Eros Corazza
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- November 2004
- ISBN:
- 9780199270187
- eISBN:
- 9780191601484
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019927018X.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Proposes a picture of attitude ascriptions, which relies on the notion of quasi-indicators. The main idea defended is that in an attitude ascription we relate the attributee to a proposition and a ...
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Proposes a picture of attitude ascriptions, which relies on the notion of quasi-indicators. The main idea defended is that in an attitude ascription we relate the attributee to a proposition and a sentence. The latter is the sentence the reporter uses to classify the attributee’s mental state. This classification can be more or less accurate and often it can only be partial.Less
Proposes a picture of attitude ascriptions, which relies on the notion of quasi-indicators. The main idea defended is that in an attitude ascription we relate the attributee to a proposition and a sentence. The latter is the sentence the reporter uses to classify the attributee’s mental state. This classification can be more or less accurate and often it can only be partial.
Mitchell S. Green
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199283781
- eISBN:
- 9780191712548
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199283781.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Language
This chapter focuses on how we show what's within in ways not typical of our species. A person's idiosyncratic display of an emotion, for instance, might nevertheless make that emotion perceptible if ...
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This chapter focuses on how we show what's within in ways not typical of our species. A person's idiosyncratic display of an emotion, for instance, might nevertheless make that emotion perceptible if that display is a characteristic component thereof. Such behavior can later become conventionalized, and it is argued that this is one major route into the conventionalization of expression. Conventions also make language possible, and it is argued that natural language is used to indicate the content, and sometimes also the modality, of the states we express. In the process of this argument, an analogy between attitude ascription and measurement (such as has been suggested by D. Davidson, H. Field, R. Matthews, R. Stalnaker, and others) is explored. The chapter concludes with a discussion of some devices of natural language that have a distinctively expressive role, so-called illocutionary force indicators.Less
This chapter focuses on how we show what's within in ways not typical of our species. A person's idiosyncratic display of an emotion, for instance, might nevertheless make that emotion perceptible if that display is a characteristic component thereof. Such behavior can later become conventionalized, and it is argued that this is one major route into the conventionalization of expression. Conventions also make language possible, and it is argued that natural language is used to indicate the content, and sometimes also the modality, of the states we express. In the process of this argument, an analogy between attitude ascription and measurement (such as has been suggested by D. Davidson, H. Field, R. Matthews, R. Stalnaker, and others) is explored. The chapter concludes with a discussion of some devices of natural language that have a distinctively expressive role, so-called illocutionary force indicators.
R. M. Sainsbury and Michael Tye
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199695317
- eISBN:
- 9780191738531
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199695317.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Language
This chapter argues against orthodox views, according to which propositional attitudes are relations to propositions, propositions which must be expressed in true ascriptions of these attitudes. In ...
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This chapter argues against orthodox views, according to which propositional attitudes are relations to propositions, propositions which must be expressed in true ascriptions of these attitudes. In place, we offer a positive theory about how thoughts are ascribed, on somewhat Davidsonian lines.Less
This chapter argues against orthodox views, according to which propositional attitudes are relations to propositions, propositions which must be expressed in true ascriptions of these attitudes. In place, we offer a positive theory about how thoughts are ascribed, on somewhat Davidsonian lines.
Mark Richard
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199557950
- eISBN:
- 9780191747267
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199557950.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This book collects thirteen seminal essays on semantics and propositional attitudes. These chapters develop a nuanced account of the semantics and pragmatics of our talk about such attitudes, an ...
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This book collects thirteen seminal essays on semantics and propositional attitudes. These chapters develop a nuanced account of the semantics and pragmatics of our talk about such attitudes, an account on which in saying what someone thinks, we offer our words as a ‘translation’ or representation of the way the target of our talk represents the world. A broad range of topics in philosophical semantics and the philosophy of mind are discussed in detail, including: contextual sensitivity; pretense and semantics; the nature of quantification; negative existentials and fictional discourse; the role of Fregean sense in semantics; ‘direct reference’ semantics; de re belief and the contingent a priori; belief de se; intensional transitives; the cognitive role of tense; the prospects for giving a semantics for the attitudes without recourse to properties or possible worlds. A newly written introduction gives an overview of the chapters. The introduction discusses attitudes realized by dispositions and other non-linguistic cognitive structures, as well as the debate between those who think that mental and linguistic content is structured like the sentences that express it, and those who see content as essentially unstructured.Less
This book collects thirteen seminal essays on semantics and propositional attitudes. These chapters develop a nuanced account of the semantics and pragmatics of our talk about such attitudes, an account on which in saying what someone thinks, we offer our words as a ‘translation’ or representation of the way the target of our talk represents the world. A broad range of topics in philosophical semantics and the philosophy of mind are discussed in detail, including: contextual sensitivity; pretense and semantics; the nature of quantification; negative existentials and fictional discourse; the role of Fregean sense in semantics; ‘direct reference’ semantics; de re belief and the contingent a priori; belief de se; intensional transitives; the cognitive role of tense; the prospects for giving a semantics for the attitudes without recourse to properties or possible worlds. A newly written introduction gives an overview of the chapters. The introduction discusses attitudes realized by dispositions and other non-linguistic cognitive structures, as well as the debate between those who think that mental and linguistic content is structured like the sentences that express it, and those who see content as essentially unstructured.
Scott Soames
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691160726
- eISBN:
- 9781400850464
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691160726.003.0011
- Subject:
- Philosophy, American Philosophy
This chapter offers a systematic assessment of Kit Fine’s Semantic Relationism (2007), in which he presents a “relational” version of Millianism (about names and related expressions). It compares ...
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This chapter offers a systematic assessment of Kit Fine’s Semantic Relationism (2007), in which he presents a “relational” version of Millianism (about names and related expressions). It compares this version of Millianism with the standard nonrelational version. It focuses on their different responses to two aspects of Frege’s puzzle—one involving the cognitive, assertive, and conversational contents of uses of nonhyperintensional sentences; the other involving the propositions expressed by attitude ascriptions. Regarding the first aspect of the puzzle, the chapter argues that the two versions of Millianism give comparable and largely correct results. Regarding the second, it shows that relational Millianism faces counterexamples that are easily handled by nonrelational Millianism, when both are combined with a reasonable semantics for attitude verbs.Less
This chapter offers a systematic assessment of Kit Fine’s Semantic Relationism (2007), in which he presents a “relational” version of Millianism (about names and related expressions). It compares this version of Millianism with the standard nonrelational version. It focuses on their different responses to two aspects of Frege’s puzzle—one involving the cognitive, assertive, and conversational contents of uses of nonhyperintensional sentences; the other involving the propositions expressed by attitude ascriptions. Regarding the first aspect of the puzzle, the chapter argues that the two versions of Millianism give comparable and largely correct results. Regarding the second, it shows that relational Millianism faces counterexamples that are easily handled by nonrelational Millianism, when both are combined with a reasonable semantics for attitude verbs.
François Recanati
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199659982
- eISBN:
- 9780191745409
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199659982.003.0014
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Language
Mental files serve to think about objects in the world, but they have a derived, metarepresentational function: they serve to represent how other subjects think about objects in the world. An ...
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Mental files serve to think about objects in the world, but they have a derived, metarepresentational function: they serve to represent how other subjects think about objects in the world. An ‘indexed file’ is a file that stands, in the subject's mind, for another subject's file about an object. In light of the distinction between indexed files and regular files, the possible interpretations of an attitude report of the form ‘x believes that a is F’ are investigated, and several notions of ‘opacity’ distinguished.Less
Mental files serve to think about objects in the world, but they have a derived, metarepresentational function: they serve to represent how other subjects think about objects in the world. An ‘indexed file’ is a file that stands, in the subject's mind, for another subject's file about an object. In light of the distinction between indexed files and regular files, the possible interpretations of an attitude report of the form ‘x believes that a is F’ are investigated, and several notions of ‘opacity’ distinguished.
Alex Silk
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198783923
- eISBN:
- 9780191826573
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198783923.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter extends the Discourse Contextualist account from Chapter 3 to capture various embedding phenomena with epistemic modals. The behavior of epistemic modals in several types of attitude ...
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This chapter extends the Discourse Contextualist account from Chapter 3 to capture various embedding phenomena with epistemic modals. The behavior of epistemic modals in several types of attitude ascriptions, suppositional contexts, and inferences are investigated. It is argued that with epistemic modals, unlike with paradigm context-sensitive expressions, there is a pragmatically derivable preference for local accommodation readings in certain embedded contexts. This interpretive preference helps explain embedding data that have seemed problematic for contextualists. Advantages over alternative relativist semantics are considered. The chapter concludes by revisiting the challenge of explaining apparent contrasts between epistemic modals and paradigm context-sensitive expressions in light of the developments of Discourse Contextualism thus far. Discourse Contextualism sheds light on general issues concerning the varieties of context-sensitive language, the nature of presupposition and its role in communication, the interactions between context and content throughout interpretation, and the relations among semantics, pragmatics, and metasemantics.Less
This chapter extends the Discourse Contextualist account from Chapter 3 to capture various embedding phenomena with epistemic modals. The behavior of epistemic modals in several types of attitude ascriptions, suppositional contexts, and inferences are investigated. It is argued that with epistemic modals, unlike with paradigm context-sensitive expressions, there is a pragmatically derivable preference for local accommodation readings in certain embedded contexts. This interpretive preference helps explain embedding data that have seemed problematic for contextualists. Advantages over alternative relativist semantics are considered. The chapter concludes by revisiting the challenge of explaining apparent contrasts between epistemic modals and paradigm context-sensitive expressions in light of the developments of Discourse Contextualism thus far. Discourse Contextualism sheds light on general issues concerning the varieties of context-sensitive language, the nature of presupposition and its role in communication, the interactions between context and content throughout interpretation, and the relations among semantics, pragmatics, and metasemantics.
Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa and Benjamin W. Jarvis
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199661800
- eISBN:
- 9780191748325
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199661800.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter argues that a Fregean theory that individuates propositions finely by their conclusive rational relations faces no objections from social anti-individualism, communicative exchange, or ...
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This chapter argues that a Fregean theory that individuates propositions finely by their conclusive rational relations faces no objections from social anti-individualism, communicative exchange, or the semantics of propositional attitude ascriptions. Social anti-individualism says that a subject's mental contents are partly determined by the linguistic community. So long as rational abilities are also partly determined socially, a subject's mental contents can be partly determined socially even if propositions are individuated by rational relations. Individuating propositions finely may appear to cause problems for communicative exchange and propositional attitude ascriptions; it may appear to increase the difficulties of coordinating contents said or ascribed with contents heard or thought. However, it is shown that a theory that individuates propositions more finely has all of the resources of a theory that individuates propositions more coarsely; hence, the former cannot be at a disadvantage to the latter.Less
This chapter argues that a Fregean theory that individuates propositions finely by their conclusive rational relations faces no objections from social anti-individualism, communicative exchange, or the semantics of propositional attitude ascriptions. Social anti-individualism says that a subject's mental contents are partly determined by the linguistic community. So long as rational abilities are also partly determined socially, a subject's mental contents can be partly determined socially even if propositions are individuated by rational relations. Individuating propositions finely may appear to cause problems for communicative exchange and propositional attitude ascriptions; it may appear to increase the difficulties of coordinating contents said or ascribed with contents heard or thought. However, it is shown that a theory that individuates propositions more finely has all of the resources of a theory that individuates propositions more coarsely; hence, the former cannot be at a disadvantage to the latter.
Brian Weatherson and Andy Egan
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199591596
- eISBN:
- 9780191729027
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199591596.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter introduces the main themes of the volume, summarizes the chapters in it, and looks at the various arguments that have been raised for semantic relativism over the past decade. It ...
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This chapter introduces the main themes of the volume, summarizes the chapters in it, and looks at the various arguments that have been raised for semantic relativism over the past decade. It concludes that two of these arguments seem to be resistant to the anti-relativist replies that have appeared in response to this work on relativism. One of these is an argument from agreement. It is argued that contextualist theories about various puzzling locutions have a hard time explaining why it is so easy for people who would happily utter the same words to describe themselves as agreeing, if those words were really context-sensitive. Another is an argument concerning attitude ascriptions. It seems there are quite different restrictions on what values the (allegedly) context-sensitive expressions can take inside and outside of attitude ascriptions. Since this isn't how context-sensitive terms usually behave, this phenomena tells against contextualism, and in favour of relativism.Less
This chapter introduces the main themes of the volume, summarizes the chapters in it, and looks at the various arguments that have been raised for semantic relativism over the past decade. It concludes that two of these arguments seem to be resistant to the anti-relativist replies that have appeared in response to this work on relativism. One of these is an argument from agreement. It is argued that contextualist theories about various puzzling locutions have a hard time explaining why it is so easy for people who would happily utter the same words to describe themselves as agreeing, if those words were really context-sensitive. Another is an argument concerning attitude ascriptions. It seems there are quite different restrictions on what values the (allegedly) context-sensitive expressions can take inside and outside of attitude ascriptions. Since this isn't how context-sensitive terms usually behave, this phenomena tells against contextualism, and in favour of relativism.
Mark Richard
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199557950
- eISBN:
- 9780191747267
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199557950.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Objections to the account of propositional attitudes and their ascription in Chapters 5 and 6 are discussed. At issue in the objections are the nature of general principles governing the ...
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Objections to the account of propositional attitudes and their ascription in Chapters 5 and 6 are discussed. At issue in the objections are the nature of general principles governing the interpretation of contextually sensitive expressions, as well as issues about ‘the number of contexts’ in which utterances occur. An account of these principles and of the ways in which contexts are ‘resolved’ in interpretation is developed.Less
Objections to the account of propositional attitudes and their ascription in Chapters 5 and 6 are discussed. At issue in the objections are the nature of general principles governing the interpretation of contextually sensitive expressions, as well as issues about ‘the number of contexts’ in which utterances occur. An account of these principles and of the ways in which contexts are ‘resolved’ in interpretation is developed.
François Recanati
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199647057
- eISBN:
- 9780191761041
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199647057.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Mental files, in this chapter’s framework, function as ‘singular terms in the language of thought’; they serve to think about objects in the world (and to store information about them). But they have ...
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Mental files, in this chapter’s framework, function as ‘singular terms in the language of thought’; they serve to think about objects in the world (and to store information about them). But they have a derived, meta-representational function: they serve to represent how other subjects think about objects in the world. To account for the meta-representational use of files, the chapter introduces the notion of an ‘indexed file’, that is a vicarious file that stands, in the subject’s mind, for another subject’s file about an object. Using that notion, it argues, one can provide an analysis of attitude ascriptions and the conniving use of empty singular terms.Less
Mental files, in this chapter’s framework, function as ‘singular terms in the language of thought’; they serve to think about objects in the world (and to store information about them). But they have a derived, meta-representational function: they serve to represent how other subjects think about objects in the world. To account for the meta-representational use of files, the chapter introduces the notion of an ‘indexed file’, that is a vicarious file that stands, in the subject’s mind, for another subject’s file about an object. Using that notion, it argues, one can provide an analysis of attitude ascriptions and the conniving use of empty singular terms.
Marco Santambrogio
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198714088
- eISBN:
- 9780191782527
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198714088.003.0015
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter intends to offer a theory of empty names that is consistent with the doctrine of direct reference and respects the intuition that sentences such as Vulcan does not exist, Le Verrier ...
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This chapter intends to offer a theory of empty names that is consistent with the doctrine of direct reference and respects the intuition that sentences such as Vulcan does not exist, Le Verrier imagined Vulcan, and Le Verrier believed that Vulcan orbited between Mercury and the sun, express propositions to which the name Vulcan makes its contribution and which are either true or false. The theory has recourse to a notion of structured propositions that are quite unlike singular propositions, but it still assumes that all proper names, empty or otherwise, have no descriptive content that is semantically relevant. The new-style propositions are language-bound. Thus, the theory reminds us of sententialism–i.e. the theory that the proper objects of propositional attitudes are sentences–but is not vulnerable to the same objections. It is argued that the new-style propositions fare better than the gappy ones in accounting for the semantics of empty names and, more generally, of attitude ascriptions.Less
This chapter intends to offer a theory of empty names that is consistent with the doctrine of direct reference and respects the intuition that sentences such as Vulcan does not exist, Le Verrier imagined Vulcan, and Le Verrier believed that Vulcan orbited between Mercury and the sun, express propositions to which the name Vulcan makes its contribution and which are either true or false. The theory has recourse to a notion of structured propositions that are quite unlike singular propositions, but it still assumes that all proper names, empty or otherwise, have no descriptive content that is semantically relevant. The new-style propositions are language-bound. Thus, the theory reminds us of sententialism–i.e. the theory that the proper objects of propositional attitudes are sentences–but is not vulnerable to the same objections. It is argued that the new-style propositions fare better than the gappy ones in accounting for the semantics of empty names and, more generally, of attitude ascriptions.
Graeme Forbes
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- August 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198732570
- eISBN:
- 9780191796807
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198732570.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Language
This chapter addresses a less-commonly discussed substitution failure in attitude ascriptions: a “that”-clause and its corresponding proposition description cannot in general be interchanged in the ...
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This chapter addresses a less-commonly discussed substitution failure in attitude ascriptions: a “that”-clause and its corresponding proposition description cannot in general be interchanged in the scope of psych-verbs, despite the standard view that the two forms refer to the same proposition. For example, “Holmes suspects that Moriarty has returned” and “Holmes suspects the proposition that Moriarty has returned” mean something quite different. The chapter accounts for these data in the framework of neo-Davidsonian semantics, arguing that substitution does not simply change the syntactic category of the attitude verb from clausal to transitive or vice versa, but also triggers the side-effect of changing thematic relations: when the transitive verb is used, it is the theme of the attitude-state or event that is identified, but when the clausal verb is used, it is the content of the state that is identified.Less
This chapter addresses a less-commonly discussed substitution failure in attitude ascriptions: a “that”-clause and its corresponding proposition description cannot in general be interchanged in the scope of psych-verbs, despite the standard view that the two forms refer to the same proposition. For example, “Holmes suspects that Moriarty has returned” and “Holmes suspects the proposition that Moriarty has returned” mean something quite different. The chapter accounts for these data in the framework of neo-Davidsonian semantics, arguing that substitution does not simply change the syntactic category of the attitude verb from clausal to transitive or vice versa, but also triggers the side-effect of changing thematic relations: when the transitive verb is used, it is the theme of the attitude-state or event that is identified, but when the clausal verb is used, it is the content of the state that is identified.
Hsiang-Yun Chen
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198786658
- eISBN:
- 9780191828966
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198786658.003.0006
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
This chapter addresses the assumed connection between de se attitude ascription and logophoricity in the case of Chinese ziji. It is widely believed that logophors are among the paradigm cases of de ...
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This chapter addresses the assumed connection between de se attitude ascription and logophoricity in the case of Chinese ziji. It is widely believed that logophors are among the paradigm cases of de se marking, and that long-distance ziji is logophoric. Drawing on a critical examination of a variety of analyses, this chapter argues that long-distance anaphora, de se interpretation, and logophoric marking are overlapping but distinct phenomena. Even if ziji is logophoric, it does not automatically trigger de se requirement. A de se-neutral analysis of ziji is consistent with pragmatic derivations of interpretations that emphasize the self. The findings point to a new approach to long-distance binding, and identify the blocking effect as the key issue for further research.Less
This chapter addresses the assumed connection between de se attitude ascription and logophoricity in the case of Chinese ziji. It is widely believed that logophors are among the paradigm cases of de se marking, and that long-distance ziji is logophoric. Drawing on a critical examination of a variety of analyses, this chapter argues that long-distance anaphora, de se interpretation, and logophoric marking are overlapping but distinct phenomena. Even if ziji is logophoric, it does not automatically trigger de se requirement. A de se-neutral analysis of ziji is consistent with pragmatic derivations of interpretations that emphasize the self. The findings point to a new approach to long-distance binding, and identify the blocking effect as the key issue for further research.
Alex Silk
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- July 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198805076
- eISBN:
- 9780191843174
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198805076.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter develops a contextualist account of normative language, focusing on broadly normative readings of modal verbs. The account draws on a more general framework for implementing a ...
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This chapter develops a contextualist account of normative language, focusing on broadly normative readings of modal verbs. The account draws on a more general framework for implementing a contextualist semantics and pragmatics, Discourse Contextualism. The aim of Discourse Contextualism is to derive the discourse properties of normative language from a contextualist interpretation of an independently motivated formal semantics, along with principles of interpretation and conversation. In using normative language, interlocutors can exploit their grammatical and world knowledge, and general pragmatic reasoning skills, to manage an evolving system of norms. Discourse Contextualism provides a perspicuous framework for further philosophical theorizing about the nature of normativity, normative language, and normative judgment. Delineating these issues can help refine our understanding of the space of overall theories and motivate more fruitful ways the dialectics may proceed. Discourse Contextualism provides a linguistic basis for a more comprehensive theory of normativity and normative discourse and practice.Less
This chapter develops a contextualist account of normative language, focusing on broadly normative readings of modal verbs. The account draws on a more general framework for implementing a contextualist semantics and pragmatics, Discourse Contextualism. The aim of Discourse Contextualism is to derive the discourse properties of normative language from a contextualist interpretation of an independently motivated formal semantics, along with principles of interpretation and conversation. In using normative language, interlocutors can exploit their grammatical and world knowledge, and general pragmatic reasoning skills, to manage an evolving system of norms. Discourse Contextualism provides a perspicuous framework for further philosophical theorizing about the nature of normativity, normative language, and normative judgment. Delineating these issues can help refine our understanding of the space of overall theories and motivate more fruitful ways the dialectics may proceed. Discourse Contextualism provides a linguistic basis for a more comprehensive theory of normativity and normative discourse and practice.
Ilaria Frana
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780199670925
- eISBN:
- 9780191749605
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199670925.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics, Theoretical Linguistics
Understanding the properties of questions and their embedding predicates has been a central project in theoretical syntax and semantics over the last fifty years. This book examines the semantic ...
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Understanding the properties of questions and their embedding predicates has been a central project in theoretical syntax and semantics over the last fifty years. This book examines the semantic interpretation of various types of nominal complements in so-called concealed question (CQ) constructions, providing new results about the nature of CQs, their interaction with quantification, and the semantics of attitude ascriptions. Over the past forty years, several accounts have emerged (question-based accounts: Harris 2007, Aloni 2008, Roelofsen and Aloni 2008, Percus 2009; proposition-based accounts: Romero 2005, Nathan 2006; de-re analyses: Frana 2006, Schwager 2008; individual concept accounts: Heim 1979, Romero 2005, Frana 2010a, 2013), all of which successfully derive the intuitive meaning of sentences with simple definite CQs (e.g. John knows the price of milk). However, examination of these simple sentences does not discriminate one CQ-theory from another, nor does it tell us much about what ingredients are necessary for the proper treatment of CQs in natural language. For this reason, many authors have recently started investigating the interpretation of more complex CQ-constructions. This book can be located within this line of research. Its main result is to provide genuinely new analyses for a range of CQ data that seemed problematic for existing analyses, including (i) the presence (or absence) of so-called pair-list and set readings in sentences with quantified CQs and (ii) the interaction between this type of ambiguity with the ambiguity between so-called question and meta-question readings of sentences with nested CQs (as in Heim 1979?s famous sentence John knows the price that Fred knows).Less
Understanding the properties of questions and their embedding predicates has been a central project in theoretical syntax and semantics over the last fifty years. This book examines the semantic interpretation of various types of nominal complements in so-called concealed question (CQ) constructions, providing new results about the nature of CQs, their interaction with quantification, and the semantics of attitude ascriptions. Over the past forty years, several accounts have emerged (question-based accounts: Harris 2007, Aloni 2008, Roelofsen and Aloni 2008, Percus 2009; proposition-based accounts: Romero 2005, Nathan 2006; de-re analyses: Frana 2006, Schwager 2008; individual concept accounts: Heim 1979, Romero 2005, Frana 2010a, 2013), all of which successfully derive the intuitive meaning of sentences with simple definite CQs (e.g. John knows the price of milk). However, examination of these simple sentences does not discriminate one CQ-theory from another, nor does it tell us much about what ingredients are necessary for the proper treatment of CQs in natural language. For this reason, many authors have recently started investigating the interpretation of more complex CQ-constructions. This book can be located within this line of research. Its main result is to provide genuinely new analyses for a range of CQ data that seemed problematic for existing analyses, including (i) the presence (or absence) of so-called pair-list and set readings in sentences with quantified CQs and (ii) the interaction between this type of ambiguity with the ambiguity between so-called question and meta-question readings of sentences with nested CQs (as in Heim 1979?s famous sentence John knows the price that Fred knows).
Alex Silk
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199678044
- eISBN:
- 9780191757457
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199678044.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter motivates and develops what can be called a condition semantics for moral terms. An important function of language is to distinguish among ways the world might be. But sentences can also ...
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This chapter motivates and develops what can be called a condition semantics for moral terms. An important function of language is to distinguish among ways the world might be. But sentences can also distinguish among ways things might be more broadly. According to condition semantics, moral sentences conventionally distinguish among moral standards (or test whether a moral standard meets a certain condition) just as ordinary factual sentences conventionally distinguish among possible worlds (or test whether a possible world meets a certain condition). This point is captured formally within an extension of a familiar truth-conditional paradigm. The resulting analysis improves upon its main competitors: invariantism and contextualism. The framework of condition semantics also offers a perspicuous way of posing various classical metaethical questions—e.g. concerning relativism, expressivism, and judgement internalism. This can motivate clearer, better motivated answers and suggest new ways the dialectic may proceed.Less
This chapter motivates and develops what can be called a condition semantics for moral terms. An important function of language is to distinguish among ways the world might be. But sentences can also distinguish among ways things might be more broadly. According to condition semantics, moral sentences conventionally distinguish among moral standards (or test whether a moral standard meets a certain condition) just as ordinary factual sentences conventionally distinguish among possible worlds (or test whether a possible world meets a certain condition). This point is captured formally within an extension of a familiar truth-conditional paradigm. The resulting analysis improves upon its main competitors: invariantism and contextualism. The framework of condition semantics also offers a perspicuous way of posing various classical metaethical questions—e.g. concerning relativism, expressivism, and judgement internalism. This can motivate clearer, better motivated answers and suggest new ways the dialectic may proceed.
Cameron Domenico Kirk-Giannini and Ernie Lepore
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- April 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198842491
- eISBN:
- 9780191878473
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198842491.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
The subject of Lecture IV is attributions of attitude. In it, Davidson extends his theory of indirect quotation, which had appeared in 1968, to propositional attitude ascriptions more generally. He ...
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The subject of Lecture IV is attributions of attitude. In it, Davidson extends his theory of indirect quotation, which had appeared in 1968, to propositional attitude ascriptions more generally. He begins by criticizing rival accounts due to Quine, Scheffler, Church, and Frege. His positive proposal turns on the idea that the complementizer clauses embedded in ascriptions of attitude are not semantically a part of the embedding sentence. According to the paratactic account he favors, attributions of attitude involve demonstrative reference to an utterance of the speaker’s, which is claimed to stand in some relation to some utterance or attitude of the ascribee.Less
The subject of Lecture IV is attributions of attitude. In it, Davidson extends his theory of indirect quotation, which had appeared in 1968, to propositional attitude ascriptions more generally. He begins by criticizing rival accounts due to Quine, Scheffler, Church, and Frege. His positive proposal turns on the idea that the complementizer clauses embedded in ascriptions of attitude are not semantically a part of the embedding sentence. According to the paratactic account he favors, attributions of attitude involve demonstrative reference to an utterance of the speaker’s, which is claimed to stand in some relation to some utterance or attitude of the ascribee.
Rachel Goodman, James Genone, and Nick Kroll (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- March 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198746881
- eISBN:
- 9780191809101
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198746881.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Coinciding with recognition of the need for more clarity about the notion of singular (or de re) thought, there has been a surge of interest in the notion of a mental file as a way to understand what ...
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Coinciding with recognition of the need for more clarity about the notion of singular (or de re) thought, there has been a surge of interest in the notion of a mental file as a way to understand what is distinctive about singular thought. But what isn’t always clear is what mental files are meant to be, and why we should believe that thoughts that employ them are singular (as opposed to descriptive). In order to make progress on these questions, this volume brings together original papers by leading scholars on singular thought, mental files, and the relationship between the two, as well as an introduction providing an overview of the central issues.Less
Coinciding with recognition of the need for more clarity about the notion of singular (or de re) thought, there has been a surge of interest in the notion of a mental file as a way to understand what is distinctive about singular thought. But what isn’t always clear is what mental files are meant to be, and why we should believe that thoughts that employ them are singular (as opposed to descriptive). In order to make progress on these questions, this volume brings together original papers by leading scholars on singular thought, mental files, and the relationship between the two, as well as an introduction providing an overview of the central issues.
François Recanati
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- December 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198790358
- eISBN:
- 9780191837029
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198790358.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Mind
Accounting for coreference de jure in terms of identity of file entails that coreference de jure is a transitive relation. But there are counterexamples to the claim that coreference de jure is ...
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Accounting for coreference de jure in terms of identity of file entails that coreference de jure is a transitive relation. But there are counterexamples to the claim that coreference de jure is transitive (Soames, Pinillos). Building on the previous chapter, this chapter shows that strong coreference de jure is transitive while weak coreference de jure isn’t. Whenever fusion or fission of files occurs, transitivity fails. More generally, transitivity fails at the dynamic level: dynamic files only exhibit weak coreference de jure. Fusion and fission of files, hence transitivity failures, also occur in metarepresentational deployment of ‘indexed files’. But transitivity can always be restored by fixing the point of view (strong coreference de jure), and it is strong coreference de jure which primarily matters in utterance interpretation.Less
Accounting for coreference de jure in terms of identity of file entails that coreference de jure is a transitive relation. But there are counterexamples to the claim that coreference de jure is transitive (Soames, Pinillos). Building on the previous chapter, this chapter shows that strong coreference de jure is transitive while weak coreference de jure isn’t. Whenever fusion or fission of files occurs, transitivity fails. More generally, transitivity fails at the dynamic level: dynamic files only exhibit weak coreference de jure. Fusion and fission of files, hence transitivity failures, also occur in metarepresentational deployment of ‘indexed files’. But transitivity can always be restored by fixing the point of view (strong coreference de jure), and it is strong coreference de jure which primarily matters in utterance interpretation.