Gary Ostertag

In this paper, we focus narrowly on the question of the relevance of public engagement in clinical research (PER). Over the past 20 years, demands for public engagement in research have grown dramatically in their number and scope. In the same period, we have also witnessed escalating attacks on expertise in general and science in particular. This paper responds to these developments. We draw on themes in John Rawls's Political Liberalism to make two distinct points which intertwine in the current anti‐science, anti‐expertise movement and shed light on the pro‐PER phenomenon. First, we emphasize the importance of Rawls's awareness of the fragility of liberal democracy and, relatedly, the necessity of observing “the duty of civility,” thus providing a basis for critiquing the tenor of PER advocacy. Second, we draw on Rawlsian insights on justice to explain why PER is not an issue of justice. We also employ findings from studies on human psychology to illuminate the significant difference between expert thinking and lay thinking. Noting the absence of evidence for PER producing benefits, and drawing on our own experience, we make the case that PER has no role in clinical research. It undermines accountability, diverts resources, and complicates the already burdensome research processes.

The fact that (1) “Cicero = Tully” is informative whereas (2) “Cicero = Cicero” is not seems to resist explanation on traditional referentialist principles. According to Fine, the referentialist can make sense of the difference by appealing to the fact that in (2), but not (1), the singular-term occurrences are?_coordinated_. I argue that Fine’s account of this crucial notion is inadequate and present an alternative way of understanding it, one on which coordination facts do not enter into the content of what is said or asserted. To borrow from Wittgenstein, coordination lies not with what my words?_say_, but with what my words?_show_. To demystify the notion of showing, I indicate how it can be understood in terms of Grice’s notion of conventional implicature.

Ever since Pilate asked, “What is truth?”, the subsequent search for a correct answer has been inhibited by another problem, which also arises in a New Testament context. If, as the author of the Epistle to Titus supposes, a Cretan prophet, “even a prophet of their own,” asserted that “the Cretans are always liars,” and if “this testimony is true” of all other Cretan utterances, then it seems that the Cretan prophet's words are true if and only if they are false. And any treatment of the concept of truth must somehow circumvent this paradox. This chapter proposes a theory of truth that has two virtues: first, it provides an area rich in formal structure and mathematical properties; second, that to a reasonable extent these properties capture important intuitions. The model, then, is to be tested by its technical fertility. It need not capture every intuition, but it is hoped that it will capture many.

The dissertation attempts to provide a treatment of belief reports and definite descriptions consistent with a directly referential semantic theory. By the latter I mean a theory according to which that-clauses are singular terms that have as their referents structured propositions. Part I defends the claim that belief reports, sentences of the form 'A believes that S', make explicit reference to a proposition and implicit, context-sensitive reference to the manner in which the subject represents the ascribed proposition. A problem is developed for this view, namely, that the context cannot plausibly be held to guarantee a unique reference to the subject's internal representation. Four strategies of response are developed. Part II proposes, but ultimately rejects, a treatment of definite descriptions according to which incomplete definite descriptions are completed by contextually salient descriptions--that they make implicit, context-sensitive reference to such completions. Instead, a directly referential interpretation of definition descriptions is defended. It is argued that the assumption of the referential theory is compatible with the Russellian use of descriptions, but that the alternative assumption of the Russellian view is not compatible with certain referential uses of definite descriptions

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:66 Discussion REJOINDER TO DEJNOZKA'S REPLY GARY OSTERTAG Philosophy/ New YorkU. New York,NY 10003, USA [email protected] It is common knowledge that Russell does not explicitly endorse modal logic in any of his major logical writings. Nor does my review of BertrandRusseli onModalityand LogicalRelevance' suggest that Jan Dejnozka denies or is somehow unaware of this. On the contrary, I assume it to be obvious that any commitment Russell may have had to modal logic must be implicitin his writings, nor explicit. The real issue is whether there is evidence of any such commitment. I will state, briefly,why I remain sceptical. First, Dejnozka's book lacks any interpretive methodology. When the question arises, In whichcontextsis itpermissibleto translateRusseli's language(formal orinformal)intoa modalsystem?, we get the following: amibute a modal logic to Russell if "it is more reasonable than not to paraphrase Russell's thinking into the modal logic." This condition, we are told, "is met to the extent that acertain modal logic is logicallyimplicit in Russell's thinking." All of which goes without saying, but it simply delays the inevitable question: when is a modal logic logicallyimplicit in a text? Dejnozka's current answer: a modal logic is logically implicit in a text when the text logically implies the paraphrase.2 But the final suggestion is incoherent, since we cannot tell what a text logical1y implies until we have discerned its logicalform-i.e. until we havealready paraphrased it into some formal idiom or other. A related problem is that Dejnozka consistently failsto distinguish two sorts of claims: • Certain passagesin Russell lend themselves to a modal interpretationthey can be captured in a given system of modal logic, e.g. S13. • Such an interpretation reflects Russell'sintentions. That a modal system captures one or another of Russell's accounts of logical truth in itself entails nothing regarding Russell'sintentions. The modal system G described by George Boolos in a munber of publications provides an alterna- ' "Russell's Modal Logic?", Russelin.s. 20 (2000): 165-72. 2 "Reply to Ostertag", Russell, n.s. 21 (2001): 63-5 (at 65). Discussion 67 rive formalization of Peano Arithmetic, enabling the derivation of Godel's incompleteness theorems. Yet the fact that this is possible does not in any way suggest that Godel himself was implicitly committed to G. Unfortunately, Dejnozka often writes as if the mere possibility of a modal interpretation is genuinely revealing as to Russell's intemions. Bm it is just as implausible to maintain this as it is to claim that it was Gi:idel'sintention to present Boolos's G.3 Second, as I maintain in my review, Dejnozka fails to take seriously the many comexts in which Russell is explicitly critical of modality. Dejnozka responds that he has quoted these very passagesand that he "embraces them as half-but only half-of [his] basic message" ("Reply", p. 64). But citing contexts in which Russell appears to find modality congenial does nothing to mitigate the force of the contexts in which Russell explicitly repudiates modality. It is Dejnozka's responsibility to explain how the latter are to cohere with his interpretation. To avoid this issue is to skirt the real philosophical and interpretive challenge that the project entails. Finally, we come to Dejnozka's confusions surrounding MDL-the triad of equivalences that underwrite the interpretation of Principiaas a modal logic. In light of Dejnozka's steadfast refusal to formalize the various modal systems he amibmes to Russell, it hardly makes a differencewhether MDLis a modal logic or merely, to use his terminology, a "modal theory" (assuming that the latter ultimately amounts to something other than a modal logic).4What is importam is whether MDLis trivial. If it is, then it is quite beside the point to pursue the various extensions of MDL.Since I maimain that Russell is not commined, implicitly or otherwise, to a substantive reading of MDL-one in which the modal operators have their conventional meanings-then he is not committed to these extensions, so there is no need for detailed discussion. What remains central is my argtunent for the claim that MDL is trivial. Bm this argmnent (unacknowledged by Dejnozka) is there for...

According to the naive theory of belief reports, our intuition that “Lois believes that Kent flies” is false results from our mistakenly identifying what this sentence implicates, which is false, with what it says, which is true. Whatever the merits of this proposal, it is here argued that the naive theory’s analysis of negative belief reports—sentences such as “Lois doesn't believe that Kent flies”—gives rise to equally problematic clashes with intuition, but that in this case no “pragmatic” explanation is available. In particular, it is argued that there are situations at which, although “Lois believes that Superman flies” and “Lois doesn't believe that Kent flies” appear consistent, a speaker must contradict himself when he utters both. It is also argued that the hidden-indexical theory of belief reports—which otherwise respects our ordinary intuitions regarding belief reports—similarly fails to explain this intuition.