On the basis of historical and textual evidence, this paper claims that after his Tractatus, Wittgenstein was actually influenced by Einstein's theory of relativity and, the similarity of Einstein's relativity theory helps to illuminate some aspects of Wittgenstein's work. These claims find support in remarkable quotations where Wittgenstein speaks approvingly of Einstein's relativity theory and in the way these quotations are embedded in Wittgenstein's texts. The profound connection between Wittgenstein and relativity theory concerns not only Wittgenstein's “verificationist” phase , but (...) also Wittgenstein's later philosophy centred on the theme of rule‐following. (shrink)

One particular topic in the literature on Frege’s conception of sense relates to two apparently contradictory theses held by Frege: the isomorphism of thought and language on one hand and the expressibility of a thought by different sentences on the other. I will divide the paper into five sections. In (1) I introduce the problem of the tension in Frege’s thought. In (2) I discuss the main attempts to resolve the conflict between Frege’s two contradictory claims, showing what is wrong (...) with some of them. In (3), I analyze where, in Frege’s writings and discussions on sense identity, one can find grounds for two different conceptions of sense. In (4) I show how the two contradictory theses held by Frege are connected with different concerns, compelling Frege to a constant oscillation in terminology. In (5) I summarize two further reasons that prevented Frege from making the distinction between two conceptions of sense clear: (i) the antipsychologism problem and (ii) the overlap of traditions in German literature contemporary to Frege about the concept of value. I conclude with a hint for a reconstruction of the Fregean notion of ‘thought’ which resolves the contradiction between his two theses. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the similarity between Wittgenstein’s use of thought experiments and Relativity Theory. I begin with introducing Wittgenstein’s idea of “thought experiments” and a tentative classification of different kinds of thought experiments in Wittgenstein’s work. Then, after presenting a short recap of some remarks on the analogy between Wittgenstein’s point of view and Einstein’s, I suggest three analogies between the status of Wittgenstein’s mental experiments and Relativity theory: the topics of time dilation, the search for invariants, and (...) the role of measuring tools in Special Relativity. This last point will help to better define Wittgenstein’s idea of description as the core of his philosophical enterprise. (shrink)

Keith Donnellan wrote his paper on definite descriptions in 1966 at Cornell University, an environment where nearly everybody was discussing Wittgenstein’s ideas of meaning as use. However, his idea of different uses of definite descriptions became one of the fundamental tenets against descriptivism, which was considered one of the main legacies of the Frege–Russell– Wittgenstein view; and I wonder whether a more Wittgensteinian interpretation of Donnellan’s work is possible.

In this paper, I discuss the similarity between Wittgenstein’s use of thought experiments and Relativity Theory. I begin with introducing Wittgenstein’s idea of “thought experiments” and a tentative classification of different kinds of thought experiments in Wittgenstein’s work. Then, after presenting a short recap of some remarks on the analogy between Wittgenstein’s point of view and Einstein’s, I suggest three analogies between the status of Wittgenstein’s mental experiments and Relativity theory: the topics of time dilation, the search for invariants, and (...) the role of measuring tools in Special Relativity. This last point will help to better define Wittgenstein’s idea of description as the core of his philosophical enterprise. (shrink)

This paper is a comparison of Kripke’s and Künne’s interpretations of Frege’s theory of indexicals, especially concerning Frege’s remarks on time as “part of the expression of thought”. I analyze the most contrasting features of Kripke’s and Künne’s interpretations of Frege’s remarks on indexicals. Subsequently, I try to identify a common ground between Kripke’s and Künne’s interpretations, and hint at a possible convergence between those two views, stressing the importance given by Frege to nonverbal signs in defining the content of (...) thought. I conclude by indicating a possible direction for further research. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a defence of a Russellian analysis of the referential uses of incomplete (mis)descriptions, in a contextual setting. With regard to the debate between a unificationist and an ambiguity approach to the formal treatment of definite descriptions (introduction), I will support the former against the latter. In 1. I explain what I mean by "essentially" incomplete descriptions: incomplete descriptions are context dependent descriptions. In 2. I examine one of the best versions of the unificationist “explicit” approach (...) given by Buchanan and Ostertag. I then show that this proposal seems unable to treat the normal uses of misdescriptions. I then accept the challenge of treating misdescriptions as a key to solving the problem of context dependent descriptions. In 3. I briefly discuss Michael Devitt’s and Joseph Almog’s treatments of referential descriptions, showing that they find it difficult to explain misdescriptions. In 4. I suggest an alternative approach to DD as contextuals, under a normative epistemic stance. Definite descriptions express (i) what a speaker should have in mind in using certain words in a certain context and (ii) what a normal speaker is justified in saying in a context, given a common basic knowledge of the lexicon. In 5. I define a procedure running on contextual parameters (partiality, perspective and approximation) as a means of representing the role of pragmatics as a filter for semantic interpretation. In 6. I defend my procedural approach against possible objections concerning the problem of the boundaries between semantics and pragmatics, relying on the distinction between semantics and theory of meaning. (shrink)

In what follows I consider the apparent contrast between two kinds of theories of context: a theory of objective context - exemplified in the works of Kaplan and Lewis - and a theory of subjective context -exemplified in the works of McCarthy and Giunchiglia. I consider then some difficulties for the objective theory. I don't give any formalization; instead I give some theoretical points about the problem. A possible result could be the abandon of the double indexing for a development (...) a multi-context theory (I give an example of a case). However other results could be possible and a challenge is posed to solve problems using the best results from each tradition of research. (shrink)

The main point of the paper is the claim that a strong notion of cognitive context can answer the needs of a representation of dialogue context, with a higher generality than the "normative" notion suggested by Gauker. I will discuss some well known claims in the literature about communication and context, and I will suggest giving a central role to the notion of contract or semantic bargaining and to the normative constraints of indexicals and anaphora.

We asked some of the best philosophers of pragmatics to offer their original perspectives on the following question: to what extent do the novelties developed in these last years shed new light on defining the content of what is said? They answered with passion and without avoiding strong criticism of central ideas on opposite sides. The primary purpose of this collection is to provide a survey of what may be considered the main contemporary debate in the philosophy of language. Scholars (...) and people already involved in the debate will find in the papers new challenges. As Aristotle would say “what is said is said in many ways”. TOC 1 CARLO PENCO, FILIPPO DOMANESCHI What is said: a Short History in Quotes 2 UNA STOJNIC AND ERNEST LEPORE What’s What’s said? 3 JASON STANLEY Context and Logical Form 4 MASSIMILIANO VIGNOLO Surprise Indexicalism 5 KENT BACH The Lure of Linguistification 6 MANUEL GARCIA CARPINTERO Explicit Performatives 7 CLAUDIA BIANCHI Illocutions in Context 8 CATHERINE WEARING Metaphor and the Scope Argument 9 FRANCOIS RECANATI Reference through Mental Files 10 ROBYN CARSTON Word Meaning, What is Said and Explicature 11 KEPA KORTA Grice’s Requirements on What is Said 12JOANA GARMENDIA Ironically Saying and Implicating 13 JOHN MACFARLANE Non Indexical Contextualism 14 EROS CORAZZA AND JEROM DOKIC On Situationalism: Situations with an Attitude 15 MICHAEL DEVITT Three Methodological Flaws of Linguistic Pragmatism 16 JOHN PERRY Direct Discourse, Indirect Discourse and Belief. (shrink)

In this paper, I will discuss a well-known oscillation in Frege’s conception of sense. My point is only partially concerned with his two different criteria of sense identity, and touches upon a more specific point: what happens if we apply Frege’s intuitive criterion for the difference of thoughts to logically equivalent sentences? I will try to make a schematic argument here that will preempt any endeavor to make Frege more coherent than he really is. In sections A and B, I (...) will present two alternative Fregean ways to treat the sense of logically equivalent sentences. Frege really oscillated between two alternative conceptions of sense, and his inability to detect the contrast between the two alternative conceptions is partly due to his strong conception of rationality. To apply the criterion of difference of thoughts to logical matters, we may also use a weak notion of rationality, or at least a notion of rationality of human agents, with limited computational resources. The distinctions towards which Frege was striving are better understood nowadays from the point of view of the treatment of limited rationality, which imposes itself even in logical matters. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to discuss a general tendency in contextualism which is known as "radical contextualism". In the first part I state the well known paradox of semantic holism, as discussed in philosophy of language: if meaning is holistic there is no possibility to share any meaning. In the second part I present the different answers to this paradox, from atomism to different forms of holism. In the third part I give a criticism of the traditional interpretation of Wittgenstein (...) as a supporter of global holism. I stress some similarities between Wittgenstein's thought and Multi Context theories in artificial inteligence. In the last part I give some argument against a rigid interpretation of "local holism": I claim the need to give restrictions to local holim and to develop a study of the connections between "default" properties and high level rules which are studied in Multi−Context theories. (shrink)

I wonder whether the idea of knowing how as kind of knowing that with a peculiar mode of presentation really helps in the debate between philosophers and scientists.

In this paper I shall outline a short history of the ideas concerning sense and reference of a concept-word from Frege to model theoretic semantics. I claim that, contrary to what is normally supposed, a procedural view of sense may be compatible with model theoretic semantics, especially in dealing with problems at the boundary between semantics and pragmatics. A first paragraph on the paradox of the concept horse will clarify the attitude concerning the history of ideas that I assume in (...) this paper. In the second paragraph I will discuss some misunderstandings in the shift from the sense/reference distinction in Frege to the intension/extension distinction in model theoretic semantics. In the third I will show how a particular interpretation of the Fregean sense of a concept word may be of interest for model theoretic semantics. (shrink)

Context is a concept used by philosophers and scientists with many different definitions. Since Dummett we speak of "context principle" in Frege and Wittgenstein: "an expression has a meaning only in the context of a sentence". The context principle finds an extension in some of Wittgenstein's ideas, especially in his famous passage where he says that "to understand a sentence is to understand a language". Given that Wittgenstein believes that "the" language does not exist but only language games exist, we (...) should conclude that he is speaking of the need to consider any sentence always in the context of a language game1. This general attitude is certainly attuned with the contemporary tendency to place contextual restrictions to the interpretations of our sentences. However we find so many kinds and forms of restrictions that this general attitude is not enough to give us a viable tool to find an order in the web of so many different theories of context. To look for an order or, at least a clarification, we may start with two contrasting paradigms of theories: the "objective" theory of contexts, where context is a set of features of the world, and the "subjective" theories of context, where context is the cognitive background of a speaker or agent in respect to a situation2. We have here not only two different ways of using the term "context" but also two different conceptions of semantics and philosophy. The different conceptions are normally associated, respectively, with the classical paradigm of model theoretic semantics (Kaplan, Lewis Stalnaker) on one hand and with the A.I. paradigm (McCarthy, Buvac, Giunchiglia) on the other hand. For sake of simplicity I will restrict my attention3 mainly to Kaplan 1989 and to McCarthy 1993 and Giunchiglia 1993. The two different conceptions can be summarised with the following schema: a) context as: set of features of the world.. (shrink)

In this paper I give a reconstruction of Dummett’s main arguments concerning the theory of the occult origin of the Tarot, and discuss the reasons behind the success of the Tarot pack – in particular the Major Arcana – in the history of card games. I also provide some indication of the links between Dummett’s interest in the history of card games and aspects of his philosophical background. As I am not an expert on card games, this paper is mainly (...) a personal tribute to a side of Dummett’s work to which philosophers have in general paid little attention. (shrink)

This paper tries to give some substance to local holism, a picture that seems to fit Wittgenstein’s analysis of the working of language. In the first part I state the well-known paradox of semantic holism, as discussed in philosophy of language: if meaning is holistic there is no possibility to share any meaning. In the second part I present the different answers to this paradox, from atomism to different forms of holism. In the third part I give a criticism of (...) the traditional interpretation of Wittgenstein as a supporter of global holism. As an alternative lecture I will suggest some lines of Wittgenstein's thought leading towards a definition of local holism. Eventually I will show connections with ideas developed in Multi Context theories in artificial intelligence, which help to show a possible direction of inquiry about restrictions on locality. (shrink)

In this paper I will compare some of Dummett and Davidson’s claims on the problem of communication and idiolects: how can we understand each other if we use different idiolects? First I define the problem, giving the alternative theses of (I) the priority of language over idiolects and (II) the priority of idiolects over language. I then present Dummett's claims supporting (I) and Davidson's claims supporting (II).

[This is a larger version of the published article] In the discussion on semantic holism it has been claimed that A.I. is almost entirely holistic. In this paper I show that some of the main lines of research in symbolic artificial intelligence are not holistic; I will consider three classical cases: toy words, frames and contextual reasoning. I claim that these examples from A.I. can be interpreted as implementing molecularist intuitions about language. Eventually I suggest that some assumptions behind the (...) discussion on holism should be re-interpreted, expecially the usual references to Frege and Wittgenstein. (shrink)

The paper "Does Epistemological Holism lead to Meaning – Holism" (Cozzo, 2002) touches one of the main problems of a molecularist theory of meaning: how to restrict the class of inferences connected with a word, in order to define the sense of the word. I will discuss the starting point of this approach, mainly the pre-theoretical criterion against meaning holism: meaning holism, following a well-known argument by Dummett, reduces communication to a mystery. However there is a strong background assumption of (...) this argument: communication is sharing the same meanings. Accepting this assumption without acknowledging it makes the entire proposal more problematic than it appears at first sight. In what follows I will try to clarify the possibility of a different reaction to meaning holism, putting forward some distinctions which come to light when the above stated assumption is made explicit. Then, some other comments will follow on the difficulty of avoiding extreme meaning holism, even within Cozzo's elegant attempt to implement a molecularist vision; in the end, his notion of the sense of a word will appear to be difficult to define, if these holistic aspects of language take the space they deserve even in his theory. I conclude with two remarks regarding two relevant requirements for a theory of meaning (conservativeness and harmony). (shrink)

In this paper I shall deal with the role of "understanding a thought" in the debate on the definition of the content of an assertion. I shall present a well known tension in Frege's writings, between a cognitive and semantic notion of sense. This tension is at the source of some of the major contemporary discussions, mainly because of the negative influence of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, which did not give in-depth consideration to the tension found in Frege. However many contemporary authors, (...) after the first attempt by Carnap himself, have tried to make room both for a cognitive and semantic aspect of meaning. I claim that at least some of these attempts (Dummett, Perry and Chalmers) are seriously flawed, mainly due to the difficulty in making a proper connection between the two different conceptions of sense. I shall outline an alternative project, which takes into consideration Frege's requirements on antipsychologism and of the objectivity of thought, while maintaining a close connection between the two aspects of sense. (shrink)

The aim of this collection of papers is to present different philosophical perspectives on the mental, exploring questions about how to define, explain and understand the various kinds of mental acts and processes, and exhibiting, in particular, the contrast between naturalistic and non-naturalistic approaches. There is a long tradition in philosophy of clarifying concepts such as those of thinking, knowing and believing. The task of clarifying these concepts has become ever more important with the major developments that have taken place (...) over the last century in the human and cognitive sciences - most notably, psychology, sociology, linguistics, neurophysiology, AI, and cognitive science itself. In all these sciences, there is a need to delineate the domain of the mental and to elucidate the key concepts and underlying assumptions. This need is widely recognized, but approaches and answers vary significantly. Some stress the representational features involved in most of our mental processes, others the inferential dimension; some stress the necessity of using empirical data, others the need to refine ideas before pursuing and drawing on empirical research. The papers collected in this volume are grouped into four parts, on language and thought, on knowledge, belief and action, on intentionality, and on naturalism. The volume will be welcomed by all those engaged and interested in debates about the mental in philosophy and the human and cognitive sciences. Table of Contents PART I: LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT Andrew Woodfield, Public Words Considered as Vehicles of Thinking Andrea Bianchi, Speaking and Thinking (Or: A More Kaplanian Way to a Unified Account of Language and Thought) Stefano Predelli, The Strange Case of the Missing Constituent PART II: KNOWLEDGE, BELIEF AND ACTION Pascal Engel, Taking Seriously Knowledge as a Mental State Carlo Gabbani, Epistemology and the Eliminative Stance Jennifer Hornsby, Knowledge, Belief and Reasons for Acting Wolfgang Kunne, Some Varieties of Deception PART III: INTENTIONALITY Sandro Nannini, Intentionality Naturalised Elisabetta Sacchi, Thought and Thinking: the Ontological Ground of Intentionality Elisabeth Pacherie, Is Collective Intentionality Really Primitive? PART IV: NATURALISM Marcello Frixione, Do Concepts exist? A Naturalistic Point of View Tim Crane, Cosmic Hermeneutics vs. Emergence: the Challenge of the Explanatory Gap Achim Stephan and Robert C. Richardson, What Physicalism Should Provide Us With Mario De Caro, The Claims of Naturalism. (shrink)

In questo articolo parlo della influenza di Einstein su Wittgenstein a partire da alcuni problemi che si pongono all’olismo. L’olismo è stato spesso collegato a Wittgenstein, almeno in forma di “olismo locale”. L’olismo è però soggetto a due tipi di paradossi: il paradosso della comunicazione per l’olismo semantico e il paradosso del relativismo concettuale per l’olismo epistemologico. Dopo aver presentato brevemente i due paradossi, confronto le risposte di Davidson, in difesa dell’olismo, con quelle di Wittgenstein (o di tipo wittgensteiniano). Da (...) questo confronto nasce un problema nell’interpretazione di Wittgenstein. Infatti, dalle sue risposte ai due paradossi emerge una tensione nella sua visione dei giochi linguistici e in particolare nei suoi esperimenti mentali, che sono stati tradizionalmente interpretati in modi contrapposti. La mia proposta è che una rilettura di alcune riflessioni di Wittgenstein su Einstein e la relatività può aiutare a cogliere meglio il significato di questa tensione. (shrink)

Insieme a John McDowell, Robert Brandom è uno dei filosofi emergenti della reazione al naturalismo filosofico; seguace Wilfrid Sellars, è l'autore americano che più si avvicina al dialogo con la filosofia continentale e propone una rivalutazione di Kant e Hegel nella filosofia analitica. Già allievo di Richard Rorty, Brandom è diventuo famoso con la pubblicazione di Making it Explicit. Questo ponderoso volume di 900 pagine non ha avuto però ancora una sufficiente attenzione nel dibattito filosofico italiano (a parte alcuni inteventi (...) pubblicati su Iride). Forse questo dipende in parte dalla peculiarità e difficoltà del suo approccio, in parte dalla mole stessa del citato volume. Anche per questo motivo Brandom ha presentato una serie di lezioni2 ove riprende i temi del libro maggiore e ne approfondisce alcune parti. In quanto segue si presentano i temi fondamentale di Making it Explicit, arricchiti con elementi presi dal nuovo approfondimento. (shrink)

Meaning and Context-Sensitivity Truth-conditional semantics explains meaning in terms of truth-conditions. The meaning of a sentence is given by the conditions that must obtain in order for the sentence to be true. The meaning of a word is given by its contribution to the truth-conditions of the sentences in which it occurs. What a speaker … Continue reading Meaning and Context-Sensitivity →.

According to the Common Ground account proposed by Stalnaker, speakers involved in a verbal interaction have different propositional attitudes towards presuppositions. In this paper we propose an experimental study aimed at estimating the psychological plausibility of the Stalnakerian model. In particular, the goal of our experiment is to evaluate variations in accepting as appropriate a sentence that triggers a presupposition, where different attitudes are taken towards the presupposition required. The study conducted suggests that if a speaker has the attitude of (...) belief towards the content of a presupposition, she may evaluate an utterance as more appropriate in a shorter time than in cases where she holds an attitude of presumption or of assumption. Therefore, data collected support the psychological soundness of what might be considered the main, but also most debated, theory of presupposition on the market. (shrink)

One 1120 pages volume, with 4000 entries covering - Western philosophy: authors, schools, concepts and terminology; - religions, cultural anthropology, eastern philosophies; - Psychology and psychoanalysis; - linguistics and semiotics; - sociology and political theory.

Kenny’s book on Wittgenstein has been studied by hundreds of students. What happens when a student comes to the lecturer and says that Kenny’s formula for the number of truth-functions is wrong? You read the 2006 revised edition of the book and realise that the student is right and are ashamed at not having pointed this out to the class. Then you try to focus on which misunderstandings may lie behind the wrong formula. This is what we are trying to (...) do in these short remarks. (shrink)

A very short introductory tutorial to Brandom's idea of assertion.

Brandom's "solution" of Kripke's puzzle in Making it Explicit [573-583] is to be read on the background of four main ideas, plus his general concern on inferential role semantics. I will give some hints about these basic presuppositions, because, once they have been accepted, Kripke's puzzle seems to have no more appeal (at least from Brandom's point of view). If already acquainted with Brandom's general ideas, you may skip part I and go directly to part II.

Lexical Competence si presenta come una analisi dei diversi aspetti del del concetto di competenza semantica, con contributi originali sull'aspetto referenziale e sui problemi al margine tra filosofia e intelligenza artificiale. La pacata analisi del concetto di competenza lessicale porta a criticare tesi filosofiche sostanziali: le teorie oggettivistiche del significato alla Putnam tendono a ipostatizzare le norme semantiche, e le teorie naturaliste alla Chomsky tendono a dare poco o nessuno spazio agli aspetti normativi del linguaggio. Marconi cerca una terza via (...) e le sue critiche agli argomenti di Putnam, Burge, Chomsky, Bilgrami e altri sono devastanti. E' difficile per me fare una critica su cio' che mi trova fondamentalmente d'accordo; ma una tesi che attraversa tutto il libro di Marconi mi e' sembrata invece piu' problematica di quanto appare a prima vista. In quanto segue cerchero' dunque di dare voce ai miei dubbi su questa tesi, restringendo la mia attenzione all'aspetto inferenziale della competenza lessicale. La tesi generale sotto discussione si puo' cosi' riassumere. (shrink)

This programmatic paper is an attempt to connect some worries in the philosophy of language with some traditional views in artificial intelligence. After a short introduction to the notion of context in philosophy (§1), starting from the inventor of mathematical logic, Gottlob Frege, I list three debates in the philosophy of language where the solution is strongly undecided: §2 treats the debate between holism and molecularism; §3 describes the debate on the boundaries between semantics and pragmatics; §4 hints at a (...) solution of the debate between explicit and implicit view of incomplete descriptions. These debates may be considered case studies on what is happening to the notion of context in philosophy in the first two decades of XXI century; they push us to look for a unifying framework in which to frame those worries: I propose to shift the attention towards a representation of the basic abilities required to navigate across contexts (§5). In the conclusion, I use some suggestions from computer sciences as a contribution towards a better definition of what is meant by “pragmatic competence”, strictly connected to the philosophical enterprise (§6). (shrink)

In questo lavoro tratto del problema del rapporto tra semantica e pragmatica, e in particolare cerco di dare una visione generale di cosa si dovrebbe intendere per "competenza pragmatica". Assumo una visione olistica del significato, perché mi permette di mostrare come, anche con una posizione radicale di questo genere, possiamo trovare modi per spiegare la comunicazione e salvare la composizionalità. Il modo per spiegare la comunicazione e salvare la composizionalità passa attraverso la dimensione pragmatica, intesa come il modo di filtrare (...) il livello "giusto" di contesto entro cui elaborare la valutazione e l'interpretazione semantica, e giungere all'interpretazione intesa. Nel § 1 presento i problemi di una teoria olistica del significato riguardo a una teoria della comunicazione; nel § 2 presento una possibile risposta dell'olismo ai problemi della comunicazione, ridefinendo la comunicazione come processo di convergenza del significato. Nel § 3 presento quello che può essere definito il punto cieco della teoria olistica di Davidson: l'idea che la strategia di convergenza è un "processo misterioso". Mostro come diverse linee di ricerca lavorano proprio all'individuazione del "mistero" davidsoniano. Nel § 4 presento una delle linee di ricerca rivolte di fatto a riempire il vuoto della teoria di Davidson: la teoria multicontesti in intelligenza artificiale. Nel § 5 delineo la similarità di tale teoria con altri tentativi in pragmatica, mostrando che ragionare su questa similarità può aiutare a ridefinire il concetto di "competenza pragmatica" come filtro per la semantica. Nel § 6 abbozzo una riflessione su come queste riflessioni potrebbero avere una influenza sul tema della composizionalità. (shrink)

Nel febbraio 1912 Wittgenstein venne ammesso al Trinity College con Russell come supervisor, e iniziò a seguire le lezioni di Moore. E’ probabile che leggesse il libretto di Moore, Ethics, pubblicato al suo arrivo a Cambridge, o che ritrovasse nelle lezioni di Moore alcune delle suggestioni presenti nel libro. Ma dopo il Tractatus Wittgenstein dedicò poco spazio alle riflessioni sull’etica e quel poco in un periodo ristretto di tempo, agli inizi degli anni ‘30, dalla Conferenza sull’etica2 alle lezioni del ’32-33. (...) Alle lezioni del 32-33 assistettero sia Alice Ambrose che George E. Moore, che ci lascianpo diversi tipi di appunti:3 Ambrose riporta frasi di Wittgenstein, Moore presenta e rielabora le sue idee. Una lettura comparata di questi appunti dà un’idea abbastanza chiara di quanto Wittgenstein in quegli anni riuscisse a fondere le sue idee sui giudizi morali con le sue idee sulla grammatica filosofica che veniva elaborando nel Big Typescript. (shrink)

Is deduction of use in application to our everyday problems? Aristotle said that in practical matters we cannot use a strictly deductive attitude: "we must be content...in speaking about things which are only for the most part true, with premises of the same kind, to reach conclusions that are no better" (Nic.Eth.I,4 - my underlining). We may content ourselves with conclusions which - according to the usual views - are not true; but what happens when we realize that such conclusions (...) bring us into contradiction with some of our deepest beliefs? We have to pursue our search of rationality in the most compelling manner, and this effort forces us to express our background beliefs in order to check what may be wrong with that. In this paper I will give two classical examples, one form the history of cinema and another from the history of artificial intelligence: in comparing these two examples I claim that logical compulsion - the deep need for convention - is highly valuable where feelings are not enough. (shrink)

- la prima parte dà una presentazione sommaria dei principali paradigmi di filosofia del linguaggio, mostrando alcune connessioni tra i principali autori di riferimento. Dovrebbe contenere il minimo indispensabile per avere una panoramica delle tematiche della filosofia del linguaggio e addentrarsi negli argomenti in modo più approfondito. La conoscenza dei contenuti di questa parte è un prerequisito per l’esame.

In this paper, I discuss some of Maximilian de Gaynesford’s arguments regarding indexicals. Although I agree with his treatment of the first singular personal pronoun as a prototype of demonstrative expressions, I challenge his refusal to treat indexicals as complex demonstratives. To offer an alternative to this refusal I try to develop a common ground from different theories that consider indexicals as linguistic constructions that embed a nonlinguistic element, following an original idea in Frege’s latest writings. These views form the (...) backdrop on which we can put forward the claim of treating all indexicals as complex demonstratives. In the central part of the paper, I criticize each of de Gaynesford’s arguments against the reduction of indexicals to complex demonstratives. Besides, I propose a new definition of the concept of “demonstration” as a nonlinguistic feature of all indexicals in their referential uses, to contrast de Gaynesford’s rejection of the idea that demonstrations are an essential feature of indexicals. Eventually, I strengthen my claim by distinguishing indexicals from proper names and definite descriptions on the ground that only perceptual indexicals necessarily require an accompanying demonstration. However, the main point of the paper is a negative one, that is the rejection of de Gaynesford’s arguments against the reduction of indexicals to complex demonstratives. More work is needed to reach a positive conclusion on this topic. (shrink)