The analysis of multimodal argumentation in advertising is a crucial and problematic area of research. While its importance is growing in a time characterized by images and pictorial messages, the methods used for interpreting and reconstructing the structure of arguments expressed through verbal and visual means capture only isolated dimensions of this complex phenomenon. This paper intends to propose and illustrate a methodology for the reconstruction and analysis of “double-mode” arguments in advertisements, combining the instruments developed in social semiotics, pragmatics, (...) and argumentation theory. An advertisement is processed through a five-step path. The analysis of its context, text genre, and images leads to a first representation of the messages that it encodes both pictorially and verbally (step 1). These first semantic representations are further enriched by including their polyphonic articulations and presuppositions (step 2), their explicatures (step 3), and their dialogical functions and illocutionary forces (step 4). These pragmatic steps retrieve the commitment structure of the ad, which allows a further argument analysis conducted through argumentation schemes (step 5). (shrink)

I argue that on very weak assumptions about truth (in particular, that there are coherent norms governing the use of "true"), there is a proposition absolutely inexpressible with conventional language, or something very close. I argue for this claim "constructively": I use a variant of the Berry Paradox to reveal a particular thought for my readership to entertain that very strongly resists conventional expression. I gauge the severity of this expressive limitation within a taxonomy of expressive failures, and argue that (...) despite its strength there is nothing incoherent about admitting its existence. The argument forms part of a project of clarifying precisely what trade-offs are required to secure the kinds of expressive power truth theorists typically want, in the process showing that the admission of very strong expressive limitations may ultimately prove to be the lesser of two evils. (shrink)

Argues that truth, moral right, political right, and aesthetic value may be understood as arising out of a naturalist account of humanity, if naturalism is rightly conceived.

The widely accepted view states that an intention to deceive is not necessary for lying. Proponents of this view, the so-called non-deceptionists, argue that lies are simply insincere assertions. We conducted three experimental studies with false explanations, the results of which put some pressure on non-deceptionist analyses. We present cases of explanations that one knows are false and compare them with analogical explanations that differ only in having a deceptive intention. The results show that lay people distinguish between such false (...) explanations and to a higher degree classify as lies those explanations that are made with the intention to deceive. Non-deceptionists fail to distinguish between such cases and wrongly classify both as lies. This novel empirical finding indicates the need for supplementing non-deceptionist definitions of lying, at least in some cases, with an additional condition, such as an intention to deceive. (shrink)

Discusses the conditions of possibility for intercultural and comparative philosophy, and for crosscultural communication at large. This innovative book explores the preconditions necessary for intercultural and comparative philosophy. Philosophical practices that involve at least two different traditions with no common heritage and whose languages have very different grammatical structure, such as Indo-Germanic languages and classical Chinese, are a particular focus. Lin Ma and Jaap van Brakel look at the necessary and not-so-necessary conditions of possibility of interpretation, comparison, and other forms (...) of interaction and how we can speak of similarities and differences in this context. The authors posit that it is necessary to dissolve the question of universalism versus relativism by replacing the ideal language paradigm with a paradigm of family resemblances and that it is not necessary to share a common language to engage in comparison. Numerous case studies are presented, including many comparisons of Western and Chinese concepts. (shrink)

This dissertation may be divided into two parts. The first part is about the Extended Gricean Model of information transmission. This model, introduced here, is meant to better explain how humans communicate and understand each other. It has been developed to apply to cases that were left unexplained by the two main models of communication found in contemporary philosophy and linguistics, i.e. the Gricean (pragmatic) model and the code (semantic) model. In particular, I show that these latter two models cannot (...) apply to cases where one communicate through spontaneous emotional expressions and how the Extended Gricean Model of information transmission does. The second part of the dissertation is about what emotional signs mean, in various senses of the term ‘mean'. I review existing theories of meaning and see how they apply to emotional signs, i.e. signs which give us information about the affective state of the sign producer. (shrink)

Together, the code and inferential models of communication are often thought to range over all cases of communication. However, their prevailing versions seem unable to fully explain what I call underdeterminacy without ostension. The latter is constituted by communication where stimuli that are not (nor appear to be) produced with communicative or informative intentions nevertheless communicate information underdetermined by the relevant codes. Though the prevailing accounts of communication cannot fully explain how communication works in such cases, I suggest that some (...) version of the inferential model can—if we allow it to extend to non‐ostensive, non‐intentional behaviors. (shrink)

This is an opinionated overview of the Frege-Geach problem, in both its historical and contemporary guises. Covers Higher-order Attitude approaches, Tree-tying, Gibbard-style solutions, and Schroeder's recent A-type expressivist solution.

In this paper I focus on a recently discussed phenomenon illustrated by sentences containing predicates of taste: the phenomenon of " perspectival plurality " , whereby sentences containing two or more predicates of taste have readings according to which each predicate pertains to a different perspective. This phenomenon has been shown to be problematic for (at least certain versions of) relativism. My main aim is to further the discussion by showing that the phenomenon extends to other perspectival expressions than predicates (...) of taste and by proposing a general solution to the problem raised by it on behalf of the relativist. The core claim of the solution (" multiple indexing ") is that utterances of sentences containing perspectival expressions should be evaluated with respect to (possibly infinite) sequences of perspective parameters. (shrink)

There are several innocuous or trivial ways in which to explicate Aristotle’s hylomorphism. For example: objects are characterisable in terms of matter and form; or analysable into matter and form; or understood on the basis of matter and form. Serious problems arise when we seek to specify the sorts of relation holding among the different contributors to the hylomorphic picture. Here are some central general questions: a. What types of relation are most suitable for each n-tuple of contributors? b. What (...) direction and modal profile should each relation have? In addressing such questions we find that the types, directions, or modal character of the relations that we or Aristotle may favour are often in tension with each other, or clearly lead to inconsistencies. The paper focuses on the Modal Question, also known as ‘Ackrill’s problem’: is form essentially or contingently related to matter? I outline a hylomorphic model, what I label the ‘causal-explanatory’ model, and show how it can tackle M. (shrink)

Offers a revised understanding of human subjectivity that avoids the extremes of both traditional humanism and cultural relativism.“Acknowledging the importance of the ‘middle voice’ of rhetoric is a worthwhile endeavor. For this, Vivian’s goals are to be applauded.” — Rhetoric and Public Affairs.

This paper investigates the issue whether metaphors have a metaphorical or secondary meaning and how this question is related to the borderline between philosophy and linguistics. On examples by V. Woolf and H. W. Auden, it will be shown that metaphor accomplishes something more than its literal meaning expresses and this “more” cannot be captured by any secondary meaning. What is essential in the metaphor is not a secondary meaning but an internal relation between a metaphorical proposition and a description (...) of its effects. In order to understand metaphors, we have to share an ability to construe metaphorical meanings at once. The aim of this ability is to uncover an internal relation, which lies behind a particular metaphor. (shrink)

In this chapter, we start by spelling out three important features that distinguish expressives—utterances that express emotions and other affects—from descriptives, including those that describe emotions (Section 1). Drawing on recent insights from the philosophy of emotion and value (2), we show how these three features derive from the nature of affects, concentrating on emotions (3). We then spell out how theories of non-natural meaning and communication in the philosophy of language allow claims that expressives inherit their meaning from specificities (...) of emotions—namely, from being felt, evaluative attitudes toward propositional or non-propositional contents (4). (shrink)

A Note on the Linguistic Determinacy in the Legal Context This paper discusses linguistic vagueness in the context of a semantically restricted domain of legal language. It comments on selected aspects of vagueness found in contemporary English normative legal texts and on terminological problems related to vagueness and indeterminacy both in the legal domain and language in general. The discussion is illustrated with selected corpus examples of vagueness in English legal language and attempts to show problems of the relation between (...) vagueness and ambiguity in the context of legal institutionalised systems.The discussion also evokes theoretical issues which pertain to the relation between legal texts and their contexts, the problem of how linguistic forms acquire their contextual meaning and how linguistic expressions are disambiguated. These issues are further related to the post-Gricean theory of relevance, its inferential model of communication, and the interplay between the linguistic code and inferential processes in communication. (shrink)

A speaker can express the same thought, true under the same conditions, while using different expressions and grammatical constructions. According to Frege, these are differences in colourings. Colourings may convey additional contents; in that, they resemble Gricean conventional implicatures. Sander (2019) argues that Gricean implicatures do not subsume the category of colourings, as some colourings do not communicate their content. I show that this argument relies on a notion of communication focused on the speaker's intentions. But a notion of communicative (...) intentions where a speaker is responsible for the intentions her audience ascribes her possible. Under this notion, since so-called non-communicative colourings trigger specific inferences, a speaker who uses them communicates these inferences. Therefore, I vindicate the communicative role of colourings with content. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel perspective on the force-content distinction making use of truthmaker semantics and an ontology of attitudinal objects, things that are neither acts (or states) nor propositions. It gives a novel norm-based definition of the notion of direction of fit, strictly linking truth and (non-action-guiding) correctness.

Intersemiotic translation (IT) was defined by Roman Jakobson (The Translation Studies Reader, Routledge, London, p. 114, 2000) as “transmutation of signs”—“an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems.” Despite its theoretical relevance, and in spite of the frequency in which it is practiced, the phenomenon remains virtually unexplored in terms of conceptual modeling, especially from a semiotic perspective. Our approach is based on two premises: (i) IT is fundamentally a semiotic operation process (semiosis) and (ii) (...) IT is a deeply iconic-dependent process. We exemplify our approach by means of literature to dance IT and we explore some implications for the development of a general model of IT. (shrink)

Theories of assertion must explain how silencing is possible. This chapter defends an account of assertion in terms of normative commitments on the grounds that it provides the most plausible analysis of how individuals might be silenced when attempting to make assertions. The chapter first offers an account of the nature of silencing and defends the view that it can occur even in contexts where speakers’ communicative intentions are understood by their audience. Second, it outlines some of the normative commitments (...) characteristic of assertion when used in the speech act of telling;. This commitment view of assertion is then used to explain silencing as a matter of being deprived of the ability to make some of the commitments one is trying to acquire. Finally, the main rivals of the commitment view of assertion endorsed here are shown to be unable to account for silencing, at least when they are considered in their purest form. (shrink)

Provisional draft, pre-production copy of my book “The Modal Future” (forthcoming with Cambridge University Press).

This thesis proposes a perspective on language and its development by starting from two approaches. The first is the ecological-enactive approach to cognition. In opposition to the widespread idea that cognition is information-processing in the brain, the ecological-enactive approach explains human cognition in relational terms, as skilful interactions with a sociomaterial environment shaped by practices. The second is the metalinguistic approach to language, which holds that reflexive or metalinguistic language use – talking about talking – is crucial for understanding language (...) and its development. In particular, I defend two theses: 1. A child’s initial communicative behaviour can be explained in terms of attentional actions: social actions that function by directing someone else’s attention. 2. In order for the child’s communicative behaviour to be sensitive to key properties of language, such as semantic content and normativity, she needs to learn metalinguistic skills. The development of this ecological-enactive perspective on language serves two functions. First, the ecological-enactive approach started by considering basic behaviour, such as locomotion and grasping. An approach in the cognitive sciences, however, should be able to account for the full gamut of human cognition. If the perspective developed in this thesis is viable, this is a contribution to extending the ecological-enactive approach to typically human forms of cognition. Second, this perspective throws new light on philosophical problems concerning language. In the different chapters, I deal with questions concerning the nature of linguistic knowledge, explanations of communicative behaviour, and the origins of semantic content and linguistic normativity. (shrink)

The paper presents a logical framework for the representation of interactions between institutional agents, human agents and software agents. A case study is used to analyze how obligations on institutional agents are “propagated” to human and software agents, and how actions performed by these agents count as actions that satisfy the obligations imposed to institutional agents. It is shown that the relationship between the different kinds of obligations and actions can be represented in terms of the concept of “count as” (...) proposed by Searle, of role and of causality. The logical framework focus on those three concepts. (shrink)

Too often in argumentation studies, an emphasis on argumentative norms fails to give adequate weight to elements of emotion and style that are essential to public speech at its best, not only in ordinary practice but especially in those rare moments where public speech arrives at the sublime. In this paper we examine the coordination of argument with figurative and emotive language whose combination yields sublime effects in the poetry of the Hebrew prophets as well as in examples of modern (...) discourse. It is shown that poetic figures, while not fully reducible to argumentative norms, nor rational in the sense commonly applied to argumentation, do in fact contribute in propriety in public discourse; moreover, they surpass mere propriety to generate moments of the sublime. (shrink)

The article presents an analysis of the ways in which knowledge is displayed, contested and renegotiated in the 2007 French presidential debate between Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy. Knowledge displays can be achieved through a series of ‘neutral’ resources, such as informing, explanation or comment, or through face-damaging resources, such as questioning an unknowledgeable interlocutor to prove his inferior epistemic status and boost one’s own. The article focuses on this latter type of knowledge display where a knowledgeable participant engages in (...) question–answer sequences with an unknowledgeable respondent in front of a third party. The article also undertakes an analysis of the multimodal strategies employed by the participant to discredit the opponent. The article intends to contribute to the existent literature on epistemic stance by offering a prototypical example of incongruence between the epistemic status of the questioner and the epistemic stance he adopts. (shrink)

The article examines the change of theoretical framework in analytic philosophy of mind. It is well known fact that nowadays philosophical problems of mind are frequently seen as incredibly difficult. It is noteworthy that the first programs of analytical philosophy of mind were skeptical about difficulty of that realm of problems. One of the most notable features of both those programs was the strong antimetaphysical stance, those programs considered philosophy of mind unproblematic in its nature. However, the consequent evolution of (...) philosophy of mind shows evaporating of that stance and gradual recovery of the more sympathetic view toward the mind problematic. Thus, there were two main frameworks in analytical philosophy of mind: 1) the framework of logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy dominated in the 1930s and the 1940s; 2) the framework that dominated since the 1950s and was featured by the critique of the first framework. Thus, the history of analytical philosophy of mind moves between two highly opposite understandings of the mind problematic. The article aims to found the causes of that move in the ideas of C. Hempel and G. Ryle, who were the most notable philosophers of mind in the 1930s and the 1940s. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAlthough the profound impact of marketization in academic world has been extensively studied, analytical attention is substantially concentrated on the organizational operation of universities. Less attention has been paid to the impact of marketization on the structure of academic disciplines and the communication of academicians, which is particular true in non-English-speaking countries. Drawing on the theory of genre analysis, this study sets out to investigate how the uptake of market discourse reshapes the structure of one Chinese academic discipline – the (...) Chinese English Language Teaching discipline, and how it redefines the pattern of Chinese ELT practitioners’ disciplinary interaction. Textual data examined include textbooks, policy documents, curricula, syllabus, and insiders’ accounts. Analytical results demonstrate that marketization is both a force driving the commercialization of Chinese ELT academic activities and a force facilitating the fragmentation of the formerly monolithic Chinese ELT discipline. (shrink)

Cross-cultural competence is often studied as part of the foreigner's one-way adaptation to the host culture while ignoring the dynamic nature of adaptation at the discourse level of interactions. To address this issue, this article proposes a conceptual model to study cross-cultural discursive competence exhibited in individual interactions in business settings. The model is based on relational empathy and genre theories and, in particular, it develops the notional concepts of `cultural space' and `text reconstruction' that stress a two-way cultural adaptation (...) underpinned by building relational empathy and intercultural alliances. In addition, the study proposes that the triangulation of cultural, institutional and sociocognitive spaces is the key to understanding and interpreting text reconstruction as a dynamic process of two-way cultural adaptation. The three-space model is exemplified through an analysis of cross-cultural interactions that occurred at a business negotiation meeting. (shrink)

With the internationalisation of the Chinese market, Confucian ethics began to draw researchers' attention. However, little research has been conducted in the specific application of Confucian ethics in marketing communication. This article fills in the research gap by examining how Confucian ethics underpins the discourse of Chinese Expo invitations. Chinese sales managers' views are incorporated into the analysis as substantiation of findings. Confucian ethics embraces both qing (emotion) and li (reason) and relevant ethical values such as guanxi (connections), qing, and (...) mianzi (face) play an important role for advertising Expos and trade fairs. The study also highlights the complexities of Chinese Expo advertising that is embedded in inviting behaviour. These findings shed light on understanding Confucian ethics in marketing communications in general and have implications for ethical international marketing and advertising practices. (shrink)

As a worldwide epidemic in the digital age, cyberbullying is a pertinent but understudied concern—especially from the perspective of language. Elucidating the linguistic features of cyberbullying is critical both to preventing it and to cultivating ethical and responsible digital citizens. In this study, a mixed-method approach integrating lexical feature analysis, sentiment polarity analysis, and semantic network analysis was adopted to develop a deeper understanding of cyberbullying language. Five cyberbullying cases on Chinese social media were analyzed to uncover explicit and implicit (...) linguistic features. Results indicated that cyberbullying comments had significantly different linguistic profiles than non-bullying comments and that explicit and implicit bullying were distinct. The content of cases further suggested that cyberbullying language varied in the use of words, types of cyberbullying, and sentiment polarity. These findings offer useful insight for designing automatic cyberbullying detection tools for Chinese social networking platforms. Implications also offer guidance for regulating cyberbullying and fostering ethical and responsible digital citizens. (shrink)

Although advice is routinely offered in ordinary conversation, commentators and analysts have treated it as a special or delicate type of action, noticing a number of challenges associated with both providing and receiving it. In this article, I first describe the most basic social-sequential context for giving advice and explicate how the formulations speakers use to offer advice are adapted to the distinct epistemic configurations that characterize that context. Drawing on Jefferson and Lee’s observations regarding ‘troubles tellings’, I argue that (...) speakers typically offer advice when a co-participant reports an insoluble trouble or problem to one who possess special knowledge about the domain of trouble. I show how this epistemic configuration constitutes a ‘home environment’ for advice-giving and discuss how speakers vary the design of their advice to adapt to the sequential environments that entail different epistemic configurations. Finally, I consider how alternative, contrasting responses to advice manage the epistemic framework set in motion by advice-giving. (shrink)

In this paper, I will discuss why in some circumstances people express their intentions indirectly: the use of Indirect Speech Acts. Based on Parikh’s games of partial information and Franke’s IBR model, I develop game-theoretic models of ISAs, which are divided into two categories, namely non-conventional ISAs and conventional ISAs. I assume that non-conventional ISAs involve two types of communication situations: communication under certain cooperation and that under uncertain cooperation. I will analyse the cases of ironical request and implicit bribery (...) as typical instances of non-conventional ISAs of each situation type, respectively. I then apply the models to analyse the use of conventional ISAs from an evolutionary perspective, which is inspired by Lewisian convention theory. The models yield the following predictions: the use of non-conventional ISAs under certain cooperation relies on the sympathy between interlocutors, which blocks their evolution towards conventional ISAs; in unc... (shrink)

This paper proposes two formal models for understanding real-life dialogues, aimed at capturing argumentative structures performatively enacted during conversations. In the course of the investigation, two types of discourse with a high degree of well-structured argumentation were chosen: moral debate and financial communication. The research project found itself confronted by a need to analyse, structure and formally describe large volumes of textual data, where this called for the application of computational tools. It is expected that the results of the proposed (...) research will make a contribution to formal systems modelling and the evaluation of communication from the point of view of argument soundness. (shrink)

In this paper, illocutionary acts of commanding will be differentiated from perlocutionary acts that affect preferences of addressees in a new dynamic logic which combines the preference upgrade introduced in DEUL (dynamic epistemic upgrade logic) by van Benthem and Liu with the deontic update introduced in ECL II (eliminative command logic II) by Yamada. The resulting logic will incorporate J. L. Austin’s distinction between illocutionary acts as acts having mere conventional effects and perlocutionary acts as acts having real effects upon (...) attitudes and actions of agents, and help us understand why saying so can make it so in explicit performative utterances. We will also discuss how acts of commanding give rise to so-called “deontic dilemmas” and how we can accommodate most deontic dilemmas without triggering so-called “deontic explosion”. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that there is objectivity in international human rights law, against which the justifiability of arguments can be determined, and which could advance the universality versus relativity of human rights debate. Revisiting the three schools of treaty interpretation and applying the three elements of Radbruch’s rule of law, I discuss how the interpreter’s job of balancing those schools has limited room for manoeuvre. I further propose an approach to help jurists detect unjustifiable arguments in treaty interpretation, (...) often in the disguise of relativism. That approach consists of: a non-justifiable argument contradicts all three schools of treaty interpretation; or ignores all three; a justifiable argument is supported by at least one of these schools; a better argument is a more balanced argument, i.e. supported by more elements of interpretation. Finally, I argue that there is a degree of objectivity in each school of treaty interpretation, which is supported by shared intention and speech act theory, and can therefore be held to apply to the whole process of treaty interpretation. I illustrate above arguments with a case, a doctrine, and a country. (shrink)

This article critically examines the relations between epistemics in conversation analysis and linguistic and cognitivist conceptions of communicative interaction that emphasize information and information transfer. The epistemic program adheres to the focus on recorded instances of talk-in-interaction that is characteristic of CA, explicitly identifies its theoretical origins with ethnomethodology, and points to implications of its research for the social distribution of knowledge. However, despite such affiliations with CA and ethnomethodology, the EP is cognitivist in the way it emphasizes information exchange (...) as an underlying, extrasituational ‘driver’ in social interaction. To document how the EP draws upon cognitivist conceptions of information and knowledge, we review examples from the corpus of transcripts analyzed in key publications on epistemics. Our re-analysis casts doubt upon the way EP analysis invokes an underlying order that supposedly drives the evident sequential organization of those transcripts. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a speech-act based account of presumptions. Using a score-keeping model of illocutionary games, I argue that presumptions construed as speech acts can be grouped into three illocutionary act types defined by reference to how they affect the state of a conversation. The paper is organized into two parts. In the first one, I present the score-keeping model of speech act dynamics; in particular, I distinguish between two types of mechanisms—the direct mechanism of illocution and the (...) indirect one of accommodation—that underlie the functioning of illocutionary acts. In the second part, I use the presented model to distinguish between the unilateral act of individual presumption, the point of which is to shift the burden of proof by making the hearer committed to justifying his refusal to endorse the proposition communicated by the speaker, whenever he refuses to endorse it, the bilateral act of joint presumption—‘bilateral’ in that it is performed jointly by at least two conversing agents—the function of which is to confer on the proposition endorsed by the speaker the normative status of jointly recognized though tentative acceptability, and the indirect or back-door act of collective presumption, the purpose of which is to sustain rules and practices to which the conversing agents defer the felicity of their conversational moves. (shrink)

Das Verhältnis von Sprache und Normativität spielt in Judith Butlers Denken eine wichtige Rolle. Im Zentrum ihrer Überlegungen steht der sprachphilosophische Begriff des Performativen, den Butler sowohl zur Explikation der Wirkweise von Normen als auch für die kritische Analyse politischer Praktiken fruchtbar zu machen versucht. Der Beitrag rekonstruiert zunächst Butlers Problematisierung des ambivalenten, zugleich repressiven und produktiven Charakters von Normen und fragt nach den Implikationen von Butlers performativem Normenverständnis für die Konzeption von Subjektivität, Souveränität und Handlungsmacht. Die These lautet, dass (...) sich die Ambivalenz von Normen performativitätstheoretisch über die beiden Sprechakte des Versprechens und der Drohung explizieren lässt. Die Figuration des Handlungscharakters von Normen über die Begriffe des Versprechens und der Drohung verfolgt nicht nur das Ziel, zentrale Aspekte der gesellschaftlichen Wirkweise von Normen zu vergegenwärtigen, sondern auch aufzuzeigen, inwiefern die inhärente Brüchigkeit von Normen für Kritik und Widerstand gegen gewaltvolle Normalisierungsprozesse fruchtbar gemacht werden kann. (shrink)

Behavioral paternalism raises deep concerns that do not arise in traditional welfare economics. These concerns stem from behavioral paternalism’s acceptance of the defining axioms of neoclassical rationality for normative purposes, despite having rejected them as positive descriptions of reality. We argue that behavioral paternalists have indeed accepted neoclassical rationality axioms as a welfare standard; that economists historically adopted these axioms not for their normative plausibility, but for their usefulness in formal and theoretical modeling; that broadly rational individuals might fail to (...) satisfy the axioms for various reasons, making them unpersuasive as normative criteria; and that even if their violation did constitute irrationality, that would not justify paternalists’ choosing among inconsistent preferences to define an individual’s “true” preferences. (shrink)

. The author conceives rules as action‐determining ideas. They are general and of hypothetical form, and they are of three semantic types: descriptive, technological, and normative rules. The most important categorisation of normative rules is the distinction between rules of behaviour and power‐conferring rules. Both kinds of rules are necessary to establish institutions. Principles are a special kind of normative rules. The social existence of normative rules is connected with their institutionalisation as frames for action. The dynamics of rules is (...) in principle based on two elements: on socially approved habit, and/or on authorised norm creation. (shrink)

In his paper, How to Derive ‘Ought’ From ‘Is,’ John R. Searle made a valiant attempt to derive an ought-statement from purely descriptive statements. In a recent issue of Philosophia, Scott Hill has offered criticisms of that proposed derivation. I argue that Hill has not established any errors in Searle's proposed derivation.

Constitutivists believe that we can derive universally and unconditionally authoritative norms from the conditions of agency. Thus if c is a condition of agency, then you ought to live in conformity with c no matter what your particular ends, projects, or station. Much has been said about the validity of the inference, but that’s not my topic here. I want to assume it is valid and talk about what I take to be the highest ambition of constitutivism: the prospect of (...) grounding moral requirements in the conditions of agency. If this can be done, then we can show that everyone is bound by the demands of morality, and we can do so without the customary entanglements—queer normative entities, an implausibly powerful moral sense, or divine lawgivers. (shrink)

I defend the following version of the ought-implies-can principle: (OIC) by virtue of conceptual necessity, an agent at a given time has an (objective, pro tanto) obligation to do only what the agent at that time has the ability and opportunity to do. In short, obligations correspond to ability plus opportunity. My argument has three premises: (1) obligations correspond to reasons for action; (2) reasons for action correspond to potential actions; (3) potential actions correspond to ability plus opportunity. In the (...) bulk of the paper I address six objections to OIC: three objections based on putative counterexamples, and three objections based on arguments to the effect that OIC conflicts with the is/ought thesis, the possibility of hard determinism, and the denial of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities. (shrink)

In this paper a dialogue game for critical discussion is developed. The dialogue game is a formalisation of the ideal discussion model that is central to the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation. The formalisation is intended as a preparatory step to facilitate the development of computational tools to support the pragma-dialectical study of argumentation. An important dimension of the pragma-dialectical discussion model is the role played by speech acts. The central issue addressed in this paper is how the speech act perspective (...) can be accommodated in the formalisation as a dialogue game. The starting point is an existing ‘basic’ dialogue game for critical discussion, in which speech acts are not addressed. The speech act perspective is introduced into the dialogue game by changing the rules that govern the moves that can be made and the commitments that these result in, while the rules for the beginning, for the end, and for the structure of the dialogue game remain unchanged. The revision of the move rules is based on the distribution of speech acts in the pragma-dialectical discussion model. The revision of the commitment rules is based on the felicity conditions that are associated with those speech acts. (shrink)

Argument schemes are abstractions substantiating the inferential connection between premise(s) and conclusion in argumentative communication. Identifying such conventional patterns of reasoning is essential to the interpretation and evaluation of argumentation. Whether studying argumentation from a theory-driven or data-driven perspective, insight into the actual use of argumentation in communicative practice is essential. Large and reliably annotated corpora of argumentative discourse to quantitatively provide such insight are few and far between. This is all the more true for argument scheme corpora, which tend (...) to suffer from a combination of limited size, poor validation, and the use of ad hoc restricted typologies. In the current paper, we describe the annotation of schemes on the basis of two distinct classifications: Walton’s taxonomy of argument schemes, and Wagemans’ Periodic Table of Arguments. We describe the annotation procedure for each, and the quantitative characteristics of the resulting annotated text corpora. In doing so, we extend the annotation of the preexisting US2016 corpus of televised election debates, resulting in, to the best of our knowledge, the two largest consistently annotated corpora of schemes in argumentative dialogue publicly available. Based on evaluation in terms of inter-annotator agreement, we propose further improvements to the guidelines for annotating schemes: the argument scheme key, and the Argument Type Identification Procedure. (shrink)

Inferential or epistemic conditional sentences represent a blueprint of someone’s reasoning process from premise to conclusion. Declerck and Reed (2001) make a distinction between a direct and an indirect type. In the latter type the direction of reasoning goes backwards, from the blatant falsehood of the consequent to the falsehood of the antecedent. We first present a modal reinterpretation in terms of Argumentation Schemes of indirect inferential conditionals (IIC’s) in Declerck and Reed (2001). We furthermore argue for a distinction between (...) epistemic-modal strong and deontic-modal weak IIC’s. In addition, we extend the category of the indirect inferential conditionals in order to include several other deontic-modal subtypes. On the basis of the undesirability of the consequent the hearer in these cases infers that the antecedent is also undesirable. In this way the rhetoric-argumentative strategy of Reductio ad Absurdum is extended from the realm of deductive reasoning to that of practical reasoning. (shrink)

The concept of dignity figures prominently in legal and moral discussion on such topics as human rights, euthanasia, abortion, and criminal punishment. Yet the notion has been criticized for being indeterminate and either insufficient or redundant (or both) in justifying the kinds of legal and moral rights and views its proponents use it to vindicate. The criticisms have inspired some novel conceptions of dignity. One of them is Tarunabh Khaitan’s proposal that dignity should be understood as an expressive norm. In (...) this article, I assess Khaitan’s suggestion. I maintain that it faces two challenges that its advocates should be able to solve for the proposal to be plausible. (shrink)

This article develops a model first proposed in my book Jurisprudence and communication [67]. It takes as its starting point the generally conception that legal rules are valid norms, involving a normative content and expressing themselves in reality through observable conduct. This dualistic character of law is central. Law is both fiction and factual, ideal and real. But the viewpoint that a legal rule is a manifestation of validity in reality, through empirical acts, raises the question how rules as (valid) (...) fictions can be known and understood in their linguistic form. How is meaning attributed to the legal words and how do these words relate to the world of fact? Taking an institutional-pragmatic approach as a starting point, an analytical model is created that can be used as an instrument for the relationship between legal rules as thought objects existing only in the mind, and legal rules as observable conduct. This model seeks to revise the classical models of legal communication that basically focus on the unilateral flow of legal information between ‘senders and receivers’ and their claim of linear causality between rules and conduct. The model here constructed in the theoretical part is then applied to several case studies, in order to analyze the construction of meaning in actual use. Two fundamental rights—the older codified in 1798 and the more recent codified in 1983—in the Dutch Constitution have been analyzed using the model as an instrument. Further, the remarkable shifts in article 96 of the Constitution, the declaration of war, and its consequences, resulting in a new category of war—the armed conflict—have been analyzed, as well as the phenomenon of ‘peacekeeping missions’ involving actual warfare. The new war terminology has created vagueness with respect to the clear-cut division between war and peace, which has been reflected in several cases before Court, including the Eric O. case. The present analysis of the case studies indicates that the model was not in all cases completely tailored to the facts: for example, in the case study on article 96 a broad spectrum of observable legal and non-legal actors dominated the facts in such a way that the model did not fully cover it. The observations on my book by the three respondents in this special issue have contributed to the adaptation and extension of the model. In the Postscript my responses suggest some ways in which their ideas can be implemented. (shrink)

This article introduces the topic ‘‘Production of Referring Expressions: Bridging the Gap between Computational and Empirical Approaches to Reference’’ of the journal Topics in Cognitive Science. We argue that computational and psycholinguistic approaches to reference production can benefit from closer interaction, and that this is likely to result in the construction of algorithms that differ markedly from the ones currently known in the computational literature. We focus particularly on determinism, the feature of existing algorithms that is perhaps most clearly at (...) odds with psycholinguistic results, discussing how future algorithms might include non-determinism, and how new psycholinguistic experiments could inform the development of such algorithms. (shrink)