In this article I consider some recent objections raised against the syntactic treatment of negation in English multiclausal structures, in particular what has been called NEGraising. I argue that the objections based on pronominalisation and ellipsis presented in the recent literature do pose a problem for syntactic accounts of the mechanisms of so-called NOT-transportation that rely on a rule of leftwards movement, as is customary in generative grammar. However, there is an alternative syntactic treatment that assumes that negation originates (...) as a higher predicate and is subject to a rule of lowering. I show that a syntactic theory of NOT-transportation is tenable and accounts for the problematic data if NEGraising is replaced, in the analysis of the cases considered here, by a rule of NEG-lowering. (shrink)

Causal pluralists hold that that there is not just one determinate kind of causation. Some causal pluralists hold that ‘cause’ is ambiguous among these different kinds. For example, Hall (2004) argues that ‘cause’ is ambiguous between two causal relations, which he labels dependence and production. The view that ‘cause’ is ambiguous, however, wrongly predicts zeugmatic conjunction reduction, and wrongly predicts the behaviour of ellipsis in causal discourse. So ‘cause’ is not ambiguous. If we are to disentangle causal pluralism from (...) the ambiguity claim, we need to consider what other linguistic approaches are available to the causal pluralist. I consider and reject proposals that ‘cause’ is a general term, that the term is an indexical, and that the term conveys different kinds of causation through implicature or presupposition. Finally, I argue that causal pluralism is better handled by treating ‘cause’ as a univocal term within a dynamic interpretation framework. (shrink)

This article explains Wittgenstein's distinction between good, bad, and vacuous modern music which he introduced in a diary entry from January 27, 1931. I situate Wittgenstein's discussion in the context of Oswald Spengler's ideas concerning the decline of Western culture, which informed Wittgenstein's philosophical progress during his middle period, and I argue that the music theory of Heinrich Schenker, and Wittgenstein's critique thereof, served as an immediate link between Spengler's cultural pessimism and Wittgenstein's threefold distinction. I conclude that Wittgenstein's distinction (...) between bad and vacuous modern music is analogous to Schenker's distinction between the compositional fallacies of the progressive and the reactionary composers of his time. Concomitantly, Wittgenstein's philosophically problematic notion of good modern music transcended the conceptual framework of both Schenker and Spengler. In this context, I examine Wittgenstein's remarks on Gustav Mahler as well as his remark on the music of the future as monophony, which, I conclude, should be understood ultimately as an ellipsis of his much later view of musical meaning and intelligibility. (shrink)

Intertextuality (mutual illustration) is a common rhetorical device in ancient Chinese and has been used many times in Laozi (Dao Dejing). Intertextuality (mutual illustration) is of unique significance for understanding the linguistic structure and philosophical thoughts of Lao-zi. According to the current research on mutual illustration rhetoric on ancient Chinese, the forms of this rhetoric in Laozi can be divided into mutual illustration of single sentence, of multiple sentences and of ellipsis and antisense. There are only two references to (...) mutual illustration in the annotations of Laozi in the past dynasties, and most of the commentators ignore the importance of mutual illustration in understanding Laozi. By interpreting Laozi through mutual illustration rhetoric, we can make innovations in understanding methods, understanding contents and philosophical thoughts. (shrink)

We take as our starting point a thesis to the effect that, at least for true judgments of many varieties, there are parts of reality which make such judgments are true. We argue that two distinct components are involved in this truthmaker relation. On the one hand is the relation of necessitation, which holds between an object x and a judgment p when the existence of x entails the truth of p. On the other hand is the dual notion of (...) projection, which holds between a judgment p and an object x when the truth of p entails the existence of x. A truthmaker for a judgment p is then a necessitator for p which satisfies the further constraint that it is part of p’s projection. We offer a formal theory of the truthmaker relation thus defined, exploiting ontological tools of basic mereology and the theory of dependence. We then apply the theory to a range of problems connected with generic expressions, ellipsis, vagueness, and indexical and perceptual judgments. (shrink)

Rooth & Partee (1982) and Rooth (1985) have shown that the English-specific rule-by-rule system of PTQ can be factored out into function application plus two transformations for resolving type mismatch (type lifting and variable binding). Building on these insights, this article proposes a universal system for type-driven translation, by adding two more innovations: local type determination for gaps (generalizing Montague 1973) and a set of semantic filters (extending Cooper 1983). This system, dubbed Cross-Linguistic Semantics (XLS), is shown to account for (...) various phenomena — including scope relations in English and Greenlandic Eskimo, internally headed relative clauses in Lakhota, serial verbs in Yoruba and VP ellipsis in English. (shrink)

Corcoran’s 27 entries in the 1999 second edition of Robert Audi’s Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy [Cambridge: Cambridge UP]. -/- ancestral, axiomatic method, borderline case, categoricity, Church (Alonzo), conditional, convention T, converse (outer and inner), corresponding conditional, degenerate case, domain, De Morgan, ellipsis, laws of thought, limiting case, logical form, logical subject, material adequacy, mathematical analysis, omega, proof by recursion, recursive function theory, scheme, scope, Tarski (Alfred), tautology, universe of discourse. -/- The entire work is available online free at more (...) than one website. Paste the whole URL. http://archive.org/stream/RobertiAudi_The.Cambridge.Dictionary.of.Philosophy/Robert.Audi_The.Cambrid ge.Dictionary.of.Philosophy -/- The 2015 third edition will be available soon. Before you think of buying it read some reviews on Amazon and read reviews of its competition: For example, my review of the 2008 Oxford Companion to Philosophy, History and Philosophy of Logic,29:3,291-292. URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01445340701300429 -/- Some of the entries have already been found to be flawed. For example, Tarski’s expression ‘materially adequate’ was misinterpreted in at least one article and it was misused in another where ‘materially correct’ should have been used. The discussion provides an opportunity to bring more flaws to light. -/- Acknowledgements: Each of these entries was presented at meetings of The Buffalo Logic Dictionary Project sponsored by The Buffalo Logic Colloquium. The members of the colloquium read drafts before the meetings and were generous with corrections, objections, and suggestions. Usually one 90-minute meeting was devoted to one entry although in some cases, for example, “axiomatic method”, took more than one meeting. Moreover, about half of the entries are rewrites of similarly named entries in the 1995 first edition. Besides the help received from people in Buffalo, help from elsewhere was received by email. We gratefully acknowledge the following: José Miguel Sagüillo, John Zeis, Stewart Shapiro, Davis Plache, Joseph Ernst, Richard Hull, Concha Martinez, Laura Arcila, James Gasser, Barry Smith, Randall Dipert, Stanley Ziewacz, Gerald Rising, Leonard Jacuzzo, George Boger, William Demopolous, David Hitchcock, John Dawson, Daniel Halpern, William Lawvere, John Kearns, Ky Herreid, Nicolas Goodman, William Parry, Charles Lambros, Harvey Friedman, George Weaver, Hughes Leblanc, James Munz, Herbert Bohnert, Robert Tragesser, David Levin, Sriram Nambiar, and others. -/- . (shrink)

We take as our starting point a thesis to the effect that, at least for true judgments of many varieties, there are parts of reality which make such judgments are true. We argue that two distinct components are involved in this truthmaker relation. On the one hand is the relation of necessitation, which holds between an object x and a judgment p when the existence of x entails the truth of p. On the other hand is the dual notion of (...) projection, which holds between a judgment p and an object x when the truth of p entails the existence of x. A truthmaker for a judgment p is then a necessitator for p which satisfies the further constraint that it is part of p’s projection. We offer a formal theory of the truthmaker relation thus defined, exploiting ontological tools of basic mereology and the theory of dependence. We then apply the theory to a range of problems connected with generic expressions, ellipsis, vagueness, and indexical and perceptual judgments. (shrink)

This paper deals with Austinian ifs of every stripe within classical logic. It is argued that they are truth-functional and the theory of conditional elements is used. Ellipsis is key. Corrects an error in Fulda (2010) in translation and therefore scope. -/- The PDF is made available gratis by the Publisher.

Lawyers and judges cannot adequately address the nature of text, meaning, or interpretation without reference to the insights provided by linguists and philosophers of language. Exploring some of those insights, this article focuses upon what linguists and philosophers of language call “pragmatics.” Pragmatics examines the relations between words and users rather than the relations of words to words (syntax) or the relations of words to the world (semantics). In other words, pragmatics studies how language users actually use and interpret words (...) and other signs in communication. -/- Pragmatics recognizes that speaker meaning can differ from (and even contradict) linguistic meaning, including the literal meaning of text. In its proper context, for example, “Bob is indeed a good lawyer” can ironically mean just the opposite. Pragmatics also recognizes that relevant text is not a thing-in-itself that is simply given. Good lawyers look at such things as purpose and cohesion when determining relevant text. They do not simply take their opponent’s (or even their client’s) assertions of relevance. -/- Pragmatics also provides lawyers with a number of specific concepts and tools which are helpful in determining speaker meaning. For user convenience, this article attempts to set out in one place a number of such concepts and tools. These include: (1) types of cohesion that help determine relevant text, (2) types of context that help determine meaning, (3) pragmatic principles of construction such as principles of relevance and politeness, and (4) important pragmatic notions or devices such as anaphora, cataphora, ellipsis, deixis, presupposition, unstated premises, entailment, and implementives. -/- Finally, as a recurring example (among others) of pragmatics in action, this article examines from multiple perspectives textual issues raised in King v. Burwell, 576 U.S. __ (2015). -/- Keywords: Pragmatics, Semiotics, Interpretation, Textualism, Plain Meaning, King v. Burwell, Affordable Care Act, Text, Meaning, Speaker Meaning, Implicature. (shrink)

This article begins with some common or well-known sentiments about the present pandemic era and our experience of it, and moves by way of these toward discussion of the concepts of human existence and the “world” in the broadest sense of both terms. Departing from but also radicalizing the notion that “everything changed” in this pandemic time, I discuss certain logical difficulties that pertain to conceiving of or coherently talking about strict totalities which would include our own selves. This will (...) have significant consequences for our conception of the world (when taken in its absolute or broadest sense), and in what sense there are or could be multiple such immersive wholes of experience. Ultimately, I will suggest that in being able to name such pervasive or all encompassing phenomena, phenomena which are “always more” than what it is possible for us to indicate, that human existence is fundamentally liminal, or essentially between and borderline. Being essential or fundamental, this liminality or betweenness will form the basis which precedes and makes possible the apparently simple activities of, for instance, counting time or comparing and contrasting ordinary things, activities which would otherwise seem to require no outside support or conditions. (shrink)

The paper discusses what kind of truth bearer, or truth-ascription, a deflationist should take as primary. I first present number of arguments against a sententialist view. I then present a deflationary theory which takes propositions as primary, and try to show that it deals neatly with a wide range of linguistic data. Next, I consider both the view that there is no primary truth bearer, and the most common account of sentence truth given by deflationists who take propositions as primary, (...) and argue that they both attribute an implausible type of ambiguity to “true”. This can be avoided, however, if truth-ascriptions to sentences are taken as a certain form of pragmatic ellipses. I end by showing how this hypothesis accommodates a number of intuitions involving truth-ascriptions to sentences. (shrink)