In this article, we compare two fixed-point constructions of common knowledge in sequential coordination problems. The first one corresponds to the standard maximal fixed-point construction of common knowledge in a possible worlds framework; the second construction provides an even larger fixed-point and involves iterated epistemic updates. We call the first fixed-point the maximal fixed-point, and the second the update fixed-point. Both fixed-points define a set of sequential actions that solve the coordination problem such that success is mutually guaranteed. The main (...) application intended is the study of signalling games as introduced by [15]. We introduce a non-probabilistic version of these games as multi-agent signalling games. We use them for modelling prototypical accommodation phenomena following [16]. We show especially that accommodation, which involves presupposition violation, is only licensed due to the existence of the super large update fixed-point, whereas the literal language use without presupposition violations can be characterized by the maximal fixed-point. (shrink)

To determine what the speaker in a cooperative dialog meant with his assertion, on top of what he explicitly said, it is crucial that we assume that the assertion he gave was optimal. In determining optimal assertions we assume that dialogs are embedded in decision problems (van Rooij 2003) and use backwards induction for calculating them (Benz 2006). In this paper, we show that in terms of our framework we can account for several types of implicatures in a uniform (...) way, suggesting that there is no need for an independent linguistic theory of generalized implicatures. In the final section, we show how we can embed our theory in the framework of signaling games, and how it relates with other game theoretic analyses of implicatures. (shrink)

In this paper we are going to show that error coping strategies play an essential role in linguistic pragmatics. We study the effect of noisy speaker strategies within a framework of signalling games with feedback loop. We distinguish between cases in which errors occur in message selection and cases in which they occur in signal selection. The first type of errors affects the content of an utterance, and the second type its linguistic expression. The general communication model is inspired by (...) the Shannon–Weaver communication model. We test the model by a number of benchmark examples, including examples of relevance implicatures, quantity implicatures, and presupposition accommodation. (shrink)

Previous research on scalar implicature has primarily relied on meta-linguistic judgment tasks and found varying rates of such inferences depending on the nature of the task and contextual manipulations. This paper introduces a novel interactive paradigm involving both a production and a comprehension side and a precise conversational goal. The main research question is what is reliably communicated by some in this communicative setting, both when the quantifier occurs in unembedded and embedded positions. Our new paradigm involves an action-based task (...) from which participants’ interpretation of utterances can be inferred. It incorporates a game-theoretic design, thereby including a precise model to predict participants’ behaviour in the experimental context. Our study shows that embedded and unembedded implicatures are reliably communicated by some. We propose two cognitive principles that describe what can be left unsaid. In our experimental context, a production strategy based on these principles is more efficient than a strategy based on literal descriptions. (shrink)

To determine what the speaker in a cooperative dialog meant with his assertion, on top of what he explicitly said, it is crucial that we assume that the assertion he gave was optimal. In determining optimal assertions we assume that dialogs are embedded in decision problems (van Rooij 2003) and use backwards induction for calculating them (Benz 2006). In this paper, we show that in terms of our framework we can account for several types of implicatures in a uniform (...) way, suggesting that there is no need for an independent linguistic theory of generalized implicatures. In the final section, we show how we can embed our theory in the framework of signaling games, and how it relates with other game theoretic analyses of implicatures. (shrink)

We are going to explain partial blocking as the result of diachronic processes based on what we will call associative learning. Especially, we argue that the task posed by partial blocking phenomena is to explain their emergence from unambiguous and fully expressive languages. This contrasts with approaches that presuppose underspecified semantic meanings or ineffability like Bidirectional Optimality Theory (Bi–OT) and some game theoretic explanations. We introduce a formal framework based on learning, speaker’s preferences and pure semantics for describing diachronic strengthening (...) of meaning. Moreover, we show how the diachronic development of systems of semantically co–extensive forms can be described in terms of a complete system of diachronic laws. (shrink)

While written by a prominent and active scientist, this book is based on personal experience and biblical theology. It doesn't try to derive God s existence from science and it's critical of scientific inferences on the notion of God (Natural Theology). Cosmic fine-tuning and other coincidences are no proof of God, but are amazing, astounding and will never be fully explained. Amazement is the appropriate emotional perception of reality. The objective world is not a matter of course and may well (...) not exist at all; thus reality, at times, is experienced to be very special. Human life, the beauty of nature, the habitability of planet Earth can be considered undeserved gifts. In the light of these gifts, the universe is metaphorically interpreted and existentially believed as a divine Creation. Science cannot create such faith but can foster it. Is God necessary to explain the universe? Is the idea of a Creator excluded by modern science? Why continue speaking of a Creator and to believe (trust and hope) in His continuing creation when God cannot be demonstrated in scientific data? Arnold Benz, a renowned astrophysicist and Christian, insists that human perception reaches further than science and demonstrates this in various examples, personal, biblical, and literary.". (shrink)

Aus einer philosophisch-phanomenologischen und literaturwissenschaftlichen Perspektive heraus gewinnt Nadine Benz nahere Erkenntnisse uber das temporale Phanomen des Wartens. Zunachst wird die historische Entwicklung der Zeitvorstellung aus philosophisch-phanomenologischer Sicht thematisiert, spezifisch im Hinblick auf die Fragen nach Messbarkeit, Vermitteltheit und nach objektiven und subjektiven Komponenten von Zeiterfahrung in ihrer Aporetik. Im Anschluss wird vom Konzept der Lebenswelt zur Literatur ubergeleitet: Die vorliegende Studie bindet die Aporien der Zeit zunachst theoretisch in eine Narratologie von Zeiterfahrung ein, die vor allem den Faktor (...) des Fiktiven produktiv berucksichtigt. Schliesslich werden die gewonnenen Erkenntnisse und Instrumente fur eine Analyse von Erzahltexten des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts fruchtbar gemacht. Hier erlangen die literarischen Konfigurationen von Wartezeit als Semantiken des Wartens fur die Subjekte der fiktiven Zeiterfahrung einen konstitutiven Status. (shrink)

This paper takes a stand on Hamblin semantics and its relation to the semantics-to-pragmatics interface. Biased questions, where the speaker finds one of the options more likely and expects the confirmation that p is true, raise a concern about the limits of Hamblin semantics. I argue that biased questions have modified Hamblin semantics, while unbiased questions have unconstrained Hamblin semantics. The optional bias feature explains compositionally. It is triggered by likelihood presuppositions ranging Hamblin sets and highlighting the preferred alternative(s). Biased (...) effects are exceptionally possible in alternative and wh-questions, but only in polar questions, they can be encoded lexically and grammatically. I argue that Hamblin semantics covers all core types of questions, while some of its applications for non-questions are problematic. (shrink)

This title from the De Gruyter Book Archive has been digitized in order to make it available for academic research. It was originally published under National Socialism and has to be viewed in this historical context. Learn more. >.

This collection of ten essays elucidates some of the more challenging aspects of Anscombe’s work and affirms her reputation as one of our most original ...

Anscombe holds that a proper account of intentional action must exhibit “a ‘form’ of description of events.” But what does that mean? To answer this question, I compare the method of Anscombe’s Intention with that of Frege’s Foundations of Arithmetic—another classic work of analytic philosophy that consciously opposes itself to psychological explanations. On the one hand, positively, I aim to identify and elucidate the kind of account of intentional action that Anscombe attempts to provide. On the other hand, negatively, I (...) hope to dispel the canard that Anscombe’s opposition to the causal theory of action is a product of “behaviorism.”. (shrink)

In den Aufsätzen dieses Bandes präsentiert Anton Friedrich Koch Hegels theoretische Philosophie als diejenige Nichtstandard-Metaphysik, in der sich die Metaphysik, nicht aber die Philosophie vollendet. Jenseits von Hegels Evolutionstheorie des Absoluten gilt es von einem Standpunkt der Endlichkeit aus neu zu philosophieren.

Two classes of account have been proposed to explain the memory processes subserving the processing of reflexive-antecedent dependencies. Structure-based accounts assume that the retrieval of the antecedent is guided by syntactic tree-configurational information without considering other kinds of information such as gender marking in the case of English reflexives. By contrast, unconstrained cue-based retrieval assumes that all available information is used for retrieving the antecedent. Similarity-based interference effects from structurally illicit distractors which match a non-structural retrieval cue have been interpreted (...) as evidence favoring the unconstrained cue-based retrieval account since cue-based retrieval interference from structurally illicit distractors is incompatible with the structure-based account. However, it has been argued that the observed effects do not necessarily reflect interference occurring at the moment of retrieval but might equally well be accounted for by interference occurring already at the stage of encoding or maintaining the antecedent in memory, in which case they cannot be taken as evidence against the structure-based account. We present three experiments (self-paced reading and eye-tracking) on German reflexives and Swedish reflexive and pronominal possessives in which we pit the predictions of encoding interference and cue-based retrieval interference against each other. We could not find any indication that encoding interference affects the processing ease of the reflexive-antecedent dependency formation. Thus, there is no evidence that encoding interference might be the explanation for the interference effects observed in previous work. We therefore conclude that invoking encoding interference may not be a plausible way to reconcile interference effects with a structure-based account of reflexive processing. (shrink)

In contrast to the theories of relativity, quantum mechanics is not yet based on a generally accepted conceptual foundation. It is proposed here that the missing principle may be identified through the observation that all knowledge in physics has to be expressed in propositions and that therefore the most elementary system represents the truth value of one proposition, i.e., it carries just one bit of information. Therefore an elementary system can only give a definite result in one specific measurement. The (...) irreducible randomness in other measurements is then a necessary consequence. For composite systems entanglement results if all possible information is exhausted in specifying joint properties of the constituents. (shrink)

We discuss the difference between formal and natural languages, and argue that should the language metaphor have any foundation, it’s analogy with natural languages that should be taken into account. We discuss how such operation like reading, writing, sign, interpretation, etc., can be applied in the realm of the living and what can be gained, by such an approach, in order to understand the phenomenon of life.

Inhalt: - Systemtheorie und klassische Philosophie - Systemtheorie und transklassische Philosophie - Materiale, metatheoretische und ideologische Aspekte der Systemtheorie.

De l'apathie de l'âme humaine, ou, L'incapacité de l'âme de se sentir, et l'absence de faculté de sentir en elle, alors que notre oragnisme vivant possède ces qualités -- Sur les idées distinctes des choses qui appartiennent soit à notre âme, soit à notre corps organique vivant -- Traité de l'art de philosopher avec simplicité et précision.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

It has been argued that some animals are moral subjects, that is, beings who are capable of behaving on the basis of moral motivations. In this paper, we do not challenge this claim. Instead, we presuppose its plausibility in order to explore what ethical consequences follow from it. Using the capabilities approach, we argue that beings who are moral subjects are entitled to enjoy positive opportunities for the flourishing of their moral capabilities, and that the thwarting of these capabilities entails (...) a harm that cannot be fully explained in terms of hedonistic welfare. We explore the implications of this idea for the assessment of current practices involving animals. (shrink)

This article considers natural signs and their role in the origin of language. Natural signs, sometimes called primary signs, are connected with their signified by causal relationships, concomitance, or likeliness. And their acquisition is directed by both objective reality and past experience (memory). The discovery and use of natural signs is a required prerequisite of existence for any living systems because they are indispensable to movement, the search for food, regulation, communication, and many other information-related activities. It is argued that (...) the birth of conventional signs, sometimes called secondary signs, was determined by a connotative use of natural signs and that, regulated and maintained by them, human language developed. At the same time, the origin and development of human language presupposes a ‘rational turn’ from the given and external reality of natural signs to the rationally constructed reality of artificial signs and rules that are internally maintained by the subjects’ deliberate activities, and actual and inherited social tradition (social memory). In view of this, language is defined as a dynamic system that must both be natural and artificial, empirical and a priori, inductive and deductive. This bilateral origin and regulation of language is the dual-inference of language. (shrink)

I discuss the foundations of predicate ontologies based on two model notions – elementary states of affairs and eventualities, i.e. ordered pairs of initial and end states of affairs. Vendlerian classifications are oriented towards elementary states and tense logic, while Davidsonian classifications deal with eventualities and event logic. There are two kinds of atemporal predicates - fact and properties. Facts are propositional arguments of second-order predicates which add a special meaning that the embedded proposition was verified. Properties are atemporal first-order (...) predicates that lack eventive interpretation and are not associated with factive frames. Davidsonian states are homogeneous durable spatiotemporal things distinct both from atemporal properties and spatiotemporal dynamic predicates. Davidsonian states are causally independent, while resultatives are causally determined as they reconstruct a preceding event that has caused the end state p. I discuss the contrast between external and internal Davidsonian states. The former lack a priority argument and can be quantified extensionally. The latter have a priority experiential argument and can only be quantified intensionally. External states can be observed, while internal states cannot. (shrink)

Agency is a power, but what is it a power to do? The tradition presents us with three main answers: (1) that agency is a power to affect one’s own will, consequent upon which act further events ensue, beginning with the movement of a part of one's body; (2) that agency is a power to affect one’s own body, consequent upon which act further events ensue, beginning with the movement of an object that one touches; and (3) that agency is (...) a power to affect that material upon which one brings one's action to bear---e.g. the apple one is peeling (with a knife in one's hand). These three answers correspond to three increasingly expansive conceptions of the province of human agency. I refer to them, respectively, as volitionalism, corporealism and materialism. Only the first two are seriously considered in contemporary action theory. Favoring the third, and hoping to sharpen the conflict between the third and the first, I criticize the second. Corporealism has been a popular position—arguably, the default position in the philosophy of action—since Donald Davidson’s classic paper “Agency” (1971). Although it seems to occupy a sensible middle ground between volitionalism and materialism, corporealism is, I argue, indefensible: it shares the vulnerabilities of both its two rivals, without possessing the strengths of either. Nevertheless, reflection on corporealism lights the road to materialism, which, in the end, is the only possible alternative to volitionalism. (shrink)

Hyperpolitics and Political Commitment in the Twenty-First Century What do the January 6th invasion of the Capitol and the anti-racist demonstrations of mid-2020 have in common? Both birthed some of the largest protest movements in American history, but also diminished rapidly after their initial, pre-revolutionary peak. This article reads the recent political sequence through the concept of ‘hyperpolitics’. In contrast to previous types of post-politics or mass politics, ‘hyperpolitics’ stands for a distinctly novel mode of political commitment characteristic of the (...) 2010s, in which a formerly apolitical public sphere finds itself intensely repoliticized, imposing itself on other domains such as the private, cultural, or economic. The return in question yet also runs across parameters that are more low-cost, low-entry, and low-duration than previous twentieth-century types, in stark contrast Max Weber’s typology of politics as the ‘slow boring of hard boards.’. (shrink)

English summary: In this work, Anton Friedrich Koch develops a hermeneutical realism using methods of analytic philosophy, i.e. the thesis that although the real is independent from individual beliefs and perceptions, it is, however, not independent of there being beliefs and perceptions at all. We, the finite spatiotemporally embodied subjects, are therefore not a 'cosmic coincidence' but rather necessary for the existence of the material system of space-time, which, on the other hand, encompasses us and is in no way (...) a fiction or construction (subjectivity thesis). This brand of realism is hermeneutical because it treats knowing as a special case of reading and translating - of things into spoken language - (readability thesis), and in giving room to the discovery that completeness and consistency, as in mathematics, are likewise incompatible in the description of the world (antinomy thesis). German description: Anton Friedrich Koch begrundet und entwickelt in diesem Werk mit Mitteln der analytischen Philosophie einen hermeneutischen Realismus: die philosophische Lehre, dass das Reale zwar von einzelnen Meinungen und Wahrnehmungen unabhangig ist, nicht aber davon, dass es uberhaupt Meinungen und Wahrnehmungen gibt. Wir, die endlichen, raumzeitlich verkorperten Subjekte, sind also kein Zufall, sondern notwendig fur die Existenz des materiellen Raum-Zeit-Systems, das uns andererseits weitraumig umgibt und keineswegs unsere Konstruktion oder Fiktion ist (Subjektivitatsthese). Hermeneutisch ist dieser Realismus, weil er das Erkennen als einen Sonderfall des Lesens und Ubersetzens - der Dinge in Wortsprache - begreift (Lesbarkeitsthese) und weil er der Entdeckung Raum gibt, dass Vollstandigkeit und Widerspruchsfreiheit, wie in der Mathematik, so auch in der Weltbeschreibung unvertraglich sind (Antinomiethese). (shrink)

The conclusion of practical reasoning is commonly said to rest upon a diverse pair of representations—a “major” and a “minor” premise—the first of which concerns the end and the second, the means. Modern and contemporary philosophers writing on action and practical reasoning tend to portray the minor premise as a “means-end belief”—a belief about, as Michael Smith puts it, “the ways in which one thing leads to another,” or, as John McDowell puts it, “what can be relied on to bring (...) about what.” On this point there is little difference between followers of Davidson and followers of Anscombe, or between those who invoke Hume’s legacy and those who invoke Aristotle’s. But Aristotle himself held a very different position. According to him, the minor premise concerns particulars, a sphere controlled by perception. The perception of particulars—that is, of the really-existing people and things confronted in the field of action—plays no essential role in the modern account of rational agency. Because it does not, the modern account fails to explain how one could act for a reason, or how practical reasoning could deliver any conclusion. (shrink)

The article proposes to further develop the ideas of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis by including into evolutionary research an analysis of phenomena that occur above the organismal level. We demonstrate that the current Extended Synthesis is focused more on individual traits (genetically or non-genetically inherited) and less on community system traits (synergetic/organizational traits) that characterize transgenerational biological, ecological, social, and cultural systems. In this regard, we will consider various communities that are made up of interacting populations, and for which the (...) individual members can belong to the same or to different species. Examples of communities include biofilms, ant colonies, symbiotic associations resulting in holobiont formation, and human societies. The proposed model of evolution at the level of communities revises classic theorizing on the major transitions in evolution by analyzing the interplay between community/social traits and individual traits, and how this brings forth ideas of top-down regulations of bottom-up evolutionary processes (collaboration of downward and upward causation). The work demonstrates that such interplay also includes reticulate interactions and reticulate causation. In this regard, we exemplify how community systems provide various non-genetic ‘scaffoldings’, ‘constraints’, and ‘affordances’ for individual and sociocultural evolutionary development. Such research complements prevailing models that focus on the vertical transmission of heritable information, from parent to offspring, with research that instead focusses on horizontal, oblique and even reverse information transmission, going from offspring to parent. We call this reversed information transfer the ‘offspring effect’ to contrast it from the ‘parental effect’. We argue that the proposed approach to inheritance is effective for modelling cumulative and distributed developmental process and for explaining the biological origins and evolution of language. (shrink)

Ethics is demanding by nature, telling us what we should or should not do. But one ethical theory in particular, utilitarianism, is more demanding than most, and is often criticized as requiring too much of us. Neither utilitarianism nor deontology requires Superman to care about truth, justice, or the American way. It might not be possible for Superman to be supererogatory since very little is above or beyond the call of duty for him, given our incredibly high expectations. Virtue ethics (...) has the best chance to explain how Superman can perform supererogatory acts, since it doesn't focus on good action as such, but rather good character. While people use the name “big blue boy scout” in a derogatory way with Superman, it is a nice way to capture an ethical theory that might grant Superman’s responsibilities while allowing him a chance to live his own life: virtue ethics. (shrink)