10,318 research outputs found
Dissatisfaction Theory
I propose a new theory of semantic presupposition, which I call dissatisfaction
theory. I first briefly review a cluster of problems − known collectively as the
proviso problem − for most extant theories of presupposition, arguing that the main
pragmatic response to them faces a serious challenge. I avoid these problems by
adopting two changes in perspective on presupposition. First, I propose a theory
of projection according to which presuppositions project unless they are locally
entailed. Second, I reject the standard assumption that presuppositions are contents
which must be entailed by the input context; instead, I propose that presuppositions
are contents which are marked as backgrounded. I show that, together, these
commitments allow us to avoid the proviso problem altogether, and generally make
plausible predictions about presupposition projection out of connectives and attitude
predicates. I close by sketching a two-dimensional implementation of my theory
which allows us to make further welcome predictions about attitude predicates and
quantifiers
If P, Then P!
The Identity principle says that conditionals with the form 'If p, then p' are logical truths. Identity is overwhelmingly plausible, and has rarely been explicitly challenged. But a wide range of conditionals nonetheless invalidate it. I explain the problem, and argue that the culprit is the principle known as Import-Export, which we must thus reject. I then explore how we can reject Import-Export in a way that still makes sense of the intuitions that support it, arguing that the differences between indicative and subjunctive conditionals play a key role in solving this puzzle
BECOME and its presuppositions
In hindsight, the debate about presupposition following Frege’s discovery that the referential function of names and definite descriptions depended on the fulfillment of an existence and a uniqueness condition was curiously limited for a very long time. On the one hand, it was only in the 1960s that linguists began to take an interest and showed that presupposition was an allpervasive phenomenon far beyond this philosophers’ pet definite descriptions. And on the other hand, and this is our real concern, it is now only too obvious that the uniqueness condition is too restrictive to be applicable to the general case. An utterance of “The cat is on the mat” should not imply that there is only one cat and one mat in the whole world. The obvious move is to limit the uniqueness condition to some notion of utterance context
Relevance and Conditionals: A Synopsis of Open Pragmatic and Semantic Issues
Recently several papers have reported relevance effects on the cognitive assessments of indicative conditionals, which pose an explanatory challenge to the Suppositional Theory of conditionals advanced by David Over, which is influential in the psychology of reasoning. Some of these results concern the “Equation” (P(if A, then C) = P(C|A)), others the de Finetti truth table, and yet others the uncertain and-to-inference task. The purpose of this chapter is to take a Birdseye view on the debate and investigate some of the open theoretical issues posed by the empirical results. Central among these is whether to count these effects as belonging to pragmatics or semantics
Against Pointillisme about Mechanics
This paper forms part of a wider campaign: to deny pointillisme. That is the
doctrine that a physical theory's fundamental quantities are defined at points
of space or of spacetime, and represent intrinsic properties of such points or
point-sized objects located there; so that properties of spatial or
spatiotemporal regions and their material contents are determined by the
point-by-point facts.
More specifically, this paper argues against pointillisme about the concept
of velocity in classical mechanics; especially against proposals by Tooley,
Robinson and Lewis. A companion paper argues against pointillisme about
(chrono)-geometry, as proposed by Bricker.
To avoid technicalities, I conduct the argument almost entirely in the
context of ``Newtonian'' ideas about space and time, and the classical
mechanics of point-particles, i.e. extensionless particles moving in a void.
But both the debate and my arguments carry over to relativistic physics.Comment: 41 pages Late
Existence, the square of opposites, and two-dimensional logic
Ontological commitments and other problems concerning existence arise in connection with various aspects of logical theories. The semantics of quantification theory is usually formulated in such a manner that theorems are all and only those formulae which come out true under all interpretations in all non-empty domains. There are several approaches to include the empty domain. Paradoxically this apparent semantic extension means surrendering several formulae which are valid and intuitively plausible
Context, content, and epistemic transparency
We motivate the idea that presupposition is a transparent attitude. We then explain why epistemic opacity is not a serious problem for Robert Stalnaker's theory of content and conversation. We conclude with critical remarks about John Hawthorne and Ofra Magidor's alternative theory
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