It is now a quarter of a century ago that Wolfgang Stegmfiller wrote his monograph 'Das Wahrheitsproblem und die Idee der Semantik' (1957) which dealt with Tarski's and Carnap's foundational work in the field of semantics. While this book is about the definition of the basic semantical concepts in artificial formal languages there is an article written a year earlier (1956) in which Stegmfiller addresses himself specifically to the relation between logic and natural language. Here he gives a logical analysis (...) of the standard structural expressions in language that are still of primary concern for current semantics: quantifiers, pronouns, articles, etc. The motives for such an analysis at that time were mainly philosophical: the aim was to expose the misconceptions and pitfalls of traditional philosophy arising from the disregard of various systematic semantic ambiguities in everyday language. Or as Stegmfiller puts it: Ober sie [i.e. einige nicht triviale F~ille von Vagheit in der A11tagssprache] Klarheit zu gewinnen, ist schon deshalb yon auBerordentlicher Bedeutung, weil Unkenntnis fiber sie zu schwersten philosophischen Verirrungen ffihren kann, namlich entweder der Unterlassung von berechtigten Fragestellungen, oder, was weit h~ufiger vorgekommen ist, der Formulierung yon falsch gestellten Fragen, denen gegenfiber man dann nur die Wahl hat, entweder fiberhaupt keine oder nur sinnlose Antworten zu geben. So logic was to regiment language. Sentences involving the copula and the above-mentioned structure words are assigned one or more unambiguous formal representations in an already interpreted formal language, usually the first order predicate calculus. The natural language expressions thereby receive a precise meaning, since the semantics of the formal language has been specified in advance, as is always assumed. This procedure has, of course, always been common practice, witness the typical syntactical argot of the mathematicians. It carries, however, an obvious methodological presupposition: it is the idea that the logic of our choice to which the formal representations belong is in some sense an adequate framework to express our thoughts. (shrink)

Acknowledgements Five out of the 13 contributions to this volume originate from papers which were presented at the international workshop on “Epistemology, Context, Formalism” held at the MSH-Lorraine in Nancy, France, on November the ...

The goal of this paper is to present and defend an inferentialist account of the meaning of fictional names on the basis of Sellars-Brandom’s inferentialist semantics and a Brandomian anaphoric theory of reference. On this inferentialist account, the meaning of a fictional name is constituted by the relevant language norms which provide the correctness conditions for its use. In addition, the Brandomian anaphoric theory of reference allows us to understand reference in terms of anaphoric word-word relations, rather than substantial word-world (...) relations. In this paper I argue that this inferentialist account has many important merits over its rival theories. One important merit is that it explains why we can use fictional names to make true statements, even if they lack bearers. As a consequence, this theory allows us to use fictional names without committing ourselves to an implausible ontology of fictional entities. Another important merit is that it provides a uniform semantic account of fictional names across different types of statements in which fictional names are involved. (shrink)

RésuméCet article vise à préciser la nature et le contenu des conventions qui lient les membres d'une communauté linguistique et par ce biais à caractériser les relations entre le sens intentionnel et le sens conventionnel d'une énonciation. Je formule, à l'aide d'une version modifiée de la définition de la notion de convention proposée par Lewis , une hypothèse concernant les conditions dans lesquelles on peut dire qu'une langue comprenant des expressions déictiques, des phrases ambiguës et des indicateurs de force illocutoire (...) est effectivement utilisée par une population donnée. Il s'avère cependant impossible de formuler une condition nécessaire et suffisante pour qu'une langue soit la langue d'une population sans presupposer que les membres de cette population ont intériorisé une théorie sémantique pour cette langue.SummaryThe aim of this paper is to specify the nature and content of the conventions linking the members of a linguistic community, and thereby characterize the relations between speaker's meaning and utterance‐type meaning. Using a modified version of Lewis' definition of convention, I put forward an hypothesis concerning the conditions under which one could say that a language containing indexical expressions, ambiguous sentences and illocutionary force indicating devices is effectively used by a given population. However it turns out to be impossible to state a necessary and sufficient condition for a language to be the language of a given population without presupposing that the members of this population have internalized a semantic theory for that language.ZusammenfassungIn der vorliegenden Arbeit wird die Natur und der Gehalt der Konventionen untersucht, die die Mitglieder einer Sprachgemeinschaft verbinden, um dadurch die Beziehungen zwischen der intentionalen und der konventionellen Bedeutung eines Ausdrucks zu charakterisieren. Mit Hilfe einer gegenüber D. Lewis' veränderten Definition des Begriffes der Konvention, formuliere ich eine Hypothese, die die Bedingungen betrifft, unter welchen man sagen kann, dass eine mit deiktischen Ausdrücken, ambigen Sätzen und Indikatoren für illokutionäre Kraft ausgestattete Sprache tatsächlich durch eine gegebene Population verwendet wird. Es erweist sich allerdings als unmöglich, eine notwendige und hinreichende Bedingung dafür zu formulieren, dass eine Sprache die Sprache einer Population sei, ohne vorauszusetzen, dass die Mitglieder der Sprachgemeinschaft eine semantische Theorie dieser Sprache verinnerlicht haben. (shrink)

According to the computational theory of mind , to think is to compute. But what is meant by the word 'compute'? The generally given answer is this: Every case of computing is a case of manipulating symbols, but not vice versa - a manipulation of symbols must be driven exclusively by the formal properties of those symbols if it is qualify as a computation. In this paper, I will present the following argument. Words like 'form' and 'formal' are ambiguous, as (...) they can refer to form in either the syntactic or the morphological sense. CTM fails on each disambiguation, and the arguments for CTM immediately cease to be compelling once we register that ambiguity. The terms 'mechanical' and 'automatic' are comparably ambiguous. Once these ambiguities are exposed, it turns out that there is no possibility of mechanizing thought, even if we confine ourselves to domains where all problems can be settled through decision-procedures. The impossibility of mechanizing thought thus has nothing to do with recherché mathematical theorems, such as those proven by Gödel and Rosser. A related point is that CTM involves, and is guilty of reinforcing, a misunderstanding of the concept of an algorithm. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Backwards-looking operators Saarinen, E. [1979. “Backwards-Looking Operators in Tense Logic and in Natural Language.” In Essays on Mathematical and Philosophical Logic, edited by J. Hintikka, I. Niiniluoto, and E. Saarinen, 341–367. Dordrecht: Reidel] that have the material in their scope depend on higher intensional operators, are known to increase the expressivity of some intensional languages and have thus played a central role in debates about approaches to intensionality in terms of implicit parameters vs. variables explicitly quantifying over them. The (...) current contribution takes a look at these operators from a type-logical perspective. It is shown that extending Gallin's translation from intensional type logic to two-sorted type theory so as to include a version of Yanovich's backwards-looking operators, does not increase the expressive power of formulae with exclusively intensional parameters. The result, which makes use of a theorem by Zimmermann : 65–77]), is illustrated by pertinent examples from the literature. The paper closes by indicating alternative strategies of incorporating backwards-looking operators. (shrink)

According to Anscombe, acting intentionally entails knowledge in ac- tion. This thesis has been near-universally rejected due to a well-known counter- example by Davidson: a man intending to make ten legible carbon copies might not believe with confidence, and hence not know, that he will succeed. If he does, however, his action surely counts as intentional. Damaging as it seems, an even more powerful objection can be levelled against Anscombe: while act- ing, there is as yet no fact of the (...) matter as to whether the agent will succeed. Since his belief that he will is not yet true while his action is in progress, he can- not possibly know that he is indeed bringing about the intended goal. Knowl- edge in action is not only unnecessary for intentional action, it seems, but–at least as regards success-bound types of action–impossible to attain in the first place. -/- In this paper I argue that traditional strategies to counter these objections are unsatisfactory and propose a new account of knowledge in action which has two core features: (i) It invokes an externalist conception of justification which not only meets Davidson’s challenge, but also casts doubts on the tacit internalist premise on which his example relies. (ii) Drawing on recent work about by John MacFarlane, the proposed account conceives of claims to in action as assessment-sensitive so as to overcome the factivity objection. From a retrospective point of evaluation, previous claims about future events and actions can not only be deemed as having been true, but also as having been known. (shrink)

Large-scale language technologies are increasingly used in various forms of communication with humans across different contexts. One particular use case for these technologies is conversational agents, which output natural language text in response to prompts and queries. This mode of engagement raises a number of social and ethical questions. For example, what does it mean to align conversational agents with human norms or values? Which norms or values should they be aligned with? And how can this be accomplished? In this (...) paper, we propose a number of steps that help answer these questions. We start by developing a philosophical analysis of the building blocks of linguistic communication between conversational agents and human interlocutors. We then use this analysis to identify and formulate ideal norms of conversation that can govern successful linguistic communication between humans and conversational agents. Furthermore, we explore how these norms can be used to align conversational agents with human values across a range of different discursive domains. We conclude by discussing the practical implications of our proposal for the design of conversational agents that are aligned with these norms and values. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the study of explicit performative utterances in the following ways. First, it presents arguments that support Austin’s view that these utterances are not assertions. In doing so, it offers an original explanation of why they cannot be true or false. Second, it puts forward a new analysis of explicit performatives as cases of showing performing, rather than of instances of asserting or declaring that one is performing a particular act. Finally, it develops a new account of (...) the role of the performative prefix in signalling performative intentions that shows how the prefix can play a special role in the interpretation of performatives utterances. (shrink)

The paper is a brief survey of the most important semantic constructions founded on the concept of possible world. It is impossible to capture in one short paper the whole variety of the problems connected with manifold applications of possible worlds. Hence, after a brief explanation of some philosophical matters I take a look at possible worlds from rather technical standpoint of logic and focus on the applications in formal semantics. In particular, I would like to focus on the fruitful (...) marriage of possible world semantics and algebra and its evolution leading to very general construction of Wójcicki called referential semantics and some of its refinements. The presentation is informal and sketchy; the main purpose is to put in one place a short, and readable I hope, description of the most important constructions and to point out the main sources of these solutions. (shrink)

This paper recalls some applications of two-dimensional modal logic from the 1980s, including work on the logic of Actually and on a somewhat idealized version of the indicative/subjunctive distinction, as well as on absolute and relative necessity. There is some discussion of reactions this material has aroused in commentators since. We also survey related work by Leslie Tharp from roughly the same period.

While research on object individuation assumes that even very young children are able to perceive objects as particulars, we argue that the results of relevant studies can be explained in terms of feature discrimination. We propose that children start out navigating the world with a feature‐based ontology and only later become able to individuate objects spatiotemporally. Furthermore, object individuation is a cognitively demanding achievement resting on a uniquely human form of enculturation, namely the acquisition of deictic demonstratives. We conclude by (...) outlining empirical expectations for operationalizations of our proposal. (shrink)

Alice has insomnia. She has trouble falling asleep and part of the problem is that she worries about it and realizes that her worrying about it tends to keep from falling asleep. It occurs to her that thinking that she will not be able to fall asleep may be a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Perhaps she even has a thought that might be expressed like this: I am not going to fall asleep because of my having this very thought. This (...) thought attributes to itself the property of keeping her awake. (shrink)

Although the use of possible worlds in semantics has been very fruitful and is now widely accepted, there is a puzzle about the standard definition of validity in possible-worlds semantics that has received little notice and virtually no comment. A sentence of an intensional language is typically said to be valid just in case it is true at every world under every model on every model structure of the language. Each model structure contains a set of possible worlds, and models (...) are defined relative to model structures, assigning truth-values to sentences at each world countenanced by the model structure. The puzzle is why more than one model structure is used in the definition of validity. There is presumably just one class of all possible worlds and just one model structure defined on this class that does correctly the things that model structures are supposed to do. (These include, but need not be limited to, specifying the set of individuals in each world as well as various accessibility relations between worlds.) Why not define validity simply as truth at every world under every model on this one model structure? What is the point of bringing in more model structures than just this one?

We investigate these questions in some detail and conclude that for many intensional languages the puzzle points to a genuine difficulty: the standard definition of validity is insufficiently motivated. We begin (Section 1) by showing that a plausible and natural account of validity for intensional languages can be based on a single model structure, and that validity so defined is analogous in important respects to the standard account of validity for extensional languages. We call this notion of validity "validity!", and in Section 2 we contrast it with the standard notion, which we call "validity2". Several attempts are made to discover a rationale for the almost universal acceptance of validity2, but in most of these attempts we come up empty-handed. So in Section 3 we investigate validity! for some intensional languages. Our investigation includes providing axiomatizations for several propositional and predicate logics, most of which are provably complete. The completeness proofs are given in the Appendix, which also contains a sketch of a compactness proof for one of the predicate logics. (shrink)

In a recent discussion article in this journal, Gila Sher responds to some of my criticisms of her work on what she calls the formal-structural account of logical consequence. In the present paper I reply and attempt to advance the discussion in a constructive way. Unfortunately, Sher seems to have not fully understood my 1997. Several of the defenses she mounts in her 2001 are aimed at views I do not hold and did not advance in my 1997. Most prominent (...) among these are her claims that I reject the formal-structural account, because it licenses “unnatural” logical constants, and that I consider the “truth-functional criterion” for connectives “a paradigm of a successful criterion of logicality”. Both of these claims are simply false, as even a moderately careful reading of my 1997 will show. Other charges she makes have some basis in fact but are inaccurate. For example, she says that I claim that FS is “neutral with regard to the apriority of logic,” and that this neutrality “renders it inconsistent”. What I actually say is that Sher’s acceptance of the neutrality in question is “inconsistent with part of the legacy of Tarski, a legacy that she finds very congenial”, not that FS itself is inconsistent. More interestingly, she misunderstands my claim about the apriority of logic, and clarification of this misunderstanding suggests two distinct ways in which logic might be held to be free of empirical influence. It is also noteworthy that Sher’s statements about the apriority of logic constitute both a change in the position she took in her 1991 and, although she seems not to realize it, an admission that she does not take issue with one of my major criticisms. (shrink)

In a recent discussion article in this journal, Gila Sher responds to some of my criticisms of her work on what she calls the formal-structural account of logical consequence. In the present paper I reply and attempt to advance the discussion in a constructive way. Unfortunately, Sher seems to have not fully understood my 1997. Several of the defenses she mounts in her 2001 are aimed at views I do not hold and did not advance in my 1997. Most prominent (...) among these are her claims that I reject the formal-structural account, because it licenses “unnatural” logical constants, and that I consider the “truth-functional criterion” for connectives “a paradigm of a successful criterion of logicality”. Both of these claims are simply false, as even a moderately careful reading of my 1997 will show. Other charges she makes have some basis in fact but are inaccurate. For example, she says that I claim that FS is “neutral with regard to the apriority of logic,” and that this neutrality “renders it inconsistent”. What I actually say is that Sher’s acceptance of the neutrality in question is “inconsistent with part of the legacy of Tarski, a legacy that she finds very congenial”, not that FS itself is inconsistent. More interestingly, she misunderstands my claim about the apriority of logic, and clarification of this misunderstanding suggests two distinct ways in which logic might be held to be free of empirical influence. It is also noteworthy that Sher’s statements about the apriority of logic constitute both a change in the position she took in her 1991 and, although she seems not to realize it, an admission that she does not take issue with one of my major criticisms. (shrink)

Does general validity or real world validity better represent the intuitive notion of logical truth for sentential modal languages with an actuality connective? In (Philosophical Studies 130:436–459, 2006) I argued in favor of general validity, and I criticized the arguments of Zalta (Journal of Philosophy 85:57–74, 1988) for real world validity. But in Nelson and Zalta (Philosophical Studies 157:153–162, 2012) Michael Nelson and Edward Zalta criticize my arguments and claim to have established the superiority of real world validity. Section 1 (...) of the present paper introduces the problem and sets out the basic issues. In Sect. 2 I consider three of Nelson and Zalta’s arguments and find all of them deficient. In Sect. 3 I note that Nelson and Zalta direct much of their criticism at a phrase (‘true at a world from the point of view of some distinct world as actual’) I used only inessentially in Hanson (Philosophical Studies 130:436–459, 2006), and that their account of the philosophical foundations of modal semantics leaves them ill equipped to account for the plausibility of modal logics weaker than S5. Along the way I make several general suggestions for ways in which philosophical discussions of logical matters–especially, but not limited to, discussions of truth and logical truth for languages containing modal and indexical terms–might be facilitated and made more productive. (shrink)

There is a widespread assumption that ordinary language philosophy was killed off sometime in the 1960s or 70s by a combination of Gricean pragmatics and the rapid development of systematic semantic theory. Contrary to that widespread assumption, however, contemporary versions of ordinary language philosophy are alive and flourishing, but going by various aliases—in particular (some versions of) "contextualism" and (some versions of) "experimental philosophy". And a growing group of contemporary philosophers are explicitly embracing the methods as well as the title (...) of ordinary language philosophy and arguing that it has been unfairly maligned and was never decisively refuted. In this overview, I will outline the main projects and arguments employed by contemporary ordinary language philosophers, and make the case that updated versions of the arguments made by ordinary language philosophers in the middle of the twentieth century are attracting renewed attention. (shrink)

This article studies seriously actualistic quantified modal logics. A key component of the language is an abstraction operator by means of which predicates can be created out of complex formulas. This facilitates proof of a uniform substitution theorem: if a sentence is logically true, then any sentence that results from substituting a predicate abstract for each occurrence of a simple predicate abstract is also logically true. This solves a problem identified by Kripke early in the modern semantic study of quantified (...) modal logic. A tableau proof system is presented and proved sound and complete with respect to logical truth. The main focus is on seriously actualistic T, an extension of T, but the results established hold also for systems based on other propositional modal logics. Following Menzel it is shown that the formal language studied also supports an actualistic account of truth simpliciter. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyze the semantics of the first person pronoun “I” from the perspective of the user/producer distinction. In the first part of the paper, I describe the Simple View and propose three interpretations of its thesis. In the second part, I analyze the notions of use and production of a linguistic token. In the next part, I show that all of the interpretations of SV are sensitive to counterexamples. In the end, I discuss possible answers of the (...) proponents of SV and argue against them. The first aim of this paper is to show that SV is wrong, and the second is to convince the reader that the user/producer distinction is of high importance in the philosophy of language. (shrink)

SummaryThe paper is a critical survey of the semantics and pragmatics of Indexicals. Both the coordinate‐approach due to Lewis and the semantization of pragmatics attempted by Lakoff are shown to be inadequate. Cresswell's more dynamic approach is shown to withstand the objections raised against it. Sophisticated accounts such as a two dimensional tense logic, or a semantics involving pragmatic models and multiple reference models are shown to be necessary to cope with the intricacies of the use of tense in natural (...) language. Benveniste's division of time into physical, chronic and linguistic time is assessed and criticised for missing the phenomenon of tense anaphora. Finally, the problem of the interaction between the utterance's time and the indexicals is analysed. (shrink)

Propositional quantifiers are added to a propositional modal language with two modal operators. The resulting language is interpreted over so-called products of Kripke frames whose accessibility relations are equivalence relations, letting propositional quantifiers range over the powerset of the set of worlds of the frame. It is first shown that full second-order logic can be recursively embedded in the resulting logic, which entails that the two logics are recursively isomorphic. The embedding is then extended to all sublogics containing the logic (...) of so-called fusions of frames with equivalence relations. This generalizes a result due to Antonelli and Thomason, who construct such an embedding for the logic of such fusions. (shrink)

Situations serving as partial worlds as well as events in natural language semantics are constructed from a type-theoretic interpretation of firstorder formulae and (after a type reduction) temporal formulae. Limitations of the Russell-Wiener-Kamp derivation of time from events are discussed and overcome to give a more widely applicable account of temporal granularity. Finite situations are formulated as strings of observations, conceptualized to persist inertially (in the absence of forces).

There are two extant versions of the new tenseless theory of time: the date versionand the token-reflexive version. I ask whether they are equivalent, and if not, whichof them is to be preferred. I argue that they are not equivalent, that the date version isunsatisfactory, and that the token-reflexive version is correct. I defend the token-reflexive version against a string of objections from Quentin Smith. My defence involves a discussion of the ontological and semantic significance of truth conditions, and of (...) the connection between truth and reality on the one hand, and that between truth and meaning on the other. I argue that Smith's objections to the token-reflexive theory stem from his confusing these two aspects of the notion of truth. (shrink)

Logical nihilism is the view that the relation of logical consequence is empty: there are counterexamples to any putative logical law. In this paper, I argue that the nihilist threat is illusory. The nihilistic arguments do not work. Moreover, the entire project is based on a misguided interpretation of the generality of logic.

Why would we argue about taste, norms or morality when we know that these topics are relative to taste preferences, systems of norms or values to which we are committed? Yet, disagreements over these topics are common in our evaluative discourses. I will claim that the motives to discuss rely on our attitudes towards the standard held by the speakers in each domain of discourse, relating different attitudes to different motives –mainly, conviction and correction. These notions of attitudes and motives (...) will allow me to claim that different domains of evaluative discourse have a different distribution of disagreements driven by them. (shrink)

Kripke’s examples of allegedly contingent a priori sentences include ‘Stick S is exactly one meter long’, where the reference of ‘meter’ is fixed by the description ‘the length of stick S’. In response to skepticism concerning apriority Kripke replaced the meter sentence with a more sophisticated variant, arguing that the modified example is more immune to such skepticism. The case for apriority is examined. A distinction is drawn between apriority and a broader notion, “qua-priority,” of a truth whose epistemic justification (...) is dependent on no experience other than that required to justify belief of the deliverances of pure semantics. It is argued that Kripke’s examples are neither a priori nor qua-priori. (shrink)

We focus on a sui generis grounding move in Hindi-Urdu dialogue, namely 'voh hi na'. 'Voh' is third person pronoun and can function as a propositional anaphor in dialogue. 'Hi' and 'na' are two discourse particles in Hindi-Urdu. A dataset consisting of minimal pairs of dialogues is presented to get a better sense of the move. Using dynamic models of discourse structure, we propose a semantics for 'voh hi na' in terms of its update effects.

This book is a synthesis of more than three decades of research into the concept of time and its semiotic nature. If traditional philosophy – and philosophy of time should be no exception – in the shadow of advancing biology can be said to have reached an impasse, one important reason for this, in harmony with Wittgenstein’s vision, appears to have been its lack of appropriate tools for explicating language. The present theory of time proceeds, accordingly, from the exploration of (...) temporal expressions in language as an evolutionary fact. It derives in a hypothetical, coherent feedback process of hierarchically ordered distinctions the semantics of time from its biologically dictated perceptual and cognitive-pragmatic origins. The corresponding abductive-regulative model is anchored in the assumption of biological rhythmization as the very foundation of perception and mental/physical action. Understood to originate in space and spatial perspective, time reveals itself as an instrument for temporal perspective on motion (events and situations) in a process of analysis, i.e., discontinuation of chaos made divisible and continuous by the rhythmical screen. Whereas traditional philosophy of time paid attention almost exclusively to the temporal category of tense, the biopragmatic model sees strong evidence in the perspectival nature of time for ascribing the decisive, and probably universal, role in temporal analysis to the linguistic category of aspect. Aspect may, according to the present findings, be assumed to partake already of change-of-state and cause-effect analysis without which man’s adaptation to new situations – and precondition for survival – would be inconceivable. The proposed model of space/time cognition, inspired by Hegelian dialectics, Heidegger-Gadamer’s hermeneutic circle and Peircean logic, makes Kantian a priori superfluous and liberates time from its enigmatic appearance. For the first time in temporal studies it thus appears possible to derive hypothetically linguistic expressions of time all the way from pretemporal, homogeneous continuity effected by biological rhythmization, via pretemporal metonymic (Gestalt), chunk-wise partitioning – as a general precondition for the perception and, based on primary metaphorization, the cognition of things, space and motion – to temporal analysis/discontinuation proper, primarily by aspectual perspective, and the subsequent synthesized, heterogeneous continuity of temporally ordered events. The conception of time, so disastrous for modern temporal logic, i.e., as moving object assigned extension, divisible continuity (‛linearity’) and direction, can be shown to have emerged as a result of secondary metaphorization. (shrink)

Proceedings of the 11th Semantics and Linguistic Theory Conference, held May 11-13, 2001, at New York University.

Since the dawn of philosophy, the paradoxical interconnection between the continuous and the discrete plays a central rôle in attempts to understand the ontology of the world, while defying all attempts at consistent formulation. I investigate the relation between (classical) logic and concepts of “space” and “time” in physical and metaphysical theories, starting with the Greeks. An important part of my research consists in exploring the strong connections between paradoxes as they appear and are dealt with in ancient philosophy, and (...) their re-appearance in early modern natural philosophy, as well as in the foundations of contemporary science and mathematics. The way paradoxes are dealt with sheds light on a theory’s hidden metaphysical assumptions, especially with respect to matter, space, time and causation, it defines its ontological signature. This conclusion led me to the in-depth study of early modern natural philosophy, the origin of natural science, especially the influences ancient thinkers had on the new conceptions of space, time and causation developed by Newton, Huygens and Leibniz. (shrink)

I happen to believe that though human experiences are to be characterized as pluralistic they are all rooted in the one reality. I would assume the thesis of pluralism but how could I maintain my belief in the realism? There are various discussions in favor of realism but they appear to stay within a particular paradigm so to be called “internal realism”. In this paper I would try to justify my belief in the reality by discussing a special use of (...) indexicals. I will argue for my indexical realism by advancing the thesis that indexicals can be used as an inter-agentic referential term. Three arguments for the thesis will be presented. The first argument derives from a revision of Kaplan-Kvart’s notion of exportation. Their notions of exportation of singular terms can be analyzed as intra-agentic exportation in the context of a single speaker and theirs may be revised so as to be an inter-agentic exportation in the context of two speakers who use the same indexicals. The second is an argument from the notion of causation which is specifically characterized in the context of inter-theoretic reference. I will argue that any two theories may each say “this” in order to refer what is beyond its own theory. Two theories address themselves to ‘this’ same thing though what ‘this’ represents in each theory turn out to be different objects all together. The third argument is an argument which is based on a possibility of natural reference. Reference is used to be taken mostly as a 3-place predicate: Abe refers an object oi with an expression ej. The traditional notion of reference is constructive and anthropocentric. But I would argue that natural reference is a reference that we humans come to recognize among denumerably many objects in natural states: at a moment mi in a natural state there is a referential relation among objects o1, o2, o3, . . , oj, o j+1, . . which interact to each other as agents of information processors. Natural reference is an original reference which is naturally given and to which humans are passive as we derivatively refer it by using ‘this’. (shrink)

I begin by giving reasons to accept the block-universe view, the strongly supported by physics view that we live in a four-dimensional world. According to it, the past and the future are as real as the present. As a result, it seems that the future is determined in the sense that what will be the case will necessarily be the case. In the dissertation, I examine whether we have to accept this consequence. I show that we do not have to (...) bite the bullet: the future might be both real and contingent. I first start to consider modal realism (possible futures are real) as a possible solution. However, I propose then another account, actualist (positing the reality of only one possible world: the space-time we live in). This solution relies on a conventionalist theory about metaphysical modality (Sidelle, 1989). It states that modal modality is purely conventional. In combination with a realist interpretation of natural modality (causal and/or nomological), this framework allows me to propose that the future is conventionally closed and naturally contingent. In this view, the necessity of the future holds in virtue of linguistic conventions and then is conventionally necessary. But this is a distinct phenomenon from the natural contingency of the future: the future is naturally contingent because there are mind-independent probabilistic relations holding between the present and the future. This solution has strong consequences: most importantly, an anti-realist view about ordinary objects and physical particles. I end up by presenting and arguing in favour of the general image of the world that comes out from these views. (shrink)

Upon first hearing sinewaves, all that can be discerned are beeps and whistles. But after hearing the original speech, the beeps and whistles sound like speech. The difference between these two episodes undoubtedly involves an alteration in phenomenal character. O’Callaghan (2011) argues that this alteration is non-sensory, but he leaves open the possibility of attributing it to some other source, e.g. cognition. I discuss whether the alteration in phenomenal character involved in sinewave speech provides evidence for cognitive phenomenology. I defend (...) both the existence of cognitive phenomenology and the phenomenal contrast method, as each concerns the case presented here. (shrink)

Empty names vary in their referential features. Some of them, as Kripke argues, are necessarily empty -- those that are used to create works of fiction. Others appear to be contingently empty -- those which fail to refer at this world, but which do uniquely identify particular objects in other possible worlds. I argue against Kripke's metaphysical and semantic reasons for thinking that either some or all empty names are necessarily non-referring, because these reasons are either not the right reasons (...) for thinking that a name necessarily must fail to refer, or they are too broad -- they make every empty name necessarily non-referential. Plausibly, the explanation for the necessary non-reference of fictional names should be semantic, yet the explanation should not rule out a priori the contingent non-reference of certain other empty names. In light of this, I argue that a name's semantic value needs to carry information about its referential potential. I claim that names do so by encoding information about the way they were introduced into discourse. Names that are fictional will be marked as being non-referential -- they will fail to refer as a matter of their semantics. In contrast, names that are contingently empty will be marked as referential, but they will be failed referential names that could have been successful. The reason, then, for the non-referential status of a fictional name, will be semantic, as our intuitions suggest it should be. Likewise, the reason for the non-referential status of other empty names, those created by acts of failed attempts to refer, will be metaphysical, again, in keeping with our intuitions. (shrink)

This book is about whether reference to an individual is the essential feature of a proper name -- a widely held view -- or whether referring to an individual is simply a contingent feature. Three questions need resolving, then. First, whether all names in particular contexts are themselves referring devices. Second, whether recognizing names types and the consequent issue of their ambiguity can be resolved simply by distinguishing between name types and tokens thereof. Last, whether names are ever referential in (...) the way Kripke and others have convincingly argued. The answer to first two questions is negative. The answer to third is a qualified "yes." I explain the theory that allows for these answers in the manuscript, as well as addressing other issues such as: the problem of fictional names; descriptive names; empty names; what an act of naming consists of; an account of ontological commitment; and the data that suggests that names are predicates. (shrink)