Alexandru Radulescu | University of Missouri Columbia (original) (raw)

Papers by Alexandru Radulescu

Analysis

For Austin, Grice, and many others, undertaking a speech act like asserting or promising requires... more For Austin, Grice, and many others, undertaking a speech act like asserting or promising requires uttering something with a particular sense and reference in mind. We argue that the phenomenon of openended promises reveals this 'Locutionary Thesis' to be mistaken.

Croatian Journal of Philosophy, 2025

If I am confused, and I think two people are one and the same, that may impair my ability to refe... more If I am confused, and I think two people are one and the same, that may impair my ability to refer to either of them. This is combinatory confusion. What if I am confused, and think that one person is actually two people? This is separatory confusion, and it seems quite different. After all, even in my confusion, my thoughts and my referential devices seem to track back to a single individual. Elmar Unnsteinsson has recently argued that both types of confusion corrupt, i.e. they may prevent us from referring the right way. In this paper, I examine the four arguments he offers for this conclusion, and I argue that the intuitive view that separatory confusion does not corrupt can withstand his challenge.

Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2024

Suppose I say, 'That is my dog' and manage to refer to my dog, Fido. According to intentionalism,... more Suppose I say, 'That is my dog' and manage to refer to my dog, Fido. According to intentionalism, my intention to refer to Fido is part of the explanation of the way that the demonstrative gets Fido as its referent. A natural corollary is that the speaker is, to some extent, in control of this semantic fact. In this paper, we argue that intentionalism must give up the claim that the speaker is always in control, and thus, that intentions are always the mental states that do the semantic work: we provide new examples where reference is successful but the speaker either lacks the intention to refer, or does not know how to refer; in all of these cases, the speaker is not in control of reference. We argue that these cases provide better objections against classical intentionalism than the ones offered by conventionalists (for example, Stojnić et al. 2013; Stojnić 2021) and also that our discussion has as notable consequence that referring is not an essentially intentional action. Finally, we put forward our own view, which gives up claims of control but retains from intentionalism the importance of the speaker's mental states.

Analysis

Gricean theories analyse meaning in terms of certain complex intentions on the part of the speake... more Gricean theories analyse meaning in terms of certain complex intentions on the part of the speaker – the intention to produce an effect on the addressee, and the intention to have that intention recognized by the addressee. By drawing an analogy with cases widely discussed in action theory, we propose a novel counterexample where the speaker lacks these intentions but nonetheless means something and successfully performs a speech act.

Analysis, 2023

Gricean theories analyse meaning in terms of certain complex intentions on the part of the speake... more Gricean theories analyse meaning in terms of certain complex intentions on the part of the speaker-the intention to produce an effect on the addressee, and the intention to have that intention recognized by the addressee. By drawing an analogy with cases widely discussed in action theory, we propose a novel counterexample where the speaker lacks these intentions, but nonetheless means something, and successfully performs a speech act.

Mind, 2018

Synonymy, at its most basic, is sameness of meaning. A token-reflexive expression is an expressio... more Synonymy, at its most basic, is sameness of meaning. A token-reflexive expression is an expression whose meaning assigns a referent to its tokens by relating each particular token of that particular expression to its referent. The formulation of its meaning accordingly mentions the particular expression whose meaning it is. This seems to entail that no two token-reflexive expressions are synonymous, which would constitute a strong objection against token-reflexive semantics. In this paper, I propose and defend a notion of synonymy for token-reflexive expressions that allows such expressions to be synonymous, while being a fairly conservative extension of the customary notion of synonymy.

Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2019

Intentionalism about demonstratives is the view that the referent of a demonstrative is determine... more Intentionalism about demonstratives is the view that the referent of a demonstrative is determined solely by the speaker's intentions. Intentionalists can disagree about the nature of these intentions, but are united in rejecting the relevance of other factors, such as the speaker's gestures, her gaze, and any facts about the addressee or the audience. In this paper, I formulate a particular version of this view, and I defend it against six objections, old and new. 1 Intentionalism about Demonstratives Consider this scenario: at the dog park, I tell someone that my dog's name is 'Fido'. She asks: which one is Fido? I answer, pointing in the direction of my dog: (1) This is Fido. Assume that everything goes well and that my interlocutor now knows which dog is mine. The question I will address is this: in virtue of what does that use of 'this' refer to Fido? This question is as interesting as any other question about the mechanism by which reference is secured. Additionally, demonstratives are interesting because they seem to rely on the speaker's intentions. This is in contrast to other types of expressions: 'today' picks out the current day, irrespective of the speaker's intentions.Whatever 'university' picks out-a property, a collectionit does not do so in virtue of the speaker's intentions. I will defend one variant of intentionalism, namely the view that it is the speaker's intentions, and nothing else, that are at work in cases like

Synthese, 2017

In this paper, I propose a new way to distinguish between indexicals, like "I" and "today", and d... more In this paper, I propose a new way to distinguish between indexicals, like "I" and "today", and demonstratives, like "she" and "this". The main test case is the second person singular pronoun "you". The tradition would generally count it as a demonstrative, because the speaker's intentions play a role in providing it with a semantic value. I present cross-linguistic data and explanations offered of the data in typology and semantics to show that "you" belongs on the indexical side, and argue that they can be generalized to a novel criterion for distinguishing between indexicals and demonstratives. The central theoretical claim is that the semantic values of indexicals are objects which play certain utterance-related roles, which are fixed independently of the words being used in the utterance. For instance, the speaker plays the speaker role whether or not she uses the word "I", and the addressee plays that role whether or not the speaker uses the word "you". Demonstratives, on the other hand, pick out objects that play no such role, and are instead helped by the speaker's word-specific intentions.

Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy, 2018

The classical rule of Repetition says that if you take any sentence as a premise, and repeat it a... more The classical rule of Repetition says that if you take any sentence as a premise, and repeat it as a conclusion, you have a valid argument. It's a very basic rule of logic, and many other rules depend on the guarantee that repeating a sentence, or really, any expression, guarantees sameness of referent, or semantic value. However, Repetition fails for token-reflexive expressions. In this paper, I offer three ways that one might replace Repetition, and still keep an interesting notion of validity. Each is a fine way to go for certain purposes, but I argue that one in particular is to be preferred by the semanticist who thinks that there are token-reflexive expressions in natural languages.

In this paper, I propose a new way to distinguish between indexicals, like “I” and “today”, and d... more In this paper, I propose a new way to distinguish between indexicals, like “I” and “today”, and demonstratives, like “she” and “this”. The main test case is the second person singular pronoun “you”. The tradition would generally count it as a demonstrative, because the speaker’s intentions play a role in providing it with a semantic value. I present cross-linguistic data and explanations offered of the data in typology and semantics to show that “you” belongs on the indexical side, and argue that they can be generalized to a novel criterion for distinguishing between indexicals and demonstratives. The central theoretical claim is that the semantic values of indexicals are objects which play certain utterance-related roles, which are fixed independently of the words being used in the utterance. For instance, the speaker plays the speaker role whether or not she uses the word “I”, and the addressee plays that role whether or not the speaker uses the word “you”. Demonstratives, on the other hand, pick out objects that play no such role, and are instead helped by the speaker’s word-specific intentions.

Synonymy, at its most basic, is sameness of meaning. A token-reflexive expression is an expressio... more Synonymy, at its most basic, is sameness of meaning. A token-reflexive expression is an expression whose meaning assigns a referent to its tokens by relating each particular token of that particular expression to its referent. The formulation of its meaning accordingly mentions the particular expression whose meaning it is. This seems to entail that no two token-reflexive expressions are synonymous, which would constitute a strong objection against token-reflexive semantics. In this paper, I propose and defend a notion of synonymy for token-reflexive expressions that allows such expressions to be synonymous, while being a fairly conservative extension of the customary notion of synonymy.

Since Kaplan(1978) first provided a logic for context-sensitive expressions, it has been thought ... more Since Kaplan(1978) first provided a logic for context-sensitive expressions, it has been thought that the only way to construct a logic for indexicals is to restrict it to arguments which take place in a single context -- that is, instantaneous arguments, uttered by a single speaker, in a single place, etc. In this paper, I propose a logic which does away with these restrictions, and thus places arguments where they belong, in real world conversations. The central innovation is that validity depends not just on the sentences in the argument, but also on certain abstract relations between contexts. This enrichment of the notion of logical form leads to some seemingly counter-intuitive results: a sequence of sentences may make up a valid argument in one sequence of contexts, and an invalid one in another such sequence. I argue that this is an unavoidable result of context sensitivity in general, and of the nature of indexicals in particular, and that reflection on such examples will lead us to a better understanding of the idea of applying logic to context sensitive expressions, and thus to natural language in general.

Analysis

For Austin, Grice, and many others, undertaking a speech act like asserting or promising requires... more For Austin, Grice, and many others, undertaking a speech act like asserting or promising requires uttering something with a particular sense and reference in mind. We argue that the phenomenon of openended promises reveals this 'Locutionary Thesis' to be mistaken.

Croatian Journal of Philosophy, 2025

If I am confused, and I think two people are one and the same, that may impair my ability to refe... more If I am confused, and I think two people are one and the same, that may impair my ability to refer to either of them. This is combinatory confusion. What if I am confused, and think that one person is actually two people? This is separatory confusion, and it seems quite different. After all, even in my confusion, my thoughts and my referential devices seem to track back to a single individual. Elmar Unnsteinsson has recently argued that both types of confusion corrupt, i.e. they may prevent us from referring the right way. In this paper, I examine the four arguments he offers for this conclusion, and I argue that the intuitive view that separatory confusion does not corrupt can withstand his challenge.

Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2024

Suppose I say, 'That is my dog' and manage to refer to my dog, Fido. According to intentionalism,... more Suppose I say, 'That is my dog' and manage to refer to my dog, Fido. According to intentionalism, my intention to refer to Fido is part of the explanation of the way that the demonstrative gets Fido as its referent. A natural corollary is that the speaker is, to some extent, in control of this semantic fact. In this paper, we argue that intentionalism must give up the claim that the speaker is always in control, and thus, that intentions are always the mental states that do the semantic work: we provide new examples where reference is successful but the speaker either lacks the intention to refer, or does not know how to refer; in all of these cases, the speaker is not in control of reference. We argue that these cases provide better objections against classical intentionalism than the ones offered by conventionalists (for example, Stojnić et al. 2013; Stojnić 2021) and also that our discussion has as notable consequence that referring is not an essentially intentional action. Finally, we put forward our own view, which gives up claims of control but retains from intentionalism the importance of the speaker's mental states.

Analysis

Gricean theories analyse meaning in terms of certain complex intentions on the part of the speake... more Gricean theories analyse meaning in terms of certain complex intentions on the part of the speaker – the intention to produce an effect on the addressee, and the intention to have that intention recognized by the addressee. By drawing an analogy with cases widely discussed in action theory, we propose a novel counterexample where the speaker lacks these intentions but nonetheless means something and successfully performs a speech act.

Analysis, 2023

Gricean theories analyse meaning in terms of certain complex intentions on the part of the speake... more Gricean theories analyse meaning in terms of certain complex intentions on the part of the speaker-the intention to produce an effect on the addressee, and the intention to have that intention recognized by the addressee. By drawing an analogy with cases widely discussed in action theory, we propose a novel counterexample where the speaker lacks these intentions, but nonetheless means something, and successfully performs a speech act.

Mind, 2018

Synonymy, at its most basic, is sameness of meaning. A token-reflexive expression is an expressio... more Synonymy, at its most basic, is sameness of meaning. A token-reflexive expression is an expression whose meaning assigns a referent to its tokens by relating each particular token of that particular expression to its referent. The formulation of its meaning accordingly mentions the particular expression whose meaning it is. This seems to entail that no two token-reflexive expressions are synonymous, which would constitute a strong objection against token-reflexive semantics. In this paper, I propose and defend a notion of synonymy for token-reflexive expressions that allows such expressions to be synonymous, while being a fairly conservative extension of the customary notion of synonymy.

Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2019

Intentionalism about demonstratives is the view that the referent of a demonstrative is determine... more Intentionalism about demonstratives is the view that the referent of a demonstrative is determined solely by the speaker's intentions. Intentionalists can disagree about the nature of these intentions, but are united in rejecting the relevance of other factors, such as the speaker's gestures, her gaze, and any facts about the addressee or the audience. In this paper, I formulate a particular version of this view, and I defend it against six objections, old and new. 1 Intentionalism about Demonstratives Consider this scenario: at the dog park, I tell someone that my dog's name is 'Fido'. She asks: which one is Fido? I answer, pointing in the direction of my dog: (1) This is Fido. Assume that everything goes well and that my interlocutor now knows which dog is mine. The question I will address is this: in virtue of what does that use of 'this' refer to Fido? This question is as interesting as any other question about the mechanism by which reference is secured. Additionally, demonstratives are interesting because they seem to rely on the speaker's intentions. This is in contrast to other types of expressions: 'today' picks out the current day, irrespective of the speaker's intentions.Whatever 'university' picks out-a property, a collectionit does not do so in virtue of the speaker's intentions. I will defend one variant of intentionalism, namely the view that it is the speaker's intentions, and nothing else, that are at work in cases like

Synthese, 2017

In this paper, I propose a new way to distinguish between indexicals, like "I" and "today", and d... more In this paper, I propose a new way to distinguish between indexicals, like "I" and "today", and demonstratives, like "she" and "this". The main test case is the second person singular pronoun "you". The tradition would generally count it as a demonstrative, because the speaker's intentions play a role in providing it with a semantic value. I present cross-linguistic data and explanations offered of the data in typology and semantics to show that "you" belongs on the indexical side, and argue that they can be generalized to a novel criterion for distinguishing between indexicals and demonstratives. The central theoretical claim is that the semantic values of indexicals are objects which play certain utterance-related roles, which are fixed independently of the words being used in the utterance. For instance, the speaker plays the speaker role whether or not she uses the word "I", and the addressee plays that role whether or not the speaker uses the word "you". Demonstratives, on the other hand, pick out objects that play no such role, and are instead helped by the speaker's word-specific intentions.

Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy, 2018

The classical rule of Repetition says that if you take any sentence as a premise, and repeat it a... more The classical rule of Repetition says that if you take any sentence as a premise, and repeat it as a conclusion, you have a valid argument. It's a very basic rule of logic, and many other rules depend on the guarantee that repeating a sentence, or really, any expression, guarantees sameness of referent, or semantic value. However, Repetition fails for token-reflexive expressions. In this paper, I offer three ways that one might replace Repetition, and still keep an interesting notion of validity. Each is a fine way to go for certain purposes, but I argue that one in particular is to be preferred by the semanticist who thinks that there are token-reflexive expressions in natural languages.

In this paper, I propose a new way to distinguish between indexicals, like “I” and “today”, and d... more In this paper, I propose a new way to distinguish between indexicals, like “I” and “today”, and demonstratives, like “she” and “this”. The main test case is the second person singular pronoun “you”. The tradition would generally count it as a demonstrative, because the speaker’s intentions play a role in providing it with a semantic value. I present cross-linguistic data and explanations offered of the data in typology and semantics to show that “you” belongs on the indexical side, and argue that they can be generalized to a novel criterion for distinguishing between indexicals and demonstratives. The central theoretical claim is that the semantic values of indexicals are objects which play certain utterance-related roles, which are fixed independently of the words being used in the utterance. For instance, the speaker plays the speaker role whether or not she uses the word “I”, and the addressee plays that role whether or not the speaker uses the word “you”. Demonstratives, on the other hand, pick out objects that play no such role, and are instead helped by the speaker’s word-specific intentions.

Synonymy, at its most basic, is sameness of meaning. A token-reflexive expression is an expressio... more Synonymy, at its most basic, is sameness of meaning. A token-reflexive expression is an expression whose meaning assigns a referent to its tokens by relating each particular token of that particular expression to its referent. The formulation of its meaning accordingly mentions the particular expression whose meaning it is. This seems to entail that no two token-reflexive expressions are synonymous, which would constitute a strong objection against token-reflexive semantics. In this paper, I propose and defend a notion of synonymy for token-reflexive expressions that allows such expressions to be synonymous, while being a fairly conservative extension of the customary notion of synonymy.

Since Kaplan(1978) first provided a logic for context-sensitive expressions, it has been thought ... more Since Kaplan(1978) first provided a logic for context-sensitive expressions, it has been thought that the only way to construct a logic for indexicals is to restrict it to arguments which take place in a single context -- that is, instantaneous arguments, uttered by a single speaker, in a single place, etc. In this paper, I propose a logic which does away with these restrictions, and thus places arguments where they belong, in real world conversations. The central innovation is that validity depends not just on the sentences in the argument, but also on certain abstract relations between contexts. This enrichment of the notion of logical form leads to some seemingly counter-intuitive results: a sequence of sentences may make up a valid argument in one sequence of contexts, and an invalid one in another such sequence. I argue that this is an unavoidable result of context sensitivity in general, and of the nature of indexicals in particular, and that reflection on such examples will lead us to a better understanding of the idea of applying logic to context sensitive expressions, and thus to natural language in general.