It is generally assumed that if it is possible to believe that p without believing that q, then there is some difference between the object of the thought that p and the object of the thought that q. This assumption is challenged in the present paper, opening the way to an account of epistemic opacity that improves on existing accounts, not least because it casts doubt on various arguments that attempt to derive startling ontological conclusions from seemingly innocent epistemic premises.

This paper presents novel data regarding the logophoric pronoun in Ewe. We show that, contrary to what had been assumed in the absence of the necessary fieldwork, Ewe logophors are not obligatorily interpreted de se. We discuss the prima facie rather surprising nature of this discovery given the assumptions that de se construals arise via binding of the pronoun by an abstraction operator in the left periphery of the clausal complement of an attitude predicate, and that logophors are elements that (...) are obligatorily bound by such abstractors. We show that this approach can be reconciled with these facts given the additional assumption that elements that are ‘de se’ bound can interact with the concept generator variables posited by Percus and Sauerland to derive de re interpretations of embedded nominals. The proposed set-up has consequences for our understanding of puzzles raised by Heim and Sharvit concerning binding-theoretic effects with de re elements, and for the derivation of the obligatorily de se interpretation of controlled PRO. (shrink)

Sentences containing pronouns and indefinite noun phrases can be said toexpress open propositions, propositions which display gaps to be filled.This paper addresses the question what is the linguistic content ofthese expressions, what information they can be said to provide to ahearer, and in what sense the information of a speaker can be said tosupport their utterance. We present and motivate first order notions ofcontent, update and support. The three notions are each defined in acompositional fashion and brought together within a (...) single and coherentframework. (shrink)

I develop a problem for the Fregean Reference Shift analysis of that-clause reference. The problem is discussed by Stephen Schiffer in his recent book The Things We Mean (2003). Either the defender of the Fregean Reference Shift analysis must count certain counterintuitive inferences as valid, or else he must reject a plausible Exportation rule. I consider several responses. I find that the best response relies on a Kaplan-inspired analysis of quantified belief reports. But I argue that this response faces some (...) serious problems. (shrink)

Saul Kripke's thesis that ordinary proper names are rigid designators is supported by widely shared intuitions about the occurrence of names in ordinary modal contexts. By those intuitions names are scopeless with respect to the modal expressions. That is, sentences in a pair like (a) Aristotle might have been fond of dogs, (b) Concerning Aristotle, it is true that he might have been fond of dogs will have the same truth value. The same does not in general hold for definite (...) descriptions. If one, like Kripke, accounts for this difference by means of the intensions of the names and the descriptions, the conclusion is that names do not in general have the same intension as any normal, identifying description. However, this difference can be accounted for alternatively by appeal to the semantics of the modal expressions. On the account we suggest, dubbed 'relational modality', simple singular terms, like proper names, contribute to modal contexts simply by their actual world reference, not by their descriptive content. That account turns out to be fully equivalent with the rigidity account when it comes to truth of modal and non-modal sentence (with respect to the actual world), and hence supports the same basic intuitions. Here we present the relational modality account and compare it with others, in particular Kripke's own. (shrink)

In this work I reply to Zoltán Vecsey’s criticisms of the semantic account of fictional names I put forward in Orlando. The main tenet of that proposal is that fictional names refer to individual concepts, which I understand in terms of mental files. In Vecsey, the author presents three main objections: no referential shift can be ascribed to fictional names, fictional names are supposed to play two conflicting functions, and the mental file framework is incompatible with an antirealist view of (...) fictional objects. Although the objections are deep and thoughtful, the challenge they involve can be met if certain aspects of the proposal are clarified and developed. (shrink)

It is widely supposed that if there is to be a plausible connection between the truth of a de re attitude report about a subject and that subject’s possession of a singular thought, then ‘acquaintance’-style requirements on singular thought must be rejected. I show that this belief rests on poorly motivated claims about how we talk about the attitudes. I offer a framework for propositional attitude reports which provides both attractive solutions to recalcitrant puzzle cases and the key to preserving (...) acquaintance constraints. The upshot is that there is an independently motivated response to the principal argument against acquaintance. (shrink)

This article deals with the semantics of “double-access” sentences. They are defined as English sentences which have a past tense morpheme in the matrix clause and a present tense morpheme in a subordinate clause in the immediate scope of the matrix past tense. They receive a very peculiar interpretation, which we will refer to as a “double-access interpretation.” The episode described in the embedded clause makes reference to two times: the time referred to by the matrix predicate and the utterance (...) time of the whole sentence. Previous studies on this construction are largely descriptive and do not attempt to analyze it formally, with one important exception. Abusch (1991) addresses the problems connected with the construction and proposes that double-access interpretations involvede re attitudes about intervals. Her proposal contains an important insight and provides one possible account of the double-access construction. My proposal was independently developed at approximately the same time as Abusch's and offers an alternative explanation for the phenomena. I consider a series of hypotheses and conclude that double-access readings involvede re attitude reports about state individuals. This account is couched in an eventuality-based framework and employs the techniques proposed by Cresswell and von Stechow (1982). In order to yield the desired reading, the tense must first adjoin to the complement S, then to the matrix S, leaving two traces in the process. (shrink)

The skeptical Dream argument appeals to the possibility of dreaming. The skeptic holds that states of being awake are subjectively indistinguishable from possible dream states and that this means that we do not know that we are awake. This, the skeptic then claims, means that we have to accept that we do not have external world knowledge.It is natural to assume that there must be a connection between the Dream argument and epistemic internalism, the view that a belief is justified (...) for a given person if and only if the person has cognitive access to all the factors that are needed for the belief to be justified. The problem, the skeptic thinks, is that in order for my belief that I am awake to be justified I have to have cognitive access to something that establishes that I am awake. But according to the skeptic, even if I am awake, this is not something I have cognitive access to. However, the more precise connections between internalism and the skeptical argument are not so clear. (shrink)

The skeptical Dream argument appeals to the possibility of dreaming. The skeptic holds that states of being awake are subjectively indistinguishable from possible dream states and that this means that we do not know that we are awake. This, the skeptic then claims, means that we have to accept that we do not have external world knowledge.It is natural to assume that there must be a connection between the Dream argument and epistemic internalism, the view that a belief is justified (...) for a given person if and only if the person has cognitive access to all the factors that are needed for the belief to be justified. The problem, the skeptic thinks, is that in order for my belief that I am awake to be justified I have to have cognitive access to something that establishes that I am awake. But according to the skeptic, even if I am awake, this is not something I have cognitive access to. However, the more precise connections between internalism and the skeptical argument are not so clear. (shrink)

According to one tradition in the philosophy of language and mind, the content of a psychological attitude can be characterized by a set of possibilities. On the classic version of this account, advocated by Hintikka (1962) and Stalnaker (1984) among others, the possibilities in question are possible worlds, ways the universe might be. Lewis (1979, 1983a) proposed an alternative to this account, according to which the possibilities in question are possible individuals or centered worlds, ways an individual might be. The (...) motivation for the centered worlds theory has primarily to do with self-locating – or de se – attitudes. The focus of this paper is on the less-discussed question of how other-locating – or de re – attitudes ought to be treated within this framework. Most advocates of what we might call the modal approach to attitudes, Stalnaker and Lewis included, offer some kind of descriptivist solution to the well-known problems that other-locating attitudes raise. There are intramural differences between Stalnaker, Lewis, and other modal theorists (e.g. two-dimensionalists) on a number of issues: on the precise nature of the descriptivism involved, how attitude content relates to the asserted content of the sentences we utter, and on the proper semantic treatment of attitude reports. I pass over these differences to focus on a problem common to these various approaches: all face a problem when it comes to characterizing the contents of counterfactual attitudes like imagining, dreaming, and wishing. (shrink)

The most common account of attitude reports is the relational analysis according towhich an attitude verb taking that-clause complements expresses a two-placerelation between agents and propositions and the that-clause acts as an expressionwhose function is to provide the propositional argument. I will argue that a closerexamination of a broader range of linguistic facts raises serious problems for thisanalysis and instead favours a Russellian `multiple relations analysis' (which hasgenerally been discarded because of its apparent obvious linguistic implausibility).The resulting account can be (...) given independent philosophical motivations within anintentionalist view of truth and predication. (shrink)

This paper discusses the semantics of intensional transitive verbs such as 'need', 'want','recognize', 'find', and 'hire'. It proposes new linguistic criteria for intensionality and defends two semantic analyses for two different classes of intensional verbs. The paper also includes a systematic classification of intensional verbs according to the type of lexical meaning they involve.

Paradigm intensional contexts result from the unmarked use of referential expressions as “self‐signs”, signs that refer to themselves as tokens, types, or members of Sellarsian “dot‐quoted” kinds. Self‐signing (but unquoted) linguistic expressions are more difficult to recognize than non‐linguistic self‐signs such as the color of a felt pen's casing that represents the color of ink inside. I will discuss non‐linguistic self‐signing, then examine self‐signing in quotation, in “said that …” contexts and in “believes that … ” contexts. The phenomenon of (...) intensionality may reduce to a kind of equivocation, a matter of notation rather than a necessary feature of language. (shrink)

There is a core to the referential/attributive distinction that reveals a propositional ambiguity that is scope-related and rooted in syntax.

In his famous 1979 article 'A Puzzle About Belief' Saul Kripke presents two puzzles regarding belief attribution, and he uses them to cast doubt on classical substitution arguments against the Millian view that a proper name has a 'denotation' (or reference) but no 'connotation' (or sense). In this article, I present Kripke's puzzles in what I take to be their most revealing form, discuss their relevance to the abovementioned arguments, briefly survey the ways in which philosophers have responded to these (...) puzzles, and call attention to some issues related to the puzzles that have yet to receive the consideration they deserve. (shrink)

George Boolos (1984, 1985) has extensively investigated plural quantifi- cation, as found in such locutions as the Geach-Kaplan sentence There are critics who admire only one another, and he found that their logic cannot be adequately formalized within the first-order predicate calculus. If we try to formalize the sentence by a paraphrase using individual variables that range over critics, or over sets or collections or fusions of critics, we misrepresent its logical structure. To represent plural quantification adequately requires the logical (...) resources of the full second-order predicate calculus. (shrink)

We develop a framework for natural language semantics which handles intensionality via metalogical constructions and deals with degree truth values in an integrated way. We take an axiomatic set theory, ZF, as the foundation for semantic representations, but we make ZF a metalanguage for part of itself by embedding a language ℒ within ZF which is basically a copy of the part of ZF consisting of set expressions. This metalogical set-up is used for handling propositional attitude verbs (limited to believe (...) in this paper). We define a truth function τ which determines the truth value τ(p, T) of an ℒ-proposition p with respect to a theory T. Theories are sets of ℒ-propositions with associated truth values, and can be viewed as a (much more well-defined) replacement for possible worlds. We develop a mechanism for defining belief worlds as theories. We simultaneously develop two different versions of our system - a Boolean version where the set Ω of truth values is {0, 1}, and a degree-truth version where Ω is the interval [0, 1] of real numbers. We use degrees of truth in handling a broad class of semantic predicates that we call base-focus predicates, which include generalized quantifiers as well as many adverb and adjective senses and certain discourse-level predicates. (shrink)

It is shown that the coherence of de re belief ascriptions is doubtful in view of certain plausible principles. Subsequently, it is argued, the standard argument against substitutivity in de dicto ascriptions loses some of its power. Also, some possible reactions to these results are considered.

I develop an argument that believing in the survivability of a mind uploading procedure conveys value to its believers that is assessable independently of assessing the truth of the belief. Regardless of whether the first-order metaphysical belief is true, believing it conveys a kind of Darwinian fitness to the believer. Of course, a further question remains of whether having that Darwinian property can be a basis—in a rational sense of being a basis—for one’s holding the belief. I’ll also make some (...) remarks in the present article toward answering that latter question. (shrink)

This paper argues for a conditional claim concerning a famous argument—developed by Church in elucidation of some remarks by Frege to the effect that the bedeutung of a sentence is the sentence’s truth-value—the Frege–Gödel–Church argument, or FGC for short. The point we make is this :if, and just to the extent that, Arthur Smullyan’s argument against Quine's use of FGC is sound, then essentially the same rejoinder disposes also of Davidson's use of FGC against ‘correspondence’ theories of truth. We thus (...) dispute a contention by Professor Davidson that it is coherent to accept that Smullyan’s rejoinder takes away the force of Quine’s version of FGC, while still consistently using FGC to establish that if true sentences (or utterances) correspond to anything, they all correspond to the same thing. We show that the differences between the cases discussed by Smullyan and Davidson’s version of FGC on which Davidson relies for his contention are irrelevant to the point under dispute. (shrink)

A number of puzzles about propositional attitudes in semantics and philosophy revolve around apparent referential dependencies between different attitudes within a single agent’s mental state. In a series of papers, Hans Kamp offers a general framework for describing such interconnected attitude complexes, building on DRT and dynamic semantics. I demonstrate that Kamp’s proposal cannot deal with referential dependencies between semantically conflicting attitudes, such as those in Ninan’s puzzle about de re imagination. To solve the problem I propose to replace Kamp’s (...) treatment of attitudes as context change potentials with a two-dimensional analysis. (shrink)

Karttunen observes that a presupposition triggered inside an attitude ascription, can be filtered out by a seemingly inaccessible antecedent under the scope of a preceding belief ascription. This poses a major challenge for presupposition theory and the semantics of attitude ascriptions. I solve the problem by enriching the semantics of attitude ascriptions with some independently argued assumptions on the structure and interpretation of mental states. In particular, I propose a DRT-based representation of mental states with a global belief-layer and a (...) variety of labeled attitude compartments embedded within it. Hence, desires and other non-doxastic attitudes are asymmetrically dependent on beliefs. I integrate these mental state representations into a general semantic account of attitude ascriptions which relies on the parasitic nature of non-doxastic attitudes to solve Karttunen’s puzzle. (shrink)

This paper deals with the semantics of de dicto , de re and de se belief reports. First, I flesh out in some detail the established, classical theories that assume syntactic distinctions between all three types of reports. I then propose a new, unified analysis, based on two ideas discarded by the classical theory. These are: (i) modeling the de re/de dicto distinction as a difference in scope, and (ii) analyzing de se as merely a special case of relational de (...) re attitudes. The resurrection of these ideas takes place in a dynamic setting. My formalization of the first idea involves a modification of the presupposition-as-anaphora resolution algorithm for DRT. The second involves treating acquaintance relations as second-order presuppositions, to be bound in the context by means of higher-order unification, or accommodated if necessary. The resulting framework requires no syntactic distinctions between different modes of attitude, with the exception of a specific subclass of de se reports characterized by special ‘ de se pronouns’ (i.e. PRO and logophors). These special pronouns are handled in syntax; everything alse is passed on to the pragmatic resolution module as it appears on the surface. The more sophisticated contextual resolution process nonetheless ensures adequate output truth conditions for a variety of classical and novel puzzles. In particular, I compare the new pragmasemantic system to the classical, syntactic analysis with respect to iterated and quantified reports, and monstrously shifted indexicals. (shrink)

An integrated statement is made concerning the semantic status of nodes in a propositional semantic network, claiming that such nodes represent only intensions. Within the network, the only reference to extensionality is via a mechanism to assert that two intensions have the same extension in same world. This framework is employed in three application problems to illustrate the nature of its solutions.The formalism used here utilizes only assertional information and no structural, or definitional, information. This restriction corresponds to many of (...) the psychologically motivated network models. Some of the psychological implications of network processes called node merging and node splitting are discussed. Additionally, it is pointed out that both our networks and the psychologically based networks are prone to memory confusions about knowing unless augmented by domain‐specific inference processes, or by structural information. (shrink)

No debate acerca da singularidade de, pelos menos, alguns de nossos pensamentos sobre o mundo, assume-se corriqueiramente que o responsável pela natureza singular do episódio mental não é o próprio episódio e, sim, a proposição singular expressa quer por um proferimento assertórico de sentença singular autônoma, quer pela cláusula complementar em um relato de atribuição de atitude proposicional. As rotas semânticas padrão assumem que a singularidade do episódio mental (conceitual) é por assim dizer “herdada” da singularidade do conteúdo. Argumento que (...) este pressuposto apresenta uma lacuna, pois desconsidera o papel desempenhado em certos atos de pensamento, chamados de episódicos, por habilidades cognitivas tais como a capacidade de perceber objetos particulares, de vivenciar (novamente) ou de projetar-se mentalmente em direção a acontecimentos particulares pessoais, diretamente responsáveis por sua singularidade. No entanto, contra a tese de que haveria capacidades episódicas aí envolvidas, argumento que a singularidade dos atos de pensar episódicos se dá pelo exercício pontual no espaço e no tempo dessas capacidades e há, portanto, um sentido não derivado em que eles podem ser qualificados como singulares. (shrink)

I outline Brandom’s theory of de re and de dicto belief ascriptions, which plays a central role in Brandom’s overall theory of linguistic communication, and show that this theory offers a surprising, new response to Burge’s (Midwest Stud 6:73–121, 1979) argument for social externalism. However, while this response is in principle available from the perspective of Brandom’s theory of belief ascription in abstraction from his wider theoretical enterprise, it ceases to be available from this perspective in the wider context of (...) his inferential role semantics and his doctrines of scorekeeping and of the expressive role of belief ascriptions in discourse. In this wider context, Brandom’s theory of belief ascriptions implies that Burge’s argument trivially fails to have the disquieting implications for psychological explanations that it is widely taken to have. Yet since this is not trivially so, Brandom’s theory apparently provides a false picture of our practice of interpreting belief ascriptions. I then argue that Brandom might as well accept the alternative picture of interpreting belief ascriptions that Burge’s argument presupposes: even in the context of his overall project, Brandom’s take on our practice of interpreting them does not afford belief ascriptions with the discursive significance Brandom claims they have. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 94, Issue 3, pp 301 - 331 The idea that we can understand key aspects of the metaphysics of consciousness by understanding conscious states as having a _presentational_ character plays an essential role in the phenomenological tradition beginning with Brentano and Husserl. In this paper, the author explores some potential consequences of this connection for contemporary discussions of the ontology of consciousness in the world. Drawing on Hintikka’s analysis of epistemic modality, the author argues that the essential (...) presentational character of consciousness can be seen as accounting for the familiar failure of substitutivity of identicals in intensional contexts of conscious presentation and further provides for an ontology of conscious presentation that avoids metaphysically problematic commitments to “special” intentional objects. The author next considers how the irreducibility of intensional contexts, if grounded in the presentational character of consciousness, also may provide for a kind of irreducibility of the “first-person” perspective to third-person or objective description across possible worlds. Finally, drawing on Chalmers’ “two-dimensionalist” semantic framework, the author argues that attention to the presentational aspect of consciousness as thus understood, while it provides significant motivation for the existence of the “hard problem” of the irreducibility of consciousness to physical and structural description, is nevertheless consistent with a globally monist, rather than dualist, ontology. (shrink)

In his book The Moral Problem and in a recent issue of this journal, Michael Smith claims to refute any theory which construes the relationship between moral judgements and motivation as contingent and rationally optional. Smith’s argument fails. In showing how it fails, I shall make three claims. First, a concern for what is right, where this is read de dicto, does not amount to moral fetishism. Second, it is not always morally preferable to care about what is right, where (...) this is read de re. Third, the externalist can account for why a good and strong-willed person is reliably motivated in accordance with her moral judgements without appealing to a basic moral motive to do what is right, where this is read de dicto. (shrink)

This article examines genealogical investigations in an attempt to explain what they are, how they work, and what purpose they serve. It is a critique of Robert Brandom’s view of genealogists as naïve semanticists who believe that normative thinking, as it relates to all forms of epistemic inquiry and language use, is reducible to naturalistic causes. This reduction, Brandom claims, is hopelessly misguided and semantically incoherent since genealogies are not epistemically neutral in that “they count no more and no less,” (...) as Habermas put it, than the traditional accounts of moral phenomena that they seek to replace. Nietzsche’s “story” of the origin of guilt in On the Genealogy of Morals is thus not even a useful fiction but merely meaningless. My analysis shows that Brandom’s understanding of genealogy is rather simplistic. While genealogists are naturalists insofar as they attempt to discover the specific historical causes that gave rise to current normative practices, they are neither reductive empiricists nor first-stage semanticists, as Brandom calls them, but multidimensional power-pragmatists. (shrink)

Attitudinal propositionalism is the view that all mental attitude content is truth-evaluable. While attitudinal propositionalism is still silently assumed in large parts of analytic philosophy, recent work on objectual attitudes (i.e. attitudes like ‘fearing Moriarty’ and ‘imagining a unicorn’ that are reported through intensional transitive verbs with a direct object) has put attitudinal propositionalism under explanatory pressure. This paper defends propositionalism for a special subclass of objectual attitudes, viz. experiential attitudes. The latter are attitudes like seeing, remembering, and imagining whose (...) grammatical objects intuitively denote (events or) scenes. I provide a propositional analysis of experiential attitudes that preserves the merits of propositionalism. This analysis uses the possibility of representing the target-scenes of experiential attitudes by the intersection of all propositions that are true in these scenes. I show that this analysis makes available the usual (Russellian) account of intensionality and the common (Boolean) logic for entailments. (shrink)

One can remember events and one can remember facts: to remember an event (e.g. the barista's pouring my coffee this morning), one needs to have personally witnessed this event. To remember a fact (e.g. that the barista was trained in Italy), it suffices to have learned this fact from some other source. The distinction between event-directed (i.e. experiential) and fact-directed (or propositional) attitudes is an established distinction in philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science that is also exemplified by other attitudes (incl. (...) seeing, imagining, and dreaming). Until recently, semantics and the philosophy of language have assumed that experiential attitudes can be more or less straightforwardly reduced to propositional attitudes. However, new work has identified some key properties of experiential attitudes that cast doubt on this reducibility. The present paper discusses the most notable of these properties, focusing on experiential attitude reports. It links these properties to recent developments in formal and philosophical semantics in an effort to foster the development of a rigorous, empirically adequate account of experiential attitudes. (shrink)