Carnap’s seminal ‘Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology’ makes important use of the notion of a framework and the related distinction between internal and external questions. But what exactly is a framework? And what role does the internal/external distinction play in Carnap’s metaontology? In an influential series of papers, Matti Eklund has recently defended a bracingly straightforward interpretation: A Carnapian framework, Eklund says, is just a natural language. To ask an internal question, then, is just to ask a question in, say, English. (...) To try to ask an external question is to try, absurdly, to ask a question in no language at all. Finding that so trivial an I/e distinction can’t help to explain Carnap’s deflationary metaontology, Eklund is led to attribute to Carnap a view he calls ontological pluralism. In this paper, I show that Eklund misreads Carnap, and I argue that this misreading obscures fundamental features of Carnap’s philosophy. I then defend an account of frameworks as what Carnap called semantical systems, and I place this account in the context of Carnap’s philosophical program of explication. Finally, I discuss the role that frameworks and the I/e distinction play in ESO, showing that ESO provides no reason to attribute the doctrine of ontological pluralism to Carnap. (shrink)

Frege's theory of indirect contexts and the shift of sense and reference in these contexts has puzzled many. What can the hierarchy of indirect senses, doubly indirect senses, and so on, be? Donald Davidson gave a well-known 'unlearnability' argument against Frege's theory. The present paper argues that the key to Frege's theory lies in the fact that whenever a reference is specified (even though many senses determine a single reference), it is specified in a particular way, so that giving a (...) reference implies giving a sense; and that one must be 'acquainted' with the sense. It is argued that an indirect sense must be 'immediately revelatory' of its reference. General principles for Frege's doctrine of sense and reference are sated, for both direct and indirect quotation, to be understood iteratively. I also discuss Frege's doctrine of tensed and first person statements in the light of my analysis. The views of various other authors are examined. The conclusion is to ascribe to Frege an implicit doctrine of acquaintance similar to that of Russell. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I defend a Russellian form of descriptivism. The main supporting argument invokes a relation between meaning and thought. I argue that the meanings of sentences are the thoughts people use them to express. This is part of a Gricean outlook on meaning according to which psychological intentionality is prior to, and determinative of, linguistic intentionality. The right approach to thought, I argue in Chapter 1, is a type of functionalism on which thoughts have narrow contents. On this (...) view, the attitude ascriptions of a regimented psychology capture what people really believe and desire. These attitude ascriptions have content clauses that are what David Lewis calls ‘modified Ramsey sentences.’ I then conclude that, since the meanings of sentences are the narrow contents of the thoughts speakers use them to express, the meanings of sentences can also be represented with such descriptive sentences. I extend the view so that it applies to individual words. The resulting view is a form of descriptivism. Referring, I claim in Chapter 2, is the expression of a de re attitude. I argue that the non-psychological, de re individuation of thoughts captures only contingent features of these thoughts. Furthermore, whether a thought counts as de re depends on the attributor’s context. These two characteristics carry over to reference. The referential properties of speech acts and expressions are merely contingent features. Furthermore, whether a speech act or expression counts as referring depends upon the attributor’s context. In Chapter 3, I apply this version of descriptivism to indexicals, demonstratives and names. Indexicals turn out to have non-descriptive, context-insensitive, semantically determined meanings. Demonstratives have descriptive, context-sensitive, pragmatically determined meanings. Names, finally, have descriptive, context-insensitive, semantically determined meanings. In the final chapter, I address Putnam's model-theoretic argument, the most formidable obstacle to the form descriptivism outlined here. I criticize Lewis's ‘magnetist’ solution that invokes primitive naturalness because it is committed to the existence of incorrigible error about the external world. I suggest an empiricist approach on which psychological intentionality, and so ultimately linguistic intentionality as well, is anchored in experience. (shrink)

The preface paradox strikes us as puzzling because we feel that if a person holds a set of inconsistent beliefs, i.e. beliefs such that at least one of them must be correct, then he should give at least one of them up. Equally, if a person's belief is rational, then he has a right to hold it. Yet the preface example is prima facie a case in which a person holds an inconsistent set of beliefs each of which is rational, (...) and thus a case in which that person has a duty to relinquish what he has a right to keep. (shrink)

Language is the tradition of nations; each generation describes what it sees, but it uses words transmitted from the past. When a great entity like the British Constitution has continued in connected outward sameness, but hidden inner change, for many ages, every generation inherits a series of inapt words — of maxims once true, but of which the truth is ceasing or has ceased. As a man’s family go on muttering in his maturity incorrect phrases derived from a just observation (...) of his early youth, so, in the full activity of an historical constitution, its subjects repeat phrases true in the time of their fathers, and inculcated by those fathers, but now true no longer. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to show that W. V. O. Quine's animadversions against modal logic did not get the same attention that is considered to be the case nowadays. The community of logicians focused solely on the technical aspects of C. I. Lewis’ systems and did not take Quine's arguments and remarks seriously—or at least seriously enough to respond. In order to assess Quine's place in the history, however, his relation to Carnap is considered since their notorious break (...) was about the status of extensionality and modal logic. Since much of the works about the history of analytic philosophy is centered on the relationship of Quine and Carnap, their break about modality deserves much more attention—it also sheds some light on why should anyone wonder about Quine's early arguments against modal logic. The paper ends with some further considerations regarding the early formation of modal logic and hitherto unconsidered problematic issues. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to prove strong completeness theorems for several Anderson-like variants of Gödels theory wrt. classes of modal structures, in which: (i). 1st order terms order receive only rigid extensions in the constant objectual 1st order domain; (ii). 2nd order terms receive non-rigid extensions in preselected world-relative objectual domains of 2nd order and rigid intensions in the constant conceptual 2nd order domain.

This paper develops a compositional, type-driven constraint semantic theory for a fragment of the language of subjective uncertainty. In the particular application explored here, the interpretation function of constraint semantics yields not propositions but constraints on credal states as the semantic values of declarative sentences. Constraints are richer than propositions in that constraints can straightforwardly represent assessments of the probability that the world is one way rather than another. The richness of constraints helps us model communicative acts in essentially the (...) same way that we model agents’ credences. Moreover, supplementing familiar truth-conditional theories of epistemic modals with constraint semantics helps capture contrasts between strong necessity and possibility modals, on the one hand, and weak necessity modals, on the other. (shrink)

On a widespread reading, the Carnap-Quine debate about ontology concerns the objectivity and non-triviality of ontological claims. I argue that this view mischaracterizes Carnap’s aims in “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology” : Carnap’s fundamental goal is to free up decisions about scientific language from constraints deriving from ontological doctrine. The contention, based on his internal/external distinction, that ontological claims are either meaningless or trivial was Carnap’s means to achieving this more fundamental goal. Setting the record straight on this point brings out (...) three important and often overlooked features of Carnap’s views on ontology. First, the target of Carnap’s critique in ESO is not Quine’s mature views on ontology, as laid out in “On What There Is”. Rather, Carnap is responding to arguments for nominalism that were given by Tarski, Goodman, and Quine in the 1940s. Second, a more general rejection of conservatism in theory choice is essential to Carnap’s aims and is implicit in his fundamental views on language. Third, even if it turns out to be tenable, the i/e distinction is not adequate for Carnap’s aim in ESO. Drawing on his basic conception of scientific language, I will suggest an alternative approach on his behalf. (shrink)

In his published work and even more in conversations, Tarski emphasized what he thought were important philosophical aspects of his work. The English translation of his more philosophical papers [56m] was dedicated to his teacher Tadeusz Kotarbinski, and in informal discussions of philosophy he often referred to the influence of Kotarbinski. Also, the influence of Leiniewski, his dissertation adviser, is evident in his early papers. Moreover, some of his important papers of the 1930s were initially given to philosophical audiences. For (...) example, the famous monograph on the concepotf truth ([33”], [35b]) was first given as twol ectures to the Logic Section of the Philosophical Society in Warsaw in 1930. Second, his paper [33], which introduced the concepts of co-consistency and co-completeness as well as the rule of infinite induction: was first given at the Second Conference of the Polish Philosophical Society in Warsaw in 1927. Also [35c] was based upon an address given in 1934 to the conference for the Unity of Science in Prague; C361 and [36a] summarize an address given at the International Congress of Scientific Philosophy in Paris in 1935. The article [44a] was published in a philosophical journal and widely reprinted in philosophical texts. This list is of course not exhaustiveb ut only representative of Tarski’s philosophical interactions as reflected in lectures given to philosophical audiences, which were later embodied in substantial papers. After 1945 almost all of Tarski’s publications and presentations are mathematical in character with one or two minor exceptions. This division, occurring about 1945, does not, however, indicate al oss of interest in philosophical questionbsu t is a result of Tarski’s moving to the Department of Mathematics at Berkeley. There he assumed an important role in the development of logic within mathematics in the United States. (shrink)

An adequate semantics for generic sentences must stake out positions across a range of contested territory in philosophy and linguistics. For this reason the study of generic sentences is a venue for investigating different frameworks for understanding human rationality as manifested in linguistic phenomena such as quantification, classification of individuals under kinds, defeasible reasoning, and intensionality. Despite the wide variety of semantic theories developed for generic sentences, to date these theories have been almost universally model-theoretic and representational. This essay outlines (...) a range of proof-theoretic analyses for characterizing generics. Particular attention is given to an expressivist proof-theory that can be traced to 1) work on logical syntax that Carnap undertook prior to his turn toward truth-conditional model theory in the late 1930s, and 2) research on sequent calculi and natural deduction systems that originate in work from Gentzen and Prawitz.1. (shrink)

The question whether Frege’s theory of indirect reference enforces an infinite hierarchy of senses has been hotly debated in the secondary literature. Perhaps the most influential treatment of the issue is that of Burge (1979), who offers an argument for the hierarchy from rather minimal Fregean assumptions. I argue that this argument, endorsed by many, does not itself enforce an infinite hierarchy of senses. I conclude that whether or not the theory of indirect reference can avail itself of only finitely (...) many senses is pending further theoretical development. (shrink)

Words change meaning over time. Some meaning shift is accompanied by a corresponding change in subject matter; some meaning shift is not. In this paper I argue that an account of linguistic meaning can accommodate the first kind of case, but that a theory of concepts is required to accommodate the second. Where there is stability of subject matter through linguistic change, it is concepts that provide the stability. The stability provided by concepts allows for genuine disagreement and ameliorative change (...) in the context of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

The phenomenon of quantification into attitude ascriptions has haunted broadly Fregean views, according to which co-referential proper names are not always substitutable salva veritate in attitude ascriptions. Opponents of Fregeanism argue that a belief ascription containing a proper name such as ‘Michael believes that Lindsay is charitable’ is equivalent to a quantified sentence such as ‘there is someone such that Michael believes that she is charitable, and that person is Lindsay’. They conclude that the semantic contribution of a name such (...) as ‘Lindsay’ is the same as the semantic contribution of a variable under an assignment, which these opponents suggest is merely the object assigned to that variable. However, renewed interest in variables suggests that they make a more complicated contribution to the semantic processing of sentences that contain them. In particular, a variable contributes both an assignment-unsaturated and an assignment-saturated semantic value. I use this dual role of the semantics of variables to develop a response to the argument from quantifying in. I take as my point of departure Cumming's () view that an attitude ascription relates the subject of an attitude to the assignment-unsaturated semantic value of an open sentence. I argue that this approach fails. I propose an alternative, according to which the truth of a belief ascription depends on both the assignment-saturated and the assignment-unsaturated semantic value of the open sentence in its that-clause. This approach reverses standard assumptions concerning the relation between quantification and substitution. (shrink)

Robert Stalnaker has argued that mathematical information is information about the sentences and expressions of mathematics. I argue that this metalinguistic account is open to a variant of Alonzo Church's translation objection and that Stalnaker's attempt to get around this objection is not successful. If correct, this tells not only against Stalnaker's account of mathematical truths, but against any metalinguistic account of truths that are both necessary and informative.

Proposition 5.122 of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus has been the source of much puzzlement among interpreters, so much so that no fully satisfactory account is yet available. This is unfortunate, if only because the containment account of logical consequence has a venerable tradition behind it. Pasquale Frascolla’s interpretation of proposition 5.122 is based on a valid argument and one true premise. However, the argument explains sense containment only in an indirect way, leaving some crucial questions unanswered. Besides, Frascolla does not address the (...) issue of how to make sense containment notationally perspicuous, an essential theme in Wittgenstein’s reflections. In this paper, we elaborate on Frascolla’s account by looking at the issue through the Tractarian notion of logical space. Our analysis shows that, for containment to be fully appreciated, one should adopt a negative perspective on the notion of sense, in line with the exclusionary theory of conceptual content, as labelled by Ian Rumfitt. Besides this, we introduce and discuss two methods—one envisaged by Wittgenstein himself—for making sense containment notationally perspicuous. (shrink)

A dilemma has stymied interpretations of the Stranger’s method of dividing kinds into subkinds in Plato’sSophistandStatesman. The dilemma assumes that the kinds are either extensions or intensions. Now kinds divide like extensions, not intensions. But extensions cannot explain the distinct identities of kinds that possess the very same members. We propose understanding a kind as like an animal body—the Stranger’s simile for division—possessing both an extension and an intension. We find textual support in the Stranger’s paradigmatic four steps for collecting (...) a subkind. (shrink)

In a series of papers over a period of several years Barry Smith andWerner Ceusters have offered a number of cogent criticisms of historical approaches to creating, maintaining, and applying biomedical terminologies and ontologies. And they have urged the adoption of what they refer to as a “realism-based” approach. Indeed, at times they insist that the realism-based approach not only offers clear advantages and a well-founded methodological basis for ontology development and evaluation, but that such a realist perspective is in (...) fact necessary for understanding and using terminologies and ontologies in science. -/- This paper explores a number of questions surrounding such claims, provides a careful characterization of the type of realism recommended by Smith and Ceusters, and evaluates the role that realism plays in the critiques and recommendations that they offer. The conclusion reached is that while Smith’s and Ceusters’ criticisms of prior practice in the treatment of ontologies and terminologies in medical informatics are often both perceptive and well founded, and while at least some of their own proposals demonstrate obvious merit and promise, none of this either follows from or requires the brand of realism that they propose. (shrink)

Many claims about conceptual matters are often represented as, or inferred from, claims about the meaning, reference, or mastery, of words. But sometimes this has led to treating conceptual analysis as though it were nothing but linguistic analysis. We canvass the most promising justifications for moving from linguistic premises to substantive conclusions. We show that these justifications fail and argue against current practice (in metaethics and elsewhere), which confuses an investigation of a word’s meaning, reference, or competence conditions with an (...) analysis of some concept or property associated with that word. (shrink)

In many diagrams one seems to perceive necessity – one sees not only that something is so, but that it must be so. That conflicts with a certain empiricism largely taken for granted in contemporary philosophy, which believes perception is not capable of such feats. The reason for this belief is often thought well-summarized in Hume's maxim: ‘there are no necessary connections between distinct existences’. It is also thought that even if there were such necessities, perception is too passive or (...) localized a faculty to register them. We defend the perception of necessity against such Humeanism, drawing on examples from mathematics. (shrink)

This paper investigates the relation between Carnap and Quine’s views on analyticity on the one hand, and their views on philosophical analysis or explication on the other. I argue that the stance each takes on what constitutes a successful explication largely dictates the view they take on analyticity. I show that although acknowledged by neither party (in fact Quine frequently expressed his agreement with Carnap on this subject) their views on explication are substantially different. I argue that this difference not (...) only explains their differences on the question of analyticity, but points to a Quinean way to answer a challenge that Quine posed to Carnap. The answer to this challenge leads to a Quinean view of analyticity such that arithmetical truths are analytic, according to Quine’s own remarks, and set theory is at least defensibly analytic. (shrink)

We offer an interpretation of the words and works of Richard Dedekind and the David Hilbert of around 1900 on which they are held to entertain diverging views on the structure of a deductive science. Firstly, it is argued that Dedekind sees the beginnings of a science in concepts, whereas Hilbert sees such beginnings in axioms. Secondly, it is argued that for Dedekind, the primitive terms of a science are substantive terms whose sense is to be conveyed by elucidation, whereas (...) Hilbert dismisses elucidation and consequently treats the primitives as schematic. (shrink)

This article presents a fundamental advance in the theory of mental models as an explanation of reasoning about facts, possibilities, and probabilities. It postulates that the meanings of compound assertions, such as conditionals (if) and disjunctions (or), unlike those in logic, refer to conjunctions of epistemic possibilities that hold in default of information to the contrary. Various factors such as general knowledge can modulate these interpretations. New information can always override sentential inferences; that is, reasoning in daily life is defeasible (...) (or nonmonotonic). The theory is a dual process one: It distinguishes between intuitive inferences (based on system 1) and deliberative inferences (based on system 2). The article describes a computer implementation of the theory, including its two systems of reasoning, and it shows how the program simulates crucial predictions that evidence corroborates. It concludes with a discussion of how the theory contrasts with those based on logic or on probabilities. (shrink)

Summary Ordinary language philosophers frequently draw on the fact that an appropriately selected sentential combination of the form p but not q can, or cannot, be uttered without absurdity; however, they do so without sufficient reflection on the methodology of such combination tests, which results in considerable shortcomings even in practical application. To improve things, I shall discuss two criteria for distinguishing ‘pragmatic’ from ‘non-pragmatic’ implications and for separating the latter into ‘linguistic’ (‘semantic’ and ‘syntactical’) and ‘non-linguistic’ ones (2–3); consider (...) the bearing of the principle of ‘sense-constancy‘ on the applicability of combination tests (4); and call attention to the important, though merely heuristic, function of investigating pragmatic, as opposed to semantic, implications (5.1–5.2). Finally, I shall hint at a striking analogy between the linguistic (yet non-empirical) method of combination tests, the phenomenological method of ‘fictional variation’, and the empirical method of ‘conjectures and refutations’ (5.3). (shrink)

In this article I contrast in two ways those conceptions of semantic theory deriving from Richard Montague's Intensional Logic (IL) and later developments with conceptions that stick pretty closely to a far weaker semantic apparatus for human first languages. IL is a higher-order language incorporating the simple theory of types. As such, it endows predicates with a reference. Its intensional features yield a conception of propositional identity (namely necessary equivalence) that has seemed to many to be too coarse to be (...) acceptable. In the most usual expositions, it takes the object of linguistic explication to be the sentence in a context, as in Kaplan, 1977. This last has led to recent speculations about 'shifted' contexts. IL may be contrasted with a more linguistically (representationally) bound conception of propositions and interpretation of their predicational and functional parts, and with the explication, not of sentences in contexts, but of potential utterances, relative to the antecedent referential intentions of their speakers. We may then advance, as an empirical hypothesis about all human languages, that contexts never shift, and propose that apparent counterexamples stem from the misconstrual of linguistically coded anaphoric relations, relations that are wanted independently anyway. Donald Davidson's posthumous volume Truth and Predication mounts a sustained criticism of the notion of predicate reference. This criticism is not decisive. However, it may put the ball in the other court, insofar as it asks for a justification of what IL takes as given. Elaborations of IL using structured propositions, recently defended in King, 2007, recognize the problem of predicate reference, and the correlative issue of the 'unity of the proposition'; but I do not see that they can do better than bite the bullet already bitten in IL. I agree with Frege's insight that full justification of predicate reference pushes the boundaries of natural language, and to that extent may not be found within the semantic (as opposed to general scientific) enterprise. (shrink)

Can a naturalist earn the right to talk of a shared empirical world? Hume famously thought not, and contemporary stipulative naturalists infer from this inability that the demand is somehow unnatural. The critical naturalist, by contrast, claims to earn that right. In this paper, I motivate critical naturalism, arguing first that stipulative naturalism is question begging, and second, that the pessimism it inherits from Hume about whether the problem can be solved is misplaced. Hume's mistake was to mis-identify exemplary contexts (...) of thought: thought is a kind of action, better exemplified at the backgammon table or the dinner party than in the study. By earning the right to this environment-involving conception of thought, the critical naturalist can address, rather than avoid, the explanatory problem Hume uncovered. (shrink)

Near the end of the last century, some legal philosophers adapted the so called causal theories of reference to solve internal problems in legal theory. Among those philosophers, Nicos Stavropoulos adjusted Hilary Putnam’s semantic externalism claiming it as a better philosophical view than legal positivism defended by Herbert Hart. According to him, what determines the correct application of a legal rule must be determined by the objects themselves. In that case, what determines the reference of legal terms is an issue (...) to be solved by the best theory developed. However, this is not the case necessarily: Hart’s model can reach to the same conclusions as an externalist adjustment of law. Furthermore, the epistemic criteria required by Putnam to deal with value judgements are also acceptable in a positivist model. This paper presents the central thesis of Putnam’s semantic externalism, with Stavropoulos adaptations to law, and defends that Hart’s approach to deal with legal rules and Putnam’s approach to deal with language rules can converge. (shrink)

The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com.

The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com.

Attitude reports are reports about people’s states of mind. They are reports about what people think, believe, know, know a priori, imagine, hate, wish, fear, and the like. So, for example, I might report that s knows p, or that she imagines p, or that she hates p, where p specifies the content to which s is purportedly related. One lively current debate centers around the question of what sort of specification is involved when such attitude reports are successful. Some (...) hold that it is specification of the precise content of a mental state; others hold that it is specification of the content of a mental state only relative to a mode of presentation; yet others hold that it is merely a description or characterization of the content of a mental state. After providing a brief introduction to the traditional debate on attitude reports, this entry argues that for certain kinds of knowledge reports and for so-called de re attitude reports, descriptive theories emerge as the most plausible. The entry concludes with a discussion of how the characterizing relation between attitude reports and mental states might be construed. (shrink)

In this paper I consider recent developments in neo-pragmatism, and in particular the degree of convergence between such approaches and those placing greater emphasis on truth and truth-makers. I urge that although a global pragmatism has its merits, it by no means closes the space for a more Wittgensteinian, finer-grained, approach to the diversity of functions served by modal, causal, moral, or other modes of thought.

The traditional Lewis–Stalnaker semantics treats all counterfactuals with an impossible antecedent as trivially or vacuously true. Many have regarded this as a serious defect of the semantics. For intuitively, it seems, counterfactuals with impossible antecedents—counterpossibles—can be non-trivially true and non-trivially false. Whereas the counterpossible "If Hobbes had squared the circle, then the mathematical community at the time would have been surprised" seems true, "If Hobbes had squared the circle, then sick children in the mountains of Afghanistan at the time would (...) have been thrilled" seems false. Many have proposed to extend the Lewis–Stalnaker semantics with impossible worlds to make room for a non-trivial or non-vacuous treatment of counterpossibles. Roughly, on the extended Lewis–Stalnaker semantics, we evaluate a counterfactual of the form "If A had been true, then C would have been true" by going to closest world—whether possible or impossible—in which A is true and check whether C is also true in that world. If the answer is "yes", the counterfactual is true; otherwise it is false. Since there are impossible worlds in which the mathematically impossible happens, there are impossible worlds in which Hobbes manages to square the circle. And intuitively, in the closest such impossible worlds, sick children in the mountains of Afghanistan are not thrilled—they remain sick and unmoved by the mathematical developments in Europe. If so, the counterpossible "If Hobbes had squared the circle, then sick children in the mountains of Afghanistan at the time would have been thrilled" comes out false, as desired. In this paper, I will critically investigate the extended Lewis–Stalnaker semantics for counterpossibles. I will argue that the standard version of the extended semantics, in which impossible worlds correspond to maximal, logically inconsistent entities, fails to give the correct semantic verdicts for many counterpossibles. In light of the negative arguments, I will then outline a new version of the extended Lewis–Stalnaker semantics that can avoid these problems. (shrink)

Karl Popper developed a theory of deductive logic in the late 1940s. In his approach, logic is a metalinguistic theory of deducibility relations that are based on certain purely structural rules. Logical constants are then characterized in terms of deducibility relations. Characterizations of this kind are also called inferential definitions by Popper. In this paper, we expound his theory and elaborate some of his ideas and results that in some cases were only sketched by him. Our focus is on Popper's (...) notion of duality, his theory of modalities, and his treatment of different kinds of negation. This allows us to show how his works on logic anticipate some later developments and discussions in philosophical logic, pertaining to trivializing connectives, the duality of logical constants, dual-intuitionistic logic, the conservativeness of language extensions, the existence of a bi-intuitionistic logic, the non-logicality of minimal negation, and to the problem of logicality in general. (shrink)

I argue for the claim in the title. Along the way, I also address an independently interesting question: what is metaphysics, anyway? I think that the typical characterizations of metaphysics are inadequate, that a better one is available, and that the better one helps explain why metaphysics is no more problematic than the rest of philosophy.

In this paper, it is argued that there can be necessary and non-natural desires. After a discussion about what seems wrong with such desires, Epicurus’ classification of desires is treated similarly to Kripke’s treatment of the Kantian table of judgments. A sample of three cases is suggested to make this point.

Words have meaning. Sentences also have meaning, but their meaning is different in kind from any collection of the meanings of the words they contain. I discuss two puzzles related to this difference. The first is how the meanings of the parts of a sentence combine to give rise to a unified sentential meaning, as opposed to a mere collection of disparate meanings (UP1). The second is why the formal ontology of linguistic meaning changes when grammatical structure is built up (...) (UP2). For example, the meaning of a sentence is a proposition evaluable for truth and falsity. In contrast, a collection of the meanings of its parts does not constitute a proposition and is not evaluable for truth. These two puzzles are closely related, since change in formal ontology is the clearest sign of the unity of meaning. The most popular strategy for answering them is taking the meanings of the parts as abstractions from primitive sentence meanings. However, I argue that, given plausible psychological constraints, sentence meanings cannot be taken as explanatory primitives. Drawing on recent work in Generative Grammar and its philosophy, I suggest that the key to both unity questions is to distinguish strictly between lexical and grammatical meaning. The latter is irreducible and determines how lexical content is used in referential acts. I argue that these referential properties determine a formal ontology, which explains why and how formal ontology changes when grammatical structure is built up (UP2). As for UP1, I suggest that, strictly speaking, lexical meanings never combine. Instead, whenever grammar specifies a formal ontology for the lexical meanings entering a grammatical derivation, further lexical (or phrasal) meanings can only specify aspects of this recursive grammatical process. In this way, contemporary grammatical theory can be used to address old philosophical problems. (shrink)