Assertion plays a crucial dual role in Frege's conception of logic, a formal and a transcendental one. A recurrent complaint is that Frege's inclusion of the judgement-stroke in the Begriffsschrift is either in tension with his anti-psychologism or wholly superfluous. Assertion, the objection goes, is at best of merely psychological significance. In this paper, I defend Frege against the objection by giving reasons for recognising the central logical significance of assertion in both its formal and its transcendental role.

Frege seems committed to the thesis that the senses of the fundamental notions of arithmetic remain stable and are stably grasped by thinkers throughout history. Fully competent practitioners grasp those senses clearly and distinctly, while uncertain practitioners see them, the very same senses, “as if through a mist”. There is thus a common object of the understanding apprehended to a greater or lesser degree by thinkers of diverging conceptual competence. Frege takes the thesis to be a condition for the possibility (...) of the rational intelligibility of mathematical practice. I argue however that the idea that senses could be grasped as a matter of degree is in tension with the constitutive theses that Frege held with regard to sense. Given those theses, there can in fact be no such thing as misty grasp of sense, since any uncertainty as to the logical features of a given sense will entail that one is getting hold of a different sense or of no sense at all. I consider various ways of resolving the tension and conclude that Frege’s thesis cannot be defended if we take it to be a thesis about our competence with concepts. This leaves unresolved what I call the problem of normative guidance, that is, the problem of explaining how the fundamental notions of logic and arithmetic can provide inferential guidance to thinkers. (shrink)

Linguistic creativity is the ability to understand indefinitely many previously unencountered sentences. In this paper, I compare Chomsky’s and Ricœur’s contrasting conceptions of this ability, in particular, their divergent views of nonsense. With nonsense, it seems as if syntax is outrunning semantics. Chomsky took this to show that syntax is autonomous of semantics. I propose a reading of Ricœur’s work on metaphor whereby Chomsky’s thesis is modified so that syntax and semantics are declared to be ultimately co-extensive notions.

What does it mean to be a rational language user? What is it to obey linguistic rules? What is the proper account of linguistic competence? A Fregean answer to these questions would make essential appeal to the notion of sense: we are masters of a language to the extent that we are able to recognise the cognitive value of its expressions; we are rational judges regarding truth-value assignments to the extent that we are sensitive to the ways in which the (...) sense of an expression guides us in the semantic evaluation process; and as for obeying rules, it is our ability to respond to how sense directs us, for a particular assertion of a sentence, towards the determination of its truth-value that best exemplifies what it is like to follow a linguistic rule. My thesis explores a cluster of closely interrelated issues arising from these questions. Accordingly, in tracing the routes of sense my dissertation places itself at the intersection of the philosophy of language, linguistics, philosophy of logic, and meta-ethics—and indeed, I end up agreeing with Allan Gibbard that the theory of meaning really belongs to meta-ethical reflection. Chapter 1 introduces some of the main research questions that I try to address in the rest of the thesis. In chapter 2 I state a number of theses which I take to be the defining ones for semanticism. I show that they form a class of jointly incompatible commitments. I choose nonsense as a problem case for compositionality and I argue that it forces the semanticist to abandon either the learnability or the compositionality constraint. The escape route I adopt, going radically minimalist about content, is incompatible with another key semanticist thesis, namely, that grasp of meaning is grasp of truth-conditions. In chapter 3, I consider the account of atomic meanings given by both the semanticist and the pragmaticist and I conclude that on neither account does interpretation come out as a process of rational choice between candidate bearers of content. Again, I suggest the lesson from indeterminacy is that we ought to embrace an ineradicably minimal conception of content. In chapter 4 I turn my attention to the meaning of the logical constants and I argue that indeterminacy worries extend to the very heart of the compositional machinery. Chapter 5 examines the view that logic is the science of reasoning. Unsurprisingly, I conclude that a defence of this claim requires endorsing content-minimalism. In chapter 6 I conclude my dissertation by sketching a radical view of content minimalism and I try to show how it can solve the puzzles I had been considering over the course of the previous chapters. (shrink)

Using the metaphor of a circle with its center, periphery, and radius, this essay explores William Poteat's understanding of the self, or "mindbody," in its dynamic and creative relation to the larger world, or cosmos, identifying the mindbody's prereflective radix with the "center," its boundary or point of interface with the larger world with the "periphery," and its dialectical evolution and articulation of a sense of coherence and meaning in terms of a pretensive and retrotensive "radius.".

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Democracy, Spirit, and RevitalizationWalter B. Gulick (bio)The assumptions of democracy as an associational ethos of vulnerable life are, first, that we don't already know how best to order our common life and, second, that we don't know what the abstract ideals of empathy, emancipation, and equity entail in the concrete.—Michael Hogue1In American Immanence: Democracy for an Uncertain World, Michael S. Hogue grounds his proposal for a political theology in (...) a critique of American exceptionalism and its supportive "redeemer symbolic."2 In the Anthropocene era, Hogue states, American exceptionalism "legitimates the extraction of diverse forms of value and justifies the externalization of diverse costs" (29) with unconscionable costs to the natural environment and international justice. As indicated in the passage quoted above, Hogue's reaction to the rigid assumptions supportive of American exceptionalism is to offer a humble acknowledgement of political fallibility coupled with what he terms "a theopolitics of resilient democracy" (184; see also 3–6).My concern in this essay is largely practical. I will focus on discerning what intellectual, emotional, and communal resources might be drawn upon to further develop and actually effect the needed changes that Hogue so ably points out. Relatedly, I will inquire into who the most likely candidates are to devote energy to the reconstruction of social structures and practices so that they express values that Americans at their best uphold. Finally, I will reflect upon the role that spiritual ideals and communal practices might play in energizing effective democratic action. [End Page 5]I. Hogue's Critical and Constructive TasksHogue's overriding interest is to outline an epistemic/axiological/environmental/political stance that does not give rise to the various sorts of injustices and dysfunctions that mark the Anthropocene era, especially our allegiance to policies that eventuate in what he calls "climate wickedness." The alternative vision he embraces develops pragmatic naturalism as a method of inquiry and exposition. His reflections are especially indebted to the thought of Dewey, James, and Whitehead (78–82). During a time when e-words are normally associated with forms of electronic communication, Hogue offers instead two trios of e-words with another sort of significance—one that signifies a stance he wishes to overcome and one that communicates what he hopes to achieve. Our current era is unfortunately in thrall, he says, to extraction, externalization, and exception, whereas what we should strive for is a society marked by empathy, emancipation, and equitability. Well put. He presupposes that democratic governance, deeply embedded in American history, ought to serve as the vehicle for achieving what the positive set of e-words promotes. To this end, Hogue quotes appreciatively from Dewey's article, "Democracy is Radical": Democracy "is radical because it requires great change in existing social institutions, economic, legal and cultural" (170). This understanding of democracy slumbers now; what might it take to reawaken it? And if reawakened, what changes might be made to establish the more nearly equitable political influence that is basic to the promise of democracy?Hogue, recognizing in good pragmatic fashion the importance of consequential change, states, "In contrast to foundationalist commitments to antecedents and precedents, pragmatic naturalism commits to a prospective concern with consequents" (80). Foundational commitments to antecedents may certainly impede needed change, but surely attention to the historical events and practices that gave rise to current problems is needed to avoid repeating previous errors. Hogue refers to Whitehead's vision of social symbolism, suggesting that "social change can be catalyzed by the improvised revision of existing symbolic repertoires or the innovative formation or subversive interjection of new symbols" (99). I'm not fully convinced by Whitehead's claim. I suspect that many of our social problems are rooted below the linguistic level in an array of affective issues that elude symbolic adjustment. New strategies are needed to counter the prevalence of fear and resentment in society as promoted for political and commercial reasons and tied to Hogue's strongly voiced recognition that we live in an uncertain world.Here is my understanding of how Hogue both frames our current social and cultural situation and what he says might begin to remediate these circumstances. [End Page... (shrink)

Participants have known Poteat as teacher or colleague or author over various periods of time and assess him according to these various relationships. Polanyi is given less attention largely because he has been less difficult to understand. Poteat’s approach is the more radical because he attempts to take the implications of Polanyi’s thinking further. Central to comprehending the nature of their differences are an understanding (1) of their different perceptions of transcendence and (2) of the contrasting groundings they provide for (...) reality. (shrink)

Participants have known Poteat as teacher or colleague or author over various periods of time and assess him according to these various relationships. Polanyi is given less attention largely because he has been less difficult to understand. Poteat’s approach is the more radical because he attempts to take the implications of Polanyi’s thinking further. Central to comprehending the nature of their differences are an understanding (1) of their different perceptions of transcendence and (2) of the contrasting groundings they provide for (...) reality. (shrink)

This is intended as an introductory statement to the explorations undertaken in the essays that follow. The authors of these essays attempt to introduce the reader to some of the insights of Michael Polanyi and their implications for the reader who wishes to come to a greater understanding of modern technological society, which — for better or worse — has come to define his very existence. Arguably, no twentieth-century thinker has probed more deeply than Polanyi into the dynamics of scientific (...) discovery or demonstrated more courage in his willingness to think outside the box of ruling orthodoxies and, consequently, come up with more profound insights and radically new ways of understanding the processes of scientific inquiry, their technological implications, and the sometimes fateful, but potentially fruitful, relationships that exist among science, technology, and society. Each of the following nine authors, grounded in different fields of study and research, but also in a common appreciation of Polanyi’s contributions, offers valuable insights into this multi-faceted subject. (shrink)

Using the metaphor of a circle with its center, periphery, and radius, this essay explores William Poteat's understanding of the self, or "mindbody," in its dynamic and creative relation to the larger world, or cosmos, identifying the mindbody's prereflective radix with the "center," its boundary or point of interface with the larger world with the "periphery," and its dialectical evolution and articulation of a sense of coherence and meaning in terms of a pretensive and retrotensive "radius.".