Recently, the term «fake news» has become ubiquitous in political and public discourse and the media. Despite its omnipresence, however, it is anything but clear what fake news is. An adequate and comprehensive definition of fake news is called for. We take steps towards this goal by providing a systematic account of fake news that makes the phenomenon tangible, rehabilitates the use of the term, and helps us to set fake news apart from related phenomena. (You can email us for (...) a penultimate draft of this paper.). (shrink)

In this dissertation, I develop and defend a model of causation that allows for dualist mental causation in worlds where the physical domain is physically complete. In Part I, I present the dualist ontology that will be assumed throughout the thesis and identify two challenges for models of mental causation within such an ontology: the exclusion worry and the common cause worry. I also argue that a proper response to these challenges requires a thoroughly lightweight account of causation, i.e. an (...) account that allows for causes to be metaphysically distinct from the phenomena that produce or physically necessitate their effects. In Part II, I critically evaluate contemporary responses to these challenges from the philosophical literature. In particular, I discuss List and Stoljar’s criticism of exclusion worries, Kroedel’s alternative dualist ontology, concerns about the notion of causal sufficiency, and Lowe’s models of dualist mental causation. I argue that none of these proposals provide independent motivation for a thoroughly lightweight account of causation and therefore leave room for improvement. In the first four chapters of Part III, I develop a thoroughly lightweight model of causation, which builds on interventionist approaches to causation. First, I explain how so-called ‘holding fixed’-requirements in standard interventionist accounts stand in the way of dualist mental causation. I then argue that interventionist accounts should impose a robustness condition on causal correlations and that, with this condition in place, the ‘holding fixed’-requirements can be weakened such that they do allow for dualist mental causation. I dub the interventionist model with such weakened ‘holding fixed’-requirements ‘insensitive interventionism’, argue that it can counter the exclusion worry as well as the common cause worry, and explain under which circumstances it would predict there to be dualist mental causation. Importantly, these circumstances might, for all we know, hold in the actual world. In the final three chapters of Part III, I defend insensitive interventionism against some objections. I consider the objection that causation must be productive, the objection that causes must physically necessitate their effects, and the objection that insensitive interventionism is too permissive. I respond by drawing from the literature on causation by absences and on the relation between causation and fundamental physics. Overall, insensitive interventionism performs as well as standard interventionist accounts. I conclude that insensitive interventionism is a credible model of causation. (shrink)

Se presentan propuestas recientes en tres ámbitos de la filosofía del lenguaje en que se están haciendo contribuciones significativas: el fenómeno de la vaguedad; la distinción entre semántica y pragmática, y el uso de semánticas “bidimensionales” para tratar problemas generados por las tesis de “referencia directa”. Hace unos años existia una percepción de la pérdida por la filosofia del lenguaje, en favor de la filosofia de la mente, del lugar central ocupado en la tradición analítica -una perdida que equivaldría según (...) Dummett al abandono del rasgo distintivo de esa tradición. Tomando como modelo ilustrativo las propuestas presentadas, se sugieré que tal percepción se ha revelado una moda pasajera y aventura una hipótesis explicativa.Some recent proposals in three fields in the philosophy of language are discussed: vagueness, the semantics-pragmatics distinction, and the use of “bidimensional” semantics to treat problems created by “Direct Reference” theses. Some years ago there was a perception concerning the loss of the philosophy of language, in favour ofthe philosophy of mind, of its central place in the analytic tradition -a loss which, according to Dummett, would amount to the loss of its most distinctive trait. With the discussed proposals as illustrative model, it is suggested that that perception was the product of a fleeting fashion, and an explanatory hypothesis is ventured. (shrink)

According to contextualism, vast majority of natural-language expressions are context-sensitive. When testing whether this claim is reflected in Folk intuitions, some interesting methodological questions were raised such as: which experimental design is more appropriate for testing contextualism – the within- or the between-subject design? The main thesis of this paper is that the between-subject design should be preferred. The first experiment aims at assessing the difference between the results obtained for within-subjects measurements (where all participants assess all contexts) and between-subject (...) measurements (where respondents evaluating different contexts are distinct groups). It is shown that the within-subject design provides data that seems to support contextualism. However, I present an alternative, invariantist interpretation of these results, therefore showing that the within-subject design does not allow to empirically distinguish between contextualism and invariantism. The second experiment further elaborates the issue of how perceiving the contrast between contexts can affect subjects’ judgments – I show that certain kinds of contexts may elicit opposite intuitions when contrasted with different contexts. (shrink)

This paper is a contribution to the debate concerning the kind of philosophical conclusions that can (or cannot) be derived from systematic empirical studies of intuitions about the reference of proper names. The focus of the paper is the famous study by Machery et al. (2004) in which intercultural differences in semantic intuitions between American and Chinese participants were observed. Machery et al. used the obtained results to question the usefulness of intuitions in philosophical discussions concerning the reference of proper (...) names. In this paper, I present the results of my own philosophical-experimental studies aimed at analyzing methods used in research dedicated to the problem of reference rather than semantic intuitions as such. These results indicate a significant instability of responses regarding the reference of proper names and their susceptibility to the impact of philosophically insignificant factors. Based on the collected data, I argue that methods used in experimental studies concerning the reference of proper names conducted to date do not guarantee the assessment of intuitions of the desired kind. (shrink)

Ion Dur is an authentic scholar. His working methods, his interest and freshness of his discourse are placing him among the active contemporary Romanian philosophers and critics. Among the constant coordinates of his work are the attempt to guide readers "towards the North point of value". Ion Dur distinguishes himself by depth of his analysis on culture, criticism and journalism. The aim of this study is to offer, to young researchers and others as well, an Ariadne‘s Thread to the hermeneut‘s (...) work. In preparation of this article, extensive documentation was made and most diverse sources have been used in order to illustrate the author's ideas and to highlight the warm reception of his writings. Among others, in 1995, the essayist has re-established Sæculum, a journal founded by Lucian Blaga, in 1943, coordinated by Ion Dur for 20 years. We are writing this article in honorem to a scholar and an university Professor who this year climbed onto the seventieth step of his life. (shrink)

This paper explores early Australasian philosophy in some detail. Two approaches have dominated Western philosophy in Australia: idealism and materialism. Idealism was prevalent between the 1880s and the 1930s, but dissipated thereafter. Idealism in Australia often reflected Kantian themes, but it also reflected the revival of interest in Hegel through the work of ‘absolute idealists’ such as T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, and Henry Jones. A number of the early New Zealand philosophers were also educated in the idealist tradition (...) and were influential in their communities, but produced relatively little. In Australia, materialism gained prominence through the work of John Anderson, who arrived in Australia in 1927, and continues to be influential. John Anderson had been a student of Henry Jones, who might therefore be said to have influenced both main strands of Australian philosophical thought. (shrink)

There is an important analogy between languages and games. Just as a scoresheet records features of the evolution of a game to determine the effect of a move in that game, a conversational score records features of the evolution of a conversation to determine the effect of the linguistic moves that speakers make. Chess is particularly interesting for the study of conversational dynamics because it has language-like notations, and so serves as a simplified study in how the effect of an (...) assertion depends on, as well as evolves, the scoreboard. In this paper, we offer a compositional semantics for chess notation and a simple formal picture for determining the full information conveyed by an entry. We will also discuss an alternative model resembling accounts of centered assertion. (shrink)

This thesis aims to develop a psychologically plausible account of concepts by integrating key insights from philosophy (on the metaphysical basis for concept possession) and psychology (on the mechanisms underlying concept acquisition). I adopt an approach known as informational atomism, developed by Jerry Fodor. Informational atomism is the conjunction of two theses: (i) informational semantics, according to which conceptual content is constituted exhaustively by nomological mind–world relations; and (ii) conceptual atomism, according to which (lexical) concepts have no internal structure. I (...) argue that informational semantics needs to be supplemented by allowing content-constitutive rules of inference (“meaning postulates”). This is because the content of one important class of concepts, the logical terms, is not plausibly informational. And since, it is argued, no principled distinction can be drawn between logical concepts and the rest, the problem that this raises is a general one. An immediate difficulty is that Quine’s classic arguments against the analytic/synthetic distinction suggest that there can be no principled basis for distinguishing content-constitutive rules from the rest. I show that this concern can be overcome by taking a psychological approach: there is a fact of the matter as to whether or not a particular inference is governed by a mentally-represented inference rule, albeit one that analytic philosophy does not have the resources to determine. I then consider the implications of this approach for concept acquisition. One mechanism underlying concept acquisition is the development of perceptual detectors for the objects that we encounter. I investigate how this might work, by drawing on recent ideas in ethology on ‘learning instincts’, and recent insights into the neurological basis for perceptual learning. What emerges is a view of concept acquisition as involving a complex interplay between innate constraints and environmental input. This supports Fodor’s recent move away from radical concept nativism: concept acquisition requires innate mechanisms, but does not require that concepts themselves be innate. (shrink)

In a series of early essays, beginning with "Must We Mean What We Say?", Stanley Cavell offers a sustained response to the argument that ordinary language philosophy is nothing more than amateur linguistics, carried out from the armchair -- so that philosophers' claims about "what we say", and what we mean when we say it, are necessarily in need of proper empirical support. The present paper provides a close reading of Cavell and a defense of his argument that, since a (...) philosopher's descriptions of our use of words are supposed to be an expression of *self*-knowledge, they do not require, and indeed cannot possibly find, any empirical justification. This does not guarantee that these descriptions are immune to error, nor does it mean they describe a different range of facts from the ones that are the subject-matter of linguistics and lexicography. Nor, finally, does it follow from this argument that observation of the facts of ordinary usage, as revealed e.g. in linguistic corpora, is of no use to the philosopher of ordinary language. I close with a brief discussion of what the shared nature of linguistic communication shows about how to understand the "we" in "what we say". (shrink)

Speech act theorists tend to hold that the illocutionary force of an utterance is determined by one interlocutor alone: either the speaker or the hearer. Yet experience tells us that the force of our utterances is not determined unilaterally. Rather, communication often feels collaborative. In this paper, I develop and defend a collaborative theory of illocutionary force, according to which the illocutionary force of an utterance is determined by an agreement reached by the speaker and the hearer. This theory, which (...) builds upon linguistic and sociological work on adjacency pairs and conversational interaction, can accommodate the complexity of speaker intentions (which may be disjunctive, indeterminate, and/or inconsistent over time), and renders speech act theory more compatible with theories of common ground. (shrink)

In Lying and Insincerity, Andreas Stokke argues that bald-faced lies are genuine lies, and that lies are always assertions. Since bald-faced lies seem not to be aimed at convincing addressees of their contents, Stokke concludes that assertions needn’t have this aim. This conflicts with a traditional version of intentionalism, originally due to Grice, on which asserting something is a matter of communicatively intending for one’s addressee to believe it. I argue that Stokke’s own account of bald-faced lies faces serious problems (...) and give several responses on behalf of intentionalism. Some bald-faced lies are best understood as irrational attempts to deceive. Others are best understood as indirect speech acts of various kinds. Still, others are best understood as conventional speech acts, which differ from communicative acts like assertion in the ways that they must be embedded in social institutions or practices. An overarching theme of this essay is that we should not make theoretical decisions about how to classify speech acts by consulting ordinary usage. (shrink)

It is commonly believed that the role of context cannot be ignored in the analysis of conditionals, and counterfactuals in particular. On truth conditional accounts involving possible worlds semantics, conditionals have been analysed as expressions of relative necessity: “If A, then B” is true at some world w if B is true at all the A-worlds deemed relevant to the evaluation of the conditional at w. A drawback of this approach is that for the evaluation of conditionals with the same (...) antecedents at some world, the same worlds are deemed as relevant for all occasions of utterance. But surely this is inadequate, if shifts of contexts between occasions are to be accounted for. Both the linguistic and logical implications of this defect are discussed, and in order to overcome it a modification of David Lewis’ ordering semantics for counterfactuals is developed for a modified language. I follow Lewis by letting contexts determine comparative similarity assignments, and show that the addition of syntactic context parameters (context indices) to the language gives the freedom required to switch between sets of relevant antecedent worlds from occasion to occasion by choosing the corresponding similarity assignment accordingly. Thus an account that extends Lewis’ analysis of a language containing a single counterfactual connective > to a language containing infinitely many counterfactual connectives >_c, each indexed by a different context name c, overcomes the limitations of traditional analyses. Finally it is also shown that these traditional accounts can be recovered from the modified account if certain contextual restrictions are in place. -/- . (shrink)

Context: This essay contends that radical constructivism makes a mistake in focusing on cognition at the expense of where cognitive phenomena surface: in the interactive use of language. Goal: It grounds radically social constructivism by exploring the conversational nature of being human. It also urges abandoning the celebration of observation, inherited from the enlightenment 's preoccupation with description, in favor of participation, the recognition that speaking and writing are acts of continuously reconstructing reality, which is only partly conceivable yet is (...) interacted with. Method: It distinguishes between conversation as observed and conversation as articulated by its participants. It postulates accountability as a chief conversational move through which conversations can regain their natural flow when disturbed and construct inherently ethical realities for their participants. Unwillingness to repair problematic conversations amounts to acquiescence to constraints that are typical of discourses and the construction of institutional realities. Implications: It suggests that the ultimate institutionalization consists of replacing institutional artifacts with computational ones, which was the aim of early cybernetics. Computational artifacts have no agency and cannot be held accountable for what they do. This essay proposes a continuum of possible discourses between authentic conversation and computation. It concludes by calling for the drawing of finer distinctions within that continuum and expresses the hope for not closing off the possibility of returning to authentic conversation where humans realize their being human -- rather than institutional actors or machines. (shrink)

The First Amendment gives U.S. citizens a Hohfeldian legal immunity that disables Congress from removing citizens’ legal liberty to criticize the government. Any attempt by Congress to remove this liberty would fail, but such an attempt would still wrong citizens. The familiar concept of claim-violation does not fully account for this wrong. Claims name actions that ought not be performed and are violated when those actions are performed. Immunities names actions that cannot be performed. Congress would wrong citizens not by (...) doing something it ought not do but by attempting and failing to do something it cannot do. Using elements of Jean Hampton’s expressive theory of punishment, I analyze Congress’ attempt as an expressive act that denies the existence of immunities. Congress’ immunity-“contradiction” would wrong U.S. citizens by denying the value that generates the immunity, by causing damage to the acknowledgement of the citizens’ value, and by threatening the existence of the immunity. (shrink)

There has been much philosophical debate about whether the meaning of pictures can be analysed using theoretical frameworks normally employed within philosophy of language. A specific question within this debate is the question of whether pictures can express propositions. Instead of addressing this question in of pictures in a broad sense, this essay focuses on a specific category of pictures referred to as pictorial signs. These signs constitute a pictorial form of communication that we use in our everyday lives. The (...) question of whether pictorial signs can express propositions should, because of this communicative use, be more approachable than the same question applied to pictures in general. While a standard approach to the question has been to investigate the extent to which pictures may share some syntactic or semantic features with natural language, the approach in this essay is instead to look at how pictorial signs are used. The suggested strategy is to approach the question of propositionality by attempting to translate a particular sign into some sentence in natural language on the basis of how the sign is used, rather than analysing its structure. (shrink)

This work analyzes the central role of interpretation in non-routine design. Based on this analysis, a theory of computer support for interpretation in cooperative design is constructed. The theory is grounded in studies of design and interpretation. It is illustrated by mechanisms provided by a software substrate for computer-based design environments, applied to a sample task of lunar habitat design. ;Computer support of innovative design must overcome the problem that designers necessarily make extensive use of situated tacit understanding while computers (...) can only store and display explicit representations of information. The automation techniques used for routine design are not applicable: techniques are needed to support creative, tacit human understanding with explicit computer representations. ;The process by which designers transform their tacit preunderstanding into explicit knowledge is termed "interpretation". Interpretation is necessary for solving design problems and collaborating with other designers. Considerable explicit knowledge is thereby generated in the natural course of designing. Often this knowledge includes the most valuable information that can be presented to designers who revisit these design projects or undertake similar projects in the future. If representations of this knowledge have been defined using computer-based design support systems, then the representations can be captured by these systems for the support of subsequent design work. ;A theory of computer support for interpretation in design is presented in three stages. First, the role of interpretation in design is explored by reviewing descriptions of design by Alexander, Rittel, and Schon; by conducting a protocol analysis of lunar habitat design; and by applying Heidegger's philosophy of situated interpretation. Second, this analysis of interpretation is extended to define a theory of computer support. The features of this theory--support for the situated, perspectival, and linguistic characteristics of interpretation--are used to evaluate previous work on software design rationale systems. Third, design principles are discussed for H scERMES, a prototype hypermedia substrate for building computer-based design environments to support interpretation in tasks like lunar habitat design. The hypermedia integrates a perspectives mechanism and an end-user language to capture and modify representations of the design situation, alternative perspectives on design tasks, and terminology for conceptualizing design issues. (shrink)

The aim is (i) to outline an account what it is to grasp the meaning of a predicative term, and (ii) to draw on that account in an attempt to shed light on what the normativity of meaning might amount to. Central to the account is that grasping the meaning of a predicative term is a practical matter—it is knowing how to use it correctly in a way that implicates having an ability to use it correctly. This calls for an (...) examination of what it is to use a term correctly. Two quite different types of correctness are liable to be conflated. Sections 2 and 3 show why they must be kept apart. Sections 4 and 5 consider how correctness of the second type might be conceived within a practice-theoretic framework and how that framework might make sense of the idea that meaning is essentially normative. The concluding section responds to an objection. (shrink)

Moral error theorists argue that moral thought and discourse are systematically in error, and that nothing is, or can ever be, morally permissible, required or forbidden. I begin by discussing how error theorists arrive at this conclusion. I then argue that if we accept a moral error theory, we cannot escape a pressing problem – what should we do next, metaethically speaking? I call this problem the ‘what now?’ problem, or WNP for short. I discuss the attempts others have made (...) to respond to the WNP, and in each case I show that the responses fail to be satisfying. I then propose a new response to the WNP, which I call revolutionary relativism. I define revolutionary relativism, explain why it is preferable to the existing responses to the WNP, and defend it against the most problematic objections I anticipate that opponents might raise. I conclude that revolutionary relativism succeeds where previous WNP responses fail, and that if we accept a moral error theory, we should become revolutionary relativists. (shrink)

The fallacy of ignoring qualifications, or secundum quid et simpliciter, is a deceptive strategy that is pervasive in argumentative dialogues, discourses, and discussions. It consists in misrepresenting an utterance so that its meaning is broadened, narrowed, or simply modified to pursue different goals, such as drawing a specific conclusion, attacking the interlocutor, or generating humorous reactions. The “secundum quid” was described by Aristotle as an interpretative manipulative strategy, based on the contrast between the “proper” sense of a statement and its (...) meaning taken absolutely or in a certain respect. However, how can an “unqualified” statement have a proper meaning different from the qualified one, and vice versa? This “linguistic” fallacy brings to light a complex relationship between pragmatics, argumentation, and interpretation. The secundum quid is described in this paper as a manipulative argument, whose deceptive effect lies in its pragmatic dimension. This fallacy is analyzed as a strategy of decontextualization lying at the interface between pragmatics and argumentation and consisting of the unwarranted passage from an ut-terance to its semantic representation. By ignoring the available evidence and the presumptive interpretation of a statement, the speaker places it in a different context or suppresses textual and contextual evidence to infer a specific meaning different from the presumable one. (shrink)

Everyday life reasoning and argumentation is defeasible and uncertain. I present a probability logic framework to rationally reconstruct everyday life reasoning and argumentation. Coherence in the sense of de Finetti is used as the basic rationality norm. I discuss two basic classes of approaches to construct measures of argument strength. The first class imposes a probabilistic relation between the premises and the conclusion. The second class imposes a deductive relation. I argue for the second class, as the first class is (...) problematic if the arguments involve conditionals. I present a measure of argument strength that allows for dealing explicitly with uncertain conditionals in the premise set. (shrink)

This thesis is about indicative conditionals and apparent counterexamples to classically valid argument forms. Specifically, it applies the following four theories: - material (inspired by Grice (1961, 1975 and 1989)); - possible-worlds (inspired by Stalnaker (1981); Lewis (1976); and Kratzer (2012)), - suppositional (inspired by Adams (1975) and Edgington (1995 and 2014)); and - hybrid (inspired by Jackson (1987)) to try and solve the following two counterexamples: - Vann McGee’s to modus ponens (1985); and - Lewis Carroll’s to modus tollens (...) (1894). I argue that none of the theories I consider can explain – without facing any problems – the three individually plausible but jointly inconsistent theses that give rise to the apparent counterexamples. The three theses of the trilemma are the following: (1) the argument is invalid; (2) the argument is an instance of modus ponens or modus tollens; and (3) modus ponens or modus tollens is valid. (shrink)

This dissertation is an investigation into the relation between mind and language from different perspectives, split up into three interrelated but still, for the most part, self-standing parts. Parts I and II are concerned with the question how thought is affected by language while Part III investigates the scope covered by mind and language respectively. Part I provides a reconstruction of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s famous Private Language Argument in order to apply the rationale behind this line of argument to the relation (...) between mind and language. This argumentative strategy yields the conclusion that reasoning – an important type of thought – is constitutively dependent on language possession and is therefore not available to non-linguistic creatures. This result is achieved by considering the preconditions for reasoning – given that it is a rule-governed activity – and eliminating competitors to language for providing reasoners with what it takes to reason. Part II provides a critical outlook on the wide and highly heterogeneous field of linguistic relativity theories. It is argued that no kind of linguistic relativity whatsoever follows from the conclusion of Part I – i.e., the claim that reasoning is constitutively dependent on having a language. While Part II does not provide a conclusive argument against the linguistic relativity hypothesis, it is argued that endorsement of linguistic relativity theories often rests on a mistaken assumption to the effect that language and culture are interwoven in a way which makes it impossible to separate culture and language, as well as their respective studies. This assumption is undermined by providing examples of languages which clearly predate their culture or do not even have a culture at all. So, the assumption that language and culture are inextricably intertwined is refuted by way of counterexample. Part III provides an in-depth examination of the Principle of Expressibility – prominently endorsed and formulated by John Searle – which claims that whatever can be thought can also be said. The domains of what can be thought and of what can be said are considered in set theoretic terms in order to determine whether one is contained in the other, so that everything we can think can also be adequately communicated. After thorough study of interpretative issues regarding the Principle of Expressibility and consideration of the most pressing potential counterexamples to the principle, we can conclude that we have good reason to believe in the truth of the Principle of Expressibility. In conclusion, the achieved results are related back to prominent positions in the discussion about thought and language which already make their appearance in the very beginning of this investigation. The final chapter of this dissertation reminds us that eminent figures in philosophy have often taken a wrongheaded perspective on the relation between language and thought, so that language has frequently appeared to be an impediment to thought. We can, however, confidently conclude that language, on the contrary, is by far our most apt means for thought and that reasoning would not even be possible without the resources language provides. (shrink)

This paper overviews some recent work on the semantics and pragmatics of arguments.

The main task of this work is not to determine the bases for a moral evaluation of the lie; neither is it to describe its negative qualification. We are interested rather in the very problemate of the truth and the lie itself, considered as a juxtaposition of two of its notions: the truth and the lie, one that aims to provide a positive – as it would seem obvious – answer to the question contained in the title of the present (...) work: Does the lie contradict the truth? (shrink)

Slurs possess interesting linguistic properties and so have recently attracted the attention of linguists and philosophers of language. For instance the racial slur "nigger" is explosively derogatory, enough so that just hearing it mentioned can leave one feeling as if they have been made complicit in a morally atrocious act.. Indeed, the very taboo nature of these words makes discussion of them typically prohibited or frowned upon. Although it is true that the utterance of slurs is illegitimate and derogatory in (...) most contexts, sufficient evidence suggests that slurs are not always or exclusively used to derogate. In fact, slurs are frequently picked up and appropriated by the very in-group members that the slur was originally intended to target. This might be done, for instance, as a means for like speakers to strengthen in-group solidarity. So an investigation into the meaning and use of slurs can give us crucial insight into how words can be used with such derogatory impact, and how they can be turned around and appropriated as vehicles of rapport in certain contexts among in-group speakers. In this essay I will argue that slurs are best characterized as being of a mixed descriptive/expressive type. Next, I will review the most influential accounts of slurs offered thus far, explain their shortcomings, then provide a new analysis of slurs and explain in what ways it is superior to others. Finally, I suggest that a family-resemblance conception of category membership can help us achieve a clearer understanding of the various ways in which slurs, for better or worse, are actually put to use in natural language discourse. (shrink)

I defend the view that linguistic meaning is a relation borne by an expression to a type of speech act, and that this relation holds in virtue of our overlapping communicative dispositions, and not in virtue of linguistic conventions. I argue that this theory gives the right account of the semantics–pragmatics interface and the best-available semantics for non-declarative clauses, and show that it allows for the construction of a rigorous compositional semantic theory with greater explanatory power than both truth-conditional and (...) dynamic semantics. (shrink)

The following paper is based on a broad understanding of communication that considers as text basically anything that has been created within the framework of a cultural interaction by an author and that is perceived by a recipient. The first part of the paper introduces, explains and follows mostly cases in which the author’s violations of the recipient’s expectations have a communication value, i.e. provoke, in the recipient, a communication effect that matches the author’s intentions. In such cases, this effect (...) results as a consequence of an violation of the communication „cooperative“ principles. This, at the recipient’s end, translates into an event of expectancy violation. Each of such violations provokes an arousal in the recipient, which further motivates him/her to search for its cause. Finding this cause, and being “confronted” with the related violation pertaining to it with the norm equals, for the recipient, getting to the meaning of the text, or identifying its communication value etc. As part of the conclusion, a commented scheme is presented which offers a spectrum of possible communication outcomes “positioned” between the predictability of each textual element and the stochasticity of choice. The effort to illustrate all the explained facts results, in the paper, in a rich set of examples stemming from miscellaneous spheres of human activity – from “high styles” to rather day-to-day activities, to pop-culture. The objective is to show that the described principles, if not valid in general, permeate at least all forms of interaction. (shrink)

It is a hallmark of natural language use that the way we talk about something reflects how it is represented in the mind of our conversation partner. This thesis studies the use and cognitive processing of referring expressions like one in comparison with other expression types in spoken Danish. The cognitive status of referents in other people’s minds can be understood in terms or referential givenness. The common view of givenness is that it constitutes a one-dimensional scale or continuum of (...) cognitive prominence. In opposition to this view, the present thesis assumes that givenness is partly composed of the dynamic referential features of accessibility and identifiability, two fundamental dimensions of givenness that are essentially free to vary independently of each other. A small corpus study of spoken Danish shows no differences between referent accessibility in indefinite and definite pronominal forms. Furthermore, referents of definite and indefinite forms clearly tend to differ with respect to identifiability. An experimental eye-tracking study provides evidence that there is no difference in the timecourse of the initiation of anaphoric reference resolution processes between expressions differing in definiteness marking and lexical explicitness. It is also shown, however, that the referential commitment of pronouns---both indefinite and definite---lag behind that of full noun phrases. Finally, an explorative dyadic eye-tracking study suggests that the moment-by-moment activation of referents in both speaker and listener vary as a function of lexical explicitness in indefinite forms. This result is consistent with the assumption that givenness differences associated with accessibility marking generalize to indefinite forms. All of these findings provide support for the new view of givenness proposed in the thesis. The dyadic eye-tracking methodology eventually arrived at in the thesis proves that it is possible to study language processing in unscripted, relatively natural dialogue in both speaker and listener simultaneously, and that interesting results can be obtained that are well worth the effort. (shrink)

The article develops and justifies, on the basis of the epistemological argumentation theory, two central pieces of the theory of evaluative argumentation interpretation: 1. criteria for recognizing argument types and 2. rules for adding reasons to create ideal arguments. Ad 1: The criteria for identifying argument types are a selection of essential elements from the definitions of the respective argument types. Ad 2: After presenting the general principles for adding reasons (benevolence, authenticity, immanence, optimization), heuristics are proposed for finding missing (...) reasons, for deductive arguments, e.g., semantic tableaux are suggested. (shrink)

In this dissertation I provide a novel logic of the ordinary-language conditional. First, however, I endeavor to make clearer and more precise just what the objects of the study of the conditional are, as a lack of clarity as to what counts as an instance of a given category of conditional has resulted in deep and significant confusions in subsequent analysis. I motivate for a factual/counterfactual distinction, though not at the level of particular instances of the conditional. Instead, I argue (...) that each individual instance of the conditional may be interpreted either factually or counterfactually, rather than these instances dividing into distinct types. I examine the classic Oswald–Kennedy pair of sentences, typically taken to be the quintessential example of how conditionals must be split into two different categories, to show that they in fact do not demonstrate this. I then present my account of the logic underlying the ordinary-language conditional, the system C3, and a justification of the form it takes. This logic provides distinct interpretations of the conditional as it concerns what is factual or what is counterfactual, respectively. The factual interpretation is true when both antecedent and consequent are true at the actual world, false when the antecedent is true and consequent false, and not truth-apt otherwise. The counterfactual interpretation incorporates a ceteris paribus clause, ensuring that it is not falsified by extraordinary, unforeseeable occurrences, and is true when, at all worlds at which the antecedent is ceteris paribus true, the consequent too is true. It is false when, at any of these worlds the consequent is false; and not truth-apt otherwise. I go on to examine alternative theories of the conditional—from the suppositionalist approach to evaluating the putative indicative conditional, to Stalnaker’s combined indicative and counterfactual account, and Lewis’s analysis of the counterfactual; among a number of others—and offer comparison to my own theory. Finally, I look at various challenges to my account of the conditional. Being a strict conditional (albeit variably so), that of C3 is open to the objection that it fails to match ordinary speakers’ intuitions as regards its truth-value assignments to, for instance, conditionals with necessarily true consequents. I address these so- called paradoxes of the strict conditional, and also discussion the question of truth-preservation in the C3 system in the case of such inferences as those relying on transitivity and that of modus ponens. I maintain that these inferences are indeed truth-preserving under certain, specifiable, conditions, and I close by offering possible avenues for further research. (shrink)

This paper examines the interplay of semantics and pragmatics within the domain of film. Films are made up of individual shots strung together in sequences over time. Though each shot is disconnected from the next, combinations of shots still convey coherent stories that take place in continuous space and time. How is this possible? The semantic view of film holds that film coherence is achieved in part through a kind of film language, a set of conventions which govern the relationships (...) between shots. In this paper, we develop and defend a new version of the semantic view. We articulate it for a pair of conventions that govern spatial relations between viewpoints. One such rule is already well-known; sometimes called the "180° Rule," we term it the X-Constraint; to this we add a previously unrecorded rule, the T-Constraint. As we show, both have the effect, in different ways, of limiting the way that viewpoint can shift through space from shot to shot over the course of a film sequence. Such constraints, we contend, are analogous to relations of discourse coherence that are widely recognized in the linguistic domain. If film is to have a language, it is a language made up of rules like these. (shrink)

The goal of creating Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) – or in other words of creating Turing machines (modern computers) that can behave in a way that mimics human intelligence – has occupied AI researchers ever since the idea of AI was first proposed. One common theme in these discussions is the thesis that the ability of a machine to conduct convincing dialogues with human beings can serve as at least a sufficient criterion of AGI. We argue that this very ability (...) should be accepted also as a necessary condition of AGI, and we provide a description of the nature of human dialogue in particular and of human language in general against this background. We then argue that it is for mathematical reasons impossible to program a machine in such a way that it could master human dialogue behaviour in its full generality. This is (1) because there are no traditional explicitly designed mathematical models that could be used as a starting point for creating such programs; and (2) because even the sorts of automated models generated by using machine learning, which have been used successfully in areas such as machine translation, cannot be extended to cope with human dialogue. If this is so, then we can conclude that a Turing machine also cannot possess AGI, because it fails to fulfil a necessary condition thereof. At the same time, however, we acknowledge the potential of Turing machines to master dialogue behaviour in highly restricted contexts, where what is called “narrow” AI can still be of considerable utility. (shrink)

I argue that to know that a proposition is true one must have justification for being certain that the proposition is true. That is, one must have infallible epistemic justification for believing the proposition. It is widely accepted among epistemologists that we rarely, if ever, have such strong justification for our beliefs. It follows that there is precious little that we know. That conclusion is unacceptable to many philosophers. I argue that the positions that lead to the skeptical conclusion are (...) well-motivated and that the skeptical conclusion is implicitly accepted by ordinary speakers. My dissertation has three main components: a metaphilosophical position, an epistemological position, and an error theory. First, the metaphilosophical position. One very important part of philosophy is the analysis of our ordinary concepts. Analysis of our concepts begins with reflecting on what we are inclined to say about various actual and possible cases when considered under specific descriptions. This traditional method has recently come under attack, due in part to the rise of semantic externalism. I agree with externalists that if ‘meaning is reference’ then there is little reason to think reflecting on our concepts from the armchair will provide insight to the nature of the concepts we investigate. I defend a version of semantic internalism which grounds meaning in factors with which subjects are directly acquainted. That view supports the traditional methodology. Furthermore, as the goal of philosophical analysis is to accurately describe concepts of philosophical interest, the only kind of objection that could be decisive against a proposed analysis is that it does not correctly describe our concept. That opens the door to a skeptical analysis of knowledge. Second, the epistemological position. I argue that the unacceptability of sentences of the form “S knows that p but it is possible for S that not-p” is best explained by the hypothesis that our concept of knowledge requires having justification for being certain that what one believes is true. I offer as a criterion of justified certainty the idea that when one knows a proposition is true, one is in a position to decisively answer questions about one’s knowledge of that proposition. I survey a number of competing theories of knowledge and show that they allow for the possibility of knowledge when one fails my criterion of decisive answerability. Those views fail my criterion because according to those views there is nothing the subject is aware of that guarantees for the subject that the allegedly known proposition is true. On that basis, I contend that knowledge is direct awareness of the factors that constitute the truth of the proposition one believes. Third, the error theory. Of course, we rarely have direct awareness of the factors that constitute the truth of the propositions we believe. So, our knowledge attributions are generally false. Yet, they are overwhelmingly natural to make. I argue that competent speakers are often quick to recognize knowledge attributions as a kind of ‘loose talk’ akin to the way we loosely ascribe geometric properties to ordinary objects. We regularly call objects ‘square’ that are not even close to being square, and we are quick to recognize this when challenged. I argue that we do this because we are so accustomed to communicating using strict language to make false claims that we often do not attend to the literal falsity of what we are saying. While we accept very demanding standards for knowledge, the phenomenon of recognizing that our knowledge claims are regularly false is as pervasive as our use of loose speech. (shrink)

In this paper, I undertake to apply the de dicto/de re distinction familiar to philosophers of language from objects to properties. To do this, I come up with a new characterization of the distinction, and apply it to some cases in the literature to show how it deals with them, and how the phenomena are more common and varied than one might think. I discuss how it would apply to color-blind people’s understanding of color terms, to show its intuitiveness, and (...) how it would call for the use of Higher Order Logic, and then apply it to outstanding questions in Metaphysics, Moral Psychology, Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind, Moore Studies, Metaphilosophy, Metaethics, and Philosophy of Science, in order to develop new and significant ideas and insights. By doing this, I hope not only to cast light on old problems, and support some common and traditional, and I hope, common sense, views by showing how the distinction has the potential to deal with some familiar objections, but also to provide support for accepting the view that the de re/de dicto distinction makes sense when applied to properties, and that we should therefor embrace it and Higher Order Logic, because of their fecundity. (shrink)

This style of argument comes up everywhere in the philosophy of practical reason, leveled against theories of the norm of means-end coherence on intention, against Humean theories of reasons, and many other places. It comes up in normative moral theory – for example, in arguments against buck-passing. It comes up in epistemology, in discussions of how to account for the rational connection between believing the premises of a valid argument and believing its conclusion. And it comes up in political philosophy, (...) where one of its most salient occurrences is in the so-called ‘leveling down’ objection to egalitarianism. (shrink)

Contributing to an understanding of the true virtues of argumentation, this paper sketches and exemplifies a theoretically reasoned but simple typology of argumentative vices or ‘malpractices’ that are rampant in political debate in modern democracies. The typology reflects, in negative, a set of argumentative norms, thus making a bid for something that civic instruction might profitably teach students at all levels about deliberative democracy.

Analyzing argumentative discourse is not a an activity exclusively reserved for scholars in argumentation theory, rhetoric, and philosophy of language. This paper proposes that the faculty of analyzing argument structure is a basic precondition of und erstanding one another in argumentational interactions. Based on an examination of televised debates, it is demonstrated how participants employ quasi-logical schemata to reconstruct implicit elements in other participants's argument structures for purpo ses of clarification and criticism. This very descriptive approach entrusts, as it were, (...) the actual argument analysis to the language users themselves. (shrink)

I present experimental and computational research, inspired by the perspective of Embodied Embedded Cognition, concerning various aspects of language as supporting Everett’s interactionist view of language. Based on earlier and ongo- ing work, I briefly illustrate the contribution of the environment to the syste- maticity displayed in linguistic performance, the importance of joint attention for the development of a shared vocabulary, the role of (limited) traveling for language diversification, the function of perspective taking in social communica- tion, and the bodily (...) nature of understanding of meaning. (shrink)

Words mean things, speakers mean things in using words, and these need not be the same. For example, if you say to someone who has just finished eating a super giant burrito at the Taqueria Guadalajara, “You are what you eat,” you probably do not mean that the person is a super giant burrito. So we need to distinguish the meaning of a linguistic expression – a word, phrase, or sentence – from what a person means in using it. To (...) simplify matters, let us pretend that an utterance is always of a sentence (and, for mnemonic purposes, let our imagined s peaker be a s he and h earer be a h e). (shrink)