The standard view on discourse pronoun resolution is that determining the antecedents of discourse pronouns is typically a function of extralinguistic reasoning. In contrast, Stojnić (2021) argues that pronoun resolution is a function of linguistic facts. In this article we offer what we take to be a friendly amendment to the technical aspects of Stojnić’s proposal. Our point of departure will be with our idea that prominence is not determined by the position of the candidate antecedent within a stack, but (...) rather by its position within standard syntactic tree structures, extended to include discourse-level trees. Our proposal leans on the notion of p-scope, a proof-theoretic accessibility relation among tree nodes which we develop in Ludlow and Živanović (2022), and the notion of closeness built on standard accounts of syntactic locality. The key idea is that a pronoun’s antecedent resolves to its closest p-scoper; specifically, p-scope determines the potential antecedents, and the closeness relation orders these by prominence. Coherence relations, which we provisionally represent as syntactic heads, can be then seen as affecting accessibility and prominence indirectly, in virtue of their position in traditional LF tree structures. (shrink)

In this review, I present and discuss the main aspects of Peter Ludlow's theory of interperspectival contents.

The titular ‘Mary’ refers to Jackson’s famous protagonist. Her story takes place in the future, when all physical facts have been discovered. This includes “everything in completed physics, chemistry, and neurophysiology, and all there is to know about the causal and relational facts consequent upon all this, including of course functional roles”. Mary learns all this by watching lectures on a monochromatic television monitor. But she spends her life in a black-and-white room and has no color experiences. Then she leaves (...) the room and sees colors for the first time. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Tensism is the view that tense is not merely a property of language and the mind, but of the world itself. Perspectivalism extends this idea to all perspectival properties be they person or locational. One challenge that perspectivalism faces is the problem of expressing the contents of the beliefs and utterances of persons that are in other perspectival positions. One proposed solution to this problem is to allow for semantic theories that "realign" the expression of contents so that the (...) contents expressed by persons in other perspectival positions can be re-expressed from one's own perspectival position. In this paper I argue that a similar semantic realignment strategy could be deployed in helping perspectivalists generally come to grips with a puzzle raised by the Special Theory of Relativity. In short, the strategy is to realign the expression of contents in another inertial frame so that they are expressed from within your inertial frame. As we will see, the strategy is not puzzle free. (shrink)

Historically the words representation and symbol have had overlapping meanings, meanings that usually disregard the role played by the interpreter. Peirce’s theory of signs accounts for these meanings and also for the role of the interpreter. His theory draws attention to the static and dynamic nature of signs. Sign interpretation can be viewed as a continuous dynamic and evolving process. The static and dynamic nature of signs helps us understand the teaching–learning activity as a process of interpretation on the part (...) of teacher and students. The paper attempts to explain the classroom interpretation process on the part of the actors involved using the Peircean theory of signs. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Learning How to Innovate as a Socio-epistemological Process of Co-creation: Towards a Constructivist Teaching Strategy for Innovation” by Markus F. Peschl, Gloria Bottaro, Martina Hartner-Tiefenthaler & Katharina Rötzer. Upshot: This commentary emphasizes the three levels of a teaching methodology designed to scaffold conceptual autonomy and innovation on the part of graduate students with diverse areas of expertise.

Peter Ludlow shows how word meanings are much more dynamic than we might have supposed, and explores how they are modulated even during everyday conversation. The resulting view is radical, and has far-reaching consequences for our political and legal discourse, and for enduring puzzles in the foundations of semantics, epistemology, and logic.

Peter Ludlow presents the first book on the philosophy of generative linguistics, including both Chomsky's government and binding theory and his minimalist ...

In this book Ludlow uses the metaphysics of time as a case study and focuses on the dispute between A-theorists and B-theorists about the nature of time.

_The Philosophy of Mind_ remains the only sourcebook of primary readings offering in-depth coverage of both historical works and contemporary controversies in philosophy of mind. This second edition provides expanded treatment of classical as well as current topics, with many additional readings and a new section on mental content. The writers included range from Aristotle, Descartes, and William James to such leading contemporary thinkers as Noam Chomsky, Paul and Patricia Churchland, and Jaegwon Kim. The 83 selections provide a thorough survey (...) of five areas of enduring controversy: the mind-body problem, mental causation, mental content, innatism and modularity, and associationism and connectionism. Each section includes an introductory overview of the topic by the editors as well as suggestions for further reading. The selections added for the second edition serve both to enhance historical coverage and to update contemporary issues, especially in areas of current empirical research such as connectionism and innatism. Changes to historical coverage include a wider array of readings on classic positions as well as neglected precursors to views often considered recent innovations. The section on the mind-body problem in particular has been greatly expanded, including numerous selections on consciousness and phenomenal qualities. The book is ideal for both undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy and the history of psychology and will be useful both as a reference for researchers and a self-contained survey for the general reader. (shrink)

This book explores the idea that all of logic can be reduced to two very simple rules that are sensitive to logical polarity. The authors show that this idea has profound consequences for our understanding of the nature of human inferential capacities, and for some of the key issues in contemporary linguistics.

Ethical awareness enables nurses to recognize the ethical implications of all practice actions, and is an important component of safe and high quality nursing care (Milliken 2016; Milliken and Grac...

One of the most provocative projects in recent analytic philosophy has been the development of the doctrine of externalism, or, as it is often called, anti-individualism. While there is no agreement as to whether externalism is true or not, a number of recent investigations have begun to explore the question of what follows if it is true. One of the most interesting of these investigations thus far has been the question of whether externalism has consequences for the doctrine that we (...) have authoritative, a priori self-knowledge of our mental states. The selected works presented in this volume, some previously published, some new, are representative of this debate and open up new questions and issues for philosophical investigation, including the connection between externalism, self-knowledge, epistemic warrant, and memory. (shrink)

The incredible achievements of modern scientific theories lead most of us to embrace scientific realism: the view that our best theories offer us at least roughly accurate descriptions of otherwise inaccessible parts of the world like genes, atoms, and the big bang. In Exceeding Our Grasp, Stanford argues that careful attention to the history of scientific investigation invites a challenge to this view that is not well represented in contemporary debates about the nature of the scientific enterprise. The historical record (...) of scientific inquiry, Stanford suggests, is characterized by what he calls the problem of unconceived alternatives. Past scientists have routinely failed even to conceive of alternatives to their own theories and lines of theoretical investigation, alternatives that were both well-confirmed by the evidence available at the time and sufficiently serious as to be ultimately accepted by later scientific communities. Stanford supports this claim with a detailed investigation of the mid-to-late 19th century theories of inheritance and generation proposed in turn by Charles Darwin, Francis Galton, and August Weismann. He goes on to argue that this historical pattern strongly suggests that there are equally well-confirmed and scientifically serious alternatives to our own best theories that remain currently unconceived. Moreover, this challenge is more serious than those rooted in either the so-called pessimistic induction or the underdetermination of theories by evidence, in part because existing realist responses to these latter challenges offer no relief from the problem of unconceived alternatives itself. Stanford concludes by investigating what positive account of the spectacularly successful edifice of modern theoretical science remains open to us if we accept that our best scientific theories are powerful conceptual tools for accomplishing our practical goals, but abandon the view that the descriptions of the world around us that they offer are therefore even probably or approximately true. (shrink)

The place of the emotions among the passions -- The analytic of the emotions I -- The analytic of the emotions II -- The dialectic of the emotions -- Pride, arrogance, and humility -- Shame, embarrassment, and guilt -- Envy -- Jealousy -- Anger -- Love -- Friendship -- Sympathy and empathy.

We often find ourselves communicating from radically different perspectives on the world. In this new book Ludlow explains how we successfully communicate across some radically diverse perspectival positions, including diverse temporal, spatial and personal positions, through our use of cognitive dynamics.

The arguments presented in this comprehensive collection have important implications for the philosophy of mind and the study of consciousness.

A central theme of this collection is that the philosophy of language, at least a core portion of it, has matured to the point where it is now being spun off ...

David Chalmers argues that virtual objects exist in the form of data structures that have causal powers. I argue that there is a large class of virtual objects that are social objects and that do not depend upon data structures for their existence. I also argue that data structures are themselves fundamentally social objects. Thus, virtual objects are fundamentally social objects.

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction Some Important Distinctions Are Referential Semantics for I‐languages Possible? Language/World Isomorphism Chomsky's Arguments against LWI Aspects of the World Conclusion.