Krisztina Biber
Department of Philosophy
Coordinator
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Central European University
Nador u. 9. | 1051 Budapest, Hungary
The CEU Department of Philosophy cordially invites you to a talk
(as part of its Departmental Colloquium series)
by
Iulian D. Toader (University of Bucharest)
on
`Idealization and Indeterminacy`
Tuesday, 28 October 2014, 5.30 PM, Zrinyi 14, Room 412
ABSTRACT
The standard move against the claim that no scientific theory can secure determinacy of reference is to embrace structuralism and argue that indeterminacy of reference does not imply indeterminacy of truth conditions. To show that determinacy of truth conditions can be secured, one may insist on empirical or computational constraints that might eliminate the "unintended" interpretations that make a theory true. Idealization procedures in scientific practice indicate, however, that such interpretations are necessary to account for a range of natural phenomena. In my talk, I discuss the implications of this fact for semantics and modal ontology.