Wojciech Rostworowski - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Uploads
Papers by Wojciech Rostworowski
Experiments in Linguistic Meaning, Jan 27, 2023
The paper presents novel experimental data regarding reports of nondoxastic attitudes (expressed ... more The paper presents novel experimental data regarding reports of nondoxastic attitudes (expressed by verbs such as "wants", "fear", "is glad", and etc.) As observed by some theorists, non-doxastic attitude ascriptions differ from the ascriptions of doxastic attitudes (e.g., "believes") in that they do not support simple entailments or presuppositions of their complement clause. In particular, an ascription may intuitively change its truth-value if we alter the informational structure of the embedded clause without modifying its truth conditions. We present two experiments whose results support this observation. Experiment 1 shows that the truth-value and acceptability judgements of non-doxastic attitude ascriptions in a context generally depend on the informational structure of the embedded clause. Experiment 2 reveals that the truth-value judgements vary if we manipulate not only the "presuppositionassertion" structure of the embedded clause, but also the components related to the non-presuppositional entailments of the clause. This conclusion suggests that the contents on which attitude verbs operate should be represented as structured entities.
KRITERION – Journal of Philosophy
In this paper, I argue that contrary to the approach widely taken in the literature, it is possib... more In this paper, I argue that contrary to the approach widely taken in the literature, it is possible to retain Russell’s theory of definite descriptions and grant some semantic significance to the distinction between the attributive and the referential use. The core of the argumentation is based on recognition of the so-called “roundabout” way in which the use of a definite description may be significant to the semantic features of the sentence: it is a case where the use of a description contributes to the semantics of the sentence by affecting another expression of that sentence. I offer an appropriate example which illustrates the case in question and I demonstrate that the semantic difference between the two uses can be easily captured by Russell’s account
Philosophia, 2014
This article discusses the "Argument from Inference" raised against the view that definite descri... more This article discusses the "Argument from Inference" raised against the view that definite descriptions are semantically referring expressions. According to this argument, the indicated view is inadequate since it evaluates some invalid inferences with definite descriptions as "valid" and vice versa. I argue that the Argument from Inference is basically wrong. Firstly, it is crucially based on the assumption that a proponent of the view that definite descriptions are referring expressions conceives them as directly referring terms, i.e., the terms which contribute their referents into the semantic content of the sentences in which they occur. However, the framework of direct reference is not essential to the idea that descriptions might have semantic referential interpretation. Secondly, the Argument of Inference-if correct-suffices to establish an overgeneralized conclusion that even paradigmatically referring terms, like proper names, cannot be semantically referential. This fact indicates that the argument is flawed. In the final part of this article, I briefly consider what the source of the problem with the Argument of Inference might be.
Based on the new experimental evidence, we argue that a link between a conditional antecedent and... more Based on the new experimental evidence, we argue that a link between a conditional antecedent and the consequent is semantically expressed rather than pragmatically conveyed. In our paper, we focus on particular kinds of links which conditionals may convey in a context. For instance, a conditional ‘If p, q’ may convey a thought equivalent to ‘p will cause q’, ‘p is the best explanation for q’, ‘q follows from p’, etcetera. The traditional theoretical literature on conditionals seems to imply that these specific links are generated pragmatically and are akin to conversational implicatures. In order to test this hypothesis, we used a well-recognized linguistic test from ‘reinforceability’ (i.e., susceptibility to a non-redundant affirmation), which serves to distinguish between a semantic and pragmatic level of meaning, and we designed an experimental study based on that test. The outcome of our study is that specific links conveyed by conditionals exhibit features of semantic entailm...
In this paper, I argue that contrary to the approach widely taken in the literature, it is possib... more In this paper, I argue that contrary to the approach widely taken in the literature, it is possible to retain Russell's theory of definite descriptions and grant some semantic significance to the distinction between the attributive and the referential use. The core of the argumentation is based on recognition of the so-called " roundabout " way in which the use of a definite description may be significant to the semantic features of the sentence: it is a case where the use of a description contributes to the semantics of the sentence by affecting another expression of that sentence. I offer an appropriate example which illustrates the case in question and I demonstrate that the semantic difference between the two uses can be easily captured by Russell's account.
The aim of the paper is to investigate a methodological problem facing the experimental research ... more The aim of the paper is to investigate a methodological problem facing the experimental research in philosophy. The difficulty concerns a commonly applied questionnaire method involving truth-value evaluation tasks: the data obtained by using such a method cannot provide conclusive evidence in developing a semantic theory of language due to the risk that the respondents focus on pragmatic properties of the statements under evaluation instead of the semantic ones. In particular, they may confuse truth-conditions of a statement with its implicatures. We propose a model which can help to establish — to a certain degree — whether the content assigned by respondents to a given statement is rather pragmatic or semantic (i.e. if it is an implicature or not). This model appeals to "practical" tests for implicatures, widely recognized in linguistic literature. We illustrate our proposal with some experimental research on the semantics of "or" in the Polish language ("...
Linguistics and Philosophy
In this paper, we present two experimental studies on reference of complex demonstratives. The re... more In this paper, we present two experimental studies on reference of complex demonstratives. The results of our experiments challenge the dominant view in philosophy of language, according to which demonstrative reference is determined by the speaker's intentions. The first experiment shows that in a context where there are two candidates for the referent—one determined by the speaker’s intention, the other by some “external” factors—people prefer to identify the referent of a demonstrative with the latter object. The external factors for which this prediction has been confirmed include the speaker’s demonstration and the descriptive content of a demonstrative. The second experiment shows that while this preference can be explained in terms of the speakers’ having different sorts of referential intentions, the relevant kind of intentions are fully opaque to the subjects. At the end of our paper, we point to some alternative accounts of demonstrative reference, including a pluralis...
Philosophical Studies
This paper addresses a certain objection to the quantificational theory of definite descriptions.... more This paper addresses a certain objection to the quantificational theory of definite descriptions. According to this objection, the quantificational account cannot provide correct interpretations of definite descriptions embedded in the nondoxastic attitude ascriptions and therefore ought to be rejected. In brief, the objection says that the quantificational theory is committed to the view that a sentence of the form ''The F is G'' is equivalent to the claim that there is a unique F and it is G, while the ascription such as, e.g., ''S wants the F to be G'' is not equivalent to the statement that S wants there to be a (unique) F and for it to be G. I argue that this objection is invalid as it rests on a false assumption concerning the substitutivity of the relative clauses in the non-doxastic attitude ascriptions.
Review of Philosophy and Psychology, Sep 20, 2018
This paper presents an experimental study on definite descriptions. According to the classical vi... more This paper presents an experimental study on definite descriptions. According to the classical views, a definite description, i.e., a phrase of the form Bthe F^, hasroughly speaking-purely descriptive semantics, that is, it designates the object which uniquely (opt. uniquely in a context) satisfies the description. However, as several philosophers including Keith Donnellan have argued, there are uses of definite descriptions on which these expressions do not seem to designate objects which satisfy the descriptions. Namely, a description may refer in some circumstances to an object which does not have the property from the description. This argument is called Bthe Argument from misdescription^and it is raised against the classical views on the semantics of definite descriptions. In our paper, we present an experimental study on misdescription and explored reactions of ordinary users of language to various statements involving misdescriptions. The results of our research indicate that the intuition of ordinary speakers is consistent with the prediction expressed in the Argument from misdescription. We argue that the most common pragmatic explanation of misdescription, appealing to Gricean distinction between saying and meaning, is unconvincing. We vote for an alternative semantic account of definite descriptions, on which a description Bthe F^designates an object being F, which is at the same time the most salient individual according to a contextually established ranking of salience.
Experiments in Linguistic Meaning, Jan 27, 2023
The paper presents novel experimental data regarding reports of nondoxastic attitudes (expressed ... more The paper presents novel experimental data regarding reports of nondoxastic attitudes (expressed by verbs such as "wants", "fear", "is glad", and etc.) As observed by some theorists, non-doxastic attitude ascriptions differ from the ascriptions of doxastic attitudes (e.g., "believes") in that they do not support simple entailments or presuppositions of their complement clause. In particular, an ascription may intuitively change its truth-value if we alter the informational structure of the embedded clause without modifying its truth conditions. We present two experiments whose results support this observation. Experiment 1 shows that the truth-value and acceptability judgements of non-doxastic attitude ascriptions in a context generally depend on the informational structure of the embedded clause. Experiment 2 reveals that the truth-value judgements vary if we manipulate not only the "presuppositionassertion" structure of the embedded clause, but also the components related to the non-presuppositional entailments of the clause. This conclusion suggests that the contents on which attitude verbs operate should be represented as structured entities.
KRITERION – Journal of Philosophy
In this paper, I argue that contrary to the approach widely taken in the literature, it is possib... more In this paper, I argue that contrary to the approach widely taken in the literature, it is possible to retain Russell’s theory of definite descriptions and grant some semantic significance to the distinction between the attributive and the referential use. The core of the argumentation is based on recognition of the so-called “roundabout” way in which the use of a definite description may be significant to the semantic features of the sentence: it is a case where the use of a description contributes to the semantics of the sentence by affecting another expression of that sentence. I offer an appropriate example which illustrates the case in question and I demonstrate that the semantic difference between the two uses can be easily captured by Russell’s account
Philosophia, 2014
This article discusses the "Argument from Inference" raised against the view that definite descri... more This article discusses the "Argument from Inference" raised against the view that definite descriptions are semantically referring expressions. According to this argument, the indicated view is inadequate since it evaluates some invalid inferences with definite descriptions as "valid" and vice versa. I argue that the Argument from Inference is basically wrong. Firstly, it is crucially based on the assumption that a proponent of the view that definite descriptions are referring expressions conceives them as directly referring terms, i.e., the terms which contribute their referents into the semantic content of the sentences in which they occur. However, the framework of direct reference is not essential to the idea that descriptions might have semantic referential interpretation. Secondly, the Argument of Inference-if correct-suffices to establish an overgeneralized conclusion that even paradigmatically referring terms, like proper names, cannot be semantically referential. This fact indicates that the argument is flawed. In the final part of this article, I briefly consider what the source of the problem with the Argument of Inference might be.
Based on the new experimental evidence, we argue that a link between a conditional antecedent and... more Based on the new experimental evidence, we argue that a link between a conditional antecedent and the consequent is semantically expressed rather than pragmatically conveyed. In our paper, we focus on particular kinds of links which conditionals may convey in a context. For instance, a conditional ‘If p, q’ may convey a thought equivalent to ‘p will cause q’, ‘p is the best explanation for q’, ‘q follows from p’, etcetera. The traditional theoretical literature on conditionals seems to imply that these specific links are generated pragmatically and are akin to conversational implicatures. In order to test this hypothesis, we used a well-recognized linguistic test from ‘reinforceability’ (i.e., susceptibility to a non-redundant affirmation), which serves to distinguish between a semantic and pragmatic level of meaning, and we designed an experimental study based on that test. The outcome of our study is that specific links conveyed by conditionals exhibit features of semantic entailm...
In this paper, I argue that contrary to the approach widely taken in the literature, it is possib... more In this paper, I argue that contrary to the approach widely taken in the literature, it is possible to retain Russell's theory of definite descriptions and grant some semantic significance to the distinction between the attributive and the referential use. The core of the argumentation is based on recognition of the so-called " roundabout " way in which the use of a definite description may be significant to the semantic features of the sentence: it is a case where the use of a description contributes to the semantics of the sentence by affecting another expression of that sentence. I offer an appropriate example which illustrates the case in question and I demonstrate that the semantic difference between the two uses can be easily captured by Russell's account.
The aim of the paper is to investigate a methodological problem facing the experimental research ... more The aim of the paper is to investigate a methodological problem facing the experimental research in philosophy. The difficulty concerns a commonly applied questionnaire method involving truth-value evaluation tasks: the data obtained by using such a method cannot provide conclusive evidence in developing a semantic theory of language due to the risk that the respondents focus on pragmatic properties of the statements under evaluation instead of the semantic ones. In particular, they may confuse truth-conditions of a statement with its implicatures. We propose a model which can help to establish — to a certain degree — whether the content assigned by respondents to a given statement is rather pragmatic or semantic (i.e. if it is an implicature or not). This model appeals to "practical" tests for implicatures, widely recognized in linguistic literature. We illustrate our proposal with some experimental research on the semantics of "or" in the Polish language ("...
Linguistics and Philosophy
In this paper, we present two experimental studies on reference of complex demonstratives. The re... more In this paper, we present two experimental studies on reference of complex demonstratives. The results of our experiments challenge the dominant view in philosophy of language, according to which demonstrative reference is determined by the speaker's intentions. The first experiment shows that in a context where there are two candidates for the referent—one determined by the speaker’s intention, the other by some “external” factors—people prefer to identify the referent of a demonstrative with the latter object. The external factors for which this prediction has been confirmed include the speaker’s demonstration and the descriptive content of a demonstrative. The second experiment shows that while this preference can be explained in terms of the speakers’ having different sorts of referential intentions, the relevant kind of intentions are fully opaque to the subjects. At the end of our paper, we point to some alternative accounts of demonstrative reference, including a pluralis...
Philosophical Studies
This paper addresses a certain objection to the quantificational theory of definite descriptions.... more This paper addresses a certain objection to the quantificational theory of definite descriptions. According to this objection, the quantificational account cannot provide correct interpretations of definite descriptions embedded in the nondoxastic attitude ascriptions and therefore ought to be rejected. In brief, the objection says that the quantificational theory is committed to the view that a sentence of the form ''The F is G'' is equivalent to the claim that there is a unique F and it is G, while the ascription such as, e.g., ''S wants the F to be G'' is not equivalent to the statement that S wants there to be a (unique) F and for it to be G. I argue that this objection is invalid as it rests on a false assumption concerning the substitutivity of the relative clauses in the non-doxastic attitude ascriptions.
Review of Philosophy and Psychology, Sep 20, 2018
This paper presents an experimental study on definite descriptions. According to the classical vi... more This paper presents an experimental study on definite descriptions. According to the classical views, a definite description, i.e., a phrase of the form Bthe F^, hasroughly speaking-purely descriptive semantics, that is, it designates the object which uniquely (opt. uniquely in a context) satisfies the description. However, as several philosophers including Keith Donnellan have argued, there are uses of definite descriptions on which these expressions do not seem to designate objects which satisfy the descriptions. Namely, a description may refer in some circumstances to an object which does not have the property from the description. This argument is called Bthe Argument from misdescription^and it is raised against the classical views on the semantics of definite descriptions. In our paper, we present an experimental study on misdescription and explored reactions of ordinary users of language to various statements involving misdescriptions. The results of our research indicate that the intuition of ordinary speakers is consistent with the prediction expressed in the Argument from misdescription. We argue that the most common pragmatic explanation of misdescription, appealing to Gricean distinction between saying and meaning, is unconvincing. We vote for an alternative semantic account of definite descriptions, on which a description Bthe F^designates an object being F, which is at the same time the most salient individual according to a contextually established ranking of salience.