From: lmpm@teal.csn.org (L. M. P. McPherson)
Subject: Re: Theories of meaning without formal logic
Organization: Colorado SuperNet, Inc.
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 21:59:21 GMT

In article <1992Nov9.005957.7189@midway.uchicago.edu> gal2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>
>Can anyone direct me toward any viable theories of meaning that do not
>postulate that some kind of truth functional logic is at the
>foundation of meaning?

In "Names for Things," John Macnamara lists a set of desiderata for a
theory of meaning. His current work with Gonzalo Reyes involves a
theory of meaning based on category theory, a relatively new branch
of mathematics. Most of this work is either in press or in preparation,
so you might contact him in the department of psychology at McGill
University (1205 Dr. Penfield Avenue, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 1B1).

>Is psychologism (mid-1800s: Fries, Beneke, J.S. Mill) worth perusing?
>All I know of this school so far is from _The Encyclopedia of
>Philosophy_ (Macmillan, 1967): ". . . The only instrument
>philosophical inquiry has at its disposal is self-observation (or
>introspection) and . . .  there is no way to establish any truth other
>than by reducing it to the subjective elements of self-observation."

I think the issue of using intuitions to guide the construction of
psychological theories might be separate from the issue of psychologism,
that is, the theory that logic is a natural property of the mind and
that logic is the study of the mind.

The use of intuitions (which are not equivalent to introspection, i.e.,
holding an image in the mind and studying it) is widespread in linguistics
(where "informants" give the linguist their intuitions about the
grammaticality of sentences in their native language so that the
linguist can discern the rules of grammar in that language) and
psychophysics (where subjects describe their intuitions about the
similarity of stimuli and so on). By "intuition," I mean the output
of mental processes into conscious awareness, or judgements based
on this output.

Intuitions can be used to construct semantic theories as well. For
example, intuition reveals that the name "President-Elect Clinton" can 
pick out an individual throughout his lifetime and not just when he is
the president-elect (e.g., English speakers will have an intuition
that in the sentence "President-Elect Clinton was born in Hope,
Arkansas," the name "President-Elect Clinton" picks out a person
who is identical with a baby born in Hope, Arkansas, even though
the baby was not the president-elect). From this and other evidence
from intuition, we can conclude that proper names are interpreted
into specific individuals as individuated by a kind/sortal such
as "person" that encompasses the individual's whole life, and that
proper names do not refer to a bunch of molecules (for example)
since the bunch of molecules that now make up the body of Bill
Clinton did not issue from his mother's womb 46 years ago.

>Are there any overviews of psychologism from a modern (cognitive)
>perspective?

Yes, the first chapter in John Macnamara's "Border Dispute"; the book
is about the relationship of logic and cognitive psychology (especially
language).


Newsgroups: sci.cognitive