Robert Stainton
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199250387
- eISBN:
- 9780191719523
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199250387.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
It is a near truism of philosophy of language that sentences are prior to words. Sentences, it is said, are what we believe, assert, and argue for; uses of them constitute our evidence in semantics; ...
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It is a near truism of philosophy of language that sentences are prior to words. Sentences, it is said, are what we believe, assert, and argue for; uses of them constitute our evidence in semantics; only they stand in inferential relations, and are true or false. Sentences are, indeed, the only things that fundamentally have meaning. Does this near truism really hold of human languages? This book, drawing on a wide body of evidence, argues forcefully that speakers can and do use mere words, not sentences, to communicate complete thoughts. It considers the implications of this empirical result for language-thought relations, various doctrines of sentence primacy, and the semantics-pragmatics boundary. The book is important both for its philosophical and empirical claims, and for the methodology employed. Stainton illustrates how the methods and detailed results of the various cognitive sciences can bear on central issues in philosophy of language. At the same time, he applies philosophical distinctions to show that arguments which seemingly support the primacy of sentences do not really do so.Less
It is a near truism of philosophy of language that sentences are prior to words. Sentences, it is said, are what we believe, assert, and argue for; uses of them constitute our evidence in semantics; only they stand in inferential relations, and are true or false. Sentences are, indeed, the only things that fundamentally have meaning. Does this near truism really hold of human languages? This book, drawing on a wide body of evidence, argues forcefully that speakers can and do use mere words, not sentences, to communicate complete thoughts. It considers the implications of this empirical result for language-thought relations, various doctrines of sentence primacy, and the semantics-pragmatics boundary. The book is important both for its philosophical and empirical claims, and for the methodology employed. Stainton illustrates how the methods and detailed results of the various cognitive sciences can bear on central issues in philosophy of language. At the same time, he applies philosophical distinctions to show that arguments which seemingly support the primacy of sentences do not really do so.
James Higginbotham
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199239313
- eISBN:
- 9780191716904
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199239313.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics, Theoretical Linguistics
James Higginbotham's work on tense, aspect, and indexicality discusses the principles governing demonstrative, temporal, and indexical expressions in natural language, and presents new ideas in the ...
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James Higginbotham's work on tense, aspect, and indexicality discusses the principles governing demonstrative, temporal, and indexical expressions in natural language, and presents new ideas in the semantics of sentence structure. The book brings together his key contributions to the fields, including his recent intervention in the debate on the roles of context and anaphora in reference. The book's chapters are presented in the form in which they were first published, with afterwords where needed, to cover points where the author's thought has developed.Less
James Higginbotham's work on tense, aspect, and indexicality discusses the principles governing demonstrative, temporal, and indexical expressions in natural language, and presents new ideas in the semantics of sentence structure. The book brings together his key contributions to the fields, including his recent intervention in the debate on the roles of context and anaphora in reference. The book's chapters are presented in the form in which they were first published, with afterwords where needed, to cover points where the author's thought has developed.
Douglas Husak
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199585038
- eISBN:
- 9780191723476
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199585038.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Philosophy of Law
Husak reprints 15 of his earlier essays in the philosophy of criminal law (and add two previously unpublished pieces) collected from philosophy journals, law reviews, and book chapters. These ...
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Husak reprints 15 of his earlier essays in the philosophy of criminal law (and add two previously unpublished pieces) collected from philosophy journals, law reviews, and book chapters. These articles cover a broad range of topics about the nature of penal liability, criminal law culpability, defences, and the justification of punishment. Together, these essays present a desert-based analysis of issues in criminal theory that resist the consequentialist approach more familiar among legal scholars. The author's foremost concern is to ensure that the principles and doctrines of the criminal law preserve justice and do not sacrifice individuals for the common welfare. Although Husak draws equally from existing criminal law and contemporary moral and political philosophy, readers need neither a Ph.D. in philosophy nor a J.D. in law to understand and assess his essays.Less
Husak reprints 15 of his earlier essays in the philosophy of criminal law (and add two previously unpublished pieces) collected from philosophy journals, law reviews, and book chapters. These articles cover a broad range of topics about the nature of penal liability, criminal law culpability, defences, and the justification of punishment. Together, these essays present a desert-based analysis of issues in criminal theory that resist the consequentialist approach more familiar among legal scholars. The author's foremost concern is to ensure that the principles and doctrines of the criminal law preserve justice and do not sacrifice individuals for the common welfare. Although Husak draws equally from existing criminal law and contemporary moral and political philosophy, readers need neither a Ph.D. in philosophy nor a J.D. in law to understand and assess his essays.
Nicholas J. J. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199233007
- eISBN:
- 9780191716430
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199233007.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics
This book argues that an adequate account of vagueness must involve degrees of truth. The basic idea of degrees of truth is that while some sentences are true and some are false, others possess ...
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This book argues that an adequate account of vagueness must involve degrees of truth. The basic idea of degrees of truth is that while some sentences are true and some are false, others possess intermediate truth values: they are truer than the false sentences, but not as true as the true ones. This idea is immediately appealing in the context of vagueness — yet it has fallen on hard times in the philosophical literature, with existing degree-theoretic treatments of vagueness facing apparently insuperable objections. The book seeks to turn the tide in favour of a degree-theoretic treatment of vagueness, by motivating and defending the basic idea that truth can come in degrees, by arguing that no theory of vagueness that does not countenance degrees of truth can be correct, and by developing a new degree-theoretic treatment of vagueness — fuzzy plurivaluationism — that solves the problems plaguing earlier degree theories.Less
This book argues that an adequate account of vagueness must involve degrees of truth. The basic idea of degrees of truth is that while some sentences are true and some are false, others possess intermediate truth values: they are truer than the false sentences, but not as true as the true ones. This idea is immediately appealing in the context of vagueness — yet it has fallen on hard times in the philosophical literature, with existing degree-theoretic treatments of vagueness facing apparently insuperable objections. The book seeks to turn the tide in favour of a degree-theoretic treatment of vagueness, by motivating and defending the basic idea that truth can come in degrees, by arguing that no theory of vagueness that does not countenance degrees of truth can be correct, and by developing a new degree-theoretic treatment of vagueness — fuzzy plurivaluationism — that solves the problems plaguing earlier degree theories.
Richard Gaskin
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199239450
- eISBN:
- 9780191716997
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199239450.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This book is about the philosophy of language. It analyses what is distinctive about sentences and the propositions they express — what marks them off from mere lists of words and mere aggregates of ...
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This book is about the philosophy of language. It analyses what is distinctive about sentences and the propositions they express — what marks them off from mere lists of words and mere aggregates of word-meanings respectively. Since it identifies the world with all the true and false propositions, the book's account of the unity of the proposition has significant implications for our understanding of the nature of reality. The book argues that the unity of the proposition is constituted by a certain infinitistic structure known in the tradition as ‘Bradley's regress’. Usually, Bradley's regress has been regarded as vicious, but the book argues that it is the metaphysical ground of the propositional unity, and gives us an important insight into the fundamental make-up of the world.Less
This book is about the philosophy of language. It analyses what is distinctive about sentences and the propositions they express — what marks them off from mere lists of words and mere aggregates of word-meanings respectively. Since it identifies the world with all the true and false propositions, the book's account of the unity of the proposition has significant implications for our understanding of the nature of reality. The book argues that the unity of the proposition is constituted by a certain infinitistic structure known in the tradition as ‘Bradley's regress’. Usually, Bradley's regress has been regarded as vicious, but the book argues that it is the metaphysical ground of the propositional unity, and gives us an important insight into the fundamental make-up of the world.
Sophie Repp
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199543601
- eISBN:
- 9780191715587
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199543601.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology, Theoretical Linguistics
This study investigates the behaviour of the negation in the ellipsis type of gapping and shows that gapping sentences with a negation in the first conjunct but not in the second can receive one of ...
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This study investigates the behaviour of the negation in the ellipsis type of gapping and shows that gapping sentences with a negation in the first conjunct but not in the second can receive one of the following readings: (¬A&¬B), (¬A&B), (¬(A&B)). Which reading arises depends on phonological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic factors. The book proposes a syntactic copying analysis of gapping, which, combined with semantic‐pragmatic criteria such as balanced contrast between the conjuncts, accounts for the various readings. A thorough investigation of different subtypes of negation – predicate‐propositional‐illocutionary – further determines the structure of the resulting gapping structure.Less
This study investigates the behaviour of the negation in the ellipsis type of gapping and shows that gapping sentences with a negation in the first conjunct but not in the second can receive one of the following readings: (¬A&¬B), (¬A&B), (¬(A&B)). Which reading arises depends on phonological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic factors. The book proposes a syntactic copying analysis of gapping, which, combined with semantic‐pragmatic criteria such as balanced contrast between the conjuncts, accounts for the various readings. A thorough investigation of different subtypes of negation – predicate‐propositional‐illocutionary – further determines the structure of the resulting gapping structure.
Robert J. Matthews
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199211258
- eISBN:
- 9780191705724
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199211258.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This book provides a sustained critique of a widely held representationalist view of propositional attitudes and their role in the production of thought and behaviour. On this view, having a ...
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This book provides a sustained critique of a widely held representationalist view of propositional attitudes and their role in the production of thought and behaviour. On this view, having a propositional attitude is a matter of having an explicit representation that plays a particular causal/computational role in the production of thought and behaviour. The book argues that this view does not enjoy the theoretical or the empirical support that proponents claim for it; moreover, the view misconstrues the role of propositional attitude attributions in cognitive scientific theorizing. This book develops an alternative measurement-theoretic account of propositional attitudes and the sentences by which we attribute them. On this account, the sentences by which we attribute propositional attitudes function semantically like the sentences by which we attribute a quantity of some physical magnitude (e.g., having a mass of 80 kilos). That is, in much the same way that we specify a quantity of some physical magnitude by means of its numerical representative on a measurement scale, we specify propositional attitude of a given type by means of its measurement space. Propositional attitudes turn out to be causally efficacious aptitudes for thought and behaviour, not semantically evaluable mental particulars of some sort. This book's measurement-theoretic account provides a plausible view of the explanatorily relevant properties of propositional attitudes, the semantics of propositional attitude attributions, and the role of such attributions in computational cognitive scientific theorizing.Less
This book provides a sustained critique of a widely held representationalist view of propositional attitudes and their role in the production of thought and behaviour. On this view, having a propositional attitude is a matter of having an explicit representation that plays a particular causal/computational role in the production of thought and behaviour. The book argues that this view does not enjoy the theoretical or the empirical support that proponents claim for it; moreover, the view misconstrues the role of propositional attitude attributions in cognitive scientific theorizing. This book develops an alternative measurement-theoretic account of propositional attitudes and the sentences by which we attribute them. On this account, the sentences by which we attribute propositional attitudes function semantically like the sentences by which we attribute a quantity of some physical magnitude (e.g., having a mass of 80 kilos). That is, in much the same way that we specify a quantity of some physical magnitude by means of its numerical representative on a measurement scale, we specify propositional attitude of a given type by means of its measurement space. Propositional attitudes turn out to be causally efficacious aptitudes for thought and behaviour, not semantically evaluable mental particulars of some sort. This book's measurement-theoretic account provides a plausible view of the explanatorily relevant properties of propositional attitudes, the semantics of propositional attitude attributions, and the role of such attributions in computational cognitive scientific theorizing.
Sophie Repp
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199543601
- eISBN:
- 9780191715587
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199543601.003.0006
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology, Theoretical Linguistics
Chapter 6 summarizes the findings and analyses from the previous chapters, and concludes the book.
Chapter 6 summarizes the findings and analyses from the previous chapters, and concludes the book.
Gary Ebbs
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199557936
- eISBN:
- 9780191721403
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199557936.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This book explains how to define a disquotational truth predicate that we are directly licensed to apply not only to our own sentences as we use them now, but also to other speakers' sentences and ...
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This book explains how to define a disquotational truth predicate that we are directly licensed to apply not only to our own sentences as we use them now, but also to other speakers' sentences and our own sentences as we used them in the past. The conventional wisdom is that there can be no such truth predicate. For it appears that the only instances of the disquotational pattern that we are directly licensed to accept are those that define ‘is true’ for our own sentences as we use them now. This book argues that this appearance is illusory. It constructs an account of words that licenses us to rely not only on formal (spelling-based) identifications of our own words, but also on our non-deliberative practical identifications of other speakers' words and of our own words as we used them in the past. To overturn the conventional wisdom about disquotational truth, this book argues, we need only combine this account of words with our disquotational definitions of truth for sentences as we use them now. The result radically transforms our understanding of truth and related topics, including anti-individualism, self-knowledge, and the intersubjectivity of logic.Less
This book explains how to define a disquotational truth predicate that we are directly licensed to apply not only to our own sentences as we use them now, but also to other speakers' sentences and our own sentences as we used them in the past. The conventional wisdom is that there can be no such truth predicate. For it appears that the only instances of the disquotational pattern that we are directly licensed to accept are those that define ‘is true’ for our own sentences as we use them now. This book argues that this appearance is illusory. It constructs an account of words that licenses us to rely not only on formal (spelling-based) identifications of our own words, but also on our non-deliberative practical identifications of other speakers' words and of our own words as we used them in the past. To overturn the conventional wisdom about disquotational truth, this book argues, we need only combine this account of words with our disquotational definitions of truth for sentences as we use them now. The result radically transforms our understanding of truth and related topics, including anti-individualism, self-knowledge, and the intersubjectivity of logic.
Samuel Walker
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195078206
- eISBN:
- 9780199854202
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195078206.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Since the American Bar Foundation Survey of the Administration of Criminal Justice (1953–69) “discovered” the phenomenon of discretion in criminal justice, it has become something of a truism that ...
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Since the American Bar Foundation Survey of the Administration of Criminal Justice (1953–69) “discovered” the phenomenon of discretion in criminal justice, it has become something of a truism that the administration of criminal justice in the United States consists of a series of discretionary decisions by officials in regard to police discretion, bail, plea bargaining, and sentencing. This book is a history of the attempts over the past forty years to control these discretionary powers in the criminal justice system. In a field which largely produces short-ranged “evaluation research”, this study, in taking a wider approach, distinguishes between the role of the courts and the role of administrative bodies (the police) and evaluates the longer-term trends and the successful reforms in criminal justice history. It focuses on four critical decision points in the criminal justice system: police discretion, bail setting, plea bargaining, and sentencing. It examines the various reforms that have been proposed, the major ones implemented, and the impact of those reforms.Less
Since the American Bar Foundation Survey of the Administration of Criminal Justice (1953–69) “discovered” the phenomenon of discretion in criminal justice, it has become something of a truism that the administration of criminal justice in the United States consists of a series of discretionary decisions by officials in regard to police discretion, bail, plea bargaining, and sentencing. This book is a history of the attempts over the past forty years to control these discretionary powers in the criminal justice system. In a field which largely produces short-ranged “evaluation research”, this study, in taking a wider approach, distinguishes between the role of the courts and the role of administrative bodies (the police) and evaluates the longer-term trends and the successful reforms in criminal justice history. It focuses on four critical decision points in the criminal justice system: police discretion, bail setting, plea bargaining, and sentencing. It examines the various reforms that have been proposed, the major ones implemented, and the impact of those reforms.
John Braithwaite and Philip Pettit
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198240563
- eISBN:
- 9780191680205
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198240563.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This book offers a new approach to sentencing and punishment. It inaugurates a radical shift in the research agenda of criminology. The authors attack currently fashionable retributivist theories of ...
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This book offers a new approach to sentencing and punishment. It inaugurates a radical shift in the research agenda of criminology. The authors attack currently fashionable retributivist theories of punishment, arguing that the criminal justice system is so integrated that sentencing policy has to be considered in the system-wide context. They offer a comprehensive theory of criminal justice that draws on a philosophical view of the good and the right, and that points the way to practical intervention in the real world of incremental reform. The authors put the case for a criminal justice system that maximizes freedom in the old republican sense of the term, and that they call ‘dominion’.Less
This book offers a new approach to sentencing and punishment. It inaugurates a radical shift in the research agenda of criminology. The authors attack currently fashionable retributivist theories of punishment, arguing that the criminal justice system is so integrated that sentencing policy has to be considered in the system-wide context. They offer a comprehensive theory of criminal justice that draws on a philosophical view of the good and the right, and that points the way to practical intervention in the real world of incremental reform. The authors put the case for a criminal justice system that maximizes freedom in the old republican sense of the term, and that they call ‘dominion’.
Ulinka Rublack
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198208860
- eISBN:
- 9780191678165
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208860.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
This book studies ‘deviant’ women. It presents an account of how women were prosecuted for theft, infanticide, and sexual crimes in early modern Germany, and challenges the assumption that women were ...
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This book studies ‘deviant’ women. It presents an account of how women were prosecuted for theft, infanticide, and sexual crimes in early modern Germany, and challenges the assumption that women were treated more leniently than men. The book uses criminal trials to illuminate the social status and conflicts of women living through the Reformation and Thirty Years War, telling, for the first time, the stories of cutpurses, maidservants' dangerous liaisons, and artisans' troubled marriages. It provides a thought-provoking analysis of labeling and sentencing processes, and of the punishments inflicted on those found guilty. Above all, the author engages with the way ‘ordinary’ women experienced authority and sexuality, household and community.Less
This book studies ‘deviant’ women. It presents an account of how women were prosecuted for theft, infanticide, and sexual crimes in early modern Germany, and challenges the assumption that women were treated more leniently than men. The book uses criminal trials to illuminate the social status and conflicts of women living through the Reformation and Thirty Years War, telling, for the first time, the stories of cutpurses, maidservants' dangerous liaisons, and artisans' troubled marriages. It provides a thought-provoking analysis of labeling and sentencing processes, and of the punishments inflicted on those found guilty. Above all, the author engages with the way ‘ordinary’ women experienced authority and sexuality, household and community.
Robert Fiengo
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199208418
- eISBN:
- 9780191695735
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199208418.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This book examines a central phenomenon of language — the use of sentences to ask questions. Although there is a sizable literature on the syntax and semantics of interrogatives, the logic of ...
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This book examines a central phenomenon of language — the use of sentences to ask questions. Although there is a sizable literature on the syntax and semantics of interrogatives, the logic of ‘questions’, and the speech act of questioning, no one has tried to put the syntax and semantics together with the speech acts over the full range of phenomena we pretheoretically think of as asking questions. This book attempts to do this, and it also takes up some more foundational issues in the theory of language. By positioning the findings of contemporary grammatical theorizing within the larger domain of language use, this book makes some important challenges. It acknowledges the importance of grammatical form and the grammarian. In addition to developing an Austinian distinction between four questioning speech-acts, and a proposal concerning the philosophy of language, this book contains a discussion of the type-token distinction and how use of language compares with use of other things. The book also considers the nature of multiple questions, revealing what one must know to ask them, and what speech acts one may perform when asking them.Less
This book examines a central phenomenon of language — the use of sentences to ask questions. Although there is a sizable literature on the syntax and semantics of interrogatives, the logic of ‘questions’, and the speech act of questioning, no one has tried to put the syntax and semantics together with the speech acts over the full range of phenomena we pretheoretically think of as asking questions. This book attempts to do this, and it also takes up some more foundational issues in the theory of language. By positioning the findings of contemporary grammatical theorizing within the larger domain of language use, this book makes some important challenges. It acknowledges the importance of grammatical form and the grammarian. In addition to developing an Austinian distinction between four questioning speech-acts, and a proposal concerning the philosophy of language, this book contains a discussion of the type-token distinction and how use of language compares with use of other things. The book also considers the nature of multiple questions, revealing what one must know to ask them, and what speech acts one may perform when asking them.
A. N. Prior
P. T. Geach and A. J. P. Kenny (eds)
- Published in print:
- 1971
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198243540
- eISBN:
- 9780191680694
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198243540.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophy of Language
This book is divided into two parts. The first concentrates on the logical properties of propositions, their relation to facts and sentences, and the parallel objects of commands and questions. The ...
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This book is divided into two parts. The first concentrates on the logical properties of propositions, their relation to facts and sentences, and the parallel objects of commands and questions. The second part examines theories of intentionality and discusses the relationship between different theories of naming and different accounts of belief.Less
This book is divided into two parts. The first concentrates on the logical properties of propositions, their relation to facts and sentences, and the parallel objects of commands and questions. The second part examines theories of intentionality and discusses the relationship between different theories of naming and different accounts of belief.
Mark Eli Kalderon
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199275977
- eISBN:
- 9780191706066
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199275977.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
Moral realists maintain that morality has a distinctive subject matter. Specifically, realists maintain that moral discourse is representational, that moral sentences express moral propositions — ...
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Moral realists maintain that morality has a distinctive subject matter. Specifically, realists maintain that moral discourse is representational, that moral sentences express moral propositions — propositions that attribute moral properties to things. Noncognitivists, in contrast, maintain that the realist imagery associated with morality is a fiction, a reification of our noncognitive attitudes. The thought that there is a distinctively moral subject matter is regarded as something to be debunked by philosophical reflection on the way moral discourse mediates and makes public our noncognitive attitudes. The realist fiction might be understood as a philosophical misconception of a discourse that is not fundamentally representational but whose intent is rather practical. There is, however, another way to understand the realist fiction. Perhaps the subject matter of morality is a fiction that stands in no need of debunking, but is rather the means by which our attitudes are conveyed. Perhaps moral sentences express moral propositions, just as the realist maintains, but in accepting a moral sentence competent speakers do not believe the moral proposition expressed but rather adopt the relevant non-cognitive attitudes. Noncognitivism, in its primary sense, is a claim about moral acceptance: the acceptance of a moral sentence is not moral belief but is some other attitude. Standardly, non-cognitivism has been linked to non-factualism — the claim that the content of a moral sentence does not consist in its expressing a moral proposition. Indeed, the terms ‘noncognitivism’ and ‘nonfactualism’ have been used interchangeably. But this misses an important possibility, since moral content may be representational but the acceptance of moral sentences might not be belief in the moral proposition expressed. This possibility constitutes a novel form of noncognitivism: moral fictionalism. Whereas nonfactualists seek to debunk the realist fiction of a moral subject matter, the moral fictionalist claims that that fiction stands in no need of debunking but is the means by which the noncognitive attitudes involved in moral acceptance are conveyed by moral utterance. Moral fictionalism is noncognitivism without a non-representational semantics.Less
Moral realists maintain that morality has a distinctive subject matter. Specifically, realists maintain that moral discourse is representational, that moral sentences express moral propositions — propositions that attribute moral properties to things. Noncognitivists, in contrast, maintain that the realist imagery associated with morality is a fiction, a reification of our noncognitive attitudes. The thought that there is a distinctively moral subject matter is regarded as something to be debunked by philosophical reflection on the way moral discourse mediates and makes public our noncognitive attitudes. The realist fiction might be understood as a philosophical misconception of a discourse that is not fundamentally representational but whose intent is rather practical. There is, however, another way to understand the realist fiction. Perhaps the subject matter of morality is a fiction that stands in no need of debunking, but is rather the means by which our attitudes are conveyed. Perhaps moral sentences express moral propositions, just as the realist maintains, but in accepting a moral sentence competent speakers do not believe the moral proposition expressed but rather adopt the relevant non-cognitive attitudes. Noncognitivism, in its primary sense, is a claim about moral acceptance: the acceptance of a moral sentence is not moral belief but is some other attitude. Standardly, non-cognitivism has been linked to non-factualism — the claim that the content of a moral sentence does not consist in its expressing a moral proposition. Indeed, the terms ‘noncognitivism’ and ‘nonfactualism’ have been used interchangeably. But this misses an important possibility, since moral content may be representational but the acceptance of moral sentences might not be belief in the moral proposition expressed. This possibility constitutes a novel form of noncognitivism: moral fictionalism. Whereas nonfactualists seek to debunk the realist fiction of a moral subject matter, the moral fictionalist claims that that fiction stands in no need of debunking but is the means by which the noncognitive attitudes involved in moral acceptance are conveyed by moral utterance. Moral fictionalism is noncognitivism without a non-representational semantics.
Robert J. Stainton
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199250387
- eISBN:
- 9780191719523
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199250387.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter lays out five different ways of reading the context principle: methodological, metasemantic, pragmatic, semantic, and psychological. It notes several rationales for embracing the ...
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This chapter lays out five different ways of reading the context principle: methodological, metasemantic, pragmatic, semantic, and psychological. It notes several rationales for embracing the principle. It then objects to the principle, on several of its readings, from non-sentence use. The suggested result, in the face of this objection, was three parts consistency and two parts inconsistency: (a) the first reading of the principle would be largely untouched; (b) the second would be left unsupported; but (c) the other readings would be outright falsified.Less
This chapter lays out five different ways of reading the context principle: methodological, metasemantic, pragmatic, semantic, and psychological. It notes several rationales for embracing the principle. It then objects to the principle, on several of its readings, from non-sentence use. The suggested result, in the face of this objection, was three parts consistency and two parts inconsistency: (a) the first reading of the principle would be largely untouched; (b) the second would be left unsupported; but (c) the other readings would be outright falsified.
Robert J. Stainton
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199250387
- eISBN:
- 9780191719523
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199250387.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter introduces and explains the two key premises around which the book is built. Premise 1 says that speakers genuinely can utter ordinary words and phrases in isolation, and thereby perform ...
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This chapter introduces and explains the two key premises around which the book is built. Premise 1 says that speakers genuinely can utter ordinary words and phrases in isolation, and thereby perform full-fledged speech acts. Premise 2 says that if speakers genuinely can utter ordinary words and phrases in isolation, and thereby perform full-fledged speech acts, then such-and-such implications obtain. What emerges repeatedly from the discussion of the two premises, and in several different ways, are two issues about words and thoughts: whether mere words (as opposed to sentences) can be used to state complete thoughts, and what the answer to this question entails about the general issue of how language (i.e., ‘words’) relates to thinking (i.e., ‘thoughts’). It is these two issues about words and thoughts that give rise to the title of the book.Less
This chapter introduces and explains the two key premises around which the book is built. Premise 1 says that speakers genuinely can utter ordinary words and phrases in isolation, and thereby perform full-fledged speech acts. Premise 2 says that if speakers genuinely can utter ordinary words and phrases in isolation, and thereby perform full-fledged speech acts, then such-and-such implications obtain. What emerges repeatedly from the discussion of the two premises, and in several different ways, are two issues about words and thoughts: whether mere words (as opposed to sentences) can be used to state complete thoughts, and what the answer to this question entails about the general issue of how language (i.e., ‘words’) relates to thinking (i.e., ‘thoughts’). It is these two issues about words and thoughts that give rise to the title of the book.
Robert J. Stainton
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199250387
- eISBN:
- 9780191719523
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199250387.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter explains three background issues additional to those presented in Chapter 1. First, it contrasts three senses of ‘sentence’ — syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic — and draws attention to ...
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This chapter explains three background issues additional to those presented in Chapter 1. First, it contrasts three senses of ‘sentence’ — syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic — and draws attention to three corresponding senses of ‘elliptical’. Second, it defends a commitment to an open evidence-base for the philosophical study of language, in the face of arguments that take off either from the nature of mind, or from the ontology of language. Finally, it briefly notes a commitment to an empirical thesis about the mind, viz. that it is structured into faculties, including in particular, one specific to language.Less
This chapter explains three background issues additional to those presented in Chapter 1. First, it contrasts three senses of ‘sentence’ — syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic — and draws attention to three corresponding senses of ‘elliptical’. Second, it defends a commitment to an open evidence-base for the philosophical study of language, in the face of arguments that take off either from the nature of mind, or from the ontology of language. Finally, it briefly notes a commitment to an empirical thesis about the mind, viz. that it is structured into faculties, including in particular, one specific to language.
Robert J. Stainton
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199250387
- eISBN:
- 9780191719523
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199250387.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter examines the idea that an ordinary sentence is spoken — either actually produced, or just intended/recovered — in seemingly sub-sentential speech. It discusses the idea that ‘shorthand’ ...
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This chapter examines the idea that an ordinary sentence is spoken — either actually produced, or just intended/recovered — in seemingly sub-sentential speech. It discusses the idea that ‘shorthand’ in some sense is at work. What emerges is that it is very implausible to maintain that an ordinary sentence is produced in these cases, and that the only senses in which ‘shorthand’ might truly be at work are ones that restate, rather than reject, premise one outlined in chapter 1: namely, that speakers genuinely can utter ordinary words and phrases in isolation, and thereby perform full-fledged speech actsLess
This chapter examines the idea that an ordinary sentence is spoken — either actually produced, or just intended/recovered — in seemingly sub-sentential speech. It discusses the idea that ‘shorthand’ in some sense is at work. What emerges is that it is very implausible to maintain that an ordinary sentence is produced in these cases, and that the only senses in which ‘shorthand’ might truly be at work are ones that restate, rather than reject, premise one outlined in chapter 1: namely, that speakers genuinely can utter ordinary words and phrases in isolation, and thereby perform full-fledged speech acts
Robert J. Stainton
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199250387
- eISBN:
- 9780191719523
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199250387.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter looks at semantic ellipsis: expressions that are not syntactically sentential, but nevertheless have characters that yield propositional contents given a context. Relevant examples ...
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This chapter looks at semantic ellipsis: expressions that are not syntactically sentential, but nevertheless have characters that yield propositional contents given a context. Relevant examples include ‘Attention!’ and ‘No shirt, no shoes, no service’. The idea is to use such cases to explain away apparently sub-sentential speech: an attempt is made to assimilate the cases under discussion (like ‘Nice dress’ and ‘On the stoop’) to commands such as ‘Attention!’. This attempted assimilation is rejected on two fronts. First, it would require that human languages contain masses of semantically elliptical sentences. Second, postulating these masses of elliptical sentences would introduce lots of new ambiguities — which would be otiose, since a language that lacked such ambiguities would be used in just the ways we actually observe.Less
This chapter looks at semantic ellipsis: expressions that are not syntactically sentential, but nevertheless have characters that yield propositional contents given a context. Relevant examples include ‘Attention!’ and ‘No shirt, no shoes, no service’. The idea is to use such cases to explain away apparently sub-sentential speech: an attempt is made to assimilate the cases under discussion (like ‘Nice dress’ and ‘On the stoop’) to commands such as ‘Attention!’. This attempted assimilation is rejected on two fronts. First, it would require that human languages contain masses of semantically elliptical sentences. Second, postulating these masses of elliptical sentences would introduce lots of new ambiguities — which would be otiose, since a language that lacked such ambiguities would be used in just the ways we actually observe.
