Kagaku tetsugaku

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[in Japanese]

2004 Volume 37 Issue 2 Pages 1-15
Published: December 25, 2004
Released on J-STAGE: May 29, 2009

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4216/jpssj.37.2_1

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This paper aims to update McTaggart's "contradiction" and to rethink the reality of time. According to McTaggart, every event has all of the incompatible A-characteristics. In other words, "past", "present", and "future" are both incompatible and compatible. This is McTaggart's "contradiction". I try to interpret this contradiction as follows: temporal becoming makes A-characteristics incompatible, while fixing them within description makes them compatible, and that temporal becoming and fixing them within description cannot help subsuming each other repeatedly. My interpretation suggests that this updated "contradiction" provides a proper reality of time (not unreality of time).

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[in Japanese]

2004 Volume 37 Issue 2 Pages 17-29
Published: December 25, 2004
Released on J-STAGE: May 29, 2009

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4216/jpssj.37.2_17

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Richard Taylor claims that fatalism can be constructed out of the law of excluded middle. While allowing that his argument is clear and meaningful, I argue that the fatalism constructed from the law of excluded middle considers two different times to be logically independent. This implies that fatalism rejects the flow of time. Michael Dummett criticizes fatalism in terms of the difference between "change the past" and "bring about the past". His trial of the backward causation suggests the weakness of fatalism.

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[in Japanese]

2004 Volume 37 Issue 2 Pages 31-45
Published: December 25, 2004
Released on J-STAGE: May 29, 2009

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4216/jpssj.37.2_31

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McTaggart claimed that he proved the unreality of time. However, there is some obscurity in his time theory. This obscurity has not been questioned nearly one hundred years after his alleged proof of the unreality of time. This paper is an attempt of a rational reconstruction of his, time theory. This reconstruction reveals that his A-series and B-series have more complex structures than usually assumed. I propose to formalize both series by using tense relation symbols, such as P(t, e), N(t, e), F(t, e). This paper demonstrates that the reconstructed A-theory and B-theory are consistent, so that not only McTaggart's proof but also its reconstructions in Dummett (1960) and Mellor (1998) fail. In the last part, I point out that the dynamic time produces not inconsistency but formal inexpressibility.

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[title in Japanese]

[in Japanese]

2004 Volume 37 Issue 2 Pages 47-58
Published: December 25, 2004
Released on J-STAGE: May 29, 2009

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4216/jpssj.37.2_47

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Fatalism or logical determinism says that the future is determined on a very logical ground. In this paper, examining the fatalist argument critically, I am going to show how we can avoid the fatalist thesis. Aristotle discussed this problem and came to the conclusion that some statements about the future are neither true nor false. Following his suggestion, I farther claim that the future does not exist. That is the reason why any proper name included in a statement about the future has no referent. Therefore, as Aristotle said, statements about the future have no truth value. In the latter half of this paper, I will consider some problems with my claim what does a statement about the future mean and how is the past related to the present?

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[in Japanese]

2004 Volume 37 Issue 2 Pages 59-70
Published: December 25, 2004
Released on J-STAGE: May 29, 2009

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4216/jpssj.37.2_59

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McTaggart has an insight that changes of property rely on changes of tense (McTaggart 1908). As I show in this paper, he fails to define A-series as a series for changes of tense, and therefore his proof for the unreality of time is unsuccessful. A-series found in the proof is reduced to a number of mere indexicals of time, and this reduction is pushed forward in Dummett's defense. My aim in this paper is not only to check the validity of their arguments but to investigate invincible difficulties faced in defining changes of tense. The latter is my main aim, and the former is a preliminary argument for it.

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[in Japanese]

2004 Volume 37 Issue 2 Pages 71-83
Published: December 25, 2004
Released on J-STAGE: May 29, 2009

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4216/jpssj.37.2_71

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The denial of time is the foundation of European manner of thinking. History teaches us that Europeans have always tried to construct their World from self-identical beings which presuppose the denial of time. The most typical timeless beings are Platonic Ideas. Ideas descend from eternal World into the stream of time and make things what they are. Two kinds of time representations, B-series (earlier-later relation of moments) and A-series (past•present•future) are both devices for controlling actual time. Proofs of the Unreality of Time are essentially mere declarations of European manner of thinking. This author confirms the fact by examining proofs by Parmenides and McTaggart.

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[in Japanese]

2004 Volume 37 Issue 2 Pages 85-99
Published: December 25, 2004
Released on J-STAGE: May 29, 2009

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4216/jpssj.37.2_85

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In this paper, I will present a set of basic tools by which we understand the difference of the meanings of words between arguers or between arguments. On the assumption that there is one meaning-theory per person per argument, I will deal with several kinds of elements of an argument including statements and circumstances. Specifically, I will introduce a concept of "grammatical statements" (for an arguer in an argument), which are regarded as unarguable truth. Finally, I will suggest that the difference between meaning-theories can be reduced into the difference between the classes of grammatical statements.

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[in Japanese]

2004 Volume 37 Issue 2 Pages 101-117
Published: December 25, 2004
Released on J-STAGE: May 29, 2009

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4216/jpssj.37.2_101

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Through the past two decades, we found a possibility of utilizing unique features of quantum mechanics, such as interferences and EPR correlations as tools to manipulate information. Eventually, we realized there are a couple of restrictions on doing this, i.e., "Possibility of Quantum Key. Distribution" and "Impossibility of Quantum Bit Commitment". This paper aims to explain how quantum mechanics imposes such restrictions and what exactly it means for the "interpretation of quantum mechanics", which has been discussed over a century. This paper also proposes a new view point in which quantum mechanics can be interpreted as a theory of information rather than a descriptive theory of physical reality.

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[title in Japanese]

[in Japanese]

2004 Volume 37 Issue 2 Pages 119-131
Published: December 25, 2004
Released on J-STAGE: May 29, 2009

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4216/jpssj.37.2_119

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The main purpose of this essay is an analysis of the methodology in physical research using the semantic concept of scientific theories (SC). The structure of this paper is as follows. First, the antecedent analyses of scientific research by T. S. Kuhn, I. Lakatos and L. Laudan are surveyed. Secondly, I try to define what SC is. According to SC, theory is applied not to real world directly but to model. And next, the methodology of physical research is analyzed by using SC according to the following three steps: 1. improving the approximation between model and the real world, 2. introducing unknown objects (or interactions), 3. alternating basic theory. Finally, the development of physics is discussed. I insist that a criterion to judge which theory is better when theory is modified is the ability to solve empirical problems not conceptual.

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2004 Volume 37 Issue 2 Pages 133-148
Published: December 25, 2004
Released on J-STAGE: May 29, 2009

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4216/jpssj.37.2_133

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Michael Della Rocca, in his "Essentialism versus Essentialism", pointed out that Kripke's defense of his essentialism is made unstable by his limited use of the method of counterparts. But the defense, if trying to get out of this unstable position, would be circular, and therefore turns out to be unable to be justified. Kripke's version of essentialism, by introducing the method of counterparts into it, has a self-under-mining character, so argues Della Rocca. In this paper, I shall argue that these objections of Della Rocca to Kripke are wrong. After reviewing the objections, I shall argue that Della Rocca, when arguing for the circularity of Kripke's defense of his essentialism, is relying on a false premise and shall object to his objections. Then, I shall outline what more appropriate objections to Kripke's version of essentialism would be like.

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2004 Volume 37 Issue 2 Pages 149-162
Published: December 25, 2004
Released on J-STAGE: May 29, 2009

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4216/jpssj.37.2_149

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The aim of this paper is to explicate and evaluate Resnik's structuralism in the philosophy of mathematics, and especially to show some difficulties in his theory. Firstly I clarify his main arguments concerning mathematical realism and structuralism. His position has some merits from the points of ontology and epistemology. Then I point out the philosophical implications of his interpretation of mathematical patterns as merely epistemological devices for philosophical explication. By using indispensability argument as a means of justification of mathematical realism, he admits the degree of our commitment to the existence of mathematical objects. Finally I will show that he fails to explain patterns and positions of mathematical structures in category theory.

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2004 Volume 37 Issue 2 Pages 163-171
Published: December 25, 2004
Released on J-STAGE: May 29, 2009

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4216/jpssj.37.2_163

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