This paper offers a critique of mainstream formal semantics. It begins with a statement of widely assumed adequacy conditions: namely, that a good theory must (1) explain relations of entailment, (ii) show how the meanings of complex expressions derive from the meanings of their parts, and (iii) characterize facts of meaning in truth-theoretic terms. It then proceeds to criticize the orthodox conception of semantics that is articulated in these three desiderata. This critique is followed by a sketch of an alternative (...) conception—one that is argued to be more in tune with the empirical objectives of linguistics and the clarificatory aims of philosophy. Finally, the paper proposes and defends a specific theoretical approach—use based rather than truth based—that is suggested by that alternative conception. (shrink)

I propose a version of inferential role theory which says that having a concept is having the disposition to draw most of the inferences based on the stereotypical features associated with this concept. I defend this view against Fodor and Lepore.

The book is about logical analysis of natural language. Since we humans communicate by means of natural language, we need a tool that helps us to understand in a precise manner how the logical and formal mechanisms of natural language work. Moreover, in the age of computers, we need to communicate both with and through computers as well. Transparent Intensional Logic is a tool that is helpful in making our communication and reasoning smooth and precise. It deals with all kinds (...) of linguistic context in a fully compositional and anti-contextual way. (shrink)

I am concerned with epistemic closure—the phenomenon in which some knowledge requires other knowledge. In particular, I defend a version of the closure principle in terms of analyticity; if an agent S knows that p is true and that q is an analytic part of p, then S knows that q. After targeting the relevant notion of analyticity, I argue that this principle accommodates intuitive cases and possesses the theoretical resources to avoid the preface paradox.

The goal of inquiry in this essay is to ascertain to what extent the Principle of Compositionality – the thesis that the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the meaning of its parts and its mode of composition – can be justifiably imposed as a constraint on semantic theories, and thereby provide information about what meanings are. Apart from the introduction and the concluding chapter the thesis is divided into five chapters addressing different questions pertaining to the overarching (...) goal of inquiry. Chapter Two is an attempt to determine whether the Principle of Compositionality is a trivial principle. It is argued that this is not the case in the context of providing the semantics of natural languages since it is an open question whether the best theories that respect available syntactic and semantic data are compositional. Chapter Three and Chapter Four ask whether there are reasons to think that the Principle of Compositionality is true. It is argued that the three most commonly cited reasons for thinking that correct semantic theories must be compositional – Linguistic Creativity, Productivity and Systematicity – in fact only give us reasons to think that the meaning of complex expressions depend on the meanings of their parts and their modes of composition, but not that the meaning of complex expressions depend ONLY on those factors. Chapter Five asks whether there are any reasons to think that the Principle of Compositionality is false. It is argued that all the phenomena that have been suggested entail non-compositionality are in fact compatible with some versions of compositionality. Even if this conclusion is reached in this chapter, the conclusion of the previous two chapters entails that we are not justified in imposing the Principle of Compositionality as an adequacy constraint on Semantic theories. Chapter Six explores the ways in which information about what meanings are can be derived by imposing constraints on semantic theories. It is argued that the distinction emphasized in Chapter Three and Chapter Four between depending on and depending ONLY on is of critical importance. It is demonstrated that the informative potential of the Principle of Compositionality goes far beyond that of the principle we are in fact justified in imposing on semantic theories. So not only is it the case that we cannot learn anything about meanings from the justified imposition of the Principle of Compositionality – since we cannot justifiably impose it as a constraint on semantic theories – what we could have learned from it had we been justified in imposing it is very different from what we can learn from the principle that we are justified in imposing. (shrink)

The paper submits surprising results of systematical investigating a formal-ethical aspect of conjoining Wittgenstein’s, Moore’s, Parmenides’, Gödel’s, and Łukasiewicz’s ideas. A critique of Wittgenstein’s critique of the natural language of ethics and of metaphysics results in submitting and elaborating a new paradigm of metaphysics as formal axiology. In result, the classical metaphysics and ethics of moral rigor are represented as two-valued algebraic systems of metaphysics and formal ethics respectively. By means of this algebraic model, all the well-known scandal-making metaphysical tenets (...) of Parmenides are produced as translations of corresponding algebraic equations from the symbolic language to the natural one. At the level of submitted discrete mathematical model of formal axiology, Parmenides’ metaphysical concepts “consistency” and “inconsistency,” “completeness” and “incompleteness” are compared with Gödel’s logic ones. Formal-axiological meanings of the words “consistency,” “incompleteness,” “being,” “nonbeing,” “movement,” “knowledge,” “belief,” etc., are considered as moral-evaluation-functions determined by one moral-evaluation-variable. Binary moral-evaluation-functions are studied as well. The functions are precisely defined by tables. Precise definitions of “formal-axiological-equivalence,” “formal-axiological-law,” and “formal-axiological contradiction” are submitted. Thus, one can either generate or examine formal-axiological equations of algebra of metaphysics by “computing” relevant compositions of moral-value-functions. Using this “moral-value-table-computation-technique,” one can arrive to a surprising conclusion that both the notorious sentence of Moore and the incompleteness sentence of Gödel are formally-axiologically inconsistent ones: Hence, they are formally-axiologically equivalent. For overcoming the negative psychological effect of such a surprising result, the author has used graphic models explicating the famous Łukasiewicz’s statement “Logic is morality of thought and speech.”. (shrink)

Semantics in the Montagovian tradition combines two basic tenets. One tenet is that the semantic value of a sentence is an intension, a function from points of evaluations into truth-values. The other tenet is that the semantic value of a composite expression is the result of applying the function denoted by one component to arguments denoted by the other components. Many philosophers object to intensional semantics on the grounds that intensionally equivalent sentences do not substitute salva veritate into attitude ascriptions. (...) They propose instead that the semantic values of sentences must be structured propositions. In rejecting intensional semantics, philosophers who endorse structured propositions also usually reject functional compositionality, undermining both tenets of the Montagovian programme. I defend a semantic theory that incorporates both structured propositions and functional compositionality. I argue that this semantic theory can preserve many explanatory benefits of Montague semantics. Finally, I show how treating composition functional application can resolve core problems internal to a theory of structured propositions. (shrink)

Structured propositions are often invoked to explain why intensionally equivalent sentences do not substitute salva veritate into attitude ascriptions. As the semantics is standardly developed—for example, in Salmon, Soames :47–87, 1987) and King :516–535, 1995), the semantic value of a complex expression is an ordered complex consisting of the semantic values of its components. Such views, however, trivialize semantic composition since they do not allow for independent constraints on the meaning of complexes. Trivializing semantic composition risks “trivializing semantics” Semantics versus (...) pragmatics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005). Yet, proponents of structured propositions suggest a route to reimpose substantive compositionality. While the mapping from a sentence to the structured proposition it expresses is trivially compositional, there is a non-trivial mapping from the structured proposition to its truth-value. This non-trivial level of semantic composition allows the meanings assigned to complex expressions to impose substantive constraints on the meanings of the simple ones. I first articulate the basic desiderata: an account of structured propositions capable of explaining attitude attributions and of delivering a non-trivially compositional semantics. I then show that the two-stage semantics proposed by standard proponents of structured propositions does not satisfy these joint goals. (shrink)