Two claims that are hard to deny are that slurs can be offensive, and that not all uses of language are communicative. It’s therefore perplexing why no one has considered the possibility that slurs might be offensive not because of what they communicate but rather because of interpretive effects their uses might exact. In what follows, we intend to argue just that, namely, that confrontations with slurs can set in motion a kind of imaginative engagement that rouses objectionable psychological states. (...) We believe this view has precedence in Frege’s account of tone. (shrink)

Our aim in the present paper is to investigate, from the standpoint of truth-theoretic semantics, English tense, temporal designators and quantifiers, and other expressions we use to relate ourselves and other things to the temporal order. Truth-theoretic semantics provides a particularly illuminating standpoint from which to discuss issues about the semantics of tense, and their relation to thoughts at, and about, times. Tense, and temporal modifiers, contribute systematically to conditions under which sentences we utter are true or false. A Tarski-style (...) truth-theoretic semantics, by requiring explicitly represented truth conditions, helps to sharpen questions about the function of tense, and to deepen our insight into the contribution the tenses and temporal modifiers make to what we say by using them. (shrink)

This paper articulates and defends a conception of logical form as semantic form revealed by a compositional meaning theory. On this conception, the logical form of a sentence is determined by the semantic types of its primitive terms and their mode of combination as it relates to determining under what conditions it is true. We develop this idea in the framework of truth-theoretic semantics. We argue that the semantic form of a declarative sentence in a language L is revealed by (...) a (canonical) proof of its T- sentence in an interpretive truth theory for L. We give a precise characterization of sameness of logical form between any two declarative sentences in any two languages in terms of the notion of corresponding proofs in interpretive truth theories for the languages. We illustrate the utility of this approach with a number of examples. We then extend the characterization to non-declaratives in a generalization of truth-theoretic semantics that appeals to fulfillment conditions, of which truth conditions are one variety. On this approach, logical forms are not reified, and the notion of sameness of logical form is treated as conceptually basic. We discuss the relation of this conception of logical form to the project of identifying logical constants, reviewing two approaches, one of which takes topic neutrality as central, the other recursion. We argue that the project of identifying logical constants for the purposes of classifying together valid arguments is largely independent of that identifying logical form of sentences, and urge an ecumenical approach to extending talk of logical constants beyond where it is currently well-grounded. (shrink)

Contributors from different disciplines and schools of thought cover topics such as meaning, truth, form of a semantic theory, and natural logic in this book, providing a comparative evaluation of the major new approaches to semantics for natural language. The contributors discuss the different theories and attempt to justify or criticize them, disagreements and points of contact with others, problem areas, and suggestions for future development.

The Tattvapaplavasimha is a philosophical text unique of its kind it is the only text of the Carvaka Lokayata school which has survived and the only Sanskrit work in which full-fledged scepticism is propounded. Notwithstanding that it has been hitherto almost completely ignored. The present book consists of an introduction detailed analysis edition translation with extensive notes of the first half of the text. In the introduction Jayarasi`s affiliation to the Lokayata school is reassessed and his place in the historical (...) development of Indian Philosophy evaluated. New evidence for the dating of Jayarasi is examined and a new dating is suggested. (shrink)

Introduction: Cartographies in becoming -- The happy depression -- Integrated world capitalism -- Planetary psychopathia -- Postmediatic affect -- User's manual-- Deleuze and the rhizomatic machine -- Why is anti-Oedipus the book of the '68 movement? -- Kafka, hypertext, and assemblages -- The tantric egg -- Chaosmosis -- The provisional eternity of friendship.

Bertrand Russell, in the second of his 1914 Lowell lectures, Our Knowledge of the External World, asserted famously that ‘every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and purification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical’ (Russell 1993, p. 42). He went on to characterize that portion of logic that concerned the study of forms of propositions, or, as he (...) called them, ‘logical forms’. This portion of logic he called ‘philosophical logic’. Russell asserted that ... some kind of knowledge of logical forms, though with most people it is not explicit, is involved in all understanding of discourse. It is the business of philosophical logic to extract this knowledge from its concrete integuments, and to render it explicit and pure. (p. 53) Perhaps no one still endorses quite this grand a view of the role of logic and the investigation of logical form in philosophy. But talk of logical form retains a central role in analytic philosophy. Given its widespread use in philosophy and linguistics, it is rather surprising that the concept of logical form has not received more attention by philosophers than it has. The concern of this paper is to say something about what talk of logical form comes to, in a tradition that stretches back to (and arguably beyond) Russell’s use of that expression. This will not be exactly Russell’s conception. For we do not endorse Russell’s view that propositions are the bearers of logical form, or that appeal to propositions adds anything to our understanding of what talk of logical form comes to. But we will be concerned to provide an account responsive to the interests expressed by Russell in the above quotations, though one clarified of extraneous elements, and expressed precisely. For this purpose, it is important to note that the concern expressed by Russell in the above passages, as the surrounding text makes clear, is a concern not just with logic conceived narrowly as the study of logical terms, but with propositional form more generally, which includes, e.g., such features as those that correspond to the number of argument places in a propositional function, and the categories of objects which propositional.... (shrink)

Context Shifting Arguments (CSA) ask us to consider two utterances of an unambiguous, non-vague, non-elliptic sentence S. If the consensus intuition is that what’s said, or expressed or the truth-conditions, and so possibly the truthvalues, of these utterances differ, then CSA concludes S is context sensitive. Consider, for example, simultaneous utterances of ‘I am wearing a hat’, one by Stephen, one by Jason. Intuitively, these utterances can vary in truth-value contingent upon who is speaking the sentence, while holding hat-wearing constant, (...) and so they express distinct propositions and differ in their truth conditions. Since these differences are not the result of ambiguity (lexical or structural), vagueness, conversational implicature, or syntactic ellipsis, we have pretty strong evidence that ‘I am wearing a hat’ is context sensitive. (shrink)

Meaning and Argument shifts introductory logic from the traditional emphasis on proofs to the symbolization of arguments. It is an ideal introduction to formal logic, philosophical logic, and philosophy of language. Distinctive approach in that this text is a philosophical, rather than mathematical introduction to logic Concentrates on symbolization and does all the technical logic simply with truth tables and no derivations at all Contains numerous exercises and a corresponding answer key Extensive Appendix which allows the reader to explore subjects (...) that go beyond what is usually covered in an introductory logic course. (shrink)

"Die vorliegende Fassung des Textes wurde anhand des englischen Originalmanuskriptes von Franco Selleri unter Mitarbeit von Roman U. Sexl erstellt."--T.p. verso.

The commonplace view about metaphorical interpretation is that it can be characterized in traditional semantic and pragmatic terms, thereby assimilating metaphor to other familiar uses of language. We will reject this view, and propose in its place the view that, though metaphors can issue in distinctive cognitive and discourse effects, they do so without issuing in metaphorical meaning and truth, and so, without metaphorical communication. Our inspiration derives from Donald Davidson’s critical arguments against metaphorical meaning and Richard Rorty’s exploration of (...) the diverse uses of language. But unlike these authors we ground our discussion squarely in distinctions about causal mechanisms in cooperative activity developed by H.P. Grice and others. (shrink)

This Companion brings together a team of leading figures in contemporary philosophy to provide an in-depth exposition and analysis of Quine’s extensive influence across philosophy’s many sub-fields, highlighting the breadth of his work, and revealing his continued significance today.

In this detailed study of the republican tradition in the development of the Enlightenment, the central problem of utopia and reform is crystallized in a discussion of the right to punish. Describing the political situation in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the author shows how the old republics in Italy, Poland and Holland stagnated and were unable to survive in the age of absolutism. The Philosophes discussed the ideal of republicanism against this background. They were particularly influenced by (...) the political and religious radicalism of John Toland, which had survived the English Restoration and was then reaching Europe. Professor Venturi traces the debate on the penal laws and the attempt to relate utopian ideas of society to the practical problem of dealing with man in society, which culminated in the assertion by many Philosophes that an unjust social system necessitated harsh penal laws, thereby rejecting the possibility of reform. (shrink)

Under what conditions are two utterances utterances of the same word? What are words? That these questions have not received much attention is rather surprising: after all, philosophers and linguists frequently appeal to considerations about word and sentence identity in connection with a variety of puzzles and problems that are foundational to the very subject matter of philosophy of language and linguistics.1 Kaplan’s attention to words is thus to be applauded. And there is no doubt that his discussion contains many (...) useful insights. Nevertheless, we find his picture deeply flawed for a variety of crosscutting reasons. Our aim in this paper is to further advance an understanding of the nature of words, both by remedying the problems with Kaplan’s account, and also by achieving a suitable perspective on what the metaphysical investigation of word identity can hope to achieve. Our discussion divides into four parts. In Part One, we examine and critique Kaplan’s discussion of a contrast integral to his own account: that between the type-token and the stage-continuant conceptions of words. In Part Two, we present three constraints on any account of words and two further themes in Kaplan’s discussion central to his conception of words – the role of repetition and the constitutive authority of intentions. While these ideas have laudable motivations, we argue they are far from the best way of making good on the insights that drive them. The final two sections take a skeptical turn. In Part Three, we express doubt about Kaplan’s presumption of the importance of what he calls ‘common currency names’, thus raising a suspicion that he may be in pursuit of chimera. Finally, in Part Four, we express pessimism about whether interesting answers to question above will be forthcoming, and suggest that the legitimacy of our word ontology need not depend on the availability of such answers. Along the way, we tease apart a number of metaphysical questions in the vicinity of the topic of word individuation – questions that are often not disentangled – and consider how the discussion of the previous parts bears on them.. (shrink)

This is a paper is about a particular subclass of pejoratives, namely, slurs. These are epithets that denigrate a group on the basis of membership alone, e.g., on the basis of race, ethnicity, origin, religion, gender, or ideology. They carrry a characteristic sting, prone to cause outrage and even injury. As to the source of their characteristic sting, the predominant position invokes some aspect of meaning. Some of the few who reject this assumption locate the source of the sting in (...) the taboo status of pejoratives. Others think slurs can sting because of negative associations they carry across time. We challenge both approaches and defend an alternative, for which negative associations are triggered not by every token of a pejorative, but rather by certain of its articulations. (shrink)

Utterances in situated activity are about the world. Theories and systems normally capture this by assuming references must be resolved to real-world entities in utterance understanding. We describe a number of puzzles and problems for this approach, and propose an alternative semantic representation using discourse relations that link utterances to the nonlinguistic context to capture the context-dependent interpretation of situated utterances. Our approach promises better empirical coverage and more straightforward system building. Substantiating these advantages is work in progress.

Philosophers in general are uncomfortable, if not downright skeptical, about attributing semantic knowledge, particularly of a semantic theory, to ordinary speakers. 2 Those who do not feel the pinch often adopt a two-pronged defense: they rebut skeptics with an array of distinctions (and hedges), contending that the skeptics' confusions arise because they ignore such..

_Insensitive Semantics_ is an overview of and contribution to the debates about how to accommodate context sensitivity within a theory of human communication, investigating the effects of context on communicative interaction and, as a corollary, what a context of utterance is and what it is to be in one. Provides detailed and wide-ranging overviews of the central positions and arguments surrounding contextualism Addresses broad and varied aspects of the distinction between the semantic and non-semantic content of language Defends a distinctive (...) and explanatorily powerful combination of semantic minimalism and speech act pluralism Confronts core problems which not only run to the heart of philosophy of language and linguistics, but which arise in epistemology, metaphysics, and moral philosophy as well. (shrink)

Critics and champions alike have fussed and fretted for well over fifty years about whether Russell’s treatment is compatible with certain alleged acceptable uses of incomplete definite descriptions,[2] where a description (the F( is incomplete just in case more than one object satisfies its nominal F, as in (1).

Background:A growing number of frameworks for the practice of clinical ethics are described in the literature. Among these, hermeneutical frameworks have helped highlight the interpretive and contextual nature of clinical ethics practice.Objectives:The aim of this article is to further advance this body of work by drawing on the ideas of Charles Taylor, a leading hermeneutical philosopher.Design/Findings:A Hermeneutical Rapprochement Framework is presented for clinical ethics practice, based on Taylor’s hermeneutical “retrieval” and “rapprochement.” This builds on existing hermeneutical approaches for the practice (...) of clinical ethics by articulating a framework with interpretive and reconciliatory scope that extends beyond the presenting “local” context. A Hermeneutical Rapprochement Framework considers broader socio-historical horizons and imaginaries grounded on Taylor’s expansive work in epistemological, ontological, political, and moral philosophy.Discussion:The framework is discussed in terms of how it can be operationalized for clinical practice as well as normative development. Implications for the educational preparation of clinical ethicists are also discussed. Although this work is directly relevant for clinical ethicists, it can also help inform the ethical practice of all clinicians. (shrink)

We give a precis of our book Insensitive Semantics.