Place, U. T. (1991f). On the social relativity of truth and the analytic/synthetic distinction. Human Studies, 14, 265-285. doi:10.1007/bf02205609
[Abstract]Three solutions are examined to the problem of cultural chauvinism posed by the fact that the verb `to know' commits the speaker to the truth of what is known. Two, the doctrine that truth is socially relative and the doctrine that truth determination procedures are socially relative, are rejected. A third, the view that truth is relative to linguistic convention is defended. Holding this view commits the author to an intensionalist theory of reference, a conceptualist theory of universals, a defence of the analytic-synthetic distinction against Quine's critique, and the view that the basic principles of science are analytic.
[References]  [3 citing publications]  [14 referring publications by Place]  [1 reprinting collections]  
Download: 1991f On the Social Relativity of Truth and the Analytic Synthetic Distinction.pdf

Place, U. T. (1994c). Contextualism, mechanism and the conceptual analysis of the causal relation [Conference presentation, presented at a symposium on "The Bogy of Mechanism": Alternative Philosophical Perspectives on the Contextualism/Mechanism Debate, conducted at the Twentieth Annual Convention of the Association for Behavior Analysis, Atlanta, GA, May 28th 1994]. Association for Behavior Analysis.
[Abstract]The notion that mechanism and contextualism are two alternative and conflicting ways of conducting the scientific enterprise rests on a misunderstanding of the nature of the causal relation. Every effect is the outcome of many causes. Where the effect is an event, there is always a single triggering event which combines with a set of standing conditions which are already in place to complete the set of causes which are jointly sufficient for the coming about of the effect. In a mechanism, one triggering event leads inevitably to another because any variation in the standing conditions has been eliminated by strict control of the context within which the causal process takes place. Most mechanisms are a product of human artifice. Some, such as the movements involved in animal locomotion, are the product of natural selection. Another example of mechanical causation in biology is the transmission of excitation across the synapse from the pre-synaptic to the post-synaptic neuron. However, research by connectionists on the properties of artificial neural networks shows that mechanical causation at the neuro-synaptic ('molecular') level yields multi-factorial contextual causation at the ('molar') level of the network as a whole.
[References]  [Talks]  [1 citing publications]  [1 referring publications by Place]  
Download: 1994c Contextualism, Mechanism and the Conceptual Analysis of the Causal Relation.pdf

Place, U. T. (1996h). Mental causation is no different from any other kind. The British Psychological Society, History and Philosophy of Psychology Newsletter, 23, 15-20.
[Abstract]Mental causation, as the term is used here, is the relation between an individual's beliefs, desires and intentions on the one hand and the behaviour they motivate on the other. Until it was challenged by Donald Davidson (1963/1980), the accepted view amongst philosophers was that mental causation in this sense is not a causal relation ("reasons are not causes"). Now most subscribe to Davidson's view that it is a causal relation, but an anomalous one. I argue that it is a standard causal relationship which differs in no way from other non-mental cases of causation.
[References]  [Talks]  
Download: 1996h Mental Causation is No Different from Any Other Kind.pdf this is a shortened version of the unpublished:  1996h Full version of Mental Causation is No Different from Any Other Kind.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. (1996p). Review of Morris (1996) Some reflections on contextualism, mechanism, and behavior analysis [Unpublished review of the manuscript submitted by Morris.]
[References]  [Reviewed publication(s)]  
Download: 1996p Review of Morris (1996), Some reflections on contextualism, mechanism, and behavior analysis.pdf

Place, U. T. (1997e). On the nature of conditionals and their truthmakers. Acta Analytica, 12(18), 73-88.
[Abstract]Standard propositional and predicate logic fails both as a model for natural language and, since it cannot handle causation, as a language for science. The failure to handle causation stems from a misconstrual of the causal conditional as a relation between the truth of two propositions (If p, then q). What the causal conditional in fact specifies is a 'relation' between the possible existence or non-existence of two situations made true by the existence of the dispositional properties of the concrete particulars involved.
[References]  [Talks]  [5 referring publications by Place]  
Download: 1997e On the Nature of Conditionals and Their Truthmakers.pdf

Place, U. T. (1997g). We needed the analytic-synthetic distinction to formulate mind-brain identity then: we still do [Conference presentation, presented at a Symposium on 'Forty years of Australian Materialism', June 21st 1997]. Department of Philosophy, University of Leeds.
[Abstract]Quine's (1951/1980) repudiation of the analytic-synthetic distinction undermines three principles fundamental to the view expounded in ‘Is consciousness a brain process?' (Place 1956): the idea that problems, such as that of the relation between mind and body, are partly conceptual confusions to be cleared away by philosophical analysis and partly genuine empirical questions to be investigated and answered decisively by the relevant empirical science, the distinction between the meaning of what the individual says when she describes her private experiences and the nature of the actual events she is describing as revealed by science, and the claim that, unless the connection is obscured by the different ways in which the two predicates come to be applied, co-extensive predicates become conceptually (intensionally) connected, and sentences asserting their identity become analytic. It is argued that, if the object is, as it should be, to assimilate this case to other cases of type-identity in science, rather than perpetuate the problem, these principles are still needed.
[References]  [Talks]  
Download: 1997g We Needed the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction to Formulate the Mind-Brain Identity Then We Still Do.pdf

Place, U. T. (1997k). Two theories of meaning: The two-factor dispositional/relational and the single factor relational [Presented at the Twenty Third Philosophy of Science Course, Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik, 8th April 1997].
[Abstract]Theories of meaning are of two kinds, two-factor dispositional/relational theories and single factor relational theories. A two-factor dispositional/relational theory of meaning holds that the word 'meaning' has two senses: a primary and fundamental sense in which meaning is a disposition and a secondary and derivative sense in which meaning is a relation. (a) In the primary or dispositional sense, the meaning of a linguistic expression, such as a phrase or sentence, is a disposition, shared by relevantly competent speakers and interpreters of a particular natural language or technical code, to apply certain criteria (which they need not be able to state) in deciding whether or not a particular they encounter is either an instance to which, in the case of a general term or universally quantified sentence, the expression applies or, in the case of a singular term or singularly quantified sentence, the individual to which it refers. (b) In the secondary or relational sense, the meaning of a linguistic expression is the actual individuals assigned, by the application of those criteria, to the extension of a general term or universally quantified sentence or the actual individual referred to by a singular term or singularly quantified sentence when uttered on a particular occasion, as determined by the criteria. Taking their cue from Quine's (1951/1980) repudiation of the analytic/synthetic distinction, many philosophers have defended a purely relational/extensional theory of meaning in which dispositional notions such as 'intension', 'Sinn' ('sense'), 'analytic' and 'necessary' (defined in terms of what it is self-contradictory to deny) play no part. Motivation for the single-factor relational theory comes from logic. That for the two-factor dispositional relational theory defended here comes from psychology. The application of the two-factor theory to scientific principles such as 'Water is H₂O' and Ohm's Law is described.
[References]  [Talks]  
Download: 1997k Two Theories of Meaning - The Two-Factor Dispositional Relational and the Single Factor Relational.pdf

Place, U. T. (1999h). The picture theory of meaning: A rehabilation [Conference presentation; presented to the IUC Conference on Epistemology, Bled, Slovenia, 31st May - June 5th 1999].
[Abstract]I argue the case for a rehabilitation of the "picture theory" of the meaning of sentences expounded by Wittgenstein (1921/1971) in the Tractatus, but abandoned by him in moving from his earlier to his later philosophy. This rehabilitation requires the replacement of 'facts' as the objects which sentences depict by 'situations' (Barwise and Perry 1983) and the recognition that the situation depicted by a sentence is an "intentional object" (Brentano 1871/1995). It also implies a different view of the way his sense (Sinn)/reference (Bedeutung) distinction should be applied to the meaning of sentences from that maintained by Frege (1892/1960) himself. Such a theory opens the door to a thorough-going empiricist theory of the acquisition of both concepts and sentence structure.
Keywords: picture theory of meaning
[References]  [Talks]  
Download: 1999h The Picture Theory of Meaning - A Rehabilitation.pdf