Events are center stage in several fields of psychological research. There is a long tradition in the study of event perception, event recognition, event memory, event conceptualization and segmentation. There are studies devoted to the description of events in language and to their representation in the brain. There are also metapsychological studies aimed at assessing the nature of mental events or the grounding of intentional action. Outside psychology, the notion of an event plays a prominent role in various areas of (...) philosophy as well as in such diverse disciplines as linguistics, probability theory, artifical intelligence, physics, and�of course� history. This plethora of concerns and applications is indicative of the prima facie centrality of the notion of an event in our conceptual scheme, but it also gives rise to some important methodological questions. Can we identify a core notion that is preserved across disciplines? Does this notion, or some such notion, correspond to the pre-theoretical conception countenanced by common sense? Does it correspond to a genuine metaphysical category? (shrink)

Methodological dualism in linguistics occurs when its theories are subjected to standards that are inappropriate for them qua scientific theories. Despite much opposition, methodological dualism abounds in contemporary thinking. In this paper, I treat linguistics as a scientific activity and explore some instances of dualism. By extracting some ubiquitous aspects of scientific methodology from its typically quantitative expression, I show that two recent instances of methodologically dualistic critiques of linguistics are ill-founded. I then show that there are nonetheless some divergences (...) between linguistic and other ordinary scientific methods, reflecting yet a third instance of methodological dualism. (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)

In this article, I defend an account of linguistic comprehension on which meaning is not cognized, or on which we do not tacitly know our language's semantics. On this view, sentence comprehension is explained instead by our capacity to translate sentences into the language of thought. I explain how this view can explain our capacity to correctly interpret novel utterances, and then I defend it against several standing objections.

Dass wir alle in einer gemeinsamen Wirklichkeit leben, setzen wir meist unhinterfragt voraus. Sehen Andere die Welt dann doch einmal anders, mag es uns scheinen, als sähen sie diese einfach nicht so, wie sie wirklich ist. Schwerer fällt uns anzuerkennen, dass andere zuweilen in ganz anderen Wirklichkeiten unterwegs sind als wir selbst. - Tom Poljansek zeigt, wie sich die Vorstellung einer Pluralität menschlicher Wirklichkeiten mit der Annahme einer wahrnehmungsunabhängigen Realität vereinbaren lässt, ohne sich in einen Relativismus der vielen Wirklichkeiten zu (...) verlaufen. In Auseinandersetzung mit »kontinentalen« und »analytischen« Ansätzen legt er eine elegante Theorie menschlicher Wirklichkeiten vor, die konstruktivistische und realistische, phänomenologische und naturalistische Motive unerwartet miteinander verbindet. (shrink)

As far as I can see, there are two basic ways of cashing out the claim that intentionality is ultimately phenomenal: an indirect one, according to which the intentional content of an experiential intentional mental state is determined by the phenomenal character that state already possesses, so that intentionality is so determined only indirectly; a direct one, which centers on the very property of intentionality itself and can further be construed in two manners: either that very property is determined by (...) the above phenomenal character, or it is a sui generis phenomenal property, thereby giving its own contribution to the overall phenomenal character of that state. Yet neither way sounds ultimately satisfying. For the indirect way may work only under the assumption that intentionality is monadic. Since the direct way explicitly endorses this assumption, the indirect way must give pride of place to it. Yet the direct way seems to be unsuccessful, in any of its forms. Thus, the phenomenal intentionality research program ought to give way to another research program concerning intentionality. (shrink)

The creative aspect of language use provides a set of phenomena that a science of language must explain. It is the “central fact to which any signi- ficant linguistic theory must address itself” and thus “a theory of language that neglects this ‘creative’ aspect is of only marginal interest” (Chomsky 1964: 7–8). Therefore, the form and explanatory depth of linguistic science is restricted in accordance with this aspect of language. In this paper, the implications of the creative aspect of language (...) use for a scientific theory of language will be discussed, noting the possible further implications for a science of the mind. It will be argued that a corollary of the creative aspect of language use is that a science of language can study the mechanisms that make language use possible, but that such a science cannot explain how these mechanisms enter into human action in the form of language use. (shrink)

Peter Ludlow presents the first book on the philosophy of generative linguistics, including both Chomsky's government and binding theory and his minimalist ...

The current view of theoretical statements in science is that they should be literal and precise; ambiguous and metaphorical statements are useful only as pre-theoretical, exegetical, and heuristic devices and as pedagogical tools. In this paper we argue that this view is mistaken. Literal, precise statements apply to those experiential phenomena which can be defined either conventionally by criterial attribution or by internal atomic constitution. Experiential phenomena which are defined relationally and/or functionally, like nursing, in virtue of their nature, require (...) metaphorical description and explanation. In such cases, metaphor is theory-constitutive. Using insights from the philosophies of language and mind, and examples from nursing practice, education, and our own empirical research, we explore the nature of metaphor and its role in theory constitution. We argue that the apparent resistance of certain experiential phenomena to literal description and explanation is not necessarily indicative of pre-theoretic linguistic imprecision. We suggest, rather, that such resistance provides useful insights into the nature of such experiential phenomena. We also suggest that the aim of scientific theory should be methodological or epistemological precision and not merely linguistic precision. (shrink)

Though the divide between reason-based and causal-explanatory approaches in psychiatry and psychopathology is old and deeply rooted, current trends involving multi-factorial explanatory models and evidence-based approaches to interpersonal psychotherapy, show that it has already been implicitly bridged. These trends require a philosophical reconsideration of how reasons can be causes. This paper contributes to that trajectory by arguing that Donald Davidson’s classic paradigm of 1963 is still a valid option.

This paper is about interpreting the aim of Plato's Sophist in a linguistic framework and arguing that in its attempt at resolving the conundrum of what the true meaning and essence of the word "sophist" could be, it resembles a number of themes encountered in contemporary linguistics. I think it is important to put our findings from the Sophist in a broader Platonic context: in other words, I assume—I think not too unreasonably—that Plato pursued (or at least had in mind) (...) a number of overall projects ('OP' for short) throughout some or most of the dialogues, while each one of the dialogues would in addition have more specific projects ('SP') as part of its individual blueprint. To be sure, the OPs, if they actually existed, might have evolved from the earlier-written to later dialogues, but their foundational premises should have remained intact. In Section A, I provide evidence for reading the Sophist on a linguistic basis. In Section B, I focus on two OPs that I think are relevant to our discussion, one having to do with language and meaning acquisition, and the second concerning the "mind" or a "thought faculty". Ultimately, in Section C, I will use the OPs to contextualise two (related) SPs in the Sophist: (i) identifying cases of intentional referrals for names versus (ii) identifying internal references when searching for word meanings without particular referable instances. At the end of this section, I will draw close parallels between this interpretation of the dialogue and a congruous project of modern 'generative' linguistics. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss Quine’s views on language sharing and linguistic communities. It is sometimes explicitly and often implicitly taken for granted that Quine believes that speakers can form communities in which they share a language. The aim of the paper is to show that this is a misinterpretation and, on the contrary, Quine is closer to linguistic individualism – the view according to which there is no guarantee that speakers within a community share a language and the notion (...) of idiolect is more fundamental than the notion of shared language. (shrink)

Carnap took the content of a particularsentence or set of sentences to consist in the set ofthe consequences of the sentence or set. This claimequates meaning with inferential role, but itrestricts the inferences to deductive or explicativeones. Here I reject a recent proposal by RobertBrandom, where inductive or ampliative inferences arealso meant to confer contents on expressions. I arguethat if Brandom's inferentialist picture is upheld, andboth explicative and ampliative inferences confermeaning, one consequence of this is that the contentof a sentence (...) is to be read off from our ways ofrationally altering our beliefs. Meaning and contentthen are largely concepts of pragmatics, with no cleartheoretical interest. My critique affects certainaspects of Dummett's meaning-theoretic picture too,and the discussion also links up with the developmentof `dynamic semantics'. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the consequences of the thesis that externalism and internalism are (possibly, but as we will see not necessarily, opposite) metaphysical doctrines on the individuation conditions of a thought. If I am right, this thesis primarily entails that at least some naturalist positions on the ontology of the mind, namely the reductionistic ones, are hardly compatible with both externalism and a version of internalism so conceived, namely relational internalism. Indeed, according to both externalism and relational internalism, (...) intentionality constitutes (or at least grounds) the relational content property providing the individuation conditions of a thought, as a relation to an outer or to an inner object respectively. Yet since intentionality turns out to be a modal, hence a nonnatural, property, both externalism and relational internalism deny to thoughts at least token-identity with physical states. Finally, I will give some support to the idea that externalism and internalism must be interpreted as doctrines on the individuation conditions of a thought. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky and Frances Egan argue that David Marr.

Is a naturalistic account of reference possible? Here is a simple argument to the effect that it is not: Let R be the relation that allegedly naturalizes reference, and consider the predicate "being an object that does not stand in the relation R to this expression". Call this predicate "P". On the face of it, P is a counterexample to the alleged naturalization, since it appears to refer to all and only those objects that do not stand in the relation (...) R to it. Actually, an argument like this was advanced more than twenty years ago by the late Paolo Casalegno. Although for various reasons it has not been given due attention by the philosophical community, the argument is interesting in its structure and remarkable in its conclusion. In this paper I shall reconstruct it in detail and discuss it. Then, I shall show that the argument fails, since, contrary to what Casalegno claimed, under certain conditions P is paradoxical, hence not a referring expression. My rejection builds on the fundamental distinction between simple and compound expressions, namely on the compositional structure of natural languages. If I am right, whether any attempt at naturalizing reference that takes care of this distinction will succeed remains an open empirical question. (shrink)

Externalism about the mind holds that the explanation of our representational capacities requires appeal to mental states that are individuated by reference to features of the environment. Externalists claim that ‘narrow’ taxonomies cannot account for important features of psychological explanation. I argue that this claim is false, and offer a general argument for preferring narrow taxonomies in psychology.

Average-NPs, such as the one in the title of this paper, have been claimed to be ‘linguistically identical’ to any other definite-NPs but at the same time to be ‘semantically inconsistent’ with these other definite-NPs. To some this is an ironclad proof of the irrelevance of semantics to linguistics. We argue that both of the initial claims are wrong: average-NPs are not ‘linguistically identical’ to other definite-NPs but instead show a number of interesting divergences, and we provide a plausible semantic (...) account for them that is not ‘semantically inconsistent’ with the account afforded other definite-NPs but in fact blends quite nicely with one standard account of the semantics for NPs. (shrink)

∗Thanks to J. C. Beall, Alex Byrne, Jason Decker, Tyler Doggett, Paul Elbourne, Adam Elga, Warren Goldfarb, Delia Graff, Richard Heck, Charles Parsons, Mark Richard, Susanna Siegel, Jason Stanley, Judith Thomson, Carol Voeller, Brian Weatherson, Ralph Wedgwood, Steve Yablo, Cheryl Zoll, and an anonymous referee for valuable comments and discussions. Versions of this material were presented in my seminar at MIT in the Fall of 2000, and at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Parts of this paper also derive from (...) my comments on a paper of Scott Soames at the ‘Liars and Heaps’ conference at the University of Connecticut in the Fall of 2002. I am grateful for the help of these audiences, and especially to Prof. Soames. (shrink)

In today’s knowledge economy, knowledge and knowledge sharing are fundamental for organizations to achieve competitiveness and for individuals to strengthen their innovation capabilities. Knowledge sharing is a complex language-based activity; language affects how individuals communicate and relate. The growth in international collaborations and the increasing number of diverse teams affect knowledge sharing because individuals engage in daily knowledge activities in a language they are not native speakers. Understanding the challenges they face, and how they manage the emerging difficulties is the (...) main aim of this manuscript. For this purpose, an explorative case study was conducted in an international university research project, namely the TED project. Both interviews and direct observations were employed to understand the phenomenon better and deliberately triangulate data and improve validity. Results show that non-native language use determines the emergence of different language proficiency, depending on the nature of the knowledge domain–job-related vs. non-job-related. Within non-job-related knowledge domains, the lack of linguistic abilities, summed to the perceived cultural diversities, mainly affects people’s propensity to engage in personal and more intense social relationships. Under such circumstances, tacit knowledge sharing is reduced with negative consequences on the project’s long-term innovative performance. Since the project is still running, detecting language challenges will allow the partners to design and apply effective measures to support cooperation with language and cultural barriers. Among them, code switching, adopted by “bridge” actors, already emerges as tool supporting communication and knowledge exchange. (shrink)