On Semantics and Existence (original) (raw)
Related papers
Abstract Universals in Metaphysics and Semantics: A Critical Evaluation
Joseph LaPorte, Genoveva Martí and Nathan Salmon have argued that general terms, natural kind terms in particular, are semantically akin to proper names. They have singular reference, they designate individuals. The most plausible candidates for these designata are abstract universals. So the “designation theory” of general terms favours the doctrine of abstract universals. However, in this paper we argue that this preference involves serious metaphysical problems. Both contemporary doctrines of abstract universals, the Russellian and Neo-Aristotelian, suffer from the problem that they cannot give a theoretically satisfactory account of instantiation of universals by particulars. Hence we conclude that notwithstanding its theoretical appeal owing to its elegant simplicity, the designation theory of general terms ought to be reconsidered.
Semantics through Reference to the Unknown
Semantics through Reference to the Unknown, 2017
In this paper, I dwell on a particular distinction introduced by Ilhan Inan-the distinction between ostensible and inostensible use of our language. The distinction applies to singular terms, such as proper names and definite descriptions, or to general terms like concepts and to the ways in which we refer to objects in the world by using such terms. Inan introduces the distinction primarily as an epistemic one but in his earlier writings (1997: 49) he leaves some room for it to have some semantic significance i.e., the view that in certain intensional de re contexts whether a term occurring in a sentence is ostensible or inostensible may have a bearing on the semantic content of the sentence. However, in his later writings e.g., The Philosophy of Curiosity, he appears to abandon his earlier thoughts regarding the semantic significance of his distinction. He says: "the ostensible/inostensible distinction is basically an epistemic one.... It is an epistemic distinction that has no semantic significance" (2012: 65). I argue that there are indeed such intensional contexts in which the distinction has some semantic significance, i.e., whether a term is ostensible or inostensible has in fact a bearing on what proposition is expressed by the sentence in which the term occurs.
Cognitio-Estudos, 2021
We want to explore in this article the characteristics of prescriptive semantics and its usefulness to solve pragmatic problems, both analytical and synthetic, on meaning. We will proceed in the following way: 1. arguing about the limitations of a non-prescriptive and purely extensional semantics, based on the prediction of formulas of an object-language system; and 2. projecting the advantages of a theory that can pragmatically regulate meaning schemes, to enrich our instruments of meaning and consensus production with the results of scientific innovation and the interaction between different languages. The two authors we used to show this path were Alfred Tarski and Rudolph Carnap on the classical extensionalist side, and Robert Brandom and C.I Lewis on the pragmatist side. The first two were mentioned for an exhibition of formal semantics and its limits; the second two were mentioned for an exposition of a prescriptive and intensional theory and its pragmatic advantages for regulating the prediction of new truths and adaptation to the old ones.
"In its totalizing ambition, there are many reasons to think that the project of reductively characterizing semantic structure may be undesirable in itself. As Stanley Rosen notes, “every hermeneutical program is at the same time itself a political manifesto or the corollary of a political manifesto” (2003: 141). This applies a fortiori to the programme of linguistic semantics, the goal of which is not, as in (applied) hermeneutics, to interpret texts, but to give an account of the very constituents of meaning that any textual interpretation presupposes. Since semantic analyses of language – or, to give them an older name, attempts to identify the “language of thought” – are closely related to claims about the conceptual abilities of speakers and the cultural resources of communities, we semanticists surely should be – and often are – cautious in arguing for the theoretical uniqueness for our current models of meaning. Claiming that, from the point of view of the linguistic system, such and such an expression has such and such core or central semantic properties risks reductively diminishing our picture of the complexity of languages, and hence of the linguistic practices and conceptual and cultural richness of their speakers."
Existential Import in Cartesian Semantics
The paper explores the existential import of universal affirmative in Descartes, Arnauld and Malebranche. Descartes holds, inconsistently, that eternal truths are true even if the subject term is empty but that a proposition with a false idea as subject is false. Malebranche extends Descartes' truthconditions for eternal truths, which lack existential import, to all knowledge, allowing only for non-propositional knowledge of contingent existence.
Pragmatic aspects of a semantic_conception
Cognitio Estudos, 2021
We want to explore in this article the characteristics of prescriptive semantics and its usefulness to solve pragmatic problems, both analytical and synthetic, on meaning. We will proceed in the following way: 1. arguing about the limitations of a non-prescriptive and purely extensional semantics, based on the prediction of formulas of an object-language system; and 2. projecting the advantages of a theory that can pragmatically regulate meaning schemes, to enrich our instruments of meaning and consensus production with the results of scientific innovation and the interaction between different languages. The two authors we used to show this path were Alfred Tarski and Rudolph Carnap on the classical extensionalist side, and Robert Brandom and C.I Lewis on the pragmatist side. The first two were mentioned for an exhibition of formal semantics and its limits; the second two were mentioned for an exposition of a prescriptive and intensional theory and its pragmatic advantages for regulating the prediction of new truths and adaptation to the old ones.
Unarticulated Constituents and Theories of Meaning
2018
This work is an investigation into a phenomenon introduced by John Perry that I call 'totally unarticulated constituents.' These are entities that are part of the propositional content of a speech act, but are not represented by any part of the sentence uttered or of the thought that is being expressed-that is, they are fully unarticulated. After offering a novel definition of this phenomenon, I argue that totally unarticulated constituents are attested in natural language, and may in fact be quite common. This raises fatal problems for a prominent theory of underspecification defended by Jason Stanley, according to which all contextsensitivity (including unarticulated constituents) can be traced to covert variables in the syntax. I then use these findings to draw out important lessons for the philosophy of language, including a rejection of a long-standing Gricean issue known as the "meaningintention problem." I also explore the dialectic between Paul Grice's intention-based semantics and Ruth Millikan's teleosemantics, arguing that Millikan's perception-based response to the problem of underspecification is untenable unless it is modified to give prominence to the speaker's intentions.
Academia Letters, 2021
This short article is a historical reading of some of the persistent traits of philosophical semantics. We observe its development through the paths outlined by the contribution of Frege, Carnap, Tarski and Davidson (occasionally inviting Quine and Etchemendy to the discussion). We're trying to identify a symptom. The form that a semantic theorization tends to take in the course of analytical philosophy by following these authors obeys the following pattern: the theory of language that formal semantics intend to simplify is a general form of the compulsion of this language itself to its interpretative stability. The semantic theories that were elaborated to account for the patterns of interpretation and communication have a recurring limitation: whenever we relativize the notion of meaning and truth (to a model, to a possible world, to a linguistic definition, to a empirical science) some complexity is added. This addition robs our theory from its ability to offer a unitary understanding of the linguistic phenomenon that the very language helps to accomplish. We will keep for the conclusion a general commentary on the circular forms that the definition of meaning in a language has taken, whenever semantic theories have tried to account for intensional and modal phenomena; and, finally, we will draw some philosophical interpretations of this phenomenon.