Pragmatics, Misc

In searching for life in extraterrestrial space, it is essential to act based on an unequivocal definition of life. In the twentieth century, life was defined as cells that self-replicate, metabolize, and are open for mutations, without which genetic information would remain unchangeable, and evolution would be impossible. Current definitions of life derive from statistical mechanics, physics, and chemistry of the twentieth century in which life is considered to function machine like, ignoring a central role of communication. Recent observations show (...) that context-dependent meaningful communication and network formation (and control) are central to all life forms. Evolutionary relevant new nucleotide sequences now appear to have originated from social agents such as viruses, their parasitic relatives, and related RNA networks, not from errors. By applying the known features of natural languages and communication, a new twenty-first century definition of life can be reached in which communicative interactions are central to all processes of life. A new definition of life must integrate the current empirical knowledge about interactions between cells, viruses, and RNA networks to provide a better explanatory power than the twentieth century narrative. (shrink)

In der neueren Sprachphilosophie ist wiederholt der soziale Charakter des Redens betont worden. Das Buch versucht, diese These auf der Grundlage einer genauen Untersuchung der Abfolge einzelner sprachlicher Handlungen zu verteidigen. Die orthodoxe Sprechakttheorie hat sich bislang weitgehend auf die Gelingensbedingungen einzelner sprachlicher Vollzüge konzentriert. Isolierte Redehandlungen stellen allerdings in der kommunikativen Praxis einen Ausnahmefall dar: Ein kompetenter Sprecher muss nicht nur die vom sprachlichen Kontext unabhängigen Korrektheitsstandards kennen; vielmehr muss er auch in der Lage sein, die eigenen Sprechakte im (...) Rahmen eines Textes kohärent miteinander zu verknüpfen und auf Redehandlungen anderer so zu reagieren, dass ein genuiner Diskurs zwischen den Parteien entsteht – im Gegensatz zu einer bloßen Aneinanderreihung “für sich” korrekter Äußerungen. Das Buch verfolgt das Ziel, das für die Struktur derartiger Rede(handlungs)sequenzen einschlägige Reglement in seinen wesentlichen Aspekten zu rekonstruieren und insbesondere die für ein solches Projekt relevanten sprachphilosophischen Grundfragen zu klären. (shrink)

Это мое утверждение, что таблица преднамеренности (рациональность, сознание, ум, мысль, язык, личность и т.д.), что особенное здесь описывает более или менее точно, или, по крайней мере, служит эвристическим для, как мы думаем и ведом, и поэтому она охватывает не только философию и психологию, но все остальное (история, литература, математика, политика и т.д.). Обратите внимание, особенно, что преднамеренность и рациональность, как я (наряду с Сирл, Витгенштейн и другие) просматривать его, включает в себя как сознательное совещательной лингвистической системы 2 и бессознательного автоматизированной (...) прелингвистической системы 1 действия или рефлексы. Я предоставляю критический обзор некоторых из основных выводов двух самых выдающихся студентов поведения современности, Людвиг Витгенштейн и Джон Сирл, о логической структуре преднамеренности (ум, язык, сознание, поведение), принимая в качестве отправной точки фундаментальное открытие Витгенштейна, что все действительно "философские" проблемы одинаковы- путаницы о том, как использовать язык в определенном контексте, и поэтому все решения одинаковы, глядя на то, как язык может быть использован в контексте вопроса, так что его истина условия (Условия удовлетворенности или COS) ясны. Основная проблема заключается в том, что можно сказать что-нибудь, но нельзя означать (государство ясно COS для) любое произвольное высказывание и смысл возможен только в очень конкретном контексте. Я анализирую различные писания и о них с современной точки зрения двух систем мышления (популяризировал как "мышление быстро, думая медленно"), используя новую таблицу преднамеренности и новых двойных систем номенклатуры. Я показываю, что это мощная эвристика для описания поведения. Таким образом, все поведение тесно связано, если вы принимаете правильную точку зрения. Феменологическая иллюзия (забвение нашей автоматизированной системы 1) является универсальной и распространяется не только на всю философию, но и на протяжении всей жизни. Я уверен, что Хомский, Обама, Цукерберг и Папа был бы недоверчивым, если бы сказали, что они страдают от той же проблемы, как Гегель, Husserl и Хайдеггер, (или что они отличаются только в степени от наркоманов и наркоманов в мотивации стимуляции их лобной кортики путем доставки допамина (и более 100 других химических веществ) через вентральный tegum и ядра. В то время как меноменологи только потратили много времени людей, они растают землю и будущее своего потомка. (shrink)

Ich behaupte, dass die Tabelle der Intentionalität (Rationalität, Bewusstein, Geist, Denken, Sprache, Persönlichkeit usw.), die hier prominent dargestellt wird, mehr oder weniger genau beschreibt oder zumindest als Heuristik dient, wie wir denken und uns verhalten, und so umfasst sie nicht nur Philosophie und Psychologie, aber alles andere (Geschichte, Literatur, Mathematik, Politik etc.). Beachten Sie insbesondere, dass Intentionalität und Rationalität, wie ich (zusammen mit Searle, Wittgenstein und anderen) es sehen, sowohl bewusst deliberative linguistische System 2 als auch unbewusste automatisierte prälinguistische System (...) 1 Aktionen oder Reflexe umfasst. Ich mache einen kritischen Überblick über einige der wichtigsten Ergebnisse von zwei der bedeutendsten Studenten des Verhaltens der modernen Zeit, Ludwig Wittgenstein und John Searle, über die logische Struktur der Intentionalität (Geist, Sprache, Verhalten), als Ausgangspunkt wittgensteins grundlegende Entdeckung – dass alle wirklich "philosophischen" Probleme die gleichen sind – Verwirrungen darüber, wie Sprache in einem bestimmten Kontext zu verwenden, und so sind alle Lösungen gleich – blickend, wie Sprache in dem Kontext verwendet werden kann, um die Wahrheitsbedingungen (Bedingungen der Zufriedenheit oder COS) sind klar. Das Grundproblem ist, dass man alles sagen kann, aber man kann keine willkürliche Äußerung und Bedeutung bedeuten (geben, die man klar coS für) willenweise nur in einem ganz bestimmten Kontext möglich ist. Ich analysiere verschiedene Schriften von und über sie aus der modernen Perspektive der beiden Systeme des Denkens (popularisiert als "schnell denken, langsam denken"), mit einer neuen Tabelle der Intentionalität und neue duale Systeme Nomenklatur. Ich zeige, dass dies eine starke Heuristik für die Beschreibung von Verhalten ist. Somit ist jedes Verhalten eng miteinander verbunden, wenn man den richtigen Standpunkt einnimmt. Die phänomenologische Illusion (Vergessen unseres automatisierten Systems 1) ist universell und erstreckt sich nicht nur über die gesamte Philosophie, sondern über das ganze Leben hinweg. Ich bin sicher, dass Chomsky, Obama, Zuckerberg und der Papst ungläubig wären, wenn man ihnen sagen würde, dass sie unter dem gleichen Problem wie Hegel, Husserl und Heidegger leiden (oder dass sie sich nur in gewissem Maße von Drogen- und accumbensSexsüchtigen unterscheiden, indem sie durch Stimulation ihrer Frontalkortik durch die Lieferung von Dopamin (und über 100 anderen Chemikalien) über das ventrale Tegmentum und den Kern motiviertwerden, aber es ist klar. Während die Phänomenologen nur viel Zeit verschwendeten, verschwenden sie die Erde und die Zukunft ihres Nachkommen. (shrink)

我的论点是，这里突出的故意表（理性、思想、思想、语言、个性等）或多或少地准确地描述了我们思考和行为的方式，因此它不包括仅仅是哲学和心理学，但一切（历史，文学，数学，政治等）。特别要注意，故意和理性，因 为我（连同西尔，维特根斯坦和其他人）认为它，包括有意识的审议语言系统2和无意识的自动前语言系统1的动作或反射。 我提供了一个关键的调查，两个最杰出的学生的行为在现代的一些主要发现， 路德维希·维特根斯坦和约翰·西尔，关于故意的逻辑结构（思想、语言、行为），以维特根斯坦的基本发现为出发点——所有真正的"哲学"问题都是一样的——关于在特定上下文中使用语言的困惑，因 此所有解决方案都是相同的——研究如何在问题语境中使用语言，使其真理条件（满意条件或 COS） 是明确的。基本问题是，一个人可以说什么，但一个人不能意味着（状态明确的COS）任何任意的话语和意义只有在非常具体的上下文中才可能。我从现代两种思想体系（被推广为"思维快，思维慢"） 的角度分析各种著作，采用新的意向表和新的双系统命名法。我表明，这是一个强大的启发式描述行为。 因此，如果一个人采取正确的观点，所有行为都是密切相关的。现象幻象（遗忘我们的自动化系统1）是通用的，不仅延伸到整个哲学，而且贯穿整个生命。我确信，如果乔姆斯基、奥巴马、扎克伯格和教皇被告知他们患有与黑 格尔、胡塞尔和海德格尔同样的问题，他们将会难以置信（或者，他们只与毒品和性瘾君子在程度上有所不同，他们的动机是通过心室和核积体来刺激他们的前皮质（和其他100种化学品），这显然是事实。虽然现象学家只浪 费了很多人的时间，但他们却在浪费地球和他们后代的未来。 .

Claramente ni yo ni nadie leeremos nunca ninguna parte sustancial de este enorme tome, así que discutiré el único artículo que más me interese y que creo que proporciona el marco necesario para la comprensión de todos los demás. Me refiero a la de Ludwig Wittgenstein (W). Incluso si yo tratara de discutir otros, no pasaría la primera página, ya que todos los problemas aquí surgen inmediatamente en cualquier discusión de comportamiento. La diferenciación de la pragmática y la semántica no (...) tiene sentido en gran medida. Es defendible que se pueda subtitular esta obra 'Desarrollos del contextualismo de Wittgenstein', pero, por supuesto, este término ha sido inevitablemente corrompido por filósofos. Uno podría decirse entonces que la pragmática y la semántica son partes o coextensivas con la epistemología y la ontología y la psicología descriptiva del pensamiento de orden superior (Estructura lógica de la racionalidad de Searle) o que describen cómo usamos los ruidos en contextos específicos para darles significado --es decir, un uso verdadero o falso (propsicional). La adición del trabajo de Wittgenstein/Searle a la investigación moderna sobre el pensamiento proporciona un marco para la pragmática, la semántica y todos los demás comportamientos humanos. Aquellos que deseen un marco completo hasta la fecha para el comportamiento humano de la moderna dos sistemas punto de vista puede consultar mi libros Talking Monkeys 3ª ed (2019), Estructura Logica de Filosofia, Psicología, Mente y Lenguaje en Ludwig Wittgenstein y John Searle 2ª ed (2019), Suicidio pela Democracia 4ª ed (2019), La Estructura Logica del Comportamiento Humano (2019), The Logical Structure de la Conciencia (2019, Comprender las Conexiones entre Ciencia, Filosofía, Psicología, Religión, Política y Economía, Historia y Literatura (2019), Delirios Utópicos Suicidas en el siglo 21 5ª ed (2019), Observaciones sobre Imposibilidad, Incompletitud, Paraconsistencia, Indecidibilidad, Aleatoriedad, Computabilidad, Paradoja e Incertidumbre en Chaitin, Wittgenstein, Hofstadter, Wolpert, Doria, da Costa, Godel, Searle, Rodych Berto, Floyd, Moyal-Sharrock y Yanofsky(2019) y otros. . (shrink)

Claramente nem eu nem ninguém jamais leremos qualquer parte substancial desta enorme tomada, então discutirei o único artigo que mais me interessa e que acho que fornece o quadro necessário para entender todos os outros. Estou falando de Ludwig Wittgenstein 'W. Mesmo que eu tentasse discutir os outros, eu não passaria a primeira página, pois todos os problemas aqui surgem imediatamente em qualquer discussão de comportamento. Diferenciação de pragmáticos e semântica não faz sentido em grande parte. É defensável que este (...) trabalho "Desenvolvimentos do contextualismo de Wittgenstein" possa ser legendado, mas é claro que este termo foi inevitavelmente corrompido pelos filósofos. Pode-se então dizer que pragmáticos e semânticas são partes ou coextensivo com epistemologia e ontologia e psicologia descritiva do pensamento de alta ordem (Estrutura Lógica da Racionalidade de Searle) ou que descrevem como usamos ruídos em contextos específicos para lhes dar significado - ou seja, uso verdadeiro ou falso (proposicional). A adição do trabalho de Wittgenstein/Searle à pesquisa de pensamento moderno fornece uma estrutura para pragmáticos, semânticas e todos os outros comportamentos humanos. Aqueles que querem uma estrutura completa até o momento para o comportamento humano do ponto de vista moderno de dois sistemas podem consultar meus livros Talking Monkeys 3rd ed (2019), Estrutura Lógica da Filosofia, Psicologia, Mente e Linguagem em Ludwig Wittgenstein e John Searle 2a ed (2019), Suicide Pela Democracy 4ª ed (2020), The Logical Structure of Human Behavior (2019), The Logical Structure of Consciousness (2019, Understanding the Connections Between Science, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, Politics and Economics (2020), Illusaos Utopias Suicidas no século 21 6ª ed (2020), Observações sobre Impossibilidade, Incompletude, Paraconsistência, Indecidabilidade, Aleatoriedade, Computação, Paradoxo e Incerteza em Chaitin, Wittgenstein, Hofstadter, Wolpert, Doria, da Costa, Godel, Searle, Rodych Berto, Floyd, Moyal-Sharrock e Yanofsky (2019) e outros. (shrink)

Dans une définition étroite, la communication renferme les transactions symboliques, c'est-à-dire les interactions par lesquelles plusieurs personnes assignent conjointement significations aux ensembles de signes. Grosso modo, les protagonistes de la communication transmettent ou réceptionnent messages et ainsi ils jouent alternativement le rôle du destinateur respectivement le rôle du destinataire. Mais la transmission et la réception sont actions très complexes parce qu'elles se réalisent par rapport à toutes paramètres nécessaires de la communication – le destinateur, le destinataire, le message, le code, (...) le contexte et le canal – et satisfaient toutes les fonctions correspondantes du langage: expressive, conative, poétique, métasemique, référentielle et phatique. En transmettant un message, le destinateur (1) s'autorévèle, (2) exerce une influence sur le destinataire, (3) indique le niveau de sa performance communicative, (4) transfère une information syntactique (concernant le code utilisé), (5) désigne un fragment de la réalité et (6) établit une relation spécifique avec le destinataire. En corrélation avec les actes du destinateur, le destinataire procède à une interprétation complexe du message reçu et accomplit six actions complémentaires. Plus exactement, il (1') discerne les aspects personnels du destinateur, (2') répond à l'influence ressentie, (3') indique le niveau de sa compétence communicative, (4') établit une correspondance syntactique entre message et code, (5') confronte le message avec la réalité et (6') maintient, modifie ou annule sa relation avec le destinateur. Les dernières actions qui constituent ensemble l'interprétation peuvent être jugées à l'aide de trois valeurs fondamentales – la précision, la complétude et l'adéquation – et déterminent décisivement la réussite de la communication. (shrink)

It’s natural for hyperbole to mix with metaphor and irony, and other figures of speech. How do they mix together and what kind of compound, if any, arises out of the mixing? In tackling this question, I shall argue that thinking of hyperbolic figures along the lines familiar from ironic metaphor compounds is a temptation we should resist. Looking in particular at hyperbolic metaphor and hyperbolic irony, I argue, they don’t yield a new encompassing compound figure with one figure building (...) on another. Instead, what we have is one dominant figure colored with hyperbolic tinges. So what does hyperbole bring to the mixing pot? I suggest we should think of hyperbole in hyperbolic figures as being an interpretive effect, modulating the working of the partner figure and thus rendering more emphatic. (shrink)

This paper argues for the view that metaphors are assertions by locating metaphor within our social discursive practices of asserting and inferring. The literal and the metaphorical differ not in the stating of facts nor in the representation of states of affairs but in the kind of inferential involvements they have and the normative score-keeping practices within which the inferential connections are articulated. This inferentialist based account of metaphor is supplemented by insights from accommodation theory. The account is significant for (...) our understanding of both metaphor‟s figurativeness and cognitive content. (shrink)

У статті проаналізовано семантико-прагматичні варіанти значення першої особи, що виникають унаслідок взаємодії категорій персональності та числа. Виокремлено ми авторське, царське, скромне, родинне, батьківське (опікунське), корпоративне, ми соціальної вагомості, ідеологічне, універсальне (філософське), ми привілейованої групи.

The main purpose of the paper is to outline the formal-logical, general theory of language treated as a particular ontological being. The theory itself is called the ontology of language, because it is motivated by the fact that the language plays a special role: it reflects ontology and ontology reflects the world. Language expressions are considered to have a dual ontological status. They are understood as either concretes, that is tokens – material, physical objects, or types – classes of tokens, (...) which are abstract objects. Such a duality is taken into account in the presented logical theory of syntax, semantics and pragmatics. We point to the possibility of building it on two different levels; one which stems from concretes, language tokens of expressions, whereas the other one – from their classes, types conceived as abstract, ideal beings. The aim of this work is not only to outline this theory as taking into account the functional approach to language, with respect to the dual ontological nature of its expressions, but also to show that the logic based on it is ontologically neutral in the sense that it abstracts from accepting some existential assumptions, related with the ontological nature of these linguistic expressions and their extra-linguistic ontological counterparts (objects). (shrink)

In demonstration, speakers use real-world activity both for its practical effects and to help make their points. The demonstrations of origami mathematics, for example, reconfigure pieces of paper by folding, while simultaneously allowing their author to signal geometric inferences. Demonstration challenges us to explain how practical actions can get such precise significance and how this meaning compares with that of other representations. In this paper, we propose an explanation inspired by David Lewis’s characterizations of coordination and scorekeeping in conversation. In (...) particular, we argue that words, gestures, diagrams and demonstrations can function together as integrated ensembles that contribute to conversation, because interlocutors use them in parallel ways to coordinate updates to the conversational record. (shrink)

Epistemic contextualism in the style of Lewis (1996) maintains that ascriptions of knowledge to a subject vary in truth with the alternatives that can be eliminated by the subject’s evidence in a context. Schaffer (2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2015), Schaffer and Knobe (2012), and Schaffer and Szabo ́ (2014) hold that the question under discussion or QUD always determines these alternatives in a context. This paper shows that the QUD does not perform such a role for "know" and uses this (...) result to draw a few lessons about the metasemantics of context- sensitivity. (shrink)

I propose an account of the speech act of prediction that denies that the contents of prediction must be about the future and illuminates the relation between prediction and assertion. My account is a synthesis of two ideas: (i) that what is in the future in prediction is the time of discovery and (ii) that, as Benton and Turri recently argued, prediction is best characterized in terms of its constitutive norms.

We reconstruct the text, that is, we analyse the development of the discussion between Malthus and Ricardo both in the correspondence and in published works, paying special attention to (a) the use of methodological statements, (b) some pragmatic features of the controversy, (c) considerations pertaining to the meta-level of the controversy (assessments of the status of the controversy, of ways of solving it, etc.); then, we reconstruct the co-text, that is, unpublished papers by each opponent that were not made available (...) to the other, records of exchanges between each of these and third parties, etc.; thirdly, we describe the essential features of the context, focusing on events that influenced the course of the controversy; (iv) we draw lessons from our case study on the role of co-text and context, on pragmatic and semantic interpretation, and on "casts of mind”. (shrink)

Lawyers and judges cannot adequately address the nature of text, meaning, or interpretation without reference to the insights provided by linguists and philosophers of language. Exploring some of those insights, this article focuses upon what linguists and philosophers of language call “pragmatics.” Pragmatics examines the relations between words and users rather than the relations of words to words (syntax) or the relations of words to the world (semantics). In other words, pragmatics studies how language users actually use and interpret words (...) and other signs in communication. -/- Pragmatics recognizes that speaker meaning can differ from (and even contradict) linguistic meaning, including the literal meaning of text. In its proper context, for example, “Bob is indeed a good lawyer” can ironically mean just the opposite. Pragmatics also recognizes that relevant text is not a thing-in-itself that is simply given. Good lawyers look at such things as purpose and cohesion when determining relevant text. They do not simply take their opponent’s (or even their client’s) assertions of relevance. -/- Pragmatics also provides lawyers with a number of specific concepts and tools which are helpful in determining speaker meaning. For user convenience, this article attempts to set out in one place a number of such concepts and tools. These include: (1) types of cohesion that help determine relevant text, (2) types of context that help determine meaning, (3) pragmatic principles of construction such as principles of relevance and politeness, and (4) important pragmatic notions or devices such as anaphora, cataphora, ellipsis, deixis, presupposition, unstated premises, entailment, and implementives. -/- Finally, as a recurring example (among others) of pragmatics in action, this article examines from multiple perspectives textual issues raised in King v. Burwell, 576 U.S. __ (2015). -/- Keywords: Pragmatics, Semiotics, Interpretation, Textualism, Plain Meaning, King v. Burwell, Affordable Care Act, Text, Meaning, Speaker Meaning, Implicature. (shrink)

Although the controversy between Malthus and Ricardo has long been considered to be an important source for the history of economic thought, it has hardly been the object of a careful study qua controversy, i.e. as a polemical dialogical exchange. We have undertaken to fill this gap, within the framework of a more ambitious project that places controversies at the center of an account of the history of ideas, in science and elsewhere. It is our contention that the dialogical co-text (...) is essential for reconstructing the meaning and the evolution of science. In the present paper we try to substantiate this contention by means of a pragma-rhetorical study of this particular controversy. First, we reconstruct, through an analysis of a chunk of the correspondence, a micro-level of specific moves and countermoves which constitute a sequential structure within which also meta-scientific and meta-controversial considerations play a role. We then move to a macro-level of analysis, looking for recurrent patterns of argumentation. Finally, we draw epistemological conclusions on the nature of rationality and progress as manifested in actual scientific controversies. (shrink)

The first group of articles attempt to give some insight into how we behave that is reasonably free of theoretical delusions. In the next three groups I comment on three of the principal delusions preventing a sustainable world— technology, religion and politics (cooperative groups). People believe that society can be saved by them, so I provide some suggestions in the rest of the book as to why this is unlikely via short articles and reviews of recent books by well-known writers. (...) -/- America and the world are in the process of collapse from excessive population growth, most of it for the last century and now all of it due to 3rd world people. Consumption of resources and the addition of 4 billion more ca. 2100 will collapse industrial civilization and bring about starvation, disease, violence and war on a staggering scale. Billions will die and nuclear war is all but certain. In America this is being hugely accelerated by massive immigration and immigrant reproduction, combined with abuses made possible by democracy. Depraved human nature inexorably turns the dream of democracy and diversity into a nightmare of crime and poverty. The root cause of collapse is the inability of our innate psychology to adapt to the modern world, which leads people to treat unrelated persons as though they had common interests. This, plus ignorance of basic biology and psychology, leads to the social engineering delusions of the partially educated who control democratic societies. Few understand that if you help one person you harm someone else—there is no free lunch and every single item anyone consumes destroys the earth beyond repair. Consequently social policies everywhere are unsustainable and one by one all societies without stringent controls on selfishness will collapse into anarchy or dictatorship. Without dramatic and immediate changes, there is no hope for preventing the collapse of America, or any country that follows a democratic system. Hence my concluding essay “Suicide by Democracy”. (shrink)

Lying is standardly distinguished from misleading according to how a disbelieved proposition is conveyed. To lie, a speaker uses a sentence to say a proposition she does not believe. A speaker merely misleads by using a sentence to somehow convey but not say a disbelieved proposition. Front-and-center to the lying/misleading distinction is a conception of what-is-said by a sentence in a context. Stokke (2016, 2018) has recently argued that the standard account of lying/misleading is explanatorily inadequate unless paired with a (...) theory where what-is-said by a sentence is determined by the question under discussion or QUD. I present two objections to his theory, and conclude that no extant theory of what-is-said enables the standard account of the lying/misleading distinction to be explanatorily adequate. (shrink)

Slurring is a kind of hate speech that has various effects. Notable among these is variable offence. Slurs vary in offence across words, uses, and the reactions of audience members. Patterns of offence aren’t adequately explained by current theories. We propose an explanation based on the unjust power imbalance that a slur seeks to achieve. Our starting observation is that in discourse participants take on discourse roles. These are typically inherited from social roles, but only exist during a discourse. A (...) slurring act is a speech-act that alters the discourse roles of the target and speaker. By assigning discourse roles the speaker unjustly changes the power balance in the dialogue. This has a variety of effects on the target and audience. We show how these notions explain all three types of offence variation. We also briefly sketch how a role and power theory can help explain silencing and appropriation. Explanatory power lies in the fact that offence is correlated with the perceived unjustness of the power imbalance created. (shrink)

Igal Kvart A Coding Conception in Action-Directed-Pragmatics -/- I present formal Pragmatics for a domain in Pragmatics that I call Action-Directed Pragmatics, which focuses on the Pragmatic riddle of how implicit contents are conveyed and understood, by adopting a coding model, in which the speaker and addressee simulate each other iteratively in a deliberative context (an ‘action-pregnant’ one). The implicit content, conveyed by a speaker and decoded by her addressee, in such cases, consists in the specified steered-to action, plus modulations (...) on the action-polarity (pro or con) and the degree of the so-called Steering Thrust that accompanies such assertions and is conveyed by verbal locutions, intonation, and/or bodily and facial gestures. There are two main tasks to model (in a given setup and conversational context): First, how is the speaker, with a steered-to action in mind (and Steering Thrust), to select an assertion so as to (say) optimize the successful transmission and decoding of its implicit pragmatic content by her and her addressee? Second, how does the addressee, given an assertion by the speaker, decipher the implicit pragmatic content conveyed via it? Both will invoke pertinent information they have about each other and the setup/context in order to best encode and best decode the implicit pragmatic content. (This coding mechanism proposed here is not offered for the ubiquitous ‘frozen’, ‘trivial’ or ‘routinized’ pragmatic messages.) A prelude to this formal Pragmatics is a general formal Pragmatic account of Assertibility in contexts that are multi-normative (which is the common case). I focus here only on Epistemic/Semantic and Instrumental Norms. A linear representation of degrees of Overall Assertibility (i.e., taking into account various operative norms) will be an n-dimensional qualitative vector space with a function that computes them given different degrees of sub-normative Assertibility on each axis. (shrink)

In some sentences, demonstratives can be substituted with definite descriptions without any change in meaning. In light of this, many have maintained that demonstratives are just a type of definite description. However, several theorists have drawn attention to a range of cases where definite descriptions are acceptable, but their demonstrative counterparts are not. Some have tried to account for this data by appealing to presupposition. I argue that such presuppositional approaches are problematic, and present a pragmatic account of the target (...) contrasts. On this approach, demonstratives take two arguments and generally require that the first, covert argument is non-redundant with respect to the second, overt argument. I derive this condition through an economy principle discussed by Schlenker (2005). (shrink)

There is a difference between the conditions in which one can felicitously use a ‘must’-claim like and those in which one can use the corresponding claim without the ‘must’, as in : $$\begin{aligned}&\hbox {} \,\,\quad \hbox {a. It must be raining out}.\\&\qquad \,\,\, \hbox {b. It is raining out}. \end{aligned}$$It is difficult to pin down just what this difference amounts to. And it is difficult to account for this difference, since assertions of \Must p\ and assertions of p alone seem (...) to have the same basic goal: namely, communicating that p is true. In this paper I give a new account of the conversational role of ‘must’. I begin by arguing that a ‘must’-claim is felicitous only if there is a shared argument for the proposition it embeds. I then argue that this generalization, which I call Support, can explain the more familiar generalization that ‘must’-claims are felicitous only if the speaker’s evidence for them is in some sense indirect. Finally, I propose a pragmatic derivation of Support as a manner implicature. (shrink)

There is a difference between the conditions in which one can felicitously assert a ‘must’-claim versus those in which one can use the corresponding non-modal claim. But it is difficult to pin down just what this difference amounts to. And it is even harder to account for this difference, since assertions of 'Must ϕ' and assertions of ϕ alone seem to have the same basic goal: namely, coming to agreement that [[ϕ]] is true. In this paper I take on this (...) puzzle, known as Karttunen’s Problem. I begin by arguing that a ‘must’-claim is felicitous only if there is a shared argument for its prejacent. I then argue that this generalization, which I call Support, can explain the more familiar generalization that ‘must’-claims are felicitous only if the speaker’s evidence for them is in some sense indirect. Finally, I sketch a pragmatic derivation of Support. (shrink)

Introduction to genericity in the nominal, verbal and sentential domain.

This paper defends a challenge, inspired by arguments drawn from contemporary ordinary language philosophy and grounded in experimental data, to certain forms of standard philosophical practice. There has been a resurgence of philosophers who describe themselves as practicing "ordinary language philosophy". The resurgence can be divided into constructive and critical approaches. The critical approach to neo-ordinary language philosophy has been forcefully developed by Baz (2012a,b, 2014, 2015, 2016, forthcoming), who attempts to show that a substantial chunk of contemporary philosophy is (...) fundamentally misguided. I describe Baz's project and argue that while there is reason to be skeptical of its radical conclusion, it conveys an important truth about discontinuities between ordinary uses of philosophically significant expressions ("know", e.g.) and their use in philosophical thought experiments. I discuss some evidence from experimental psychology and behavioral economics indicating that there is a risk of overlooking important aspects of meaning or misinterpreting experimental results by focusing only on abstract experimental scenarios, rather than employing more diverse and more ecologically valid experimental designs. I conclude by presenting a revised version of the critical argument from ordinary language. (shrink)

Moore’s paradox, the infamous felt bizarreness of sincerely uttering something of the form “I believe grass is green, but it ain’t”—has attracted a lot of attention since its original discovery (Moore 1942). It is often taken to be a paradox of belief—in the sense that the locus of the inconsistency is the beliefs of someone who so sincerely utters. This claim has been labeled as the priority thesis: If you have an explanation of why a putative content could not be (...) coherently believed, you thereby have an explanation of why it cannot be coherently asserted. (Shoemaker 1995). The priority thesis, however, is insufficient to give a general explanation of Moore-paradoxical phenomena and, moreover, it’s false. I demonstrate this, then show how to give a commitment-theoretic account of Moore Paradoxicality, drawing on work by Bach and Harnish. The resulting account has the virtue of explaining not only cases of pragmatic incoherence involving assertions, but also cases of cognate incoherence arising for other speech acts, such as promising, guaranteeing, ordering, and the like. (shrink)

Review of the book "Brandom", by Ronald Loeffler.

Compare the following conditionals: 'If John is not in Paris, he is in France' versus 'If John is in France, he is not in Paris.' The second sounds entirely natural, whereas the first sounds quite strange. This contrast is puzzling, because these two conditionals have the same structure at a certain level of logical abstraction, namely 'If ¬p+, then p.' -/- We argue that existing theories of informational oddness do not distinguish between these conditionals. We do not have an account (...) of the divergence in judgments about the two, but we think this is a fascinating puzzle which we pose here in the hope others will be able to solve it. (shrink)

In the past few years there has been a turn towards evaluating the empirical foundation of epistemic contextualism using formal (rather than armchair) experimental methods. By-and-large, the results of these experiments have not supported the original motivation for epistemic contextualism. That is partly because experiments have only uncovered effects of changing context on knowledge ascriptions in limited experimental circumstances (when contrast is present, for example), and partly because existing experiments have not been designed to distinguish between contextualism and one of (...) its main competing theories, subject-sensitive invariantism. In this paper, we discuss how a particular, "third-person", experimental design is needed to provide evidence that would support contextualism over subject-sensitive invariantism. In spite of the theoretical significance of third-person knowledge ascriptions for debates surrounding contextualism, no formal experiments evaluating such ascriptions that assess contextualist claims have previously been conducted. In this paper, we conduct an experiment specifically designed to examine that central gap in contextualism’s empirical foundation. The results of our experiment provide crucial support for epistemic contextualism over subject-sensitive invariantism. (shrink)

Philosophers of language and metaethicists are concerned with persistent normative and evaluative disagreements – how can we explain persistent intelligible disagreements in spite of agreement over the described facts? Tim Sundell recently argued that evaluative aesthetic and personal taste disputes could be explained as metalinguistic negotiations – conversations where interlocutors negotiate how best to use a word relative to a context. I argue here that metalinguistic negotiations are neither necessary nor sufficient for genuine evaluative and normative disputes to occur. A (...) comprehensive account of value talk requires stronger metanormative commitments than metalinguistic negotiations afford. (shrink)

In the first part of this paper I make some general remarks about the relevance of semantics and pragmatics to argumentation theory, insisting on the importance of the reconstruction of speaker meaning for argument analysis, especially in the case of implicatures. In the second part of the paper I look more closely at the relation between argument and implicature. In the last part I discuss the concept of argumentative implicature, that is, implicatures that are generated by speech acts of arguing. (...) I maintain, against Jackson (1987), that there are no specifically argumentative implicatures. (shrink)

Those who want to deny the ‘ought implies can’ principle often turn to weakened views to explain ‘ought implies can’ phenomena. The two most common versions of such views are that ‘ought’ presupposes ‘can’, and that ‘ought’ conversationally implicates ‘can’. This paper will reject both views, and in doing so, present a case against any pragmatic view of ‘ought implies can’. Unlike much of the literature, I won't rely on counterexamples, but instead will argue that each of these views fails (...) on its own terms. ‘Ought’ and ‘can’ do not obey the negation test for presupposition, and they do not obey the calculability or the cancelability tests for conversational implicature. I diagnose these failures as partly a result of the importance of the contrapositive of ‘ought implies can’. I end with a final argument emphasizing the role the principle plays in moral thinking, and the fact that no pragmatic account can do it justice. (shrink)

There’s two points left over from last week’s seminar still to discuss. The first is whether, as Lewis claims, we are justified in positing an asymmetry in the role of pragmatics. The second is whether this approach is at all justified. We’ll look at that before going on to the material scheduled for this week.

This paper undertakes textual exegesis and rational reconstruction of Mukula Bhaṭṭa’s Abhidhā-vṛttta-mātṛkā, or “The Fundamentals of the Communicative Function.” The treatise was written to refute Ānandavardhana’s claim, made in the Dhvanyāloka, that there is a third “power” of words, vyañjanā (suggestion), beyond the two already accepted by traditional Indian philosophy: abhidhā (denotation) and lakṣaṇā(indication).1 I argue that the explanation of lakṣaṇā as presented in his text contains internal tensions, although it may still be a compelling response to Ānandavardhana.

We think and speak in figures. This is key to our creativity. We re-imagine one thing as another, pretend ourself to be another, do one thing in order to achieve another, or say one thing to mean another. This comes easily because of our abilities both to work out meaning in context and re-purpose words. Figures of speech are tools for this re-purposing. Whether we use metaphor, simile, irony, hyperbole, and litotes individually, or as compound figures, the uses are all (...) rooted in literal meanings. These uses invite us to explore the context to find new meanings, new purposes, beyond the literal. -/- This special issue of Philosophical Studies brings together eight papers on various aspects and applications of figurative speech including: David Hills, Mitch Green, Liz Camp, Ofra Magidor, Larry Horn, Ken Walton, Stephen Barker, and Mihaela Popa-Wyatt. (shrink)

Slurs are typically defined as conveying contempt based on group-membership. However, here I argue that they are not a unitary group. First, I describe two dimensions of variation among derogatives: how targets are identified, and how offensive the term is. This supports the typical definition of slurs as opposed to other derogatives. I then highlight problems with this definition, mainly caused by variable offence across slur words. In the process I discuss how major theories of slurs can account for variable (...) offence, and conclude that contempt based on group-membership doesn’t cover all the data. I finish by noting that the most offensive slurs are those that target oppressed groups. I claim it is oppression that underpins most offence, and that beyond this offensive property, some slurs are actively used to oppress. (shrink)

Review of the book Negotiation of Identity in Multilingual Contexts, Aneta Pavlenko and Adrian Blackledge (eds.) 2004.

I propose a pragmatic approach to the kind of reference-shifting occurring in indexicals as used in e.g. written notes and answering machine messages. I proceed in two steps. First, I prepare the ground by showing that the arguments against such a pragmatic approach raised in the recent literature fail. Second, I take a first few steps towards implementing this approach, by sketching a pragmatic theory of reference-shifting, and showing how it can handle cases of the relevant kind. While the immediate (...) scope of the paper is restricted to indexicals and reference-shifting, and the discussion is confined to a specific range of theories and cases, the approach proposed is compatible with a fairly broad range of more or less semantically conservative theories, and many of the conclusions drawn are significant for the evaluation of pragmatic explanations in philosophy more generally. The overall goal is to offer a new perspective on the issues under discussion, and to prompt philosophers to reconsider some of the established methods by which pragmatic explanations are evaluated. (shrink)

Researchers have converged on the idea that a pragmatic understanding of communication can shed important light on the evolution of language. Accordingly, animal communication scientists have been keen to adopt insights from pragmatics research. Some authors couple their appeal to pragmatic aspects of communication with the claim that there are fundamental asymmetries between signalers and receivers in non-human animals. For example, in the case of primate vocal calls, signalers are said to produce signals unintentionally and mindlessly, whereas receivers are thought (...) to engage in contextual interpretation to derive the significance of signals. We argue that claims about signaler-receiver asymmetries are often confused. This is partly because their authors conflate two conceptions of pragmatics, which generate different accounts of the explanatory target for accounts of the evolution of language. Here we distinguish these conceptions, in order to help specify more precisely the proper explanatory target for language evolution research. (shrink)

I argue that the offense generation pattern of slurring terms parallels that of impoliteness behaviors, and is best explained by appeal to similar purely pragmatic mechanisms. In choosing to use a slurring term rather than its neutral counterpart, the speaker signals that she endorses the term. Such an endorsement warrants offense, and consequently slurs generate offense whenever a speaker's use demonstrates a contrastive preference for the slurring term. Since this explanation comes at low theoretical cost and imposes few constraints on (...) an account of the semantics of slurs, this suggests that we should not require semantic accounts to provide an independent explanation of the offense profile. (shrink)

On standard readings of Grice, Gricean communication requires (a) possession of a concept of belief, (b) the ability to make complex inferences about others’ goal-directed behaviour, and (c) the ability to entertain fourth order meta-representations. To the extent that these abilities are pre-requisites of Gricean communication they are inconsistent with the view that Gricean communication could play a role in their development. In this paper, I argue that a class of ‘minimally Gricean acts’ satisfy the intentional structure described by Grice, (...) but require none of abilities (a)-(c). As a result, Gricean communicative abilities may indeed contribute to the development of (a)-(c) – in particular, by enabling language development. This conclusion has important implications for our theorising about cognitive development. (shrink)

It is sometimes claimed that Gricean communication is necessarily a form of cooperative or ‘joint’ action. A consequence of this Cooperative Communication View is that Gricean communication could not itself contribute to an explanation of the possibility of joint action. I argue that even though Gricean communication is often a form of joint action, it is not necessarily so—since it does not always require intentional action on the part of a hearer. Rejecting the Cooperative Communication View has attractive consequences for (...) our theorising about human cognitive development, since it opens up the possibility of appealing to communicative interaction to explain the emergence of joint action in phylogeny. (shrink)

Epistemic contrastivism is the view that knowledge is a ternary relation between a person, a proposition and a set of contrast propositions. This view is in tension with widely shared accounts of practical reasoning: be it the claim that knowledge of the premises is necessary for acceptable practical reasoning based on them or sufficient for the acceptability of the use of the premises in practical reasoning, or be it the claim that there is a looser connection between knowledge and practical (...) reasoning. Given plausible assumptions, epistemic contrastivism implies that we should cut all links between knowledge and practical reasoning. However, the denial of any such link requires additional and independent arguments; if such arguments are lacking, then all the worse for epistemic contrastivism. (shrink)