States of Affairs, Facts, Propositions

Building Legality: Between Truthmaking and Constitution

by triantafyllos gkouvas

Presented at the 2012 McMaster Graduate Conference for Legal Theory
This is still a draft under development. Please do not cite without permission.

Building relations like making a proposition true or constituting a statue are shortcuts for an impressively nuanced... more Building relations like making a proposition true or constituting a statue are shortcuts for an impressively nuanced class of relations pertaining to the creation of less fundamental entities by more fundamental ones. Building relations are not metaphysical bedrock like universals, states of affairs or tropes but they do perform a salvaging task at least for those philosophers who are less willing to resort too quickly to reductive explanations of less fundamental phenomena. As I aspire to demonstrate building metaphors are no less frequent in debates about the nature of law and that’s not a matter of making one’s philosophical prose more illustrative. The argument I aim to bring forward is that no concerted effort has been made so far to explore the nature of the building relation that generates legal content. My target relation will be that of truth-making whose application to the grounds of legal propositions I will try to illuminate. My final argument will be that it is not just the case that there are legal propositions awaiting to be made true but propositions sortally identified as structural parts of the law of a legal system and it is qua structural parts that they are constituted (rather than simply made true) by what content the law practices of that system actually contribute.

What Can Modes Do for (Moderate) Relativism?

by Teresa Marques

The Fact-Checking Universe in Spring 2012: An Overview

by Tom Glaisyer

Co-authored with Lucas Graves

By almost any measure, the 2012 presidential race is shaping up to be the most fact-checked electoral contest in... more By almost any measure, the 2012 presidential race is shaping up to be the most fact-checked electoral contest in American history. Every new debate and campaign ad yields a blizzard of fact-checking from the new full-time fact-checkers, from traditional news outlets in print and broadcast, and from partisan political organizations of various stripes. And though fact-checking still peaks before elections it is now a year-round enterprise that challenges political claims beyond the campaign trail.

This increasingly crowded and contentious landscape raises at least two fundamental questions. First, who counts as a legitimate fact-checker? The various kinds of fact-checking at work both inside and outside of journalism must be considered in light of their methods, their audiences, and their goals. And second, how effective are fact-checkers—or how effective could they be—in countering widespread misinformation in American political life? The success of the fact-checkers must be assessed in three related areas: changing people’s minds, changing journalism, and changing the political conversation. Can fact-checking really stop a lie in its tracks? Can public figures be shamed into being more honest? Or has the damage been done by the time the fact-checkers intervene?

This report reviews the shape of the fact-checking landscape today. It pays special attention to the divide between partisan and nonpartisan fact-checkers, and between fact-checking and conventional reporting. It then examines what we know and what we don’t about the effectiveness of fact-checking, using the media footprint of various kinds of fact-checkers as an initial indicator of the influence these groups wield. Media analysis shows how political orientation limits fact-checkers’ impact in public discourse.

Events, tropes, and truthmaking

by Friederike Moltmann

Philosophical Studies, 134, 2007, pp. 363-403.

Chapter 4: Propositions and Attitudinal Objects

by Friederike Moltmann

Book chapter from Abstract Objects and the Semantics of Natural Language, Oxford UP, to appear in 2012, prepublication version

The Metaphysics of Legality: Legal Propositionalism

by triantafyllos gkouvas

This is an early draft. Please do not cite. Comments are welcome.

Contenu et objet du jugement chez Brentano

by Guillaume Fréchette

Published in Philosophiques, 38/1 (2011), pp. 241-261.

Logical realism is undoubtedly one of the central features which characterize many of the major works in Austrian... more Logical realism is undoubtedly one of the central features which characterize many of the major works in Austrian philosophy from Bolzano to Husserl. Although this remark is true, as we believe, one must not forget the fact that some of the key concepts of Austrian philosophy are rooted in theories that reject realist principles. As an example, take the concept of state of affairs in Austrian philosophy, and more specifically, Franz Brentano’s conception of judgement contents. By showing the motives which led Brentano to introduce these judgement contents and by analyzing the arguments given to support his thesis, the present article aims to contrast the initial remark by illustrating, by means of the case of state of affairs, how the interrelations between realist and nominalist positions have shaped the development of Austrian philosophy.

Being Positive About Negative Facts

by Mark Jago

With Stephen Barker. Forthcoming in Philosophy & Phenomenological Research

Negative facts get a bad press. One reason for this is that it is not clear what negative facts are. We provide a... more Negative facts get a bad press. One reason for this is that it is not clear what negative facts are. We provide a theory of negative facts on which they are no stranger than positive atomic facts. We show that none of the usual arguments hold water against this account. Negative facts exist in the usual sense of existence and conform to an acceptable Eleatic principle. Furthermore, there are good reasons to want them around, including their roles in causation, chance-making and truth-making, and in constituting holes and edges.

Negative truths from positive facts?

by Josh Parsons

Published in AJP 84.4 (2006).

I argue that Colin Cheyne and Charles Pigden's recent attempt to find truthmakers for negative truths fails. Though... more I argue that Colin Cheyne and Charles Pigden's recent attempt to find truthmakers for negative truths fails. Though Cheyne and Pigden are correct in their treatment of some of the truths they set out to find truthmakers for (such as "There is no hippopotamus in S223" and "Theatetus is not flying") they over-generalize when they apply the same treatment to "There are no unicorns". In my view, this difficulty is ineliminable: not every truth has a truthmaker.

There is no'Truthmaker'Argument against Nominalism

by Josh Parsons

Australasian Journal of Philosophy 77:3 (1999)

Truthmakers, the Past, and the Future

by Josh Parsons

Published in Beebee and Dodd, _Truthmakers, the Contemporary Debate_ (2005)

I want to join Dummett in saying that the reality of the past (and, by analogy, the reality of the future) is an issue... more I want to join Dummett in saying that the reality of the past (and, by analogy, the reality of the future) is an issue of realism versus anti-realism: If you affirm the reality of the past, you are a realist about the past. If you deny the reality of the past, you are an anti-realist about the past. (And likewise, in each case, for the future). It makes sense to think of these issues by analogy with realism about the external world, unobservable objects, mathematical objects, universals, and so on. These are all properly described as ontological issues....

Are there irreducibly relational facts?

by Josh Parsons

in _Truth and Truthmaking_ edited by Lowe and Rami

Supposing that truths require truthmakers, that true propositions are those which correspond to facts, is there a... more Supposing that truths require truthmakers, that true propositions are those which correspond to facts, is there a distinctive domain of facts that make true the relational truths? Or is it rather that, if we had collected the facts required to make true the other truths, the non-relational ones, that we would then have enough facts to make all truths true?...

Attitudinal Objects and the Distinction Between Actions and Products

by Friederike Moltmann

Reinach and Bolzano: Towards a Theory of Pure Logic

by Kimberly Baltzer-Jaray

Symposium:  Journal of The  Canadian Society for Continental Philosophy, Vol. 10 (Fall 2006), 473-502.

The work of Adolf Reinach (1883–1917) on states of affairs, judgment, and speech acts bears striking similarities to... more The work of Adolf Reinach (1883–1917) on states of affairs, judgment, and speech acts bears striking similarities to Bernard Bolzano’s (1781– 1848) work in the area of general logic. It is my belief that these similarities suggest that Reinach used Bolzano’s logical work to assist with his own. Three considerations support this view. First, Bolzano’s work in Die Wissenschaftslehre (Theory of Science) was considered by Husserl to be the necessary foundation for any work in logic. Second, Bolzano’s logic was a suitable alternative to Immanuel Kant’s in that he formulated his essential relations as inexistent yet real, not Platonic or belonging to a transcendental realm. Third, Reinach did not openly criticize Bolzano  in the manner he did the Austrians of the Brentano school, suggesting that Bolzano’s logic was more complementary with his own.

Multiple Heideggers? An Early, Still Prevalent Misreading

by Robert Jordan

published in Current Studies in Phenomenology and Hermeneutics 1. An electronic journal (now defunct?) whose URL is http://ereignis.org/csph/edboard.htm

Since the earliest commentaries on Heidegger's Being and Time, its theory of judgment and of propositions has been... more Since the earliest commentaries on Heidegger's Being and Time, its theory of judgment and of propositions has been widely misrepresented as relativistic, psychologistic, anthropologistic, pragmatic, etc. Even Edmund Husserl allowed himself to be persuaded to this point of view, to the great detriment of his phenomenological movement. And most of Heidegger's interpreters, whether friendly or hostile, have adopted this point of view, which normally includes the notion that there can be no fundamental difference between circumspective and apophantic forms of explication. This misreading ignores important aspects of the theory of propositional explication in Being and Time, ignores the fact that forms of interpretation would not be genera or species of interpretation, and is a clear instance of genetic fallacy. Yet it pervades the literature on Heidegger still.

Arguing from Facts to Duties (and Conversely)

by Lorenzo Peña

Proceedings of the 5th Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation.
ed. por Frans van Eemeren et alii.
Amsterdam: Sic Sat, 2003. ISBN 90-74049-07-9, pp. 45-48.
Co-authored with Txetxu Ausín

One of the most controversial issues about deontic and ethical matters is whether statements of duty or right can be... more One of the most controversial issues about deontic and ethical matters is whether statements of duty or right can be inferred from statements of fact, and conversely. Most analytical philosophers have given a negative answer. We hold that there is a valid logical inferential rule from duties or permissions to facts, and conversely. Many duties and permissions arise only because certain facts exist. The reason is that a general principle of morals and law lays down that, if we act wrongly, at least, we have to act so as to implement the lesser evil.
The usual possible-world semantics for deontic logic has to be dropped along with any separatism between norms and facts.

KEYWORDS;
deontic logic, ethics, statements of duty, statements of fact, analytical philosophy, inference rules, permissions, lesser evil, norms, facts.

25A Logic: The Stoics (Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy) part 1

by Susanne Bobzien

First part (i.e. pp. 92-125) of my "Stoic Logic" in K. Algra et al. (eds), The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, Cambridge: CUP 1999, 92–157. (The second part is separately listed.)

ABSTRACT: A detailed presentation of Stoic logic, including their theories of assertibles (or propositions, Greek:... more ABSTRACT: A detailed presentation of Stoic logic, including their theories of assertibles (or propositions, Greek: axiomata), simple assertibles, non-simple assertibles (conjunction, disjunction, conditional), quantified assertibles, logical truths, modalities, and general theory of arguments (definition, validity, soundness, classification of invalid arguments)

A Combinatorial Theory of Modality

by Markku Keinänen

Australasian Journal of Philosophy 77:4, 1999. co-authored with J.Hiipakka & A.Korhonen

Armstrong's Conception of Supervenience

by Markku Keinänen

published in 'Problems from Armstrong', Acta Philosophica Fennica 84.

In this article, I will focus on the notion of supervenience introduced and deployed by Armstrong. The aim is to... more In this article, I will focus on the notion of supervenience introduced and deployed by Armstrong. The aim is to settle the issue of whether it has any fruitful applications. My conclusions are negative. Armstrong gives to his notion of supervenience a major explanatory role of telling why one need not consider certain beings as a genuine ontic expansion, if one already assumes a certain meagre set of more basic entities. On closer inspection, however, Armstrong’s notion does not clarify such intuitions any further. The legitimate uses of the notion for the above purpose turn out to be redundant: the concepts of identity and partial identity can be employed instead.

If you believe in positive facts, you should believe in negative facts

by Gunnar Björnsson

Published in Hommage à Wlodek. Philosophical Papers Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz; Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen, Björn Petersson, Jonas Josefsson and Dan Egonsson (eds), Lund University 2007, available at http://www.fil.lu.se/hommageawlodek/

The title is the thesis of this paper. The title is the thesis of this paper.