People argue to reconcile differences of opinion, but reconciliation may fail to happen. In these cases, most theorists assume arguers are left with the same disagreement from which they started. This is too optimistic, since disagreement might instead escalate, and this may happen because of the argumentative practice, not in spite of it. These dangers depend on epistemological, pragmatic, and cultural factors, and show why arguers should be careful in picking their dialogical fights.

What role does ‘ordinary language philosophy’ play in the defense of common sense beliefs? J.L. Austin and Ludwig Wittgenstein each give central place to ordinary language in their responses to skeptical challenges to common sense beliefs. But Austin and Wittgenstein do not always respond to such challenges in the same way, and their working methods are different. In this paper, I compare Austin’s and Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophical positions, and show that they share many metaphilosophical commitments. I then examine Austin and Wittgenstein’s (...) respective takes on the problem of other minds and the problem of our knowledge of the external world. Interestingly, we find Wittgenstein employing methods more frequently associated Austin and vice versa. Moreover, we find that a variety of defenses of common sense beliefs are compatible with ‘ordinary language philosophy.’. (shrink)

Hope is an attitude with a distinctive epistemological dimension: it is incompatible with knowledge. This chapter examines hope as it relates to knowledge but also to probability and inductive considerations. Such epistemic constraints can make hope either impossible, or, when hope remains possible, they affect how one’s epistemic situation can make hope rational rather than irrational. Such issues are especially relevant to when hopefulness may permissibly figure in practical deliberation over a course of action. So I consider cases of second-order (...) inductive reflection on when one should, or should not, be hopeful for an outcome with which one has a long record of experience: in other words, what is the epistemology behind when one should, if ever, stop hoping for outcomes which have failed one many times in the past? (shrink)

This chapter develops an account of the meaning and use of various types of legal claims, and uses this account to inform debates about the nature and normativity of law. The account draws on a general framework for implementing a contextualist theory, called 'Discourse Contextualism' (Silk 2016). The aim of Discourse Contextualism is to derive the apparent normativity of claims of law from a particular contextualist interpretation of a standard semantics for modals, along with general principles of interpretation and conversation. (...) Though the semantics is descriptivist, it avoids Dworkin’s influential criticism of so-called “semantic theories of law,” and elucidates the nature of “theoretical disagreements” about the criteria of legal validity. The account sheds light on the social, interpersonal function of normative uses of language in legal discourse. It also gives precise expression to Hart’s and Raz’s intuitive distinctions among types of legal claims (internal/external, committed/detached), while giving them a uniform type of analysis. The proposed semantics and pragmatics of legal claims provides a fruitful framework for further theorizing about the nature and metaphysics of law, the relation between law and morality, and the apparent practical character of legal language and judgment. Discourse Contextualism provides a solid linguistic basis for a broader account of legal discourse and practice. (shrink)

The starting point for this paper is a critical discussion of claims of psychological reality articulated within Borg’s (forth.) minimal semantics and Carpintero’s (2007) character*-semantics. It has been proposed, for independent reasons, that their respective accounts can accommodate, or at least avoid the challenge from psychological evidence. I outline their respective motivations, suggesting various shortcomings in their efforts of preserving the virtues of an uncontaminated semantics in the face of psychological objection (I-II), and try to make the case that, at (...) least for a theory of utterance comprehension, a truth-conditional pragmatic stance is far preferable. An alternative from a relevance-theoretic perspective is offered in terms of mutual adjustment between truth-conditional content and implicature(s), arguing that many “free” pragmatic processes are needed to uncover the truth-conditional content, which can then warrant the expected implicature(s) (III). I finally illustrate the difficulties their accounts have in predicting the correct order of interpretation in cases of ironic metaphor, i.e. metaphor is computed first, as part of truth-conditional content, while irony is inferentially grounded in metaphorical content (IV). (shrink)

Defends the view that understanding can be identified with knowledge of T-sentences against the classical criticisms of Foster and Soames.

Esta enciclopédia abrange, de uma forma introdutória mas desejavelmente rigorosa, uma diversidade de conceitos, temas, problemas, argumentos e teorias localizados numa área relativamente recente de estudos, os quais tem sido habitual qualificar como «estudos lógico-filosóficos». De uma forma apropriadamente genérica, e apesar de o território teórico abrangido ser extenso e de contornos por vezes difusos, podemos dizer que na área se investiga um conjunto de questões fundamentais acerca da natureza da linguagem, da mente, da cognição e do raciocínio humanos, bem (...) como questões acerca das conexões destes com a realidade não mental e extralinguística. A razão daquela qualificação é a seguinte: por um lado, a investigação em questão é qualificada como filosófica em virtude do elevado grau de generalidade e abstracção das questões examinadas (entre outras coisas); por outro, a investigação é qualificada como lógica em virtude de ser uma investigação logicamente disciplinada, no sentido de nela se fazer um uso intenso de conceitos, técnicas e métodos provenientes da disciplina de lógica. O agregado de tópicos que constitui a área de estudos lógico-filosóficos é já visível, pelo menos em parte, no Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus de Ludwig Wittgenstein, uma obra publicada em 1921. E uma boa maneira de ter uma ideia sinóptica do território disciplinar abrangido por esta enciclopédia, ou pelo menos de uma porção substancial dele, é extrair do Tractatus uma lista dos tópicos mais salientes aí discutidos; a lista incluirá certamente tópicos do seguinte género, muitos dos quais se podem encontrar ao longo desta enciclopédia: factos e estados de coisas; objectos; representação; crenças e estados mentais; pensamentos; a proposição; nomes próprios; valores de verdade e bivalência; quantificação; funções de verdade; verdade lógica; identidade; tautologia; o raciocínio matemático; a natureza da inferência; o cepticismo e o solipsismo; a indução; as constantes lógicas; a negação; a forma lógica; as leis da ciência; o número. (shrink)

What does it mean to know how to do something? This book develops a comprehensive account of know-how, a crucial epistemic goal for all who care about getting things right, not only with respect to the facts, but also with respect to practice. It proposes a novel interpretation of the seminal work of Gilbert Ryle, according to which know-how is a competence, a complex ability to do well in an activity in virtue of guidance by an understanding of what it (...) takes to do so. This idea is developed into a full-fledged account, Rylean responsibilism, which understands know-how in terms of the normative guidance and responsible control of one's acts. Within the complex current debate about know-how, this view occupies a middle ground position between the intellectualist claim that know-how just is propositional or objectual knowledge and the anti-intellectualist claim that know-how just is ability. In genuine know-how, practical ability and guiding intellect are both necessary, but essentially intertwined. (shrink)

Jonas Olson presents a critical survey of moral error theory, the view that there are no moral facts and so all moral claims are false. Part I explores the historical context of the debate; Part II assesses J. L. Mackie's famous arguments; Part III defends error theory against challenges and considers its implications for our moral thinking.

Když jsem v roce 1992 začínal na filosofické fakultě UK přednášet teorii sémantiky, cítil jsem intenzivní potřebu poskytnout studentům nějaký učební text. O překotném vývoji tohoto interdisciplinárního oboru, který odstartovalo v sedmdesátých letech úspěšné “zkřížení logiky s lingvistikou” Richardem Montaguem a dalšími a který se nezpomalil dodnes, totiž v češtině neexistovaly prakticky žádné zprávy (s čestnou výjimkou přístupu tzv. transparentní intenzionální logiky, který byl dílem českého emigranta Pavla Tichého a o kterém u nás psal Pavel Materna). Přehledové publikace, jaké jsou (...) potřeba pro někoho, kdo se chce v dané problematice zorientovat, se ovšem v té době i po světě teprve začínaly objevovat: v roce 1990 vyšla kniha An Introduction to Semantics Gennara Chierchii a Sally McConell-Ginnetové a v roce 1991 vydala skupina holandských logiků pod kolektivním pseudonymem L.T.F. Gamut dvousvazkovou knihu Language and Meaning. Za této situace jsem se pokusil co nejrychleji sepsat učební text, který by moji studenti i jiní zájemci o sémantiku mohli použít; a protože o jeho vydání paradoxně projevila větší zájem filosofická fakulta Masarykovy univerzity v Brně (kde jsem já osobně nikdy neučil; ale zájem o sémantiku tam neúnavně podněcoval a vydání mého textu tam zprostředkoval kolega Materna) než filosofická fakulta mojí domovské Karlovy univerzity, vyšel tento text v Brně, a to pod názvem Úvod do teoretické sémantiky. (shrink)

Are there such things as moral truths? How do we know what we should do? And does it matter? Constructivism states that moral truths are neither invented nor discovered, but rather are constructed by rational agents in order to solve practical problems. While constructivism has become the focus of many philosophical debates in normative ethics, meta-ethics and action theory, its importance is still to be fully appreciated. These new essays written by leading scholars define and assess this new approach in (...) ethics, addressing such questions as the nature of constructivism, how constructivism improves our understanding of moral obligations, how it accounts for the development of normative practices, whether moral truths change over time, and many other topics. The volume will be valuable for advanced students and scholars of ethics and all who are interested in questions about the foundation of morality. (shrink)

Defends the view that the study of language should concern itself, primarily, with idiolects. The main objections considered are forms of the normativity objection.

The main aim of this thesis is to defend moral realism. In chapter 1, I argue that moral realism is best understood as the view that moral sentences have truth-value, there are moral properties that make some moral sentences true, and moral properties are not reducible to non- moral properties. Realism is contrasted with non-cognitivism, error-theory and reductionism, which, in brief, deny, and, respectively. In the introductory chapter, it is also argued that there are some prima facie reasons to assume (...) that non-cognitivism and error-theory are erroneous. In chapters 2 and 3, I suggest that the two main forms of reductionism, analytic and synthetic reductionism, are mistaken. In chapter 4, I argue that the considerations in the previous chapters in relation to non-cognitivism, error-theory and reductionism provide support to moral realism. It is also suggested that these considerations make it plausible to hypothesise that moral properties depend on non- moral properties in a way I refer to as ‘the realist formula’. The realist formula confirms moral realism since it implies that moral properties are not reducible to non- moral properties. In chapters 5, 6 and 7, I argue that moral realism, much owing to the realist formula, is able to explain significant meta-ethical issues regarding moral disagreement, moral reason and moral motivation. Among other things, externalism concerning moral motivation is defended. The explanatory value of moral realism in relation to these meta-ethical issues is taken to suggest that this view is preferable to non-cognitivism, error-theory and reductionism. Some of the meta-ethical issues discussed in these chapters, particularly moral disagreement and motivation, have been thought to provide support to non-cognitivism and error-theory. I maintain that since realism, unlike reductionism, is able to counter these arguments, it justifies us in upholding the view that moral sentences have truth-value and the view that there are moral properties. In chapter 8, various objections against realism with regard to the dependence of moral properties on non- moral properties are responded to. In chapter 9, I consider an influential argument to the effect that moral properties are not involved in causal explanations. I maintain that this argument fails and that it therefore is reasonable to assume that moral properties are natural properties. However, the discussions in chapters 8 and 9 also suggest that moral realism might face problems that cannot be thoroughly discussed in this thesis. (shrink)

This paper surveys some ways in which epistemic reasons ascriptions (or ERAs) appear to be context-sensitive, and outlines a framework for thinking about the nature of this context-sensitivity that is intimately related to ERAs' explanatory function.

I critically discuss some aspects of Mark Sainsbury's Reference without Referents, from an otherwise sympathetic viewpoint. My objections focus on the adequacy of the truth-conditional framework that Sainsbury presupposes. I argue that, as semantic theories, truth-conditional accounts are both too ambitious, and too austere to be fully explanatory, and that both problems have consequences for an account of reference. The latter problem has to do with the difficulties to capture in a truth-conditional framework the descriptive contribution of indexicals and, in (...) my view, proper names. The former has to do with the non-semantic contribution of context to the determination of truth-conditions in general and reference in particular. /// En este artículo discuto críticamente algunos aspectos del libro de Mark Sainsbury Reference without Referents, desde una perspectiva por lo demás próxima. Mis objeciones se centran en la adecuación del marco que Sainsbury presupone: la semántica de condiciones de verdad. Argumento que tales propuestas son, en tanto que teorías semánticas, a la vez demasiado ambiciosas y demasiado austeras para ser genuinamente explicativas, y que ambos problemas tienen consecuencias en lo que respecta a la explicación de la referencia. El segundo problema tiene que ver con las dificultades para representar la contribución descriptiva de los deícticos y, en mi opinión, de los nombres propios también en el marco de condiciones de verdad. El primero tiene que ver con la contribución no semántica del contexto a la determinación de las condiciones de verdad en general y la referencia en particular. (shrink)

The most widely accepted and well worked out approaches to the foundations of meaning take facts about the meanings of linguistic expressions at a time to be derivative from the propositional attitudes of speakers of the language at that time. This mentalist strategy takes two principal forms, one which traces meaning to belief, and one which analyzes it in terms of communicative intentions. I argue that either form of mentalism fails, and conclude by suggesting that we can do better by (...) focusing on connections between linguistic meaning and the contents of perceptions (rather than beliefs or intentions), and by (following Kripke's approach to reference) replacing questions about the nature of meaning with questions about the nature of term introduction and meaning transmission. (shrink)

In this thesis, I aim to motivate a particular philosophy of mathematics characterised by the following three claims. First, mathematical sentences are generally speaking false because mathematical objects do not exist. Second, people typically use mathematical sentences to communicate content that does not imply the existence of mathematical objects. Finally, in using mathematical language in this way, speakers are not doing anything out of the ordinary: they are performing straightforward assertions. In Part I, I argue that the role played by (...) mathematics in our scientific explanations is a purely expressive one, merely allowing us to say more about the physical world than we would otherwise be able to. Mathematical objects do not need to exist for mathematics to play this role. This proposal puts a normative constraint on our use of mathematical language: we ought to use mathematically presented theories to express belief only in the consequences they have for non-mathematical things. In Part II, I will argue that what the normative proposal recommends is in fact what people generally do in both pure and applied mathematical contexts. I motivate this claim by showing that it is predicted by our best general means of analysing natural language. I provide a semantic theory of applied arithmetical sentences that reveals they do not purport to refer to numbers, as well as a pragmatic theory for pure mathematical language use which reveals that pure mathematical utterances do not typically communicate content that implies the existence of mathematical objects. In conclusion, I show that the emerging hermeneutic fictionalist position is preferable to any alternative interpretation of mathematical discourse as aimed at describing a domain of independently existing abstract mathematical objects. (shrink)

In response to Stephen Neale (2016), I argue that aphonic expressions, such as PRO, are intentionally uttered by normal speakers of natural language, either by acts of omitting to say something explicitly, or by acts of giving phonetic realization to aphonics. I argue, also, that Gricean intention-based semantics should seek divorce from Cartesian assumptions of transparent access to propositional attitudes and, consequently, that Stephen Schiffer's so-called meaning-intention problem is not powerful enough to banish alleged cases of over-intellectualization in contemporary philosophy (...) of language and mind. (shrink)

This research is concerned with the innate predispositions underlying human intentional communication. Human communication is currently defined as a circular and overt attempt to modify a partner's mental states. This requires each party involved to posse ss the ability to represent and understand the other's mental states, a capability which is commonly referred to as mindreading, or theory of mind (ToM). The relevant experimental literature agrees that no such capability is to be found in the human speci es at least (...) during the first year of life, and possibly later. This paper aims at advancing a solution to this theoretical problem. We propose to consider sharedness as the basis for intentional communication in the infant and to view it as a primitive, i nnate component of her cognitive architecture. Communication can then build upon the mental grounds that the infant takes as shared with her caregivers. We view this capability as a theory of mind in a weak sense.›. (shrink)

Abstract. This paper is concerned with the mental processes involved in intentional communication. I describe an agent's cognitive architecture as the set of cognitive dynamics (i.e., sequences of mental states with contents) she may entertain. I then describe intentional communication as one such specific dynamics, arguing against the prevailing view that communication consists in playing a role in a socially shared script. The cognitive capabilities needed for such dynamics are midreading (i.e., the ability to reason upon another individual's mental states), (...) and communicative planning (i.e., the ability to dynamically represent and act in a communicative situation). (shrink)

From a cognitive perspective, intentional communication may be viewed as an agent's activity overtly aimed at modifying a partner's mental states. According to standard Gricean definitions, this requires each party to be able to ascribe mental states to the other, i.e., to entertain a so-called theory of mind. According to the relevant experimental literature, however, such capability does not appear before the third or fourth birthday; it would follow that children under that age should not be viewed as communicating agents. (...) In order to solve the resulting dilemma, we propose that certain specific components of an agent's cognitive architecture (namely, a peculiar version of sharedness and communicative intention), are necessary and sufficient to explain infant communication in a mentalist framework. We also argue that these components are innate in the human species. (shrink)

This dissertation is devoted to empirically contrasting the Suppositional Theory of conditionals, which holds that indicative conditionals serve the purpose of engaging in hypothetical thought, and Inferentialism, which holds that indicative conditionals express reason relations. Throughout a series of experiments, probabilistic and truth-conditional variants of Inferentialism are investigated using new stimulus materials, which manipulate previously overlooked relevance conditions. These studies are some of the first published studies to directly investigate the central claims of Inferentialism empirically. In contrast, the Suppositional Theory (...) of conditionals has an impressive track record through more than a decade of intensive testing. The evidence for the Suppositional Theory encompasses three sources. Firstly, direct investigations of the probability of indicative conditionals, which substantiate “the Equation” (P(if A, then C) = P(C|A)). Secondly, the pattern of results known as “the defective truth table” effect, which corroborates the de Finetti truth table. And thirdly, indirect evidence from the uncertain and-to-if inference task. Through four studies each of these sources of evidence are scrutinized anew under the application of novel stimulus materials that factorially combine all permutations of prior and relevance levels of two conjoined sentences. The results indicate that the Equation only holds under positive relevance (P(C|A) – P(C|¬A) > 0) for indicative conditionals. In the case of irrelevance (P(C|A) – P(C|¬A) = 0), or negative relevance (P(C|A) – P(C|¬A) < 0), the strong relationship between P(if A, then C) and P(C|A) is disrupted. This finding suggests that participants tend to view natural language conditionals as defective under irrelevance and negative relevance (Chapter 2). Furthermore, most of the participants turn out only to be probabilistically coherent above chance levels for the uncertain and-to-if inference in the positive relevance condition, when applying the Equation (Chapter 3). Finally, the results on the truth table task indicate that the de Finetti truth table is at most descriptive for about a third of the participants (Chapter 4). Conversely, strong evidence for a probabilistic implementation of Inferentialism could be obtained from assessments of P(if A, then C) across relevance levels (Chapter 2) and the participants’ performance on the uncertain-and-to-if inference task (Chapter 3). Yet the results from the truth table task suggest that these findings could not be extended to truth-conditional Inferentialism (Chapter 4). On the contrary, strong dissociations could be found between the presence of an effect of the reason relation reading on the probability and acceptability evaluations of indicative conditionals (and connate sentences), and the lack of an effect of the reason relation reading on the truth evaluation of the same sentences. A bird’s eye view on these surprising results is taken in the final chapter and it is discussed which perspectives these results open up for future research. (shrink)

I develop and argue for a novel theory of the mental state of identity confusion. I also argue that this mental state can corrupt the proper function of singular terms in linguistic communication. Finally, I propose a theory according to which identity confusion should be treated as a the source of a new sort of linguistic performance error, similar to malapropism, slips of the tongue, and so-called intentional obfuscation (inducing false belief by manipulating language in specific ways). -/- Going into (...) a bit more detail, I start by arguing that contemporary analytic philosophy, and philosophy of language in particular, has been dominated by a ‘puzzle-driven’ methodology. This tradition, I claim, seeks to provide a coherent system for describing semantic features of all conceivable cases where a speaker is confused about the identity or distinctness of an object. On my view, identity confusion is a mental state of an agent who either believes falsely that a is identical to b or believes falsely that a is not identical to b. I show how many influential arguments in philosophy – e.g., Kripke on semantic reference and speaker’s reference – are invalidated because of false assumptions about the state of identity confusion. -/- More positively, I assume an ‘explanation-driven’ approach, combining strands in Gricean intentionalism and Ruth Millikan’s teleosemantics. On this view, confused speakers are ‘sub-optimal’: their mental state disrupts the proper function of the relevant singular terms in their idiolects. Furthermore, I flesh out a theoretically fruitful notion of ‘edenic reference,’ which idealizes away from confusion in defining the optimal or stabilizing function of singular terms. I argue that speakers must satisfy certain broadly cognitive constraints if their utterances are to play a role in explaining the maintenance of a practice of using a singular term in a linguistic community. (shrink)

This dissertation is a contribution to the philosophy of language. Its central question is: In virtue of which facts do linguistic expressions mean what they do? E.g. why does “apple” mean apple in English? The question receives a systematic answer; in short: Linguistic expressions mean what they do because among their users, there are linguistic conventions and social norms to use and understand them in certain ways. The answer is clarified and defended as a central thesis. For in this form, (...) it is at best a slogan: What is meaning? What is it to use and understand expressions? What are conventions and social norms anyway? How does the use and understanding determine meaning? The goal of the dissertation consists in answering these questions. (shrink)

This paper extends the defense of a simple theory of indicative conditionals previously proposed by the author, in which the truth conditions are material, and Grice-style assertability conditions are given to explain the paradoxes of material implication. The paper discusses various apparent counter-examples to the material account in which conditionals are not asserted, and so the original theory cannot be applied; it is argued that, nevertheless, the material theory can be defended.

The following thesis discusses a range of central aspects in Timothy Williamson’s so-called «knowledge-first» epistemology. In particular, it adresses whether this kind of epistemological framework is apt to answer the challenges of scepticism.

It is shown that at least part of the terminology of the theory of speech acts can be methodically introduced within the constructive ortholanguage-programm. There is evidence that a methodical constraint leads the reconstruction of the basic speech-act-types from requests via statements to questions. Moreover there is evidence that requests and questions don't involve "propositional acts".

A speaker wishes to persuade a listener to take a certain action. The conditions under which the request is justified, from the listener’s point of view, depend on the state of the world, which is known only to the speaker. Each state is characterized by a set of statements from which the speaker chooses. A persuasion rule specifies which statements the listener finds persuasive. We study persuasion rules that maximize the probability that the listener accepts the request if and only (...) if it is justified, given that the speaker maximizes the probability that his request is accepted. We prove that there always exists a persuasion rule involving no randomization and that all optimal persuasion rules are ex-post optimal. We relate our analysis to the field of pragmatics. (shrink)

According to the standard analysis, quantifiers such as , connectives such as , modals such as and a host of other expressions form informational scales (Horn, 1972). In the canonical case, informational scales are defined on the basis of entailment (e.g. p and q asymmetrically entails p or q). Given the Gricean assumption that speakers try to say as much as they truthfully can that is relevant to the conversational exchange, the fact that an informationally weaker term was used in (...) (1)-(3) often gives the listener reason to think that the speaker was not in a position to offer a stronger statement (presumably because such a statement would be false). Thus, even though weak scalar expressions such as some and or have a lower-bounded semantics (for instance some means ‘some and possibly all’), their semantic content is typically upper-bounded by a conversational implicature (e.g. ‘some but not all’). More recently, the precise mechanisms responsible for the computation of scalar implicatures (SIs) have become the topic of much debate. There is considerable disagreement as to whether SIs are derived on the basis of broadly Gricean quantity considerations, as the traditional account would have it, or post- Gricean relevance-oriented computations, whether they are the result of local or global calculations, and whether they are context-specific or generalized, default inferences (for varying perspectives, see Hirschberg, 1985; Sperber and Wilson, 1986/1995; Grice, 1989; Carston, 1990, 1998; Horn, 1992; Levinson, 2000; Chierchia, 2001). In several cases, SIs have been used to motivate and illustrate very different views of the architecture of the semantics-pragmatics interface. Despite their prominent place in the theoretical linguistic literature, scalar inferences have attracted relatively little attention in psycholinguistics.. (shrink)

In this paper, the term ‘debate’ refers to a situation in which two parties disagree over some issue and each of them tries to persuade a third party, the listener, to adopt his position by raising arguments in his favor. We are interested in the logic behind the relative strength of the arguments and counterarguments; we therefore limit our discussion to debates in which one side is asked to argue first, with the other party having the right to respond before (...) the listener makes up his mind. (shrink)

According to some philosophers, sentences like (1) “It is raining” and (2) “John is ready” are context sensitive sentences even if they do not contain indexicals or demonstratives. That view initiated a context sensitivity frenzy. Cappelen and Lepore (2005) summarize the frenzy by the slogan “Every sentence is context sensitive” (Insensitive Semantics, p. 6, note 5). They suggest a view they call Minimalism according to which the truth conditions of utterances of sentences like (1)/(2) are exactly what Convention T gives (...) you. I will distinguish different propositions, and refocus semantics on sentences. As distinct from what the protagonists in the ongoing debate think, I argue that the content or truth conditions of utterances of both context sensitive sentences and sentences like (1)/(2) are not interesting from a semantic point of view, and that the problem sentences like (1)/(2) raises is not about context sensitivity or context insensitivity of sentences, but relevance of the content of utterances. (shrink)

In the philosophical debate on lying, there has generally been agreement that either the speaker believes that his statement is false, or he believes that his statement is true. This article challenges this assumption, and argues that lying is a scalar phenomenon that allows for a number of intermediate cases – the most obvious being cases of uncertainty. The first section shows that lying can involve beliefs about graded truth values (fuzzy lies) and graded beliefs (graded-belief lies). It puts forward (...) a new definition to deal with these scalar parameters, that requires that the speaker asserts what he believes more likely to be false than true. The second section shows that statements are scalar in the same way beliefs are, and accounts for a further element of scalarity, illocutionary force. (shrink)

In this Introduction, we provide an overview of the papers included in the special issue of the e-journal Esercizi Filosofici, entitled “La dimensione pragmatica in filosofia, linguistica e semiotica”. The paper is divided into three parts, which are concerned with the application of pragmatics to philosophy, linguistics and semiotics respectively.

The past few years have seen quite a bit of speculation over relevance theorists’ commitment to Fodorian semantics as a means to account for the notion of encoded lexical meaning that they put forth in their framework. In this paper, I take on the issue, arguing that this view of lexical semantics compromises Relevance Theory’s aim of psychological plausibility, since it effectively binds it with the ‘literal first’ hypothesis that has been deemed unrealistic from a psycholinguistic viewpoint. After discussing the (...) incompatibility of Fodor’s philosophical account with the perspective that relevance theorists adopt, I briefly suggest ways in which further behavioural research on the semantics/pragmatics distinction could help advance more cognitively-oriented accounts of encoded lexical meaning. (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)

Moral assertions express attitudes, but it is unclear how. This paper examines proposals by David Copp, Stephen Barker, and myself that moral attitudes are expressed as implicature (Grice), and Copp's and Barker's claim that this supports expressivism about moral speech acts. I reject this claim on the ground that implicatures of attitude are more plausibly conversational than conventional. I argue that Copp's and my own relational theory of moral assertions is superior to the indexical theory offered by Barker and Jamie (...) Dreier, and that since the relational theory supports conversational implicatures of attitude, expressive conventions would be redundant. Furthermore, moral expressions of attitude behave like conversational and not conventional implicatures, and there are reasons for doubting that conventions of the suggested kind could exist. (shrink)

As it seems impossible to find reliable evidence to back up hypotheses on the origin of our use of the linguistic tool in our acts of communication, I believe that we may start by pointing as accurately as possible to the processes involved, using a methodology that attempts to reach the levels of adequacy proposed by Chomsky, complemented by those suggested by David Marr. If we conclude that human communication and human language may have had different origins, we might find (...) a new perspective which opens a vast field of research. (shrink)

The object of this paper is to study the analogy, drawn both positively and negatively, between mathematics and fiction. The analogy is more subtle and interesting than fictionalism, which was discussed in part I. Because analogy is not common coin among philosophers, this particular analogy has been discussed or mentioned for the most part just in terms of specific similarities that writers have noticed and thought worth mentioning without much attention's being paid to the larger picture. I intend with this (...) analogy (looking at others' comparisons) to shed a little light on what is going on in mathematics, how one can understand it a bit other than experientially. This intention is philosophical and the way that I am attempting to accomplish it is also philosophical. I shall conclude my attempt to explain how it is possible and even natural for mathematics and fiction to have the analogy they have, taking it for granted, as argued in part I, that they are not to be identified. To this end I shall discuss philosophers' comparisons, mainly those of Hodes, Resnik, Tharp, and Wagner, who are the writers that seem to me to have written most thoughtfully and sufficiently extensively about fiction in making the comparison and of Körner, whose comparison is different. Whether either of these comparisons or the more general analogy is of permanent philosophical interest will have to be decided by philosophers now that they have had a fuller examination. I shall mention some other writers' reference to fiction, but not all; indeed, I am sure that I have not even found all the comparisons that there are. (shrink)

This paper examines causal theories of reference with respect to how plausible an account they give of non-physical natural kind terms such as ‘gene’ as well as of the truth of the associated theoretical claims. I first show that reference fixism for ‘gene’ fails. By this, I mean the claim that the reference of ‘gene’ was stable over longer historical periods, for example, since the classical period of transmission genetics. Second, I show that the theory of partial reference does not (...) do justice to some widely held realist intuitions about classical genetics. This result is at loggerheads with the explicit goals usually associated with partial theories of reference, which is to defend a realist semantics for scientific terms. Thirdly, I show that, contrary to received wisdom and perhaps contrary to physics and chemistry, neither reference fixism nor partial reference are necessary in order to hold on to scientific realism about biology. I pinpoint the reasons for this in the nature of biological kinds, which do not even remotely resemble natural kinds (i.e., Lockean real essences) as traditionally conceived. (shrink)

This dissertation aims to determine the optimal level of granularity for the variables used in probabilistic causal models. These causal models are useful for generating explanations in a number of scientific contexts. In Chapter 1, I argue that there is rarely a unique level of granularity at which a given phenomenon can be causally explained, thereby rejecting various causal exclusion arguments. In Chapter 2, I consider several recent proposals for measuring the explanatory power of causal explanations, and show that these (...) measures fail to track the comparative depth of explanations given at different levels of granularity. In Chapter 3, I offer a pragmatic account of how to partition the measure space of a causal variable so as to optimally explain its effect. My account uses the decision-theoretic notion of value of information, and indexes the relative depth of an explanation to a particular agent faced with a particular decision problem. Chapter 4 applies this same decisiontheoretic framework to answer the epistemic question of how to discover constitutive relationships in nature. In Chapter 5, I describe the formal details of the relationship between random variables that are meant to be coarse-grained and fine-grained representations of the same type of phenomenon. I use this formal framework to rebut a popular argument for the view that special science probabilities can be objective chances. Chapter 6 discusses challenges related to the causal interpretation of Bayes nets that use imprecise rather than precise probabilities. (shrink)

Distributive egalitarians believe that distributive justice is to be explained by the idea of distributive equality (DE) and that DE is of intrinsic value. The socio-relational critique argues that distributive egalitarianism does not account for the “true” value of equality, which rather lies in the idea of “equality as a substantive social value” (ESV). This paper examines the socio-relational critique and argues that it fails because – contrary to what the critique presupposes –, first, ESV is not conceptually distinct from (...) DE, and second, the idea of ESV cannot serve as a “foundation” or “root” of distributive egalitarianism. (shrink)

In recent years, a number of new trends have seen light at the intersection of semantics and philosophy of language. They are meant to address puzzles raised by the context-sensitivity of a variety of natural language constructions, such as knowledge ascriptions, belief reports, epistemic modals, indicative conditionals, quantifier phrases, gradable adjectives, temporal constructions, vague predicates, moral predicates, predicates of personal taste. A diversity of labels have consequently emerged, such as 'contextualism', 'indexicalism', 'invariantism', 'literalism', 'minimalism', and 'relativism', variously qualified. The goal (...) of this essay is to pinpoint the issues that lie at the heart of the recent debates, clarify what is at stake, and provide a snapshot of the current theoretical landscape. (shrink)

Normative reasons are of constant importance to us as agents trying to navigate through life. For this reason it is natural and vital to ask philosophical questions about reasons and the normative realm. This thesis explores various issues concerning reasons and normativity. The thesis consists of five free-standingpapers and an extended introduction. The aim of the extended introduction is not merely to situate the papers within a wider philosophical context but also to provide an overview of some of the central (...) research questions concerning reasons and normativity. The introduction is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 introduces and outlines the dissertation. Chapter 2 concerns the issue of what a reason is and what different types of reasons there are, such as pro tanto reasons and overall reasons. Chapter 3 discusses the frequently employed weighing metaphor, i.e. that reasons have a certain weight and can be weighed against the weight of other reasons. Chapter 4 covers how reasons relate to other normative notions such as ought, value, and obligation. For example, it discusses whether it is the case that for something to be valuable just is for there to be reasons to favor it. Chapter 5 concludes the introduction by briefly exploring how it all relates.The thesis can be said to be embedded in a recent research trend within philosophy of normativity that has a distinguished focus on reasons.The five papers deal with various issues concerning reasons and normativity. Paper I argues for a novel and theoretically parsimonious way to understand background conditions for values and reasons. Paper II explores an interpretation of the distinction between subjectivism and objectivism about reasons and value so as to accommodate that the distinction does not commit either party to certain first order claims about what reasons there are or what makes objects valuable. Paper III discusses the dictum ‘ought implies can’and how to properly interpret the ‘can’. Paper IV defends principles according to which what we ought and have reasons to do transmit from ends to the necessary means of that action. Paper V analyzes how the Fitting Attitudes analysis of value should best understand degrees of value. (shrink)