In an earlier paper,1 have tried to answer the question of answerhood, that is, tried to specify the conditions on which a response to an English question counts as an answer to it. In this new paper, I shall strive to extend and to deepen that earlier analysis.

Answers to Questions

...................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements .................................................................................................... iv Related Publications................................................................................................... v List of Figures ............................................................................................................. xi List of Tables ............................................................................................................. xii List of Abbreviations and Acronyms ......................................................................... xiv List of Key Definitions ................................................................................................ xv CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY ...................................................... 1 1.

The impact of FNGO services on the performance of micro and small enterprises: Empirical evidence from the Volta Region, Ghana

The division of human cognitive faculties into those based on reason and those based on experience belongs to the standard epistemological vocabulary. The controversy between empiricism and rationalism, which is one of the most important in epistemology, is organized around these categories. Both parties occur in their genetic and methodological versions. Within the former version, we have nativism (genetic rationalism) and genetic empiricism, but apriorism (methodological rationalism) and aposteriorism (methodological rationalism) are connected with the latter.1 This chapter deals mainly with apriorism and aposteriorism, although their connections with the genetic issue will be also noted. The distinctions pointed out in the title are usually regarded as helpful in explaining how apriorism and empiricism are related. In particular, since both views appear in radical or moderate versions, it is important to see where the borderline between them should be drawn.

Analytic vs. Synthetic and a Priori vs. A Posteriori

IN HIS 'Consolations for the specialist' in Lakatos (1970) P. Feyerabend discusses again in section 9 (entitled 'The role of reason in science'), the bearing of incommensurability of scientific theories on the problem of rational choice of theories. This gives him an opportunity to criticise again the so called dual language assumption, to discuss the alleged incompatibility of this assumption with the realist view of theories and to praise the advantages of incommensurability. Since some of his arguments are directly relevant to the views expressed in my paper 'The paradox of meaning variance' (Giedymin, 1970) which had been sent to the printer before I was able to read Feyerabend's manuscript, I should like to examine those arguments and hope to show that, because of certain defects, they will not give much consolation to those irrationalists who like to support their position with rational arguments.

Consolations for the irrationalist

The attempt to distinguish within an empirical theory between a factual and a conventional component is an important task. It bears especially on the following methodological issues. 'Cognitive status' of theories: The dispute between conventionalism and its critics concerns just where this distinction should be drawn. But equally, if the conventional part of a theory determines the reference of some of its expressions, the question whether theoretical assertions of empirical science include non-conventional statements of determinate truth-value cannot be settled until an exact characterization of the con­ ventional part is given. Inter-theory relations: It is clear that logical relations between theories­ inconsistency, equivalence, reducibility, etc. - depend critically on intra­ theoretic relations. These are determined for each theory in a way which depends on the choice of conventional component. Evidential support: It is to be expected that an adequate measure of support furnished to theory by evidence should assign the highest value to statements belonging to the conventional part. It follows that the measure appropriate to the language of a given theory depends on how its factual and conventional components are distinguished. The problem of distinguishing the factual and conventional component was solved by R. Carnap for finite sets of postulates as follows [4], [5, pp. 958-66]. Let n be the conjunction of theoretical postulates and correspondence postulates and let the descriptive constants of n be distinguished into O-terms and T-terms. Let Rn be the existential closure of the formula obtained from n by proper simultaneous substitution of predicate variables for T-terms. Then the factual part of n is identified with the consequence class of Rn and its conventional part with the con­ sequence class of Rn;:) n. It is understood in addition that a partial inter­ pretation is effected for T-terms by restricting their proper interpre­ tations to those that establish the truth of Rn;:) n given prior interpretations of O-terms. Carnap made the following expository observations:

On the conservative extensions of semantical systems: A contribution to the problem of analyticity

A New Approach to Semantics

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