Specific Expressions

Although there seems to be an agreement on what slurs are, many authors diverge when it comes to classify some words as such. Hence, many debates would benefit from a technical definition of this term that would allow scholars to clearly distinguish what counts as a slur and what not. Although the paper offers different definitions of the term in order to allow the reader to choose her favorite, I claim that ‘slurs’ is the name given to a grammatical category, (...) and I consequently trace a difference in kind between slurs and other kinds of group pejoratives. I rely on a novel approach to slurs that characterizes them based on their membership to a particular kind of register category, an often neglected sociolinguistic notion determining the social contexts in which registered terms are expected, tolerated or unacceptable. The paper also points out to the close link between words registered as [+derogatory] and their usage in the context of dominance relations of different kinds between users and recipients of slurs. By pointing out to this link I hope to underscore the political significance of slur usage, as well as to contribute further to the explanation why slurs are so damaging and unacceptable in most social contexts. (shrink)

Recently, the term «fake news» has become ubiquitous in political and public discourse and the media. Despite its omnipresence, however, it is anything but clear what fake news is. An adequate and comprehensive definition of fake news is called for. We take steps towards this goal by providing a systematic account of fake news that makes the phenomenon tangible, rehabilitates the use of the term, and helps us to set fake news apart from related phenomena. (You can email us for (...) a penultimate draft of this paper.). (shrink)

This paper contributes to the debate over the so-called “easy argument for numbers”, an argument that uses evidence from natural language to support the metaphysically significant claim that numbers exist. It presents novel data showing that critical examples in the literature are ambiguous between two readings, contrary to previous assumptions. It then accounts for these data using independently motivated linguistic theory. The account developed rescues the easy argument from the primary challenges leveled against it in the literature and sets the (...) agenda for future work to determine whether or not the argument is valid. (shrink)

A central question for ontology is the question of whether numbers really exist. But it seems easy to answer this question in the affirmative. The truth of a sentence like ‘Seven students came to the party’ can be established simply by looking around at the party and counting students. A trivial paraphrase of is ‘The number of students who came to the party is seven’. But appears to entail the existence of a number, and so it seems that we must (...) conclude that numbers exist. This is sometimes called the puzzle of how we can get something from nothing. Most extant attempts to solve the puzzle take it for granted that is ontologically innocent, and focus their attention either on or on the transition from to. We argue that both attempts go wrong at the first step: the assumption that is ontologically innocent is undermined by a highly attractive and independently well-motivated degree-based account of number word constructions. Thus the degree-based account provides a straightforward linguistic resolution of the puzzle of how we can get something from nothing. But the paper also has a second aim. The semantics we present treats ‘seven’ as a referring expression that refers to a degree of a certain sort. But what are degrees? We consider various anti-platonist proposals that seek to account for degrees in terms of relations between concrete entities, and argue that they are incompatible with the Universal Density of Measurement hypothesis of Fox and Hackl. While the UDM cannot yet claim to be the consensus view among degree-based semanticists, our aim is to use it to illustrate how views about the nature of degrees can be evaluated by considering the properties degrees must have if they are to play the explanatory roles they are called upon to play in linguistics. In the present state of development of degree-based semantics there are difficult open questions about what these properties are. These questions need to be addressed if we are to develop a clear picture of what natural language semantics has to contribute to ontology and metaphysics. (shrink)

Causation is generally conceived of as a relation that holds between events. Apart from a few cursory remarks, the case of stative causation has been widely neglected. The paper aims at contributing to a more balanced perspective by arguing for a stative variant of causation, on a par with eventive causation. The stative variant is analyzed in terms of Moltmann’s ontological notion of tropes. German causal von-modifiers are taken as a linguistic window into our understanding of causation. The study of (...) von is particularly suited to this endeavor, because von-modifiers are confined to expressing the core notion of “direct causation” :1–48, 2003). The paper develops a compositional semantics of causal von-modifiers that derives their eventive and stative readings from a single lexical entry and allows for coercive adaptions to account for the observed range of interpretive adjustments. Characteristic features of the interpretation such as the inferential behavior of causal von-modifiers and the holistic effect of the stative reading are traced back to independently motivated conceptual assumptions concerning the spatiotemporal grounding of direct causation. The formal analysis is couched in terms of Asher’s type composition logic. (shrink)

Colli is best known for his co-editorship, with Mazzino Montinari, of the vast and most thorough edition of Nietzsche's complete works, published simultaneously in Italy, France, and Germany. His own publications include: Filosofia e Espressione, La Nascita della Filosofa, and La Sapienza Greca. Not long before his death in 1979, his last and most personal volume appeared--Dopo Nietzsche--a singular document which testifies to a life-long involvement with the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche.

In Naming and Necessity Saul Kripke offers a number of arguments in order to show that no descriptivist theory of proper names is correct. We present here a certain version of descriptivist theory -we will characterize it as an individual-use reference-fixing descriptivist theory that appeals to descriptions regarding how a name is used by other speakers. This kind of theory can successfully answer all the objections Kripke puts forward in Naming and Necessity. Such sort of descriptivist theory is furthermore compatible (...) with the picture about reference that Kripke presents. It also seems to be able to account for some phenomena that are difficult to explain on Kripke’s view. (shrink)

In this article, I want to focus on time and development in Kripke’s “Naming and Necessity” by considering two topics: the evolution of scientific knowledge; the evolution of biographies. In connection with I suggest the introduction of a sentence operator for epistemic possibility and argue that some of Kripke’s strong metaphysical statements are finely counterbalanced by rather “Popperian” epistemological considerations. In connection with I consider the idea of exploiting necessity of origin for a crossworld identity criterion.

This paper develops a unified analysis for the meaning of imperfective aspect that covers progressives, habituals, and counterfactuals, aiming at an understanding of two crosslinguistically frequent syncretisms: one between progressives and habituals, and one between habituals and counterfactuals. I first discuss progressive and habitual readings in detail, identifying mereological, temporal, and modal ingredients in both interpretations. My claim is that the temporal and modal ingredients are the same, and I propose to differentiate these readings in terms of verbal plurality: progressives (...) are about singular events, and habituals are about plural events. I then extend the analysis to stative predicates, which I analyze as uncountable mass-like verbal predicates, noticing that imperfective statives tend to be formally similar to imperfective habituals. This paves the way to an analysis of the role of habitual morphology in counterfactuals. I argue that the imperfective operator is attached to a modal/stative predicate in these constructions, and that counterfactuals are about world states holding at the utterance time. (shrink)

In this article, we describe and attempt to solve a puzzle arising from the interpretation of modified numerals like less than five and between two and five. The puzzle is this: such modified numerals seem to mean different things depending on whether they combine with distributive or non-distributive predicates. When they combine with distributive predicates, they intuitively impose a kind of upper bound, whereas when they combine with non-distributive predicates, they do not. We propose and explore in detail four solutions (...) to this puzzle, each involving some notion of maximality, but differing in the type of maximality involved and in the source of maximality. While the full range of data we consider do not conclusively favor one theory over the other three, we do argue that overall the evidence goes against the view that modified numerals lexically encode a ‘standard’ maximality operator, and suggests the need for a pragmatic blocking mechanism that filters out readings of sentences that are generated by the grammar but intuitively unavailable. (shrink)

Chapin reviewed this 1972 ZEITSCHRIFT paper that proves the completeness theorem for the logic of variable-binding-term operators created by Corcoran and his student John Herring in the 1971 LOGIQUE ET ANALYSE paper in which the theorem was conjectured. This leveraging proof extends completeness of ordinary first-order logic to the extension with vbtos. Newton da Costa independently proved the same theorem about the same time using a Henkin-type proof. This 1972 paper builds on the 1971 “Notes on a Semantic Analysis of (...) Variable Binding Term Operators” (Co-author John Herring), Logique et Analyse 55, 646–57. MR0307874 (46 #6989). A variable binding term operator (vbto) is a non-logical constant, say v, which combines with a variable y and a formula F containing y free to form a term (vy:F) whose free variables are exact ly those of F, excluding y. Kalish-Montague 1964 proposed using vbtos to formalize definite descriptions “the x: x+x=2”, set abstracts {x: F}, minimization in recursive function theory “the least x: x+x>2”, etc. However, they gave no semantics for vbtos. Hatcher 1968 gave a semantics but one that has flaws described in the 1971 paper and admitted by Hatcher. In 1971 we give a correct semantic analysis of vbtos. We also give axioms for using them in deductions. And we conjecture strong completeness for the deductions with respect to the semantics. The conjecture, proved in this paper with Hatcher’s help, was proved independently about the same time by Newton da Costa. (shrink)

The expression ‘Like’ has a wide variety of uses among English and American speakers. It may describe preference, as in (1) She likes mint chip ice cream. It may be used as a vehicle of comparison, as in (2) Trieste is like Minsk on steroids.

The paper argues that two distinct and independent notions of plurality are involved in natural language anaphora and quantification: plural reference (the usual non-atomic individuals) and plural discourse reference, i.e., reference to a quantificational dependency between sets of objects (e.g., atomic/non-atomic individuals) that is established and subsequently elaborated upon in discourse. Following van den Berg (PhD dissertation, University of Amsterdam, 1996), plural discourse reference is modeled as plural information states (i.e., as sets of variable assignments) in a new dynamic system (...) couched in classical type logic that extends Compositional DRT (Muskens, Linguistics and Philosophy, 19, 143-186, 1996). Given the underlying type logic, compositionality at sub-clausal level follows automatically and standard techniques from Montague semantics become available. The idea that plural info states are semantically necessary (in addition to non-atomic individuals) is motivated by relative-clause donkey sentences with multiple instances of singular donkey anaphora that have mixed (weak and strong) readings. At the same time, allowing for non-atomic individuals in addition to plural info states enables us to capture the intuitive parallels between singular and plural (donkey) anaphora, while deriving the incompatibility between singular (donkey) anaphora and collective predicates. The system also accounts for empirically unrelated phenomena, e.g., the uniqueness effects associated with singular (donkey) anaphora discussed in Kadmon (Linguistics and Philosophy, 13, 273-324, 1990) and Heim (Linguistics and Philosophy, 13, 131-177, 1990) among others. (shrink)

There is a widely shared account of the distinction between types and tokens, which might be termed the standard account. However, it has some surprising consequences that are not always realized. According to the standard account, a type is a contingent abstract object that can be created by us, but it does not allow any change and can never be destroyed once it is created, because it is an abstract object. I would like to present an alternative account of types (...) and tokens, according to which types are concrete objects that are located in space and time. This new account is based on a concept that I call a "token generator", which is something that specifies in detail how to produce the tokens. (shrink)

Proper names play an important role in our understanding of linguistic ‘aboutness’ or reference. For instance, the name-bearer relation is a good candidate for the paradigm of the reference relation: it provides us with our initial grip on this relation and controls our thinking about it. For this and other reasons proper names have been at the center of philosophical attention. However, proper names are as controversial as they are conceptually fundamental. Since Kripke’s seminal lectures Naming and Necessity the controversy (...) about proper names has taken the form of a debate between two main camps, descriptivists and non-descriptivists like Kripke himself.The lectures were given in Princeton in 1970 and published in book form as Naming and Necessity .Descriptivists hold that there is a close connection between proper names and definite descriptions: the meaning or sense of a proper name can be given by a definite description. Th .. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “What Can the Global Observer Know?” by Diana Gasparyan. Upshot: While I agree with Gasparyan’s incisive critique of the concept of the “general observer,” her use of the concept of “event” is somewhat ambiguous. On the one hand, she equates “events” to Wittgenstein’s and “configurations of objects” or “states of affairs” and she consider the world as a collection of such states of affairs. On the other hand, she cites Badiou’s work in support of (...) her criticism of the “general observer.” Yet Badiou’s conception of events is very different from Wittgenstein’s: they are locally produced by historically situated agents in their concrete inter-subjective activities. I argue that a resolution of the target article’s ambiguity in favour of Badiou’s conception of events would allow constructivism to escape a narrow epistemological reading of its basic thesis in favor of a broader interpretation. (shrink)

This paper explores the hypothesis that all comparative sentences— nominal, verbal, and adjectival—contain instances of a single morpheme that compositionally introduces degrees. This morpheme, sometimes pronounced much, semantically contributes a structure-preserving map from entities, events, or states, to their measures along various dimensions. A major goal of the paper is to argue that the differences in dimensionality observed across domains are a consequence of what is measured, as opposed to which expression introduces the measurement. The resulting theory has a number (...) of interesting properties. It characterizes the notion of ‘measurement’ uniformly across comparative constructions, in terms of non-trivial structure preservation. It unifies the distinctions between mass/count nouns and atelic/telic verb phrases with that between gradable and non-gradable adjectives. Finally, it affords a uniform characterization of semantically anomalous comparisons across categories. (shrink)

(English then french abstract) -/- This article, which can be read by non-psychoanalysts, intends to browse in four stages through the issue offered to our thinking : two (odd-numbered) stages analyzing the argument that provides its context, and two (even-numbered) of propositions presenting our views on what could be the content of the analytic discourse in the coming years. After this introduction, a first reading will point by point but informally review the argument of J.-P. Journet by showing that each (...) of its clauses may generate a “bifurcated” comment able to serve or go against the analytic discourse. Hence the interest of the “differential diagnosis” mentioned in our title, which makes glimpse the traps that the homonymy may set to this speech. Then, to prepare a second scan which sticks neither to the analytical doxa, nor to the even authoritative opinions of our tenors and seniors, it will be proposed two attempts at redefinitions (“apophatic” and “recursive”) of what psychoanalysis is, as well as methodological tools operating downstream from these redefinitions to thwart the obstacles of “external” and “internal” homonymy (starting from a syllogism which can make consensus).The third stage will precisely be made of our second scan of the issue, whose elements will be reviewed and analyzed more methodically :“external differential diagnosis” between the analytic discourse and psychology, philosophy, sociology, and modern science, and “internal differential diagnosis” on the entanglement between theoretical advances of psychoanalysts and the repeated survival of fantasmatic elements...Finally, a fourth part will present propositions and perspectives resulting from these analysis (principle of economy as to the source of psychoanalytical theorizations; dialogue with the other fields, but without compromising; specific relations with the discourse of science), all this leading to an invitation, beyond disputes, to renew the content of the analytic discourse on some points... -/- --------------------------------------------------------------------- -/- Cet article, qui se veut lisible aux non-analystes, se propose de parcourir en quatre temps la problématique offerte à notre réflexion : deux temps (de rang impair) d'analyse de l'argument qui en fournit le contexte, et deux (de rang pair) de propositions présentant nos vues sur ce que pourrait être la teneur du discours analytique dans les prochaines années. Après cette introduction, un premier parcours réexaminera point par point mais informellement l'argument de J.-P. Journet en montrant que chacune de ses propositions peut donner lieu à un commentaire “bifide” à même de servir ou de desservir le discours analytique. D'où l'intérêt du “diagnostic différentiel” évoqué dans notre titre, qui fait entrevoir les pièges que l'homonymie peut tendre à ce discours.Puis, pour préparer un second balayage qui ne s'en tienne ni à la doxa analytique, ni aux opinions même autorisées de nos ténors et seniors, il sera proposé deux tentatives de redéfinitions (“apophatique” et “récursive”) de ce qu'est l'analyse, ainsi que des outils méthodologiques fonctionnant en aval de ces redéfinitions pour déjouer les embûches de l'homonymie “externe” et “interne” (à partir d'un syllogisme pouvant faire consensus). Le troisième temps sera fait justement de ce second balayage de la problématique, dont les éléments seront reconsidérés et analysés plus méthodiquement : “diagnostic différentiel externe” entre le discours analytique et les discours psychologique, philosophique, sociologique et celui de la science moderne ; et “diagnostic différentiel interne” portant sur l'intrication entre avancées théoriques des analystes et survivance à répétition d'éléments fantasmatiques...Enfin une quatrième partie exposera propositions et perspectives résultant de ces analyses (principe d'économie quant à la source des théorisations analytiques ; dialogue avec les autres champs, mais sans compromissions ; relations spécifiques avec le discours de la science), l'ensemble débouchant sur une invitation, au delà des différends, à renouveler sur certains points la teneur du discours analytique... (shrink)

Instantial reasoning uses facts about an arbitrary or undetermined instance as a basis for drawing general conclusions. For example, a typical procedure for proving a general fact is to prove the fact for an `arbitrary' instance and then generalize from that instance. This method dates back at least to Euclid's Elements and continues to be a common and essential method of reasoning today. ;Instantial reasoning employs terms that, though syntactically singular, display both singular and general semantic characteristics. Consequently, standard semantic (...) accounts of singular and general terms are not easily extendible to instantial terms. ;Debates about the proper interpretation of instantial terms extend back at least to Locke and Berkeley's dispute about abstract triangles. But thus far no theory has provided an account that is both formally adequate and philosophically plausible. The central goal of this dissertation is to remedy that lack by providing a semantic interpretation of instantial terms which makes sense of their use in a variety of reasoning patterns. ;This dissertation introduces the problem of instantial reasoning and reviews the traditional disputes surrounding it. It then examines the two leading theories of instantial reasoning in detail. The strengths and weaknesses of each theory are noted, and each theory is shown to provide an implausible account of some central characteristic of instantial terms. ;The final chapter argues that instantial terms are semantically distinct from both singular and general terms. A new type of semantic entity, the holey proposition, is introduced and it is argued that instantial terms are best understood as indicating holes in holey propositions. The theory of holey propositions is developed and is shown to provide a formally adequate and philosophically plausible account of instantial reasoning. (shrink)

Roman Suszko introduced a broad class of languages into the litera- ture of logic. In honour of L. Wittgenstein Suszko named these languages W-languages. Syntax, semantics and consequence operations in these lan- guages are based on the famous ontological principle: whatever exists is either a situation, or an object, or a function. The distinguishing property of W-languages is that they contain: sentential and nominal variables, an identity connective and an identity predicate. The intended interpretation of W-languages is such that: sentential (...) variables range over universum of situations, nominal variables range over universum of objects. All other symbols in these languages, except sentential and nominal variables, are interpreted as symbols of some functions dened in both universum of sit- uations and universum of objects. The identity connective corresponds to the identity relation between situations, and the identity predicate corre- sponds to the identity relation between objects. (shrink)

A selection of readings on the philosophy of logic, intended for use in introductory logic courses. Areas covered are: the nature of logic, the syllogism, the laws of thought, symbolic logic, and induction. The selections are well diversified and, for the most part, substantial.—A. E. J.

The author--a Danish philosopher influenced by Moore, the later Wittgenstein, and C. I. Lewis--lays bare three fundamental rules of "informal logic" implicit in any description of empirical reality. They are: psychological expressions cannot be applied independently of the personal pronouns, personal pronouns cannot be applied independently of names of ordinary things, and names of ordinary things cannot be applied independently of words expressing possibility of action. A number of important consequences are drawn: in particular, that certain traditional philosophical problems--such as (...) the existence of the external world and the future validity of physical laws--cannot be properly formulated; and that the description of nature cannot afford any argument for psychological determinism. A stimulating book. --T. L. M. (shrink)

“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” This National Rifle Association slogan has a popular analogue in the philosophy of language: words don’t refer to things, people refer to things. This paper looks at how the question of what refers intersects with the phenomenon of opacity. The discussion is used to motivate an important revision to standard intention-based accounts of speaker reference, one that takes due account of the fact that distinct words can have the same referent.

As first pointed out by Saul, the co-referential names in sentences like and defy substitution _salva veritate_: Clark Kent went into the phone booth, and Superman came out. I never made it to Karl-Marx-Stadt, but I visited Chemnitz last year. This paper elaborates and compares two solutions to Saul's substitution problem, both of which turn on an asymmetry between names that share their bearers. According to the first solution there is a semantic distinction between neutral names and restricted names. According (...) to the second solution, only neutral names are properly used, whereas the use of restricted names involves code-switching and pragmatic re-interpretation. As it turns out, the semantic approach deals more easily with changing names as in, whereas the pragmatic account is more adequate in explaining hidden identity cases like. (shrink)