This study examines the concept of “description” and its theoretical foundations. The literature about it is surprisingly limited, and its usage is vague, sometimes even conflicting. Description should be considered in relation to other processes, such as representation, data capturing, and categorizing, which raises the question about what it means to describe something. Description is often used for any type of predication but may better be limited to predications based on observations. Research aims to establish criteria for making optimal descriptions; (...) however, the problems involved in describing something have seldom been addressed. Specific ideals are often followed without examine their fruitfulness. This study provides evidence that description cannot be a neutral, objective activity; rather, it is a theory-laden and interest-based activity. In information science, description occurs in processes such as document description, descriptive metadata assignment, and information resource description. In this field, description has equally been used in conflicting ways that mostly do not evince a recognition of the value- and theory-laden nature of descriptions. It is argued that descriptive activities in information science should always be based on consciously explicit considerations of the goals that descriptions are meant to serve. (shrink)

This is the most comprehensive book ever published on philosophical methodology. A team of thirty-eight of the world's leading philosophers present original essays on various aspects of how philosophy should be and is done. The first part is devoted to broad traditions and approaches to philosophical methodology. The entries in the second part address topics in philosophical methodology, such as intuitions, conceptual analysis, and transcendental arguments. The third part of the book is devoted to essays about the interconnections between philosophy (...) and neighbouring fields, including those of mathematics, psychology, literature and film, and neuroscience. (shrink)

The paper provides an alternative interpretation of ‘pair points’, discussed in Beall et al., "On the ternary relation and conditionality", J. of Philosophical Logic 41(3), 595-612. Pair points are seen as points viewed from two different ‘perspectives’ and the latter are explicated in terms of two independent valuations. The interpretation is developed into a semantics using pairs of Kripke models (‘pair models’). It is demonstrated that, if certain conditions are fulfilled, pair models are validity-preserving copies of positive substructural models. This (...) yields a general soundness and completeness result for a variety of (positive) substructural logics with respect to multimodal Kripke frames with binary accessibility relations. In addition, an epistemic interpretation of pair models is provided. (shrink)

The problem analysed in this paper is whether we can gain knowledge by using valid inferences, and how we can explain this process from a model-theoretic perspective. According to the paradox of inference (Cohen & Nagel 1936/1998, 173), it is logically impossible for an inference to be both valid and its conclusion to possess novelty with respect to the premises. I argue in this paper that valid inference has an epistemic significance, i.e., it can be used by an agent to (...) enlarge his knowledge, and this significance can be accounted in model-theoretic terms. I will argue first that the paradox is based on an equivocation, namely, it arises because logical containment, i.e., logical implication, is identified with epistemological containment, i.e., the knowledge of the premises entails the knowledge of the conclusion. Second, I will argue that a truth-conditional theory of meaning has the necessary resources to explain the epistemic significance of valid inferences. I will explain this epistemic significance starting from Carnap’s semantic theory of meaning and Tarski’s notion of satisfaction. In this way I will counter (Prawitz 2012b)’s claim that a truth-conditional theory of meaning is not able to account the legitimacy of valid inferences, i.e., their epistemic significance. (shrink)

Todd (2016) proposes an analysis of future-directed sentences, in particular sentences of the form 'will(φ)', that is based on the classic Russellian analysis of definite descriptions. Todd's analysis is supposed to vindicate the claim that the future is metaphysically open while retaining a simple Ockhamist semantics of future contingents and the principles of classical logic, i.e. bivalence and the law of excluded middle. Consequently, an open futurist can straightforwardly retain classical logic without appeal to supervaluations, determinacy operators, or any further (...) controversial semantical or metaphysical complication. In this paper, we will show that this quasi-Russellian analysis of 'will' both lacks linguistic motivation and faces a variety of significant problems. In particular, we show that the standard arguments for Russell's treatment of definite descriptions fail to apply to statements of the form 'will(φ)'. (shrink)

The sentence setting the stage for the philosophical investigation within the Philebus is, naively translated, “He says that to enjoy is good.” Instead of the predicate adjective “good,” most interpreters prefer to translate with a definite description, “the good,” with consequences that affect the interpretation of the dialogue as a whole. Part one defends the naïve translation, both in the context of Socrates’ first seven speeches and viewing the dialogue as a whole. Part two considers and rejects the reasons given (...) against the naïve translation on the basis of grammar, idiosyncratic Platonic style, immediate context, and later restatements. (shrink)

(1) Every miner went to a meeting. It seems that (1) can mean either that there was one meeting that every miner went to, or that every miner went to at least one meeting with no guarantee that they all went to the same meeting. In the language of first-order logic we can represent these two readings as a matter of the universal and existential quantifiers having different scope with respect to each other.

In this paper, I argue that contrary to the approach widely taken in the literature, it is possible to retain Russell's theory of definite descriptions and grant some semantic significance to the distinction between the attributive and the referential use. The core of the argumentation is based on recognition of the so-called "roundabout" way in which the use of a definite description may be significant to the semantic features of the sentence: it is a case where the use of a (...) description contributes to the semantics of the sentence by affecting another expression of that sentence. I offer an appropriate example which illustrates the case in question and I demonstrate that the semantic difference between the two uses can be easily captured by Russell's account. (shrink)

This paper presents an experimental study on definite descriptions. According to the classical views, a definite description, i.e., a phrase of the form “the F”, has – roughly speaking - purely descriptive semantics, that is, it designates the object which uniquely (opt. uniquely in a context) satisfies the description. However, as several philosophers including Keith Donnellan have argued, there are uses of definite descriptions on which these expressions do not seem to designate objects which satisfy the descriptions. Namely, a description (...) may refer in some circumstances to an object which does not have the property from the description. This argument is called “the Argument from misdescription” and it is raised against the classical views on the semantics of definite descriptions. In our paper, we present an experimental study on misdescription and explored reactions of ordinary users of language to various statements involving misdescriptions. The results of our research indicate that the intuition of ordinary speakers is consistent with the prediction expressed in the Argument from misdescription. We argue that the most common pragmatic explanation of misdescription, appealing to Gricean distinction between saying and meaning, is unconvincing. We vote for an alternative semantic account of definite descriptions, on which a description “the F” designates an object being F, which is at the same time the most salient individual according to a contextually established ranking of salience. (shrink)

For various reasons several authors have enriched classical first order syntax by adding a predicate abstraction operator. “Conservatives” have done so without disturbing the syntax of the formal quantifiers but “revisionists” have argued that predicate abstraction motivates the universal quantifier’s re-classification from an expression that combines with a variable to yield a sentence from a sentence, to an expression that combines with a one-place predicate to yield a sentence. My main aim is to advance the cause of predicate abstraction while (...) cautioning against revisionism. In so doing, however, I shall pursue a secondary aim by conveying mixed blessings to those who hold the view that in the logical sense of “existence” some existing object is such as to exist contingently. Advocates of this view must concede Williamson’s recent contention that the domain of unrestricted objectual quantification could not have been narrower than it is actually, but predicate abstraction affords them some hope of accommodating this concession. (shrink)

Despite its enormous popularity, Russell’s theory of definite descriptions has received various criticisms. Two of the most important objections against this theory are those arising from the Argument from Incompleteness and the Argument from Donnellan’s Distinction. According to the former although a speaker may say something true by assertively uttering a sentence containing an incomplete description , on the Russellian analysis such a sentence expresses a false proposition; so, Russell’s theory cannot adequately deal with such sentences. According to the latter (...) objection a descriptive sentence is actually ambiguous—it expresses a general proposition when the description contained in it is used attributively, and a singular proposition when the description in question is used referentially; Russell’s theory is inadequate as it fails to capture this ambiguity and offers an analysis according to which a descriptive sentence expresses only a general proposition. These objections are examined in the present dissertation. It is shown here that these objections arise from: (i) ignoring the distinction between the meaning of a sentence and the assertions made by using it, (ii) the failure to distinguish between the semantic meaning of a sentence and the pragmatic meaning with which it is used on a particular occasion. To make the distinction mentioned in (i), a significant part of Scott Soames’ theory concerning meaning and assertions has been adopted in this dissertation; and, to make the distinction mentioned in (ii), a test, namely the cancellability test, and two Distinguishing Criteria, namely DC-1 and DC-2, have been developed here. It has been argued here that if we properly make the relevant distinctions, then we will find that: (a) the phenomenon cited by the Argument from Incompleteness can be well explained keeping the Russellian analysis of descriptive sentences intact, (b) the phenomenon arising from the Argument from Donnellan’s Distinction raises an issue of pragmatics and is irrelevant to Russell’s semantic analysis of descriptive sentences. So, none of the above criticisms poses a genuine threat to Russell’s theory of definite descriptions; his theory actually provides, to a large extent, a correct semantic analysis of descriptive sentences. (shrink)

I present and defend an “indexical” version of the Fine-Tuning Argument. I begin by outlining the dialectic between the Fine-Tuning Argument, the Multiverse Objection, and the This-Universe Reply. Next, I sketch an indexical fine-tuning argument and defend it from two new objections. Then, I show that such an argument is immune to the Multiverse Objection. I explain how a further augmentation to the argument allows it to avoid an objection I call the “Indifference Objection.” I conclude that my indexical version (...) of the Fine-Tuning Argument is no less cogent than the standard version, and yet it is immune to the Multiverse Objection. (shrink)

If intelligent design (id) is to compete with evolutionary theory (et), it must meet the modified falsifiability challenge, that is, make some deductive or probabilistic observational assertions. It must also meet the modified translatability challenge, which it fails if et makes all the observational assertions of id, while id does not make all the observational assertions of et. I discuss four prominent but diverse formulations of id and show that each either fails one of the two challenges or is analytically (...) false. (shrink)

Sentences in context have semantic contents determined by a range of factors both internal and external to speakers. I argue against the thesis that semantic content is transparent to speakers in the sense of being immediately accessible to speakers in virtue of their linguistic competence.

Fregean theories of descriptions as terms have to deal with improper descriptions. To save bivalence various proposals have been made that involve assigning referents to improper descriptions. While bivalence is indeed saved, there is a price to be paid. Instantiations of the same general scheme, viz. the one and only individual that is F and G is G, are not only allowed but even required to have different truth values.

There are many kinds of negation and denial. Perhaps the most common is the Boolean negation not that applies to propositions-in-extension, i.e. truth-values. The others are, inter alia, the property of propositions of not being true which applies to propositions; the complement function which applies to sets; privation which applies to properties; negation as failure applied in logic programming; negation as argumentation ad absurdum, and many others. The goal of this paper is neither to provide a complete list, nor to (...) analyse all of them. Rather, I am going to deal with negation of propositions that come attached with a presupposition that is entailed by the positive as well as negated form of a given proposition. However, there are two kinds of negation, namely internal and external negation. I am going to prove that while the former is presupposition-preserving, the latter is presupposition-denying. This issue has much in common with the difference between topic and focus articulation within a sentence. Whereas articulating the topic of a sentence activates a presupposition, articulating the focus frequently yields merely an entailment. The main contribution of this paper is the proof that the two kinds of negation are not equivalent. While the Russellian wide-scope (external) negation gets the truthconditions of a sentence right for a subject occurring as a focus, Strawsonian narrow-scope (internal) negation is validly applicable for a subject occurring as the topic. I also deal with other kinds of presupposition triggers, in particular factive attitudes and prerequisites of a given property. My background theory is Transparent Intensional Logic (TIL). TIL is an expressive logic apt for the analysis of sentences with presuppositions, because in TIL we work with partial functions, in particular with propositions with truth-value gaps. Moreover, the procedural semantics of TIL make it possible to uncover the hidden semantic features of sentences, make them explicit and logically tractable. (shrink)

Beginning from some passages by Vācaspati Miśra and Bhāskararāya Makhin discussing the relationship between a crown and the gold of which it is made, this paper investigates the complex underlying connections among difference, non-difference, coreferentiality, and qualification qua relations. Methodologically, philological care is paired with formal logical analysis on the basis of ‘Navya-Nyāya Formal Language’ premises and an axiomatic set theory-based approach. This study is intended as the first step of a broader investigation dedicated to analysing causation and transformation in (...) non-difference. (shrink)

This programmatic paper is an attempt to connect some worries in the philosophy of language with some traditional views in artificial intelligence. After a short introduction to the notion of context in philosophy (§1), starting from the inventor of mathematical logic, Gottlob Frege, I list three debates in the philosophy of language where the solution is strongly undecided: §2 treats the debate between holism and molecularism; §3 describes the debate on the boundaries between semantics and pragmatics; §4 hints at a (...) solution of the debate between explicit and implicit view of incomplete descriptions. These debates may be considered case studies on what is happening to the notion of context in philosophy in the first two decades of XXI century; they push us to look for a unifying framework in which to frame those worries: I propose to shift the attention towards a representation of the basic abilities required to navigate across contexts (§5). In the conclusion, I use some suggestions from computer sciences as a contribution towards a better definition of what is meant by “pragmatic competence”, strictly connected to the philosophical enterprise (§6). (shrink)

Explicatures are not cancellable. Theoretical considerations.

Descriptions are phrases of the form ‘an F’, ‘the F’, ‘Fs’, ‘the Fs’ and NP's F (e.g. ‘John's mother’). They can be indefinite (e.g., ‘an F’ and ‘Fs’), definite (e.g. ‘the F’ and ‘the Fs’), singular (e.g., ‘an F’, ‘the F’) or plural (e.g., ‘the Fs’, ‘Fs’). In English plural indefinite descriptions lack an article and are for that reason also known as ‘bare plurals’. How to account for the semantics and pragmatics of descriptions has been one of the central (...) topics in philosophy for centuries. This entry focuses on the historical and contemporary philosophical debate about Bertrand Russell’s theory of descriptions and the theories that developed as responses to this theory. (shrink)

Languages involving modalities and languages involving vagueness have each been thoroughly studied. On the other hand, virtually nothing has been said about the interaction of modality and vagueness. This paper aims to start filling that gap. Section 1 is a discussion of various possible sources of vague modality. Section 2 puts forward a model theory for a quantified language with operators for modality and vagueness. The model theory is followed by a discussion of the resulting logic. In Section 3, the (...) framework will permit us to address a puzzle raised by Elizabeth Barnes and Robert Williams. (shrink)

Donald Davidson and John Searle famously differ, among other things, on the issue of animal thoughts. Davidson seems to be a latter-day Cartesian, denying any propositional thought to subhuman animals, while Searle seems to follow Hume in claiming that if we have thoughts, then animals do, too. Davidson’s argument centers on the idea that language is necessary for thought, which Searle rejects. The paper argues two things. Firstly, Searle eventually argues that much of a more complex thought does depend on (...) language, which reduces a distance between himself and Davidson. Secondly, some of Davidson’s suggestions are promising – in particular the idea that we may lack a vocabulary to capture the contents of animal thoughts. Based on this insight, one might, pace Davidson, grant thoughts to animals. However, this does not mean, pace Searle, that it should be possible to construe even the simplest of such thoughts as propositional. Perhaps we need to move beyond Davidson and Searle by developing a theory of nonpropositional thought for animals. (shrink)

G. F. Stout is famous as an early twentieth century proselyte for abstract particulars, or tropes as they are now often called. He advanced his version of trope theory to avoid the excesses of nominalism on the one hand and realism on the other. But his arguments for tropes have been widely misconceived as metaphysical, e.g. by Armstrong. In this paper, I argue that Stout’s fundamental arguments for tropes were ideological and epistemological rather than metaphysical. He moulded his scheme to (...) fit what is actually given to us in perception, arguing that our epistemic practices would break down in an environment where only universals were given to us. (shrink)

My aim is to show that once we appreciate how Searle (1958) fills in the details of his account of proper names – which I will dub the presuppositional view – and how we might supplement it further, we are in for a twofold discovery. First, Searle’s account is crucially unlike the so-called cluster-of-descriptions view, which many philosophers take Searle to have held. Second, the presuppositional view he did hold is interesting, plausible, and worthy of serious reconsideration. The idea that (...) Searle’s account is a largely Fregean interlude between the Fregean description theory of proper names and Kripke’s proposals presented in “Naming and Necessity” is in major ways a myth, a mythical chapter in how the story of 20th-century philosophy of language is often told. (shrink)

The study of reference often leads to addressing fundamental issues in semantics, metaphysics and epistemology; this suggests that reference is closely linked to the three realms. The overall purpose of this study is to elucidate the structure of some of these links, through a close examination of the “mechanism” of reference. As in many other enquiries, considering the possible (i.e., the modal,) in addition to the actual proves very helpful in clarifying and explicating insights. The reference of a term with (...) respect to possible worlds is commonly called “intension”; so this is a study of intensions. The main contribution of the study is an outline for a “calculator” of intensions. It is argued that the intension of a term is a function of three variables: (a) the way in which the term “picks out” its referent in different possible worlds (semantics); (b) criteria of identity (metaphysics); and (c) the actual state of affairs (actuality). While considering different possible values for these variables, it is demonstrated how the variables combine to generate the term’s intension. In other words, the result is a calculator that when provided with the required values, yields the reference of the term in different possible worlds. By taking into account the possible gap between what we take the values of these variables to be and what they may in fact be, we also gain important insights into the epistemic aspect of reference. In addition, since a rigid designator is a term with constant intension, the proposed thesis provides an elaborate account of rigidity. The first chapter is devoted to the development of the calculator of intensions. Each of the following three chapters elaborates on one aspect of intensions, namely, the semantic, metaphysical and epistemic aspects. In the course of these chapters, various familiar puzzles pertaining to the respective philosophical realms are addressed (many of these puzzles are discussed in Kripke’s Naming and Necessity – a work that considerably inspired this study). In the fifth and last chapter the analysis of intensions is applied to two case-studies from relatively recent philosophical literature: the Kripke-Lewis debate over the identity theory of mind, and the debate over the significance of Donnellan’s referential/attributive distinction. The novel accounts that these applications generate purport to illustrate the importance and originality of the proposed thesis. (shrink)

This is one of a series of articles in which I examine errors that philosophers of language may be led to make if already prone to exaggerating the rôle compositional semantics can play in explaining how we communicate, whether by expressing propositions with our words or by merely implying them. In the present article, I am concerned less with “pragmatic contributions” to the propositions we express—contributions some philosophers seem rather desperate to deny the existence or ubiquity of—than I am with (...) certain types of traps that those who exaggerate the rôle of semantic convention and underestimate the rôle of pragmatic inference are apt to fall into. (shrink)

In 1905 Bertrand Russell took on the problem of definite descriptions, and his analysis became the standard up until 1950 when Peter Strawson criticised Russell’s solution as inadequate. Since then many opponents as well as proponents of the Russellian solution have been involved in a long-term debate on definite descriptions. In this paper I show that both sides of the contention are partly right and partly wrong, because sentences of the form “The F is a G” are ambiguous. However, the (...) ambiguity does not concern reference shift of the description ‘the F’. Rather, the ambiguity consists in different topic-focus articulations of a given sentence involving occurrences of ‘the F’. I demonstrate that when ‘the F’ is used as part of the topic of such a sentence the existence of the object denoted by ‘the F’ is not only entailed by but also presupposed by the sentence. On the other hand, ‘the F’ used in the focus of a sentence triggers merely existential entailment. Thus sentences differing only in their topic-focus articulation should have assigned different logical forms. In order to make such hidden features explicit, I apply the procedural semantics of Transparent Intensional Logic , furnishing sentences with hyperpropositions that are precisely defined in terms of TIL constructions. These are procedures assigned to sentences as their context-invariant structured meanings. Moreover, I generalise the phenomenon of the topic-focus distinction to sentences of any form, proposing an adequate analytic schema of sentences that come with a presupposition. (shrink)

This dissertation consists of three parts. Part I is a defense of an artificial language methodology in philosophy and a historical and systematic defense of the logical empiricists' application of an artificial language methodology to scientific theories. These defenses provide a justification for the presumptions of a host of criteria of empirical significance, which I analyze, compare, and develop in part II. On the basis of this analysis, in part III I use a variety of criteria to evaluate the scientific (...) status of intelligent design, and further discuss confirmation, reduction, and concept formation. (shrink)

Defenders of the Knowledge Argument contend that physicalism is false because knowing all the physical truths is not sufficient to know all the truths about the world. In particular, proponents of the Knowledge Argument claim that physicalism is false because the truths about the character of conscious experience are not knowable from the complete set of physical truths. This dissertation is a defense of the Knowledge Argument. Chapter one characterizes what physicalism is and provides support for the claim that if (...) knowing all the physical truths is not sufficient to know all the truths about the world, then physicalism is false. In chapter two, I defend the claim that knowing all the physical truths is not sufficient for knowing all the truths about the world. In addition to mounting a prima facie case for the knowledge intuition, I present and defend an epistemology grounded in direct acquaintance to provide a more substantive argument to accept it. Chapters three through five address the physicalist objections to the Knowledge Argument. The first set of objections advocates that knowing all the physical truths is, in fact, sufficient for knowing all the truths about the world. The next set of objections admits that there is some sense in which knowing all the physical truths is not sufficient for knowing all the truths about the world. However, these objections maintain that the kind of knowledge that is absent from the complete set of physical truths is know-how or knowledge by acquaintance, and not factual or propositional knowledge. The final set of objections maintain that the kind of propositional knowledge that is left out of the complete set of physical truths is compatible with physicalism. My response to these objections is part of advancing my prima facie case for the Knowledge Argument. The final chapter addresses a structural question that pertains to the Knowledge Argument. Some philosophers have maintained that the structure of the Knowledge Argument invites a kind of self-refutation of any systematic account of reality. The concern is that the Knowledge Argument proves too much, and that the dualist who uses the argument to refute physicalism risks the argument defeating his own position. I will argue that the Knowledge Argument does not refute dualism. (shrink)