Confusion : a study in the theory of knowledge / Joseph L. Camp, Jr.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Camp, Joseph L.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Errors.

Knowledge, Theory of.

Physical Description:

x, 246 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2002.

Summary:

Everyone has mistaken one thing for another, such as a stranger for an acquaintance. A person who has mistaken two things, Joseph Camp argues, even on a massive scale, is still capable of logical thought. In order to make that idea precise, one needs a logic of confused thought that is blind to the distinction between the objects that have been confused. Confused thought and language cannot be characterized as true or false even though reasoning conducted in such language can be classified as valid or invalid.

Contents:

I Material Falsity

1. Thinking One Thing Is Another 3

2. A Little History 14

II What Confusion Is

3. Fred and the Ant Colony 27

4. The Semantic Use of Psychological Language 37

III A Little Logic

5. Ambiguity 49

6. Humoring 55

IV Truth-Valuing

7. Calibration 71

8. Failure to Refer 83

9. How You Convince People

Including Yourself

of the Theory of Descriptions 90

10. Trying to Predicate Existence 105

V A Logic for Confusion

11. Explicating 121

12. Good Advice 125

13. How Fred Should Think 145

VI Curing Confusion

14. Semantic Self-Awareness 163

15. Two Charleys 176

16. Young Newton 182

VII Flexible Sameness

17. Self-Induced Confusion 191

18. The Theory of Ideas 194

19. Making Category Mistakes and Loving It 205.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0674006208

OCLC:

48144345