1
Evaluate a conceivability argument
Build the model with and without the world the argument needs, evaluate the necessity claim in each, and name the step from conceivable to possible as the choice to include that world.
Course · Philosophy
Mind, Language and Meaning
Test the arguments that mind and language are made of. Evaluate a necessity claim with and without the world it needs, compute what a mimic does to a judge, count a lookup table, and then read a sentence in a model, find the scope it hides, and run the heap under four treatments of vagueness.
□(p ↔ c): p ↔ c at every world in view
a perfect mimic: Bayes factor 1
a lookup table: nʳ entries
valid + denied premise: a reply
sentence + model → True or False
the F is G = one F, and it is G
¬ before or after the F: two readings
each step true, the end false: sorites
What this course is about
- Subject
- Philosophy
- Lessons
- 10
- Format
- Interactive
Overview
What you will be able to do
By the end you can state a position in the philosophy of mind or of language as something with a checkable structure, and say which premise or which model carries it.
2
Compute what a test shows
Treat a judge as an updater, compute the Bayes factor of an answer, and say what a pass and a failure of the Turing test do and do not establish.
3
Compare a table with a program
Show two circuits with one function, count the entries a lookup table needs for a conversation, and state what Block and Searle each infer from their devices.
4
Place a reply to an argument
Formalise the knowledge argument, show it valid, and say which premise or which atom each reply denies or splits.
5
Evaluate a sentence in a model
Read a first-order sentence in a finite model, give the witness or the counterexample, and separate what a name refers to from what it means.
6
Resolve an ambiguity and run a sorites
Expand a description in Russell's way, give both scopes of a negation or a pair of quantifiers, and run the heap argument under each treatment of vagueness, saying what each gives up.
Lessons
10 lessons
Five lessons on mind, each with a lab that computes the structure of an argument, then five on language, each with a lab that computes the value of a sentence.
Dualism and the Conceivability ArgumentTest the step from what can be conceived to what could be, in a model with and without the world that does the work.Not marked
Behaviourism and the Turing TestTreat the judge as an updater, and compute what a perfect mimic and a single tell each do to the judge's belief.Not marked
Functionalism and Multiple RealisabilityBuild two different circuits with the same truth table, and state functionalism as the claim that the state is the function.Not marked
The Chinese Room and the Lookup TableCount the entries a lookup table needs for a conversation, and use the count to state Block's argument and Searle's.Not marked
The Knowledge ArgumentFormalise Mary's argument, find it valid, and place the physicalist's reply in a premise rather than in the logic.Not marked
Compositional Truth ConditionsEvaluate a sentence of predicate logic in a finite model from the values of its parts, and change one extension to change the value.Not marked
Names, Reference and Identity StatementsGive two names one referent, evaluate their identity statement as true, and say why it can still be news.Not marked
Definite Descriptions and the Present King of FranceExpand “the F is G” in Russell's way, and read the three cases of one thing, nothing, and too many.Not marked
Scope Ambiguity and NegationEvaluate one sentence in one model under two scopes of its negation or quantifiers, and get two values.Not marked
Vagueness and the SoritesRun the heap argument under four treatments, say what each gives up, and say why the cutoff and the range inherit a second problem.Not marked
Recommended background
Identity, Modality and Freedom, whose possible-worlds models are used from the first lesson, and through it Arguments and Validity, Knowledge and Evidence for updating on evidence.
Practice suggestions
Know what each lesson leans on. “Dualism and the Conceivability Argument” uses the possible-worlds models of Identity, Modality and Freedom, and the language lessons build on “Compositional Truth Conditions”, on which the three after it depend.
Change the model and watch the verdict. In each lab the premises, worlds, likelihoods or extensions are text you can edit. The most useful minute in a lesson is the one in which you try to break its example.
Keep the two questions apart. A lab here tells you what follows from the model you built, whether a world, a table or a domain. It does not tell you whether the model is right, and in this course that is usually where the philosophy is.
Say the position at its strongest before you reply to it. Each lesson gives both sides a valid argument. The reply is a premise to deny or a reading to prefer, and you should be able to say which.
What it does not cover
Theories of consciousness and the hard problem as a whole. The conceivability and knowledge arguments are taught as arguments with a checkable form. Neuroscientific theories of consciousness, eliminativism and panpsychism have no table to check them against, and are left out.
Phenomenology and the history of the subject. Nothing here is about what a philosopher said or which school held what. Several lessons are about an argument a philosopher made, taught as the argument.
Validity in full first-order logic. A sentence is evaluated in the finite model you build, so the lab computes truth in that model and does not search every possible model for a countermodel. Quantified modal logic and counterpart theory are not taught.
Pragmatics, speech acts and the causal theory of reference. Names, descriptions and scope are taught through what a model can compute. What speakers mean by an utterance, and how a name gets attached to its bearer, are not of a shape a lab can test without misrepresenting them.
Continuous and probabilistic theories of vagueness. The heap is run under four treatments, one of which uses degrees of truth, in exact arithmetic over a finite chain. Supervaluation proper and the epistemic view beyond what the lesson says of it are not developed.