FROM THE ACT OF JUDGING TO THE SENTENCE

Transcription

1 FROM THE ACT OF JUDGING TO THE SENTENCE

2 SYNTHESE LIBRARY STUDIES IN EPISTEMOLOGY, LOGIC, METHODOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Editor-in-Chief: VINCENT F. HENDRICKS, Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark JOHN SYMONS, University of Texas at El Paso, U.S.A. Honorary Editor: JAAKKO HINTIKKA, Boston University, U.S.A. Editors: DIRK VAN DALEN, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands THEO A.F. KUIPERS, University of Groningen, The Netherlands TEDDY SEIDENFELD, Carnegie Mellon University, U.S.A. PATRICK SUPPES, Stanford University, California, U.S.A. JAN WOLEŃSKI, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland VOLUME 328

3 FROM THE ACT OF JUDGING TO THE SENTENCE The Problem of Truth Bearers from Bolzano to Tarski by ARTUR ROJSZCZAK Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland Edited by JAN WOLE SKI Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

4 A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN (HB) Springer Dordrecht, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York ISBN (e-book) Springer Dordrecht, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York ISBN (HB) Springer Dordrecht, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York ISBN (e-book) Springer Dordrecht, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York Published by Springer, P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands. Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved 2005 Springer No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed in the Netherlands.

5 Summary Contents Preface 1. INTRODUCTION: ALFRED TARSKI S PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND IN THE CONTEXT OF HIS 1933 DEFINITION OF TRUTH 1 2. THE NOTION OF THE TRUTH BEARER DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY: THE THEORY OF JUDGEMENT AS THE THEORY OF COGNITION AND KNOWLEDGE JUDGEMENT, PSYCHOLOGY, AND LANGUAGE THE ONTOLOGY OF JUDGEMENT REISM THE OBJECTIVITY OF TRUTH ONTOLOGISM, ABSTRACT OBJECTS AND NOMINALISM BRENTANISM AND THE BACKGROUND OF THE SEMANTICS OF THE LVOV-WARSAW SCHOOL JUDGMENT, BELIEF, AND SENTENCES: REMARKS ON THE TRUTH BEARER IN THE LVOV-WARSAW SCHOOL FINAL COMMENTS 213 References 221 Appendices: Publications of Artur Rojszczak 235 Index 239 vii v

6 Contents Preface 1. INTRODUCTION: ALFRED TARSKI S PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND IN THE CONTEXT OF HIS 1933 DEFINITION OF TRUTH 1 1 The Question of the Truth Bearer in Tarski s Theory of Truth? 1 2 The Ambiguity of Tarski s Concept of a Sentence 4 3 Alfred Tarski as Philosopher? Tarski s Philosophical Background Some Facts and Genetic Connections Brentanism in Tarski s Philosophical Background? Tarski and the Vienna Circle Tarski and Brentano? 11 4 The Content of this Study and what is not Included in Previous Studies on this Topic The Wolenski-Simons Thesis The Content of the Study THE NOTION OF THE TRUTH BEARER 23 1 ThePlace of the Notion of the Truth Bearer in thetheory of Truth 23 2 The Problem of the Truth Bearer 25 3 TheDefinition of the Truth Bearer 26 4 TheVariety of Truth Bearers DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY: THE THEORY OF JUDGEMENT AS THE THEORY OF COGNITION AND KNOWLEDGE 33 1 Franz Brentano (I): The Act of Judging as the Truth Bearer TheVariety of Entities Related to the Act of Judging 33 xiii vii

7 viii FROM THE ACT OF JUDGING TO THE SENTENCE 1.2 The Primacy of the Notion of Knowledge in Relation to the Notion of Truth An Argument Based on the Gnoseological Concept of Truth An Argument Based on the Idiogenetic Theory of Judgement The Definition of the Act of Judging asthe Truth Bearer 38 2 Kazimierz Twardowski (I): Act-Content-Object Presentation The Judgment The Truth of the Object of Presenting 44 3 Alexius Meinong (I): Thinking and True Objectives Thinking TheObject of Thinking Cognition and Knowledge A True Objective and a True Act of Judging 48 4 Anton Marty (I): TheAdequate Act of Judging asthe Truth Bearer TheAmbiguity of the Notion of the Primary Truth Bearer An Argument Based on the Epistemological Notion of Truth The Content of ajudgment 51 5 Summary of Chapter 3: the Epistemic Notion of Truth JUDGEMENT, PSYCHOLOGY, AND LANGUAGE 57 1 Franz Brentano (II): Linguistic Analysis Language and Thinking The Use of Linguistic Expressions Truth as a Syncategorematical Expression A Note on Brentano s Theory of Meaning and Reference An Argument from the Reducibility of Sentences 61 2 Kazimierz Twardowski (II): Determining and Modifying Adjectives The Meaning and Function of Names Attributing and Modifying Predicates The Logic of Adjectives 64 3 Alexius Meinong (II): Truth-Predicates in Ordinary Use An Expression and Its Meaning Communication 68

8 Contents ix 3.3 Meinong s Argument from the Ordinary Usage of Epistemic Operators An Argument from True Hypothesis 71 4 Anton Marty (II): Speech Acts Autosemantic Expressions and the Basic Types of Mental Phenomena Linguistic Forms and their Basic Functions Communication of Content The Truth of Objects The Truth-Predicate in Expressions of Direct and Indirect Judging Acts On Arguments from the Natural Use of Adjectives 78 5 Summary of Chapter THE ONTOLOGY OF JUDGEMENT 83 1 What isthe Ontology of Judgement? The Link Between Psychology and Language Where Are Objects of Judgement? The Immanentistic Reading of Brentano s Doctrine of Intentionality 85 2 Carl Stumpf (I): On Act and Content 85 3 Kazimierz Twardowski (III): On the Object of Judgement 87 4 Edmund Husserl (I): The Psycho-Linguistic Content of Judgement Formal Ontology The Theory of Meaning The Theory of the Cognition of Meaning Truth as Species 93 5 Anton Marty (III): The Temporal Ontology of the Content of Judgements 95 6 Adolf Reinach (I): A Platonistic Ontology of Judgement 99 7 Summary of Chapter REISM Franz Brentano (III): The Judger as the Truth Bearer What is Presentable? The Reistic Theory of Meaning What is Presented from the Point of View of Reism? The Judger TadeuszKotarbinski (I) Ontological and Semantical Reism The Sentence from the Reistic Standpoint 106

9 x FROM THE ACT OF JUDGING TO THE SENTENCE 2.3 Candidates for the Truth Bearer from the Point of View of Reism The Sentence as the Bearer of Truth Summary of Chapter THE OBJECTIVITY OF TRUTH Bernard Bolzano (I): Sentences in Themselves What Are Sentences in Themselves? The Meaningsof Truth : Ordinary Language Analysis The Cognition of Truth TheObjective Truth Bearer as a Guarantee of Objective Truth Franz Brentano (IV): Identity and Evidence TheTheory of Evident Judgement Brentano s Extensional, Evidentional and Criteriological Definition of Truth The Evidence as Mental Phenomenon The Evidence of Factual Judgements The Evidence of Axioms Indirect Evident Judgements Assertive and Apodictic Evidence The Objectivity of Truth and of Evidence Edmund Husserl (II): Evidence of Species Knowledge and Evidence The Extra-Temporality of Relations Between Meanings Factual Truths Kazimierz Twardowski (IV): The Eternal Truth of Temporal Truth-Bearers So-called Relative Truths Acts of Judging as Bearers of Eternal Truths Kazimierz Twardowski (V) and Jan Łukasiewicz (I): OnPsychologism, Acts and Their Products Logic and Psychology Acts and Products Types of Acts and Products Language as a Product Tadeusz Kotarbinski (II) and Stanisław Lesniewski (I): The Absoluteness of Truth Free Creation and the Sempiternity of Truth The Notion of Existence 136

10 Contents xi 6.3 Note on Truth with a Beginning and on the Principle of the Excluded Middle Lesniewski s Response The Eternity of Truth and the Principle of the Excluded Middle What Does Absolute Truth Mean? Maria Kokoszynska (I): The Relativity of the Semantic Notion of Truth The Absoluteness of the Classical Conception of Truth Relativization to Language Summary of Chapter 7: Objective Truth and Objective Knowledge Objective Knowledge How Knowledge Becomes Objectivized The Objectivization of Truth Concluding Remarks ONTOLOGISM, ABSTRACT OBJECTS AND NOMINALISM The Choice of Truth Bearers and Ontological Preferences Ontologism and Nominalism in Poland Ontologism as the Brentanian Heritage? Nominalism as a Special Case of Ontologism Tadeusz Kotarbinski (III) and Stanisław Lesniewski (II) on General Objects Stanisław Lesniewski (III): Constructive Nominalism Summary of Chapter BRENTANISM AND THE BACKGROUND OF THE SEMANTICS OF THE LVOV-WARSAW SCHOOL Stanisław Lesniewski (IV): On the Sense of Inscription Ontologism as the Primacy of Semantics Language and Metalanguage Existential Sentences Maria Ossowska (I): Expressing and Semantics The Notion of Expression The Presentational Function of the Sentence and the Expressing Function of the Sentence Expressing and the Meaning-Intention Stanisław Ossowski (I): On Semantic Products Semantic Products and the Function of Expressing Linguistic Products 185

11 xii FROM THE ACT OF JUDGING TO THE SENTENCE 3.3 Truth and the Property of Sentences Summary of Chapter JUDGMENT, BELIEF, AND SENTENCES: REMARKS ON THE TRUTH BEARER IN THE LVOV-WARSAW SCHOOL Kazimierz Twardowski (VI) and Tadeusz Czeżowski (I): The Product of the Judging Act The Theory of Knowledge and the Theory of Cognition Elementary Judgments as Truth Bearers Jan Łukasiewicz (II): The Sentence in the Logical Sense Judgment and Belief The Truth of Judgments: An Argument from the Judgment s Function of Reconstructing Tadeusz Kotarbinski (IV): The Judgment and the Sentence The Judgment and States of Affairs The Sentence: Another Semantic-Reistic Argument Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz (I): The Picturing Sentence The Motives of True Belief An Argument from the Possibility of Describing a Judgment Alfred Tarski on the Truth Bearer The Sentence and Syntax The Sentence as a Function without Variables The Sentence as a Product The Sentence as a Physical Body The Sentence as an Inscription The Sentence-Type and a Sentence-Name of a Type Summary of Chapter FINAL COMMENTS The Weakened Thesis The Heritage of Brentano The Truth Bearers 217 References 221 Appendices: Publications of Artur Rojszczak 235 Index 239

12 Preface IN MEMORIAM OF ARTUR ROJSZCZAK For a teacher, the opportunity to write the Foreword to a student s work gives rise to a sense of fulfilment and pride. In this case, however, although the latter remains, the former has been effaced. In a well-ordered world Artur Rojszczak would have perhaps one day written tributes to ourselves. It is a poignant paradox when teachers are called upon to comment posthumously on the work of one of their students. This is a terrible task which falls to us who have been not only mentors and colleagues to Artur, but also simply friends of eulogizing someone who has died so soon, and so tragically. Artur was killed, together with his father, by an aggressive neighbour on September 27, Artur s wife was severely injured in the same attack. Artur was born on March 12, 1968 in Słubice (close to the Polish-German border). He studied in the Electronics College in Zielona Góra, graduating in But from very early on his dream was to study philosophy, and to do so at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow; no other place was considered by him seriously. He entered the university in Artur first appeared in JW s seminar in The seminar was devoted to Kripke s Naming and Necessity. Artur found some unclarity in those parts of Kripke s treatment of definite descriptions which turn on the problems raised by disjunctive and conjunctive properties. JW advised that he should write up his criticism and the resultant essay served as the genesis of Artur s first published paper. At that time, BS was working at the International Academy of Philosophy in Schaan (Liechtenstein), which then offered grants to wellqualified students from various countries, including Poland. JW recommended to Artur that he should apply and his application was successful. During his time in Liechtenstein Artur not only contributed much to making the Academy the place for lively philosophical discussions which it then was, but also worked in a range of part-time jobs in order to save up the money to buy an xiii

13 xiv FROM THE ACT OF JUDGING TO THE SENTENCE apartment in Poland. Healso wrote a Masters Thesis, entitled Wahrheit und Urteilsevidenz bei Franz Brentano. Still as a student Artur participated inthe First Congress of GAP (the German Gesellschaft für analytische Philosophie) in Saarbrücken in 1991 and his paper on the correspondence theory of truth appeared inthe Proceedings of that meeting (details of Artur s publications are given in the enclosed bibliography). Artur returned to Poland in 1992, where he submitted an extended version of hisliechtenstein thesis andgraduated in philosophy summa cum laude in Immediately after graduating, Artur began studying for his doctorate, working on the topic of bearers of truth under the supervision of JW. He spent some time in Salzburg working on the project Psychologismus und Ontologismus in der Logik und in der Philosophie vom Bolzano zu Tarski. His dissertation, written in German under the title: Vom Urteil zum Satz. Das Wahrheitsträgerproblem von Bolzano zu Tarski, was finished and defended in 1997, exactly four years after Artur had begun his doctoral studies (a remarkable achievement, given that finishing one s studies in the required period of four years is rather rare in Poland). On the strength of his dissertation, the Foundation for Polish Science awarded Artur a special grant, one of 100 given each year to the most promising young Polish scientists. Artur had also by this stage solved his extra-philosophical problems. He had married and bought an apartment. Dominika, the daughter of Artur and Agnieszka, was born in Work on his dissertation did not interrupt Artur s other scientific activities. He published several papers, in Polish, English and German, and he participated in many philosophical conferences. In particular, he delivered invited papers at the conferences Ungarn und die Brentano Schule (Budapest 1993), where Artur spoke onpolish descriptive psychology, The Legacy of Brentano (Cracow 1993), speaking on the theory of objects in Polish descriptive psychology, and Tarski and the Vienna Circle (Vienna 1997), a paper on physical objects as truth-bearers. He also contributed to many other conferences and symposia, including the Wittgenstein Symposia in Kirchberg and meetings on Austrian and Polish philosophy held in various places of the world, including Poland, Austria, Switzerland, Ukraine and the USA. Artur also showed his organizational gifts in organizing a successful international conference on the topic of The Brentano Heritage in Cracow in He also co-edited (with JW) its Proceedings, published as Brentano Studien 8. Every year, the Foundation for Polish Science awards three or four grants to young scientists to enable them to study abroad. Artur received such a grant in 1998 and decided to go tobuffalo, where BS had inthe meantime become professor. Artur s main task wastowork on an English translation of his PhD and to take the first steps toward habilitation. For the latter he decided to work on the borderline of psychology, philosophy and cognitive science, more specifically on the problem of intentionality. His aim was to combine several philosophical traditions in a new and original way, incorporating ideas

14 PREFACE xv taken over from Brentano and from cognitive psychology with a methodology derived from analytic philosophy. He also worked together with BS on ontology, in particular on the problem of truthmakers. Their three joint papers on theories of judgment, states of affairs and objective truth are the result of this cooperation. Artur and JW also planned to work together on the topic of truth-makers. Artur returned to Poland at the beginning of His parents sold their house in Rzepin and moved to Cracow and bought an apartment in the same house in which Artur and his family lived. In the same year Artur once again demonstrated his organizational skills as a member of the team preparing the 11th International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science which was held in Cracow in August Artur contributed in a number of crucial ways to the success of this remarkable event. He was also appointed editor-in-chief of the journal Reports on Philosophy, published by the Jagiellonian University Press. His classes, too, were among the most popular among students of philosophy in Cracow. In May 2001 Artur delivered a talk at the Tarski Centenary Conference in Warsaw, where a constellation of leading mathematicians and philosophers celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the birth of one of the great logicians of the twentieth century. Thus, by the time he was still not much older than 30 years of age, Artur already enjoyed an established position in national and international philosophical life. Everything seemed to point towards a brilliant career and a happy personal life for this extremely gifted philosopher, until an absurd death annihilated these great hopes. Artur left behind an English translation of his PhD dissertation. This work is the culmination of Artur s thinking on topics already dealt with, both historically and systematically, in his earlier writings, and it reflects his philosophical interests in Austrian philosophy from Bolzano to the present day and in particular in the Polish wing of the Austrian tradition established by Kazimierz Twardowski. The present book is the first monograph in the literature of philosophy entirely devoted to the problem of truth-bearers. It focuses primarily on ontological, rather than on semantic and logical, problems, and perhaps its mainvirtue lies in its careful anddetailedinvestigation of the issue of whether a physicalist conception of truth-bearers is possible. BARRY SMITH JAN WOLEŃSKI