From Society to System presents an overview of sociologist Michel Freitag's (1935-2009) distinctive, multifaceted and interdisciplinary work. Elaborated within the grand sociological tradition, his dialectical sociology redefines sociality as the realm of the symbolic to pinpoint its ontological frailty.

Ce livre de Michel Freitag interpelle "tous ceux qui s'interrogent sur la place qu'ils tiennent ou le rôle qu'ils jouent dans l'aventure de l'Université contemporaine." (Georges Leroux, Spirale) Une des constantes des écrits contenus dans ce livre "réside dans la comparaison systématique que Michel Freitag établit entre les caractéristiques de la modernité et celles de la postmodernité et les conséquences de celle-ci sur le traitement des enjeux et des problèmes actuels." (Louis Guay, Anthropologie et société) "Dans une société (...) réduite au bavardage, à l'insignifiance, à la poursuite de petits bonheurs mesquins, le tout sous contrôle bureaucratique de plus en plus envahissant, une telle réflexion est devenue essentielle. Voici un livre de bonne foi qui n'attend que ses lecteurs, qu'on souhaite nombreux." (Robert Major, Voix et images). (shrink)

The paper argues that Gareth Evans’ argument for transparent self-knowledge is based on a conflation of doxastic transparency with ascriptive transparency. Doxastic transparency means that belief about one’s own doxastic state, e.g., the belief that one thinks that it will rain, can be warranted by ordinary empirical observation, e.g., of the weather. In contrast, ascriptive transparency says that self-ascriptions of belief, e.g., “I believe it will rain”, can be warranted by such observation. We first show that the thesis of doxastic (...) transparency is ill-motivated and then offer a non-epistemic interpretation of ascriptive transparency by reference to the theory of explicit expressive acts: “I think it will rain” requires attendance to the weather because the utterance expresses a belief about the weather, not about ourselves. This will allow us to avoid what is often called “the puzzle of transparent self-knowledge” while remaining faithful to Evans’ linguistic observations. (shrink)

The Guise Cooperative, a project out carried in northern Paris by Jean-Baptiste André Godin (1817-88), who was inspired by the utopian ideas of Charles Fourier (1772-1837), put into practice a model that: (a) was politico-democratic in its self-management by the workers in a foundry; (b) was socio-economic in combining for the first time international competition and social benefits; (c) anticipated ecological arguments in developing industrialization processes; (d) embodied religious tolerance; (e) outlived the genuine socialism inspired by Marx. Godin’s ‘Palais Social’ (...) in Guise, still lived in today by around 300 descendants of the workers, was proclaimed a Human Heritage monument and handed over to the European Union in 1991. (shrink)

Bei Kant tauchen viele antike Autoren und Theorien auf. In dieser ersten Gesamtbearbeitung zum Thema wird gegen eine langjährige Forschungsmeinung gezeigt, dass nicht so sehr Platon und Aristoteles als vielmehr der hellenistischen Philosophie die entscheidende Rolle für sein Denken zukommt. Anhand der drei Kritiken werden Konstanzen und Umbrüche seines Antikeverständnisses herausgearbeitet und in ihren Konsequenzen für die Kantdeutung beleuchtet.

Modern cities have recently evolved as centres for material and intangible exchanges and this obliges us to rethink the urban scene. The passing from the industrial era to the new age of information has rendered obsolete the models envisaged by Max Weber, Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin. Basing her argument on the typology put forward by Saskia Sassen, Barbara Freitag sketches out the different profiles of contemporary cities. Urban centres are now defined by the level, scale and intensity of (...) the exchanges to which they give rise. On the first level is the global city, nerve centre of the globalized economy (Tokyo, New York, London...) and capable of challenging the power of the state. On the second level are the megalopoles (Mexico, São Paulo...), which are only prevented from joining the ranks of the global cities because much of their population is excluded from the global economy. Next come the metropoles, cities like Paris (‘19th-century capital’), which have retained a way of life global centres can no longer provide. However, most of the world’s population is concentrated in the peripheral boroughs of the information society’s global economy. It is for the sake of this population that attention must be paid to the transformations endured by 21st-century cities. (shrink)

Premier livre à paraître d'un ouvrage plus vaste intitulé DIALECTIQUE ET SOCIÉTÉ, cette Introduction à une théorie générale du Symbolique pose les fondements d'une théorie compréhensive de la société, de la socialité et de l'historicité. Du point de vue dialectique adopté par l'auteur, toute réalité sociale-historique est en effet de part en part constituée de pratiques sociales, et ces pratiques ne peuvent elles-mêmes être étudiées et comprises dans le respect de leur propre mode existentiel que si l'analyse reconnaît et assume (...) cette orientation significative qui fonde leur spécificité ontologique vis-à-vis des phénomènes de la nature « inanimée » aussi bien qu'à l'égard de ces autres niveaux de constitution du « rapport-au-monde » que représentent le comportement sensori-moteur propre à la vie organique en général, et l'opérationnalisation formelle propre à l'objectivation scientifique. -/- En une période où les sciences sociales sont portées à répudier l'héritage de la sociologie classique parce que les théorisations dogmatiques majeures comme le marxisme, le fonctionnalisme et le structuralisme dans lesquelles celleci s'était divisée sont en crise, DIALECTIQUE et SOCIÉTÉ reste au contraire attaché aux grandes questions posées par la tradition, tout en s'efforçant d'exhumer la dimension philosophique que cette dernière avait refoulée. En liant de manière formelle une théorie de l'action, une théorie de la structure, une théorie de l'historicité et une conception phénoménologique de l'objectivité visée par la connaissance critique de la société, l'ouvrage propose en quelque sorte une synthèse de Marx, Weber et Lévi-Strauss dans laquelle seule l'option positiviste faite par ces auteurs est vraiment rejetée. Mais l'enjeu de toute la réflexion épistémologique, théorique et méthodologique reste la compréhension de la société contemporaine. (shrink)

Emotive Interjections in British English: A corpus-based study on variation in acquisition, function and usage constitutes the first in-depth corpus-based study on the use of emotive interjections in Present Day British English. In a novel approach, it systematically distinguishes between child and adult speakers, providing new insights into how they use Ow!, Ouch!, Ugh!, Yuck!, Whoops!, Whoopsadaisy! and Wow! in everyday spoken language. It studies in detail their acquisition by children and pinpoints changes and developments in their use throughout early (...) childhood. The study highlights particularities displayed by child and adult speakers in general and identifies crucial differences regarding how adults use emotive interjections depending on whether they are interacting with children or other adults. This book thus offers an exhaustive overview on the functions of emotive interjections based on thorough empirical research and will appeal to linguists concerned with pragmatics, child language acquisition, the expression of emotion and interjections. (shrink)

A. EInleitung: Politische Hermeneutik als Ausweg aus der "entzauberten Welt" B. "Die dialogische Stadt" Das "theologisch-politische Problem" - Das Politische - Politische Philosophie - Politische Rhetorik - Schriftlichkeit und Philosophie - Politische Philosophie und die "Kunst des Lesens" C. "Von der Geschichte zur Natur" Historisches Verstehen - Gadamers unvollkommener "Vorgriff auf Vollkommenheit" - Hermeneutische Politik - Theologische Politische Hermeneutik Literaturverzeichnis Namensregister.

Zwischen 1920 und 1925 kam es nach Vorarbeiten von Jones, Abraham, Stärcke, van Ophuijsen und Alexander sowie in Abrahams Hauptwerk, dem Versuch einer Entwicklungsgeschichte der Libido, zu einer Veränderung der psychoanalytischen Theorie, die sich vor allem auf die Stellung der Aggression bezog. Die stärkere Gewichtung der präödipalen Aggression wurde in London in erster Linie von Abrahams Analysanden James und Edward Glover durchgeführt. Ihre Arbeiten bereiteten den Boden für die Rezeption von Melanie Klein, einer weiteren Abraham-Analysandin, die ihrerseits von Alix Strachey, (...) auch sie eine Analysandin Abrahams, sowie von Ernest Jones unterstützt wurde. Klein entwickelte in der Analyse mit Kindern eine Technik, die sich bevorzugt auf die Wahrnehmung und Deutung der Aggression in der Stunde bezog. All dies, ohne dass Freud die neue Linie begrüßt hätte, was aber seit dem Erstarken der lokalen Gruppen in Berlin und London nicht mehr so stark ins Gewicht fiel. Gleichwohl blieb die Frage nach der Stellung der Aggression in der Schwebe, während sich Freud bis zuletzt für das Primat des Sexuellen aussprach und sich von den Positionen der hier erwähnten Schüler zwischen 1920 und 1925 mehrere Male ausdrücklich distanzierte. (shrink)

Background: Recent research has demonstrated that depressed individuals show impairments in inhibiting irrelevant emotional material, and that these impairments are linked to rumination. Cognitive inhibition, however, is not a unitary construct but consists of several components which operate at different stages of information processing. The present study was designed to assess two components of inhibition and examine their relation to depression and rumination in a sample of clinically depressed and healthy control participants. Methods: Twenty-two individuals diagnosed with a current depressive (...) episode and 27 never-disordered control participants completed an Emotional Flanker Task to assess individual differences in interference control and a modification of the Working Memory Selection Task to assess individual differences in the ability to discard no longer relevant emotional material from working memory. Participants completed self-report measures to assess depressive symptoms and rumination. Results: Clinically depressed compared to control participants showed significantly reduced interference control of irrelevant negative information. The groups, however, did not differ in their ability to discard no longer relevant negative information from working memory. In contrast, rumination was associated with difficulty removing no longer relevant negative material from working memory but not with deficits in interference control. Conclusions: Results highlight the importance of differentiating among components of inhibition to gain a better understanding of cognitive mechanisms underlying depression and rumination. (shrink)

Freuds Entwurf von »Trauer und Melancholie« vom Februar 1915, der 1996 publiziert wurde, steht im Zentrum der Untersuchung. Nach einer Zusammenfassung der Thesen des Entwurfs werden Ferenczis und Abrahams Reaktionen auf den Text sowie Freuds Kommentar zu ihren Stellungnahmen dargestellt. Freuds partielle Übernahme von Ferenczis Introjektion und seine Zurückhaltung gegenüber Abrahams »Munderotik und Sadismus« werden erörtert sowie die Frage, ob und inwiefern die Einwürfe der Schüler in die Endfassung von »Trauer und Melancholie« einflossen, insbesondere Abrahams theoretischer Ansatz. Abschließend wird der (...) Begriff der narzisstischen Identifizierung, der den Kern von Freuds Verständnis der Depression bildet, mit seinen aus der gleichen Zeit stammenden Ausführungen über die »Vorstufen der Liebe« zu einem Bild der narzisstischen Beziehung zwischen Subjekt und Objekt zusammengefügt, unter Betonung der klinischen Relevanz der von Freud entwickelten Differenz zwischen der narzisstischen und libidinösen Besetzung des Objekts. (shrink)

The growing field of evo-devo is increasingly demonstrating the complexity of steps involved in genetic, intracellular regulatory, and extracellular environmental control of the development of phenotypes. A key result of such work is an account for the remarkable plasticity of organismal form in many species based on relatively minor changes in regulation of highly conserved genes and genetic processes. Accounting for behavioral plasticity is of similar potential interest but has received far less attention. Of particular interest is plasticity in communication (...) systems, where human language represents an ultimate target for research. The present paper considers plasticity of language capabilities in a comparative framework, focusing attention on examples of a remarkable fact: Whereas there exist design features of mature human language that have never been observed to occur in non-humans in the wild, many of these features can be developed to notable extents when non-humans are enculturated through human training. These examples of enculturated developmental plasticity across extremely diverse taxa suggest, consistent with the evo-devo theme of highly conserved processes in evolution, that human language is founded in part on cognitive capabilities that are indeed ancient and that even modern humans show self-organized emergence of many language capabilities in the context of rich enculturation, built on the special social/ecological history of the hominin line. Human culture can thus be seen as a regulatory system encouraging language development in the context of a cognitive background with many highly conserved features. (shrink)

Was haben Gerechtigkeit, Frieden, Glück und Wertebildung miteinander zu tun? Der Band beantwortet diese Frage interdisziplinär. Die BeiträgerInnen untersuchen Lernprozesse hinter gerechtem Urteilen, setzen sich mit Projekten zur Friedensstiftung durch Konfliktberatung auseinander und analysieren schulische Programme zur Förderung von Zufriedenheit und Glück. Sie erläutern darüber hinaus die Relevanz von Wertebildung in einem fachspezifischen Curriculum und denken Gerechtigkeits-, Friedens- und Glücks-bildung historisch und systematisch weiter. Die AutorInnen kommen aus den Erziehungswissenschaften, der Philosophie und aus den Theologien oder sind FachpädagogInnen und -didaktikerInnen.

This volume presents the ethical implications of risk information as related to genetics and other health data for policy decisions at clinical, research and societal levels. Ethical, Social and Psychological Impacts of Genomic Risk Communication examines the introduction of new types of health risk information based on faster, cheaper and larger sets of genetic or genomic analysis. Synthesising the results of a five-year interdisciplinary project, it explores the unsolved ethical and social questions around the sharing of this data, such as: (...) What is best practice in risk communication? What are the normative presumptions and ethical consequences of an increased individual responsibility for ones' health? And how does one deal with the gap between the knowledge of risk and the lack of therapeutic options which often exist for complex diseases, such as dementia or some types of cancer? Drawing on contributions from over twenty experts in the field, this collection examines these questions from a liberal bioethics' perspective, advocating for contextual and cultural-sensitive ethical discussions. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of theoretical and clinical medical ethics, medical sociology, risk communication and ethics of risk, as well as professionals in clinical genetics. (shrink)

Das Placebo - konzipiert, um die Wirksamkeit des Arzneimittels objektiv zu überprüfen - entfaltet selbst unterschiedliche Eigenschaften und erzeugt vielfältige Effekte. Anhand von Vertreter_innen der Philosophie, wie Fleck, Rheinberger, Foucault, Baudrillard, Latour und Haraway, zeigt Ulrike Neumaier, dass sich - stellt man das Placebo in den Mittelpunkt einer Untersuchung - nicht nur in der Medizin Begriffe wie »Krankheit« und »Körper« verändern. Vielmehr wird sichtbar, wie Wissenschaft, Technik und Gesellschaft sich vernetzen, wie sich dadurch der Begriff von »Wissenschaft« wandelt und (...) warum vom Zeitalter der Technowissenschaften gesprochen werden kann. (shrink)

In this essay I examine the debate between Jürgen Habermas and Charles Taylor on the post-secular state. I argue that, although their views on the relation of religion and politics converge in certain respects, a profound difference remains between their overall approaches. Their disagreement on the epistemic status of religious as opposed to secular moral reasons, and on the role religious arguments can play in the public sphere testify to a deeper schism. Thus what might at first seem like a (...) quarrel about details proves to be a fundamental philosophical divide on the issue of modernity. I conclude that Taylor’s model of post-secularism is more promising as an approach to the challenge posed by growing religious and cultural diversity, for, if understood as a version of “reiterative universalism,” it avoids both moral relativism and Eurocentrism. (shrink)

Modern society makes extensive use of automated algorithmic decisions, fueled by advances in artificial intelligence. However, since these systems are not perfect, questions about fairness are increasingly investigated in the literature. In particular, many authors take a Rawlsian approach to algorithmic fairness. This article aims to identify some complications with this approach: Under which circumstances can Rawls’s original position reasonably be applied to algorithmic fairness decisions? First, it is argued that there are important differences between Rawls’s original position and a (...) parallel algorithmic fairness original position with respect to risk attitudes. Second, it is argued that the application of Rawls’s original position to algorithmic fairness faces a boundary problem in defining relevant stakeholders. Third, it is observed that the definition of the least advantaged, necessary for applying the difference principle, requires some attention in the context of algorithmic fairness. Finally, it is argued that appropriate deliberation in algorithmic fairness contexts often require more knowledge about probabilities than the Rawlsian original position allows. Provided that these complications are duly considered, the thought-experiment of the Rawlsian original position can be useful in algorithmic fairness decisions. (shrink)

Die Geschichte der Wissenschaften ist eine Geschichte der Verbildlichung. Der Band stellt zwei Fallbeispiele frühneuzeitlicher Visualisierungen astronomischen Wissens vor: eine monumentale Spiegelsonnenuhr von 1644 und ein Buch über den Planeten Venus von 1728. Es wird gezeigt, dass eine erfolgreiche Rezeptionsgeschichte unter Umständen weniger von der Korrektheit des visualisierten Wissens abhängig war, sondern vielmehr durch die jeweiligen Strategien der Verbildlichung und Evidenzerzeugung beeinflusst wurde. Die Untersuchung der Problemfelder der ausbleibenden Rezeption und des wissenschaftlichen Irrtums führt dabei ebenso zu weitreichenden Erkenntnissen über (...) die wissenschaftliche Theorie und Praxis wie das Verfolgen von Erfolgsgeschichten. (shrink)

Diese Arbeit ist eine Studie zu einer der ältesten Fragen der Philosophie: der Frage nach der Beziehung, in der unsere Gedanken, unsere Sprache und unsere sinnliche Erfahrung zur Wirklichkeit stehen. In ihrer sowohl historisch als auch systematisch orientierten Studie argumentiert die Autorin für eine realistische Auffassung dieses Verhältnisses. In der Auseinandersetzung mit Positionen von Quine, Strawson oder McDowell wird ein Begriff von Objektivität entwickelt und im Rahmen einer Konzeption sinnlicher Erfahrung ausgewiesen, der auch der skeptischen Herausforderung standhält: In einer detaillierten (...) Analyse der begrifflichen Struktur unseres kognitiven wie perzeptiven Bezugs auf die Außenwelt wird aufgewiesen, dass aus den internen Verknüpfungen erkenntnistheoretischer und ontologischer Aspekte unserer Erfahrung die Notwendigkeit der Existenz- wie auch der Unabhängigkeitsdimension der realistischen These folgt. (shrink)

Dieses Buch untersucht die Gründe für die Aufwertung des Tastsinns bei Herder - ein Desiderat der Forschung. Veränderungen in der Wahrnehmungstheorie seit der frühen Neuzeit sind hierfür konstitutiv. Sie führen zur Umkehr der Sinneshierarchie sowie zur Nivellierung der Unterschiede zwischen sensus communis, Körper, Tastsinn und Gefühl. Werk- wie systemimmanent nicht lösbare Inkonsistenzen in Herders Konzeption des Tastsinns sind so erklärbar. Die Umkehr der Sinneshierarchie ist für die Ästhetik und Hermeneutik von zentraler Bedeutung, wie exemplarisch an der Diskussion um die Bestimmung (...) der menschlichen Schönheit seit dem 16. Jahrhundert und in der Literatur um 1800 dargelegt wird. (shrink)

Wang (_Philosophy & Technology_ 35, 2022) introduces a Foucauldian power account of algorithmic transparency. This short commentary explores when this power account is appropriate. It is first observed that the power account is a constructionist one, and that such accounts often come with both factual and evaluative claims. In an instance of Hume’s law, the evaluative claims do not follow from the factual claims, leaving open the question of how much constructionist commitment (Hacking, 1999) one should have. The concept of (...) acts in equilibrium (Nozick, 1981) is then used to explain how different individuals reading Wang can end up with different evaluative attitudes towards algorithmic transparency, despite factual agreement. The commentary concludes by situating constructionist commitment inside a larger question of how much to think of our actions, identifying conflicting arguments. (shrink)

This paper investigates the dynamic and performative construction of publics in public engagement exercises. In this investigation, we, on the one hand, analyse how public engagement settings as political machineries frame particular kinds of roles and identities for the participating publics in relation to ‘the public at large’. On the other hand, we study how the participating citizens appropriate, resist and transform these roles and identities, and how they construct themselves and the participating group in relation to wider publics. The (...) empirical basis of our argument is a discussion of four different kinds of participation events in Austria. Building on these observations we develop conclusions about the public up-take of public participation in technoscience and the role of public engagement in current techno-political cultures. (shrink)

Desires are often taken to be the basis for all practical reasons. I introduce one of the most powerful arguments to sustain this view: the argument from motivation (sec. 1). In section 2, however, I develop an equally powerful objection to desire-based approaches showing that desires are not suited to accommodate the justificatory role of reasons. The objection suggests that at least one of the premises of the argument from motivation must presuppose that only desires can explain actions. This move (...) is, however, fatal for desire-based views of practical reason. (shrink)

That the extraordinary narrative experiment known as theSatyriconhas regularly stimulated scholarly investigation into the relationship between status and freedom is not surprising for a work, the longest surviving section of which features an excessive dinner party at the house of alibertus. Much of the discussion has concentrated on the depiction of the dinner's host and his freedmen friends. Following the lead of F. Zeitlin and others in seeing the depiction of a ‘freedmen's milieu’ in theCena, J. Bodel argued in a (...) seminal paper published twenty years ago that theCenaopens a window onto the ‘freedman's mentality’. The last ten years or so have seen a revival of the theme, with much emphasis on the display of an open society in theCena, even a Saturnalian world-view, based on a suspension or reversal of the traditional social hierarchies, all framed by a general air of excessive liberality: whatever satirical lens theSatyricon’s author is seen to have projected onto Trimalchio and his freedmen friends,theyare understood as celebrating ‘freedom's defining difference’. In the light of such a unifying conceptualization of theCena’s motley crew, it is not surprising that scholars have come to understand the libertine assemblage as a reflection of ‘the social class of the “freedmen” in first-centurya.d.Italy’. After all, ‘class’ can be defined as ‘a number of individuals possessing common attributes’, and, with specific regard to human society, as ‘a division of society according to status’. (shrink)

As more decisions are made by automated algorithmic systems, the transparency of these systems has come under scrutiny. While such transparency is typically seen as beneficial, there is a also a critical, Foucauldian account of it. From this perspective, worries have recently been articulated that algorithmic transparency can be used for manipulation, as part of a disciplinary power structure. Klenk (Philosophy & Technology 36, 79, 2023) recently argued that such manipulation should not be understood as exploitation of vulnerable victims, but (...) rather as indifference to whether the information provided enhances decision-making by revealing reasons. This short commentary on Klenk uses Berlin’s (1958) two concepts of liberty to further illuminate the concept of transparency as manipulation, finding alignment between positive liberty and the critical account. (shrink)

Among various changing views on sex and gender, transsexualism, theoretically as well as clinically, raises a paradoxical issue: transsexual subjects seem to confirm something that they simultaneously disclaim or, at least, destabilize with their transition. These days psychoanalysis remains rather critical towards transsexualism. Jacques Lacan has developed several theories on sex and gender, reworking them during the course of his lifetime. That is why his work includes possibilities of understanding transsexual phenomena at the level of singular solutions that he himself, (...) especially with respect to some of his earlier cases, has not been able to formulate. (shrink)

This article sheds light on the ‘European citizenship paradox’, which emerges as a result of the tensions between EU citizenship norms and member‐state practices in the context of regional disparities and social inequalities that market integration arguably deepens. I claim that a transnational, politically inclusive European citizenship would provide for public spaces where unjust practices can be submitted to a respectful but no less ruthless critical analysis, where violent impositions and infringements can be disqualified by insisting on human and European (...) citizenship rights and norms. Assessing alternative citizenship models, I argue that a purely liberal‐market, a republican or a cosmopolitan citizenship model all appear to fail to resolve this paradox, unless they include deliberative procedures based on the recognition of different collective identities. (shrink)

Recent advances in artificial intelligence offer many beneficial prospects. However, concerns have been raised about the opacity of decisions made by these systems, some of which have turned out to be biased in various ways. This article makes a contribution to a growing body of literature on how to make systems for automated decision-making more transparent, explainable, and fair by drawing attention to and further elaborating a distinction first made by Nozick between first-level bias in the application of standards and (...) second-level bias in the choice of standards, as well as a second distinction between discrimination and arbitrariness. Applying the typology developed, a number of illuminating observations are made. First, it is observed that some reported bias in automated decision-making is first-level arbitrariness, which can be alleviated by explainability techniques. However, such techniques have only a limited potential to alleviate first-level discrimination. Second, it is argued that second-level arbitrariness is probably quite common in automated decision-making. In contrast to first-level arbitrariness, however, second-level arbitrariness is not straightforward to detect automatically. Third, the prospects for alleviating arbitrariness are discussed. It is argued that detecting and alleviating second-level arbitrariness is a profound problem because there are many contrasting and sometimes conflicting standards from which to choose, and even when we make intentional efforts to choose standards for good reasons, some second-level arbitrariness remains. (shrink)

Experimental research shows that human sentence processing uses information from different levels of linguistic analysis, for example, lexical and syntactic preferences as well as semantic plausibility. Existing computational models of human sentence processing, however, have focused primarily on lexico‐syntactic factors. Those models that do account for semantic plausibility effects lack a general model of human plausibility intuitions at the sentence level. Within a probabilistic framework, we propose a wide‐coverage model that both assigns thematic roles to verb–argument pairs and determines a (...) preferred interpretation by evaluating the plausibility of the resulting (verb, role, argument) triples. The model is trained on a corpus of role‐annotated language data. We also present a transparent integration of the semantic model with an incremental probabilistic parser. We demonstrate that both the semantic plausibility model and the combined syntax/semantics model predict judgment and reading time data from the experimental literature. (shrink)