Paul Horwich
Biographic Data
| ID | 1019815 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Paul Horwich |
| GIVEN NAMES | Paul |
| FAMILY NAME | Horwich |
| SIGNATURE | HORWICH P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 40 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 53 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 40 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1975 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Two deflationary accounts of truth
This essay comprises six sections. Section 1 contrasts deflationary accounts of truth with traditional theories. Section 2 evaluates two deflationary views: (i) my use-theoretic Minimalism, which holds that the meaning of ‘true’ lies in speakers’ tendency to accept the Equivalence Schema: ‘The proposition that p is true ↔ p’; and (ii) Wolfgang Künne's definition of ‘x is true’ as ‘(Ep)(x = & p)’, which quantifies into sentence position, departing…
Deflationary Metaethics
This chapter will sympathetically explore a Wittgenstein-inspired view of morality—one that combines recognition of the non-natural character of basic moral concepts (such as OUGHT), the existence of moral facts, and the dim prospects for moral knowledge. This perspective will derive from applying, to ethical (= moral) discourse, his deflationism about TRUTH and FACT, his conception of meaning as “use,” his conservative, antitheoretical, “quietis…
Christopher Peacocke on the relationship between language and metaphysics
Sosa’s theory of knowledge
Is truth a normative concept
Probability and Evidence
In this influential study of central issues in the philosophy of science, Paul Horwich elaborates on an important conception of probability, diagnosing the failure of previous attempts to resolve these issues as stemming from a too-rigid conception of belief. Adopting a Bayesian strategy, he argues for a probabilistic approach, yielding a more complete understanding of the characteristics of scientific reasoning and methodology. Presented in a fr…
Probability and evidence
Expressivism, Pragmatism and Representationalism
Pragmatists have traditionally been enemies of representationalism but friends of naturalism, when naturalism is understood to pertain to human subjects, in the sense of Hume and Nietzsche. In this volume Huw Price presents his distinctive version of this traditional combination, as delivered in his René Descartes Lectures at Tilburg University in 2008. Price contrasts his view with other contemporary forms of philosophical naturalism, comparing …
Truth __ Meaning __ Reality
'Truth, Meaning, Reality' presents a broad and unified deflationism that encompasses language, thought, knowledge and reality. Horwich's story begins with his minimalist view of truth which paves the way to an account of meaning as use. The 14 essays constitute a coherent and complete expression of this philosophy.
Williamson’s Philosophy of Philosophy
A New Framework for Semantics
Reflections on Meaning
The broad aim of this work is to explain how mere noises, marks, gestures, and mental/neural symbols are able to capture the world, that is, how words and sentences (in whatever medium) come to mean what they do, to stand for certain things, to be true or false of reality. Paul Horwich’s answer takes off from Wittgenstein’s appealingly demystifying remark, that the meaning of a term is nothing over and above its use, and proceeds with a groundbre…
Gibbard's Theory of Norms
Etude de norm-expressivism de Gibbard (1990). Selon lui, la rationalite n'est pas une propriete naturaliste. Le rational est un terme ambigu et Gibbard n'explorera qu'une de ses significations - celle dans laquelle il peut etre implique dans une large diversite des entites cognitives
From a deflationary point of view
"The essays reprinted here were written over the last twenty-five years. They represent Paul Horwich's development of the deflationary perspective and demonstrate its considerable power and fertility. They concern a broad array of philosophical problems: the nature of truth, realism versus anti-realism, the creation of meaning, epistemic rationality, the conceptual role of 'ought', probabilistic models of scientific reasoning, the autonomy of art…
A Use Theory of Meaning
A Defense Of Minimalism
Meaning
Norms of truth and meaning
It is widely held that the normativity of truth and meaning puts a severe constraint on acceptable theories of these phenomena. This constraint is so severe, some would say, as to rule out purely ‘naturalistic’ or ‘factual’ accounts of them. In particular, it is commonly supposed that the deflationary view of truth and the use conception of meaning, in so far as they are articulated in entirely non-normative terms, must for that reason be inadequ…
Truth
This book presents a deflationary perspective called ‘minimalism’—a reaction against the traditional and widespread idea that the property of truth has some sort of underlying nature and that our problem as philosophers is to say what that nature is, to analyse truth either conceptually or substantively, to specify, at least roughly, the conditions necessary and sufficient for something to be true. In contrast, minimalism makes three correlated c…
Meaning
The aim of this work is to demystify linguistic meaning—to characterize the underlying nature of this phenomenon in such a way that its familiar attributes become intelligible. To that end, one must consider whether a word's meaning derives from what it refers to, from the way it was defined, from some associated mental image, from its evolutionary function, from a prototype structure, from an inferential role, or from something else. The basic s…
Implicit Definition, Analytic Truth, and Apriori Knowledge
The Composition of Meanings
The title of this paper is intended to suggest a pair of related probe lems: first, the issue of how the meanings of sentences are built out of the meanings of their constituent words; and second, the issue of what sort of stuff meaning is, how it is created, which of an expression's underlying properties give it the particular meaning it has. My focus here is going to be on the connection between these two issues-on the question, roughly speakin…
The Nature of Vagueness
In addressing the problem of vagueness we must take pains to begin with an accurate superficial description of the phenomenon to be explained. For there is a danger of importing incorrect theoretical presuppositions into the initial characterization of vagueness and thereby precluding the right account of its underlying nature. Obvious as it is, this methodological point needs to be emphasised, since there is a temptation to start by defining a '…
Realism Minus Truth
World Changes
A Defense Of Minimalism
Three forms of realism
On the Nature and Norms of Theoretical Commitment
It is not uncommon for philosophers to maintain that one is obliged to believe nothing beyond the observable consequences of a successful scientific theory. This doctrine is variously known as instrumentalism, fictionalism, constructive empiricism, theoretical skepticism and the philosophy of “as if”. The purpose of the present paper is to subject such forms of scientific antirealism to a two-pronged critique. In the first place it is argued that…
Decision Theory in Light of Newcomb's Problem
Should we act only for the sake of what we might bring about (causal decision theory); or is it enough for a decent motive that our action is highly correlated with something desirable (evidential decision theory)? The conflict between these points of view is embodied in Newcomb's problem. It is argued here that intuitive evidence from familiar decision contexts does not enable us to settle the issue, since the two theories dictate the same resul…
The Nature of Vagueness
In addressing the problem of vagueness we must take pains to begin with an accurate superficial description of the phenomenon to be explained. For there is a danger of importing incorrect theoretical presuppositions into the initial characterization of vagueness and thereby precluding the right account of its underlying nature. Obvious as it is, this methodological point needs to be emphasised, since there is a temptation to start by defining a '…
The Composition of Meanings
The title of this paper is intended to suggest a pair of related probe lems: first, the issue of how the meanings of sentences are built out of the meanings of their constituent words; and second, the issue of what sort of stuff meaning is, how it is created, which of an expression's underlying properties give it the particular meaning it has. My focus here is going to be on the connection between these two issues-on the question, roughly speakin…
Is truth a normative concept
A Use Theory of Meaning
Realism Minus Truth
Saul Kripke
Discussion of Wittgenstein's philosophy has suffered from a scarcity of commentators who understand his work well enough to explain it in their own words. Apart from certain notable exceptions, all too many advocates and critics alike have tended merely to repeat slogans, with approval or ridicule as the case may be. The result has been an unusual degree of polarization and acrimony—some philosophers abandoning normal critical standards, falling …
A Peculiar Consequence of Nicod's Criterion
A New Framework for Semantics
Truth and Objectivity
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Truth and Objectivity. By Brian Ellis. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990. Pp. viii + 314. Price £35.00.) Howard Sankey Howard Sankey Saint David’s University College, Lampe Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 42, Issue 169, October 1992, Pages 496–499, https://doi.org/10.2307/2220291 Published: 01 October 1992
Asymmetries in Time
Time is generally thought to be one of the more mysterious ingredients of the universe. In this intriguing book, Paul Horwich makes precise and explicit the interrelationships between time and a large number of philosophically important notions.Ideas of temporal order and priority interact in subtle and convoluted ways with the deepest elements in our network of basic concepts. Confronting this conceptual jigsaw puzzle, Horwich notes that there a…
Grünbaum on the Metric of Space and Time
Space, Time and Motion
Precognition and the Philosophy of Science
A Peculiar Consequence of Nicod's Criterion
Three forms of realism
Saul Kripke
Discussion of Wittgenstein's philosophy has suffered from a scarcity of commentators who understand his work well enough to explain it in their own words. Apart from certain notable exceptions, all too many advocates and critics alike have tended merely to repeat slogans, with approval or ridicule as the case may be. The result has been an unusual degree of polarization and acrimony—some philosophers abandoning normal critical standards, falling …
Probability and Evidence
Decision Theory in Light of Newcomb's Problem
Should we act only for the sake of what we might bring about (causal decision theory); or is it enough for a decent motive that our action is highly correlated with something desirable (evidential decision theory)? The conflict between these points of view is embodied in Newcomb's problem. It is argued here that intuitive evidence from familiar decision contexts does not enable us to settle the issue, since the two theories dictate the same resul…
The Nature of Explanation
On the Nature and Norms of Theoretical Commitment
It is not uncommon for philosophers to maintain that one is obliged to believe nothing beyond the observable consequences of a successful scientific theory. This doctrine is variously known as instrumentalism, fictionalism, constructive empiricism, theoretical skepticism and the philosophy of “as if”. The purpose of the present paper is to subject such forms of scientific antirealism to a two-pronged critique. In the first place it is argued that…
Asymmetries in Time
Time is generally thought to be one of the more mysterious ingredients of the universe. In this intriguing book, Paul Horwich makes precise and explicit the interrelationships between time and a large number of philosophically important notions.Ideas of temporal order and priority interact in subtle and convoluted ways with the deepest elements in our network of basic concepts. Confronting this conceptual jigsaw puzzle, Horwich notes that there a…
Truth and Objectivity
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Truth and Objectivity. By Brian Ellis. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990. Pp. viii + 314. Price £35.00.) Howard Sankey Howard Sankey Saint David’s University College, Lampe Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 42, Issue 169, October 1992, Pages 496–499, https://doi.org/10.2307/2220291 Published: 01 October 1992
Meaning and Metaphilosophy
J. R. Lucas [1989]
Meaning and Metaphilosophy
Jerry Katz's book touches on just about every area of philosophy, raising hard questions wherever it goes, and offering provocative answers to them. In this paper I would like to focus on just one of the issues he engages, but one I take to be central: namely, what is the relationship between Wittgenstein's account of meaning and his metaphilosophy? Katz supposes that Wittgenstein's treatment of meaning -including his identification of the meanin…
Realism Minus Truth
World Changes
Implicit Definition, Analytic Truth, and Apriori Knowledge
The Composition of Meanings
The title of this paper is intended to suggest a pair of related probe lems: first, the issue of how the meanings of sentences are built out of the meanings of their constituent words; and second, the issue of what sort of stuff meaning is, how it is created, which of an expression's underlying properties give it the particular meaning it has. My focus here is going to be on the connection between these two issues-on the question, roughly speakin…
The Nature of Vagueness
In addressing the problem of vagueness we must take pains to begin with an accurate superficial description of the phenomenon to be explained. For there is a danger of importing incorrect theoretical presuppositions into the initial characterization of vagueness and thereby precluding the right account of its underlying nature. Obvious as it is, this methodological point needs to be emphasised, since there is a temptation to start by defining a '…
Truth
This book presents a deflationary perspective called ‘minimalism’—a reaction against the traditional and widespread idea that the property of truth has some sort of underlying nature and that our problem as philosophers is to say what that nature is, to analyse truth either conceptually or substantively, to specify, at least roughly, the conditions necessary and sufficient for something to be true. In contrast, minimalism makes three correlated c…
Meaning
The aim of this work is to demystify linguistic meaning—to characterize the underlying nature of this phenomenon in such a way that its familiar attributes become intelligible. To that end, one must consider whether a word's meaning derives from what it refers to, from the way it was defined, from some associated mental image, from its evolutionary function, from a prototype structure, from an inferential role, or from something else. The basic s…
Norms of truth and meaning
It is widely held that the normativity of truth and meaning puts a severe constraint on acceptable theories of these phenomena. This constraint is so severe, some would say, as to rule out purely ‘naturalistic’ or ‘factual’ accounts of them. In particular, it is commonly supposed that the deflationary view of truth and the use conception of meaning, in so far as they are articulated in entirely non-normative terms, must for that reason be inadequ…
A Defense Of Minimalism
Meaning
Epistemology (38 works) · Philosophy (38 works) · Computer Science (13 works) · Philosophy of science (11 works) · Classical Philosophy and Thought (10 works) · Contemporary philosophy (10 works) · Philosophy and Theoretical Science (10 works) · Meaning (existential) (9 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (9 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (8 works)