ABSTRACT In this paper, I present data involving the use of the Romanian slur ‘țigan’, consideration of which leads to the postulation of a sui-generis, irreducible type of use of slurs. This type of use is potentially problematic for extant theories of slurs. In addition, together with other well-established uses, it shows that there is more variation in the use of slurs than previously acknowledged. I explain this variation by construing slurs as polysemous. To implement this idea, I appeal to (...) a rich-lexicon account of polysemy. I show how such a theory can be applied to slurs and discuss several important issues that arise. (shrink)

Torture porn has been vilified on grounds that are at best unconvincing and at worst incoherent. The subgenre’s remonstrators too often ignore the content of the films themselves, and fail to make sufficiently detailed connections between the subgenre and the cultural sphere. Reactions to torture porn rarely consider what values the films apparently contravene, and why, if the films are offensive, they are simultaneously so popular. The central derisive mechanism in operation is the ill-conceived combination of ‘torture’ and ‘porn’ itself. (...) The use of ‘porn’ as a label works to illegitimate torture porn and demand that body-horror retreat to its more ‘fitting’ position on the outskirts of the cultural radar. However, this approach is too busy pointing at violence, and fails to deal with the fact that sex is displaced. If violence is now pornographic, it is unclear what position sexual portrayals occupy, or whether they are still perceived as more offensive than violent representations. Furthermore, it is uncertain how we are to describe sexual images if that is the case, since the lexicon of offense has been waylaid. Torture porn’s critics commonly fail to account for the new context of ‘porn plus horror’, and what that combination says about visual representation and its limits. This chapter is a step towards rectifying that oversight. (shrink)

Many authors writing on slurs think that they are lexically rich, in the sense that their lexical meaning comprises both a descriptive dimension and an expressive/evaluative one, the latter accounting for their derogatory character. However, more fine-grained theories of slurs have recently been proposed, drawing on frameworks from lexical semantics. My main aim in this paper is to compare three such fine-grained rich-lexicon theories – the one put forward by myself in previous work with two similar ones, Croom’s (2011, (...) 2013) and Neufeld’s (2019, 2022). While my primary aim is to underlie the commonalities and differences between the three views, I also aim at showing that the latter views have some issues that are easily avoided in the framework I propose. (shrink)

In this paper, I have been able to demonstrate that the so-called Lexicon Theeteti is an apographon of Pal. gr. 173, a well known Plato's manuscript of Xth century. The codex Laurentianus 57,24, which contains the lexicon, previously dated to XIV/XV century, was also backdated to the first half of XIVth century.

Peter Ludlow shows how word meanings are much more dynamic than we might have supposed, and explores how they are modulated even during everyday conversation. The resulting view is radical, and has far-reaching consequences for our political and legal discourse, and for enduring puzzles in the foundations of semantics, epistemology, and logic.

These are for entries for _The Cambridge Rawls Lexicon_, edited by Jon Mandle and David Reidy, on H.L.A. Hart, Charles Beitz, Sovereignty, and Citizen.

The main goal of this paper is to show that there are many phenomena that pertain to the construction of truth-conditional compounds that follow characteristic patterns, and whose explanation requires appealing to knowledge structures organized in specific ways. We review a number of phenomena, ranging from non-homogenous modification and privative modification to polysemy and co-predication that indicate that knowledge structures do play a role in obtaining truth-conditions. After that, we show that several extant accounts that invoke rich lexical meanings to (...) explain such phenomena face problems related to inflexibility and lack of predictive power. We review different ways in which one might react to such problems as regards lexical meanings: go richer, go moderately richer, go thinner, and go moderately thinner. On the face of it, it looks like moderate positions are unstable, given the apparent lack of a clear cutoff point between the semantic and the conceptual, but also that a very thin view and a very rich view may turn out to be indistinguishable in the long run. As far as we can see, the most pressing open questions concern this last issue: can there be a principled semantic/world knowledge distinction? Where could it be drawn: at some upper level (e.g. enriched qualia structures) or at some basic level (e.g. constraints)? How do parsimony considerations affect these two different approaches? A thin meanings approach postulates intermediate representations whose role is not clear in the interpretive process, while a rich meanings approach to lexical meaning seems to duplicate representations: the same representations that are stored in the lexicon would form part of conceptual representations. Both types of parsimony problems would be solved by assuming a direct relation between word forms and (parts of) conceptual or world knowledge, leading to a view that has been attributed to Chomsky (e.g. by Katz 1980) in which there is just syntax and encyclopedic knowledge. (shrink)

The experience of embarrassment was explored in two experiments comparing monolingual and bilingual speakers from cultures varying in the degree of elabo- ration of the embarrassment lexicon. In Experiment 1, narratives in English or Korean depicting three types of embarrassing predicaments were to be rated on their embarrassability and humorousness by Korean-English bilinguals, Korean monolinguals, and Euro-American monolinguals. All groups judged certain predicaments (involving social gaffes) to be the most embarrassing. However, significant group and language differences occurred in judgments (...) of the inten- sity of embarrassment and amusement judgments evoked. Euro-Americans ex- hibited higher overall levels of amusement than the two Korean groups who, in turn, reported higher levels of embarrassment, particularly for certain predica- ment types and contexts (ingroup members present). Further, for the bilinguals, inept performance predicaments in English were judged more embarrassing than those in Korean, whereas all predicament types were judged more amusing when framed with English emotion labels. Bilinguals also appeared to show a heightened embarrassability relative to both monolingual groups. Experiment 2 found lexical selection differences in open-ended responses to embarrassing predicaments depicted in each language, with Euro-Americans preferring to give justifications or use humor to minimize the embarrassment and Korean-English bilinguals preferring to give apologies or say nothing. The findings are interpret- ed to reflect the influence of culturally-mediated schemas guiding the activation and processing of emotion vocabulary. (shrink)

Abstract: This is necessarily an evolutionary work in progress. Its purpose and goal is enabling real progress of science, mathematics, society, and civilization. Thus, to accomplish the mission, upgrading the current sociocultural paradigm is essential. That makes holistic ontology and optimal epistemics essential to ongoing work and to further development of new theory and metatheory. Hence, the current listings of key terms, definitions, and explanations presented here provide some core concepts and supporting theorems, metatheorems, equations, and examples. That enables remedial (...) revision of relevant domains of thought and discourse. The project is also intended to inspire collaborative extension and ongoing refinement of the work. The appendices provide additional perspective. ~ A preprint draft, v.2e, for review and comment only. (shrink)

In this paper, we take the approach of the lexicon makers: We contemplate human language instead of trying to resist its forces. Basically, some sigmatoids seem to have been created to be free of boundaries: We fence them as we please when we apply them to our assertions, but they are quite vague in the lexicon. We here identify at least two types of such sigmatoids: The synthetisers and the specifiers. The former would originate from our capacity of (...) isolating common features of objects that, in principle, have no possible intersection. The latter would originate from our attempt of describing the 3D World by means of 2D entities. We conclude that the intrinsic vagueness of these sigmatoids is something not only acceptable, but either pleasant or necessary. (shrink)

This short work sets out to argue that the set of simple expressions comprising the lexicon of a given individual and the lexis of a given community are not just contingently but necessarily finite at any given moment in time. Where the lexicon is concerned, this is done by adapting a very simple argument presented by Fred Dretske (1965) concerning whether an individual can count to infinity. This is extended to the more challenging case of the lexis of (...) a community by introducing lexicalization as a condition, which facilitates the same sort of argument as presented for the lexicon. Though the lexicon and lexis are often implicitly assumed to be finite, with little need for further argumentation, there does appear to be grounds for the stronger and more interesting claim that they are necessarily finite at any given moment in time. (shrink)

Measures and theories of information abound, but there are few formalised methods for treating the contextuality that can manifest in different information systems. Quantum theory provides one possible formalism for treating information in context. This paper introduces a quantum inspired model of the human mental lexicon. This model is currently being experimentally investigated and we present a preliminary set of pilot data suggesting that concept combinations can indeed behave non-separably.

Lexicon entry on Kant's Essay "On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy.".

Short lexicon entry on the Rawls-Nozick discussions.

Is calculation possible without language? Or is the human ability for arithmetic dependent on the language faculty? To clarify the relation between language and arithmetic, we studied numerical cognition in speakers of Mundurukú, an Amazonian language with a very small lexicon of number words. Although the Mundurukú lack words for numbers beyond 5, they are able to compare and add large approximate numbers that are far beyond their naming range. However, they fail in exact arithmetic with numbers larger than (...) 4 or 5. Our results imply a distinction between a nonverbal system of number approximation and a language-based counting system for exact number and arithmetic. (shrink)

The mapping of numbers onto space is fundamental to measurement and to mathematics. Is this mapping a cultural invention or a universal intuition shared by all humans regardless of culture and education? We probed number-space mappings in the Mundurucu, an Amazonian indigene group with a reduced numerical lexicon and little or no formal education. At all ages, the Mundurucu mapped symbolic and nonsymbolic numbers onto a logarithmic scale, whereas Western adults used linear mapping with small or symbolic numbers and (...) logarithmic mapping when numbers were presented nonsymbolically under conditions that discouraged counting. This indicates that the mapping of numbers onto space is a universal intuition and that this initial intuition of number is logarithmic. The concept of a linear number line appears to be a cultural invention that fails to develop in the absence of formal education. (shrink)

All humans share a universal, evolutionarily ancient approximate number system (ANS) that estimates and combines the numbers of objects in sets with ratio-limited precision. Interindividual variability in the acuity of the ANS correlates with mathematical achievement, but the causes of this correlation have never been established. We acquired psychophysical measures of ANS acuity in child and adult members of an indigene group in the Amazon, the Mundurucú, who have a very restricted numerical lexicon and highly variable access to mathematics (...) education. By comparing Mundurucú subjects with and without access to schooling, we found that education significantly enhances the acuity with which sets of concrete objects are estimated. These results indicate that culture and education have an important effect on basic number perception. We hypothesize that symbolic and nonsymbolic numerical thinking mutually enhance one another over the course of mathematics instruction. (shrink)

In the context of his highly influential defence of compatibilism, P. F. Strawson 1962 introduced the terms "reactive attitude" and "objective attitude" to the free-will lexicon. He argued, in effect, that relinquishing such reactive attitudes as resentment and moral indignation isn't a real possibility for us, since doing so would commit us to exclusive objectivity, a stance incompatible with ordinary interpersonal relationships. While most commentators have challenged Strawson's link between personal relationships and the reactive attitudes, Tamler Sommers 2007 has (...) taken up Strawson's claim that exclusive objectivity would preclude meaningful relationships. Here I set out a defence of this claim by identifying a kind of interpersonal caring that is plausibly both required for such relationships and excluded by the objective attitude. I then argue that this defence helps to support Strawson's more controversial claim about personal relationships and the reactive attitudes. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a defence of a Russellian analysis of the referential uses of incomplete (mis)descriptions, in a contextual setting. With regard to the debate between a unificationist and an ambiguity approach to the formal treatment of definite descriptions (introduction), I will support the former against the latter. In 1. I explain what I mean by "essentially" incomplete descriptions: incomplete descriptions are context dependent descriptions. In 2. I examine one of the best versions of the unificationist “explicit” approach (...) given by Buchanan and Ostertag. I then show that this proposal seems unable to treat the normal uses of misdescriptions. I then accept the challenge of treating misdescriptions as a key to solving the problem of context dependent descriptions. In 3. I briefly discuss Michael Devitt’s and Joseph Almog’s treatments of referential descriptions, showing that they find it difficult to explain misdescriptions. In 4. I suggest an alternative approach to DD as contextuals, under a normative epistemic stance. Definite descriptions express (i) what a speaker should have in mind in using certain words in a certain context and (ii) what a normal speaker is justified in saying in a context, given a common basic knowledge of the lexicon. In 5. I define a procedure running on contextual parameters (partiality, perspective and approximation) as a means of representing the role of pragmatics as a filter for semantic interpretation. In 6. I defend my procedural approach against possible objections concerning the problem of the boundaries between semantics and pragmatics, relying on the distinction between semantics and theory of meaning. (shrink)

We discuss a well-known puzzle about the lexicalization of logical operators in natural language, in particular connectives and quantifiers. Of the many logically possible operators, only few appear in the lexicon of natural languages: the connectives in English, for example, are conjunction _and_, disjunction _or_, and negated disjunction _nor_; the lexical quantifiers are _all, some_ and _no_. The logically possible nand (negated conjunction) and Nall (negated universal) are not expressed by lexical entries in English, nor in any natural language. (...) Moreover, the lexicalized operators are all upward or downward monotone, an observation known as the Monotonicity Universal. We propose a logical explanation of lexical gaps and of the Monotonicity Universal, based on the dynamic behaviour of connectives and quantifiers. We define update potentials for logical operators as procedures to modify the context, under the assumption that an update by $\phi$ depends on the logical form of $\phi$ and on the speech act performed: assertion or rejection. We conjecture that the adequacy of update potentials determines the limits of lexicalizability for logical operators in natural language. Finally, we show that on this framework the Monotonicity Universal follows from the logical properties of the updates that correspond to each operator. (shrink)

The 2005 International Consensus Conference on Intersex resulted in a substantive revision of the lexicon and guidelines for treating intersex conditions. The speed with which the new treatment protocol has been adopted by healthcare practitioners and providers is considered unprecedented. However, a number of intersex people and advocacy groups have complained that the recommended revisions are inadequately informed by the testimony of intersex people. In this paper, I argue that such complaints are valid and that, despite the conference conveners (...) stated intention, the revisions perpetuate the epistemic injustice long endured by intersex people. By analyzing the Consensus Conference and its results as a failed attempt to redress the epistemic marginalization of intersex patients and advocacy groups, I am able to identify lingering institutional hurdles to cultivating the virtue of epistemic justice in biomedical practice. (shrink)

Reclamation of a slur involves the creation of a new, positively-valenced meaning that gradually replaces the old pejorative meaning. This means that at a critical stage, the slur is ambiguous. It has been claimed that this ambiguity is polysemy. However, it is far from clear whether the view can explain why the introduction of the new meaning forces the old one out of existence. I argue that this datapoint can be explained by invoking the mechanism of homonymic conflict, and, therefore, (...) that the ambiguity involved in reclamation is homonymy. One generalization that follows from my account is that conventionalized verbal irony, unlike conventionalized metonymy and metaphor, begets homonymy. Along the way, I criticize the standard ways of drawing the distinction between polysemy and homonymy in terms of semantic and etymological relatedness. If the notions of polysemy and homonymy are to be invoked in explanations, they should be understood in terms of how meanings are stored in the mental lexicon. My account also provides an elegant way of conceptualizing the difference between two types of conceptual engineering, namely reclamation and amelioration. (shrink)

An analysis of a valenced corpus of English words revealed that words that rhyme with slurs are rated more poorly than their synonyms. What at first might seem like a bizarre coincidence turns out to be a robust feature of slurs, one arising from their phonetic structure. We report novel data on phonaesthetic preferences, showing that a particular class of phonemes are both particularly disliked, and overrepresented in slurs. We argue that phonaesthetic associations have been an overlooked source of some (...) of the more peculiar, arational aspects of slurs. We conclude by drawing broader morals about the evolution of the lexicon. (shrink)

Kuhn's alleged taxonomic interpretation of incommensurability is grounded on an ill defined notion of untranslatability and is hence radically incomplete. To supplement it, I reconstruct Kuhn's taxonomic interpretation on the basis of a logical-semantic theory of taxonomy, a semantic theory of truth-value, and a truth-value conditional theory of cross-language communication. According to the reconstruction, two scientific languages are incommensurable when core sentences of one language, which have truth values when considered within its own context, lack truth values when considered within (...) the context of the other due to the unmatchable taxonomic structures underlying them. So constructed, Kuhn's mature interpretation of incommensurability does not depend upon the notion of truth-preserving translatability, but rather depends on the notion of truth-value-status-preserving cross-language communication. The reconstruction makes Kuhn's notion of incommensurability a well grounded, tenable and integrated notion.Author Keywords: Incommensurability; Thomas Kuhn; Taxonomic structures; Lexicons; Truth-value; Untranslatability; Cross-language communication. (shrink)

Les noms sous-spécifiés, qui peuvent apparaitre dans une construction spécificationnelle, de la forme Leur ambition a été d’innover, sont par ailleurs souvent des prédicats régissant des arguments, dans une phrase élémentaire de la forme Ils ont eu l’ambition d’innover, où Nss est le prédicat accompagné d’un verbe support et de ses arguments N0 et N1. Nous avons étudié des noms entrant à la fois dans les deux constructions et avec le même sens, et trouvé trois cas de figure. Avec des (...) noms tels que ambition, et ont presque le même sens. Dans d’autres entrées, telles que souvenir et preuve, les deux constructions ne sont pas équivalentes : l’attribut phrastique de est absent de, tandis que l’argument N1 de peut apparaitre comme complément de nom du Nss sujet dans, et spécifie souvent le thème du propos contenu dans l’attribut phrastique de. Enfin, d’autres noms tels que embarras ne sont pas des Nss typiques car l’attribut phrastique de y joue un rôle causal ; il n’a pas le même contenu que N1. Ainsi, dans les types souvenir/preuve et embarras, est à analyser comme une combinaison de plusieurs phrases élémentaires. (shrink)

Globalization allegedly constitutes one of the most used and abused concepts in the contemporary academic and lay lexicons alike. This paper pursues a deconstructive avenue for canvassing the semiotic economy of cultural globalization. The variegated ways whereby ideology has been framed in different semiotic perspectives (Peircean, structuralist, post-structuralist, neo-Marxist) are laid out. By engaging with the post-structuralist semiotic terrain, cultural globalization is identified with a transition from Baudrillard’s Political Economy of Signs towards a spectral ideology where signs give way to (...) traces of différance. Subsequently, the process whereby globalization materializes is conceived as a social hauntology. In this context, global citizens engage in a constant retracing of the meaning of signs of globalization that crystallize as translocally flowing ideoscapes and mediascapes. The propounded thesis is exemplified by recourse to cultural consumption phenomena from the domains of cinematic discourse, computer-gaming, food and social gaming. (shrink)

In this paper I will focus on a crux in two Platonic scholia, where manuscripts have the impossible διονύσιον, but Greene suggests δίκαιον. This amendment was made on the basis of a gloss of Photius’ Lexicon, although the corresponding gloss of Suidas confirms the text of Platonic scholia. However the agreement with Photius is not so important, not only because it is impossible to prove that he reproduces the text of the glossary composed by the Atticist Aelius Dionysius without (...) any modification (it is also the source of Suidas and other Byzantine lexica, and especially of the so called Erweiterte Synagoge, which the Platonic scholia derive from as well), but also because our scholia reveal elsewhere a major affinity with Suidas than with Patriarch’s Lexicon. In the light of a careful review of the loci paralleli I therefore suggest the reading δημόσιον. (shrink)

A Fortiori Logic: Innovations, History and Assessments is a wide-ranging and in-depth study of a fortiori reasoning, comprising a great many new theoretical insights into such argument, a history of its use and discussion from antiquity to the present day, and critical analyses of the main attempts at its elucidation. Its purpose is nothing less than to lay the foundations for a new branch of logic and greatly develop it; and thus to once and for all dispel the many fallacious (...) ideas circulating regarding the nature of a fortiori reasoning. -/- The work is divided into three parts. The first part, Formalities, presents the author’s largely original theory of a fortiori argument, in all its forms and varieties. Its four (or eight) principal moods are analyzed in great detail and formally validated, and secondary moods are derived from them. A crescendo argument is distinguished from purely a fortiori argument, and similarly analyzed and validated. These argument forms are clearly distinguished from the pro rata and analogical forms of argument. Moreover, we examine the wide range of a fortiori argument; the possibilities of quantifying it; the formal interrelationships of its various moods; and their relationships to syllogistic and analogical reasoning. Although a fortiori argument is shown to be deductive, inductive forms of it are acknowledged and explained. Although a fortiori argument is essentially ontical in character, more specifically logical-epistemic and ethical-legal variants of it are acknowledged. -/- The second part of the work, Ancient and Medieval History, looks into use and discussion of a fortiori argument in Greece and Rome, in the Talmud, among post-Talmudic rabbis, and in Christian, Moslem, Chinese and Indian sources. Aristotle’s approach to a fortiori argument is described and evaluated. There is a thorough analysis of the Mishnaic qal vachomer argument, and a reassessment of the dayo principle relating to it, as well as of the Gemara’s later take on these topics. The valuable contribution, much later, by Moshe Chaim Luzzatto is duly acknowledged. Lists are drawn up of the use of a fortiori argument in the Jewish Bible, the Mishna, the works of Plato and Aristotle, the Christian Bible and the Koran; and the specific moods used are identified. Moreover, there is a pilot study of the use of a fortiori argument in the Gemara, with reference to Rodkinson’s partial edition of the Babylonian Talmud, setting detailed methodological guidelines for a fuller study. There is also a novel, detailed study of logic in general in the Torah. -/- The third part of the present work, Modern and Contemporary Authors, describes and evaluates the work of numerous (some thirty) recent contributors to a fortiori logic, as well as the articles on the subject in certain lexicons. Here, we discover that whereas a few authors in the last century or so made some significant contributions to the field, most of them shot woefully off-target in various ways. The work of each author, whether famous or unknown, is examined in detail in a dedicated chapter, or at least in a section; and his ideas on the subject are carefully weighed. The variety of theories that have been proposed is impressive, and stands witness to the complexity and elusiveness of the subject, and to the crying need for the present critical and integrative study. But whatever the intrinsic value of each work, it must be realized that even errors and lacunae are interesting because they teach us how not to proceed. -/- This book also contains, in a final appendix, some valuable contributions to general logic, including new analyses of symbolization and axiomatization, existential import, the tetralemma, the Liar paradox and the Russell paradox. (shrink)

The National Center for Biomedical Ontology is now in its seventh year. The goals of this National Center for Biomedical Computing are to: create and maintain a repository of biomedical ontologies and terminologies; build tools and web services to enable the use of ontologies and terminologies in clinical and translational research; educate their trainees and the scientific community broadly about biomedical ontology and ontology-based technology and best practices; and collaborate with a variety of groups who develop and use ontologies and (...) terminologies in biomedicine. The centerpiece of the National Center for Biomedical Ontology is a web-based resource known as BioPortal. BioPortal makes available for research in computationally useful forms more than 270 of the world's biomedical ontologies and terminologies, and supports a wide range of web services that enable investigators to use the ontologies to annotate and retrieve data, to generate value sets and special-purpose lexicons, and to perform advanced analytics on a wide range of biomedical data. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose a methodology to maximize the benefits of interdisciplinary cooperation in AI research groups. Firstly, we build the case for the importance of interdisciplinarity in research groups as the best means to tackle the social implications brought about by AI systems, against the backdrop of the EU Commission proposal for an Artificial Intelligence Act. As we are an interdisciplinary group, we address the multi-faceted implications of the mass-scale diffusion of AI-driven technologies. The result of our exercise (...) lead us to postulate the necessity of a behavioural theory that standardizes the interaction process of interdisciplinary groups. In light of this, we conduct a review of the existing approaches to interdisciplinary research on AI appliances, leading to the development of methodologies like ethics-by-design and value-sensitive design, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. We then put forth an iterative process theory hinging on a narrative approach consisting of four phases: definition of the hypothesis space, building-up of a common lexicon, scenario-building, interdisciplinary self-assessment. Finally, we identify the most relevant fields of application for such a methodology and discuss possible case studies. (shrink)

This article is a bibliographical entry in the Lexicon Grammaticorum: A Bio-Bibliographical Companion to the History of Linguistics.

Natural language contains simple lexical items for some but not all Boolean operators. English, for example, contains conjunction and, disjunction or, negated disjunction nor, but no word to express negated conjunction *nand nor any other Boolean connective. Natural language grammar can be described by a logic that expresses what the lexicon can express by its primitives, and the rest compositionally. Such logic for propositional connectives is described here as a bilateral extension of update semantics. The basic intuition is that (...) a context can be updated by assertion or by rejection, and by one or multiple propositions at once. These distinctions suffice to characterize the logic of the lexicon. (shrink)

This is an anthology that is coming out in Farsi. -/- Table of Contents (in English): -/- 1. (2021). “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy.” The Cambridge Kant Lexicon, ed. Julian Wuerth, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 691-695. 2. (2010). “Kant and Lying to the Murderer at the Door . . . One More Time: Kant’s Legal Philosophy and Lies to Murderers and Nazis.” The Journal of Social Philosophy, Vol. 41(4), pp. 403-421. 3. (2006). “Kant and Dependency (...) Relations: Kant on the State’s Right to Redistribute Resources to Protect the Rights of Dependents.” Dialogue – Canadian Philosophical Review, Vol. 45, pp. 257-284. 4. (2011). “A Kantian Conception of Global Justice.” Review of International Studies, Vol. 37(5), pp. 2043-2057. 5. (2010). “Kant’s Non-Absolutist Conception of Political Legitimacy: How Public Right ‘Concludes’ Private Right in ‘The Doctrine of Right.’”Kant-Studien, Vol. 3, pp. 331-351. 6. (2008). “Kant’s Non-Voluntarist Conception of Political Obligations: Why Justice Is Impossible in the State of Nature.” Kantian Review, Vol. 13(2), pp. 1-45. 7. (2021). “Kant and Arendt on Barbaric and Totalitarian Evil.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. 121 (2), pp. 221-248. 8. (2020). “Kantian Care.” Caring for Liberalism: Dependency and Political Theory, ed. Asha L. Bhandary and Amy Baehr, New York: Routledge, pp. 50-74. 9. (2020). “Kant and Moral Responsibility for Animals.” Kant & Animals, ed. Lucy Allais and John Callanan, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 157-175. -/- Thanks to all the original publishers of these articles for permitting them to be reprinted in translation here. Photo cover: pluspointsphere(.com). (shrink)

One of the main motivations for having a compositional semantics is the account of the productivity of natural languages. Formal languages are often part of the account of productivity, i.e., of how beings with finite capaci- ties are able to produce and understand a potentially infinite number of sen- tences, by offering a model of this process. This account of productivity con- sists in the generation of proofs in a formal system, that is taken to represent the way speakers grasp (...) the meaning of an indefinite number of sentences. The informational basis is restricted to what is represented in the lexicon. This constraint is considered as a requirement for the account of productivity, or at least of an important feature of productivity, namely, that we can grasp auto- matically the meaning of a huge number of complex expressions, far beyond what can be memorized. However, empirical results in psycholinguistics, and especially particular patterns of ERP, show that the brain integrates informa- tion of different sources very fast, without any felt effort on the part of the speaker. This shows that formal procedures do not explain productivity. How- ever, formal models are still useful in the account of how we get at the seman- tic value of a complex expression, once we have the meanings of its parts, even if there is no formal explanation of how we get at those meanings. A practice-oriented view of modeling gives an adequate interpretation of this re- sult: formal compositional semantics may be a useful model for some ex- planatory purposes concerning natural languages, without being a good model for dealing with other explananda. (shrink)

Smells are often said to be ineffable, and linguistic research shows that languages like English lack a dedicated olfactory lexicon. Starting from this evidence, I propose an account of how we talk about smells in English. Our reports about the way things smell are comparative: When we say that something smells burnt or like roses, we characterise the thing's smell by noting its similarity to the characteristic smells of certain odorous things (burnt things, roses). The account explains both the (...) strengths and limitations of our smell discourse, and has implications for philosophical discussions of the relation between language and appearances. (shrink)

According to Originalism, word types are non-eternal continuants which are individuated by their causal-historical lineage and have a unique possible time of origination. This view collides with the intuition that individual words can be added to the lexicon of a language at different times, and generates other problematic consequences. The paper shows that such undesired results can be accommodated without abandoning Originalism.

In this paper, I evaluate three views of philosophical pragmatism’s practical implications for academic and non-academic or public discourses, as well as offer my own view of those implications. The first view is that of George Novack. In an underappreciated tract, Pragmatism versus Marxism, the American Trotskyite and union organizer launched a vicious attack on John Dewey’s career as a professional philosopher. He alleged that Dewey’s ideas were inaccessible to all but a small community of fellow academicians. While Novack conceded (...) that Dewey’s philosophical inquiries had a cross-pollinating influence on other academic fields, he doubted that the beneficial products of those inquiries traveled far beyond the walls of the so-called ‘ivory tower.’ Larry Hickman offers a second view. He understands Dewey’s claim in Experience and Nature that philosophy serves as a “liaison officer” to mean that philosophers should provide a common lexicon that translates between the languages of distinct disciplines. In other words, for Dewey, the role of philosophy, including philosophical pragmatism, is to facilitate interdisciplinarity. Since interdisciplinary sharing is usually confined to academic discourse, Novack’s challenge is perfectly compatible with Hickman’s interpretation of Dewey’s ‘liaison officer’ claim. Both Novack and Hickman are mistaken, though in different degrees and for different reasons. The third, and more promising, view is advanced by Robert Talisse. He cites the life and works of Sidney Hook, one of Dewey’s better-known students, as an exemplary case of a pragmatist who consistently realized his pragmatic commitments in public discourse. The most important reason for qualifying Hickman’s interpretation of Dewey’s ‘liaison officer’ claim is that the measure of pragmatism’s value is not solely the ability of pragmatists to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration, but their ability to also insert their ideas into public discourse. In my view, philosophical pragmatists, and philosophers generally, should both facilitate interdisciplinarity in academic discourse and introduce philosophical notions into public discourse—that is, serving in the dual capacity of interdisciplinary scholar and public intellectual. (shrink)

We present in this paper a novel ontological theory of events whose central tenet is the Aristotelian distinction between the object that changes and the actual subject of change, which is what we call an individual quality. While in the Kimian tradition events are individuated by a triple ⟨ o, P, t ⟩, where o is an object, P a property, and t an interval of time, for us the simplest events are qualitative changes, individuated by a triple ⟨ o, (...) q, t ⟩, where q is an individual quality inhering in o or in one of its parts. Detaching the individuation of events from the property they exemplify results in a fine-grained theory that keeps metaphysics and semantics clearly separate, and lies between the multiplicative and the unitarian approaches. We discuss then the way language refers to events, observing that, in most cases, event descriptions refer to complex, cognitively relevant clusters of co-occurring qualitative changes, which exhibit a synchronic structure depending on the way they are described. Contra Bennett, who famously argued that the semantics of event names ultimately depends on “local context and unprincipled intuitions”, we show how the lexicon provides systematic principles for individuating such clusters and classifying them into kinds. Finally, we address some open challenges in the semantics of locative and manner modifiers. (shrink)

Lexical innovations (e.g., zero-derivations coined on the fly by a speaker) seem to bear semantic content. Yet, such expressions cannot bear semantic content as a function of the conventions of meaning in force in the language, since they are not part of its lexicon. This is in tension with the commonplace view that the semantic content of lexical expressions is constituted by linguistic conventions. The conventionalist has two immediate ways out of the tension. The first is to preserve the (...) conventionalist assumption and deny that lexical innovations bear semantic content. The second is to dynamicize the conventionalist assumption, that is, argue that presentations of unattested expressions trigger an augmentation of the standing semantic resources of the language and instantiate content as a result of this underlying update. Building on a comparison with the production of novel onomatopoeic words, iconic pseudowords and pro-speech gestures, the paper argues that the issue is best addressed by suspending the conventionalist assumption, and describes the metasemantic implications of the claim. (shrink)

In “Is semantics possible?” Putnam connected two themes: the very possibility of semantics (as opposed to formal model theory) for natural languages and the proper semantic treatment of common nouns. Putnam observed that abstract semantic accounts are modeled on formal languages model theory: the substantial contribution is rules for logical connectives (given outside the models), whereas the lexicon (individual constants and predicates) is treated merely schematically by the models. This schematic treatment may be all that is needed for an (...) account of validity in a formal setting, but it does not help to understand how proper and common nouns function in reality (not in models). Putnam then initiated the empirical study of such nouns to indicate, (i), that the popular Frege-Carnap account of them as (“disguised” compound) predicates is empirically incorrect, and, (ii), that they offer a new paradigm for a naturalistic semantics of natural languages. We take Putnam’s program a couple of steps further. First, we investigate the semantics of common nouns and argue that they refer (to kinds), rather than apply by satisfaction/truth to a designation/denotation. Second, we point to general results about semantics as a theory whose fulcrum is the reference relation rather than satisfaction in models and validity across them. (shrink)

I explain a mechanism I call “incorporation,” that I think is at work in a wide range of cases often put under the heading of “scare-quoting.” Incorporation is flagging some words in one’s own utterance to indicate that they are to be interpreted as if uttered by some other speaker in some other context, while supplying evidence to one’s interpreter enabling them to identify that other speaker and context. This mechanism gives us a way to use others’ vocabularies and contexts, (...) thereby extending our expressive capacities on the fly. -/- Explaining incorporation involves explaining intra-sentential shifts in lexicon and in context. Shifts of the former sort are familiar to linguists under the heading of “code-switching.” Shifts of the latter sort have been less explored; accordingly I explain how to modify Kaplan’s logic of demonstratives to allow for such shifts. -/- I compare the incorporation account of scare-quoting with accounts offered by Brandom, Recanati, Geurts and Maier, Benbaji, Predelli, and Shan. Finally I note a possible implication concerning the speech act of assertion: that you can properly assert a content you do not believe, let alone know, because part of it is expressed with words you do not understand. (shrink)

Standard linguistic analysis of syntax uses the T-model. This model requires the ordering: D-structure > S-structure > LF, where D-structure is the sentences deep structure, S-structure is its surface structure, and LF is its logical form. Between each of these representations there is movement which alters the order of the constituent words; movement is achieved using the principles and parameters of syntactic theory. Psychological analysis of sentence production is usually either serial or connectionist. Psychological serial models do not accommodate the (...) T-model immediately so that here a new model called the P-model is introduced. The P-model is different from previous linguistic and psychological models. Here it is argued that the LF representation should be replaced by a variant of Frege'sA three qualities (sense, reference, and force), called the FregeA representation or F-representation. In the F-representation the order of elements is not necessarily the same as that in LF and it is suggested that the correct ordering is: F-representation > D-structure > S-structure. This ordering appears to lead to a more natural view of sentence production and processing. Within this framework movement originates as the outcome of emphasis applied to the sentence. The requirement that the F-representation precedes the D-structure needs a picture of the particular principles and parameters which pertain to movement of words between representations. In general this would imply that there is a preferred or optimal ordering of the symbolic string in the F-representation. The standard ordering is retained because the general way of producing such an optimal ordering is unclear. In this case it is possible to produce an analysis of movement between LF and D-structure similar to the usual analysis of movement between S-structure and LF. The necessity of analyzing corrupted data suggests that a maximal amount of information about a language's grammar and lexicon is stored. (shrink)

In recent attempts to define ‘harm’, the most promising approach has often been thought to be the counterfactual comparative account of harm. Nevertheless, this account faces serious difficulties. Moreover, it has been argued that ‘harm’ cannot be defined without reference to a substantive theory of well-being, which is itself a fraught issue. This has led to the call for the concept to simply be dropped from the moral lexicon altogether. I reject this call, arguing that the non-comparative approach to (...) defining harm has not been sufficiently explored. I then develop such an account that avoids the difficulties faced by comparative accounts whilst not presupposing a substantive theory of well-being. I conclude that this definition renders a concept of harm that can be meaningfully employed in our moral discourse. (shrink)

In fragment B 12 Anaxagoras asserted: ‘And [Mind] has every gnômê concerning everything and is strong to the greatest degree.’ The definitions of gnômê given in the standard Greek lexicon cover a wide range: ‘mark’, ‘token’, ‘intelligence’, ‘thought’, ‘judgment’, ‘understanding’, ‘attention’, ‘conscience’, ‘reason’, ‘will’, ‘disposition’, ‘inclination’, ‘purpose’, ‘initiative’, ‘opinion’, ‘verdict’, ‘decision’, ‘proposition’, ‘resolution’, ‘advice’, and ‘maxim’. Taking a clue from the assonance of ischei (has) with ischuei (is strong), it would be natural to take both parts of the assertion (...) to be concerned with the extent of Mind’s strength, and this would suggest the translation: ‘for it holds every decision concerning everything and (thereby) has the greatest strength’. So understood, both parts of the assertion would be reinforcing Anaxagoras’ basic claim that Mind ‘rules over’ (kratein) everything. Thus, what Anaxagoras’ cosmic nous does is provide just the kind of intelligent oversight nous typically provides in early Greek poetry and philosophy. (shrink)

Are idioms stored in memory in ways that preserve their surface form or language or are they represented amodally? We examined this question using an inci- dental cued recall paradigm in which two word idiomatic expressions were presented to adult bilinguals proficient in Russian and English. Stimuli included phrases with idiomat- ic equivalents in both languages (e.g. “empty words/пycтыe cлoвa”) or in one language only (English—e.g. “empty suit/пycтoй кocтюм” or Russian—e.g. “empty sound/пycтoй звyк”), or in neither language (e.g. “empty rain/пycтoй (...) дoждь”). If idioms are stored in a language-specific format, then phrases with idiomatic equivalents in both languages would have dual representation, and should therefore be more easily recalled than phrases with idiomatic meaning in only one language. This result was obtained. As such, the findings support the dual-coding theory of memory and are also compatible with models of the bilingual lexicon that include language tags or nodes. (shrink)

This paper begins by taking seriously former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass’ response in his What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? to systematic violence and oppression. He claims that direct argumentation is not the ideal mode of resistance to oppression: “At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.” I will focus on a few elements of this playful mode of resistance that conflict with the more straightforward strivings for abstract, universal, objective, convergent, absolute (...) thinking that champions reason over emotion, logic over narrative, and science over lived experience. In contrast, the type of protest employed by people like Douglass can utilize aesthetics and logic, playfulness and seriousness, emotion, even anger, and reason. Douglass provides examples of humorous, sincere parrhesia, oscillating between the lexicon of the dominant sphere and the critical reflection from a trickster on the margins. This will require an analysis of Michel Foucault’s conception of parrhesia: courageous truth-telling in the face of powerful people or institutions. It is a study of humor in the parrhesiastes, an element I think neglected by Foucault. I argue that the humorous parrhesiastes offers a mode of resistance which can subvert oppressive power structures that perpetuate injustice, revealing the fact that humor can be integral in courageous truth-telling. (shrink)

This is one more edition of Voltaire's "Candide", meant to highlight the wealth of philosophical and theological discussions hidden behind the apparently innocent veil of the most renowned fable of modernity. The rather extended apparatus accordingly consists of a series of short chapters by Filippo Bruni on the Enlightenment and Metaphysics, and in more detail, on theology, Free choice, the problem of evil, and happiness in an imperfect world and another by Sergio Cremaschi on the Enlightenment and morality, and in (...) more detail on moral universalism, religion without metaphysics, toleration, and pacifism. -/- Table of contents I. Before the text A trick for priests A scandalous book Garden with view -/- II. Text Candide or optimism -/- III. Context Biography 1. The seven years war 2. Calvinists and Socinians 3. Jiansenists and Gesuits 4. Marranos and inquisitors 5. Conquistadores and slave-traders 6. Paraguay under the Jesuits -/- IV. Co-text 1. Enlightenment and Metaphysics 1.1. Theology 1.2. Free choice 1.3. The problem of evil 1.4. Being happy in an imperfect world -/- 2. Enlightenment and morality 2.1. Universal morality 2.2. Religion without Metaphysics 2.3. Toleration 2.4. Pacifism -/- 3. Enlightenment and the images of other places 3.1. The image of Eldorado 3.2. The image of Paraguay 3.3 The image of the Islamic world 3.4. The image of the Jew -/- 4. The conte philosophique -/- Bibliography Lexicon Index of names and concepts -/- V. Reader’s guide. (shrink)