Abstract
The rule of universal instantiation appears to be subject to counterexamples, although the rule of existential generalization is not subject to the same doubts. This paper is a survey of ways of responding to this problem, both conservative and revisionist. The conclusion drawn is that logical validity should be defined in terms of assertibility in a context rather than in terms of truth on an interpretation. Contexts are here defined, not in terms of the attitudes of the interlocutors, but in terms of the goals of conversation, and assertibility is explained in terms of cooperation.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Bencivenga, Ermanno: 1986, 'Free Logics', in D. Gabbay and F. Guenther (eds.), The Handbook of Philosophical Logic, Vol. III, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, pp. 373-426.
Chierchia, Gennaro: 1995, Dynamics of Meaning: Anaphora, Presupposition and the Theory of Grammar, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Davis, Steven, (ed.): 1991, Pragmatics: A Reader, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Gauker, Christopher: 1994, Thinking Out Loud: An Essay on the Relation between Thought and Language, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.
Gauker, Christopher: 1997, 'Domain of Discourse', Mind 106, 1-32.
Gauker, Christopher: forthcoming, 'What is a Context of Utterance?', Philosophical Studies.
Garson, James: 1983, 'Quantification in Modal Logic', in D. Gabbay and F. Guenther (eds.), The Handbook of Philosophical Logic, Vol. II, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, pp. 249-309.
Garson, James: 1991, 'Applications of Free Logic to Quantified Intensional Logic', in Karel Lambert (ed.), Philosophical Applications of Free Logic, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 111-142
Kaplan, David: 1989, 'Demonstratives', in Joseph Almog, John Perry, and Howard Wettstein (eds.), Themes from Kaplan, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 481-563.
Karttunen, Lauri and Peters, Stanley: 1979, 'Conventional Implicature', in C. Oh and D. Dineen (eds.), Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 11: Presupposition, Academic Press, New York, pp. 1-56.
Karttunen, Lauri: 1974, 'Presupposition and Linguistic Context', Theoretical Linguistics 1, 181-194. (Reprinted in Davis 1991.)
Leblanc, Hugues: 1976, Truth-Value Semantics, Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co.
Lewis, David: 1979, 'Scorekeeping in a Language Game', Journal of Philosophical Logic 8, 339-359. (Reprinted in Davis 1991.)
Reimer, Marga: 1992, 'Incomplete Descriptions', Erkenntnis 37, 347-363.
Sellars, Wilfrid: 1954, 'Presupposing', Philosophical Review 63, 197-215.
Soames, Scott: 1986, 'Incomplete Definite Descriptions', Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 27, 349-375.
Stalnaker, Robert: 1972, 'Pragmatics', in Donald Davidson and Gilbert (eds.), Semantics of Natural Language, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, pp. 380-397.
Stalnaker, Robert: 1973, 'Presuppositions', Journal of Philosophical Logic 2, 447-457.
Stalnaker, Robert: 1976, 'Indicative Conditionals', in W. L. Harper, R. Stalnaker and G. Pearce (eds.), Ifs, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, pp. 193-210.
Stalnaker, Robert: 1991, 'Pragmatic Presuppositions', in Steven Davis (ed.), Pragmatics: A Reader, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 471-481. (Originally published 1974.)
Stalnaker, Robert, and Thomason, Richmond: 1970, 'A Semantic Analysis of Conditional Logic', Theoria 36, 23-42.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gauker, C. UNIVERSAL INSTANTIATION: A STUDY OF THE ROLE OF CONTEXT IN LOGIC. Erkenntnis 46, 185–214 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005380919258
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005380919258