سید محمد علی حجتی

According to Fakhr al-Dīn Al-Razī, the existence of a subject in true affirmative metathetic judgment is not necessary and, hence, the rule of farʻiyyah confronts a challenge. By appealing to the difference in truth conditions of affirmative and negative judgments, Quṭb al-Dīn Al-Razī criticizes Farkhr’s view. According to Quṭb, Fakhr‘s argument rests on the doctrine that “The subject in a proposition should have the predicate or its negation”. Quṭb, however, has another doctrine, although he does not mention it explicitly; i.e., “The subject in a proposition should have the predicate or should not have the predicate”. Logically, different consequences result since different doctrines are considered. In this paper, the differences between Fakhr and Quṭb‘s views concerning the truth conditions of affirmative metathetic and some of their consequences are examined.

This paper is a reflection on the nature of Meinongian Propositions (MP), within which properties are ascribed to non-existent objects, preserving the possibility of their being true. Ordinary theories of the propositional unity, I demonstrate, provide explanations to the nature of MP, only in pain of misrepresenting their truth value, violating our intuitions about their constituents, or doubling our ontological commitments. Cognitive accounts e.g. that of Soames, later Russell or Priest, are to work. This paper is a reflection on the nature of Meinongian Propositions (MP), within which properties are ascribed to non-existent objects, preserving the possibility of their being true. Ordinary theories of the propositional unity, I demonstrate, provide explanations to the nature of MP, only in pain of misrepresenting their truth value, violating our intuitions about their constituents or doubling our ontological commitments. Cognitive accounts e.g. that of Soames, later Russell or Priest, are to work. This paper is a reflection on the nature of Meinongian Propositions (MP), within which properties are ascribed to non-existent objects, preserving the possibility of their being true. Ordinary theories of the propositional unity, I demonstrate, provide explanations to the nature of MP, only in pain of misrepresenting their truth value, violating our intuitions about their constituents or doubling our ontological commitments. Cognitive accounts e.g. that of Soames, later Russell or Priest, are to work.

Frege doesn’t have an independent and comprehensive issue concerning indexical semantics. However, in some of his works, especially “The Thought”, he has declared some characteristics of some indexical. In sum, his view is that if a sentence contains an indexical word, it has linguistic meaning; However, it does not express a Thought (=sense) unless the reference of that indexical word is determined. Regarding Frege’s views concerning the characteristics of Thought, it seems his approach to the semantic of indexical can be extended to be true concerning other expressions having concrete references. To obtain a thought, all temporal and spatial constraints should be considered. Hence, we may claim that Frege considers all expressions with concrete references indexical.

According to Priest’s Modal Meinongianism, every condition expressible in language, characterizes some object(s) satisfying the very condition, either in the actual world or in some other world(s). Similar commitments of other Meinongians, to such an unrestricted principle of characterization (CP), provokes the emergence of the Clark paradox. We argue that the inter-world bleed of information within Priest’s system of logic may ground similar complications. We demonstrate how to secure the possibility of world-shift by employing internal resources of the noneist semantics. This results in triviality; far beyond contradiction. Priest has to put restrictions on the CP.According to Priest’s Modal Meinongianism, every condition expressible in language, characterizes some object(s) satisfying the very condition, either in the actual world or in some other world(s). Similar commitments of other Meinongians, to such an unrestricted principle of characterization (CP), provokes the emergence of the Clark paradox. We argue that the inter-world bleed of information within Priest’s system of logic may ground similar complications. We demonstrate how to secure the possibility of world-shift by employing internal resources of the noneist semantics. This results in triviality; far beyond contradiction. Priest has to put restrictions on the CP.

Is Meinongian dicopulation justified? This is the main problem in this paper and our hypothesis is that Meinongian dicopulaism is counterintuitive. This is despite the rich list of syntactic and semantic features that Meinongian advocates of the double copula strategy attribute to the Meinongian (internal/encoding) mode of predication in contrast with the ordinary mode of predication. That is what we demonstrate in this paper. We argue that neither of the requirement that Meinongian formulas (i.e. those containing the Meinongian mode of predication) must be monadic; nor that they resist lambda abstraction; nor that logical closure governs them; nor that they can be incomplete (or inconsistent) and nor that they are no way contingent, may succeed in discriminating Meinongian from ordinary predications. Nonetheless, dicopulaistic semantics support our intuitive understanding of abstract objects as sets of properties only whence they embrace the counterintuitive conception of multiple denotations; of either copulas or (abstract) objects. Meinongian dicopulaism does not work.

The Unity of the Encoding PropositionAbstract: There is a family of problems under the rubric of “the unity of the proposition”. They ask how is it that (ordinary) propositions are unit wholes over and above their constituting parts, how is it that they are representational and have truth values. In this paper, we propose the very same concern regarding the Meinongian encoding propositions; those propositions that contain the encoding mode of predication rather than the ordinary exemplificational predication. Embracing such a dual mode of predication lets us interpret propositions such as “the round square is round” not only as meaningful but also as true propositions. We demonstrate how to reduce exemplification to encoding. This should dissolve the classical problem of the propositional unity, yet providing a rather new formulation of it.

According to the maximalism about truthmaker, every true proposition has a truthmaker. One of the challenges faces maximalism is: what kind of entities are truthmakers of negative propositions? There are many solutions suggested by maximalists. One class of these solutions is based on negative entities. In the present paper we first briefly explain the problem. Then we indicate some solutions which are based on negative entities and some objections. These solutions are based on views entitled “totality states of affairs”, “polarity”, “absences” and “fundamental negative facts”. According to the solution based on totality states of affairs, in every negative case, in addition to positive facts the totality of them makes another fact, which in turn, plays the role of Truthmaker of negative proposition. According to the polarity solution, objects instantiate the properties into positive and negative manner and negative facts that result from the negative instantiation are considered as Truthmaker of negative propositions. According to the absence solution, the Truthmaker of negative proposition is considered as the absence of Truthmaker belonging to its alternative positive proposition. According to the fundamental negative facts solution, fundamentally there are negative facts the same as positive facts and these facts are Truthmaker of negative propositions.

In this paper, we will try to reconstruct Hegel’s logic and metaphysics through the modern logic. Graham Priest has claimed that we can read Hegel’s logic with the paraconsistent approach to logic, specially Dialetheism; he calls Hegel a Dialetheist. At first, we report Priest’s account on Hegel’s dialectic and his notion of dialectical contradiction; also, we try to analyze Priest’s argument for calling Hegel a Dialetheist. To achieve the proper comparison between Hegel’s logic and Dialetic one, we explain, non-technically, the simple semantics of a Dialetic logic. And finally, we establish a criticism of Priest’s account in order to reopening the question about Hegel’s being Dialetheist.

Aristotle’s discussion of the Ousia are diverse and confusing since there are various definition of the term especially in Metaphysics, Physics and Categories. He refers to it sometimes as the underlying layer, sometimes he means something similar to the meaning of being, and sometimes as essence and quiddity. Hence, the difficulty and disagreement among the translators and interpreters on the best equivalent for Ousia in other languages. In the present paper, after a short historical discussion about Ousia, I examine some common equivalents for the Ousia in Latin and English and attempt to discuss the different reasons for and against each equivalent. My argument, in general, goes for the term Substance, and I will bring 8 reasons to establish the argument.

Dialetheism is the view that some (and not all) contradictions are true. Since in classical logic the principle of impossibility of contradiction (the Law of Non-Contradiction, i.e., LNC) is widely accepted, the challenge between dialetheism and classical logic surely occurs. In this paper we have tried to explain the main problem of dialetheim and also examined Graham Priest’s arguments against LNC and his advocating to paraconsistent logic. Accordingly, Priest’s examples of dialetheic propositions in some systems such as Law, Natual and Formal Languages and Actual world are examined and criticized. The result is that if Priest’s argument be sound dialetheism may be acceptable. Dialetheism is the view that some (and not all) contradictions are true. Since in classical logic the principle of impossibility of contradiction (the Law of Non-Contradiction, i.e., LNC) is widely accepted, the challenge between dialetheism and classical logic surely occurs. In this paper we have tried to explain the main problem of dialetheim and also examined Graham Priest’s arguments against LNC and his advocating to paraconsistent logic. Accordingly, Priest’s examples of dialetheic propositions in some systems such as Law, Natual and Formal Languages and Actual world are examined and criticized. The result is that if Priest’s argument be sound dialetheism may be acceptable.

Context Principle (CP), according to which it is only within a context that a word has bedeutung (meaning), has a significant position and role in Frege’s views. Different understandings of CP have been proposed by commentators, and differences in interpretations have increased to the extent that some commentators have even denied the attribution of it to Frege. On the other hand, in the last decade of the nineteenth century, Frege divided semantic content into two components: sense and reference. However, CP is only mentioned in Grundlagen (1884) and is not repeated in other works of Frege. Hence, there is a debate among commentators as to whether Frege had stopped believing in that principle; and if not, which interpretation of the meaning, sense or reference, is more consistent with that principle. In this paper, different views have been reviewed and finally the possibility of retaining CP by Frege has been supported. It is claimed that since Frege’s main aim in introducing CP is to show the “content objectivity” of expressions, it makes no difference whether that principle is interpreted in terms of sense or in terms of reference, because in Frege’s logical system, both kinds of bedeutung (meaning) have objectivity.

In his theory of meaning, Frege introduces sinn (=sense) as mode of presentation of bedeutung (=referent). Since, in propositional attitudes, ordinary sinn, according to Frege, is itself a bedeutung, there is another sinn, called “indirect sense”, in which the mode of presentation of ordinary sinn is contained. Now in nested propositional attitudes the relation between sinn and bedeutung leads to infinite regress which is not acceptable in a theory of meaning. In the present article, we have examined this regress and concluded that Frege’s theory needs to be amended and that the infinite regress does not arise as a result of such amendment.

In contemporary metaphysics, there are two main approaches to the nature of persistence of objects through time: according to three-dimensionalism, objects are wholly present at every moment of their existence, whereas in a four dimensionalist picture, objects persistence through time is analogous to their extension through space and is a matter of possessing different temporal parts at each subinterval of their lifetime. One major version of this theory known as stage theory, maintains that ordinary objects are instantaneous stages which persist through time by having different temporal counterparts at different times (temporal stages which are bound together by temporal counterpart relation). One of the main objections to this view is that it fails to genuinely account for objects’ persistence through time. The aim of this paper is twofold: first we present the stage-theoretic account of persistence and some of its correlative problems (namely the problems of temporal instantiation, reference and timeless counting) and then, we mention some difficulties arise from adopting such an account. Quite apart from the deficiency of its analysis of persistence and temporal instantiation and different objections which are raised to it in this regard, stage theory strategies for the problem of timeless counting seem to be at odds with standard criteria of numerical unity and multiplicity.

According to Muslim logicians, the quantifier, in categorical logic, shows the quantity of the individuals of the subject in a statement; so its place is before the subject. Hence, if it comes before the predicate there arises some deviation in the main form of the statement, and such a statement is called a "deviant statement" (al-qaḍiyah al-munḥarifah). In modern logic, by contrast, the main characteristic of a predicate is being general or unsaturated and since a predicate has a propositional function, i.e. has free variables (or arguments), it can or should be quantified; hence, putting the quantifier before the predicate is consistent with the conditions and rules on constructing a well formed statement. Among contemporary logicians Hamilton is famous for his claim that predicates should also be quantified just like subjects. The viewpoints of Muslim and modern logicians, concerning the place of the quantifier in a statement, seems to be conflicted. Among Muslim logicians, Avicenna is the one who considers no problem in using such statements, although he calls them “deviant”, and gives an explanation and analysis for them. In this paper, I have examined these views and shown that the conflict may be superfluous if Muslim logicians’ approach to predicates is extensional, which, of course, can hardly be attributed to them.

The main Frege’s question in “On sense and reference” is that how we can understand the difference between cognitive value of a=a and a=b? “a=a” is analytic and a priori while “a=b” is a posteriori and has different cognitive value. Frege’s theory of sense and reference wants to answer to this question. Sense is mode of presentation of the reference. The difference between modes of presentation of reference can be a good reason for cognitive value of empirical identities. In analytic philosophy, this response is considered as some strength of Frege’s theory. We are going to argue that if we accept the suggested logical form by Frege and his theory of sense and reference, then empirical discovery is vanished. We ascribe other logical form to Frege’s intended sentences and this form displays the requirement for empirical discovery and it does not need to resort to his theory of sense and reference.

Another contributing factor is the vague and often complicated exposition of Millikan's theory. The biosemantics theory is not very well-known among Iranian philosophers and logicians. It is based on natural selection, which is an inseparable part of the theory of evolution. To understand the Millikan’s examples and what she has mentioned in semantic, mind and language, the biological backgrounds are needed. The more important issue as Millikan declares herself and it is also obvious from the name of her theory is that, biosemanrics is a theory about meaning, although according to her works on mind and mental contents, biosemantics has mostly been interpreted in the field of mind., Having briefly introduced Millikan's theory, we try to demonstrate that the biosemantics theory is completely about meaning by presenting a novel model and has a great potential to change semantical concepts fundamentally.

Contextualism is the main opponent of minimalism. The debate between these two semantical approaches, stem in an old fashion dispute to determine the border between semantics and pragmatics. Contextualists claim that the sentences in the natural language are not truth-evaluable before being enriched pragmatically. In contrast, in minimalists’ viewpoint, there is a minimal semantic content that provides the truth-evaluable meaning of sentences in a way that context of utterance has limited effects on it. This contrast is based on the way and extent to which context affects semantic content. In this paper, after introducing these two approaches, the main arguments of contextualists against minimalist are discussed, then we show that minimalistic semantics like Kaplan's LD with objective interpretation of context cannot present any proper model even for sentences containing first-person reference, and on the basis of a subjective interpretation of context, the indexical/non-indexical distinction is not clear and other expressions of natural languages can be indexical, in a broad sense.

By presenting an interpretation of two-dimensionalism and dividing it to weak and strong versions, Scott Soames has criticized the totality of two-dimensionalists effort on rebirthing the descriptive theory of meaning and rejected it. On this special issue, Millikan’s biosemantic theory can act to promote the two-dimensionalists position. Based on this, what soames attributed to two-dimensionalists as the need of rigidification of the reference-fixing descriptions is not acceptable and according to two-dimensionalism it seems that these descriptions have been rigidified in some other ways. Our goal in this article is to demonstrate, based on a three-dimensional model of biosemantic theory, that the interpretation of Soames about twodimensionalism is strongly depended on the principles of direct reference theory and alsosemantic of two-dimensionalism needs not to rigidify the reference-fixing descriptions in the way that Soames has claimed.

Kripke in his famous book, Naming and Necessity, introduces the concept of “rigidity” for designation of singular terms; and by using it, he refutes the Descriptive Theory of Meaning. If a term is rigid it means that it designates the same thing in all possible worlds in which it exists. Kripke, in third lecture, extends the concept of “rigidity” to all natural kind terms. This extension has had several interpretations which can be put into two categories: the sameness in designation, and the essentialist approaches. The sameness in designation approach, however, confronts “the trivialization problem”,i.e. not only natural kind terms, but also all general terms are rigid designators since each of them designates a property which remains the same across all possible worlds. An argumentative way has been proposed to refute trivialization problem. This approach is based on considering abundant objects as the designatum of singular terms and parallelism between these words and general terms. In this paper we will criticize this approach and show that it conflicts with some semantic roles of general terms and also our intuition concerning the truth value of sentences containing them.

The logical constants are defined by operational rules in the inferentialism theory of meaning. Arthur Prior’s counterexample (Tonk) makes a major challenge for the inferentialism. He shows that every arbitrary operational rule can describe a logical constant and this makes logical constants defective and incompatible with the system. In response to this problem, Belnap Offers conservativeness and uniqueness requirements for the operational rules. In this paper, we have evaluated the conservativeness requirement. The main question investigated is “how the conservativeness as a criterion provides the necessary and sufficient conditions for logical constant definition?” The hypothesis that we are to establish is the inability to achieve the definition of logical constant by conservativeness requirement.

Philosophical skepticism about the external world is an epistemological view that denies the possibility of grasping knowledge about the external world. One category of this kind of skepticism uses a skeptical hypothesis to prove that we can’t know anything about the external world. This hypothesis is a hypothetical description of the world that is different from the way we normally consider it to be. By using the fact that we don’t know, for example, that we are not brains in a vat, the skeptic argues that we know nothing about the external world. But it seems that this kind of skepticism can be threatening just to those philosophers who have accepted a kind of metaphysical realism about the external world. On the contrary, in this paper, it is argued that philosophical skepticism can be threatening to both anti-realism and realism about external world; Accepting anti-realism does not block skepticism about the external world.

Based on inferential approach towards meaningfulness, the meaning of logical constants (ꓥ¡ ¡ …) can be obtained through the laws of introduction and omission. Giving the counter example of Tonk, Arthur Pryor proves that mere laws of introduction and omission do not necessarily introduce a logical constant. Confirming Arthur's position, Stevenson regards his counter example as the main problem of inferential approach towards meaningfulness. According to him, model theory approach towards meaningfulness is not faced with such a problem. This is because in model theory value table does not allow flawed logical constants to find their way into the logical system. The present study assesses the features of the value table that has given it such strength. The result obtained tells the value table of classical logic has two features that consist of being bi-valued (true or false) and the fact that it adheres to truth. These two features can however be procured in inferential approach.

The main purpose of this article is the Horwich arguments in "Meaning, use and truth ", which is published in the Mind journal (1995). In this article, he defends the idea of Wittgenstein, use theory, in contrast to the arguments raised against the approach. Horwich focus specifically on Kripke's criticism. Kripke in his famous article "Wittgenstein on rules and private language: An elementary exposition " is trying to show that the application cannot provide the meaning. Horwich refuse Kripke argument. For this purpose, he offers both strong and weak interpretation of the premises of Kripke argument and then criticizes both. After review Horwich Criticisms on Kripke we evaluate his criticisms.

In answer to the Putnam problem about extensional non-determination of language terms, Millikan asks if this problem exists by a new definition of representation according to biological evidences, especially the principle of natural selection. The Millikan’s answer to this question is negative and she believes that the question should be changed to what is that feature, which turns a relation to representation-represented among numerous possible relations between words and objects? Her answer to this question is accorded to a hypothesis that is also the place of disputations and arguments in biology and has its supporters and opponents. Millikan is in the group, which has a historical view to the function and believes that the function of each entity must be defined regarding to what it supposed to do in its appearance history and dedicates the “proper” adjective to such function. The alternative hypothesis believes that the function must be defined regarding to what an entity do at the moment in equivalence to the current status. The key point of presenting the concept of “proper function” by Millikan is a redefinition of representation. In this article, we want to show that the new definition of representation is accorded to the concept of “Functure” as something completely objective, in opposed to the common view of philosophy to the representation, which take it as mental.