Confusion: A Study in the Theory of Knowledge

by Joseph L. Camp Jr.

Overview

Everyone has mistaken one thing for another, such as a stranger for an acquaintance. A person who has mistaken two things, Joseph L. 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.

To the extent that philosophers have addressed this issue at all, they take it for granted that confusion is a kind of ambiguity. Camp rejects this notion; his fundamental claim is that confusion is not a mental state. To attribute confusion to someone is to take up a paternalistic stance in evaluating his reasoning. Camp proposes a novel characterization of confusion, and then demonstrates its fruitfulness with several applications in the history of philosophy and the history of science.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674015913
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	09/15/2004
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.69(w) x 8.94(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Joseph L. Camp, Jr., was Professor of Philosophy and Fellow of the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh.

Table of Contents

I Material Falsity

1. Thinking One Thing Is Another

2. A Little History

II What Confusion Is

3. Fred and the Ant Colony

4. The Semantic Use of Psychological Language

III A Little Logic

5. Ambiguity

6. Humoring

IV Truth-Valuing

7. Calibration

8. Failure to Refer

9. How You Convince People—Including Yourself—of the Theory of Descriptions

10. Trying to Predicate Existence

V A Logic for Confusion

11. Explicating

12. Good Advice

13. How Fred Should Think

VI Curing Confusion

14. Semantic Self-Awareness

15. Two Charleys

16. Young Newton

VII Flexible Sameness

17. Self-Induced Confusion

18. The Theory of Ideas

19. Making Category Mistakes and Loving It

Notes

Index

Editorial Reviews

Imagine that you think you see your car in the lot at Dodger Stadium, but your key won't work. You think to yourself, "I owe $500 on this car." Then you see a stuffed Panda in the backseat and decide that it's a different car. When you thought about "this car," were you thinking of the car you couldn't unlock or the car that you owned? Camp says neither. You were thinking about something like both but you did not succeed in referring to either. Camp (philosophy of science, Univ. of Pittsburgh) has not just produced a brain twister. His problem can be found in Descartes and Locke, who worried that we seem not to perceive actual things but to confront only ideas of them. If we can't refer without unique objects of reference, our claims to truth may be in trouble. There are alternatives to his theory of reference, but Camp's book mainly for academics but something that can be enjoyed by all puzzle lovers will provoke thought. Leslie Armour, Univ. of Ottawa Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Camp (philosophy, U. of Pittsburgh) has worked for about 20 years on the problems of confused thought and language, a study which he sees as part of a larger quest involving the relation between truth and reason. He presents his thinking in chapters on material falsity, what confusion is, logic, truth-valuing, a logic for confusion, curing confusion, and flexible sameness. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)