Maria van der Schaar - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Maria van der Schaar

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Mar 31, 2024

Grazer Philosophische Studien, May 26, 2023

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The philosophy of Roderick M. Chisholm, 1997

The Journal of Value Inquiry, 2012

Synthese, 2011

The notion of cognitive act is of importance for an epistemology that is apt for constructive typ... more The notion of cognitive act is of importance for an epistemology that is apt for constructive type theory, and for epistemology in general. Instead of taking knowledge attributions as the primary use of the verb 'to know' that needs to be given an account of, and understanding a first-person knowledge claim as a special case of knowledge attribution, the account of knowledge that is given here understands first-person knowledge claims as the primary use of the verb 'to know'. This means that a cognitive act is an act that counts as cognitive from a first-person point of view. The method of linguistic phenomenology is used to explain or elucidate our epistemic notions. One of the advantages of the theory is that an answer can be given to some of the problems in modern epistemology, such as the Gettier problem.

Synthese, 2007

The meaning of a declarative sentence and that of an interrogative sentence differ in their aspec... more The meaning of a declarative sentence and that of an interrogative sentence differ in their aspect of mood. A semantics of mood has to account for the differences in meaning between these sentences, and it also has to explain that sentences in different moods may have a common core. The meaning of the declarative mood is to be explained not in terms of actual force (contra Dummett), but in terms of potential force. The meaning of the declarative sentence (including its mood) is called the assertion-candidate, which is explained by what one must know in order to be entitled to utter the declarative with assertive force. Both a cognitive notion (knowledge) and a pragmatic notion (assertive force) are thus part of the explanation of the assertion-candidate. Davidson's criticism that such a theory is in need of an account of the distinction between standard and non-standard uses of the declarative is answered: without counter-indications an utterance of a declarative sentence is understood as having assertive force. The meaning of an interrogative sentence, the question-candidate, and that of the other sentence types can ultimately be explained in terms of their specific relations to the assertion-candidate. Martin-Löf's constructive type theory is used to show the philosophical relevance of a semantics of mood. The constructivist notion of proposition needs to be embedded in a theory of the assertion-candidate, which fulfils the offices of being the meaning of the declarative sentence, the content of judgement and assertion and the bearer of epistemic truth.

Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics

In Frege's epistemic account of logic, the notions assertion, justification and being evident pla... more In Frege's epistemic account of logic, the notions assertion, justification and being evident play a central role. Although the notion of judging agent plays an important role in the explanation of these notions, this does not mean that Frege's logic is committed to a form of psychologism. How can we use Frege's account of these notions to illuminate the notions of demonstration and being evident in Constructive Type Theory (CTT)? As the judging agent also plays a role in CTT, how can it prevent a form of psychologism? Although the notion of demonstration cannot be understood without invoking a judging agent, such a judging agent is a first person, which is not to be understood as an empirical subject. And similarly for being evident. The latter notion is often taken to imply a form of psychologism. Although the appeal to the notion of being evident involves a form of fallibilism, the notion is normative, and therefore not psychological. It can thus be used to account for a justification of the inference rules.

There has always been an affinity between Twardowski’s students and the members of the Vienna Cir... more There has always been an affinity between Twardowski’s students and the members of the Vienna Circle. Both are analytic philosophers in a broader sense of the term: convinced that philosophy can be done in a scientific way, they were interested in logic, and opposed to speculative metaphysics and irrationalism. Especially in the early thirties, the two groups came to know each other better. In 1930, Carnap came to Warsaw for several lectures. And in 1934, Ajdukiewicz, Łukasiewicz, Tarski and other members of the Lvov-Warsaw School went to the pre-conference of the first international congress on the unity of science in Prague, and met there Frank, Neurath, Carnap and Reichenbach. This contact was continued at the first congress in Paris, 1935, where scientific philosophy was the topic. None of the members of the Lvov-Warsaw School identified him- or herself with the Vienna Circle, for there are some important differences.

Force, Content and the Unity of the Proposition

Grazer Philosophische Studien

In the past two decades, the fourth book of Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding has... more In the past two decades, the fourth book of Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding has been the focus of interest of several scholars. In The Cambridge Companion to Locke's Essay several papers are devoted to knowledge, faith, and judgement (Newman 2007, ...

Mind

How is Frege able to claim that the notion of judgement is essential to his logic without introdu... more How is Frege able to claim that the notion of judgement is essential to his logic without introducing a form of psychologism? I argue first that Frege's logical notion of judgement is to be distinguished from an empirical notion of judgement, that it cannot be understood as an abstract, idealized notion, and that there are doubts concerning a transcendental reading of Frege's writings. Then, I explain that the logical notion of judgement has to be understood from a first-person perspective, to be contrasted with a third-person perspective, in which judgement is understood as an empirical, psychological phenomenon. Frege's logic is essentially a firstperson engagement, as each of us can make use of the ideography as a science of logic only if we ourselves have made the relevant judgements. Finally, I claim that the judging agent as conceived by Frege can, after all, be understood as a transcendental ego. 1 (WB, p. 126). Translations are mine, unless indicated otherwise. 2 'Wenn man bei der Darstellung eines Schlusses in meiner Begriffsschrift die Urteilsstriche bei den Praemissensätzen wegliesse, fehlte etwas wesentliches' (WB, p. 127). Translating 'Schluss' by 'inference' may be misleading as the term 'inference' is now often understood in a non-epistemic sense. See below.

Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy, 2017

Introduction to the special issue including papers about Susan Stebbing, Susanne Langer and Maria... more Introduction to the special issue including papers about Susan Stebbing, Susanne Langer and Maria Kokoszyńska.

Judgement and Truth in Early Analytic Philosophy and Phenomenology, 2013

Although both Frege and early Russell adhere to the thesis that propositions are logical entities... more Although both Frege and early Russell adhere to the thesis that propositions are logical entities independent of acts of thought and language, each defends a different variant of logical realism. For Frege, the Gedanke is on the level of sense (Sinn), and insofar as we are allowed to speak of parts of the Gedanke, these parts are all on the level of sense, too. Mont Blanc with all its snow-fields is not a part of the Gedanke that Mont Blanc is more than 4000 metres high (Frege 1904). For Russell, propositions are objective complexes, and Mont Blanc, notwithstanding all its snow-fields, is part of the corresponding proposition (Russell 1904a). If the object about which we judge could not be a constituent of the proposition, we would never know something about the object, Russell adds as an explanation. Russell’s propositions are not only constituted in a different way, they also partly fulfill different functions, as will be shown in this paper. For Frege, the Gedanke functions as: (1) judgemental content, and may also function as the content of a yes/no question, so that judgements and questions may share their content; the Gedanke does not function, though, as the content of open questions, wishes, and orders. (2) bearer of truth or falsity: it is precisely the objectivity of the Gedanke that guarantees the objectivity of its truth-value; (3) meaning of the declarative sentence; (4) because of (1), Fregean propositions also function as epistemic contents. The Gedanke is an epistemic notion: the proposition that the morningstar is the morningstar differs from the proposition that the morningstar is the eveningstar, because knowing the one to be true does not imply knowing the other to be true. (5) Another important difference with Russell’s proposition consists in the fact that the Gedanke allows for different analyses by means of the saturated/unsaturated distinction. The unity of the proposition is for Frege an ultimate fact, and therefore not in need of explanation.

The History and Philosophy of Polish Logic, 2014

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2016

This article was commissioned as a supplement to theOxford Handbook of the History of Analytic Ph... more This article was commissioned as a supplement to theOxford Handbook of the History of Analytic Philosophy, edited by Michael Beaney. It focuses on the psychological origins of analytic philosophy. Analytic psychology influenced the emergence of a new method in philosophy and the crucial changes to the notions of judgement and intentionality at the end of the nineteenth century. In particular, G. F. Stout’s analytic psychology played an important role in the formation of Moore’s and Russell’s early analytic philosophy. Through Stout, the account of judgement and intentionality given by Brentano and Twardowski also had a significant influence on the development of early analytic philosophy.

Brentano and Polish Philosophy, 2006

Grazer Philosophische Studien, 2015