Philosophy of Linguistics

Philosophers have long debated the relative priority of thought and language, both at the deepest level, in asking what makes us distinctively human, and more superficially, in explaining why we find it so natural to communicate with words. The “linguistic turn” in analytic philosophy accorded pride of place to language in the order of investigation, but only because it treated language as a window onto thought, which it took to be fundamental in the order of explanation. The Chomskian linguistic program (...) tips the balance further toward language, by construing the language faculty as an independent, distinctively human biological mechanism. Devitt (Ignorance of language. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2006) attempts to swing the pendulum back toward the other extreme, by proposing that thought itself is fundamentally sentential, and that there is little or nothing for language to do beyond reflecting the structure and content of thought. I argue that both thought and language involve a greater diversity of function and form than either the Chomskian model or Devitt’s antithesis acknowledge. Both thought and language are better seen as complex, mutually supporting suites of interacting abilities. (shrink)

According to an influential research program in cognitive science, philosophy, and linguistics, there is a deep, special connection between generics and pernicious aspects of social cognition such as stereotyping. Specifically, generics are thought to exacerbate our propensity to essentialize, lead us to overgeneralize based on scarce evidence, and lead to other epistemically dubious patterns of inference. Recently, however, several studies have put empirical and theoretical pressure on some of the main tenets of this research program. The goal of this paper (...) is to bring these results together in a comprehensive narrative and systematically evaluate their impact on the hypothesis that generics have a uniquely problematic effect on our social and cognitive capacities. (shrink)

Our ordinary assertions are often imprecise, insofar as the way we represent things as being only approximates how things are in the actual world. The phenomenon of assertoric imprecision raises a challenge to standard accounts of both the norm of assertion and the connection between semantics and the objects of assertion. After clarifying these problems in detail, I develop a framework for resolving them. Specifically, I argue that the phenomenon of assertoric imprecision motivates a rejection of the widely held belief (...) that a semantic theory for a language associates a single semantic value with each of the simple and complex expressions of that language, relative to the contexts in which they occur. Instead, I propose that we adopt a framework I call semantic pluralism. (shrink)

This paper takes a stand on Hamblin semantics and its relation to the semantics-to-pragmatics interface. Biased questions, where the speaker finds one of the options more likely and expects the confirmation that p is true, raise a concern about the limits of Hamblin semantics. I argue that biased questions have modified Hamblin semantics, while unbiased questions have unconstrained Hamblin semantics. The optional bias feature explains compositionally. It is triggered by likelihood presuppositions ranging Hamblin sets and highlighting the preferred alternative(s). Biased (...) effects are exceptionally possible in alternative and wh-questions, but only in polar questions, they can be encoded lexically and grammatically. I argue that Hamblin semantics covers all core types of questions, while some of its applications for non-questions are problematic. (shrink)

The collective monograph "Ontology of Stative Situations - Linguistic Modeling. A Contrastive Bulgarian-Russian Study" includes research carried out within the project of the same name "Ontology of stative situations – linguistic modeling. A contrastive Bulgarian-Russian study", supported by the "Scientific Research" Fund of the Ministry of Education and Science in Bulgaria (№ КП-06-РУСИЯ / 23) and from the Russian Fund for Fundamental Research (No. 20-512-18005).

Human language, hominin tool production modes, and multimodal communications systems of primates and other animals are currently well-studied for how they display compositionality or combinatoriality. In all cases, the former is defined as a kind of hierarchical nesting and the latter as a lack thereof. In this article, I extend research on combinatoriality and compositionality further to investigations of everyday primate skills. Daily locomotion modes as well as behaviors associated with subsistence practices, hygiene, or body modification rely on the hierarchical (...) nesting of different behavioral and cognitive actions into complex skills. I introduce a scheme which uses hierarchical organization to differentiate combinatorial from compositional skills. Combinatorial skills are defined either as aggregational or linearly hierarchical depending on whether the skill occurs momentarily in space or unfolds sequentially over time. Compositional skills are defined either as nested or interactionally hierarchical depending on whether the skill results in new constructs or in new interactions between existing constructs. The methodology I propose combines epistemological hierarchy theory with data from primatological field research and experimental and comparative psychological research and provides a means to integrate current constructionist and extended views on cognition and action with older research on behavioral logics in psychology and operational chain thinking in anthropology. The approach furthermore synchronizes with ongoing research on teleonomy, intentionality, and creativity. -/- . (shrink)

Rozwiązanie paradoksów Rossa i Priora okazało się trudnym zadaniem. Jego pierwsze dwa etapy, obejmujące identyfikację prawdziwych natur implikacji i wartości logicznych, zostały opisane w artykułach "Rozwiązanie paradoksu implikacji materialnej – 2024" i "Rozwiązanie dylematu Jörgensena – 2024". Ten artykuł opisuje trzeci etap, obejmujący odkrycie brakujących funktorów modalnych i Klasycznego Rachunku Modalności. Na zakończenie zostają podane procedury rozwiązania obu paradoksów.

وجدت التربية مع وجود الحياة الإنسانية، وهي ظاهرة اجتماعية بامتياز، عرفها الإنسان منذ أن وطئت قدماه الأرض، كما أنها كانت موضوع اهتمام الأديان عبر العصور والأزمنة، وهذا يدل على دورها الفاعل والهام في تطوير الأمم وتقدمها. وقد عرفت هذه الظاهرة تطورات نوعية وكيفية عميقة جنبا إلى جنب مع التحولات الاقتصادية والثقافية والاجتماعية والسياسية... إلى أن أصبحت علما بل علوما متعددة ومتنوعة، وكذلك من بين التخصصات التي تدرس في الجامعات والمعاهد العامة والخاصة. تعد التنمية من بين الأهداف الكبرى التي تسعى التربية (...) إلى تحقيقها بدءا من تنمية الفرد، معرفيا ووجدانيا وسلوكيا، وصولا إلى تنمية المجتمع ككل بمختلف أشكاله ومؤسساته، وهذا لن يتحقق إلا بفعل تحقيق إدماج الفرد ذاته داخل هذا المجتمع. فلابد من تربية وتكوين فرد قابل لأن يكون فاعلا بشكل إيجابي داخل كل أجزاء التنظيم الاجتماعي، من خلال دور اجتماعي تنموي. إن ظاهرتين اجتماعيتين مثل التربية والتنمية تربطهما علاقات تفاعلية في إطار التأثير والتأثر الدائم، لأن العلاقة الجدلية بينهما كبيرة جدا وغامضة في نفس الوقت. وذلك لتداخل وتشابك مجموعة من الأنساق والأبعاد والخلفيات. وفي ظل هذا التداخل والتشابك يحضر بقوة التحدي الاجتماعي الذي يعد المقياس الوحيد على صدق وفعالية هذه التربية أو تلك، سواء كانت داخل الأسرة أو المدرسة...، من أجل تحقيق تنمية حقيقية للفرد في علاقته مع غيره، ومع المؤسسات الاجتماعية، ولضمان فعالية أكبر ومردودية أكثر داخل المجتمع. Revue Brochures Educatives N08, 2022. (shrink)

We present an approach in which ancient Greek mathematical proofs by Hippocrates of Chios and Euclid are addressed as a form of (guided) intentional reasoning. Schematically, in a proof, we start with a sentence that works as a premise; this sentence is followed by another, the conclusion of what we might take to be an inferential step. That goes on until the last conclusion is reached. Guided by the text, we go through small inferential steps; in each one, we go (...) through an autonomous reasoning process linking the premise to the conclusion. The reasoning process is accompanied by a metareasoning process. Metareasoning gives rise to a feeling-knowing of correctness. In each step/cycle of the proof, we have a feeling-knowing of correctness. Overall, we reach a feeling of correctness for the whole proof. We suggest that this approach allows us to address the issues of how a proof functions, for us, as an enabler to ascertain the correctness of its argument and how we ascertain this correctness. (shrink)

فرضت التكنولوجيا الحديثة نفسها على كل فئات المجتمع، ودخلت من النوافذ قبل الأبواب، وأصبحت رمز التقدم الحضاري، وأصبح مقياس الأمية يقاس بمدى توفر البيئة الحاضنة لهذه التكنولوجيا، وبمدى استيعابها واستثمارها في مجالات الحياة التربوية واليومية، فكل تطور في المجتمع، لا بد وأن يصاحبه تطور في المجال التربوي، وهذا ما حصل بالفعل، فقد دخلت التكنولوجيا المدرسة والجامعة والمؤسسات العمومية، وأصبح العلم بالتكنولوجيا ومسايرة الركب المعلوماتي ضرورة ملحة في عصر المعرفة والمعلومات. ومما لا شك فيه أن دخول مجتمع المعرفة مجتمع التكنولوجيا، أصبح (...) ضرورة ملحة تمليها طبيعة العصر الذي نعيش فيه، فلم يعد السؤال المطروح اليوم هو: هل ندخل عصر المعرفة والتكنولوجيا أم لا؟ بل أصبح السؤال الحاسم الآن هو متى؟ وكيف؟ فلا مفر للدول النامية من خوض غمار التحدي المعرفي والتكنولوجي كشرط لقدرتها على مسايرة قطار تكنولوجيا المعلومات، فإدماج واستثمار التكنولوجيا في التعليم، يعد خطوة كبرى وفرصة ذهبية للتقدم بسرعة وبأقل كلفة، وذلك للتمكن من حجز مكان لنا جنبا إلى جنب مع الدول المتصدرة للركب الحضاري التكنولوجي. (shrink)

ينبني فعل التربية أساسا على تلك القدرة الهادفة إلى توجيه سلوكات و مواقف الأفراد، بما يتوافق و نموذج القيم الذي يتبناه مجتمع ما أو جماعة ما داخل هذا المجتمع. إنها العملية التي يتم من خلالها تشكيل ما هو جوهري في الفرد، و ذَلِك من خلال انخراطه في شبكة من العلاقات الاجتماعية. و لا يمكن أن تتم هذه العملية بطريقة فردية أو معزولة، بل تستوجب تدخل أفراد آخرين، ينعتون عادة ب"المربين" أو ب"الفاعلين التربويين". ضمن هذا البعد العلائقي يتشكل فعل التربية. غير (...) أن هذه العلاقة التربوية -خاصة عندما تأخذ بعدا مؤسساتيا- تتطلب وجود عنصر مركزي، و هو ما نسميه ب "السلطة التربوية"، و التي عن طريقها يتم إحداث ذلك التأثير المطلوب. داخل مؤسسة الأسرة، يجسد الأبوان هذه السلطة، وإن تعددت أشكال ممارسة هذه السلطة باختلاف تصوراتهم و تمثلاتهم لها. و في المؤسسة المدرسية، نجد أن هذه السلطة متقاسمة بين أطراف و فاعلين متعددين ( مدرسين، أُطر إدارية، موجهين...). إن حديثنا هنا سيركز بالأساس على سلطة المدرس، و التي نطلق عليها عادة اسم "السلطة البيداغوجية"، و ذلك من خلال تحديد أولي لمفهوم السلطة، و محاولة تمييزه عن مفاهيم ترتبط به، و إن كانت تختلف عنه من حيث الدلالات و الأبعاد و السياقات، ثم البحث في علاقة السلطة بالفعل التربوي/ البيداغوجي، و أخيرا الوقوف على العلاقة المفترضة بين تمثل المدرس لمسألة السلطة وأشكال تدبير المشاكل السلوكية للتلاميذ. (shrink)

في أواسط القرن الماضي ظهرت عدة نظريات نقدية تهتم بدراسة النص الأدبي؛ ومنها المنهج التاريخي والاجتماعي والنفسي...؛ التي تسلط الضوء على الكاتب وظروفه؛ كما ظهرت مناهج أخرى اهتمت بسلطة النص، وأكدت على دراسته دراسة داخلية؛ كما عند الشكلانيين الروس؛ وعند «رولان بارت»، الذي حث على دراسة النص ولا شيء غير النص؛ وأكد على موت المؤلف من أجل حياة النص، من خلال تفاعلاته البنيوية الداخلية. وكان لذلك الجدل والصراع القائم بين هذه المناهج النقدية والنظريات المعرفية المتباينة الأثر الواضح في ميلاد جمالية (...) التلقي في النقد المعاصر (الهيرمنيوتيكا) مع ‹مدرسة كوستانس› الألمانية بقيادة «هانز روبرت ياوس» و «فولفجانج إيزر». وقد اعتمدت هذه النظرية على المتلقي ودوره في تمام النص الأدبي؛ على اعتبار أن هذا الأخير يكتب بثلاث أياد؛ يد الكاتب ويد النص ويد القارئ؛ والنص يبقى جامدا إن لم يكن القارئ شريكا في إنتاجه؛ بل أن النص الأدبي أنشئ من أجل القارئ؛ وأنه أثر مفتوح يحيا ويستمر في الوجود من خلال تعدد القراءات. لقد أحدثت نظرية جمالية التلقي والتأويل ثورة عارمة في مجال الدراسات الأدبية والنقدية وفي تاريخ الأدب الحديث، بوصفها نمطا جديدا في الدرس الأدبي. وقد ″كان أرسطو في تاريخ الحركة النقدية من أبرز رواد الفكر اليوناني اهتماما بفلسـفة التلقي، أو مفهوم الجمال في استقبال النص، ففي رصيده الفكري والنقدي يتمثل لنا اهتمامه، بهذه المسألة، وكأنهـا محور هام يستقطب تفكيره ويستجمع فلسفته في الحديث عن أجناس الأدب" إذ يعد كتابه "فن الشعر" باشتماله على فكرة التطهير، بوصفها مقولة أساسية من مقولات التجربة الجمالية، والتي تقوم وتنهض على استجابة المتلقين وردود أفعالهم تجاه الأثر الأدبي، أقدم تصوير لنظرية تقوم فيها استجابة الجمهور المتلقي بدور أساسي. بمعنى أن تاريخ نظرية التلقي والتأويل يعود إلى (نظرية المحاكاة) عند أرسطو. حقيقة الأمر أن الإنسان كان يمارس التلقي ويؤول ما يسمع منذ بداية حياته، ولكن كان ذلك بشكل مبسط وسهل، ثم أخذ يتدرج شيئا فشيئا، إلى أن أصبحت لنظرية التلقي والتأويل القواعد والنظريات التي تخصها. فكل قراءة للنص الأدبي هي إعادة تأويل له في ضوء معطيات تاريخية أو آنية، إذ يخضع في تشكيلته المتميزة إلى عملية تفاعل بين خصائص داخلية وخصائص خارجية، هي تحولات السياق المنتج في ظلاله العمل الأدبي، لذلك ظهرت عدة مناهج امتثلت لتلك المعطيات وحاولت مقاربة النص مقاربة موضوعية والكشف عن مكمن الجمالية وكيفية تشكيله، على أساس أن العملية الإبداعية هي عملية معقدة. فهي تسعى في مجمل أهدافها إلى إشراك واسع وفعلي للمتلقي بغية تطوير ذوقه الجمالي من خلال التواصل الحثيث مع النصوص الفنية، حيث أن حضوره أضحى نافذا منذ وضع اللبنات الأولى لكتابة الرواية، فانتقل من دور المستهلك إلى مرتبة الشريك المحاور الذي يملأ الفراغات بل يلزم الكاتب بتركها، كما استطاع أن يرغم الكاتب يوما بعد يوم على إسقاط الأقنعة اللغوية والبلاغية التي طالما تدثر بها. فما هي الأصول المعرفية لنظرية التلقي؟ وما موقع النص بين التلقي والتأويل؟ وما علاقة القارئ بالنص الإبداعي؟ و ما هو القارئ النموذجي؟ . (shrink)

القيادة الإدارية هي القدرة على توجيه الآخرين من أجل تحقيق الأهداف عن طريق التأثير... وهو إما بالتبني وقبول المرؤوسين للقائد، أو باستخدام السلطة الرسمية عند الضرورة، ومن هنا نعرف أن القيادة عملية هامة جدا لدى كل مؤسسة، لما تقوم به من بدور كبير في بناء، وتكوين الجماعات داخل العمل، وتأمين البيئة المناسبة لسير طبيعة العمل اليومي، إذ تتولى رسم السياسات والاستراتيجيات، وتسعى لتحقيق الأهداف من خلال نشاطاتها المتعددة. تعد الحاجة إلى القائد من الضرورات القصوى لكل عمل ناجح، لأن القائد يقوم (...) بالتفاعل مع الآخرين، ويعمل معهم لبلوغ أهداف العمل، والحفاظ على تماسك أفراده واندفاعهم وحماسهم، وبالتالي هي وظيفة نفسية واجتماعية وفكرية لابد منها للحفاظ على المؤسسة داخل المجتمع والبيئة المحيطة بها، و قدتوجد هذه المهمة الصعبة في شخص فذ، أوفي أسلوبه، أو الأفضل في هيئة، أو في لجنة، أو في مجلس قيادة يتحكم بالسلوكيات ويحدد المسارات، وينجز الأعمال بفاعلية ونجاح، هذا، ويعمل المديرون على ممارسة القيادة بفضل عوامل عديدة. تحتاج عملية التدبير اليومي إلى عنصر القيادة لتوجيهه نحو الوجهة الصائبة المرغوب فيها، وعلى هذا الأساس، يمكن أن نقول إن القيادة سلوك يومي لصيق بالإنسان يمارسه الأفراد يوميا عن طريق تعاملهم مع الآخرين أو فيما بينهم، ويخضع هذا السلوك لحجم السلطة المتاحة ومدى استقلالية المنصب، أو الموقع، أو الوضعية التي يوجد فيها الفرد/الفاعل، ومن هنا نطرح السؤال الإشكال التالي: - ما القيادة؟. (shrink)

تقديم: أضحى تعليم التفكير النقدي من أبرز أهداف التربية الحديثة في كثير من دول العالم، إذ يرى الباحثون أنه سبيل لتطوير البنية المعرفية للمتعلمين، من منطلق أنه في استطاعة كل فرد أن يتعلم كيف يفكر تفكيرا نقديا إذا ما أتيحت له فرص التدريب والممارسة الفعلية، ولن يتأتى ذلك إلا عبر استراتيجيات ومناهج منظمة وواضحة، تلائم مراحل نمو هذا الفرد، وقدرته على الاستيعاب وفق إيقاعه في التعلم. فلم يعد يُنظر إلى التعلم باعتباره حالة نهائية أو منتوجا لمعارف أو كفايات محددة فقط، (...) ولا حتى مجموعة من السلوكات المرغوبة والمقبولة يقوم بها المتعلم أثناء مزاولته لأنشطته المدرسية. بل على خلاف ذلك، أضحى التعلم سيرورة دائمة يسعى خلالها الفرد إلى إماطة اللثام عن الغرض من هذه المعارف والكفايات، بل وتطويرها في سياقات اجتماعية مختلفة ومتنوعة. فالتعلم بهذا المعنى، عملية دينامية تفاعلية قصدية، تتخذ من المتعلم مجالا للفعل، بُغية تطوير قدراته وخبراته ومهاراته الداخلية، وتدبيرها بشكل منهجي لحل وضعيات-مشاكل محددة لها علاقة بالحياة الاجتماعية، لأن الغرض هو محاولة إدماج الفرد في المؤسسات الاجتماعية، وبذلك تكون له القدرة على الفعل وتطوير مناحي حياته وحياة مجتمعه. فالمعرفة العلمية، والمواقف السلوكية التي يمكن أن تقدمها المدرسة يجب أن تأخذ بعين الاعتبار القدرات العقلية والذهنية للمتعلم، ومكونات وسطه الاجتماعي، وتطعيمها بمعارف وقيم وأخلاق واستراتيجيات تفكير قابلة بأن تساعد الفرد على التعامل مع مواقف الحياة بطريقة منتجة للمعنى، بعيدا عن التقليد والتبعية والخضوع الأعمى. فقد آن الأوان للانتصار إلى حرية الفكر، وحرية التعبير، وفتح المجال أمام الأفراد لإبداء مواقفهم والتعبير عن اتجاهاتهم وميولاتهم، ليس فقط على مستوى بناء الخطط النظرية، والتصورات المعرفية، وإنما بالتنزيل الحقيقي لكل المشاريع والخطط الاستراتيجية، وتوفير الشروط والآليات الكفيلة لتحقيق الأهداف والمرامي المسطرة. إن هذا العدد الذي تقترحه هيئة تحرير مجلة كراسات تربوية على الباحثين الأوفياء، في عددها التاسع(09)، تطمح من خلاله إلى فتح نقاش علمي رصين وبناء حول "القضية التربوية/التعليمية"، وقد سعت من خلال ذلك إلى اعتماد مقاربة مركبة ومنفتحة على تخصصات متعددة في حقل العلوم الإنسانية والاجتماعية، رغبة منها في إعطاء الظاهرة التربوية عامة البعد الاجتماعي، والذي من شأنه تفكيك الرمزي وإماطة اللثام عن الجوانب الخفية في مجالات مختلفة ومتنوعة، وإيمانا منها بضرورة التكامل المعرفي في تحليل وتفكيك المسألة التربوية/التعليمية. الصديق الصادقي العماري مدير ورئيس تحرير المجلة ..............Revue Brochures Educatives...........N9, 2022. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that if tacit knowledge of grammar is analyzable in functional‐computational terms, then it cannot ground linguistic meaning, structure, or sound. If to know or cognize a grammar is to be in a certain computational state playing a certain functional role, there can be no unique grammar cognized. Satisfying the functional conditions for cognizing a grammar G entails satisfying those for cognizing many grammars disagreeing with G about expressions' semantic, phonetic, and syntactic values. This threatens the (...) Chomskyan view that expressions have such values for speakers because they cognize grammars assigning them those values. For if this is true, semantics, syntax, and phonology must be indeterminate, thanks to the indeterminacy of grammar‐cognizing (qua functional‐computational state). So, the fact that a speaker cognizes a grammar cannot explain the determinate character of their language. (shrink)

My aim in this chapter is to extend the Realist account of the foundations of linguistics offered by Postal, Katz and others. I first argue against the idea that naive Platonism can capture the necessary requirements on what I call a ‘mixed realist’ view of linguistics, which takes aspects of Platonism, Nominalism and Mentalism into consideration. I then advocate three desiderata for an appropriate ‘mixed realist’ account of linguistic ontology and foundations, namely (1) linguistic creativity and infinity, (2) linguistics as (...) a theory of types (and not tokens) and (3) independence but structural respect between language and the linguistic competence thereof. My own brand of mixed realism, what I call ante rem realism, is defended along the lines of an ante rem or non-eliminative structuralism, the likes of which has been offered for mathematics by Resnik (1997) and Shapiro (1997). In other words, grammars describe a mind-independent (but not necessarily unconnected) linguistic reality in terms of linguistic patterns or structures also known as natural languages. I further amend this picture to allow for the possibility of a naturalistic account of language acquisition and evolution by arguing against a particular view of the type-token distinction. (shrink)

Reflection Theory holds that our sensations reflect physical properties, whereas Empiricism believes that sense (data), presentations, and phenomena are the ultimate existence. Lenin adhered to Reflection Theory and criticized Helmholtz’s sensory symbolism for affirming the similarity between a sensation and a physical property. By using information and color vision theories, analyzing the ostensive definition with inverted qualia, and extending the relativity principle, this paper affirms the external world’s existence independent of personal sensations. Still, it denies the similarity between a sense (...) and a physical property. Then, it improves symbolism to analog symbolism and Reflection Theory to Information Reflection Theory. (shrink)

We propose the concepts of philomatics and psychomatics as hybrid combinations of philosophy and psychology with mathematics. We explain four motivations for this combination which are fulfilling the desire of analytical philosophy, proposing science of philosophy, justifying mathematical algorithms by philosophy, and abstraction in both philosophy and mathematics. We enumerate various examples for philomatics and psychomatics, some of which are explained in more depth. The first example is the analysis of relation between the context principle, semantic holism, and the usage (...) theory of meaning with the attention mechanism in mathematics. The other example is on the relations of Plato's theory of forms in philosophy with the holographic principle in string theory, object-oriented programming, and machine learning. Finally, the relation between Wittgenstein's family resemblance and clustering in mathematics is explained. This paper opens the door of research for combining philosophy and psychology with mathematics. (shrink)

In this thesis, the philosophical debate on conceptual relativism between Quine and Davidson is examined, along with their respective theories of interpretation. A new perspective on the issues raised by these philosophers in their theoretical accounts of linguistic comprehension is introduced through an examination of two research projects conducted in the paradigm of linguistic anthropology. The philosophical standpoints are analyzed against the background of the data these empirical projects deliver, and the question of their validity in the face of these (...) findings is explored. In the light of the presented research, Davidson’s account grounded in the principle of charity is deemed as more empirically plausible than Quine’s theory, which stands on the existence of alternative conceptual schemes. In addition, the current analysis itself is investigated as a case-study in the considerations regarding the relationship between empirical science and philosophy. (shrink)

Over the past few decades, cognitive science has identified several forms of reasoning that make essential use of conceptual knowledge. Despite significant theoretical and empirical progress, there is still no unified framework for understanding how concepts are used in reasoning. This paper argues that the theory of conceptual spaces is capable of filling this gap. Our strategy is to demonstrate how various inference mechanisms which clearly rely on conceptual information—including similarity, typicality, and diagnosticity-based reasoning—can be modeled using principles derived from (...) conceptual spaces. Our first topic analyzes the role of expectations in inductive reasoning and their relation to the structure of our concepts. We examine the relationship between using generic expressions in natural language and common-sense reasoning as a second topic. We propose that the strength of a generic can be described by distances between properties and prototypes in conceptual spaces. Our third topic is category-based induction. We demonstrate that the theory of conceptual spaces can serve as a comprehensive model for this type of reasoning. The final topic is analogy. We review some proposals in this area, present a taxonomy of analogical relations, and show how to model them in terms of distances in conceptual spaces. We also briefly discuss the implications of the model for reasoning with concepts in artificial systems. (shrink)

We argue that formal linguistic theory, properly extended, can provide a unifying framework for diverse phenomena beyond traditional linguistic objects. We display applications to pictorial meanings, visual narratives, music, dance, animal communication, and, more abstractly, to logical and non-logical concepts in the ‘language of thought’ and reasoning. In many of these cases, a careful analysis reveals that classic linguistic notions are pervasive across these domains, such as for instance the constituency (or grouping) core principle of syntax, the use of logical (...) variables (for object tracking), or the variety of inference types investigated in semantics/pragmatics. The aim of this overview is to show how the application of formal linguistic concepts and methodology to non-linguistic objects yields non-trivial insights, thus opening the possibility of a general, precise theory of signs. (An appendix, found in the online supplements to this article, surveys applications of Super Linguistics to animal communication.). (shrink)

The investigation that I am going to pursue here is part of a larger effort on my part to understand the relationship between Kant’s so-called “philosophical anthropology” and the development of early German anthropology since it is my sense that Kant had a determinate, if indirect, effect on the history of that separate field. For now this larger project has three main foci: an account of Kant’s philosophical anthropology in all its parts, an inquiry into Kant’s relationship to the theories (...) engaged by German anthropologists between roughly the 1750s-1790s, and finally, an effort to track the subsequent routes taken by German anthropology in the first half of the 19th-c. In this discussion I am going look at one particular trajectory in anthropological research where we can see Kant’s effect. (shrink)

Compared with Western Philosophy, Chinese Philosophy seldom talks about "the other world". This difference can be further proved in language categories. What exists in language text is different from what exists in language structure or language categories. Language categories reflect the styles of deep thinking. The lacking of subjunctive in Chinese language reflects the indifference between facts and ultra-facts in Chinese minds. There is a pan-fact attention in Chinese culture, while an ultra-fact attention in Western culture. This difference also embodies (...) in the activities of religion, logic, mathematics and science. (shrink)

Brandom (Citation1994) made inferentialism an intensely debated idea in the philosophy of language in the last three decades. Inferentialism is a view that associates the meaning of linguistic expression with the role said expression plays in inferences. It seems rather uncontroversial that the correct theory of meaning should distinguish between linguistic correctness and factual correctness. For instance, speaker S can be wrong in saying ‘I have arthritis’ in two distinct ways: (i) S fails to apply a word correctly to make (...) a true statement due to having made a factual error, and (ii) S uses an expression incorrectly because they are wrong about its meaning. In this paper, I show that properly understood normative inferentialism can make room for such a distinction. I propose that linguistic correctness is a structural issue: linguistic mistakes stem from the improper or insufficient acquisition of an inferential role. Factual correctness, on the other hand, is a one-off issue of the correct application of inferential rules to a particular situation. I argue that, by tying the issue of correctness to the game of giving and asking for reasons, inferentialism can establish a reliable method for distinguishing between two types of correctness (and mistakes). (shrink)

The paradox of material implication has remained unresolved since antiquity because it was believed that the nature of implication was entailment. The article shows that this nature is opposition and therefore the name "implication" should be replaced with the name "competition". A solution to the paradox is provided along with appropriate changes in nomenclature, the addition of connectives and the postulate that the biconditional take over the role of the previous implication. In addition, changes to the nomenclature of logic gates (...) reflecting the competition in electronics are proposed. (shrink)

Paradoks implikacji materialnej pozostawał nierozwiązany od starożytności, ponieważ uważano, że naturą implikacji jest wynikanie. Artykuł ukazuje, że tą naturą jest przeciwstawność. Zostaje podane rozwiązanie paradoksu wraz z odpowiednimi zmianami nazewnictwa, dodaniem konektywów i postulatem przejęcia roli dotychczasowej implikacji przez równoważność. Ponadto zaproponowane zostają zmiany nazewnictwa bramek logicznych, odwzorowujących kompetycję w elektronice.

The Qurʾānic term, ‘ẓann,’ is usually understood and translated as conjecture. However, I argue that the Qurʾān uses ‘ẓann’ to mean dogmatic zeal or, in other words, being zealous to a certain belief. For conjecture, the Qurʾān uses the root ‘ḥ-s-b,’ such as, ‘ayaḥsabu.’ Although the Qurʾān may criticize some people's conjectures, it does not criticize the act of formulating opinions with the root ‘ḥ-s-b.’ However, the Qurʾān does criticize the act of ‘ẓann.’ This further emphasizes the distinction between conjecture (...) and ‘ẓann,’ according to the Qurʾān. The main emphasis is that when the Qurʾān requires people to shun most ‘ẓann,’ it is argued that it is asking to shun zealous beliefs and dogmas, and it is not asking to shun the formulation of conjectures. The method used is philological, in which the cognates are analyzed in their contexts and compared with their uses in the Qurʾān. Defining ‘ẓann’ as dogmatic zeal rather than conjecture has far-reaching implications in understanding Qurʾānic epistemology and the epistemic process it expects its audience to have. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically assess Mark Richard’s interesting and important development of the claim that linguistic meanings can be fruitfully analogized with biological species. I argue that linguistic meanings qua cluster of interpretative presuppositions need not and often do not display the population-level independence and reproductive isolation that is characteristic of the biological species concept. After developing these problems in some detail, I close with a discussion of their implications for the picture that Richard paints concerning the dangers of (...) conceptual engineering and the prospects for dynamic notions of semantic stability. (shrink)

In this paper, we outline a comprehensive approach to composed analogies based on the theory of conceptual spaces. Our algorithmic model understands analogy as a search procedure and builds upon the idea that analogical similarity depends on a conceptual phenomena called ‘dimensional salience.’ We distinguish between category-based, property-based, event-based, and part-whole analogies, and propose computationally-oriented methods for explicating them in terms of conceptual spaces.

With rising portmanteaux such as Ecosophy and ecolinguistics, a significant trend that aims to blend ecology with multiple disciplines continues to be on the ascent since the last century. The recent challenge to the anthropocentric worldview is a crucial motivation for such blends. With the upheaval of "genetic information," the information system that formerly bolstered and maintained anthropocentrism is now challenging its tenets. The term eco refers to the critical relationships between humans and nonhumans, between microscopic and macroscopic worlds. Ecolinguistics (...) studies the relation between eco and how we communicate about ecological entities and processes. Many studies have revealed how language and communication influence the environment and its nonhuman inhabitants. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA henceforth), for instance, has exposed the role of language in reducing and promoting racism, social inequalities, and sexism. In a larger framework, Ecosophy provides intellectual and empirical insights that can give succinct access to unmuted communications in a more-than-human world by participating in more-than-mammal philosophies of survival, living, and dying. The paper will explore Dona Haraway's notion of SF (an abbreviation for speculative fabulations, string figures, speculative philosophy, and situated feminism) and Gregory Bateson's relational thesis of "double descriptions" to unite 'eco' and 'language' with each other. This will be done by suggesting alternative ways of approaching CDA and possible linguistic renovations (for instance, Prof. S. Veeramani’s notion of relexifying terms to promote environmental sensitivity and awareness). (shrink)

In this paper we present a solution to Saul Kripke’s Puzzle About Belief Meaning and use, Dordrecht, 1979) based on Kaplan’s metaphysical picture of words. Although it is widely accepted that providing such a solution was one of the main incentives for the development of Kaplan’s theory, it was never presented by Kaplan in a systematic manner and was regarded by many as unsatisfactory. We agree with these critiques, and develop an extension of Kaplan’s theory by introducing the notion of (...) “conservative” word uses, as well as arguing for the restriction of Kripke’s Disquotational Principle only to such uses. This restriction allows us to solve Kripke’s Puzzle by arguing that the assent of the puzzle’s protagonist does not allow disquotation and ascription of corresponding inconsistent belief, as it contains the non-conservative use of a proper name. At the end of the paper, we defend two of Kaplan’s theses that we find essential for our argument to work: that individuation of word tokens involves taking into account the intention of the speaker, and that different uniquely referring proper names of the same shape should be regarded as different homonymous words. (shrink)

The epistemic modal auxiliaries must and might are vehicles for expressing the force with which a proposition follows from some body of evidence or information. Standard approaches model these operators using quantificational modal logic, but probabilistic approaches are becoming increasingly influential. According to a traditional view, must is a maximally strong epistemic operator and might is a bare possibility one. A competing account—popular amongst proponents of a probabilisitic turn—says that, given a body of evidence, must \ entails that \\) is (...) high but non-maximal and might \ that \\) is significantly greater than 0. Drawing on several observations concerning the behavior of must, might and similar epistemic operators in evidential contexts, deductive inferences, downplaying and retractions scenarios, and expressions of epistemic tension, I argue that those two influential accounts have systematic descriptive shortcomings. To better make sense of their complex behavior, I propose instead a broadly Kratzerian account according to which must \ entails that \ = 1\) and might \ that \ > 0\), given a body of evidence and a set of normality assumptions about the world. From this perspective, must and might are vehicles for expressing a common mode of reasoning whereby we draw inferences from specific bits of evidence against a rich set of background assumptions—some of which we represent as defeasible—which capture our general expectations about the world. I will show that the predictions of this Kratzerian account can be substantially refined once it is combined with a specific yet independently motivated ‘grammatical’ approach to the computation of scalar implicatures. Finally, I discuss some implications of these results for more general discussions concerning the empirical and theoretical motivation to adopt a probabilisitic semantic framework. (shrink)

This excerpted chapter of the book THE IMAGE OF LANGUAGE discusses the philosophical implications of geometric visualizations of the alphabetic patterning encoded in the orthography of words (a project showing examples of the visualizations is included). Reference pages are also included.

Within psychology, philosophy, and cognitive science, theory of mind refers to the cognitive ability to reason about the mental states of other people, thus recognizing them as having beliefs, knowledge, intentions and emotions of their own. In this project, we construct a natural language inference (NLD) dataset that tests the ability of a state of the art language model, RoBERTa-large finetuned on the MNLI dataset, to make theory of mind inferences related to knowledge and belief. Experimental results suggest that the (...) model struggles with such inferences, including after attempts for further finetuning. (shrink)

Together with the first volume “Inquiries in philosophical pragmatics: Theoretical developments,” this book collects contributions that represent the state of the art on the interconnection between pragmatics and philosophy. While the first volume presents the philosophical dimension of pragmatics, showing the path from theoretical advances to practical uses and approaches, this second volume offers a specular view on this discipline. Instead of adopting the top-down view of the first volume, this collection of eleven chapters starts from the analysis of linguistic (...) data – which include texts and discourses in different languages, different types of dialogues, different types of interactions, and different modes for expressing meaning – looking for the regularities that govern our production and processing. The chapters are ordered according to their relationship with the themes and methods that define the field of pragmatics. The more explored and classical linguistic issues such as prototype-based generalizations, scalar implicatures, and temporal ordering, lead gradually to the more recent and debated topic of slurs and pejorative language, and finally to the interdisciplinary and more pioneering works addressing specific context of language use, such as marketplace interactions, courtroom speeches, schizophrenic discourse, literary texts for children, and multimedia communication. (shrink)

Proof-theoretic models of grammar are based on the view that an explicit characterization of a language comes in the form of the recursive enumeration of strings in that language. That recur-sive enumeration is carried out by a procedure which strongly generates a set of structural de-scriptions Σ and weakly generates a set of strings S; a grammar is thus a function that pairs an element of Σ with elements of S. Structural descriptions are obtained by means of Context-Free phrase structure (...) rules or via recursive combinatorics and structure is assumed to be uniform: binary branching trees all the way down. In this work we will analyse natural language constructions for which such a rigid conception of phrase structure is descriptively inadequate, and pro-pose a solution for the problem of phrase structure grammars assigning too much or too little structure to natural language strings: we propose that the grammar can oscillate between levels of computational complexity in local domains, which correspond to elementary trees in a lexicalised Tree Adjoining Grammar. (shrink)

It has been widely argued that words are analogous to species such that words, like species, are natural kinds. In this paper, I consider the metaphysics of word-kinds. After arguing against an essentialist approach, I argue that word-kinds are homeostatic property clusters, in line with the dominant approach to other biological and psychological kinds.

(1) In the first part of this paper, I review Chomsky's meandering journey from the formalism/mentalism of Syntactic Structures, through several methodological positions, to the minimalist theory of his latest work. Infected with mentalism from first to last, each and every position vitiates Chomsky's repeated claims that his theories will provide useful guidance to later theories in such fields as cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. With the guidance of his insights, he claims, psychologists and neuroscientists will be able to avoid (...) costly dead-end lines of research. -/- (2) This never happened. As I have shown, this never could have happened. (See Johnston, 2018). What has happened, instead, is that current neurolinguistic research (with the arguable exception of the now-dated Lemma Model of Willem Levelt) proceeds without reference to Chomsky. It also wholeheartedly rejects the mentalism of the associated Language of Thought theory of Jerry Fodor. (See Johnston, 2018). -/- (3) I make this argument in the first part of this paper. I would also like to point out that most of my argument was developed in 1972, when I was a graduate student. I know of no other sustained criticisms of Chomsky at that time, and certainly none along the lines I had developed back then. -/- (4) In the second part of this paper, I present my own account of the methodology of science. When I was a graduate student, philosophy of science was dominated by an attempt to describe a methodology common to all the specific sciences, i.e. Hempel’s deductive-nomological model. These days, Hempel’s emphasis on the methodological unity of science has been rejected by such “dis-unity” philosophers of science as Ian Hacking, Patrick Suppes and Nancy Cartwright (see Cat, 2021). -/- (5) I view this change as the swing of a pendulum or, to change the metaphor, a journey from one end point of a continuum to another. As the level of abstraction at which one tries to describe scientific method is raised, the descriptions become increasingly general. Whether or not unity-of-science theories become so general as to be vacuous, is ultimately a subjective judgment. And so I expect that philosophers will eventually become tired of increasingly specific “close to the workbench” descriptions of how scientists work, and begin to turn back to methodological “big pictures”, finding in them powerful abstractions rather than empty irrelevancies. -/- (6) In the second part of this paper, I present my own account of the methodology of science, which I would situate somewhere between the “unity” and “dis-unity” accounts. However, I am not a scientist. My own views about scientific method have three origins: -/- (6a) my work as a graduate student from 1966 until I passed my comprehensive exams in 1973 (at a different university); -/- (6b) reading every issue of Scientific American from 1972 until nearly 2000, (at which point I continued to read it only sporadically, since I concluded that, around that time, it had evolved from a serious science magazine to a popular science magazine); and -/- (6c) my three-year immersion in the cognitive neuroscience of language after I retired, based on repeated study of and note-taking for (Banesh & Compton, 2018), (Kemmerer, 2015), several other books and, finally, numerous articles not hidden behind a paywall. -/- So, as always with my writings: caveat emptor. (shrink)

This paper explores the significance of intelligent social behavior among non-human animals for philosophical theories of communication. Using the alarm call system of vervet monkeys as a case study, I argue that interpersonal communication (or what I call “minded communication”) can and does take place in the absence of the production and recognition of communicative intentions. More generally, I argue that evolutionary theory provides good reasons for maintaining that minded communication is both temporally and explanatorily prior to the use of (...) communicative intentions. After developing these negative points about the place of communicative intentions in detail, I provide a novel alternative account according to which minded communication is characterized in terms of patterns of action and response that function to coordinate the representational mental states of agents. I show that an account which centers on patterns of representational coordination of this sort is well suited to capture the theoretical roles associated with minded communication and that it does so in a way that provides a good fit with comparative facts about the presence of minded communication among non-human animals. (shrink)

Dorothy Edgington’s work has been at the centre of a range of ongoing debates in philosophical logic, philosophy of mind and language, metaphysics, and epistemology. This work has focused, although by no means exclusively, on the overlapping areas of conditionals, probability, and paradox. In what follows, I briefly sketch some themes from these three areas relevant to Dorothy’s work, highlighting how some of Dorothy’s work and some of the contributions of this volume fit in to these debates.

As the pluralization in the title of MITECS suggests, and as many reviewers have noted, the stance that we adopted as general editors for this project was ecumenical. We were particularly concerned to generate a volume whose range of topics and perspectives indicated that “cognitive science” was different things to different groups of researchers, and that many even fundamental questions remain open after at least four decades of various interdisciplinary ventures. Implicit in this view is a wariness of any putative (...) magic key to understanding the complexities of cognition in all of its diversity, and the hope that by providing a forum in which this range of work could be reviewed by anyone with time and inclination, the field as a whole would be better positioned to reflect on its future directions. Readers of the preceding reviews might be interested in a few words about the development of the project. Contracted in the early summer of 1995, MITECS began as a volume projected at half of its eventual size, but with roughly the same scope it has in published form. The general editors, Frank Keil and myself, had been thinking about a volume of this sort independently over the preceding year or so, and so much of the structure of the volume was already outlined by mid-1995. Thus, we were able to move relatively quickly in the second half of 1995 to assemble a team of 9 advisory editors for the six sections that constitute the organization of the volume; as reviewers have noted, the presence of these sections in the print version is manifest primarily by the six overview essays that occupy the first 100 or so pages in MITECS. (shrink)

Using William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the play-within-the play, The Murder of Gonzago, as a case study, this essay argues that theatrical utterances constitute a special case of language usage not previously elucidated: the utterance of a statement with propositional content in theatre functions as an event. In short, the propositional content of a particular p (e.g. p1, p2, p3 …), whether or not it is true, is only understood—and understood to be true—if p1 is uttered in a particular time, place, (...) and situation (i.e. during a theatrical event); otherwise, the propositional content in those theatrical utterances can either be false or contingently true. (shrink)

This book discusses the two main construals of the explanatory goals of semantic theories. The first, externalist conception, understands semantic theories in terms of a hermeneutic and interpretive explanatory project. The second, internalist conception, understands semantic theories in terms of the psychological mechanisms in virtue of which meanings are generated. It is argued that a fruitful scientific explanation is one that aims to uncover the underlying mechanisms in virtue of which the observable phenomena are made possible, and that a scientific (...) semantics should be doing just that. If this is the case, then a scientific semantics is unlikely to be externalist, for reasons having to do with the subject matter and form of externalist theories. It is argued that semantics construed hermeneutically is nevertheless a valuable explanatory project. (shrink)

Habermas emphasizes the importance for critical thinking of ideas of truth and moral validity that are at once context-transcending and immanent to human practices. in a recent review, Peter Dews queries his distinction between metaphysically construed transcendence and transcendence from within, asking provocatively in what sense Habermas does not believe in God. I answer that his conception of “God” is resolutely postmetaphysical, a god that is constructed by way of human linguistic practices. I then give three reasons for why it (...) should not be embraced by contemporary critical social theory. First, in the domain of practical reason, this conception of transcendence excludes by fiat any “Other” to communicative reason, blocking possibilities for mutual learning. Second, due to the same exclusion, it risks reproducing an undesirable social order. Third, it is inadequate for the purposes of a critical theory of social institutions. (shrink)

In this paper, we intend to promote an analysis of the use of the artificial language Heptapod B in Story of Your Life written by Ted Chiang and in its filmic adaptation, Arrival, written by Eric Heisserer and directed by Denis Villeneuve in relation to the authors’ views on the metaphysics of time. In both literary and filmic texts, the glossopoeia is used as a plot device upon which the alien race’s time perception is constructed and explicated in connexion with (...) the strong metaphor provided by Fermat’s principle of least time. Throughout the article, we discuss these hybrid interfaces of literature, cinema and science, researching the stories’ specific diegeses, the writers’ own elicitations as well as various texts on the Philosophy of time. The result consists of a comprehensive exegesis of the problematics generated by the narratives and an extensive philosophical debate on the subject. (shrink)

This paper gives an outline of natural language ontology as a subdiscipline of both linguistics and philosophy. It argues that part of the constructional ontology reflected in natural language is in significant respects on a par with syntax (on the generative view).