The inconsistency of natural languages: How we live with it
Inquiry 50 (6):590 – 605 (2007)
| Abstract | I revisit my earlier arguments for the (trivial) inconsistency of natural languages, and take up the objection that no such argument can be established on the basis of surface usage. I respond with the evidential centrality of surface usage: the ways it can and can't be undercut by linguistic science. Then some important ramifications of having an inconsistent natural language are explored: (1) the temptation to engage in illegitimate reductio reasoning, (2) the breakdown of the knowledge idiom (because its facticity isn't comfortable with every sentence being true and false). Restoring the utility of the knowledge idiom motivates regimentation - the consistentist reinterpretation of natural language inferences (as they occur in real time). It's then sketched how to give the semantics of a natural language despite its inconsistency: Necessary and sufficient truth conditions are dropped in favor of necessary truth conditions and sufficient truth conditions | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,701 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesNeil Campbell (2012). Reply to Nagasawa on the Inconsistency Objection to the Knowledge Argument. Erkenntnis 76 (1):137-145.
Geoffrey Sampson (1976). An Empirical Hypothesis About Natural Semantics. Journal of Philosophical Logic 5 (2):209 - 236.
Douglas Patterson (2009). Inconsistency Theories of Semantic Paradox. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 79 (2):387-422.
Graham Priest (1984). Semantic Closure. Studia Logica 43 (1-2):117 - 129.
George Lakoff (1970). Linguistics and Natural Logic. Synthese 22 (1-2):151 - 271.
Berit Brogaard, Inconsistency Theories of Semantic Paradox, by Douglas Patterson. Philosopher's Digest.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads39 ( #29,838 of 549,122 )Recent downloads (6 months)3 ( #25,740 of 549,122 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
