed theoretical (...) framework, and considering its potential interest for chemical education, an example on the communication strategies for the content ‘vapour pressure’ found in twentieth-century general chemistry university textbooks is also presented. (shrink)

According to Arthur Danto, it is illegitimate to seek a neutral, or pre-interpretative, description of an artwork, since such descriptions necessarily fail to respect the artwork as such. Instead, we must begin by interpreting, so as to constitute the work : interpretation is what distinguishes artworks from mere physical objects. In this paper, I argue that, while Danto is right to distance artworks from mere things, this can be done without suggesting that artworks are constituted by interpretation. (...) Moreover, Danto’s view leaves us unable to account for the fact that interpretations are constrained to be responsive to the work’s features. I demonstrate that, by appealing to conventions of description that are specific to art, it is possible to offer a neutral description that respects the work as an artwork. This view accords with our common sense understanding of the relation between description and interpretation, and avoids the unfortunate consequences of Danto’s theory. // Selon Arthur Danto, il est illégitime de chercher une description « neutre » ou préinterprétative d’une oeuvre d’art, parce qu’une telle description ne peut respecter l’oeuvre d’art en tant que telle. Nous ne pouvons aborder une oeuvre sans l’interpréter, puisque l’interprétation constitue l’oeuvre d’art et distingue celle-ci d’un simple objet physique. Dans cet article je soutiens que, bien que Danto ait raison de vouloir distinguer les oeuvres d’art des simples choses, on peut effectuer cette distinction sans conclure que les oeuvres d’art sont constituées par l’interprétation. Je soutiens en outre que le point de vue de Danto ne nous permet pas de tenir compte du fait que les interprétations doivent respecter les caractéristiques de l’oeuvre. Je montre qu’en faisant appel aux conventions de description spécifiques à l’art, on peut proposer une description neutre qui respecte l’oeuvre d’art en tant qu’oeuvre. Mon point de vue est conforme à la relation généralement admise entre la description et l’interprétation des oeuvres d’art, et évite les conséquences négatives de la théorie de Danto. (shrink)

Abstract Theories of descriptions tend to involve commitments about the ambiguity of descriptions. For example, sentences containing descriptions are widely taken to be ambiguous between de re , de dicto , and intermediate interpretations and are sometimes thought to be ambiguous between the former and directly referential interpretations. I provide arguments to suggest that none of these interpretations are due to ambiguities (or indexicality). On the other hand, I argue that descriptions are ambiguous between the above family of interpretations and (...) what may be called ‘institutional’ as well as generic interpretations. My arguments suggest that an adequate theory of descriptions may require considerable rethinking. Most contemporary theories of descriptions appear to be committed to one or more claims about the ambiguity of descriptions that I reject in this paper. I suggest that my observations provide a reason to renew efforts to develop a theory of descriptions within a representationalist theory of interpretation. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-16 DOI 10.1007/s11098-011-9759-5 Authors Philipp Koralus, Philosophy Department, Princeton University, 212 1879 Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116. (shrink)

This book provides a new and wide-ranging study of law's normativity, examining conceptual, descriptive and empirical dimensions of this perennial philosophical issue. It also contains essays concerned with, among other issues, the relationship between semantic and legal normativity; methodological concerns pertaining to understanding normativity; normativity and legal interpretation; and normativity as it pertains to transnational law. The contributors come not only from the usual Anglo-American and Western European community of legal theorists, but also from Latin American and Eastern European (...) communities, representing a diversity of perspectives and points of view – including essays from both analytic and continental methodologies. With this range of topics, the book will appeal to scholars in transnational law, legal sociology, normative legal philosophy concerned with problems of state legitimacy and practical rationality, as well as those working in general jurisprudence. It comprises a highly important contribution to the study of law's normativity. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to highlight the nature of the fundamental moments of phenomenological research, such as evidence and description, and the ambivalence of their relationship to each other. On the one hand, both evidence and description are related to Husserl’s attempt to ‘return to the things themselves’. Evidence is understood by the founder of phenomenology as a relation to an object in which the meaning of that object is given to us immediately in the object (...) itself. Description, on the other hand, avoids what is characteristic of any interpretation-oriented methodology: the ‘substitution’ of an explanatory reconstruction for the object under study. A certain discrepancy between phenomenological evidence and phenomenological description becomes apparent when we take into account the reception of the text in which the experience of the evidence is described. What is usually overlooked is that an experience whose content is the text being read is not an experience whose content is the phenomenon described in the text. This confusion leads to a turning away from ‘the things themselves’ and a restriction of phenomenology to the realm of texts. The way to avoid this deformation is through a phenomenological reduction, which must be carried out not only by the phenomenologist-researcher but also by the reader of the texts that provide a description of phenomenological experience. (shrink)

This article examines Wilfrid Sellars's views on the epistemic status of philosophical propositions. It suggests that according to Sellars philosophical propositions are normative and practically oriented. They do not form a theory for the description of reality; their function is, rather, that of motivating actions which aim at changing reality. The article argues that the role of philosophical propositions can be illuminated if they are understood as a special kind of (proposed) “material” rules of inference, provided that the latter (...) are construed as being firmly entrenched in practice. To this end, a distinction between “theoretical” and “practical” anomalies is drawn to better elucidate—and in some cases criticize and further expand—Sellars's position on the relation between the theoretical and practical dimensions of philosophical activity. In this connection, the Weberian notion of the “disenchantment of the world” is used to throw light on the relation between these two dimensions. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue that medical specialists interpret and diagnose through technological mediations like X-ray and fMRI images, and by actualizing embodied skills tacitly they are determining the identity of objects in the perceptual field. The initial phase of human interpretation of visual objects takes place during the moments of visual perception before we are consciously aware of the perceived. What facilitate this innate ability to interpret are experiences, learning and training that become humanly embodied skills. These (...) embodied skills are actualized during the moments of visual perception. My argument is that biology, society and instruments constitute unique individual ontologies influencing specialist readings of the technological output, in other words, putting limits on the ‘‘truth-to-nature’’ relation, which is so much sought for in science. (shrink)

This paper deals with the development of, and the current discussion about, the interpretation of quantum mechanics. The following topics are discussed: 1. The Copenhagen Interpretation, 2. Formal Problems of Quantum Mechanics, 3. Process of Measurement and the Equation of Motion, 4. Macroscopic Level of Description, 5. Search for Hidden Variables, 6. The Notion of “Reality” and Epistemology of Quantum Mechanics, 7. Quantum Mechanics and the Explanation of Life.The Bohr‐Einstein dialogue on the validity of the quantum mechanical (...) description of physical reality lasted over two decades. Since the early nineteen fifties, Wiper has provided much of the point and counterpoint of the continuing discussion on the interpretation and epistemology of quantum mechanics. We have explored Wiper's views in some detail against the background of historical development and current debate. (shrink)

In several places bertrand russell purports to present an argument proving that definite descriptions have no meaning. There have been several interpretations about what this argument is and whether it is valid. I evaluate these interpretations and then present my own. I argue that russell's argument is defective for turning on an equivocation, Which is camouflaged by amphibolies.

This article presents a descriptive, interpretive theory of ethical responsibility in public health nursing. The theory is based on qualitative empirical studies, a purposeful literature review and meta-ethnography of public health nurses’ experiences of ethical responsibility, interpreted within a philosophical framework. Levianasian philosophy provides the main direction for the authors’ interpretations. The path for theory development consists of three phases: an inspirational phase, an explorative phase and the third phase ‘ joining the dots’. The theory illustrates that ethical responsibility in (...) public health nursing is related to the life existentials of temporality and human relationships. Due to blurred boundaries in these essential life structures, public health nurses can experience a sense of satisfaction but also worries, uncertainties and loneliness. The study reveals paradoxical connections between fear and courage, and between freedom, autonomy and a sense of entrapment in responsible relationships. The authors purport that the results of this study are relevant for education and practice and can provide direction for further studies on developing theories of ethical responsibility in other nursing specialities. (shrink)

As mixed methods research approaches become increasingly more common, it is imperative they are conducted in a thoughtful and rigorous manner to yield useful results. While researchers have begun to explore the use of various qualitative research methodologies in mixed methods research, there is a gap in literature discussing the philosophical congruence of using interpretive description in mixed method studies, and how to ensure rigor while integrating interpretive description results. Our purpose in writing this article is to discuss (...) the issues of fit, purpose, process, context, and design when using interpretive description in mixed methods research approaches by drawing on examples from the literature. Further, we explore the contributions that interpretive description can make in a mixed methods inquiry. This article offers a first step in using a purposeful approach to mixed methods interpretive description studies to increase transparency and rigor in this relatively new methodology. (shrink)

"An important contribution to contemporary jurisprudential debate and to legal thought more generally, Just Interpretations is far ahead of currently available work."--Peter Goodrich, author of Oedipus Lex "I was struck repeatedly by the clarity of expression throughout the book. Rosenfeld's description and criticism of the recent work of leading thinkers distinguishes his work within the legal theory genre. Furthermore, his own theory is quite original and provocative."--Aviam Soifer, author of Law and the Company We Keep.

In this paper, I try to explain the philosophical problems that Niels Bohr felt had been exposed by the discovery of the "quantum of action," and by the emergence of the quantum theory that arose in large part as a result of his efforts. I won't have space to make the case adequately here, but my own view is that we have not yet fully digested the message brought to us by Bohr's "Copenhagen Interpretation" of Quantum Mechanics, and I (...) suspect that it will finally prove to be every bit as revolutionary as Bohr thought it was. (shrink)

Understanding the actions of others is fundamental for human social life. It builds on a grasp of the subjective intentionality behind behavior: one action comprises different things simultaneously (e.g., moving their arm, turning on the light) but which of these constitute intentional actions, in contrast to merely foreseen side-effects (e.g., increasing the electricity bill), depends on the description under which the agent represents the acts. She may be acting intentionally only under the description “turning on the light,” but (...) did not turn on the light in order to increase the electricity bill. In preregistered studies (N = 620), we asked how adults and children engage in such complex subjective action interpretation and evaluation in moral dilemmas. To capture the deep structure of subjects' representations of the intentional structures of actions, we derived “act trees” from their response patterns to questions about the acts. Results suggest that people systematically distinguish between intended main and merely foreseen side-effects in their moral and intentionality judgments, even when main and side-effects were closely related and the latter were harmful. Additional experimental conditions suggest that, when given ambiguous information, the majority of subjects assume that agents act with beneficial main intentions. This “good intention prior” was so strong that participants attributed good intentions even when the harmful action was no longer necessary to resolve the dilemma (Study 2). These methods provide promising new ways to investigate in more subtle and fine-grained ways how reasoners parse, interpret, and evaluate complex actions. (shrink)

Most psychological research consists of experiments that put people in artificial situations that elicit unnatural behavior whose ecological validity is unknown. Without knowing the psychocultural meaning of experimental situations, we cannot interpret the responses of WEIRD people, let alone people in other cultures. Psychology, like other sciences, needs to be solidly rooted in naturalistic observation and description of people around the world. Theory should be inductively developed and tested against real-world behavior.

Many social scientists and journalists attempt to explain events in recent or distant history by uncovering hidden beliefs and desires held by groups. Such ascriptions are problematic in that beliefs are attributed to groups rather than individuals, and, in that being “hidden,” they cannot be attributed using ordinary everyday methods. In this paper, I try to sort out what is sensible and what is muddled in this unusual but very common type of belief ascription.

Values are essentially interpretive: they can, even must be interpreted and can and should be understood as (somehow socially or personally standardized) interpretive constructs of a specific kind and according to different types to be distinguished and classified within an hierarchical typology. There is a special connection between values and actions as well as their characteristic of being related to their ascription to persons, goods, events etc. This connection is indeed covered, borne or carried out by interpretation. In fact, (...) any ascription of a value concept or predicate whatsoever is dependent on a structure and hierarchy of normative and in part descriptive schemes of at times conventional and dispositional scheme-interpretations. Generally speaking, the thesis is that the methodological model of interpretive constructs (scheme-interpretationism) can be thoroughly applied to the concept and usage of values. Social values are then in this sense socially originated, institutionally sanctioned or standardized interpretational constructs of a social character, notably for social comparisons in using and establishing preferences for a kind of (limited) uniformity and expectability and predictability of social behavior and actions. (shrink)

This article focuses on how to provide environmental descriptions of the context with the intent of creating access to information and dialogical participation for deafblind persons. Multimodal interaction is needed to communicate with deafblind persons whose combined sensory loss impedes their access to the environment and ongoing interaction. Empirical data of interpreting for deafblind persons are analyzed to give insight into how this task may be performed. All communicative activities vary due to their context, participants, and aim. In this study, (...) our data are part of a cross-linguistic study of tactile sign language and were gathered during a guided tour for a deafblind group. The guided tour was tailored to a specific group (adult deafblind tactile signers and their interpreters) visiting one of the oldest cathedrals and pilgrim sites in Scandinavia, with interpreters following up the guide’s presentation and providing descriptions based on the given situation. The tour and the interpreters’ work were videotaped, and the ongoing interaction and communication have been studied through video-ethnographic methods and conversational analysis. The data have been investigated for the research question: What elements are involved in descriptions to provide deafblind individuals access to their environments? Theories from multimodality communicative studies are relevant for the ways tactile descriptions are presented and analyzed. Some of this is an investigation at a microlevel of interaction. An overall inspiration for this study is interaction studies with data from authentic formal and informal conversations and ways of analyzing embodied action and situated gestures in studies of human interaction. Also, concepts of “frontstage,” “backstage,” and “main conversation” are brought into our interpreter-mediated data to follow the role of building meaning in complex conversations. Theories on interaction are used in the analyses to illustrate the participating framework between the guide, the interpreter, the deafblind person, and the situated frame of their interaction. The study opens for a broader understanding of the repertoire of multimodal interaction and how such interaction may be handled as inputs in communication processes. This is of relevance for communication with deafblind persons, for professionals meeting blind and deafblind clients, and for knowledge of multimodal interaction in general. (shrink)

This essay argues that the interpretations we develop through the activity of reflection have a share of the truth. I argue this, first, by outlining the relationship of concepts to intuitions in Kant’s theory of cognition, which presents the measure for truth in his philosophy. I turn, second, to explicate in detail the relation of the faculties in Kant’s descriptions of the free play between the imagination and the understanding in judgments of taste. Here, we find that concepts relate to (...) what appears in a partial but also multiple way, leading to a conclusion that our reflective judgments share in the truth. This is important, I note, for the need we have to inhabit a shared world where we can communicate with each other about the way that things are, even about things that are not objects of ‘knowledge’ proper. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that anaphoric pronouns should always be interpreted exhaustively. I propose that pronouns are either used referentially and refer to the speaker's referents of their antecedent indefinites, or descriptively and go proxy for the description recoverable from its antecedent clause. I show how this view can be implemented within a dynamic semantics, and how it can account for various examples that seemed to be problematic for the view that for all unbound pronouns there always should (...) be a notion of exhaustivity/uniqueness involved. The uniqueness assumption for the use of singular pronouns is also shown to be importantto explain what the discourse referents used in dynamic semantics represent. (shrink)

Ludwik Fleck is remembered for his monograph published in German in 1935. Reissued in 1979 as Genesis and development of a scientific fact Fleck’s monograph has been claimed to expound relativistic views of science. Fleck has also been portrayed as a prominent scientist. The description of his production of a vaccine against typhus during World War II, when imprisoned in Buchenwald, is legendary in the scholarly literature. The claims about Fleck’s scientific achievements have been justified by referring to his (...) numerous publications in international scientific journals. Though frequently mentioned, these publications have scarcely been studied. The present article discusses differences in interpretation and evaluation of science in relation to the background of the interpreters. For this purpose Fleck’s scientific publications have been scrutinized. In conjunction with further sources reflecting the desperate situation at the time in question, the results of the study account for a more restrained picture of Fleck’s scientific accomplishments. Furthermore, based on the review of the latter, certain demands characterizing good science could be articulated. The restricted possibilities of those not trained in science or not possessing field specific knowledge, evaluating science are discussed, as are also formal aspects of scientific papers and questions related to research ethics. (shrink)

Kripke has taken the Gödel case as a counterexample for reference descriptivism. Machery et al. question the validity of Kripke’s case and had conducted empirical studies to show its inadequacy. Experimental data suggest intuitions on this matter vary both across and within cultures. However, there is a descriptive ambiguity, we argue, in Kripke’s Gödel case, for people associate different types of descriptions with proper names, such as the description of brute facts and the description of social facts. We (...) argue in this paper with experimental data that the descriptive ambiguity exists and affects the actual ratio of Kripkeans in reference. This result flaws Machery et al.’s interpretation on empirical research, but does not challenge their claim on cross-cultural divergence. In fact, there are more East Asian descriptivists than Machery et al. expected. (shrink)

A Lagrangian description is presented which can be used in conjunction with particle interpretations of quantum mechanics. A special example of such an interpretation is the well-known Bohm model. The Lagrangian density introduced here also contains a potential for guiding the particle. The advantages of this description are that the field equations and the particle equations of motion can both be deduced from a single Lagrangian density expression and that conservation of energy and momentum are assured. After (...) being developed in a general form, this Lagrangian formulation is then applied to the special case of the Bohm model as an example. It is thereby demonstrated that such a Lagrangian description is compatible with the predictions of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

This paper deals with the development of, and the current discussion about, the interpretation of quantum mechanics. The following topics are discussed: 1. The Copenhagen Interpretation, 2. Formal Problems of Quantum Mechanics, 3. Process of Measurement and the Equation of Motion, 4. Macroscopic Level of Description, 5. Search for Hidden Variables, 6. The Notion of “Reality” and Epistemology of Quantum Mechanics, 7. Quantum Mechanics and the Explanation of Life.The Bohr‐Einstein dialogue on the validity of the quantum mechanical (...) description of physical reality lasted over two decades. Since the early nineteen fifties, Wiper has provided much of the point and counterpoint of the continuing discussion on the interpretation and epistemology of quantum mechanics. We have explored Wiper's views in some detail against the background of historical development and current debate. (shrink)

In other words, classically, probabilities add; quantum mechanically, the probability amplitudes add, leading to the presence of the extra product terms in the quantum case. What this means is that in quantum theory, even though always only one of the various outcomes is obtained in any given observation, some aspect of the non -occurring events, represented by the corresponding complex-valued quantum amplitudes, plays a role in determining the overall probabilities. Indeed, the observed quantum interference effects are correctly captured by the (...) quantum statistical description only because of the presence of these product terms. Therefore, in a realistic construal of quantum theory, if we treat the superposed Ψ function as representing the real state of an individual quantum system, these quantum amplitudes need to be given an ontological status. (shrink)

DNA barcodes, like traditional sources of taxonomic information, are potentially powerful heuristics in the identification of described species but require mindful analytical interpretation. The role of DNA barcoding in generating hypotheses of new taxa in need of formal taxonomic treatment is discussed, and it is emphasized that the recursive process of character evaluation is both necessary and best served by understanding the empirical mechanics of the discovery process. These undertakings carry enormous ramifications not only for the translation of DNA (...) sequence data into taxonomic information but also for our comprehension of the magnitude of species diversity and its disappearance. This paper examines the potential strengths and pitfalls of integrating DNA sequence data, specifically in the form of DNA barcodes as they are currently generated and analyzed, with taxonomic practice. (shrink)

Naturalistic Descriptions and Normative-Intentional Interpretations Normative pragmatists about linguistic meaning such as Sellars and Brandom have to explain how norms can be implicit in practices described in purely naturalistic terms. The explanation of implicit norms usually offered in the literature commits pragmatists to equate actions with naturalistic events. Since this is an unacceptable consequence, I propose an alternative explanation of implicit norms that avoids this identification. To do so, one has to treat the normative-intentional concepts such as "norm", "action", "sanction", (...) "belief", "desire" as a holistic system, in the sense that one has to apply all of them to a given naturalistic practice simultaneously. This result might be taken to imply that the pragmatist strategy of explaining the content of assertions and beliefs in terms of norm-governed use is misguided because it presupposes that one can account for the concept "norm" independently of the concept "belief". I argue that this consequence does not follow. (shrink)

Context: Josef Mitterer’s critique of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s concept of aspectual vision as elaborated in the second part of Philosophical Investigations and an attempt to develop a kind of non-dualistic “philosophy of systemic psychotherapy.” Problem: How can we ever say that we see something as some other thing when already seeing something is a kind of interpretative activity? Is everything we see an interpretation of an antecedent interpretation? Method: Analyzing and interpreting literature. Results: Wittgenstein, Rorty, and Mitterer develop their (...) positions from a comparable kind of discomfort. The foundation of Mitterer’s critique, however, is completely different: his concept of non-dualism no longer only discusses problems resulting from aspectual vision or from the metaphor of a mirror in relation to objects but seeks to overcome the problems arising from the belief in a categorical difference between objects and the description of objects. Implications: If considered residually dualist in Mitterer’s perspective, aspectual vision in the sense of Wittgenstein is a controversial construction that needs further reflection. (shrink)

The dynamics of neuronal systems, briefly neurodynamics, has developed into an attractive and influential research branch within neuroscience. In this paper, we discuss a number of conceptual issues in neurodynamics that are important for an appropriate interpretation and evaluation of its results. We demonstrate their relevance for selected topics of theoretical and empirical work. In particular, we refer to the notions of determinacy and stochasticity in neurodynamics across levels of microscopic, mesoscopic and macroscopic descriptions. The issue of correlations between (...) neural, mental and behavioral states is also addressed in some detail. We propose an informed discussion of conceptual foundations with respect to neurobiological results as a viable step to a fruitful future philosophy of neuroscience. (shrink)

In the contemporary scene, psychological researchers seeking alternative research strategies are turning increasingly toward interpretation theory. However, other strategies are also available, and one of these is descriptive science. Descriptive practices as the basis for the clarification of meanings have received less emphasis because of several epistemological assumptions about meaning that have appeared in the literature of interpretive science. Based upon the work of contemporary transcendental philosophers, especially J. N. Mohanty, this article argues that a descriptive scientific perspective can (...) respond to some of the hermeneutic arguments about meaning and that solid findings can be established descriptively. It is argued that both description and interpretation are legitimate but that they are tied to different conditions and interests. (shrink)

The idea that the world is made of particles — little discrete, interacting objects that compose the material bodies of everyday experience — is a durable one. Following the advent of quantum theory, the idea was revised but not abandoned. It remains manifest in the explanatory language of physics, chemistry, and molecular biology. Aside from its durability, there is good reason for the scientific realist to embrace the particle interpretation: such a view can account for the prominent epistemic fact (...) that only limited knowledge of a portion of the material universe is needed in order to make reliable predictions about that portion. Thus, particle interpretations can support an abductive argument from the epistemic facts in favor of a realist reading of physical theory. However, any particle interpretation with this property is untenable. The empirical adequacy of modern particle theories requires adoption of a postulate known as permutation invariance — the claim that interchanging the role of two particles of the same kind in a dynamical state description results in a description of the identical state. It is the central claim of this essay that PI is incompatible with any particle interpretation strong enough to account for the epistemic facts. This incompatibility extends across all physical theories. To frame and motivate the inconsistency argument, I begin by fixing the relevant notion of particle. To single out those accounts of greatest appeal to the realist, I develop the logically weakest particle ontology that entails the epistemic fact that the world is piecewise predictable, an ontology I call ‘minimal atomism’. The entire series of scientific conceptions of the particle, from Newton’s mechanically interacting corpuscles to the ‘centers of force’ in classical field theories, all comport with MA. As long as PI is left out, even quantum mechanics can be viewed this way. To assess the impact of PI on this picture, I present a framework for rigorously connecting interpretations to physical theories. In particular, I represent MA as a set of formal conditions on the models of physical theories, the mathematical structures taken to represent states of the world. I also formulate PI — originally introduced as a postulate of non-relativistic quantum mechanics — in theory independent terms. With all of these pieces in hand, I am then able to present a proof of the inconsistency of PI and MA. In the second part of the essay, I survey responses to the inconsistency result open to the scientific realist. The two most plausible approaches involve abandoning particles in one way or another. The first alternative interpretation considered takes the property bearing objects of the world to be regions of space rather than particles. In this view, the properties once attributed to particles in quantum states are attributed instead to one or more regions of space. PI no longer obtains in this case, at least not as a statement about the permutation symmetry of property bearers. Rather, the new interpretation naturally imposes an analogous constraint on quantum states. The second major approach to evading the inconsistency result is to dispense with objects altogether. This is the recommendation of so-called ‘Ontic Structural Realism’. The central OSR thesis is that structure rather than entities are the basic ontological components of the world. OSR is intended to embrace the ‘miracle’ argument in favor of scientific realism while avoiding the pessimistic meta-induction. I demonstrate that one principal motivation for OSR based on the under-determination of interpretations in QM is actually dissolved by the incompatibility result. At the same time, I suggest reasons to think that OSR fares no better with respect to the pessimistic meta-induction than traditional realism does. Thus, while PI and MA may be incompatible, object ontologies remain the best option for the realist. (shrink)

RésuméL’«Épître sur le savoir divin» d'Averroès présente quatre dialogues differents sur deux niveaux textuels. Ces dialogues, leur structure syllogistique ainsi que l'emploi des contradictions indiquent que l’«Épître» est structurée presque entièrement en accord avec les descriptions de la dialectique se trouvant dans les commentaires d'Averroès aux Topiques d'Aristote. Ainsi, la solution d'Averroès à la question de savoir comment Dieu peut avoir une connaissance universelle des particuliers passe par un compte rendu dialectique de la distinction entre le savoir divin et celui (...) des humains. De surcroît, à un point crucial de l’«Épître» Averroès se réfère à Métaphysique Β d'Aristote, qu'il considère être une exposition dialectique des questions sur la métaphysique. Cette référence suggère que l’«Épître sur le savoir divin» est, selon Averroès, une sorte d'enquête dialectique visant à répondre aux questions qui se présentent dès qu'on aborde l’étude de la métaphysique. Il en ressort que si on peut voir en l’«Épître» une interprétation dialectique de Coran LXVII, 14, son but primaire est d'introduire ses lecteurs a la spéculation métaphysique. Ainsi, il n'y a pas d'infraction de la prohibition légale d'Averroès, dans le Discours décisif, sur l'usage des interprétations dialectiques dans les oeuvres ouvertes au public général. (shrink)

Niels Bohr, founding father of modern atomic physics and quantum theory, was as original a philosopher as he was a physicist. This study explores several dimensions of Bohr's vision: the formulation of quantum theory and the problems associated with its interpretation, the notions of complementarity and correspondence, the debates with Einstein about objectivity and realism, and his sense of the infinite harmony of nature. Honner focuses on Bohr's epistemological lesson, the conviction that all our description of nature is (...) dependent on the words we use and the ways we can unambiguously use them. (shrink)

I assume there is no point in speaking of objective interpretation without explaining what it is about the nature of things that fits them for interpretation and how we may be said to know that particular interpretations do indeed fit interpretable things objectively. On that assumption I provide an argument, largely in accord with post‐Kantian themes, to show that a relativistic account of interpretation is not likely to be ruled out by any objectivism or by any exceptionless (...) rule of bivalence. I offer arguments to distinguish between, and account for, what I call interpretation in the “constituting” sense, which bears on the constructed nature of perception and the distinction between description and interpretation, and interpretation in the “ampliative” sense, which bears primarily on the distinctive properties of intrinsically interpretable things. By this strategy I show the sense in which the interpretation of physical phenomena under explanatory conditions invites epistemological forms of incommensurabilism and the Intentional properties of cultural phenomena provide metaphysical grounds for viable forms of relativistic interpretation. (shrink)

In schema therapy, the identification of schema modes is central to case conceptualization and the planning of interventions. Differences in the naming and description of specific modes in the literature suggest the need for systematic phenomenological investigation. This paper presents the second part of an interpretative phenomenological analysis of schema modes within the single case of Linda, a young woman with anorexia nervosa. In this paper, the focus is on Linda’s Coping modes and on several important superordinate themes: mode (...) dyads, mode conflicts and balance of power, mode differentiation, and mode sequences. The findings support the value of the mode framework that is standard in schema therapy, based on Child modes, Parent modes, Coping modes, and the Healthy Adult. They furthermore highlight the idiosyncratic nature of schema modes within an individual case. Research and clinical implications of the findings are discussed, and links are made to the phenomenological perspective of Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

The implicit content associated with incomplete definite descriptions is contributed in the form of definite descriptions of situations. A definite description of this kind is contributed by a small structure in the syntax, which is interpreted, in general terms, as ‘the situation that bears R to s’.

P.F. Strawson is famous for his contribution to the Kant-scholarship (especially for his book The Bounds of Sense). On the other hand, Strawson is recognized as an independent and origional philosopher. This text presents an analysysis of the intersection of these two themes: I present an analysis of Strawson's conception of descriptive mataphysics and aplly its results to the Kant's critical philosophy and to Strawson's interpretation of it. It gives me an opportunity to show that some aspects of Kant's (...) view on method and subject matter of philosophy is genuenly Strowsonian. However, on the other hand, some other Kant's intentions show that even if it is posiible to consider Kantian approach as descriptive metaphysics, it would be another, un-Strawsonian approach. (shrink)

Descriptive realism holds that T is true, while normative realism holds that T is warranted. Descriptive pessimism holds that T is false, while normative pessimism holds that T is unwarranted. We should distinguish between descriptive and normative realism because some arguments against scientific realism require that scientific realism be interpreted as descriptive realism, and because scientific realists can retreat from descriptive to normative realism when descriptive realism is under attack. We should also distinguish between descriptive and normative pessimism because some (...) arguments against scientific pessimism require that it be interpreted as descriptive pessimism, and because scientific pessimists can retreat from descriptive to normative pessimism when descriptive pessimism is under attack. -/- . (shrink)

A Lagrangian formulation is constructed for particle interpretations of quantum mechanics, a well-known example of such an interpretation being the Bohm model. The advantages of such a description are that the equations for particle motion, field evolution and conservation laws can all be deduced from a single Lagrangian density expression. The formalism presented is Lorentz invariant. This paper follows on from a previous one which was limited to the single-particle case. The present paper treats the more general case (...) of many particles in an entangled state. It is found that describing more than one particle while maintaining a relativistic description requires the specification of final boundary conditions as well as the usual initial ones, with the experimenter’s controllable choice of the final conditions thereby exerting a backwards-in-time influence. This retrocausality then allows an important theoretical step forward to be made, namely that it becomes possible to dispense with the usual, many-dimensional description in configuration space and instead revert to a description in space–time using separate, single-particle wavefunctions. (shrink)

Natural deduction systems with indefinite and definite descriptions (ε-terms and ι-terms) are presented, and interpreted in Martin-Löf's intensional type theory. The interpretations are formalizations of ideas which are implicit in the literature of constructive mathematics: if we have proved that an element with a certain property exists, we speak of 'the element such that the property holds' and refer by that phrase to the element constructed in the existence proof. In particular, we deviate from the practice of interpreting descriptions by (...) contextual definitions. (shrink)

As Donnellan (1966) and many others have pointed out, a sentence like (1) has two readings: 1. The person who's parked in front of the restaurant is in a hurry. On the attributive reading, the description the person who's parked in front of the restaurant is interpreted as a quantifier: it says that the unique person who's parked in front of the restaurant is in a hurry, with no implication that the speaker has a particular person in mind — (...) maybe she simply inferred his haste from his choice of a parking spot. On the referential reading, the description picks out a particular person — say Jones, who's waiting for his car at the valet parking station with visible impatience. The question is, is (1) semantically ambiguous? Not if you accept the Russellian view, which holds that the description in (1) is always interpreted as a quantifier, with the referential interpretation arising via a conversational implicature that arises from the hearer's assumption that the speaker is trying to say something relevant and has a particular person in mind. In that case the utterance doesn't literally say anything about Jones, though the speaker may succeed in identifying him by uttering it. (shrink)