Roger Vergauwen

Within recent discussions in the Philosophy of Mind, the nature of conscious phenomenal states or qualia (also called ‘raw feels’ or the feel of ‘what it is like to be’) has been an important focus of interest. Proponents of Mind-Body Type-Identity theories have claimed that mental states can be reduced to neurophysiological states of the brain. Others have denied that such a reduction is possible; for them, there remains an explanatory gap. In this paper, functionalist, physicalist, epiphenomenalist, and biological models of the mind are discussed and compared. Donald Davidson’s Anomalous Monism is proposed as a unifying framework for a non-reductive theory of qualia and consciousness. Downward Causation, Emergence through Symmetry-breaking, and Dynamical Systems Theory are used to show how consciousness and qualia emerge from their neural substrate and can also be causally efficacious.

Tomando en cuenta las críticas más importantes a la teoría de los individuos transmundanos, así como algunos argumentos en relación con el esencialismo de origen, este artículo trata el problema de la identidad de aquellos individuos a través de mundos posibles. Proponemos la noción de mundo admisible como un tipo especial de modelo en Lógica Intensional, que, dentro de otro modelo, permite el mapeo de la historia e identidad de los individuos en diferentes mundos posibles. Esta propuesta sugiere una solución plausible para determinar propiedades esenciales empíricamente relevantes ostentadas por los individuos transmundanos, un método eficaz para evaluar su identidad y, finalmente, una nueva perspectiva desde la cual reexaminar el clásico debate entre realismo y antirrealismo en la Filosofía del Lenguaje.

In this article the contemporary debate between realism and anti-realism in analytical philosophy is analysed and discussed. It is claimed that the nature of the reference relation which holds between language and the world is central in this discussion which has both logical, semantical, and epistemological aspects. In a first part A. Tarski's (semantic) theory of thru th is explained and it is shown how, amongst several theories of truth, Tarski's may be called a realist one. However, a Tarski-style semantics need not lead to a realist theory of Truth and Reference, as is shown in a subsequent part. Here H. Putnam's views on these matters are discussed. It is shown how Putnam in the course of his intellectual history has changed his view from a realist to an anti-realist position. Putnam's arguments show the importance of logical and metalogical issues in the debate. In a final part Putnam's views are criticized and it is shown how a line of argument, analogous to Putnam's, may lead to a realist theory of meaning and reference

In the discussion between realism and anti-realism, the causal theory of reference plays a central role. As a version of metaphysical realism, causal realism maintains that language is hooked upon the world by means of causal chains that account for the relation between language and extra-linguistic reality, a thesis denied by antirealism in its various forms. The paper investigates these criticisms which are both logical and epistemological, taking as an example H. Putnam's views on these matters. It is argued that the anti-realist criticisms against the causal theory of reference may at least in part be misdirected, since they use a concept of causality that is of a qualitatively different nature from the one used in realist theories. Finally, it is shown how the main tenets of metaphysical realism can be reformulated so as to accomodate for several more general—but related—criticisms having to do with its ontological and epistemological presuppositions

Roger Vergauwen seeks to provide an answer to the question, "How does language connect to the world?" He begins with the recent developments in formal semantics and from them constructs his own 'theory of reference' with which he considers the nature of the correspondence of the world. The author locates his metalogics between the philosophy of language and epistemology while he covers a range of models from Plato to Wittgenstein. Vergauwen assumes no previous technical or logical study. Contents: Introduction: The Temperature of a Hot Topic; The Tarski Program: Hijacking the Truth about Reference; Reference and Theory of Reference; Inside Out: Reference and Metalogic; Outline of a Logic with Non-Standard Meanings.