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Ullin T. Place (1924-2000)

Related Publications

14 publications of Place that refer to Place (1991f). On the social relativity of truth and the analytic/synthetic distinction.

Place, U. T. (1973-10-24). Lecture 4: Cosmology 1. Reductionism (24/10/1973) Section 1
[Abstract]The nature of explanation. Reduction and analysis - conceptual, material, substantial and theoretical. The Reductionist Myth.
[References]  [1 referring publications by Place]  
Download: Amsterdam Lecture 04 - revised version.pdf

Place, U. T. (1986d). Can a psychologist make sense of natural kind terms as rigid designators? [Paper presented at the Course on 'Meaning and Natural Kinds', Inter university Post graduate Centre, Dubrovnik, Yugo-slavia, 15-25 September 1986].
Note:
Revised by the author in 1993.
[References]  [Talks]  

Place, U. T. (1990b). Intensionalism, connectionism and the picture theory of meaning. Acta Analytica, 5(6), 47-63.
[Abstract]The connectionist model of the brain as a parallel distributed processor (PDP) is invoked in support of the view that the sense of singular terms and the intension of general terms and of more complex linguistic expressions determine (1) the reference of singular terms, (2) the extension of general terms, (3) the truth of propositions, (4) the validity of arguments, (5) the meaning of sentences.
Keywords: connectionism, conceptualism, correspondence theory of truth, extensionalism, intensionalism, ontology, philosophy of language, picture theory of meaning, universals
[References]  [Talks]  [5 referring publications by Place]  
Download: 1990b Intensionalism, Connectionism and the Picture Theory of Meaning.pdf

Place, U. T. (1992a). Behavioral contingency semantics and the correspondence theory of truth. In S. C. Hayes,& L. J. Hayes (Eds.), Understanding verbal relations: The Second and Third International Institute on Verbal Relations (Chapter 9, pp. 135-151). Context Press.
Keywords: behaviour analysis, behavioural contingency semantics, correspondence theory of truth, picture theory of meaning, situation, three-term contingency
[References]  [Talks]  [2 citing publications]  [15 referring publications by Place]  
Download: 1992a Behavioral Contingency Semantics and the Correspondence Theory of Truth.pdf

Place, U. T. (1992d). The role of the ethnomethodological experiment in the empirical investigation of social norms, and its application to conceptual analysis. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 22, 461-474. doi:10.1177/004839319202200403
[Abstract]It is argued that conceptual analysis as practiced by the philosophers of ordinary language, is an empirical procedure that relies on a version of Garfinkel's ethnomethodological experiment. The ethnomethodological experiment is presented as a procedure in which the existence and nature of a social norm is demonstrated by flouting the putative convention and observing what reaction that produces in the social group within which the convention is assumed to operate. Examples are given of the use of ethnomethodological experiments, both in vivo and as a thought experiment, in order to demonstrate the existence of otherwise invisible conventions governing human social behavior. Comparable examples are cited from the writings of ordinary language philosophers of ethnomethodological thought experiments designed to demonstrate the existence of linguistic conventions.
[References]  [Talks]  [1 citing publications]  [12 referring publications by Place]  [1 reprinting collections]  
Download: 1992d The Role of the Ethnomethodological Experiment in the Empirical Investigation of Social Norms, and its Application to Conceptual Analysis.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. (1995b). 'Is consciousness a brain process?' Some misconceptions about the article. In B. Borstner, & J. Shawe-Taylor (Eds.), Consciousness at the crossroads of cognitive science and philosophy: Selected proceedings of the final meeting of the Tempus Project 'Phenomenology and Cognitive Science', Maribor, Slovenia, 23-7 August, 1994 (pp. 9-15). Imprint Academic.
[References]  [1 referring publications by Place]  
Download: 1995b 'Is Consciousness a Brain Process' Some Misconceptions about the Article.pdf

Place, U. T. (1996e). Structural properties: categorical, dispositional or both? In D. M. Armstrong, C. B. Martin, U. T. Place, & T. Crane (Ed.) Dispositions: A debate (Chapter 7, pp. 105-125). Routledge.
[Abstract]Martin's "linguisticism" which converts existence into the truth of an existential statement is found in such doctrines as "To exist is to be the value of a variable", "Wanting is a propositional attitude", and "Causal conditionals are of the form 'If p, then q'". The (dispositional) properties of the whole are caused by, are often predictable from, but are not reducible to, the (categorical) arrangement of its parts and their dispositional properties. An unmanifested dispositional property is a law of the nature of the property-bearer which governs how it would behave, if its manifestation conditions were to be fulfilled.
[References]  [Related]  [1 citing publications]  
Download: 1996e Chapter 7 Structural Properties - Categorical, Dispositional or Both .pdf

Place, U. T. (1996f). Conceptualism and the ontological independence of cause and effect. In D. M. Armstrong, C. B. Martin, U. T. Place, & T. Crane (Ed.) Dispositions: A debate (Chapter 10, pp. 153-162). London: Routledge.
Keywords: conceptualism
[References]  [Related]  [1 citing publications]  
Download: 1996f Chapter 10 Conceptualism and the Ontological Independence of Cause and Effect.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

Place, U. T. (1997b). Linguistic behaviorism and the correspondence theory of truth. Behavior and Philosophy, 25, 83-94. www.jstor.org/stable/27759370
[Abstract]Linguistic Behaviorism (Place, 1996) is an attempt to reclaim for the behaviorist perspective two disciplines, linguistics and linguistic philosophy, most of whose practitioners have been persuaded by Chomsky's (1959) Review of B. F. Skinner's (1957) Verbal Behavior that behaviorism has nothing useful to contribute to the study of language. It takes as axiomatic (a) that the functional unit of language is the sentence, and (b) that sentences are seldom repeated word-for-word, but are constructed anew on each occasion of utterance out of units, words, phrases and turns of phrase, that are repeated. On this view, the problem of discriminating the true from the false arises from the use of novel declarative sentences (statements) to depict or, to use Skinner's term, "specify" contingencies the like of which the listener need never have encountered and to which he would otherwise have no access. In such cases the listener needs to distinguish among the sentences he receives from other speakers between those where the situation depicted/specified corresponds to that which actually exists at the time and place specified in the sentence and are, therefore, true, and those to which no actual situation corresponds and which are, therefore, false.
Keywords: correspondence theory of truth, linguistic behaviorism
[References]  [Talks]  [1 citing publications]  
Download: 1997b Linguistic Behaviourism and the Correspondence Theory of Truth.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. (2000f). Identity theories. In M. Nani, & M. Maraffa (Eds.), A Field Guide to the Philosophy of Mind. Roma Tre University. Retrieved Februari 9, 2019, from http://host.uniroma3.it/progetti/kant/field/mbit.htm
[References]  [3 citing publications]  
Download: 2000f Theories of Mind.pdf