I argue that free indirect discourse should be analyzed as a species of direct discourse rather than indirect discourse. More specifically, I argue against the emerging consensus among semanticists, who analyze it in terms of context shifting. Instead, I apply the semantic mechanisms of mixed quotation and unquotation to offer an alternative analysis where free indirect discourse is essentially a quotation of an utterance or thought, but with unquoted tenses and pronouns.

We propose to analyze well-known cases of "imaginative resistance" from the philosophical literature (Gendler, Walton, Weatherson) as involving the inference that particular content should be attributed to either: (i) a character rather than the narrator or, (ii) an unreliable, irrational, opinionated, and/or morally deviant "first person" narrator who was originally perceived to be a typical impersonal, omniscient, "effaced" narrator. We model the latter type of attribution in terms of two independently motivated linguistic mechanisms: accommodation of a discourse referent (Lewis, Stalnaker, (...) Kamp) and 'cautious' updating as a model of non-cooperative information exchange (Eckardt). (shrink)

In ancient Greek the line between direct and indirect discourse appears blurred. In this essay I examine the tendency of Greek writers to slip from indirect into direct speech. I explain the apparent difference between modern English and ancient Greek speech reporting in terms of a development from orality to literacy.

Gardeners, poets, lovers, and philosophers are all interested in the redness of roses; but only philosophers wonder how it is that two different roses can share the same property. Are red things red because they resemble each other? Or do they resemble each other because they are red? Since the 1970s philosophers have tended to favour the latter view, and held that a satisfactory account of properties must involve the postulation of either universals or tropes. But Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra revives (...) the dormant alternative theory of resemblance nominalism, showing first that it can withstand the attacks of such eminent opponents as Goodman and Armstrong, and then that there are reasons to prefer it to its rival theories. The clarity and rigour of his arguments will challenge metaphysicians to rethink their views on properties. (shrink)

The paper argues that grounding is neither irreflexive, nor asymmetric, nor transitive. In arguing for that conclusion the paper also arguesthat truthmaking is neither irreflexive, nor asymmetric, nor transitive.

Uno de los aspectos que resaltan en la obra de Dante es su persistente manera de atacar a la Iglesia Romana y la Divina comedia abunda en ataques directos a una serie de Papas en cuyas obras corruptas Dante acusa la decadencia de la institución eclesiástica y la crisis de la concepción política medieval. Los argumentos de Dante contra el papado corren principalmente por dos vías. La primera, se dedica a evidenciar la corrupción del clero y sus inconvenientes, siendo la (...) Divina Comedia la más completa recopilación de estos ataques. La segunda se embarca en un profundo cuestionamiento al poder temporal que se ha arrogado el Papado Medieval, situación a la que se culpa de los problemas de corrupción que vive el mundo -entre los que se cuentan la anarquía italiana. (shrink)

Fictional names pose a difficult puzzle for semantics. We can truthfully maintain that Frodo is a hobbit, while at the same time admitting that Frodo does not exist. To reconcile this paradox I propose a way to formalize the interpretation of fiction as ‘prescriptions to imagine’ (Walton 1990) within an asymmetric semantic framework in the style of Kamp (1990). In my proposal, fictional statements are analyzed as dynamic updates on an imagination component of the interpreter’s mental state, while plain assertions (...) are updates on a belief component. Proper names – regular, empty, or fictional – are uniformly analyzed as presupposition triggers. The possibility of different attitude components referentially depending on each other is what ultimately allows us to account for the central paradox mentioned above. (shrink)

El presente trabajo se ocupa del lugar de la religión en la última etapa de la obra de Habermas. En la primera parte se muestran las diferentes aristas de la cuestión de la religión, poniendo énfasis en los aspectos filosófico-políticos, sobre todo el que concierne a la “traducción” del lenguaje religioso al secular como un “requisito” de acceso a la esfera pública. En la segunda parte, se reconstruye, señalando sus límites o dificultades, el concepto de “traducción” en Habermas. Para ello, (...) se apela, además, a algunas categorías conceptuales propuestas por Jean-Marc Ferry. La traducción en este marco puede ser entendida en dos sentidos: como una reformulación semántica que apunta a ampliar el universo discursivo de origen (traducción como desencapsulamiento) y como una transformación de los géneros pre o para-argumentativos en argumentativos (traducción como cambio de género discursivo). (shrink)

RESUMENEl presente trabajo tiene por objetivo reconstruir sistemáticamente la “hermenéutica trascendental” de Karl-Otto Apel. En primer lugar, se describe el desarrollo de la interpretación apeliana de Heidegger, la cual consideramos que puede ser dividida en cuatro momentos. En segundo lugar, se explican los principales puntos de disenso de Apel con la hermenéutica filosófica de Gadamer. A lo largo del trabajo sugerimos, además, posibles caminos teóricos abiertos para la hermenéutica trascendental en tanto programa filosófico de investigación. ABSTRACTThis paper aims to systematically (...) reconstruct "transcendental hermeneutics" of Karl-Otto Apel. Firstly, we describe the development of Heidegger's apelian interpretation, which we consider can be divided into four stages. Secondly, we explain the main points of disagreement of Apel with Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. Throughout the work we suggest further possible theoretical opened paths to transcendental hermeneutics as philosophical research program. (shrink)

El presente trabajo se propone señalar algunas tareas posibles para la ética del discurso de Karl-Otto Apel en la actualidad. Tales tareas pueden concentrarse en la necesidad de una teoría de la institucionalización del discurso práctico, como forma de racionalidad práctica realizada socialmente. La pregunta que se ha de responder es qué condiciones marco debe cumplir el discurso para que pueda ser puesto en práctica y qué efectos político-institucionales puede producir en el contexto de instituciones realmente existentes. A partir de (...) Gehlen y de Luhmann -aunque en menor medida-, Apel interpreta a las instituciones como sistemas de autoafirmación que, por un lado, liberan a los sujetos de la carga de la acción, pero, por otro lado, limitan o condicionan la racionalidad práctica consensual-argumentativa propia del discurso. Las coerciones (Sachzwänge) funcionales de las instituciones configuran un campo de acción y un tipo de racionalidad que, de acuerdo con Apel, deberían estar bajo el control del discurso institucionalizado como esfera pública racional (Öffentlichkeit). La relación entre los criterios normativos ideales del discurso práctico institucionalizado y las instituciones realmente existentes debe interpretarse como una tensión o entrelazamiento dialéctico no superable. Si esta interpretación es correcta, la ética del discurso, en tanto teoría crítica de la sociedad, no puede ser entendida como una aplicación sin más de criterios normativos ideales a la realidad histórica o de adecuación de esa realidad a los criterios ideales en su sentido vertical, sino como de mutua correlación horizontal. (shrink)

La presente investigación se propone mostrar la génesis y desarrollo de la tentativa matriz de la filosofía de Gilles Deleuze, el empirismo trascendental. Para ello, se realizará una revisión de las problemáticas por las que atraviesa dicha tentativa a lo largo de la obra de este pensador. Cuidadosa atención recibirán a propósito de la génesis del empirismo trascendental el problema del hábito y el de la constitución de la subjetividad, que Deleuze reconoce en Hume (Empirisme et subjectivité, 1953). A partir (...) de ellos, se establecerán los caracteres principales del que se identifica como problema de los principios, en cuyo seno se define una relación particular entre principio y génesis. Gracias al establecimiento riguroso de dicha relación, Deleuze integra los aportes del empirismo y los de la filosofía trascendental bajo una misma propuesta filosófica. Esta propuesta tendrá a la vista el desarrollo de una crítica sistemática hacia lo dado, con lo cual tanto el objeto como el sujeto del pensar precisarán ser sometidos a una indagación acerca de su génesis. Definido el empirismo trascendental como la tentativa filosófica que apunta a pensar la génesis trascendental o actualización de lo dado, esta investigación espera dar cuenta del ámbito de dicha génesis así como de los principios de determinación que la rigen. Para ello se estudiarán las nociones de campo trascendental, plan de inmanencia y continuo ideal (Différence et répétition, 1968; Logique du sens, 1969). Al abordar esta última noción, se pondrá especial interés en dilucidar la reformulación que efectúa Deleuze de los princip ios de razón suficiente, de indiscernibilidad y de continuidad de Leibniz (Le Pli, 1988). (shrink)

I argue that emojis are essentially little pictures, rather than words, gestures, expressives, or diagrams. ???? means that the world looks like that, from some viewpoint. I flesh out a pictorial semantics in terms of geometric projection with abstraction and stylization. Since such a semantics delivers only very minimal contents I add an account of pragmatic enrichment, driven by coherence and nonliteral interpretation. The apparent semantic distinction between emojis depicting entities (like ????) and those depicting facial expressions (like ????) I (...) analyze as a difference between truth-conditional and use-conditional pictorial content: ???? depicts what the world of evaluation looks like, while ???? depicts what the utterance context looks like. (shrink)

A fictional text is commonly viewed as constituting an invitation to play a certain game of make-believe, with the individual sentences written by the author providing the propositions we are to imagine and/or accept as true within the fiction. However, we can’t always take the text at face value. What narratologists call ‘unreliable narrators’ may present a confused or misleading picture of the fictional world. Meanwhile there has been a debate in philosophy about so-called ‘imaginative resistance’ in which we are (...) inclined to resist imagining (or even accepting as true in the fiction) what’s explicitly stated in the text. But if we can’t take the text’s word for it, how do we determine what’s true in a fiction? We propose an account of fiction interpretation in a dynamic setting (a version of DRT with a mechanism for opening, updating, and closing temporary ‘workspaces’) and combine this framework with belief revision logic. With these tools in hand we turn to modelling imaginative resistance and unreliable narrators. (shrink)

The quotational theory of free indirect discourse postulates that pronouns and tenses are systematically unquoted. But where does this unquotation come from? Based on cases of apparent unquotation in direct discourse constructions (including data from Kwaza speakers, Catalan signers, and Dutch children), I suggest a general pragmatic answer: unquotation is essentially a way to resolve a conflict that arises between two opposing constraints. On the one hand, the reporter wants to use indexicals that refer directly to the most salient speech (...) act participants and their surroundings (Attraction). On the other hand, the semantics of direct discourse (formalized here in terms of event modification) entails the reproduction of referring expressions from the original utterance being reported (Verbatim). Unquotation (formalized here also in terms of event modification), allows the reporter to avoid potential conflicts between these constraints. Unquotation in free indirect discourse then comes out as a special case, where the salient source of attraction is the story protagonist and her actions, rather than the reporting narrator and his here and now. (shrink)

Gilles Deleuze’s research during the 1980s focused on the 17th century German thinker G. W. Leibniz. In 1988, Deleuze published Le Pli, which forms part of a series of works on modern philosophy. This book displays Deleuze’s attention to the interpretations of contemporary commentators on modern philosophy, in this case, on Leibniz. In this context, there occurred a brief and important dialogue between Deleuze and Christiane Frémont, the French commentator and translator of Leibniz, with regard to their respective interpretations of (...) the great German philosopher. This article intends to give an account of the main topics present in that conversation. Firstly, we can say they involve 1) the problem of body and the Leibnizian vinculum substantiale, 2) the question of singularities, 3) the principle of economy and incompossibility, and 4) the Deleuzian concept of vice-diction. Our hypothesis in this study is that the readings made by both authors of the German thinker are mutually involved. It is essential, in order to support this hypothesis, to make precise the demarcations of relations between such readings. For this reason, our research will focus on Frémont’s study Singularités, individus et relations dans le système de Leibniz (2003) and on Deleuze’s work Le Pli (1988). We hope to determine the topics that emerge in the relationship, and to specify convergences and divergences of interpretation. (shrink)

This paper presents some annotations on mental health, from the point of view of implicit notions of madness. To this end, we propose a distinction between the medical, phenomenological existential and socio-critical models. We focus in the latter two in order to achieve a critical approach about the subject, dominated by the medical perspective. According to Foucault's earliest works, this article begins by evaluating criteria of normality in terms of the historical genesis of madness concept. Then, we describe the medical (...) model based on the distinction between illness and symptom. Later, we focus on the phenomenological-existential model to describe the ontological fragility in Laing, i.e. the original core of the self and the world experienced by the schizophrenic person. Finally, we add some considerations related to the social origin of schizophrenia, as stated in the Cooper's and Foucault's perspectives. (shrink)

We propose to characterize imaginative resistance as the failure or unwillingness of the reader to take a fictional description of a deviant reality at face value. The goal of the paper is to explore how readers deal with such a breakdown of the default Face Value interpretation strategy. We posit two distinct interpretative ‘coping’ strategies which help the reader engage with the resistance-inducing fiction by attributing the offending content to one of the fictional characters. We present novel empirical evidence that (...) shows that actual readers use these strategies and we flesh out the exact workings of these strategies by integrating them into a general formal semantic framework for interpreting fiction. (shrink)

Considerando traços da conceptualização das noções de “repetição” e “hábito”, presentes em Empirisme et subjectivité (DELEUZE, 1953, em diante ES), esperamos fazer algumas anotações acerca do percurso que leva até Différence et répétition, tese que Deleuze apresenta em 1968 (doravante DR), cujo capítulo II se debruça na constituição da síntese do presente. Para tanto, será necessário estabelecermos duas etapas na determinação desse percurso. Na primeira etapa, abordaremos a forma em que Deleuze descreve o hábito como princípio complementar ao princípio de (...) experiência na construção do conhecimento. A segunda etapa do percurso requer detalhar a forma em que se produz a articulação das noções citadas em DR. (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)

Comme Bergson clarifie, il est nécessaire de distinguer la multiplicité numérique, propred'éléments homogènes dans l'espace, de celle qui est intensive qui représente le déroulement de la durée ou temporalité (Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience). Pour Deleuze, qui reprendre cette distinction (Différence et répétition, Logique du sens), l'intensité constitue cette différence radicale qui produit des séries de succession hétérogènes dont le déroulement détermine la forme du temps. De cette façon, une sérieintensive dans la succession temporaire engage son propre (...) développement avec celui ded'une autre différente avec lequel elle se trouve en tension. La durée est composée, donc,d'une succession multiple de séries identifiées entre eux. Ici, Deleuze reprend la notion leibnizienne d'incompossibilité (Le Pli). Celle-ci représente l'incompatibilité entre le mondeeffectivement créé et l'infinité de mondes possibles que la divinité a pu concevoir. Deleuzecroit, cependant, qu'il est nécessaire de reconnaître que l'incompatibilité entre les séries d'événements menace incessamment au monde et ne constitue pas seulement unedisjonction à résoudre par la divinité au moment de le créer. Alors, notre article tenteradéterminer la manière dans laquelle Deleuze reprend la pensée de Bergson et de Leibnizpour traiter les sujets proposés. (shrink)

Semantics traditionally focuses on linguistic meaning. In recent years, the Super Linguistics movement has tried to broaden the scope of inquiry in various directions, including an extension of semantics to talk about the meaning of pictures. There are close similarities between the interpretation of language and of pictures. Most fundamentally, pictures, like utterances, can be either true or false of a given state of affairs, and hence both express propositions (Zimmermann, 2016; Greenberg, 2013; Abusch, 2015). Moreover, sequences of pictures, like (...) sequences of utterances, can be used to tell stories. Wordless picture books, comics, and film are cases in point. In this paper I pick up the project of providing a dynamic semantic account of pictorial story-telling, started by Abusch (2012) and continued by Abusch & Rooth (2017); Maier & Bimpikou (2019); Fernando (2020). More specifically, I propose here a semantics of speech and thought bubbles by adding event reference to PicDRT. To get there I first review the projection-based semantics for pictures (section 1), noting the fundamental distinction between symbolic and iconic meaning that makes speech bubbles especially interesting (section 2). I then review the dynamic PicDRT framework for pictorial narratives (section 3), add events (section 4), and propose an account of speech bubbles as quotational event modification (section 5). I end with a brief look at other conventional, symbolic enrichments in comics (section 6). (shrink)

The Foucault’s conception of power, so as those instructions that lead to think the body as a surface or exteriority, enable to suppose that body transcends the restrictive context with the one usually associated with. For that, it’s necessary to inquire into the Foucault’s form to think about the exteriority; principally the one that persists between visibility and enunciation. This subject will be analyzed starting from the multiples forms with which they appear in the foucaultian’s proposition, especially about the clinic (...) and the explanation of the passage from classic to modern culture. (shrink)

We propose an extension of Discourse Respresentation Theory (DRT) for analyzing pictorial narratives. We test drive our PicDRT framework by analyzing the way authors represent characters’ mental states and perception in comics. Our investigation goes beyond Abusch and Rooth (2017) in handling not just free perception sequences, but also a form of apparent perspective blending somewhat reminiscent of free indirect discourse.

Despite the distance between the philosophies of Merleau-Ponty and of Deleuze, it is possible to discover not only analogue complicity with regard to thecriticism addressed to Husserl. In the aesthetic, for example, we note that the last thoughtsof Merleau-Ponty, present mainly in The visible and the invisible, are a constant referencefor the works that Deleuze dedicates to the painter Francis Bacon. In the present researchwe expect to define the passages on account of the reading of Husserl, and to show thepoint (...) of contact between Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze. So, we hope to change the image of apparent indifference with regard to understanding their philosophies. (shrink)

In this note we shall argue that Milne’s new effort does not refute Truthmaker Maximalism. According to Truthmaker Maximalism, every truth has a truthmaker. Milne has attempted to refute it using the following self-referential sentence M: This sentence has no truthmaker. Essential to his refutation is that M is like the Gödel sentence and unlike the Liar, and one way in which Milne supports this assimilation is through the claim that his proof is essentially object-level and not semantic. In Section (...) 2, we shall argue that Milne is still begging the question against Truthmaker Maximalism. In Section 3, we shall argue that even assimilating M to the Liar does not force the truthmaker maximalist to maintain the ‘dull option’ that M does not express a proposition. There are other options open and, though they imply revising the logic in Milne’s reasoning, this is not one of the possible revisions he considers. In Section 4, we shall suggest that Milne’s proof requires an implicit appeal to semantic principles and notions. In Section 5, we shall point out that there are two important dissimilarities between M and the Gödel sentence. Section 6 is a brief summary and conclusion. (shrink)

1. The Bundle Theory I shall discuss is a theory about the nature of substances or concrete particulars, like apples, chairs, atoms, stars and people. The point of the Bundle Theory is to avoid undesirable entities like substrata that allegedly constitute particulars. The version of the Bundle Theory I shall discuss takes particulars to be entirely constituted by the universals they instantiate.' Thus particulars are said to be just bundles of universals. Together with the claim that it is necessary that (...) particulars have constituents, the fundamental claim of the Bundle Theory is: (BT) Necessarily, for every particular x and every entity y, y constitutes x if and only ify is a universal and x instantiates y. 2 The standard and supposedly devastating objection to the Bundle Theory is that it entails or is committed to a false version of the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles (Armstrong 1978: 91, Loux 1998: 107), namely: (Pll) Necessarily, for all particulars x and y and every universal z, if z is instantiated by x if and only if z is instantiated byy, then x is numerically identical with y. The most famous counterexample to the Identity of Indiscernibles is that put forward by Max Black, consisting of a world where there are only two iron spheres two miles apart from each other, having the same diameter, temperature, colour, shape, size, etc (Black 1952: 156). Let us from now on think of the properties of the spheres in this world as universals. The possibility of this world, which I shall hereafter refer to as 'Black's world', makes (Pll) false.' And according to common philosophical opinion this means that the Bundle Theory is false.. (shrink)

Les débats éthiques sur l’architecture ont traditionnellement abordé trois thématiques récurrentes : la beauté, la solidité et l’utilité de l’œuvre architecturale. Plus récemment, les nouvelles connaissances provenant du domaine de la gestion des projets et du développement durable ont apporté d’importantes contributions à la compréhension de la gouvernance de projets. Cependant, la démarche de réalisation des projets d’architecture est tributaire des caractéristiques propres à l’industrie du bâtiment; une industrie qui fonctionne grâce à la mise en place d’équipes temporaires formées par (...) des organisations hautement spécialisées. L’analyse systémique d’études de cas permet d’identifier la complexité des équipes qui interviennent dans les projets d’architecture. Nous examinons dans cet article trois caractéristiques de l’industrie du bâtiment : (i) la com- plexité organisationnelle du donneur d’ouvrage, (ii) l’influence des parties prenantes, et (iii) les divers niveaux de proximité entre l’architecte et les usagers. L’identification des diverses configurations organisationnelles met en évidence les effets de ces caractéristiques sur les relations formelles et informelles entre l’architecte et les donneurs d’ouvrage ainsi que celles entre toutes les parties prenantes. L’architecte est contraint de travailler sur un projet qui devient, de plus en plus, l’objet de négociation entre les diverses parties prenantes. Face à ce défi, il doit tenir compte de la complexité des relations entre tous les acteurs au sein du système social du projet et créer les scénarios adéquats à la participation, à la négociation et aux échanges entre eux. (shrink)

Novels like Fight Club or American Psycho are said to be instances of unreliable narration: the first person narrator presents an evidently distorted picture of the fictional world. The film adaptations of these novels are likewise said to involve unreliable narration. I resist this extension of the term ‘unreliable narration’ to film. My argument for this rests on the observation that unreliable narration requires a personal narrator while film typically involves an impersonal narrator. The kind of ambiguous story-telling that we (...) find in literary fiction with unreliable narrators, where for certain descriptions it is unclear whether what we’re told is an accurate account of what’s happening in the story world or not, can instead be achieved by conventionalized filmmaking techniques for reporting the contents of mental states, like the point of view shot, but especially the more ambiguous blended perspective shot. (shrink)

Leibniz was a philosopher of principles: the principles of Contradiction, of Sufficient Reason, of Identity of Indiscernibles, of Plenitude, of the Best, and of Continuity are among the most famous Leibnizian principles. In this article I shall focus on the first three principles; I shall discuss various formulations of the principles (sect. 1), what it means for these theses to have the status of principles or axioms in Leibniz’s philosophy (sect. 2), the fundamental character of the Principles of Contradiction and (...) Sufficient Reason (sect. 3), some attempts to demonstrate the Principles of Contradiction and Sufficient Reason (sect. 4), and one attempt to demonstrate the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles (sect. 5). The main results of the chapter are summarized in a short conclusion (sect. 6). (shrink)

Dreams are not real, so when we recount them we prefix an intensional operator like “I dreamed that…”. Linguists will analyze this construction in terms of clausal complementation syntax and possible worlds semantics. But talking about a dream is often more like telling a story, with a potentially complex discourse structure (involving propositional discourse units connected by coherence relations like NARRATION, BACKGROUND, and EXPLANATION) that is hard to fit inside a single syntactically embedded that-clause (or a sequence of independently embedded (...) clauses). I show how we can analyze actual, complex dream report stories using a formal discourse semantics framework. I then explore how to extend this discourse framework to visual dream reporting, like in movies and comics, where it’s not immediately clear that we even have any intensional operators or embeddings to begin with. (shrink)

The communication of de se attitudes poses a problem for “participant- neutral” analyses of communication in terms of propositions expressed or proposed updates to the common ground: when you tell me “I am an idiot”, you express a first person de se attitude, but as a result I form a different, second person attitude, viz. that you are an idiot. I argue that when we take seriously the asymmetry between speaker and hearer in semantics this problem disappears. To prove this (...) I propose a concrete model of communication as the transmission of information from the speaker’s mental state to the hearer’s. My analysis is couched in Discourse Representation Theory, a formal semantic framework that linguists use for modeling conversational common ground updates, but that can also be applied to describe the individual speech participants’ dynamically changing mental states. (shrink)

This bulletin contains a summary of the main topics of discussion in truthmaker theory, namely: the definition of truthmakers, problems with Truthmaker Necessitarianism and Truthmaker Maximalism, the ontological burden of truthmakers and the recalcitrant topic of truthmakers for negative truths.

Lying and fiction both involve the deliberate production of statements that fail to obey Grice’s first Maxim of Quality (“do not say what you believe to be false”). The question thus arises if we can provide a uniform analysis for fiction and lies. In this chapter I discuss the similarities, but also some fundamental differences between lying and fiction. I argue that there’s little hope for a satisfying account within a traditional truth conditional semantic framework. Rather than immediately moving to (...) a fully pragmatic analysis involving distinct speech acts of fiction-making and lying, I will first explore how far we get with the assumption that both are simply assertions, analyzed in a Stalnakerian framework, i.e. as proposals to update the common ground. (shrink)

En este artículo se sistematiza la perspectiva teórica de Pierre Bourdieu sobre las clases sociales. Se presentan las críticas que realiza a los puntos de vista objetivista y subjetivista en teoría social, los fundamentos de su propia propuesta, el concepto de habitus de clase, y las luchas de clasificaciones mediante las que se constituyen las clases.

Lying and fiction both involve the deliberate production of statements that fail to obey Grice’s first Maxim of Quality (“do not say what you believe to be false”). The question thus arises if we can provide a uniform analysis for fiction and lies. In this chapter I discuss the similarities, but also some fundamental differences between lying and fiction. I argue that there’s little hope for a satisfying account within a traditional truth conditional semantic framework. Rather than immediately moving to (...) a fully pragmatic analysis involving distinct speech acts of fiction-making and lying, I will first explore how far we get with the assumption that both are simply assertions, analyzed in a Stalnakerian framework, i.e. as proposals to update the common ground. (shrink)

The concept of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is ubiquitous in the public and semi-technical domain, yet rarely defined precisely. We clarify main concepts that are usually discussed in connection to GenAI and argue that one ought to distinguish between the technical and the public discourse. In order to show its complex development and associated conceptual ambiguities, we offer a historical-systematic reconstruction of GenAI and explicitly discuss two exemplary cases: the generative status of the Large Language Model BERT and the differences (...) between protein structure predictions from AlphaFold 2 and 3. Our analysis shows that there is no unique and unambiguous definition of GenAI based on a purely technical account of the term. Following this conclusion, we argue that the public discourse is not simply a less complex way of speaking, but instead transcends its technical basis. As a means to structure this newly emerging discussion landscape we introduce a non-exhaustive list of four central aspects of GenAI: (multi-)modality, interaction, flexibility, and productivity. These dimensions constitute a first step towards defining GenAI beyond its technical basis. (shrink)

The Razor says: do not multiply entities without necessity! The Laser says: do not multiply fundamental entities without necessity! Behind the Laser lies a deep insight. This is a distinction between the costs and the commitments of a theory. According to the Razor, every commitment is a cost. Not so according to the Laser. According to the Laser, derivative entities are an ontological free lunch: that is, they are a commitment without a cost. Jonathan Schaffer (2015) has argued that the (...) Laser should replace the Razor. In Sections 2-4 we shall discuss and argue against Schaffer’s arguments for replacing the Razor with the Laser. Schaffer considers several objections to his views, and in Sections 5-7 we shall argue that Schaffer does not deal successfully with two of them. In Section 8 we shall present a probabilistic argument for the Laser. However, the argument has a limitation and does not support the replacement of the Razor with the Laser. Indeed, it supports only the claim that, given certain assumptions, the multiplication of explanatorily relevant derivative entities does not matter; but, as we argue in the same section, there is an argument that multiplying explanatorily superfluous derivative entities does makes a theory less rationally acceptable. Our conclusion is that the Laser cannot replace the Razor and that derivative entities are not an ontological free lunch. (shrink)

Consider a certain red rose. The proposition that the rose is red is true because the rose is red. One might say as well that the proposition that the rose is red is made true by the rose’s being red. This, it has been thought, does not commit one to a truthmaker of the proposition that the rose is red. For there is no entity that makes the proposition true. What makes it true is how the rose is, and how (...) the rose is is not an entity over and above the rose. It is against this view that I shall argue in this paper. I shall argue that a significant class of true propositions, including inessential predications like the proposition that the rose is red, are made true by entities. "No truthmaking without truthmakers" is my slogan. Although I have my view about what kinds of entities are truthmakers, I shall not argue for or presuppose that view here. All I shall argue for here is that if a proposition is made true by something, it is made true by some thing, but my argument will leave it open what kind of thing that thing is: it could be a fact or state of affairs, a trope, or any other sort of entity. (shrink)

According to one of Leibniz's theories of contingency a proposition is contingent if and only if it cannot be proved in a finite number of steps. It has been argued that this faces the Problem of Lucky Proof , namely that we could begin by analysing the concept ‘Peter’ by saying that ‘Peter is a denier of Christ and …’, thereby having proved the proposition ‘Peter denies Christ’ in a finite number of steps. It also faces a more general but (...) related problem that we dub the Problem of Guaranteed Proof . We argue that Leibniz has an answer to these problems since for him one has not proved that ‘Peter denies Christ’ unless one has also proved that ‘Peter’ is a consistent concept, an impossible task since it requires the full decomposition of the infinite concept ‘Peter’. We defend this view from objections found in the literature and maintain that for Leibniz all truths about created individual beings are contingent. (shrink)

In this article I try to elucidate the concept of human dignity by taking a closer look at the features of a paradigmatic torture situation. After identifying the salient aspects of torture, I discuss various accounts for the moral wrongness of such acts and argue that what makes torture a violation of human dignity is the perverted moral relationship between torturer and victim. This idea is subsequently being substantiated and defended against important objections. In the final part of the chapter (...) I give a (qualified) defense of the methodology employed in the previous sections. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell argued that any attempt to get rid of universals in favor of resemblances fails. He argued that no resemblance theory could avoid postulating a universal of resemblance without falling prey to a vicious infinite regress. He added that admitting such a universal of resemblance made it pointless to avoid other universals. In this paper I defend resemblance nominalism from both of Russell's points by arguing that (a) resemblance nominalism can avoid the postulation of a universal of resemblance without (...) falling into a vicious infinite regress, and (b) even if resemblance nominalism had to admit a universal of resemblance, this would not make it pointless to avoid postulating other universals. (shrink)

The subtraction argument, originally put forward by Thomas Baldwin (1996), is intended to establish Metaphysical Nihilism, the thesis that there could have been no concrete objects. Some modified versions of the argument have been proposed in order to avoid some difficulties faced by the original argument. In this paper I shall concentrate on two of those versions, the so-called subtraction argument* (presented and defended in Rodriguez-Pereyra 1997, 2000, 2002), and Efird and Stoneham’s recent version of the argument (Efird and Stoneham (...) 2005). I shall defend the subtraction argument* from Alexander Paseau’s (2006) objection that because a crucial premise of the subtraction argument* may have no plausibility independent from Metaphysical Nihilism, the subtraction argument* is not suasive. Although Paseau focuses on the subtraction argument*, I shall point out that Efird and Stoneham could reply to Paseau’s objection in the same way. Thus there are (at least) two suasive versions of the subtraction argument that establish Metaphysical Nihilism. But are those two arguments equally good? I shall argue that the subtraction argument* is preferable to Efird and Stoneham’s argument. (shrink)