I begin by drawing a parallel between the intuitionistic understanding of quantification over all natural numbers and the generality relativist understanding of quantification over absolutely everything. I then argue that adoption of an intuitionistic reading of relativism not only provides an immediate reply to the absolutist's charge of incoherence but it also throws a new light on the debates surrounding absolute generality.

Bilateralism is a theory of meaning according to which assertion and denial are independent speech acts. Bilateralism also proposes two coordination principles for assertion and denial. I argue that if assertion and denial are independent speech acts, they cannot be coordinated by the bilateralist principles.

A noção de objecto abstracto desempenha um papel central em diferentes debates filosóficos contemporâneos, da metafísica à estética, passando pela filosofia da linguagem. A sua origem está contudo relacionada com a filosofia da matemática e em particular, com o trabalho de Frege nos fundamentos da aritmética. O nosso primeiro objectivo será assim o de explicar o contributo desta noção para o entendimento Fregeano da realidade matemática. Veremos também que, em virtude de certas dificuldades inerentes ao projeto Fregeano, a dada altura (...) a natureza do universo matemático passou a ser entendida nos termos da chamada teoria dos conjuntos. Com este material à nossa disposição, podemos então discutir o papel desempenhado pela noção de objecto abstracto em certos debates filosóficos contemporâneos. Em particular, procuraremos ilustrar o interesse actual da noção, discutindo a distinção abstracto/concreto. (shrink)

The generality relativist has been accused of holding a self-defeating thesis. Kit Fine proposed a modal version of generality relativism that tries to resist this claim. We discuss his proposal and argue that one of its formulations is self-defeating.

Assertion and denial are speech acts that play a central role in different theories of meaning, but the proper way to understand their relation remains an object of debate. We set out to identify the source of this disagreement and compare the proposals made by different theories of meaning. We also defend a unilateralist understanding of the relation between assertion and denial, according to which denying a sentence means that its assertion conditions could never be satisfied.

Unilateralism and bilateralism are theories of meaning that try to explain meaning in terms of use. They provide different accounts of the meaning of logical constants. Traditionally, unilateralism has been associated with intuitionistic logic. Bilateralism has been used to provide a new understanding of classical logic. I discuss three objections to bilateralism. I argue that, if meaning needs to be explained in terms of use, unilateralism provides a better account of the meaning of logical constants.