Necessary truth and proof

What makes necessary truths true? I argue that all truth supervenes on how things are, and that necessary truths are no exception. What makes them true are proofs. But if so, the notion of proof needs to be generalized to include verification-transcendent proofs, proofs whose correctness exceeds our ability to verify it. It is incumbent on me, therefore, to show that arguments, such as Dummett's, that verification-truth is not compatible with the theory of meaning, are mistaken. The answer is that what we can conceive and construct far outstrips our actual abilities. I conclude by proposing a proof-theoretic account of modality, rejecting a claim of Armstrong's that modality can reside in non-modal truthmakers.

Truth, laws and the progress of science

In this paper I analyze the difficult question of the truth of mature scientific theories by tackling the problem of the truth of laws. After introducing the main philosophical positions in the field of scientific realism, I discuss and then counter the two main arguments against realism, namely the pessimistic meta-induction and the abstract and idealized character of scientific laws. I conclude by defending the view that well-confirmed physical theories are true only relatively to certain values of the variables that appear in the laws.

Models, truth and realism: assessing Bas van Fraassen's views on scientific representation

This paper is devoted to an analysis of some aspects of Bas van Fraassen's views on representation. While I agree with most of his claims, I disagree on the following three issues. Firstly, I contend that some isomorphism (or at least homomorphism) between the representor and what is represented is a universal necessary condition for the success of any representation, even in the case of misrepresentation. Secondly, I argue that the so-called "semantic" or "model-theoretic" construal of theories does not give proper due to the role played by true propositions in successful representing practices. Thirdly, I attempt to show that the force of van Fraassen's pragmatic - and antirealist - "dissolution" of the "loss of reality objection" loses its bite when we realize that our cognitive contact with real phenomena is achieved not by representing but by expressing true propositions about them.

A SECOND OPINION ON RELATIVE TRUTH

In 'An undermining diagnosis of relativism about truth', Horwich claims that the notion of relative truth is either explanatorily sterile or explanatorily superfluous. In the present paper, I argue that Horwich's explanatory demands set the bar unwarrantedly high: given the philosophical import of the theorems of a truth-theoretic semantic theory, Horwich's proposed explananda, what he calls acceptance facts, are too indirect for us to expect a complete explanation of them in terms of the deliverances of a theory of meaning based on the notion of relative truth. And, to the extent that there might be such an explanation in certain cases, there is no reason to expect relative truth to play an essential, ineliminable role, nor to endorse the claim that it should play such a role in order to be a theoretically useful notion.

NEWSPAPERS FOLHA DE SÃO PAULO E CORREIO BRAZILIENSE: WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT THE PROGRAM MORE DOCTORS?

Analyzes publications related More Medical Program from July to September of 2013 and its impact on Correio Braziliense and Folha de São Paulo. This is a descriptive study using a qualitative-quantitative methodology. The analyzed and related data represent what the program takes in print. 363 publications were found, 262 in Folha de São Paulo and 101 in Correio. The word "Doctor" appeared in more titles, and Folha de São Paulo were 110 negative titles; to Correio neutral character was in 50 publications. In the character of news, 178 of these are pessimistic. The "neutral" and 101 representing "optimistic" 83. Was found that the media is critical to the impact of the program, but the truth is not apparent, but the opinion of journalists who wrote the stories related to the theme.

On the institution of the moral subject: on the commander and the commanded in Nietzsche's discussion of law

The article discusses how Nietzsche understands the institution of law and morals in distinction to Kant and the Christian tradition. It argues that Nietzsche to a large extent is inspired by the paradigm-shift toward a evolutionary biological thinking introduced by several of his peers in the late 19th century, among else F. A. Lange, who sees this shift as a sobering scientific-materialistic alternative to Kant. In Nietzsche, the Kantian moral imperative is replaced with a notion of a morality emerging thanks to historical, or pre-historical, civilizational processes, imposed on a feebleminded human without any inherent rational dispositions to obey Law. It is also a process, which rather than universalizing the human, splits it in a duality where one part obeys old immediate self-interests and another part obeys new 'commands,' having been shouted 'into the ear' by a so-called 'commander.' The compliance with law takes two radically different forms in Nietzsche: servile and mediocre individuals need to be exposed to discipline and punishment in order to adopt Law; while so-called 'sovereign' individuals are able to impose law upon themselves. The figure of the 'sovereign' has consequently been an issue for vigorous debate in especially the Anglo-Saxon tradition of Nietzsche research, since his apparent 'respect for law' and 'sense of duty' reiterate typical Kantian qualities. Relating to these discussions, I suggest that Nietzsche's 'sovereign' (in one context) is identical his 'commander' (in other contexts). When the 'sovereign' as such imposes law upon himself and others, his act is conventional and arbitrary (like language in Saussure), and is rather irrational than rational as in Kant. His will is not a good will, nor a rational will with a vision of human autonomy. His command of himself and others is a performative, thus without truth-value (like illocutionary speech-acts in Austin and Searle).

Truths ancient and modern

The paper presents a comparison of the theories of truth, and the solutions of the liar paradox, proposed by Thomas Bradwardine (c. 1290-1349), Jean Buridan (c. 1295-1358), and Alfred Tarski (1901-1983).

Formal semantics for propositional attitudes

Contemporary logic is confined to a few paradigmatic attitudes such as belief, knowledge, desire and intention. My purpose is to present a general model-theoretical semantics of propositional attitudes of any cognitive or volitive mode. In my view, one can recursively define the set of all psychological modes of attitudes. As Descartes anticipated, the two primitive modes are those of belief and desire. Complex modes are obtained by adding to primitive modes special cognitive and volitive ways or special propositional content or preparatory conditions. According to standard logic of attitudes (Hintikka), human agents are either perfectly rational or totally irrational. I will proceed to a finer analysis of propositional attitudes that accounts for our imperfect but minimal rationality. For that purpose I will use a non standard predicative logic according to which propositions with the same truth conditions can have different cognitive values and I will explicate subjective in addition to objective possibilities. Next I will enumerate valid laws of my general logic of propositional attitudes. At the end I will state principles according to which minimally rational agents dynamically revise attitudes of any mode.

The relation between the general maxim of causality and the principle of uniformity in hume's theory of knowledge

ABSTRACT When Hume, in the Treatise on Human Nature, began his examination of the relation of cause and effect, in particular, of the idea of necessary connection which is its essential constituent, he identified two preliminary questions that should guide his research: (1) For what reason we pronounce it necessary that every thing whose existence has a beginning should also have a cause and (2) Why we conclude that such particular causes must necessarily have such particular effects? (1.3.2, 14-15) Hume observes that our belief in these principles can result neither from an intuitive grasp of their truth nor from a reasoning that could establish them by demonstrative means. In particular, with respect to the first, Hume examines and rejects some arguments with which Locke, Hobbes and Clarke tried to demonstrate it, and suggests, by exclusion, that the belief that we place on it can only come from experience. Somewhat surprisingly, however, Hume does not proceed to show how that derivation of experience could be made, but proposes instead to move directly to an examination of the second principle, saying that, "perhaps, be found in the end, that the same answer will serve for both questions" (1.3.3, 9). Hume's answer to the second question is well known, but the first question is never answered in the rest of the Treatise, and it is even doubtful that it could be, which would explain why Hume has simply chosen to remove any mention of it when he recompiled his theses on causation in the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Given this situation, an interesting question that naturally arises is to investigate the relations of logical or conceptual implication between these two principles. Hume seems to have thought that an answer to (2) would also be sufficient to provide an answer to (1). Henry Allison, in his turn, argued (in Custom and Reason in Hume, p. 94-97) that the two questions are logically independent. My proposal here is to try to show that there is indeed a logical dependency between them, but the implication is, rather, from (1) to (2). If accepted, this result may be particularly interesting for an interpretation of the scope of the so-called "Kant's reply to Hume" in the Second Analogy of Experience, which is structured as a proof of the a priori character of (1), but whose implications for (2) remain controversial.

Dos modelos de interpretación: la indeterminación de la traducción en quine y el argumento modelo teorético de Putnam

Las tesis de la indeterminación de Quine establecen que las condiciones de verdad de una oración sub-determinan la referencia de los términos que ocurren en la misma. La cuestión es ¿cuál es el alcance de esa sub-determinación? En Reason, Truth and History Putnam señala que la su-determinación es mayor de lo que podría suponerse a partir de los argumentos de Quine y se propone, con su "argumento modelo teorético", prolongar radicalmenteestos resultados. En este artículo pretendo mostrar que el argumento modelo teorético de Putnam no es una mera prolongación de los resultados de Quine, sino que se trata de un argumento que supone un modelo de interpretación distinto del que subyace al argumento de este último. Si estoy en lo cierto, tendríamos en este caso dos modos de entender la interpretación y dependerá de qué modo la entendamos, el alcance que le demos a la sub-determinación de la referencia por los valores veritativos. Considero, por lo tanto, que el argumento de Putnam, si bien radicaliza las conclusiones de Quine, lo hace introduciendo un modelo de interpretación diferente al que es desarrollado en Word and Object.

Contexts, non-specificity, and minimalism

Atlas (2007) argues that semantic minimalism (as defended by Cappelen & Lepore 2005) fails because it cannot deal with semantic non-specificity. I argue that thereis a plausible version of minimalism-viz., situated minimalism-which doesn't succumb to the non-specificity charge insofar as non-specificity can be dealt with at a postsemantic level. Thus, pragmatics plays no rolewhen it comes to determining the (minimal) proposition expressed. Instead, pragmatic and other extra-semantic considerations enter the scene in characterizing the situation vis-à-vis which the proposition is evaluated. For this reason a plausible form of minimalism must embrace a form of truth-relativism: a proposition is not universally true/false, but true/false only relative to a situation. I show how the position defended is not only (i) more cognitively plausible than either (semantic) minimalism as proposed by Cappelen & Lepore or the positions appealing to pragmaticintrusion into the proposition expressed, but is also (ii) in accordance with ordinary people's intuitions.

IS SELF-DECEPTION PRETENSE?

I assess Tamar Gendler's (2007) account of self-deception according to which its characteristic state is not belief, but imaginative pretense. After giving an overview of the literature and presenting the conceptual puzzles engendered by the notion of self-deception, I introduce Gendler's account, which emerges as a rival to practically all extant accounts of self-deception. I object to it by first arguing that her argument for abandoning belief as the characteristic state of self-deception conflates the state of belief and the process of belief-formation when interpreting David Velleman's (2000) thesis that belief is an essentially truth-directed attitude. I then call attention to the fact that Velleman's argument for the identity of motivational role between belief and imagining, on which Gendler's argument for self-deception as pretense depends, conflates two senses of 'motivational role'-a stronger but implausible sense and a weaker but explanatorily irrelevant sense. Finally, I introduce Neil Van Leeuwen's (2009) argument to the effect that belief is the practical ground of all non-belief cognitive attitudes in circum-stances wherein the latter prompt action. I apply this framework to Gendler's account to ultimately show that imaginative pretense fails to explain the existence of voluntary actions which result from self-deception.

An MD-PhD program in Brazil: students’ concepts of science and of common sense

In 1995, a pioneering MD-PhD program was initiated in Brazil for the training of medical scientists in experimental sciences at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. The program’s aim was achieved with respect to publication of theses in the form of papers with international visibility and also in terms of fostering the scientific careers of the graduates. The expansion of this type of program is one of the strategies for improving the preparation of biomedical researchers in Brazil. A noteworthy absence of interest in carrying out clinical research limits the ability of young Brazilian physicians to solve biomedical problems. To understand the students’ views of science, we used qualitative and quantitative triangulation methods, as well as participant observation to evaluate the students’ concepts of science and common sense. Subjective aspects were clearly less evident in their concepts of science. There was a strong concern about "methodology", "truth" and "usefulness". "Intuition", "creativity" and "curiosity" were the least mentioned thematic categories. Students recognized the value of intuition when it appeared as an explicit option but they did not refer to it spontaneously. Common sense was associated with "consensus", "opinion" and ideas that "require scientific validation". Such observations indicate that MD-PhD students share with their senior academic colleagues the same reluctance to consider common sense as a valid adjunct for the solution of scientific problems. Overcoming this difficulty may be an important step toward stimulating the interest of physicians in pursuing experimental research.

Alice Amsden's impact on Latin America

On March 15 2012, we lost Professor Alice Amsden, a great intellectual power in development economics. Her work was systematically marked by creativity, originality, relevance and her fearless commitment to always speak truth to power both in academic as well as in policy-making arenas. This In Memoriam concentrates on just one part of her great intellectual legacy: her impact to better understanding Latin America's development challenges, obstacles and policy options. Our paper focuses on three broad areas of her main influence in the region: the role of transnational corporations, the importance of manufactured exports for development, and industrial policy. As we here argue, in all of them, her work is and continues to be a substantial contribution to knowledge that policy makers will be well advised to take into account if the region is to finally enter a path of structural transformation and sustained economic and social development.

Rationality in children: the first steps

Not all categorization is conceptual. Many of the experimental findings concerning infant and animal categorization invite the hypothesis that the subjects form abstract perceptual representations, mental models or cognitive maps that are not composed of concepts. The paper is a reflection upon the idea that conceptual categorization involves the ability to make categorical judgements under the guidance of norms of rationality. These include a norm of truth-seeking and a norm of good evidence. Acceptance of these norms implies willingness to defer to cognitive authorities, unwillingness to commit oneself to contradictions, and knowledge of how to reorganize one's representational system upon discovering that one has made a mistake. It is proposed that the cognitive architecture required for basic rationality is similar to that which underlies pretend-play. The representational system must be able to make room for separate 'mental spaces' in which alternatives to the actual world are entertained. The same feature underlies the ability to understand modalities, time, the appearance-reality distinction, other minds, and ethics. Each area of understanding admits of degrees, and mastery (up to normal adult level) takes years. But rational concept-management, at least in its most rudimentary form, does not require a capacity to form second-order representations. It requires knowledge of how to operate upon, and compare, the contents of different mental spaces.