The commonplace view about metaphorical interpretation is that it can be characterized in traditional semantic and pragmatic terms, thereby assimilating metaphor to other familiar uses of language. We will reject this view, and propose in its place the view that, though metaphors can issue in distinctive cognitive and discourse effects, they do so without issuing in metaphorical meaning and truth, and so, without metaphorical communication. Our inspiration derives from Donald Davidson’s critical arguments against metaphorical meaning and Richard Rorty’s exploration of (...) the diverse uses of language. But unlike these authors we ground our discussion squarely in distinctions about causal mechanisms in cooperative activity developed by H.P. Grice and others. (shrink)

Vetter's Potentiality is an exposition and development of a new account of possibility and necessity, given in terms of potentialities. In this critical notice, I give an outline of some of the key claims of the book. I then raise some issues for the extent to which Vetter's view can accommodate genuine de re modalities, especially those of possible existence and non-existence.

:The microbiome is proving to be increasingly important for human brain functioning. A series of recent studies have shown that the microbiome influences the central nervous system in various ways, and consequently acts on the psychological well-being of the individual by mediating, among others, the reactions of stress and anxiety. From a specifically neuroethical point of view, according to some scholars, the particular composition of the microbiome—qua microbial community—can have consequences on the traditional idea of human individuality. Another neuroethical aspect (...) concerns the reception of this new knowledge in relation to clinical applications. In fact, attention to the balance of the microbiome—which includes eating behavior, the use of psychobiotics and, in the treatment of certain diseases, the use of fecal microbiota transplantation—may be limited or even prevented by a biased negative attitude. This attitude derives from a prejudice related to everything that has to do with the organic processing of food and, in general, with the human stomach and intestine: the latter have traditionally been regarded as low, dirty, contaminated and opposed to what belongs to the mind and the brain. This biased attitude can lead one to fail to adequately consider the new anthropological conceptions related to the microbiome, resulting in a state of health, both physical and psychological, inferior to what one might have by paying the right attention to the knowledge available today. Shifting from the ubiquitous high-low metaphor to an inside-outside metaphor can thus be a neuroethical strategy to achieve a new and unbiased reception of the discoveries related to the microbiome. (shrink)

In this paper, I take a critical look at the Davidsonian argument that metaphorical sentences do not express propositions because of the phenomenological experience—seeing one thing as another thing—involved in understanding them as metaphors. According to Davidson, seeing-as is not seeing-that. This verdict is aimed at dislodging metaphor from the position of being assessed with the semantic notions of propositions, meaning, and truth. I will argue that the phenomenological or perceptual experience associated with metaphors does not determine the propositional contentfulness (...) or truth-evaluability of metaphors. Truth-evaluability is not inconsistent but compatible with a perceptual model for metaphors. I argue for this partly by showing that seeing-as does not constitute understanding of metaphors when understanding is appropriately construed in terms of being able to use an expression. (shrink)

In this paper, I take a critical look at the Davidsonian argument that metaphorical sentences do not express propositions because of the phenomenological experience—seeing one thing as another thing—involved in understanding them as metaphors. According to Davidson, seeing-as is not seeing-that. This verdict is aimed at dislodging metaphor from the position of being assessed with the semantic notions of propositions, meaning, and truth. I will argue that the phenomenological or perceptual experience associated with metaphors does not determine the propositional contentfulness (...) or truth-evaluability of metaphors. Truth-evaluability is not inconsistent but compatible with a perceptual model for metaphors. I argue for this partly by showing that seeing-as does not constitute understanding of metaphors when understanding is appropriately construed in terms of being able to use an expression. (shrink)

In this paper, I take a critical look at the Davidsonian argument that metaphorical sentences do not express propositions because of the phenomenological experience—seeing one thing as another thing—involved in understanding them as metaphors. According to Davidson, seeing-as is not seeing-that. This verdict is aimed at dislodging metaphor from the position of being assessed with the semantic notions of propositions, meaning, and truth. I will argue that the phenomenological or perceptual experience associated with metaphors does not determine the propositional contentfulness (...) or truth-evaluability of metaphors. Truth-evaluability is not inconsistent but compatible with a perceptual model for metaphors. I argue for this partly by showing that seeing-as does not constitute understanding of metaphors when understanding is appropriately construed in terms of being able to use an expression. (shrink)

Davidson argues that metaphorical sentences express no propositional contents other than the explicit literal contents they express. He offers a causal account, on the one hand, as an explanation of the supposed additional content of a metaphor in terms of the effects metaphors have on hearers, and on the other hand, as a reason for the non-propositional nature of the “something more” that a metaphor is alleged to mean. Davidson’s account is meant to restrict the semantic notions of meaning, content, (...) and truth, to literal sentences. I argue that the Davidsonian causal account does not satisfactorily account for metaphor’s figurativeness, speakers’ assertion and hearers’ uptake of metaphor, and our discursive practices of using metaphors in disagreements and argumentation. I offer a non-compositional analysis of a semantic account of metaphor within which one can make sense of the applicability of the notions of meaning and content to metaphor. This analysis shows that metaphorical sentences have meanings other than, and in addition to, their literal meanings and what speakers can use them to mean. (shrink)

This two-part article presents the research program for a theory and empirical analysis of religious evolution. It is assumed that religion isprimarilya co-evolution to societal evolution, which in turn is a co-evolution to mental, organic, and physical evolution. The theory of evolution is triangulated with the systems theory and the semiotically informed theory of communication, so that knowledge can be gained that would not be acquired by only one of the three theories: The differentiation between religion and its environment can (...) be reconstructed based on the theory of evolution. The elements of the theory of evolution can be understood as the formation of systems. The semiotically informed theory of communication clarifies the conditions of the combination of both the systems theory and the theory of evolution as well as its objects. In turn, the combination of the systems theory and the theory of evolution can describe how communication—including religion and science—evolves and is structured. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Kumārila Bha ṭṭ a's account of figurative language in Tantravārttika 1.4.11-17, arguing that, for him, both metonymy and metaphor crucially involve verbal postulation, a knowledge-conducive cognitive process which draws connections between concepts without appeal to speaker intention, but through compositional and contextual elements. It is with the help of this cognitive process that we can come to have knowledge of what is meant by a sentence in context. In addition, the paper explores the relationship between (...) metonymy and metaphor, the extent to which putatively literal language involves metonymy, and the objective constraints for metaphorical interpretation. (shrink)

We frequently use single words or expressions to mean multiple things, depending upon context. I argue that a plausible model of this phenomenon, known as lakṣaṇā by Indian philosophers, emerges in the work of ninth-century Kashmiri Mukulabhaṭṭa. His model of lakṣaṇā is sensitive to the lexical and syntactic requirements for sentence meaning, the interpretive unity guiding a communicative act, and the nuances of creative language use found in poetry. After outlining his model of lakṣaṇā, I show how arthāpatti, or presumption, (...) forms the basis of both semantic and pragmatic processes in this approach. I employ a model from contemporary linguist James Pustejovsky as one way of reconstructing Mukulabhaṭṭa’s analysis. Finally, I argue that presumption is responsible for the wide range of interpretations in creative uses of language, and that our interpretations are constrained, through defeasible in a way that our decodings of literal meanings typically are not. (shrink)

The article deals with Heidegger’s attitudes towards theology. Heidegger, stating that existential philosophy and theology are incompatible, advances a thesis of not objectivating poetic thinking. Whereas, Ricoeur’s biblical hermeneutics is based on his theory of metaphor. The lingual act here means the destruction of the old outlook for the sake of the new one. In this dramatic way cognition occurs as a meeting. The poetic thinking of the late Heidegger is also based on a meeting that covers both horizontal coexistence (...) and vertical direction. The author raises the question whether the poetic thinking of the late Heidegger is not theological? (shrink)

The article deals with Heidegger’s attitudes towards theology. Heidegger, stating that existential philosophy and theology are incompatible, advances a thesis of not objectivating poetic thinking. Whereas, Ricoeur’s biblical hermeneutics is based on his theory of metaphor. The lingual act here means the destruction of the old outlook for the sake of the new one. In this dramatic way cognition occurs as a meeting. The poetic thinking of the late Heidegger is also based on a meeting that covers both horizontal coexistence (...) and vertical direction. The author raises the question whether the poetic thinking of the late Heidegger is not theological? (shrink)

Inferential Role Semantics is often criticized for being incompatible with the platitude that words of different speakers can mean the same thing. While many assume that this platitude can be accommodated by understanding sameness of meaning in terms of similarity of meaning, no worked out proposal has ever been produced for Inferential Role Semantics. I rectify this important omission by giving a detailed structural account of meaning similarity in terms of graph theory. I go on to argue that this account (...) has a number of attractive features, prominent among them that it makes sameness of meaning probabilistically determine co-reference. (shrink)

The traditional concepts of rhetorical strategy and argumentative fallacy cannot be readily reconciled. Doing so requires escaping the following argument: All argumentation involves rhetorical strategies. All rhetorical strategies are violations of logical or dialectical ideals. All violations of logical or dialectical ideals are fallacies. Normative pragmatics provides a perspective in which rhetorical strategies can be seen to have the potential for constructive contributions to argumentation and in which fallacies are not simply violations of ideals. One kind of constructive contribution, framing (...) moves, is illustrated with the case of Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 TV campaign commercial known as the Daisy ad. (shrink)

Es imposible deshacerse de las metáforas, como ciertas corrientes filosóficas modernas quisieron, y esto permite hablar de una concepción metafórica del saber. Las metáforas no son formas incompletas de la racionalidad ni prótesis del pensamiento que deberían abandonarse en cuanto fuera posible, ni tampoco son tentativas previas de una razón inmadura; son un medio insustituible para la captación de contextos y relaciones, son el elemento fundamental del discurso racional. Se pierde demasiado cuando se pretende expresar en forma literal lo dicho (...) por una metáfora, y el empleo de las mismas no debe verse como algo patológico sino normal o natural en el lenguaje. La validez contextual de una metáfora frente a otra implica la modificación de la significación con el cambio de contexto y posee una función mediadora entre lo conceptual o abstracto y lo mundano o de la vida, ampliando toda comprensión. (shrink)

Fictionalism has recently returned as a standard response to ontologically problematic domains. This article assesses moral fictionalism. It argues (i) that a correct understanding of the dialectical situation in contemporary metaethics shows that fictionalism is only an interesting new alternative if it can provide a new account of normative content: what is it that I am thinking or saying when I think or say that I ought to do something; and (ii) that fictionalism, qua fictionalism, does not provide us with (...) any new resources for providing such an account. (shrink)

This paper examines different functions of metaphors in religious language. In order to do that it will be analyzed in which ways metaphorical language can be understood as irreducible. First, it will be argued that metaphors communicate more than just propositional contents. They also frame their targets with an imagistic perspective that cannot be reduced to a literal paraphrase. Furthermore, there are also cases where metaphors are used to fill gaps of what can be expressed with literal language. In order (...) to clarify this function of catachresis the notion of de re metaphors will be introduced. With those metaphors we can convey contents that we cannot conceptualize independently from a certain context of utterance. Hence, with such metaphors we can reach beyond the limits of our conceptual repertoire which is a crucial function for religious language. Finally, the consistency and plausibility of the radical position that all assertions about God are irreducibly and necessarily metaphorical if they are supposed to be true will be discussed on the basis of the results of the former considerations about the irreducibility of metaphors. (shrink)

Powerful transformer models based on neural networks such as GPT-4 have enabled huge progress in natural language processing. This paper identifies three challenges for computer programs dealing with metaphors. First, the phenomenon of Twice-Apt-Metaphors shows that metaphorical interpretations do not have to be triggered by syntactical, semantic or pragmatic tensions. The detection of these metaphors seems to involve a sense of aesthetic pleasure or a higher-order theory of mind, both of which are difficult to implement into computer programs. Second, the (...) contexts relative to which metaphors are interpreted are not simply given but must be reconstructed based on pragmatic considerations that can involve presuppositional pretence. If computer programs cannot produce or understand such a form of pretence, they will have problems dealing with certain metaphors. Finally, adequately interpreting and reacting to some metaphors seems to require the ability to have internal, first-personal experiential and affective states. Since it is questionable whether computer programs have such mental states, it can be assumed that they will have problems with these kinds of metaphors. (shrink)

John McDowell has often emphasized the fact that the use of langauge is a rational enterprise. In this paper, I explore the sense in which this is so, arguing that our use of language depends upon our consciously knowing what our words mean. I call this a 'cognitive conception of semantic competence'. The paper also contains a close analysis of the phenomenon of implicature and some suggestions about how it should and should not be understood.

Hans Blumenberg is celebrated for demonstrating that metaphors have had a more foundational influence than concepts on European intellectual history. Many acknowledge that his insights might have achieved even greater impact if he had articulated a more explicit theory of metaphor. In 1960 Blumenberg discusses the historical formation of metaphors that have given rise to meaningful discourses on metaphysical abstractions, like God, existence, or Being, but he does not develop a general model of metaphoric language, and his work rarely engages (...) with other contemporary theories of metaphor. During Blumenberg’s lifetime, French and German postwar philosophers rarely cited one another. Yet French hermeneutics, and the work of philosopher Paul Ricoeur in particular, may have strongly influenced Blumenberg’s research group, Poetik und Hermeneutik. This paper is an attempt to recuperate intellectual affinities between Blumenberg and Ricoeur, in order to demonstrate that Ricoeur’s claims about metaphor provide the theoretical background for a fuller appreciation of Blumenberg’s metaphor analyses. (shrink)

In “On Calling God ‘Mother’” (this journal), I argued that the practice of referring to God exclusively in male terms is morally acceptable. Isham claims that I have argued that “God should be referred to exclusively in male terms.” He claims that the Bible refers to God in female terms. He hints that I may have engaged in “gender devaluation.” He claims that there is a “need for a deity with which women can both relate and identify.” The first of (...) Isham’s claims is simply false. I address the remaining criticisms at greater length. (shrink)

Some think politics and art should not mix. The problem with this view is that politics and art were always entwined. Human experience is structured politically, even if much of it is not. Here, I illustrate this with a series of artistic examples that take us from work songs in a Mississippi 1940s forced labour camp to a desolate dead forest landscape in a former Krasnoyarsk gulag, evocative of a Paul Nash World War I painting. Powerful artworks help us to (...) come to grips with human experience, more than merely “expressing emotion”. I treat songs as representations, looking for a way their political significance is part of their aesthetic value. To do this, I defend James Young’s (2001) concept of “illustrative representation” as bridging the gap between formalism and contextualism. But instead of Young’s “Wollheimian” (resemblance between experiences) approach to how such representation works I draw on Kulvicki’s (2020) notion of “syntactic parts”, combining it with Carroll’s (2016) concept of form as the “ensemble of artistic choices”, and Black’s (1954-55) frame-and-focus model of meaning in metaphor. Hopefully, in the end I will have clarified the ways in which (some) songs are both politically and aesthetically meaningful. (shrink)

Work on analogy has been done from a number of disciplinary perspectives throughout the history of Western thought. This work is a multidisciplinary guide to theorizing about analogy. It contains 1,406 references, primarily to journal articles and monographs, and primarily to English language material. classical through to contemporary sources are included. The work is classified into eight different sections (with a number of subsections). A brief introduction to each section is provided. Keywords and key expressions of importance to research on (...) analogy are discussed in the introductory material. Electronic resources for conducting research on analogy are listed as well. (shrink)

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)

Metaphorical utterances are construed as falling into two broad categories, in one of which are cases amenable to analysis in terms of semantic content, speaker meaning, and satisfaction conditions, and where image-construction is permissible but not mandatory. I call these image-permitting metaphors, and contrast them with image-demanding metaphors comprising a second category and whose understanding mandates the construction of a mental image. This construction, I suggest, is spontaneous, is not restricted to visual imagery, and its result is typically somatically marked (...) sensu Damasio. IDM’s are characteristically used in service of self-expression, and thereby in the elicitation of empathy. Even so, IDM’s may reasonably provoke banter over the aptness of the imagery they evoke. (shrink)

Davidson has argued that the phenomenon of malapropism shows that languages thought of as social entities cannot be prior in the account of communication. This may be taken to imply that Dummett's belief, that language is prior in the account of thought, cannot be retained. This paper criticises the argument that takes Davidson from malapropism to the denial of the priority of language in the account of communication. It argues, against Davidson, that the distinction between word meaning and what speakers (...) mean by words, used by Davidson to account for metaphor, suffices to account for malapropism. The reasons for the failure of Davidson's argument are used to throw light on what is meant by the priority of language over thought, and to argue that the priority thesis is ambiguous. (shrink)

Many philosophers claim that metaphor is indispensable for various purposes. What I shall call the ‘Indispensability Thesis’ is the view that we use at least some metaphors to think, to express, to communicate, or to discover what cannot be thought, expressed, communicated, or discovered without metaphor. I argue in this paper that support for the Indispensability Thesis is based on several confusions. I criticize arguments presented by Stephen Yablo, Berys Gaut, Richard Boyd, and Elisabeth Camp for the Indispensability Thesis, and (...) distinguish it from several plausible claims with which it is easily confused. Although I do not show that the thesis is false, I provide seven grounds for suspicion of our sense (if we have it) that some metaphors are indispensable for the purposes claimed by advocates of the Indispensability Thesis. (shrink)

Metaphor, as is known, has been considered an expression of the creative approach of a subject to language and thinking. Metaphor enables the subject of cognition and action to establish meaning – the subject exercises semiosis not only by referring to the former convention and the situational context, but also by transforming it due to the distinct act of turning the metaphor into an instrument of expression. The innovative character of metaphor allows one to consider it in the context of (...) performative theory, whereas its receptive, evocative character requires interpretation from the recipient. In both cases, metaphor in acts of communication, opens their participants towards specific expressions – performative expression in the case of individual semantic innovation, and receptive expression in the case of the interpretation of former metaphors. The specific example of silence, considered as a kind of metaphor within the frameworks of the performative theory, is the subject-matter of the paper. The basic question of the paper, referring to John L. Austin’s speech act theory and to his followers, is related to the source of the aforementioned metaphorization – to what degree is it an intention of language users, and to what degree is it a language convention which allows one to combine words and establish new associations metaphorically? In his pragmatic concept of meaning, Austin stresses the role of the context of an utterance – the situational context may also enable the establishment of metaphor as a figure of speech that dynamizes and moves our thinking. (shrink)

Based on an analysis of double hermeneutics in the human sciences, a distinction between a weak and a strong rhetorical analysis of human-scientific research is introduced, taking account of the self-reflective character of hermeneutic interpretation. The paper argues that there are three hermeneutic topics in the research process for human-scientific experience, which are associated with applying specific rhetorical tools. The three topics are described under the following rubrics: (a) bridging the gap between experience-near and experience-distant concepts; (b) achieving integrity of (...) the cultural objects dispersed in different interpretive strategies; and (c) taking into consideration that an important task of hermeneutic interpretation in human-scientific research is to give an account of the object's immanent narrative coherence. The paper is written in the conviction that a kind of re-methodologization of philosophical hermeneutics which does not rehabilitate epistemological foundationalism can provide a new philosophical identity to the human sciences. (shrink)

This article aims to contribute to ongoing debate on the place of metaphor at the semantics/pragmatics interface. Contextualists have argued that metaphorical utterances (i.e., prosaic/conventional metaphors) behave like literally loose uses of speech in that they are interpreted automatically and unreflectively. If metaphors are interpreted along the same lines as literally loose speech, metaphorical content is part of what a speaker says, and is classified as semantic. Some other authors have observed that metaphorical utterances (i.e., poetic, novel metaphors) seem to (...) behave more like paradigmatic conversational implicatures, and so are conversationally meant. On this picture, metaphors are patently pragmatic. I attempt to square these seemingly disparate observations by developing an idea in Korta and Perry’s _Critical Pragmatics_ (2011). Namely, that _every_ utterance is _systematically_ associated with a family of contents. The truth-conditions of these contents are classified by different contents; some of these contents are reflexive and have the utterance itself as a constituent. They range from the purely reflexive to referential content thereby constituting a family of gradually less reflexive and more contextually independent contents. Differences between prosaic and poetic metaphors roughly correspond to the level of content triggering an inference to metaphorical meaning. (shrink)

Hans Hahn, mathematician, philosopher and co-founder of the Vienna Circle, attempted to reconcile the validity and applicability of both logic and mathematics with a strict empiricism. This article begins with a review of this attempt, focusing on his view of the relation of language to logic and his answer to the question of why we need logic. I then turn to some recent work by Stephen Yablo in an attempt to show that Yablo's fictionalism, and in particular his use of (...) metaphor, can shed light on Hahn's philosophy of logic. (shrink)

Two well-recognised, but inherently reductionist, relations between medicine and music are the attempted neuro-scientific understanding of responses to music and interest in music’s contributions to clinical therapy. This paper proposes a third relation whereby music is seen as an organising metaphor for clinical medicine as a practice. Both music and clinical medicine affirm human well-being, and both do this inter alia through varieties of skilful, crafted yet spontaneous mutual engagement between a ‘performer’ and an ‘audience’. I argue that this organising (...) metaphor offers a corrective to the reductionist influences of the first two relations, illuminates a number of medicine’s important features, and reaffirms the existential as being at the core of medicine’s telos. (shrink)

Metaphor has been considered as a cognitive process, independent of the verbal versus visual mode, through which an unknown conceptual domain is understood in terms of another known conceptual domain. Metaphor might instead be viewed as a cognitive process, dependent on the mode, which leads to genuinely new knowledge via ignorance. First, I argue that there are two main senses of ignorance at stake when we understand a metaphor: we ignore some existing properties of the known domain in the sense (...) that we disregard or neglect them; we ignore some “non-existing” properties of the known domain in the sense that they are not a piece of information belonging to the known domain, but emerge in metaphor interpretation. Secondly, I consider a metaphor as a reasoning device, guiding the interpreters along a path of inferences to a conclusion, which attributes to the target some properties of the source. In this path, interpreters might discover the ignored existing properties of the known domain and/or recover the “non-existing” properties, inferring or imagining the missing piece of information. Finally, I argue that, especially in visual metaphors, this process is guided by a “sentiment of rationality”, tracking a disruption of existing familiar conceptualisations of objects and/or actions and a recovery of ignored properties. (shrink)

According to Hintikka and Sandu, metaphorical meaning is word-based and can be analyzed in the framework of possible world semantics (PWS) by means of nonstandard meaning lines drawn via similarity considerations. It is shown how PWS offers an analytical tool which enables Hintikka and Sandu's theory to resist classical objections against the comparison view and theories involving considerations to alternative scenarios. It is further argued that Hintikka and Sandu's theory is superior to Davidson's "non-meaning" theory of metaphor and the speech-act (...) approaches of Searle and Grice. Finally, it is shown how Hintikka and Sandu's view is deficient in not being able to account for the type of metaphoricity exposed by cognitive semantics, but how principles could be incorporated in order to take this into account. (shrink)

This introductory paper aims to demystify the concept of untruthfulness. Drawing on the scholarship on deception, the author reports on a distinction between the (objective) truth and (subjective) truthfulness, as well as their respective opposites: falsehood and untruthfulness. An attempt is made to discriminate between truthfulness and sincerity, to notions which capture similar phenomena but have originated in distinct scholarly traditions. Further, the author depicts untruthfulness as an internally diversified construct and teases out its main subtypes. Some light is shed (...) on overt untruthfulness and covert untruthfulness, as approached in philosophical, cognitive and pragmatic literature. The paper closes with a description of the scope of the present Special Issue entitled “New theoretical insights into untruthfulness”. (shrink)

It is not the case that there is only one literal sense of “same person.” When presented in different contexts, “she is/is not the same person” can have different answers concerning the same entity or set of entities across the same period of time. This is because: Persons are composed of many parts, and different parts have different persistence conditions. This follows from a reductionist view of the self. When we ask about sameness of persons, or “personal identity,” we are (...) asking because of certain practical concerns. Different concerns will look to the persistence of different parts of the person for criteria of sameness. No single criterion of sameness tracks all concerns. By combining reductionism with contextualism, the disparate answers to the personal identity question can be clarified without losing the practical concerns motivating them. (shrink)

Slurs denigrate individuals qua members of certain groups, such as race or sexual orientation. Most theorists hold that each slur has a neutral counterpart, i.e., a term that references the slur's target group without denigrating them. According to a widely accepted view, which I call ‘Neutral Counterpart Theory’, the truth-conditional content of a slur is identical to the truth-conditional content of its neutral counterpart. My aim is to challenge this view. I argue that the view fails with respect to slurs (...) that encode truth-conditional content which does more than merely classify someone as a member of the target group, as well as slurs that denigrate by virtue of their iconicity. (shrink)

Most theories of slurs fall into one of two families: those which understand slurring terms to involve special descriptive/informational content (however conveyed), and those which understand them to encode special emotive/expressive content. Our view is that both offer essential insights, but that part of what sets slurs apart is use-theoretic content. In particular, we urge that slurring words belong at the intersection of a number of categories in a sociolinguistic register taxonomy, one that usually includes [+slang] and [+vulgar] and always (...) includes [-polite] and [+derogatory]. Thus, e.g., what distinguishes ‘Chinese’ from ‘chink’ is neither a peculiar sort of descriptive nor emotional content, but rather the fact that ‘chink’ is lexically marked as belonging to different registers than ‘Chinese’. It is, moreover, partly such facts which makes slurring ethically unacceptable. (shrink)

Mathematical diagrams are frequently used in contemporary mathematics. They are, however, widely seen as not contributing to the justificatory force of proofs: they are considered to be either mere illustrations or shorthand for non-diagrammatic expressions. Moreover, when they are used inferentially, they are seen as threatening the reliability of proofs. In this paper, I examine certain examples of diagrams that resist this type of dismissive characterization. By presenting two diagrammatic proofs, one from topology and one from algebra, I show that (...) diagrams form genuine notational systems, and I argue that this explains why they can play a role in the inferential structure of proofs without undermining their reliability. I then consider whether diagrams can be essential to the proofs in which they appear. (shrink)

Introduction -- Aesthetic judgements, aesthetic principles, and aesthetic properties -- Aesthetic essence -- The acquaintance principle -- The intersubjective validity of aesthetic judgements -- The pure judgement of taste as an aesthetic reflective judgement -- Understanding music -- The characterization of aesthetic qualities by essential metaphors and quasi-metaphors -- Musical movement and aesthetic metaphors -- Aesthetic realism and emotional qualities of music -- On looking at a picture -- The look of a picture -- Wollheim on correspondence, projective properties, and (...) expressive perception -- Wittgenstein on aesthetics. (shrink)

In this study I argue that Richard Rorty’s anti-representationalist philosophy arises from a misguided belief that realists are compelled to argue that we need a single and exclusive “mirror-like” form of representation to capture reality. I argue that Rorty fails to appreciate the fact that realists do not have to absolutely identify reality with a particular mirror-like representation of it and nor do they have to fall prey to an invidious distinction between reality and the various ways that we do (...) represent it. I argue that we need not associate realism with the kind of absolutism that Rorty associates it with. To illustrate this I challenge Rorty’s attempt to claim that Nietzsche also rejects realism and interpret Nietzsche’s perspectivism as a form of realism. I also challenge Rorty’s anti-representationalism in the context of his political philosophy. In order to do this I assess the role that Rorty assigns to the poet in his liberal utopia by examining the work of Sylvia Plath and Tony Harrison. I also discuss the various positions that Hilary Putnam has adopted in order to explore different possibilities within realism and representationalism. I conclude that Putnam’s internal realism concedes too much to Rorty and that his earlier external realism is a better alternative. (shrink)