What is the semantic contribution of anaphoric links in sentences like, ‘A physicist was late to the party. He brought some bongos’? A natural first thought is that the passage entails a wide-scope existential claim that there is something that both (i) was late to the party and (ii) brought some bongos. Intentional identity sentences are counter-examples to this natural thought applied to anaphora in general. Some have tried to rescue the thought and accommodate the counter-examples by positing (...) mythical objects. I present a new intentional identity sentence that cannot be so accommodated. I then propose a new account of intentional identity and other anaphoric sentences that does not appeal to mythical objects, but instead draws on traditional accounts of definite descriptions. (shrink)

Nathan Salmon appeals to his theory of mythical objects as part of an attempt to solve Geach’s Hob–Nob puzzle. In this paper I argue that, even if Salmon’s theory of mythical objects is correct, his attempt to solve the puzzle is unsuccessful. I also refute an original variant of his proposal. The discussion indicates that it is difficult (if not impossible) to devise a genuine solution to the puzzle that relies on mythical objects.

This essay argues for a 'relationist' treatment of intentional identity sentences like (1) "Hob believes that a witch blighted Bob's mare and Nob believes that she killed Cob's sow" (Geach 1967). According to relationism, facts of the form "a believes that p and b believes that q" are not in general reducible to facts of the form "c believes that r". We first argue that extant, non-relationist treatments of intentional identity are unsatisfactory, and then go on to motivate and (...) explore a relationist alternative in some detail. We show that the general thesis of relationism can be directly motivated via cases already discussed in the literature, and then develop a particular version of relationism couched in the possible worlds framework. The resulting theory avoids the problems facing its non-relationist rivals, and yields a natural account of the truth-conditions of (1), truth-conditions which can be generated in a compositional manner by a version of dynamic semantics. The theory also helps us to cleanly separate semantic questions about intentional identity from metasemantic ones. (shrink)

Peter Geach's puzzle of intentional identity is to explain how the claim ‘Hob thinks a witch has blighted Bob's mare, and Nob wonders whether she killed Cob's sow’ is compatible with there being no such witch. I clarify the puzzle and reduce it to the familiar problem of negative existentials. That problem is a paradox of representations that seem to include denials of commitment , to carry commitment to what they deny commitment to, and to be true. The best proposed (...) solutions can be understood through this paradox; I evaluate them, and defend a new solution. (shrink)

Certain belief-ascription statements suggest that people can think about the same object, even if that object doesn't exist. Peter Geach, who in 1967 first discussed these statements, gave them the name of statements of intentional identity. In an especially puzzling form of these statements, a pronoun in one belief clause has its antecedent in another: "Hob believes a witch is F, and Nob believes she is G." In this form, the statements raise three interesting problems. They generate puzzles for a (...) program in philosophy of mind, according to which intentional properties of thought are to be analyzed as theoretical analogs of something independently explicable. They are beyond the scope of standard intensional logic , and therefore jeopardize its explanatory value in certain respects. For instance, they jeopardize the received theory of the de dicto/de re distinction in terms of the scope distinctions of SIL. They pose problems for certain theories of anaphoric pronouns, in the context of SIL. ;At first it seems possible to modify SIL so as to yield a quantificational interpretation of the recalcitrant intentional identity statements. In the modified theory, the statements are analyzed so that a wide-scope quantifier binds variables in separate belief contexts. The problem with such quantificational theories is that they are unable to account for another puzzle about intentional identity. Intentional identity appears not to be a symmetric relation: it can be argued that the inference from "Hob thinks a witch is F and Nob thinks she is G" to "Nob thinks a witch is G and Hob thinks she is F" is not a plausible one. A better formal approach than the quantificational ones contains two key components. The first is a framework for anaphoric pronouns combining certain features of quantificational, discourse referential, and demonstratival interpretations of pronouns. The second is the use of structured domains in the formal models. Various interpretations of the new formalism are possible, each drawing on a different analogical theory of the nature of thoughts and their intentional properties. The new framework explains in a unified fashion not only the apparent asymmetry of intentional identity, but a number of other perplexing features of belief. (shrink)

I discuss what I call practical Moore sentences: sentences like ‘You must close your door, but I don’t know whether you will’, which combine an order together with an avowal of agnosticism about whether the order will be obeyed. I show that practical Moore sentences are generally infelicitous. But this infelicity is surprising: it seems like there should be nothing wrong with giving someone an order while acknowledging that you do not know whether it will obeyed. I (...) suggest that this infelicity points to a striking psychological fact, with potentially broad ramifications concerning the structure of norms of speech acts: namely, when giving an order, we must act as if we believe we will be obeyed. (shrink)

Frege-Geach worries about embedding and composition have plagued metaethical theories like emotivism, prescriptivism and expressivism. The sharpened point of such criticism has come to focus on whether negation and inconsistency have to be understood in descriptivist terms. Because they reject descriptivism, these theories must offer a non-standard account of the meanings of ethical and normative sentences as well as related semantic facts, such as why certain sentences are inconsistent with each other. This paper fills out such a solution (...) to the negation problems, following some of the original emotivist ideas about the interplay of interests in conversation. We communicate both to share information and coordinate our actions, and we use distinctively normative language like deontic ‘must’ and ‘may’ to negotiate what people are to do. The kinds of disagreement involved in such negotiation can illuminate the issues with negation and inconsistency. This paper outlines a dynamic semantic system in which these ideas can bear fruit, developing the scorekeeping model of conversation. The result is clarification about what Frege-Geach worries can mean for nondescriptive semantics. (shrink)

The classical analysis of donkey sentences like (1.a,b) in Kamp (1981) and Heim (1982) assigns them truth conditions as given in (2.a). That is, they are treated as quantifications over farmer-donkey pairs. Partee (1984) and Kadmon (1987) have pointed out that the proper reading of (1.b), and a preferred reading of (1.a), is rather a quantification over farmers, as illustrated in (2.b).

We present a decision procedure for the ∀∃ theory of the lattice of Σ1 sentences of Peano Arithmetic.

The present paper is an attempt at the investigation of the nature of polarity contrast in natural languages. Truth conditions for natural language sentences are incomplete unless they include a proper definition of the conditions under which they are false. It is argued that the tertium non datur principle of classical bivalent logical systems is empirically invalid for natural languages: falsity cannot be equated with non-truth. Lacking a direct intuition about the conditions under which a sentence is false, we (...) need an independent foundation of the concept of falsity. The solution I offer is a definition of falsity in terms of the truth of a syntactic negation of the sentence. A definition of syntactic negation is proposed for English. (shrink)

There is considerable evidence that listeners’ understanding of a spoken sentence need not always follow from a full analysis of the words and syntax of the utterance. Rather, listeners may instead conduct a superficial analysis, sampling some words and using presumed plausibility to arrive at an understanding of the sentence meaning. Because this latter strategy occurs more often for sentences with complex syntax that place a heavier processing burden on the listener than sentences with simpler syntax, shallow processing (...) may represent a resource conserving strategy reflected in reduced processing effort. This factor may be even more important for older adults who as a group are known to have more limited working memory resources. In the present experiment, 40 older adults and 20 younger adults were tested for comprehension of plausible and implausible sentences with a simpler subject-relative embedded clause structure or a more complex object-relative embedded clause structure. Dilation of the pupil of the eye was recorded as an index of processing effort. Results confirmed greater comprehension accuracy for plausible than implausible sentences, and for sentences with simpler than more complex syntax, with both effects amplified for the older adults. Analysis of peak pupil dilations for implausible sentences revealed a complex three-way interaction between age, syntactic complexity, and plausibility. Results are discussed in terms of models of sentence comprehension, and pupillometry as an index of intentional task engagement. (shrink)

The task of rhetorical role labeling is to assign labels (such as Fact, Argument, Final Judgement, etc.) to sentences of a court case document. Rhetorical role labeling is an important problem in the field of Legal Analytics, since it can aid in various downstream tasks as well as enhances the readability of lengthy case documents. The task is challenging as case documents are highly various in structure and the rhetorical labels are often subjective. Previous works for automatic rhetorical role (...) identification (i) mainly used Conditional Random Fields over manually handcrafted features, and (ii) focused on certain law domains only (e.g., Immigration cases, Rent law), and a particular jurisdiction/country (e.g., US, Canada, India). In this work, we improve upon the prior works on rhetorical role identification by proposing novel Deep Learning models for automatically identifying rhetorical roles, which substantially outperform the prior methods. Additionally, we show the effectiveness of the proposed models over documents from five different law domains, and from two different jurisdictions—the Supreme Court of India and the Supreme Court of the UK. Through extensive experiments over different variations of the Deep Learning models, including Transformer models based on BERT and LegalBERT, we show the robustness of the methods for the task. We also perform an extensive inter-annotator study and analyse the agreement of the predictions of the proposed model with the annotations by domain experts. We find that some rhetorical labels are inherently hard/subjective and both law experts and neural models frequently get confused in predicting them correctly. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with an intuitive contrast that arises when we consider sentences containing empty definite descriptions. A sentence like ‘The king of France is bald’ appears neither true nor false, while a sentence like ‘My friend was visited by the king of France’ appears false. Recently, Stephen Yablo has suggested an account of this intuitive contrast. Yablo’s account is particularly interesting, since it has important consequences for the ontological commitments of number sentences like ‘The number of (...) planets is even’. However, the paper argues that Yablo’s account is not convincing and that it can thus not establish these consequences. Further, it develops a Strawsonian account of the intuitive contrast. The developed account allows us to draw important conclusions regarding the correct analysis of definite descriptions and of existence sentences containing definite descriptions. (shrink)

An oversight in Guaspari and Solovay’s “Rosser sentences” [D. Guaspari, R.M. Solovay, Rosser sentences, Annals of Mathematical Logic 16 81–99] is pointed out and emended. It concerns the premisses of their proof that there are standard proof predicates all of whose Rosser sentences are provably equivalent. The result holds up, but the premisses mentioned in the paper have to be strengthened somewhat.

Ash, C.J., Generalizations of enumeration reducibility using recursive infinitary propositional sentences, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 58 173–184. We consider the relation between sets A and B that for every set S if A is Σ0α in S then B is Σ0β in S. We show that this is equivalent to the condition that B is definable from A in a particular way involving recursive infinitary propositional sentences. When α = β = 1, this condition is that (...) B is enumeration reducible to A. We establish further generalizations involving infinitely many sets and ordinals. (shrink)

Two periods in the history of logic and philosophy are characterized notably by vivid interest in self-referential paradoxical sentences in general, and Liar sentences in particular: the later medieval period (roughly from the 12th to the 15th century) and the last 100 years. In this paper, I undertake a comparative taxonomy of these two traditions. I outline and discuss eight main approaches to Liar sentences in the medieval tradition, and compare them to the most influential modern approaches (...) to such sentences. I also emphasize the aspects of each tradition that find no counterpart in the other one. It is expected that such a comparison may point in new directions for future research on the paradoxes; indeed, the present analysis allows me to draw a few conclusions about the general nature of Liar sentences, and to identify aspects that would require further investigation. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss perception sentences of the following there syn- tactic types: John saw Mary John saw Mary run John saw that Mary run Our aim is to present an interpretation of Hintikka's logic of perception, extend it to case and dened the approach against the cirticism levelled against it by Jon Barwise.

The later Wittgenstein’s perspective on mathematical sentences as norms is motivated for sentences belonging to Hilbertian axiomatic systems where the axioms are treated as implicit definitions. It is shown that in this approach the axioms are employed as norms in that they function as standards of what counts as using the concepts involved. This normative dimension of their mode of use, it is argued, is inherited by the theorems derived from them. Having been motivated along these lines, Wittgenstein’s (...) perspective on mathematical language may appeal also to those who are not friends of or experts on Wittgenstein’s later philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

‘Epistemic structural realism’ (ESR) insists that all that we know of the world is its structure, and that the ‘nature’ of the underlying elements remains hidden. With structure represented via Ramsey sentences, the question arises as to how ‘hidden natures’ might also be represented. If the Ramsey sentence describes a class of realisers for the relevant theory, one way of answering this question is through the notion of multiple realisability. We explore this answer in the context of the work (...) of Carnap, Hintikka and Lewis. Both Carnap and Hintikka offer clear structuralist perspectives which, crucially, accommodate the openness inherent in theory change. Unfortunately there is little purchase for a viable form of realism in either case. Lewis’s approach, on the other hand, offers more scope for realism but, as we shall see, concerns arise as to whether a relevant form of structuralism can be maintained. In particular his thesis of Ramseyan humility undermines certain conceptions of scientific laws that the structural realist might naturally cleave to. Our overall conclusion is that the representational device of Ramsey sentence plus multiple realisability can accommodate either the structuralist or realist aspects of ESR but has difficulties capturing both. (shrink)

We present a set-theoretic model of the mental representation of classically quantified sentences (All P are Q, Some P are Q, Some P are not Q, and No P are Q). We take inclusion, exclusion, and their negations to be primitive concepts. We show that although these sentences are known to have a diagrammatic expres- sion (in the form of the Gergonne circles) that constitutes a semantic representation, these concepts can also be expressed syntactically in the form of (...) algebraic formulas. We hypothesized that the quantified sen- tences have an abstract underlying representation common to the formulas and their associated sets of dia- grams (models). We derived 9 predictions (3 semantic, 2 pragmatic, and 4 mixed) regarding people’s as- sessment of how well each of the 5 diagrams expresses the meaning of each of the quantified sentences. We report the results from 3 experiments using Gergonne’s (1817) circles or an adaptation of Leibniz (1903/ 1988) lines as external representations and show them to support the predictions. (shrink)

We present a set-theoretic model of the mental representation of classically quantified sentences (All P are Q, Some P are Q, Some P are not Q, and No P are Q). We take inclusion, exclusion, and their negations to be primitive concepts. It is shown that, although these sentences are known to have a diagrammatic expression (in the form of the Gergonne circles) which constitute a semantic representation, these concepts can also be expressed syntactically in the form of (...) algebraic formulas. It is hypothesized that the quantified sentences have an abstract underlying representation common to the formulas and their associated sets of diagrams (models). Nine predictions are derived (three semantic, two pragmatic, and four mixed) regarding people's assessment of how well each of the five diagrams expresses the meaning of each of the quantified sentences. The results from three experiments, using Gergonne's circles or an adaptation of Leibniz lines as external representations, are reported and shown to support the predictions. (shrink)

Some Trinitarians, such as Thomas Aquinas, wish to claim that God is mereologically simple; that is, God has no parts distinct from Himself. In this paper, I present Simple Trinitarianism, a view that takes God to be simple but, diverging from Aquinas, does not identify the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with anything in our ontology. Nonetheless, Simple Trinitarians would like Trinitarian sentences to be true; thus, they must give a non-standard semantics for those sentences. I will focus (...) on one possible semantics a Simple Trinitarian may give: taking Trinitarian claims to be translatable into feature-placing sentences, which posit property instantiation without requiring commitment to any objects that instantiate those properties. (shrink)

Advocates of the A-Theory of time argue that pastness, presentness and futurity are mind-independent properties of events on the grounds that tensed and tenseless sentences are not semantically equivalent. However, their arguments for semantic nonequivalence do not entail state of affairs nonequivalence, and this latter nonequivalence must also obtain in order for the A-Theory to be true. The situation is like arguing that hereness and thisness are extra, mind-independent properties of places and objects on the grounds that sentences (...) in which "here" and "this" are used do not mean the same as their referential counterparts. Since we are not tempted to say that hereness is an extra property of places because of this semantic nonequivalence, we should not be tempted to say that presentness is an extra property of events because of the semantic nonequivalence of tensed and tenseless sentences. (shrink)

The later Wittgenstein’s perspective on mathematical sentences as norms is motivated for sentences belonging to Hilbertian axiomatic systems where the axioms are treated as implicit definitions. It is shown that in this approach the axioms are employed as norms in that they function as standards of what counts as using the concepts involved. This normative dimension of their mode of use, it is argued, is inherited by the theorems derived from them. Having been motivated along these lines, Wittgenstein’s (...) perspective on mathematical language may appeal also to those who are not friends of or experts on Wittgenstein’s later philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

We present a decision procedure for the ∀∃ theory of the lattice of Σ1 sentences of Peano Arithmetic.