Fodor's New Theory of Content and Computation

In his new book, The Elm and the Expert, Fodor attempts to reconcile the computational model of human cognition with information-theoretic semantics, the view that semantic content consists of nothing more than causal or nomic relationships between words and the world, and intentional content of nothing more dian causal or nomic relationships between brain states and the world. We do not challenge the project, not in this paper. Nor do we show that Fodor has failed to carry it out. Instead, we urge that his analysis, when made explicit, turns out rather differently than he thinks. In particular, where he sees problems, he sometimes shows that there is no problem. And while he says two conceptions of information come to much the same thing, his analysis shows that they are very different

Slurs and register: A case study in meaning pluralism

Most theories of slurs fall into one of two families: those which understand slurring terms to involve special descriptive/informational content (however conveyed), and those which understand them to encode special emotive/expressive content. Our view is that both offer essential insights, but that part of what sets slurs apart is use-theoretic content. In particular, we urge that slurring words belong at the intersection of a number of categories in a sociolinguistic register taxonomy, one that usually includes [+slang] and [+vulgar] and always includes [-polite] and [+derogatory]. Thus, e.g., what distinguishes ‘Chinese’ from ‘chink’ is neither a peculiar sort of descriptive nor emotional content, but rather the fact that ‘chink’ is lexically marked as belonging to different registers than ‘Chinese’. It is, moreover, partly such facts which makes slurring ethically unacceptable

Non-Sentential Assertions and Semantic Ellipsis

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