Place, U. T. (1971a). The infallibility of our knowledge of our own beliefs. Analysis, 31, 197-204. doi:10.1093/analys/31.6.197
[References]  [7 referring publications by Place]  [1 reprinting collections]  
Download: 1971a The Infallibility of Our Knowledge about Our Own Beliefs.pdf

Place, U. T. (1993d). Holism and cognitive dissonance in the discrimination of correspondence between sentences and situations. Acta Analytica, 8(10), 143-155.
[Abstract]A synthetic proposition is true, if there exists a situation corresponding to that which the proposition depicts. Assurance that such correspondence obtains depends on the coherence of a body of pragmatically tested beliefs, anchored to reality by objective observation statements endorsed as correct by the relevant linguistic community. Hull's "primitive suggestibility" and Festinger's "cognitive dissonance" are invoked to explain how failures of correspondence are detected.
Keywords: conceptualism, correspondence theory of truth, holism, picture theory of meaning
Note:
Added to the full text: unpublished rephrasing of some of the central points of this article by the author.
[References]  [Talks]  [5 referring publications by Place]  
Download: 1993d Holism and Cognitive Dissonance in the Discrimination of Correspondence between Sentences and Situations.pdf

Place, U. T. (1996j). Linguistic behaviorism as a philosophy of empirical science. In W. O'Donohue, & R. Kitchener (Eds.), The Philosophy of Psychology ( Chapter 9, pp. 126-140). Sage. doi:10.4135/9781446279168.n9
[Abstract]Linguistic behaviorism is a philosophy of science with application to every empirical science from physics to sociology. It holds that • philosophy, including the philosophy of science, uses conceptual analysis to study the interface between language and the 'reality' it depicts, • conceptual analysis is an empirical investigation of the conventions governing the construction of intelligible sentences in natural language and its technical derivatives, • conformity to linguistic convention is maintained by selective social reinforcement. It endorses the analytic/synthetic distinction, a picture theory of the meaning of sentences, a correspondence theory of synthetic truth and a counterfactual theory of causal necessity.
Keywords: correspondence theory of truth, picture theory of meaning
[References]  [Talks]  [3 citing publications]  [10 referring publications by Place]  [1 reprinting collections]  
Download: 1996j Linguistic Behaviorism as a Philosophy of Empirical Science.pdf

Place, U. T. (1996q). The picture theory of meaning and its implication for the theory of truth and its discrimination. Communication and Cognition, 29, 5-14.
[Abstract]Linguistic behaviourism is an approach to linguistics, philosophy and the philosophy of science which combines Skinner's (1957) thesis that language is a form of learned social behaviour maintained by the reinforcement practices of a linguistic or, as he would say, "verbal" community with Chomsky's (1957, etc.) insistence that the functional unit of language is the sentence and that sentences are seldom repeated word-for-word, but are typically constructed anew on each occasion of utterance. The ability of the listener or reader to be directed by an imperative sentence to do something she has never done before or to be alerted by a declarative sentence to the existence of a situation the like of which she has never encountered and to which she would otherwise have no access is explained on a version of the picture theory of meaning in which the structure and content of the sentence maps onto the structure and content of the situation which is thereby depicted. Hand in hand with the picture theory of meaning goes a correspondence theory of what it means for a contingent proposition to be true. But in accounting for the way true contingent propositions are discriminated, both the coherence and the pragmatic principles are invoked.
Keywords: correspondence theory of truth, picture theory of meaning
[References]  [1 citing publications]  [3 referring publications by Place]  
Download: 1996q The Picture Theory of Meaning and its Implication for the Theory of Truth and its Discrimination.pdf