Among those addressed by Putnam's model-theoretic argument it is common opinion that the argument is invalid because question-begging. If the standard analysis of the argument is along the right lines, then what has been called the `just more theory move' is to be held responsible for this. In the present paper, an alternative reading of Putnam's argument is o#ered that makes the `just more theory move' come out perfectly legitimate, and the argument as a whole valid. 1 Introduction Metaphysical realism has been the main subject of the critical part of Putnam's work for over twenty years now. At the heart of this doctrine, as presented by Putnam, is a thesis which we shall here call Methodological Fallibilism (MF). What it says is that even an epistemically ideal theory may fall short of truth, where the notion of truth involved is that of Correspondence Truth (CT). 1 Note that MF is not merely about epistemically ideal theories. The claim is that no empirical theory, no matter how...

In 1922, Thoraf Skolem published a paper titled "Some remarks on Axiomatized Set Theory". The paper presents a new proof of... This dissertation focuses almost exclusively on the first half of this project -- i.e., the half which tries to expose an initial tension between Cantor's theorem and the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem. I argue that, even on quite naive understandings of set theory and model theory, there is no such tension. Hence, Skolem's Paradox is not a genuine paradox, and there is very little reason to worry about (or even to investigate) the more extreme consequences that are supposed to follow from this paradox. The heart of my...

This paper proposes a logic that is specially designed to deal with rules and the reasons based on them. Although the logic is inspired by characteristics of legal reasoning, it aspires to be suitable for dealing with other kinds of rule guided reasoning as well. It is characteristic for this logic that rules are treated as individuals rather than as conditionals, and that application of a rule only leads to a reason for the rule's conclusion. Reasons may have to be weighed against other reasons. The paper describes respectively the motivation behind the logic, a formalization of the logic, some examples of its application, and a dialogical extension. 1. INTRODUCTION Reasoning with rules is so much different from reasoning with propositions, that it is worth the trouble to develop a logic that is specially designed to deal with rules. This view is backed up by a theory about logic which holds that a logic should model valid reasoning as it actually occurs. The task of logic according ...