Results for 'semantic instrumentalism'

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  1. Fictional singular imaginings.Manuel Garcia-Carpintero - 2010 - In Robin Jeshion (ed.), New Essays on Singular Thought. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. pp. 273--299.
    In a series of papers, Robin Jeshion has forcefully criticized both Donnellan's and Evans’ claims on the contingent a priori, and she has developed an “acquaintanceless” account of singular thoughts as an alternative view. Jeshion claims that one can fully grasp a singular thought expressed by a sentence including a proper name, even if its reference has been descriptively fixed and one’s access to the referent is “mediated” by that description. But she still wants to reject “semantic instrumentalism”, (...)
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  2. Cognitivism: A New Theory of Singular Thought?Sarah Sawyer - 2012 - Mind and Language 27 (3):264-283.
    In a series of recent articles, Robin Jeshion has developed a theory of singular thought which she calls ‘cognitivism’. According to Jeshion, cognitivism offers a middle path between acquaintance theories—which she takes to impose too strong a requirement on singular thought, and semantic instrumentalism—which she takes to impose too weak a requirement. In this article, I raise a series of concerns about Jeshion's theory, and suggest that the relevant data can be accommodated by a version of acquaintance theory (...)
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  3. Singular Reference Without Singular Thought.Filipe Martone - 2016 - Manuscrito 39 (1):33-60.
    In this paper I challenge the widespread assumption that the conditions for singular reference are more or less the same as the conditions for singular thought. I claim that we refer singularly to things without thinking singularly about them more often than it is usually believed. I first argue that we should take the idea that singular thought is non-descriptive thought very seriously. If we do that, it seems that we cannot be so liberal about what counts as acquaintance; only (...)
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  4. Semantyczne aspekty instrumentalistycznych koncepcji rozwoju nauki.Bartosz Żukowski - 2014 - In Ewa Starzyńska-Kościuszko, Andrzej Kucner & Piotr Wasyluk (eds.), Oblicza współczesności. Instytut Filozofii UWM. pp. 567-577.
    "Semantic Aspects of Instrumentalism in the Philosophy of Science".
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  5. Principles of Acquaintance.Jessica Pepp - 2019 - In Jonathan Knowles & Thomas Raleigh (eds.), Acquaintance: New Essays. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
    The thesis that in order to genuinely think about a particular object one must be (in some sense) acquainted with that object has been thoroughly explored since it was put forward by Bertrand Russell. Recently, the thesis has come in for mounting criticism. The aim of this paper is to point out that neither the exploration nor the criticism have been sensitive to the fact that the thesis can be interpreted in two different ways, yielding two different principles of acquaintance. (...)
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  6. Measuring the mental.Garris Rogonyan - 2016 - Epistemology and Philosophy of Science 50 (4):168-186.
    The article considers pros and cons for a theoretic-measurement analogy, proposed by some philosophers as an illustration of semantic indeterminacy. Within this analogy ascribing of meanings to a certain linguistic expressions is compared with attribution of numbers according to a certain theory of measurement. Donald Davidson used this analogy in order to extend W.V.O. Quine's thesis of indeterminacy of translation to the interpretation of all human behavior. In other words, not only linguistic meanings, but all mental states are considered (...)
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  7. Realisms and their opponents.Uskali Mäki - 2001 - In Neil J. Smelser & Paul B. Baltes (eds.), International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Elsevier. pp. 19--12815.
    In everyday usage, ‘realism’ is often used as a name for a practically or epistemically low-ambition attitude, while ‘idealism’ is often taken to denote a highambition—if not utopian—attitude. In philosophcal usage, mostly, it is the other way around: those who are called realists tend to claim more than their opponents—they are the philosophical optimists. Within philosophy itself, ‘realism’ adopts a variety of interrelated and contested meanings. It is used as the name for doctrines about issues such as perceptual access to (...)
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  8. Realistic Claims in Logical Empiricism.Matthias Neuber - 2015 - In Uskali Mäki, Stéphanie Ruphy, Gerhard Schurz & Ioannis Votsis (eds.), Recent Developments in the Philosophy of Science. Cham: Springer.
    Logical empiricism is commonly seen as a counter-position to scientific realism. In the present paper it is shown that there indeed existed a realist faction within the logical empiricist movement. In particular, I shall point out that at least four types of realistic arguments can be distinguished within this faction: Reichenbach’s ‘probabilistic argument,’ Feigl’s ‘pragmatic argument,’ Hempel’s ‘indispensability argument,’ and Kaila’s ‘invariantist argument.’ All these variations of arguments are intended to prevent the logical empiricist agenda from the shortcomings of radical (...)
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  9. An instrumentalist unification of zetetic and epistemic reasons.Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen - 2021 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    Inquiry is an aim-directed activity, and as such governed by instrumental normativity. If you have reason to figure out a question, you have reason to take means to figuring it out. Beliefs are governed by epistemic normativity. On a certain pervasive understanding, this means that you are permitted – maybe required – to believe what you have sufficient evidence for. The norms of inquiry and epistemic norms both govern us as agents in pursuit of knowledge and understanding, and, on the (...)
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  10. Epistemic instrumentalism, permissibility, and reasons for belief.Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen - 2018 - In Conor McHugh, Jonathan Way & Daniel Whiting (eds.), Normativity: Epistemic and Practical. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. pp. 260-280.
    Epistemic instrumentalists seek to understand the normativity of epistemic norms on the model practical instrumental norms governing the relation between aims and means. Non-instrumentalists often object that this commits instrumentalists to implausible epistemic assessments. I argue that this objection presupposes an implausibly strong interpretation of epistemic norms. Once we realize that epistemic norms should be understood in terms of permissibility rather than obligation, and that evidence only occasionally provide normative reasons for belief, an instrumentalist account becomes available that delivers the (...)
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  11. Epistemic instrumentalism and the reason to believe in accord with the evidence.Nathaniel Sharadin - 2018 - Synthese 195 (9):3791-3809.
    Epistemic instrumentalists face a puzzle. In brief, the puzzle is that if the reason there is to believe in accord with the evidence depends, as the instrumentalist says it does, on agents’ idiosyncratic interests, then there is no reason to expect that this reason is universal. Here, I identify and explain two strategies instrumentalists have used to try and solve this puzzle. I then argue that we should find these strategies wanting. Faced with the failure of these strategies, I articulate (...)
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  12. An Instrumentalist Account of How to Weigh Epistemic and Practical Reasons for Belief.Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen & Mattias Skipper - 2019 - Mind 129 (516):1071-1094.
    When one has both epistemic and practical reasons for or against some belief, how do these reasons combine into an all-things-considered reason for or against that belief? The question might seem to presuppose the existence of practical reasons for belief. But we can rid the question of this presupposition. Once we do, a highly general ‘Combinatorial Problem’ emerges. The problem has been thought to be intractable due to certain differences in the combinatorial properties of epistemic and practical reasons. Here we (...)
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  13. Mathematical instrumentalism, Gödel’s theorem, and inductive evidence.Alexander Paseau - 2011 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 42 (1):140-149.
    Mathematical instrumentalism construes some parts of mathematics, typically the abstract ones, as an instrument for establishing statements in other parts of mathematics, typically the elementary ones. Gödel’s second incompleteness theorem seems to show that one cannot prove the consistency of all of mathematics from within elementary mathematics. It is therefore generally thought to defeat instrumentalisms that insist on a proof of the consistency of abstract mathematics from within the elementary portion. This article argues that though some versions of mathematical (...)
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  14. Realism, Instrumentalism, Particularism: A Middle Path Forward in the Scientific Realism Debate.P. Kyle Stanford - 2021 - In Timothy D. Lyons & Peter Vickers (eds.), Contemporary Scientific Realism: The Challenge From the History of Science. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
    I've previously suggested that the historical evidence used to challenge scientific realism should lead us to embrace what I call Uniformitarianism, but many recently influential forms of scientific realism seem happy to share this commitment. I trace a number of further points of common ground that collectively constitute an appealing Middle Path between classical forms of realism and instrumentalism, and I suggest that many contemporary realists and instrumentalists have already become fellow travelers on this Middle Path without recognizing how (...)
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  15. Instrumentalism, Moral Encroachment, and Epistemic Injustice.Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen - forthcoming - Philosophical Topics.
    According to the thesis of pragmatic encroachment, practical circumstances can affect whether someone is in a position to know or rationally believe a proposition. For example, whether it is epistemically rational for a person to believe that the bank will be open on Saturdays, can depend not only on the strength of the person’s evidence, but also on how practically important it is for the person not to be wrong about the bank being open on Saturdays. In recent years, philosophers (...)
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  16. Instrumentalism, Objectivity, and Moral Justification.Adrian M. S. Piper - 1986 - American Philosophical Quarterly 23 (4):373 - 381.
    I want to examine critically a certain strategy of moral justification which I shall call instrumentalism. By this I mean the view that a moral theory is rationally justified if the actions, life-plan, or set of social arrangements it prescribes can be shown to be the best means to the achievement of an agent's final ends, whatever these may be. Instrumentalism presupposes a commitment to what I shall call the Humean conception of the self. By this I mean (...)
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  17. An instrumentalist explanation of pragmatic encroachment.Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen - 2024 - Analytic Philosophy 65 (3):374-392.
    Many have found it plausible that practical circumstances can affect whether someone is in a position to know or rationally believe a proposition. For example, whether it is rational for a person to believe that the bank will be open tomorrow can depend not only on the person's evidence but also on how practically important it is for the person not to be wrong about the bank being open tomorrow. This supposed phenomenon is known as “pragmatic encroachment” on knowledge and (...)
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  18. A cosmopolitan instrumentalist theory of secession.Daniel Weltman - 2023 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 61 (3):527-551.
    I defend the cosmopolitan instrumentalist theory of secession, according to which a group has a right to secede only if this would promote cosmopolitan justice. I argue that the theory is preferable to other theories of secession because it is an entailment of cosmopolitanism, which is independently attractive, and because, unlike other theories of secession, it allows us to give the answers we want to give in cases like secession of the rich or secession that would make things worse for (...)
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  19. Two types of epistemic instrumentalism.Charles Côté-Bouchard - 2019 - Synthese 198 (6):5455-5475.
    Epistemic instrumentalism views epistemic norms and epistemic normativity as essentially involving the instrumental relation between means and ends. It construes notions like epistemic normativity, norms, and rationality, as forms of instrumental or means-end normativity, norms, and rationality. I do two main things in this paper. In part 1, I argue that there is an under-appreciated distinction between two independent types of epistemic instrumentalism. These are instrumentalism about epistemic norms and instrumentalism about epistemic normativity. In part 2, (...)
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  20. Realism and instrumentalism in Bayesian cognitive science.Danielle Williams & Zoe Drayson - 2024 - In Tony Cheng, Ryoji Sato & Jakob Hohwy (eds.), Expected Experiences: The Predictive Mind in an Uncertain World. Routledge.
    There are two distinct approaches to Bayesian modelling in cognitive science. Black-box approaches use Bayesian theory to model the relationship between the inputs and outputs of a cognitive system without reference to the mediating causal processes; while mechanistic approaches make claims about the neural mechanisms which generate the outputs from the inputs. This paper concerns the relationship between these two approaches. We argue that the dominant trend in the philosophical literature, which characterizes the relationship between black-box and mechanistic approaches to (...)
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  21. (1 other version)Instrumentalism Revisited.Elliott Sober - 1999 - Critica 31 (91):3-39.
    The logical empiricists said some good things about epistemology and scientific method. However, they associated those epistemological ideas with some rather less good ideas about philosophy of language. There is something epistemologically suspect about statements that cannot be tested. But to say that those statements are meaningless is to go too far. And there is something impossible about trying to figure out which of two empirically equivalent theories is true. But to say that those theories are synonymous is also to (...)
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  22. Instrumentalist logic of scientific discovery: reflections on Dewey’s method and its metaphysical foundations.Andrii Leonov - 2020 - Actual Problems of Mind. Philosophy Journal 21:2-23.
    In this paper, I attempt to clarify the heart of Dewey’s philosophy: his method (denotative method (DM) / pattern of inquiry (PI)). Despite the traditional understanding of Dewey as anti-foundationalist, I want to show that Dewey did have metaphysical foundations for his method: the principle of continuity or theory of emergentism. I also argue that Dewey’s metaphysical position is better named as ‘cultural emergentism’, rather than his own term ‘cultural naturalism’. What Dewey called ‘common sense’ in his Logic, Husserl termed (...)
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  23. Semantic Priming on Ordering Tasks.John Beverley & Nate Lauffer - manuscript
    Moeser suggested participants default to linear ordering elements but they can be primed to impose either linear or partial ordering. This study seems problematic insofar as ‘greater than’ might be understood to incline participants to favor linear orderings. Recent follow-up studies strongly suggest participants do not default to linear ordering. It seems plausible, moreover, that the observed priming effect is far more pervasive than Moeser countenanced. The present work explores the extent to which priming for linear or partial orders conflicts (...)
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  24.  74
    Map Semantics and the Geography of Meaning.Gabriel Greenberg - 2024 - In Ernest Lepore & Luvell Anderson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Applied Philosophy of Language. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 489-522.
    This chapter develops a semantic theory for maps and situates it within the broader geography of meaning and semiotic significance. The discussion focuses on three central aspects of map semantics: the use of space, line marking, and linguistic tags. It is argued that the treatment of space in maps must be based on geometrical projection from a viewpoint rather than the traditional analysis in terms of spatial isomorphism. The chapter then shows how to integrate the projection-based semantics of maps (...)
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  25. Tagging: semantics at the iconic/symbolic interface.Gabriel Greenberg - 2019 - In Julian J. Schlöder, Dean McHugh & Floris Roelofsen (eds.), Proceedings of the 22nd Amsterdam Colloquium. pp. 11-20.
    Tagging is the phenomenon in which regions of a picture, map, or diagram are annotated with words or other symbols, to provide descriptive information about a depicted object. The interpretive principles that govern tagged images are not well understood, due in part to the difficulty of integrating pictorial and linguistic semantic rules. Rather than directly combining these rules, I propose to use the framework of perspectival feature maps as an intermediary representation of content, in which the outputs of pictorial (...)
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  26. (1 other version)Semantic normativity.Åsa Maria Wikforss - 2001 - Philosophical Studies 102 (2):203-26.
    My paper examines the popular idea, defended by Kripke, that meaning is an essentially normative notion. I consider four common versions of this idea and suggest that none of them can be supported, either because the alleged normativity has nothing to do with normativity or because it cannot plausibly be said that meaning is normative in the sense suggested. I argue that contrary to received opinion, we don’t need normativity to secure the possibility of meaning. I conclude by considering the (...)
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  27. The semantics of common nouns and the nature of semantics.Joseph Almog & Andrea Bianchi - 2023 - Acta Philosophica Fennica 100:115-135.
    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 (...)
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  28. Semantics without semantic content.Daniel W. Harris - 2020 - Mind and Language 37 (3):304-328.
    I argue that semantics is the study of the proprietary database of a centrally inaccessible and informationally encapsulated input–output system. This system’s role is to encode and decode partial and defeasible evidence of what speakers are saying. Since information about nonlinguistic context is therefore outside the purview of semantic processing, a sentence’s semantic value is not its content but a partial and defeasible constraint on what it can be used to say. I show how to translate this thesis (...)
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  29. Truthmaker Semantics, Ground, and Generality.Kit Fine & Louis de Rosset - forthcoming - Topoi:1-7.
    Our aim in this paper is to extend the semantics for the kind of logic of ground developed in (deRosset and Fine, 2023). In that paper, we very briefly suggested a way of treating universal and existential quantification over a fixed domain of objects. Here we explore some options for extending the treatment to allow for a variable domain of objects.
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  30. Beyond semantic pollution: Towards a practice-based philosophical analysis of labelled calculi.Fabio De Martin Polo - 2024 - Erkenntnis:1-30.
    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 (...)
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  31. Semantics of Pictorial Space.Gabriel Greenberg - 2021 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 1 (4):847-887.
    A semantics of pictorial representation should provide an account of how pictorial signs are associated with the contents they express. Unlike the familiar semantics of spoken languages, this problem has a distinctively spatial cast for depiction. Pictures themselves are two-dimensional artifacts, and their contents take the form of pictorial spaces, perspectival arrangements of objects and properties in three dimensions. A basic challenge is to explain how pictures are associated with the particular pictorial spaces they express. Inspiration here comes from recent (...)
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  32. Truthmaker Semantics for Natural Language: Attitude Verbs, Modals, and Intensional Transitive Verbs.Friederike Moltmann - 2020 - Theoretical Linguistics 3:159-200.
    This paper gives an outline of truthmaker semantics for natural language against the background of standard possible-worlds semantics. It develops a truthmaker semantics for attitude reports and deontic modals based on an ontology of attitudinal and modal objects and on a semantic function of clauses as predicates of such objects. It also présents new motivations for 'object-based truthmaker semantics' from intensional transitive verbs such as ‘need’, ‘look for’, ‘own’, and ‘buy’ and gives an outline of their semantics. This paper (...)
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  33. Truthmaker Semantics for Relevant Logic.Mark Jago - 2020 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 49 (4):681-702.
    I develop and defend a truthmaker semantics for the relevant logic R. The approach begins with a simple philosophical idea and develops it in various directions, so as to build a technically adequate relevant semantics. The central philosophical idea is that truths are true in virtue of specific states. Developing the idea formally results in a semantics on which truthmakers are relevant to what they make true. A very natural notion of conditionality is added, giving us relevant implication. I then (...)
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  34. The Semantic Error Problem for Epistemic Contextualism.Patrick Michael Greenough & Dirk Kindermann - 2017 - In Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Contextualism. New York: Routledge. pp. 305--320.
    Epistemic Contextualism is the view that “knows that” is semantically context-sensitive and that properly accommodating this fact into our philosophical theory promises to solve various puzzles concerning knowledge. Yet Epistemic Contextualism faces a big—some would say fatal—problem: The Semantic Error Problem. In its prominent form, this runs thus: speakers just don’t seem to recognise that “knows that” is context-sensitive; so, if “knows that” really is context-sensitive then such speakers are systematically in error about what is said by, or how (...)
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  35. Semantic capital: its nature, value, and curation.Luciano Floridi - 2018 - Philosophy and Technology 31 (4):481-497.
    There is a wealth of resources— ideas, insights, discoveries, inventions, traditions, cultures, languages, arts, religions, sciences, narratives, stories, poems, customs and norms, music and songs, games and personal experiences, and advertisements—that we produce, curate, consume, transmit, and inherit as humans. This wealth, which I define as semantic capital, gives meaning to, and makes sense of, our own existence and the world surrounding us. It defines who we are and enables humans to develop an individual and social life. This paper (...)
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  36. Situated semantics.Varol Akman - 2008 - In Murat Aydede & P. Robbins (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 401-418.
    Situated semantics can be regarded as an attempt at placing situational context (context of situation) at the center of all discussions of meaning. Situation theory is a theory of information content that takes context very seriously. Individuals, properties, relations, and spatiotemporal locations are basic constructs of situation theory. Individuals are conceived as invariants; having properties and standing in relations, they tend to persist in time and space. An anchoring function binds the location parameters to appropriate objects present in the grounding (...)
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  37. Default semantics and the architecture of the mind.Alessandro Capone - 2011 - Journal of Pragmatics 43:1741–1754..
    Relationship between default semantics and modularity of mind (in particular mind reading through the principle of Relevance).
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  38. Why the Realist-Instrumentalist Debate about Rational Choice Rests on a Mistake.Christine Tiefensee - 2015 - In Uskali Mäki, Stéphanie Ruphy, Gerhard Schurz & Ioannis Votsis (eds.), Recent Developments in the Philosophy of Science. Cham: Springer. pp. 99-109.
    Within the social sciences, much controversy exists about which status should be ascribed to the rationality assumption that forms the core of rational choice theories. Whilst realists argue that the rationality assumption is an empirical claim which describes real processes that cause individual action, instrumentalists maintain that it amounts to nothing more than an analytically set axiom or ‘as if’ hypothesis which helps in the generation of accurate predictions. In this paper, I argue that this realist-instrumentalist debate about rational choice (...)
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  39. Path Semantics for Indicative Conditionals.Paolo Santorio - 2022 - Mind 131 (521):59-98.
    The literature on indicative conditionals contains two appealing views. The first is the selectional view: on this view, conditionals operate by selecting a single possibility, which is used to evaluate the consequent. The second is the informational view: on this view, conditionals don’t express propositions, but rather impose constraints on information states of speakers. Both views are supported by strong arguments, but they are incompatible on their standard formulations. Hence it appears that we have to choose between mutually exclusive options. (...)
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  40. Semantic Externalism and Psychological Externalism.Åsa Wikforss - 2008 - Philosophy Compass 3 (1):158-181.
    Externalism is widely endorsed within contemporary philosophy of mind and language. Despite this, it is far from clear how the externalist thesis should be construed and, indeed, why we should accept it. In this entry I distinguish and examine three central types of externalism: what I call foundational externalism, externalist semantics, and psychological externalism. I suggest that the most plausible version of externalism is not in fact a very radical thesis and does not have any terribly interesting implications for philosophy (...)
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  41. Is semantic information meaningful data?Luciano Floridi - 2007 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (2):351-370.
    There is no consensus yet on the definition of semantic information. This paper contributes to the current debate by criticising and revising the Standard Definition of semantic Information (SDI) as meaningful data, in favour of the Dretske‐Grice approach: meaningful and well‐formed data constitute semantic information only if they also qualify as contingently truthful. After a brief introduction, SDI is criticised for providing necessary but insufficient conditions for the definition of semantic information. SDI is incorrect because truth‐values (...)
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  42. Contrastive Semantics for Deontic Modals.Justin Snedegar - 2013 - In Martijn Blaauw (ed.), Contrastivism in philosophy. New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.
    This paper argues for contrastivism about the deontic modals, 'ought', 'must', and 'may'. A simple contrastivist semantics that predicts the desired entailment relations among these modals is offered.
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  43. Moral realism and semantic accounts of moral vagueness.Ali Abasnezhad - 2023 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 66 (3):381-393.
    Miriam Schoenfield argues that moral realism and moral vagueness imply ontic vagueness. In particular, she argues that neither shifty nor rigid semantic accounts of vagueness can provide a satisfactory explanation of moral vagueness for moral realists. This paper constitutes a response. I argue that Schoenfield's argument against the shifty semantic account presupposes that moral indeterminacies can, in fact, be resolved determinately by crunching through linguistic data. I provide different reasons for rejecting this assumption. Furthermore, I argue that Schoenfield's (...)
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  44. Naturalizing semantics and Putnam's model-theoretic argument.Andrea Bianchi - 2002 - Episteme NS: Revista Del Instituto de Filosofía de la Universidad Central de Venezuela 22 (1):1-19.
    Since 1976 Hilary Putnam has on many occasions proposed an argument, founded on some model-theoretic results, to the effect that any philosophical programme whose purpose is to naturalize semantics would fail to account for an important feature of every natural language, the determinacy of reference. Here, after having presented the argument, I will suggest that it does not work, because it simply assumes what it should prove, that is that we cannot extend the metatheory: Putnam appears to think that all (...)
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  45. Semantic expressivism for epistemic modals.Peter Hawke & Shane Steinert-Threlkeld - 2020 - Linguistics and Philosophy 44 (2):475-511.
    Expressivists about epistemic modals deny that ‘Jane might be late’ canonically serves to express the speaker’s acceptance of a certain propositional content. Instead, they hold that it expresses a lack of acceptance. Prominent expressivists embrace pragmatic expressivism: the doxastic property expressed by a declarative is not helpfully identified with that sentence’s compositional semantic value. Against this, we defend semantic expressivism about epistemic modals: the semantic value of a declarative from this domain is the property of doxastic attitudes (...)
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  46.  51
    Do Semantics Properties Involve the Future?.Yang Zhiwei - manuscript
    Temporal Externalism posits the counterintuitive claim that the semantic properties of terms are influenced not only by present and past linguistic practices but also by future linguistic practices. In this paper, I primarily introduce a new challenge to Temporal Externalism, arguing that it presupposes a meta-belief about future linguistic practices but fails to explain how this belief relates to future properties. I then briefly highlight that Jussi Haukioja’s recent defense of Temporal Externalism still does not address the challenges posed (...)
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  47. The semantics of belief ascriptions.Michael McKinsey - 1999 - Noûs 33 (4):519-557.
    nated discussion of the semantics of such verbs. I will call this view.
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  48. Realism and instrumentalism about the wave function. How should we choose?Mauro Dorato & Federico Laudisa - 2014 - In Shao Gan (ed.), Protective Measurements and Quantum Reality: Toward a New Understanding of Quantum Mechanics. Cambridge University Press.
    The main claim of the paper is that one can be ‘realist’ (in some sense) about quantum mechanics without requiring any form of realism about the wave function. We begin by discussing various forms of realism about the wave function, namely Albert’s configuration-space realism, Dürr Zanghi and Goldstein’s nomological realism about Ψ, Esfeld’s dispositional reading of Ψ Pusey Barrett and Rudolph’s realism about the quantum state. By discussing the articulation of these four positions, and their interrelation, we conclude that (...) about Ψ is by itself not sufficient to choose one over the other interpretations of quantum mechanics, thereby confirming in a different way the indetermination of the metaphysical interpretations of quantum mechanics. -/- Key words: . (shrink)
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  49. Hyperintensional semantics: a Fregean approach.Mattias Skipper & Jens Christian Bjerring - 2020 - Synthese 197 (8):3535-3558.
    In this paper, we present a new semantic framework designed to capture a distinctly cognitive or epistemic notion of meaning akin to Fregean senses. Traditional Carnapian intensions are too coarse-grained for this purpose: they fail to draw semantic distinctions between sentences that, from a Fregean perspective, differ in meaning. This has led some philosophers to introduce more fine-grained hyperintensions that allow us to draw semantic distinctions among co-intensional sentences. But the hyperintensional strategy has a flip-side: it risks (...)
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  50.  95
    Update semantics for weak necessity modals.Alex Silk - 2016 - In Olivier Roy, Allard Tamminga & Malte Willer (eds.), Deontic Logic and Normative Systems. London, UK: College Publications. pp. 237-256.
    This paper develops an update semantics for weak necessity modals like ‘ought’ and ‘should’. I start with the basic approach to the weak/strong necessity modal distinction developed in Silk 2018: Strong necessity modals are given their familiar semantics of necessity, predicating the necessity of the prejacent of the actual world (evaluation world). The apparent “weakness” of weak necessity modals derives from their bracketing the assumption that the relevant worlds in which the prejacent is necessary (deontically, epistemically, etc.) need be candidates (...)
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