The aim of this paper is to reinterpret success semantics, a theory of mental content, according to which the content of a belief is fixed by the success conditions of some actions based on this belief. After arguing that in its present form, success semantics is vulnerable to decisive objections, I examine the possibilities of salvaging the core of this proposal. More specifically, I propose that the content of some very simple, but very important, mental (...) states, the immediate mental antecedents of action, can be explained in this manner. (shrink)

Success semantics holds, roughly, that what it is for a state of an agent to be a belief that P is for it to be disposed to combine with her desires to cause behaviour that would fulfill those desires if P. J. T. Whyte supplements this with an account of the contents of an agent's “basic desires” to provide an attractive naturalistic theory of mental content. We argue that Whyte's strategy can avoid the objections raised against it by (...) restricting “basic desires” to sensory inclinations that cause us to do things independently of our beliefs about their contents. -/- La sémantique du succès soutient, en gros, que ce qu'il faut pour qu'un état d'un agent soit une croyance en P, c'est que cet état soit disposé à se combiner avec ses désirs pour provoquer un comportement qui répondrait à ces désirs si P. J. T. Whyte complète cela par un compte-rendu du contenu des « désirs de base » d'un agent pour fournir une théorie naturaliste attrayante du contenu mental. Nous soutenons que la stratégie de Whyte peut éviter les objections qui lui sont faites en restreignant les « désirs de base » aux inclinations sensorielles qui nous font agir indépendamment de nos croyances sur leur contenu. (shrink)

This paper challenges the negative attitudes towards labelled proof systems, usually referred to as semantic pollution, by arguing that such critiques overlook the full potential of labelled calculi. The overarching objective is to develop a practice-based philosophical analysis of labelled calculi to provide insightful considerations regarding their proof-theoretic and philosophical value. To achieve this, successful applications of labelled calculi and related results will be showcased, and comparisons with other relevant works will be discussed. The paper ends by advocating for a (...) more practice-based approach towards the philosophical understanding of proof systems and their role in structural proof theory. (shrink)

This article begins by distinguishing force and mood. Then it lays out desiderata on a successful account. It sketches as background the program of truth-theoretic semantics. Next, it surveys assimilation approaches and argues that they are inadequate. Then it shows how the fulfillment-conditional approach can be applied to imperatives, interrogatives, molecular sentences containing them, and quantification into mood markers. Next, it considers briefly the recent set of propositions approach to the semantics of interrogatives and exclamatives. Finally, it shows (...) how to integrate exclamatives and optatives into a framework similar to the fulfillment approach. (shrink)

This paper is about the principle that success entails ability, which I call Success. I argue the status of Success is highly puzzling: when we focus on past instances of actually successful action, Success is very compelling; but it is in tension with the idea that true ability claims require an action be in the agent's control. I make the above tension precise by considering the logic of ability. I argue Success is appealing because it (...) is classically equivalent to two genuinely valid inferences, which I call Past Success and Can't-Entails-Won't; but also that Success itself has counterexamples. I show how to invalidate Success while validating Past Success and Can't-Entails-Won't by connecting the meaning of ‘can’ to facts about what is settled or open. I define an operator W with features attributed to ‘will’ in the literature on future contingents. I then give a conditional analysis of ability ascriptions stated with W-conditionals, where "S can A" says, roughly, there’s some action available to S such that if S does it, then W(S A). I show this semantics invalidates Success while still explaining its appeal. (shrink)

In this paper, I characterize visual epistemic representations as concrete two- or three-dimensional tools for conveying information about aspects of their target systems or phenomena of interest. I outline two features of successful visual epistemic representation: that the vehicle of representation contain sufficiently accurate information about the phenomenon of interest for the user’s purpose, and that it convey this information to the user in a manner that makes it readily available to her. I argue that actual epistemic representation may involve (...) tradeoffs between these and is successful to the extent that they are present. (shrink)

Montague (1970) interprets a small fragment of English through the use of two basic types of objects: individuals and propositions. My dissertation develops an alternative semantics that only uses one basic type (hence, *single-type semantics*). Such a semantics has been conjectured by Partee (2006) as a ‘minimality test’ for the Montagovian type system, which captures the lowest ontological requirements on any successful semantics for Montague’s fragment. The development of this semantics answers a number of important (...) open questions about the salience of the Montagovian type system, the robustness of semantic theories w.r.t. their basic-type choice, and the classification of these theories according to their objects’ informational strength. (shrink)

Kripke’s Wittgenstein is standardly understood as a non-factualist about meaning ascription. Non-factualism about meaning ascription is the idea that sentences like “Joe means addition by ‘plus’” are not used to state facts about the world. Byrne and Kusch have argued that Kripke’s Wittgenstein is not a non-factualist about meaning ascription. They are aware that their interpretation is non-standard, but cite arguments from Boghossian and Wright to support their view. Boghossian argues that non-factualism about meaning ascription is incompatible with a deflationary (...) theory of truth. Wright argues that non-factualism about meaning ascription is incoherent. To support the standard interpretation, I’ll respond to each argument in turn. To the degree that my responses are successful, Byrne and Kusch have an unmotivated interpretation of Kripke’s Wittgenstein. Wilson provides a factualist interpretation that is not based on Boghossian and Wright’s arguments. Miller argues for a non-factualist interpretation against Wilson, but I’ll show that Miller’s interpretation faces a dilemma. Miller’s argument cannot be maintained if a coherent interpretation of the skeptical solution is to be provided. I’ll show how this dilemma can be avoided and provide an independent argument against Wilson so that a non-factualist interpretation of the skeptical solution can be maintained. (shrink)

Human creativity generates novel ideas to solve real-world problems. This thereby grants us the power to transform the surrounding world and extend our human attributes beyond what is currently possible. Creative ideas are not just new and unexpected, but are also successful in providing solutions that are useful, efficient and valuable. Thus, creativity optimizes the use of available resources and increases wealth. The origin of human creativity, however, is poorly understood, and semantic measures that could predict the success of (...) generated ideas are currently unknown. Here, we analyze a dataset of design problem-solving conversations in real-world settings by using 49 semantic measures based on WordNet 3.1 and demonstrate that a divergence of semantic similarity, an increased information content, and a decreased polysemy predict the success of generated ideas. The first feedback from clients also enhances information content and leads to a divergence of successful ideas in creative problem solving. These results advance cognitive science by identifying real-world processes in human problem solving that are relevant to the success of produced solutions and provide tools for real-time monitoring of problem solving, student training and skill acquisition. A selected subset of information content (IC Sánchez–Batet) and semantic similarity (Lin/Sánchez–Batet) measures, which are both statistically powerful and computationally fast, could support the development of technologies for computer-assisted enhancements of human creativity or for the implementation of creativity in machines endowed with general artificial intelligence. (shrink)

The integration of standardized biomedical terminologies into a single, unified knowledge representation system has formed a key area of applied informatics research in recent years. The Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) is the most advanced and most prominent effort in this direction, bringing together within its Metathesaurus a large number of distinct source-terminologies. The UMLS Semantic Network, which is designed to support the integration of these source-terminologies, has proved to be a highly successful combination of formal coherence and broad scope. (...) We argue here, however, that its organization manifests certain structural problems, and we describe revisions which we believe are needed if the network is to be maximally successful in realizing its goals of supporting terminology integration. (shrink)

ABSTRACT -/- A propositional attitude (PA) is a belief, desire, fear, etc., that x is the case. This dissertation addresses the question of the semantic content of a specific kind of PA-instance: an instance of a belief of the form all Fs are Gs. The belief that all bachelors are sports fans has this form, while the belief that Spain is a country in Eastern Europe do not. Unlike a state of viewing the color of an orange, a belief-instance is (...) semantically contentful because it has reference, a meaning, logical implications, or a truth-value. While the intrinsic semantics view holds that either concepts or abstract objects are the source of content for PAs, the extrinsic semantics view holds that symbols of a mental language provide this content. I argue that a successful theory of intentionality must explain: (1) the truth-preserving causal powers of PAs, (2) the failure of the deductive principle Substitutivity to preserve truth over sentences that ascribe PAs, and (3) the truth-evaluability of PAs. As an internalist version of the extrinsic semantics view, I first evaluate Fodor’s Computational Theory of Mind, which says the semantic ingredients of mental states are symbols governed by rules of a mental syntax. I argue that in order to meet (1), CTM would have to associate the causal patterns of each thought-type with the inferential relations of some proposition – in an arbitrary or question-begging way. I also evaluate Fodor’s causal theory, as an externalist version of the extrinsic semantics view. This view is that lawlike causal relations between mental symbols and objects determine the reference, and thus the truth-value, of a thought. I argue that Brian Loar’s circularity objection refutes the ability of this theory to meet (3); and I endorse the intrinsic semantics perspective. I evaluate Frege’s theory of abstract, mind-external, and intrinsically semantic objects (senses), as an attempt to meet condition (2). I conclude that mind-external universals are the source of the intrinsically semantic features of concepts. Finally, I put forth a theory called ‘Bare Property Intentionality’, which describes the features of intrinsically representative and semantic concepts that connect them to these universals. (shrink)

In ‘Sly Pete’ or ‘standoff’ cases, reasonable speakers accept incompatible conditionals, and communicate them successfully to a trusting hearer. This paper uses the framework of dynamic semantics to offer a new model of the conversational dynamics at play in standoffs, and to articulate several puzzles posed by such cases. The paper resolves these puzzles by embracing a dynamic semantics for conditionals, according to which indicative conditionals require that their antecedents are possible in their local context, and update this (...) body of information by eliminating the possibilities where the antecedent is true and the consequent is false. In this way, the dynamic analysis draws on insights from the material conditional and contextualist analyses, while explaining how standoffs are genuine disagreements. (shrink)

Three influential forms of realism are distinguished and interrelated: realism about the external world, construed as a metaphysical doctrine; scientific realism about non-observable entities postulated in science; and semantic realism as defined by Dummett. Metaphysical realism about everyday physical objects is contrasted with idealism and phenomenalism, and several potent arguments against these latter views are reviewed. -/- Three forms of scientific realism are then distinguished: (i) scientific theories and their existence postulates should be taken literally; (ii) the existence of unobservable (...) entities posited by our most successful scientific theories is justified scientifically; and (iii) our best current scientific theories are at least approximately true. It is argued that only some form of scientific realism can make proper sense of certain episodes in the history of science. -/- Finally, Dummett’s influential formulation of semantic issues about realism considered. Dummett argued that in some cases, the fundamental issue is not about the existence of entities, but rather about whether statements of some specified class (such as mathematics) have an objective truth value, independently of our means of knowing it. Dummett famously argued against such semantic realism and in favor of anti-realism. The relation of semantic realism to the metaphysical construal of realism and Dummett’s main argument against semantic realism is examined. (shrink)

According to the philosophical tradition, translation is successful when one has substituted words and sentences from one language with those from another by cross-linguistic synonymy. Moreover, according to the orthodox view, the meaning of expressions and sentences of languages are determined by their basic or systematic role in a language. This makes translating normative and evaluative discourse puzzling for two reasons. First, as languages are syntactically and semantically different because of their peculiar cultural and historical influences, and as values and (...) norms differ across cultures, it is unlikely that languages will have synonymous evaluative and normative expressions. If translation is only successful by cross-linguistic synonymy, it would seem that we will not be able to translate the value theoretic claims of persons from radically different cultures. But it is with such persons that dialogue on evaluative matters is imperative, to resolve ethical and axiological differences that could be the root of conflict. Second, as the orthodox account of meaning renders it linguistically relative, it is unlikely that expressions across languages will be cross-linguistically synonymous. Thus, on the Orthodox account of translation, translation is indeterminate (as W.V.O. Quine has argued) or impossible (as Jacques Derrida has argued). In this dissertation I argue for a novel theory of meaning and translation based on innovations in the translation studies literature and my prior work in cross cultural research, which I call Text-Type Semantics or TTS. TTS explains how translation is successful while affirming radical cultural and linguistic diversity. It treats disciplinary concerns as the neutral criteria to calibrate translation. On the basis of TTS I argue that we need what I call the “Quasi-Indexical” account of thick and thin concepts (or QI) to translate normative and evaluative discourse. I argue that QI and TTS succeed where competing accounts in the moral semantics literature (such as Non-Analytic Naturalism and Expressivism) fail. The argument also shows that the relativization of truth (in philosophy and beyond) to languages and cultures is mistaken. (shrink)

Peter Godfrey-Smith and Nicholas Shea have argued that standard versions of teleosemantics render explanations of successful behavior by appealing to true beliefs circular and, consequently, non-explanatory. As an alternative, Shea has recently suggested an original teleosemantic account (that he calls ?Infotel-semantics?), which is supposed to be immune to the problem of circularity. The paper argues that the standard version of teleosemantics has a satisfactory reply to the circularity objection and that, in any case, Infotel-semantics is not better off (...) than standard teleosemantics. (shrink)

A computer can come to understand natural language the same way Helen Keller did: by using “syntactic semantics”—a theory of how syntax can suffice for semantics, i.e., how semantics for natural language can be provided by means of computational symbol manipulation. This essay considers real-life approximations of Chinese Rooms, focusing on Helen Keller’s experiences growing up deaf and blind, locked in a sort of Chinese Room yet learning how to communicate with the outside world. Using the SNePS (...) computational knowledge-representation system, the essay analyzes Keller’s belief that learning that “everything has a name” was the key to her success, enabling her to “partition” her mental concepts into mental representations of: words, objects, and the naming relations between them. It next looks at Herbert Terrace’s theory of naming, which is akin to Keller’s, and which only humans are supposed to be capable of. The essay suggests that computers at least, and perhaps non-human primates, are also capable of this kind of naming. (shrink)

I suggest a solution to a conflict between semantic internalism – according to which the concepts one expresses are determined by one's use of representations – and publicity – according to which, if two subjects successfully communicate or are in genuine agreement, then they entertain thoughts constituted by the same concepts. My solution rests on the thesis that there can be successful communication and genuine agreement between thinkers employing distinct concepts as long as there is a certain relation (of conceptually (...) guaranteed sameness of extension) between them. In section 2, I motivate semantic internalism and show how it conflicts with publicity. In section 3, I carve the logical space of possible solutions to the conflict into liberal and conservative solutions. Section 4 assesses Wikforss's conservative solution to Burge's arthritis thought‐experiment and concludes that it fails for more than one reason. Section 5 introduces a new case study involving a deferential concept. This case serves as the backdrop for my positive account offered in section 6. The conclusion of the article is preceded by a comparison of my view with another recently proposed by Recanati (section 7) and some replies to possible objections (section 8). (shrink)

In this paper it is argued that the conjunction of linguistic ersatzism, the ontologically deflationary view that possible worlds are maximal and consistent sets of sentences, and possible world semantics, the view that the meaning of a sentence is the set of possible worlds at which it is true, implies that no actual speaker can effectively use virtually any language to successfully communicate information. This result is based on complexity issues that relate to our finite computational ability to deal (...) with large bodies of information and a strong, but well motivated, assumption about the cognitive accessibility of meanings of sentences ersatzers seem to be implicitly committed to. It follows that linguistic ersatzism, possible world semantics, or both must be rejected. (shrink)

The paper develops some of the conclusions, reached in Floridi (2007), concerning the future developments of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and their impact on our lives. The two main theses supported in that article were that, as the information society develops, the threshold between online and offline is becoming increasingly blurred, and that once there won't be any significant difference, we shall gradually re-conceptualise ourselves not as cyborgs but rather as inforgs, i.e. socially connected, informational organisms. In this paper, (...) I look at the development of the so-called Semantic Web and Web 2.0 from this perspective and try to forecast their future. Regarding the Semantic Web, I argue that it is a clear and well-defined project, which, despite some authoritative views to the contrary, is not a promising reality and will probably fail in the same way AI has failed in the past. Regarding Web 2.0, I argue that, although it is a rather ill-defined project, which lacks a clear explanation of its nature and scope, it does have the potentiality of becoming a success (and indeed it is already, as part of the new phenomenon of Cloud Computing) because it leverages the only semantic engines available so far in nature, us. I conclude by suggesting what other changes might be expected in the future of our digital environment. (shrink)

R.C. Pradhan claims in Language, Reality, and Transcendence that, in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations, “[i]n no case is Wittgenstein interested in the empirical facts regarding language, as for him philosophy does not undertake any scientific study of language” (Pradhan 2009, xiv). I consider Ludwig Wittgenstein’s purportedly anti-scientific and anti-empirical approach to language in light of advances by philosophers and linguists in the latter half of the 20th century. I distinguish between various ways of understanding Wittgenstein’s stance against (...) scientism. Due to the success of more recent work on language, I argue that Wittgenstein’s critique, as interpreted by Pradhan in Language, Reality, and Transcendence, does not undermine the formal study of language. Nevertheless, I argue, the contention of Wittgenstein and Pradhan that language, through grammar (in Wittgenstein’s sense), serves a variety of functions still sheds light on the differences in meaning across different discourses. I argue that a synthesis of Wittgenstein’s pluralist theory of meaning with elements of a theoretical study of language offers the best comprehensive account of natural language. I will argue that this conception of language is consistent with elements of Pradhan’s interpretation. As Pradhan notes, “The aim here is not to project one kind of grammatical determination but keep options open for many such grammatical determinations such that the grammatical nuances are not papered over in the name of the unity of grammar” (Pradhan 2009, 28). (shrink)

The thesis deals with the concept of truth and the paradoxes of truth. Philosophical theories usually consider the concept of truth from a wider perspective. They are concerned with questions such as - Is there any connection between the truth and the world? And, if there is - What is the nature of the connection? Contrary to these theories, this analysis is of a logical nature. It deals with the internal semantic structure of language, the mutual semantic connection of sentences, (...) above all the connection of sentences that speak about the truth of other sentences and sentences whose truth they speak about. Truth paradoxes show that there is a problem in our basic understanding of the language meaning and they are a test for any proposed solution. It is important to make a distinction between the normative and analytical aspect of the solution. The former tries to ensure that paradoxes will not emerge. The latter tries to explain paradoxes. Of course, the practical aspect of the solution is also important. It tries to ensure a good framework for logical foundations of knowledge, for related problems in Artificial Intelligence and for the analysis of the natural language. Tarski’s analysis emphasized the T-scheme as the basic intuitive principle for the concept of truth, but it also showed its inconsistency with the classical logic. Tarski’s solution is to preserve the classical logic and to restrict the scheme: we can talk about the truth of sentences of a language only inside another essentially richer metalanguage. This solution is in harmony with the idea of reflexivity of thinking and it has become very fertile for mathematics and science in general. But it has normative nature | truth paradoxes are avoided in a way that in such frame we cannot even express paradoxical sentences. It is also too restrictive because, for the same reason we cannot express a situation in which there is a circular reference of some sentences to other sentences, no matter how common and harmless such a situation may be. Kripke showed that there is no natural restriction to the T-scheme and we have to accept it. But then we must also accept the riskiness of sentences | the possibility that under some circumstances a sentence does not have the classical truth value but it is undetermined. This leads to languages with three-valued semantics. Kripke did not give any definite model, but he gave a theoretical frame for investigations of various models | each fixed point in each three-valued semantics can be a model for the concept of truth. The solutions also have normative nature | we can express the paradoxical sentences, but we escape a contradiction by declaring them undetermined. Such a solution could become an analytical solution only if we provide the analysis that would show in a substantial way that it is the solution that models the concept of truth. Kripke took some steps in the direction of finding an analytical solution. He preferred the strong Kleene three-valued semantics for which he wrote it was "appropriate" but did not explain why it was appropriate. One reason for such a choice is probably that Kripke finds paradoxical sentences meaningful. This eliminates the weak Kleene three valued semantics which corresponds to the idea that paradoxical sentences are meaningless, and thus indeterminate. Another reason could be that the strong Kleene three valued semantics has the so-called investigative interpretation. According to this interpretation, this semantics corresponds to the classical determination of truth, whereby all sentences that do not have an already determined value are temporarily considered indeterminate. When we determine the truth value of these sentences, then we can also determine the truth value of the sentences that are composed of them. Kripke supplemented this investigative interpretation with an intuition about learning the concept of truth. That intuition deals with how we can teach someone who is a competent user of an initial language (without the predicate of truth T) to use sentences that contain the predicate T. That person knows which sentences of the initial language are true and which are not. We give her the rule to assign the T attribute to the former and deny that attribute to the latter. In that way, some new sentences that contain the predicate of truth, and which were indeterminate until then, become determinate. So the person gets a new set of true and false sentences with which he continues the procedure. This intuition leads directly to the smallest fixed point of strong Kleene semantics as an analytically acceptable model for the logical notion of truth. However, since this process is usually saturated only on some transfinite ordinal, this intuition, by climbing on ordinals, increasingly becomes a metaphor. This thesis is an attempt to give an analytical solution to truth paradoxes. It gives an analysis of why and how some sentences lack the classical truth value. The starting point is basic intuition according to which paradoxical sentences are meaningful (because we understand what they are talking about well, moreover we use it for determining their truth values), but they witness the failure of the classical procedure of determining their truth value in some "extreme" circumstances. Paradoxes emerge because the classical procedure of the truth value determination does not always give a classically supposed (and expected) answer. The analysis shows that such an assumption is an unjustified generalization from common situations to all situations. We can accept the classical procedure of the truth value determination and consequently the internal semantic structure of the language, but we must reject the universality of the exterior assumption of a successful ending of the procedure. The consciousness of this transforms paradoxes to normal situations inherent to the classical procedure. Some sentences, although meaningful, when we evaluate them according to the classical truth conditions, the classical conditions do not assign them a unique value. We can assign to them the third value, \undetermined", as a sign of definitive failure of the classical procedure. An analysis of the propagation of the failure in the structure of sentences gives exactly the strong Kleene three-valued semantics, not as an investigative procedure, as it occurs in Kripke, but as the classical truth determination procedure accompanied by the propagation of its own failure. An analysis of the circularities in the determination of the classical truth value gives the criterion of when the classical procedure succeeds and when it fails, when the sentences will have the classical truth value and when they will not. It turns out that the truth values of sentences thus obtained give exactly the largest intrinsic fixed point of the strong Kleene three-valued semantics. In that way, the argumentation is given for that choice among all fixed points of all monotone three-valued semantics for the model of the logical concept of truth. An immediate mathematical description of the fixed point is given, too. It has also been shown how this language can be semantically completed to the classical language which in many respects appears a natural completion of the process of thinking about the truth values of the sentences of a given language. Thus the final model is a language that has one interpretation and two systems of sentence truth evaluation, primary and final evaluation. The language through the symbol T speaks of its primary truth valuation, which is precisely the largest intrinsic fixed point of the strong Kleene three valued semantics. Its final truth valuation is the semantic completion of the first in such a way that all sentences that are not true in the primary valuation are false in the final valuation. (shrink)

On the example of the analysis of the content of films-leaders of the box office box office, the value dynamics of the symbols of success is revealed as an objectively occurring sociocultural process in film communication. Cultural production and consumption are being rethought as the self-communication of society, which has sustainable trends. The connections of the sociocultural process of symbolizing success with communicative, semantic and semiotic processes have been studied. The specificity of the dialectical contradiction between sociocentric and (...) personocentric symbols of success is described. The theoretical provisions that reveal the structural and functional side of the socio-cultural process of symbolizing success are presented, its objectivity is proved on the example of the analysis of an array of films, the dominant tendencies in the halo of the cultural space of the general film market are determined. The book is addressed to scientists, students and teachers interested in cultural dynamics, social communication, the role of cinema in modern society. (shrink)

This is a work in the philosophy of language and metasemantics. Its purpose is to help answer the question about how words acquire their meanings. The work is divided into two parts. The purpose of Part One is to defend the claim that, despite numerous attempts, the so-called Kripkenstein’s sceptical challenge, and especially the problem of finitude, has not been offered a successful straight solution. The purpose of Part Two is to critically examine Robert Brandom’s philosophy, which can be treated (...) as an answer to the sceptical challenge in my interpretation. My main claim is that although Brandom’s so-called normativist approach does provide a principled solution to the sceptical challenge, the proposal faces a host of other problems in the light of which I reject it. -/- What is Kripkenstein’s sceptical challenge? The name 'Kripkenstein' is an abbreviation used in the literature for Saul Kripke’s reading of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later works, published in 1982. In the long essay, Kripke presents (that Wittgenstein presented) a sceptical challenge that demands an explanation of how any word can have a determinate meaning. The challenge is usually thought to consist of three interrelated problems: (1) the problem of finitude, (2) the problem of error, and (3) the problem of normativity. Following Martin Kusch, I view the problem of finitude as the most important one. According to the problem, briefly, since any actual subject is a finite being, i.e. capable of exhibiting only finite expressions of linguistic signs, it will always be possible to ask whether, in a given context, she is following a rule S1 or rule S2 that corresponds to the meaning of the sign. For example, supposing that the sign in question is '+', it can be asked whether the subject in a given context has followed the addition rule or an alternative quaddition rule, according to which any addition problem exceeding certain arbitrary cardinality results in five. According to the hypothesis, the actual use of '+' by any speaker is compatible with both rules. Since any speaker has only finite dispositions to the mathematical conduct, there will always be some limit after which there is no fact of the matter, according to the sceptic, which rule the subject will have turned out to have followed. Hence, it is indeterminate whether any actual subject has ever calculated according to the addition rule or the quaddition rule. -/- From my view, despite the work of Kripke and Kusch, the problem of finitude has not been taken as seriously as it ought to have been. This in turn has significant consequences for the metasemantic theory concerning the origin and nature of meaning. In particular, I claim that the way how the meaning of words is determined must be understood as temporal in nature. Moreover, I claim that Kripke’s causal-historical account of reference can work as a non-straight solution to the challenge that explains how at least the meanings of some words can be temporally determined. -/- One central aim of Brandom’s philosophy is to give a straight answer to the problem of finitude by providing an answer to the problem of normativity. However, I claim that Brandom’s version of the 'normativity of meaning' hypothesis cannot work as he intends. The key issues are difficult to summarise, but to put it succinctly, the crucial problem concerns Brandom’s ambition to give an answer to a version of Agrippa’s trilemma, or how a chain of justifications can end in anything else than (i) premises that have already been used, (ii) a primitive premise, or an (iii) infinitude of premises. My claim is that Brandom’s resolution to the trilemma is not sound. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall consider the challenge that Quine posed in 1947 to the advocates of quantified modal logic to provide an explanation, or interpretation, of modal notions that is intuitively clear, allows “quantifying in”, and does not presuppose, mysterious, intensional entities. The modal concepts that Quine and his contemporaries, e.g. Carnap and Ruth Barcan Marcus, were primarily concerned with in the 1940’s were the notions of (broadly) logical, or analytical, necessity and possibility, rather than the metaphysical modalities that (...) have since become popular, largely due to the influence of Kripke. In the 1950’s modal logicians responded to Quine’s challenge by providing quantified modal logic with model-theoretic semantics of various types. In doing so they also, explicitly or implicitly addressed Quine’s interpretation problem. Here I shall consider the approaches developed by Carnap in the late 1940’s, and by Kanger, Hintikka, Montague, and Kripke in the 1950’s, and discuss to what extent these approaches were successful in meeting Quine’s doubts about the intelligibility of quantified modal logic. (shrink)

(1) This is Part 2 of the semantic theory I call TM. In Part 1, I developed TM as a theory in the analytic philosophy of language, in lexical semantics, and in the sociology of relating occasions of statement production and comprehension to formal and informal lexicographic conclusions about statements and lexical items – roughly, as showing how synchronic semantics is a sociological derivative of diachronic, person-relative acts of linguistic behavior. I included descriptions of new cognitive psychology experimental (...) paradigms which would allow us to precisely measure the two constituents of semantics – meaning and reference – both at the level of individual speech acts and at the level of societal convergences, i.e. at both the token and type levels. -/- (2) In the Introduction, I recapitulate the arguments of Part 1. The Introduction also develops some analytic philosophical and lexical semantics themes not discussed in Part 1. -/- (3) After the Introduction, I present neural TM (nTM) as a theory of the neural mechanisms and processes which give rise to these person/occasion-relative acts of linguistic behavior. I develop nTM at three levels, the first two of which describe linguistic/semantic functions independently of their cortical locations. At the first level, I describe individual word-to-word and word-to-object connections. At the second level, I describe the corresponding structuralist networks of which they are the individual components. At this level, I introduce some key linguistic concepts of TM – its graded meaning, reference, and generalization sets, and the types of statements which express various levels of word-to-word and word-to-object relationships among lexical items which, because of the constraints they impose on the use of those lexical items in statements we produce and comprehend, are concepts. This constitutes the second structural level of nTM. -/- (4) At the third level, I associate the non-localized structures of the previous levels with cortically located neural structures and with the fasciculi that connect them. I distinguish neural areas in which primary (phonetic) and secondary (orthographic) lexicons are stored in long-term memory. I also describe the embodied concepts which co-exist in the anterior temporal lobes with the images they lexicalize. These concepts are often said to name physical objects and their features, although what they in fact name are kinds of physical objects and features. I describe how conceptual constraints and referential constraints interact to channel our intentions to say how things are into statements which are semantically well-formed, and which consequently successfully communicate information. -/- (5) Following this presentation of nTM, I examine five prominent neural semantic theories. I point out what is wrong with each of them as far as their explanations of semantics are concerned, and I also indicate how nTM can replace the “semantic cores” of those theories. -/- (6) The two basic mistakes made by neuroscience semantic theories, as I will explain, are (i) that all but one of them regard semantics as a matter of the association of words with perceptual images, and of generalizations from those associations; and (ii) that they all rely on an unspecified set of neural structures which purportedly encode the meaning of concepts in abstraction from their phonological and orthographic forms. nTM maintains, in contrast, that there are no abstract neural representations of semantic content. Neural constraints on our linguistic behavior, especially on our ascriptive and co-ascriptive use of words, express the semantic constraints on those words which make them concepts. That is the semantic content of words. -/- (7) I next consider several results from neuroscience experimental data which have been given one interpretation by one or another of the standard neurosemantic theories, but to which nTM gives a different interpretation. I include several predictions which I have found neither confirmed nor disconfirmed in the experimental neuroscience literature. -/- (8) After a concluding section in which I summarize the major changes to neurosemantic theory introduced by TM, and the analytic philosophy of language and lexical semantics contexts within which TM is situated, there follows an appendix in which I discuss neural net AI, and make some recommendations for implementing nTM in silicon. (shrink)

After 1945, when the Philosophical Investigations were largely finished, Wittgenstein spent his final years undertaking an intensive study of the grammar of our psychological concepts and the philosophical misinterpretations we often assign to them. In the article at hand I do not claim to fathom the full range of Wittgenstein’s thoughts on the philosophy of psychology even in the most general way. Rather it is my intention to shed some light on a diagnosis which he made for the psychology of (...) his time. In Section 2 of this paper I would like to provide a brief sketch of what Wittgenstein considered to be the conceptual confusion prevalent in psychology and to suggest why he did not expect the methods of an experimental science to be successful in solving the problems that concern us in psychology. In Section 3 I’ll attempt to analyze how psychological concepts, according to Wittgenstein, might be construed in order to avoid any type of conceptual confusion. (shrink)

A central idea in Ruth Millikan’s biosemantics is that a representation’s content is restricted to conditions required for the normal success of actions that it has as its function to guide. This paper raises and responds to a problem for this idea. The problem is that the success requirement seems to block us from saying that epistemic modal judgments represent our epistemic circumstances. For the normal success of actions guided by these judgments seems to depend on what (...) is actually the case, not on whether or to what extent various possibilities were supported by our evidence. In response, I argue, first, that actions guided by epistemic modal judgments have as their function to implement strategies for handling epistemic circumstances, second, that the successful performance of this function requires that aspects of these circumstances obtain, and, third, that biosemantics can thus understand epistemic modal judgments as representing these aspects. The recognition of such strategic contents introduces complications; I further argue that these are benign. (shrink)

Phenomenal conservatives claim that seemings are sui generis mental states and can thus provide foundational non-doxastic justification for beliefs. Many of their critics deny this, claiming, instead, that seemings can be reductively analyzed in terms of other mental states—either beliefs, inclinations to believe, or beliefs about one’s evidence—that cannot provide foundational non-doxastic justification. In this paper, I argue that no tenable semantic reduction of ‘seems’ can be formulated in terms of the three reductive analyses that have been proposed by critics (...) of phenomenal conservatism. This is because Moore-paradoxical statements are generated when each of the reductive analyses is substituted for ‘seems’ in statements like ‘The stick is straight, but it does not seem to me that it’s straight.’ Since the latter statement is not Moore-paradoxical, the three proposed reductive analyses of ‘seems’ are unsuccessful. Absent a successful semantic reduction, however, there is no good reason to think a successful metaphysical reduction of seemings is forthcoming. Thus, there is an additional reason, unnoticed in the existing literature, to think that seemings are sui generis mental states. (shrink)

This paper assesses the prospects of a pragmatist theory of content. I begin by criticising the theory presented in D.H. Mellor’s essay ‘Successful Semantics’. I then identify problems and lacunae in the pragmatist theory of meaning sketched in Chapter 13 of Dummett’s The Logical Basis of Metaphysics. The prospects are brighter, I contend, for a tempered pragmatism, in which the theory of content is permitted to draw upon irreducible notions of truth and falsity. I sketch the shape of such (...) a theory and illustrate the role of its pragmatist elements by showing how they point towards a promising account of the truth conditions of indicative conditionals. A feature of the account is that it validates Modus Ponens whilst invalidating Modus Tollens. (shrink)

“Epistemic Dexterity: A Ramseyian Account of Epistemic Virtue” by Abrol Fairweather & Carlos Montemayor: A modification of F.P. Ramsey’s success semantics supports a naturalized theory of epistemic virtue that includes motivational components and can potentially explain both epistemic reliability and responsibility with a single normative-explanatory principle. An “epistemic Ramsey success” will also provide a better account of the “because of” condition central to virtue-reliabilist accounts of knowledge from Greco, Sosa and Pritchard. Ramsey said that the truth condition (...) of a belief is the condition that guarantees the success of desires based on that belief. Taken as a theory of epistemic achievements, the truth condition for the attribution of an epistemic achievement is the condition that guarantees the success of epistemic desires and is also a success based on abilities attributable to the agent. One of its major advantages is that it may be the best way to achieve a naturalistic version of the etiologcal requirement on knowledge in virtue epistemology while also supporting important responsibilist desiderata. The account defended is robustly agent-centered in the straightforward sense that individual desires are partly constitutive of epistemic successes like having a rational belief, justified belief, and even of knowledge once we see the both the reliabilist and repsonsibilist desiderata are met. Another important aspect of the paper is that it provides a plausible psychology for virtue epistemology that is grounded in important empirical findings on agency, and thus constitutes a form of naturalized virtue epistemology. (shrink)

This paper proposes a semantics for free choice permission that explains both the non-classical behavior of modals and disjunction in sentences used to grant permission, and their classical behavior under negation. It also explains why permissions can expire when new information comes in and why free choice arises even when modals scope under disjunction. On the proposed approach, deontic modals update preference orderings, and connectives operate on these updates rather than propositions. The success of this approach stems from (...) its capacity to capture the difference between expressing the preferences that give rise to permissions and conveying propositions about those preferences. (shrink)

In this paper, we defend three claims about what it will take for an AI system to be a basic moral patient to whom we can owe duties of non-maleficence not to harm her and duties of beneficence to benefit her: (1) Moral patients are mental patients; (2) Mental patients are true intentional systems; and (3) True intentional systems are systematically flexible. We suggest that we should be particularly alert to the possibility of such systematically flexible true intentional systems developing (...) in the areas of exploratory robots and artificial personal assistants. Finally, we argue that in light of our failure to respect the well-being of existing biological moral patients and worries about our limited resources, there are compelling moral reasons to treat artificial moral patiency as something to be avoided at least for now. (shrink)

Despite their success in describing and predicting cognitive behavior, the plausibility of so-called ‘rational explanations’ is often contested on the grounds of computational intractability. Several cognitive scientists have argued that such intractability is an orthogonal pseudoproblem, however, since rational explanations account for the ‘why’ of cognition but are agnostic about the ‘how’. Their central premise is that humans do not actually perform the rational calculations posited by their models, but only act as if they do. Whether or not the (...) problem of intractability is solved by recourse to ‘as if’ explanations critically depends, inter alia, on the semantics of the ‘as if’ connective. We examine the five most sensible explications in the literature, and conclude that none of them circumvents the problem. As a result, rational ‘as if’ explanations must obey the minimal computational constraint of tractability. (shrink)

This paper constructs a model of metaphysical indeterminacy that can accommodate a kind of ‘deep’ worldly indeterminacy that arguably arises in quantum mechanics via the Kochen-Specker theorem, and that is incompatible with prominent theories of metaphysical indeterminacy such as that in Barnes and Williams (2011). We construct a variant of Barnes and Williams's theory that avoids this problem. Our version builds on situation semantics and uses incomplete, local situations rather than possible worlds to build a model. We evaluate the (...) resulting theory and contrast it with similar alternatives, concluding that our model successfully captures deep indeterminacy. (shrink)

Semanticists face substitution challenges even outside of contexts commonly recognized as opaque. Jennifer M. Saul has drawn attention to pairs of simple sentences - her term for sentences lacking a that-clause operator - of which the following are typical: -/- (1) Clark Kent went into the phone booth, and Superman came out. (1*) Clark Kent went into the phone booth, and Clark Kent came out. -/- (2) Superman is more successful with women than Clark Kent. (2*) Superman is more successful (...) with women than Superman. -/- She challenges us to explain why the upper and lower sentences in each pair differ, or at least appear to differ, in their truth-values and hence truth-conditions. This appearance of substitution failure is inherently puzzling. Moreover, it is taken by Saul to generate a dilemma for anyone hostile to direct reference accounts of that-clause constructions. Direct reference theorists regard the appearance of substitution failure in that-clause contexts as mere appearance, to be dealt with pragmatically rather than semantically. -/- Critics of such accounts need to say something about simple-sentence cases. If they choose to allow that intuitions of substitution failure can be over-ridden and explained away pragmatically in simple-sentence cases but not in that-clause cases, they lay themselves open to the charge of operating a double standard. But if they do not choose this option, they must offer a semantic explanation of apparent substitution failure in simple-sentence cases - no easy task, it turns out. Other respondents to Saul's challenge have sought to provide elaborate semantic treatments. In contrast, this paper proposes a far simpler pragmatic explanation of intuitions of substitution failure in simple sentences, an explanation that deploys no more resources than are to be found in Grice's 'Logic and Conversation'. Ironically, this proposal turns out to be incompatible with a direct reference perspective. So if it is, as I maintain, the most plausible treatment of simple-sentence cases available, Saul's initial thought gets turned around 180 degrees: the phenomenon she has drawn attention to ends up representing a challenge to supporters of direct reference theories. (shrink)

Theorists have had less success in analyzing the truth conditions of generics. Philosophers of language have offered a number of theories. This chapter surveys several semantic accounts of generics. However, the focus is on generics and experimental philosophy. It briefly reviews empirical work that bears on these semantic accounts. While generics constitute an interesting linguistic phenomenon worthy of study in their own right, the study of generics also has wide‐ranging implications for questions beyond the philosophy of language, including questions (...) in social psychology and cognitive science more generally. The chapter also reviews empirical work on the relationship between generics and cognition. Existing empirical work strongly supports the generics‐as‐defaults hypothesis: the hypothesis that generics reflect a cognitively default, fundamental mode of generalizing in humans. Finally, the chapter elucidates evidence that generic language and generic modes of generalizing play an important role in stereotyping and prejudice. (shrink)

Several themes of David Lewis's theory of counterfactuals, especially their sensitivity to context, pave the way for a viable theory of non-trivial counterpossibles. If Lewis was successful in defending his account against the early objections, a semantics of counterpossibles can be defended from similar objections in the same way. The resulting theory will be extended to address 'might' counterfactuals and questions about the relative "nearness" of impossible worlds.

Meta-ethical expressivism was traditionally seen as the view that normative judgements are not beliefs. Recently, quasi-realists have argued, via a minimalist conception of “belief”, that expressivism is fully compatible with normative judgements being beliefs. This maneuver is successful, however, only if quasi-realists have really offered an expressivist-friendly account of belief that captures all platitudes characterizing belief. But, quasi-realists’ account has a crucial gap, namely how to account for the propositional contents of normative beliefs in an expressivist-friendly manner. In particular, quasi-realists (...) haven’t yet developed their preferred option, a “minimalist” or “deflationist” account of such contents. This paper aims to close that gap. I argue that expressivists who accepts conceptual role semantics and use an account of that-clauses in their use in belief-attributions based on Wilfrid Sellars’ work can give a deflationary account of the contents of beliefs that is compatible with normative judgements being beliefs, even if expressivism is true. (shrink)

Generic stereotypes are generically formulated generalizations that express a stereotype, like “Mexican immigrants are rapists” and “Muslims are terrorists.” Stereotypes like these are offensive and should not be asserted by anyone. Yet when someone does assert a sentence like this in a conversation, it is surprisingly difficult to successfully rebut it. The meaning of generic sentences is such that they can be true in several different ways. As a result, a speaker who is challenged after asserting a generic stereotype can (...) often simply dismiss the objection and maintain that the stereotype is true in a way that is compatible with the challenger’s objection. In this paper, a semantic theory for generics is presented that accounts for this type of defensive shifting in upholding generic stereotypes. This theory is then used to develop two strategies to object more efficiently. The first strategy is to immediately deny that either of the two possible ways in which a generic can be true obtains. The second strategy is to deny the satisfaction of an additional condition that is necessary for a generic sentence to be true. (shrink)

Assertoric sentences are sentences which admit of truth or falsity. Non-assertoric sentences, imperatives and interrogatives, have long been a source of difficulty for the view that a theory of truth for a natural language can serve as the core of a theory of meaning. The trouble for truth-theoretic semantics posed by non-assertoric sentences is that, prima facie, it does not make sense to say that imperatives, such as 'Cut your hair', or interrogatives such as 'What time is it?', are (...) truth or false. Thus, the vehicle for giving the meaning of a sentence by using an interpretive truth theory, the T-sentence, is apparently unavailable for non-assertoric sentences. This paper shows how to incorporate non-assertoric sentences into a theory of meaning that gives central place to an interpretive truth theory for the language, without, however, reducing the non-assertorics to assertorics, or treating their utterances as semantically equivalent to one or more utterances of assertoric sentences. Four proposals for how to incorporate non-assertoric sentences into a broadly truth-theoretic semantics are reviewed. The proposals fall into two classes, those that attempt to explain the meaning of non-assertoric sentences solely by appeal to truth conditions, and those that attempt to explain the meaning of non-assertroic sentences by appeal to compliance conditions, which can be treated as one variety of fulfillment conditions for sentences of which truth conditions are another variety. The paper argues that none of the extant approaches is successful, but develops a version of the generalized fulfillment approach which avoids the difficulties of previous approaches and still exhibits a truth theory as the central component of a compositional meaning theory for all sentences of natural language. (shrink)

This article analyzes whether Brandom’s ISA (inferential-substitutional-anaphoric) semantics as presented in Making It Explicit (MIE) and Articulating Reasons (AR) can cope with problems resulting from inferentialism’s near-implied meaning holism. Inferentialism and meaning holism entail a radically perspectival conception of content as significance for an individual speaker. Since thereby its basis is fixed as idiolects, holistic inferentialism engenders a communication-problem. Brandom considers the systematic difference in information among individuals as the „point“ of communication and thus doesn’t want to diminish these (...) effects of inferentialism. Instead, explains communication with a model of “navigating among perspectives without sharing contents”. The crucial element in this navigation-model is the functioning of anaphoric connections between tokens uttered in discourse that can be used by every individual speaker in their own perspectival semantic substitution-economies. The heart of Brandom’s semantics is the thesis of the purely inferential, hence non-referential nature of anaphora, coupled with the claim that anaphoric-inferential semantic mechanisms yield sufficient conditions for mutually successful “information-extraction” or interpretation. This article disputes the thesis and denies the claim. Regarding the former it is observed that all of Brandom’s plausible reconstructions of anaphoric discourse-structures rely on covert “reference-infiltrations” that can’t be eliminated. Regarding the latter, a new argument based on context-sensitive semantic phenomena in anaphoric settings shows that the crucial distinction between initiator or anaphoric antecedent and anaphoric dependent cannot be drawn according to Brandom’s own premises without overt and irreducible referential premises. The article concludes that either Brandom’s semantics can offer determinate contents, but then must accept genuinely referential semantic primitives, or else it leaves utterance-contents undeterminable and hence cannot explain communication. (shrink)

This paper focuses on a combination of the antiskeptical strategies offered by semantic externalism and the inference to the best explanation. I argue that the most difficult problems of the two strategies can be solved, if the strategies are combined: The strategy offered by semantic externalism is successful against standard skeptical brain-in-a-vat arguments. But the strategy is ineffective, if the skeptical argument is referring to the recent-envatment scenario. However, by focusing on the scenario of recent envatment the most difficult problems (...) of the antiskeptical strategy posed by the inference to the best explanation can be solved. The most difficult problems with this strategy are: Why is an explanation of our experience offered by the skeptical hypothesis more complex than our standard explanation? Why is the more complex explanation less likely to be true? By focussing on the recent envatment hypothesis both questions can be answered satisfactorily. Therefore, the combination of semantic externalism and the inference to the best explanation yields a powerful antiskeptical argument. (shrink)

In this article, we redefine classical notions of theory reduction in such a way that model-theoretic preferential semantics becomes part of a realist depiction of this aspect of science. We offer a model-theoretic reconstruction of science in which theory succession or reduction is often better - or at a finer level of analysis - interpreted as the result of model succession or reduction. This analysis leads to 'defeasible reduction', defined as follows: The conjunction of the assumptions of a reducing (...) theory T with the definitions translating the vocabulary of a reduced theory T' to the vocabulary of T, defeasibly entails the assumptions of reduced T'. This relation of defeasible reduction offers, in the context of additional knowledge becoming available, articulation of a more flexible kind of reduction in theory development than in the classical case. Also, defeasible reduction is shown to solve the problems of entailment that classical homogeneous reduction encounters. Reduction in the defeasible sense is a practical device for studying the processes of science, since it is about highlighting different aspects of the same theory at different times of application, rather than about naive dreams concerning a metaphysical unity of science. (shrink)

The success of deep learning in natural language processing raises intriguing questions about the nature of linguistic meaning and ways in which it can be processed by natural and artificial systems. One such question has to do with subword segmentation algorithms widely employed in language modeling, machine translation, and other tasks since 2016. These algorithms often cut words into semantically opaque pieces, such as ‘period’, ‘on’, ‘t’, and ‘ist’ in ‘period|on|t|ist’. The system then represents the resulting segments in a (...) dense vector space, which is expected to model grammatical relations among them. This representation may in turn be used to map ‘period|on|t|ist’ (English) to ‘par|od|ont|iste’ (French). Thus, instead of being modeled at the lexical level, translation is reformulated more generally as the task of learning the best bilingual mapping between the sequences of subword segments of two languages; and sometimes even between pure character sequences: ‘p|e|r|i|o|d|o|n|t|i|s|t’ → ‘p|a|r|o|d|o|n|t|i|s|t|e’. Such subword segmentations and alignments are at work in highly efficient end-to-end machine translation systems, despite their allegedly opaque nature. The computational value of such processes is unquestionable. But do they have any linguistic or philosophical plausibility? I attempt to cast light on this question by reviewing the relevant details of the subword segmentation algorithms and by relating them to important philosophical and linguistic debates, in the spirit of making artificial intelligence more transparent and explainable. (shrink)

W. V. Quine famously defended two theses that have fallen rather dramatically out of fashion. The first is that intensions are “creatures of darkness” that ultimately have no place in respectable philosophical circles, owing primarily to their lack of rigorous identity conditions. However, although he was thoroughly familiar with Carnap’s foundational studies in what would become known as possible world semantics, it likely wouldn’t yet have been apparent to Quine that he was fighting a losing battle against intensions, due (...) in large measure to developments stemming from Carnap’s studies and culminating in the work of Kripke, Hintikka, and Bayart. These developments undermined Quine’s crusade against intensions on two fronts. First, in the context of possible world semantics, intensions could after all be given rigorous identity conditions by defining them (in the simplest case) as functions from worlds to appropriate extensions, a fact exploited to powerful and influential effect in logic and linguistics by the likes of Kaplan, Montague, Lewis, and Cresswell. Second, the rise of possible world semantics fueled a strong resurgence of metaphysics in contemporary analytic philosophy that saw properties and propositions widely, fruitfully, and unabashedly adopted as ontological primitives in their own right. This resurgence — happily, in my view — continues into the present day. -/- For a time, at any rate, Quine experienced somewhat better success with his second thesis: that higher-order logic is, at worst, confused and, at best, a quirky notational alternative to standard first-order logic. However, Quine notwithstanding, a great deal of recent work in formal metaphysics transpires in a higher-order logical framework in which properties and propositions fall into an infinite hierarchy of types of (at least) every finite order. Initially, the most philosophically compelling reason for embracing such a framework since Russell first proposed his simple theory of types was simply that it provides a relatively natural explanation of the paradoxes. However, since the seminal work of Prior there has been a growing trend to consider higher-order logic to be the most philosophically natural framework for metaphysical inquiry, many of the contributors to this volume being among the most important and influential advocates of this view. Indeed, this is now quite arguably the dominant view among formal metaphysicians. -/- In this paper, and against the current tide, I will argue in §1 that there are still good reasons to think that Quine’s second battle is not yet lost and that the correct framework for logic is first-order and type-free — properties and propositions, logically speaking, are just individuals among others in a single domain of quantification — and that it arises naturally out of our most basic logical and semantical intuitions. The data I will draw upon are not new and are well-known to contemporary higher-order metaphysicians. However, I will try to defend my thesis in what I believe is a novel way by suggesting that these basic intuitions ground a reasonable distinction between “pure” logic and non-logical theory, and that Russell-style semantic paradoxes of truth and exemplification arise only when we move beyond the purely logical and, hence, do not of themselves provide any strong objection to a type-free conception of properties and propositions. -/- Most of my arguments in §1 are largely independent of any specific account of the nature of properties and propositions beyond their type-freedom. However, I will in addition argue that there are good reasons to take propositions, at least, to be very fine-grained. My arguments are thus bolstered significantly if it can be shown that there are in fact well-defined examples of logics that are not only type-free but which comport with such a conception of propositions. It is the purpose of §2 to lay out a logic of this sort in some detail, drawing especially upon work by George Bealer and related work of my own. With the logic in place, it will be possible to generalize the line of argument noted above regarding Russell-style paradoxes and, in §3, apply it to two propositional paradoxes — the Prior-Kaplan paradox and the Russell-Myhill paradox — that are often taken to threaten the sort of account developed here. (shrink)

Stephen Barker presents a novel approach to solving semantic paradoxes, including the Liar and its variants and Curry’s paradox. His approach is based around the concept of alethic undecidability. His approach, if successful, renders futile all attempts to assign semantic properties to the paradoxical sentences, whilst leaving classical logic fully intact. And, according to Barker, even the T-scheme remains valid, for validity is not undermined by undecidable instances. Barker’s approach is innovative and worthy of further consideration, particularly by those of (...) us who aim to find a solution without logical revisionism. As it stands, however, the approach is unsuccessful, as I shall demonstrate below. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the interpretation of the Italian approximative adverb quasi 'almost' by primarily looking at cases in which it modifies temporal connectives, a domain which, to our knowledge, has been largely unexplored thus far. Consideration of this domain supports the need for a scalar account of the semantics of quasi (close in spirit to Hitzeman's semantic analysis of almost, in: Canakis et al. (eds) Papers from the 28th regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 1992). When paired (...) with suitable analyses of temporal connectives, such an account can provide a simple explanation of the patterns of implication that are observed when quasi modifies locational (e. g. quando 'when'), directional (e. g. fino 'until' and da 'since'), and event-sequencing temporal connectives (e. g. prima 'before' and dopo ' after'). A challenging empirical phenomenon that is observed is a contrast between the modification of fino and da by quasi, on the one hand, and the modification of prima and dopo by the same adverb, on the other. While quasi fino and quasi da behave symmetrically, a puzzling asymmetry is observed between quasi prima and quasi dopo. To explain the asymmetry, we propose an analysis of prima and dopo on which the former has the meaning of the temporal comparative più presto 'earlier', while the latter is seen as an atomic predicate denoting temporal succession between events (Del Prete, Nat Lang Semantics 16: 157-203, 2008). We show that the same pattern of implication observed for quasi prima is attested when quasi modifies overt comparatives, and propose a pragmatic analysis of this pattern that uniformly applies to both cases, thus providing new evidence for the claim that prima is underlyingly a comparative. A major point of this paper is a discussion of the notion of scale which is relevant for the semantics of quasi', in particular, we show that the notion of Horn (entailment-based) scale is not well-suited for handling modification of temporal connectives, and that a more general notion of scale is required in order to provide a uniform analysis of quasi as a cross-categorial modifier. (shrink)

Theories of content are at the centre of philosophical semantics. The most successful general theory of content takes contents to be sets of possible worlds. But such contents are very coarse-grained, for they cannot distinguish between logically equivalent contents. They draw intensional but not hyperintensional distinctions. This is often remedied by including impossible as well as possible worlds in the theory of content. Yet it is often claimed that impossible worlds are metaphysically obscure; and it is sometimes claimed that (...) their use results in a trivial theory of content. In this paper, I set out the need for impossible worlds in a theory of content; I briefly sketch a metaphysical account of their nature; I argue that worlds in general must be very fine-grained entities; and, finally, I argue that the resulting conception of impossible worlds is not a trivial one. (shrink)

The Duhem-Quine thesis famously holds that a single hypothesis cannot be confirmed or disconfirmed in isolation, but instead only in conjunction with other background hypotheses. This article argues that this has important and underappreciated implications for metaethics. Section 1 argues that if one begins metaethics firmly wedded to a naturalistic worldview—due (e.g.) to methodological/epistemic considerations—then normativity will appear to be reducible to a set of social-psycho-semantic behaviors that I call the ‘normative stance.’ Contra Hume and Bedke (2012), I argue that (...) the normative stance provides semantically-grounded entailments from natural truths to normative truths, reducing the latter to the former. Specifically, the normative stance explains the truth-conditions, truth-values, and truth-makers of normative propositions in terms of socially grounded cognitive-behavioral rules and other natural facts, thus explaining how there can be bona fide normative facts and properties in a wholly naturalistic world. I then show that the normative stance explains the apparent stance-independence and non-naturalness of normative reasons, intrinsic value, and categoricity of moral reasons as ‘user-illusions’ generated by people having strong psycho-social propensities—rooted in evolution and social cooperation—to take these normative stances. Section 2 then argues that while the normative stance may appear to naturalists to successfully explain normativity, it will not appeal to those who come to metaethics with different background commitments. I conclude that naturalists should take the normative stance to be a promising metaethical theory of normativity, and that whether it is a true theory of normativity is something that can only be ascertained by determining which background hypotheses—naturalistic or otherwise—we should have when doing metaethics. (shrink)

I have two main goals in this paper. First, I develop a version of Theory of Identification for the reference of proper names, one which comes from Strawson and Evans. The theory is not developed in detail, but its central elements are revealed, focusing on its treatment of the phenomenon of reference borrowing. At the center of this theory is Russell’s Principle which, applied to the reference of proper names, states that the identification of the named object is a necessary (...) condition for the success of reference. Secondly, I reply to the challenge posed by the semantic argument inspired by Kripke and Donnellan. This argument can be used to show that identification is not necessary for the success of reference. I defend that it is not effective against the version of Theory of Identification advocated here. (shrink)