On abstraction in a Carnapian system

Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970) rejects two philosophical distinctions that have been made and admitted by Gottlob Frege (1848-1925), namely the object-concept and the sense-reference distinctions. In the analytic tradition and upon these distinctions, a family of analytic systems have been constructed and developed (which we call Fregean systems), within which a number of notions have been employed including the notion of abstraction. It has been claimed (by Neo- Fregeans) that the Fregean notion of abstraction has been captured by what is commonly known as the “principle of abstraction”. The goal of this dissertation is to present the notion of Carnapian abstraction, in particular, and the Carnapian system, in general, in distinction to the Fregean counterparts. We will argue that the admission and rejection of these distinctions will entail fundamentally different analytic systems. Hence, we will show how each system undertakes a different notion of abstraction. Abstraction in a Fregean system will be characterized as a mind-independent process subject to its own rules, whereas in a Carnapian system, abstraction will be characterized as a defined process of distancing from meaning in a linguistic framework. We will conclude that the Carnapian system has advantages over the Fregean one (among which is its simplicity), and that its technical aspect is yet to be developed.Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970) rejette deux distinctions philosophiques conçues par Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) : la distinction objet-concept et la distinction sens-référence. Dans la tradition analytique et parmi ces distinctions, une famille de systèmes analytiques a été construite et développée (appelée les « systèmes frégéen »), dans lesquels plusieurs notions ont été employées, incluant la notion d’abstraction. En fait, les néo- frégéen ont déclaré que la notion d’abstraction de Frege est capturée par ce qu’on appelle le « principe d’abstraction ». Le but de cette dissertation est de présenter la notion d’abstraction de Carnap en particulier et le système de Carnap en général, en comparaison aux notions de Frege. Nous allons argumenter que l’admission et le rejet de ces distinctions entraîneront des systèmes analytiques fondamentalement différents. Ainsi, nous allons démontrer comment chaque système utilise différentes notions d’abstraction. L’abstraction dans un système frégéen sera caractérisée comme un processus indépendant qui est confiné à ses propres règles, tandis que dans un système carnapien, l’abstraction sera caractérisée comme un processus défini d’éloignement du sens. Nous arriverons à la conclusion que le système carnapien a plus d’avantages que celui de Frege (comme la simplicité du système) et que son aspect technique a besoin d’être développé davantage

Pragmatics and Prosody

Most of the papers collected in this book resulted from presentations and discussions undertaken during the V Lablita Workshop that took place at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, on August 23-25, 2011. The workshop was held in conjunction with the II Brazilian Seminar on Pragmatics and Prosody. The guiding themes for the joint event were illocution, modality, attitude, information patterning and speech annotation. Thus, all papers presented here are concerned with theoretical and methodological issues related to the study of speech. Among the papers in this volume, there are different theoretical orientations, which are mirrored through the methodological designs of studies pursued. However, all papers are based on the analysis of actual speech, be it from corpora or from experimental contexts trying to emulate natural speech. Prosody is the keyword that comes out from all the papers in this publication, which indicates the high standing of this category in relation to studies that are geared towards the understanding of major elements that are constitutive of the structuring of speech

Illocution, Modality, Attitude, Information Patterning and Speech Annotation

Most of the papers collected in this book resulted from presentations and discussions undertaken during the V Lablita Workshop that took place at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, on August 23-25, 2011. The workshop was held in conjunction with the II Brazilian Seminar on Pragmatics and Prosody. The guiding themes for the joint event were illocution, modality, attitude, information patterning and speech annotation. Thus, all papers presented here are concerned with theoretical and methodological issues related to the study of speech. Among the papers in this volume, there are different theoretical orientations, which are mirrored through the methodological designs of studies pursued. However, all papers are based on the analysis of actual speech, be it from corpora or from experimental contexts trying to emulate natural speech. Prosody is the keyword that comes out from all the papers in this publication, which indicates the high standing of this category in relation to studies that are geared towards the understanding of major elements that are constitutive of the structuring of speech

Towards a Neuroscientific Theory of Reference

The topic of the dissertation is reference of proper names. It criticizes the amalgam of the current standard theory, direct-causal theory of reference, and defends Fregean sense theory of reference. In addition Fregean view is neuronaturalized by Gerald Edelman's idea of recurrent networks, combined with temporal synchrony of neural processing which is generalized to explain conceptual information. Direct-causal theory's main arguments - modal, epistemological and semantic - are all shown to be too weak and based on mistaken presuppositions like synonymy between proper names and descriptions. Causal communicative links are shown to be weak for reference retention also. Intentions to retain the original referent are too weal as well. Moreover the "intuitive arguments" invoked by the direct-causal theorists are misguided and shown to be based on basic schema of reference, a postulation proposed to explain precondition of referential language use. Reference is grounded on information transmission and its embodiment in neurocognitive processes mainly having to do with neural memory systems. So contrary to the direct-causal theorists' view reference is cognitive through and through as Fregean theory maintains. Classical problems in philosophy of language, like informationality of identity statements, propositional attitude contexts, among others, are solved.Väitöksen aihe erisnimien viittaus. Siinä kritisoidaan vallitsevaa teoria-amalgaamia, suora kausaalinen viittauksen teoria. Työssä puolustetaan fregeläistä viittauksen merkitysteoriaa, joka tieteellistetään neuronaturalisoimalla se. Tässä käytetään takaisinpäin vaikuttavia neuronisysteemeitä sekä neuraali-impulssien prosessointisyknroniaa. Suoran kausaalisen teorian keskeiset argumentit osoitetaan riittämättömiksi samoin kuin kausaaliset viittausmekanismit sekä viittausintentiot. Lisäksi kyseisen teorian "intuitiiviset argumentit" osoitetaan perustuvan väärinymmärrykseen ja selitetään työssä postuloituun viittauksen perusskeemaan perustuviksi. Tämä skeema selittää kielellisten ilmausten viittauksen edellytyksen. Viittaus on informaation välitykseen ja neurokognitiivisiin prosesseihin perustuvaa, fregeläisen teorian mukaisesti. Työ antaa tälle näkemykselle neurotieteellisen viitekehyksen