About this topic
Summary It seems obvious that the connection between, on one hand, the sounds, shapes, movements and the like that underwrite language use and, on the other hand, core linguistic properties, like grammatical properties and meanings, is fairly arbitrary. The same sounds, shapes, movements, etc., that are used in English to say that the cat is on the mat could easily have been used to say that the ship is sinking. And other sounds, shapes, movements, etc., could easily have been used to say that the cat is on the mat. The general question that accounts of linguistic convention aim to answer is, how are the connections here instituted? Sometimes 'conventional' is used to indicate the type of connection in question here, in which case it is assumed that the relevant connections are conventional, and the difficulty is to explain in detail the nature of the relevant conventions. Other times, specific accounts are given of what conventions are, and the difficulty is to demonstrate, or explain, whether, and if so how, those accounts apply to the institution of connections in the sphere of language. Taking the latter route, some philosophers have provided detailed accounts of convention on which participation in a convention seems to require mutual knowledge that others are so participating. Other philosophers have argued that such accounts are too demanding, and that less is required to participate in, for example, the use of a language.
Key works Lewis 1969 Important general account of convention including an attempt to apply the account to language. Lewis 1975 Another attempt to explain how the relation between speakers and languages is conventional. Schiffer 1972 Another important attempt to account for language use by appeal to speakers' intentions and forms of convention. Burge 1975 Presents important objections to the above accounts. Davidson 1984 Argues that appeal to convention is not required in accounting for speakers' relations to languages. Gilbert 1983 Useful discussion of the nature of convention and its role in accounting for language. Schiffer 1993 Engages critically with the above accounts of the relation between speakers and their languages (the actual-language relation) and argues for a more minimal account. Davis 1998 Useful book length treatment of issues about linguistic convention and intention.
Introductions Avramides 1997 Rescorla 2008
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263 found
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  1. Covert Mixed Quotation.Cameron Domenico Kirk-Giannini - manuscript
    The term 'covert mixed quotation' describes cases in which linguistic material is interpreted in the manner of mixed quotation — that is, used in addition to being mentioned — despite the superficial absence of any commonly recognized conventional devices indicating quotation. After developing a novel theory of mixed quotation, I show that positing covert mixed quotation allows us to give simple and unified treatments of a number of puzzling semantic phenomena, including the projective behavior of conventional implicature items embedded in (...)
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  2. Notes on David K. lewis’s book, convention: A philosophical study.William Boardman - manuscript
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  3. Truth and Imprecision.Josh Armstrong - forthcoming - Analytic Philosophy.
    Our ordinary assertions are often imprecise, insofar as the way we represent things as being only approximates how things are in the actual world. The phenomenon of assertoric imprecision raises a challenge to standard accounts of both the norm of assertion and the connection between semantics and the objects of assertion. After clarifying these problems in detail, I develop a framework for resolving them. Specifically, I argue that the phenomenon of assertoric imprecision motivates a rejection of the widely held belief (...)
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  4. What Is It To Have A Language?David Balcarras - 2023 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 104 (4):837-866.
    This article defends the view that having a language just is knowing how to engage in communication with it. It also argues that, despite claims to the contrary, this view is compatible and complementary with the Chomskyan conception of language on which humans have languages in virtue of being in brain states realizing tacit knowledge of grammars for those languages.
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  5. Overhearing uninterpreted sound: challenges in Davidsonian interpretation.Vladimir Lazurca - 2023 - In Ana Maria Haddad Baptista, Ciprian Vălcan & Márcia Fusaro (eds.), Education and Research Topics. São Paulo: Tesseractum. pp. 312-326.
    This paper develops a counterexample to Davidson’s elaborate model of conventionless communication, first articulated in his (1986) and defended in his (1994a). The first part contains an analysis of the model and its assumptions. Then, in a second part, I present a case focused around the concept of overhearing. It subtracts active interaction from the model and reveals that, under these novel conditions, communication makes further demands on it, namely conformity of the prior interpretive theory of all but one of (...)
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  6. Towards a Unified Theory of Illocutionary Normativity.Neri Marsili - 2023 - In Laura Caponetto & Paolo Labinaz (eds.), Sbisà on Speech as Action. Palgrave-Macmillan. pp. 2147483647-2147483647.
    Speech acts are governed by a variety of illocutionary norms. Building on Sbisà’s (2019) work, this chapter attempts to develop a common framework to study them. Four families of illocutionary rules are identified: (i) Validity rules set conditions for (actual) performance; (ii) Cooperative rules set conditions for cooperative performance; (iii) Illocutionary goals set conditions for successful performance; (iv) Illocutionary obligations set conditions for compliance. Illocutionary rules are often taken to play a constitutive role: speech acts are said to be constituted (...)
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  7. Semantic conventions and referential intentions.Jakub Rudnicki - 2023 - Synthese 202 (1):1-16.
    According to intentionalism, the semantic reference of the uses of demonstratives is fixed, at least partly, by the speaker’s referential intention. In this paper, I argue against the possibility of the existence of a semantic convention of this sort. My argument is placed in the Lewisian framework of signaling games and consists of several steps that correspond to four anti-intentionalist arguments, already present in the literature, that have proven inconclusive when employed separately and without being set in the mentioned framework.
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  8. Darmok and Jalad on the Internet: the importance of metaphors in natural languages and natural language processing.Kristina Šekrst - 2023 - In Amy H. Sturgis & Emily Strand (eds.), Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier. Vernon Press. pp. 89-117.
    In a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, Cpt. Picard is captured and trapped on a planet with an alien captain who speaks a language incompatible with the universal translator, based on their societal historical metaphors. According to Shapiro (2004), the concept of a universal translator removes everything alien from alien languages, and since the Tamarian language refers only to their historical and cultural archetypes, Picard can only establish dialogue by invoking human analogues, such as Gilgamesh. The purpose of this (...)
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  9. Almog was Right, Kripke’s Causal Theory is Trivial.J. P. Smit - 2023 - Philosophia 51 (3):1627-1641.
    Joseph Almog pointed out that Kripkean causal chains not only exist for names, but for all linguistic items (Almog 1984: 482). Based on this, he argues that the role of such chains is the presemantic one of assigning a linguistic meaning to the use of a name (1984: 484). This view is consistent with any number of theories about what such a linguistic meaning could be, and hence with very different views about the semantic reference of names. He concludes that (...)
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  10. Conventions without knowledge of conformity.Megan Henricks Stotts - 2023 - Philosophical Studies 180 (7):2105-2127.
    David Lewis’s account of conventions has received substantial criticism over the years, but one aspect of it has been less controversial and thus has been retained in various forms by other authors: his requirement that members of a group in which a convention obtains must know that they and others conform. I argue that knowledge of conformity requirements wrongly exclude certain paradigmatic conventions, including some central semantic conventions. Ruth Garrett Millikan’s account of conventions accommodates these cases, but it is marred (...)
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  11. Lying, Misleading, and Fairness.Emanuel Viebahn - 2022 - Ethics 132 (3):736-751.
    Sam Berstler defends a general moral advantage for misleading over lying by arguing that liars, but not misleaders, act unfairly toward the other members of their linguistic community. This article spells out three difficulties for Berstler’s account. First, though Berstler aims to avoid an error theory, it is dubitable that her account fits with intuitions on the matter. Second, there are some lies that do not exhibit the unfairness Berstler identifies. Third, fairness is not the only morally relevant difference between (...)
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  12. An Austinian alternative to the Gricean perspective on meaning and communication,.Maciej Witek - 2022 - Journal of Pragmatics 201:60-75.
    My aim in this paper is to contribute to the debate on the foundations of semantics and pragmatics by developing an Austinian alternative to the Gricean programme. The Gricean approach has been criticised by Ernie Lepore and Matthew Stone who claim that most of the interpretive effects that are usually accounted for as inferentially recognized aspects of meaning are in fact determined by grammar. I argue, however, that it is the Austinian perspective rather than the extended-grammar outlook, that constitutes a (...)
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  13. An Attempt at Interreligious Theologising.Subhasis Chattopadhyay - 2021 - Indian Catholic Matters.
    This blog post begins by showing the pejorative connotations inherent in the term 'Hindu' and goes on to lay bare the differences between Hinduism and other religions including Jainism and the Abrahamic religions. So that this necessary project of dialogues is not hijacked by celibates of various traditions; the post ends with these reflections: "The Hare Krishna movement, and all other prominent movements within the Sanatana Dharma including the various well known cults of hero-worship are all structured around centralised superstructures (...)
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  14. How to Understand Rule-Constituted Kinds.Manuel García-Carpintero - 2021 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 13 (1):7-27.
    The paper distinguishes between two conceptions of kinds defined by constitutive rules, the one suggested by Searle, and the one invoked by Williamson to define assertion. Against recent arguments to the contrary by Maitra, Johnson and others, it argues for the superiority of the latter in the first place as an account of games. On this basis, the paper argues that the alleged disanalogies between real games and language games suggested in the literature in fact don’t exist. The paper relies (...)
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  15. Lexical innovation and the periphery of language.Luca Gasparri - 2021 - Linguistics and Philosophy 45 (1):39-63.
    Lexical innovations (e.g., zero-derivations coined on the fly by a speaker) seem to bear semantic content. Yet, such expressions cannot bear semantic content as a function of the conventions of meaning in force in the language, since they are not part of its lexicon. This is in tension with the commonplace view that the semantic content of lexical expressions is constituted by linguistic conventions. The conventionalist has two immediate ways out of the tension. The first is to preserve the conventionalist (...)
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  16. Machines, Logic and Wittgenstein.Srećko Kovač - 2021 - Philosophia 49 (5):2103-2122.
    Wittgenstein’s “machines-as-symbols” are considered with respect to their historical sources and their symbolic and logical nature. Among these sources and precursors, along with Leonardo’s drawings of machines, there are illustrated “machine books”, a kind of book published in the period from the 16th to the 18th centuries which consist of pictures and descriptions of a variety of mechanical devices. Most probably, these books were one of Wittgenstein’s inspirations for his view of machines as components of language-games. The picture of homo (...)
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  17. Against epistemic absolutism.Changsheng Lai - 2021 - Synthese 199 (1-2):3945-3967.
    Epistemic absolutism is an orthodox view that propositional knowledge is an ungradable concept. Absolutism is primarily grounded in our ungradable uses of “knows” in ordinary language. This paper advances a thorough objection to the linguistic argument for absolutism. My objection consists of two parts. Firstly, arguments for absolutism provided by Jason Stanley and Julien Dutant will be refuted respectively. After that, two more general refutation-strategies will be proposed: counterevidence against absolutism can be found in both English and non-English languages; the (...)
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  18. Categoricity by convention.Julien Murzi & Brett Topey - 2021 - Philosophical Studies 178 (10):3391-3420.
    On a widespread naturalist view, the meanings of mathematical terms are determined, and can only be determined, by the way we use mathematical language—in particular, by the basic mathematical principles we’re disposed to accept. But it’s mysterious how this can be so, since, as is well known, minimally strong first-order theories are non-categorical and so are compatible with countless non-isomorphic interpretations. As for second-order theories: though they typically enjoy categoricity results—for instance, Dedekind’s categoricity theorem for second-order PA and Zermelo’s quasi-categoricity (...)
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  19. Philosophical implications of Morris’ semiotic theory.Milos Bogdanovic - 2020 - Filozofija I Društvo 31 (1):108-125.
    The subject of this paper is Charles Morris’ semiotic theory that has as one of its major projects the unification of all sciences of signs. However, since the above project has proven to be unsuccessful, we will try to examine here the reasons that led to this. Accordingly, we will argue that to transcend the particularities of individual disciplines that he wanted to unify, Morris had to make certain ontological assumptions, instead of theoretical and methodological ones, that they could share. (...)
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  20. Contested Slurs.Renée Jorgensen Bolinger - 2020 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 97 (1):11-30.
    Sometimes speakers within a linguistic community use a term that they do not conceptualize as a slur, but which other members of that community do. Sometimes these speakers are ignorant or naïve, but not always. This article explores a puzzle raised when some speakers stubbornly maintain that a contested term t is not derogatory. Because the semantic content of a term depends on the language, to say that their use of t is semantically derogatory despite their claims and intentions, we (...)
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  21. Against Conventional Wisdom.Alexander W. Kocurek, Ethan Jerzak & Rachel Etta Rudolph - 2020 - Philosophers' Imprint 20 (22):1-27.
    Conventional wisdom has it that truth is always evaluated using our actual linguistic conventions, even when considering counterfactual scenarios in which different conventions are adopted. This principle has been invoked in a number of philosophical arguments, including Kripke’s defense of the necessity of identity and Lewy’s objection to modal conventionalism. But it is false. It fails in the presence of what Einheuser (2006) calls c-monsters, or convention-shifting expressions (on analogy with Kaplan’s monsters, or context-shifting expressions). We show that c-monsters naturally (...)
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  22. The Philosophy and Science of Language.Ryan Mark Nefdt, Carita Klippi & Bart Karstens (eds.) - 2020 - Palgrave Mcmillan.
    This volume brings together a diverse range of scholars to address important philosophical and interdisciplinary questions in the study of language. Linguistics throughout history has been a conduit to the study of the mind, brain, societal structure, literature and history itself. The epistemic and methodological transfer between the sciences and humanities in regards to linguistics has often been documented, but the underlying philosophical issues have not always been adequately addressed. -/- With 15 original and interdisciplinary chapters, this volume therefore tackles (...)
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  23. Systematizität der Sprache und Systematizität des Denkens bei Destutt de Tracy.Lucia Oliveri - 2020 - In Kurt Bayertz und Nikola Anna Kompa und Niko Strobach (ed.), Das Projekt einer ‚Idéologie‘ Destutt de Tracys Ideenlehre als Wissenschaftsbewegung der Spätaufklärung. Amburgo, Germania: pp. 61-84.
    Destutt de Tracy zielt darauf ab, zu erklären, wie inter- und transsubjektive Prozesse auf das einzelne Individuum wirken und es gestalten. Dafür braucht er eine externalistische Sprachtheorie und eine sensualistische kognitive Architektur, nach der Denken Empfinden ist. Das Denken ist relational, aber wird nicht auf kognitiver Ebene durch sprachähnliche Strukturen – durch die Syntax und Semantik einer Mentalsprache – implementiert. Obwohl Externalismus und sensualistische Architektur in eine inkohärente Theorie zu münden scheinen, versucht Destutt de Tracy die Spannung durch seine Entwicklungsgeschichte (...)
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  24. Comparing conventions.Rachel Etta Rudolph & Alexander W. Kocurek - 2020 - Semantics and Linguistic Theory 30:294-313.
    We offer a novel account of metalinguistic comparatives, such as 'Al is more wise than clever'. On our view, metalinguistic comparatives express comparative commitments to conventions. Thus, 'Al is more wise than clever' expresses that the speaker has a stronger commitment to a convention on which Al is wise than to a convention on which she is clever. This view avoids problems facing previous approaches to metalinguistic comparatives. It also fits within a broader framework—independently motivated by metalinguistic negotiations and convention-shiftingexpressions— (...)
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  25. Shadows of Syntax: Revitalizing Logical and Mathematical Conventionalism.Jared Warren - 2020 - New York, USA: Oxford University Press.
    What is the source of logical and mathematical truth? This book revitalizes conventionalism as an answer to this question. Conventionalism takes logical and mathematical truth to have their source in linguistic conventions. This was an extremely popular view in the early 20th century, but it was never worked out in detail and is now almost universally rejected in mainstream philosophical circles. Shadows of Syntax is the first book-length treatment and defense of a combined conventionalist theory of logic and mathematics. It (...)
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  26. Yet another skeptical solution.Andrea Guardo - 2019 - Philosophia 47 (1):117-129.
    The paper puts forward a new skeptical solution to Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox, a solution which revolves around the idea that human communication does not require meaning facts - at least as defined by Kripke. After a brief discussion of the paradox, I explain why I think that Kripkenstein’s solution needs revision and argue that the main goal of a skeptical solution to the rule-following paradox should be that of showing that communication does not require meaning. After that, I offer (...)
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  27. Hypothesis, analysis and synthesis, it’s all Greek to me.Ioannis Iliopoulos, Sophia Ananiadou, Antoine Danchin, John P. A. Ioannidis, Peter D. Katsidis, Christos A. Ouzounis & Vasilis J. Promponas - 2019 - eLife 8:e43514.
    The linguistic foundations of science and technology include many terms that have been borrowed from ancient languages. In the case of terms with origins in the Greek language, the modern meaning can often differ significantly from the original one. Here we use the PubMed database to demonstrate the prevalence of words of Greek origin in the language of modern science, and call for scientists to exercise care when coining new terms.
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  28. Natural Conventions and Indirect Speech Arts.Mandy Simons & Kevin J. S. Zollman - 2019 - Philosophers' Imprint 19.
    In this paper, we develop the notion of a natural convention, and illustrate its usefulness in a detailed examination of indirect requests in English. Our treatment of convention is grounded in Lewis’s seminal account; we do not here redefine convention, but rather explore the space of possibilities within Lewis’s definition, highlighting certain types of variation that Lewis de-emphasized. Applied to the case of indirect requests, which we view through a Searlean lens, the notion of natural convention allows us to give (...)
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  29. Russell’s Eccentricity.J. P. Smit - 2019 - Erkenntnis 86 (2):275-293.
    Russell claims that ordinary proper names are eccentric, i.e. that the semantic referent of a name is determined by the descriptive condition that the individual utterer of the name associates with the name. This is deeply puzzling, for the evidence that names are subject to interpersonal coordination seems irrefutable. One way of making sense of Russell’s view would be to claim that he has been systematically misinterpreted and did not, in fact, offer a semantic theory at all. Such a view (...)
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  30. Behavioral Foundations for Expression Meaning.Megan Henricks Stotts - 2019 - Topoi 40 (1):27-42.
    According to a well-established tradition in the philosophy of language, we can understand what makes an arbitrary sound, gesture, or marking into a meaningful linguistic expression only by appealing to mental states, such as beliefs and intentions. In this paper, I explore the contrasting possibility of understanding the meaningfulness of linguistic expressions just in terms of observable linguistic behavior. Specifically, I explore the view that a type of sound becomes a meaningful linguistic expression within a group in virtue of the (...)
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  31. Correction to: Linguistic convention and worldly fact: Prospects for a naturalist theory of the a priori.Brett Topey - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (7):1753-1755.
    The original publication of the article contains two formatting errors, the second of which significantly inhibits readability.
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  32. Linguistic convention and worldly fact: Prospects for a naturalist theory of the a priori.Brett Topey - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (7):1725-1752.
    Truth by convention, once thought to be the foundation of a uniquely promising approach to explaining our access to the truth in nonempirical domains, is nowadays widely considered an absurdity. Its fall from grace has been due largely to the influence of an argument that can be sketched as follows: our linguistic conventions have the power to make it the case that a sentence expresses a particular proposition, but they can’t by themselves generate truth; whether a given proposition is true—and (...)
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  33. Seguire una regola.Andrea Guardo - 2018 - Milano-Udine: Mimesis.
    Nelle "Ricerche filosofiche" e in altre opere Wittgenstein discute un argomento per la conclusione che non esiste qualcosa come il seguire una regola. Questa conclusione, a sua volta, sembrerebbe implicare che le parole del linguaggio non hanno un significato. E quest’ultima conclusione, infine, sembrerebbe implicare che la comunicazione è impossibile. Questa linea di pensiero è, ovviamente, paradossale: il comunicare è un fenomeno non solo possibile, ma assolutamente comune. La serie di argomenti in questione deve quindi, da qualche parte, nascondere un (...)
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  34. Przynależność kulturowa i język. O metodologicznych problemach filozofii eksperymentalnej.Krzysztof Sękowski - 2018 - Filozofia Nauki 26 (1):49-66.
    The aim of this paper is to analyze methodological problems of cross-cultural research in experimental philosophy. By studying five research projects, representing two distinct approaches to the examination of cross-cultural differences in philosophical intuitions, I point out the difficulties related to the content validity that appear in the choice of some cultural affiliation indicators. I criticize various indicators of cultural affiliation that are used in experimental philosophy (selfidentification, language) and suggest which indicators, and how, should be chosen in that kind (...)
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  35. The Pragmatics of Slurs.Renée Jorgensen Bolinger - 2017 - Noûs 51 (3):439-462.
    I argue that the offense generation pattern of slurring terms parallels that of impoliteness behaviors, and is best explained by appeal to similar purely pragmatic mechanisms. In choosing to use a slurring term rather than its neutral counterpart, the speaker signals that she endorses the term. Such an endorsement warrants offense, and consequently slurs generate offense whenever a speaker's use demonstrates a contrastive preference for the slurring term. Since this explanation comes at low theoretical cost and imposes few constraints on (...)
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  36. How can we explain pre-conventions?Sebastián Figueroa Rubio - 2017 - Revus.
    In this comment to Celano’s “Pre-Conventions. A Fragment of the Background”, the author introduces the following question: What kind of explanation fits better with behaviours that could be categorised as pre-conventions? Some possible answers to the question are explored, as well as some possible implications for Celano’s proposal.
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  37. The Contingency Problem for Neo-Conventionalism.Jonathan Livingstone-Banks - 2017 - Erkenntnis 82 (3):653-671.
    Traditional conventionalism about modality claims that a proposition is necessarily true iff it is true by convention. In the wake of the widespread repudiation of truth-byconvention, traditional conventionalism has fallen out of favour. However, a family of theories of modality have arisen that, whilst abandoning truth-by-convention, retain the spirit of traditional conventionalism. These ‘neo-conventionalist’ theories surpass their forebears and don’t fall victim to the criticisms inherited through truth-by-convention. However, not all criticisms levelled at traditional conventionalism target truth-by-convention. Any conventional theory (...)
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  38. Walking the tightrope: Unrecognized conventions and arbitrariness.Megan Henricks Stotts - 2017 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 60 (8):867-887.
    Unrecognized conventions—practices that are conventional even though their participants do not recognize them as such—play central roles in shaping our lives. They range from the indispensable (e.g. unrecognized linguistic conventions) to the insidious (e.g. some of our gender conventions). Unrecognized conventions pose a challenge for accounts of conventions because it is difficult to incorporate the distinctive arbitrariness of conventions—the fact that conventions always have alternatives—without accidentally excluding many unrecognized conventions. I develop an Accessibility Requirement that allows us to account for (...)
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  39. Embodied conventions.Federico José Arena - 2016 - Revus 30:59-67.
    In these brief comments on Bruno Celano’s “Pre-conventions. A Fragment of the Background”, I propose further thoughts on what, following Celano’s analysis, I call embodied conventions. I begin with a number of remarks on Celano’s philosophical method. Then I claim, first, that the social dimension of conventionality remains obscure in his account of embodied conventions, and, second, that his account of pre-conventions is still imprecise due to the ambiguity of the notion of the Background.
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  40. The Problem of Lexical Innovation.Josh Armstrong - 2016 - Linguistics and Philosophy 39 (2):87-118.
    In a series of papers, Donald Davidson :3–17, 1984, The philosophical grounds of rationality, 1986, Midwest Stud Philos 16:1–12, 1991) developed a powerful argument against the claim that linguistic conventions provide any explanatory purchase on an account of linguistic meaning and communication. This argument, as I shall develop it, turns on cases of what I call lexical innovation: cases in which a speaker uses a sentence containing a novel expression-meaning pair, but nevertheless successfully communicates her intended meaning to her audience. (...)
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  41. Coordination, Triangulation, and Language Use.Josh Armstrong - 2016 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 59 (1):80-112.
    In this paper, I explore two contrasting conceptions of the social character of language. The first takes language to be grounded in social convention. The second, famously developed by Donald Davidson, takes language to be grounded in a social relation called triangulation. I aim both to clarify and to evaluate these two conceptions of language. First, I propose that Davidson’s triangulation-based story can be understood as the result of relaxing core features of conventionalism pertaining to both common-interest and diachronic stability—specifically, (...)
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  42. Linguistic Conventions and the Role of Pragmatics.Robyn Carston - 2016 - Mind and Language 31 (5):612-624.
  43. Pre-conventions.Bruno Celano - 2016 - Revus 30:9-32.
    In this paper I argue that there exist conventions of a peculiar sort which are neither norms nor regularities of behaviour, partaking of both. I proceed as follows. After a brief analysis of the meaning of ‘convention’, I give some examples of the kind of phenomena I have in mind: bodily skills, know-how, taste and style, habitus, “disciplines”. Then I group some arguments supporting my claim: considerations about the identity conditions of precedents and about the projectibility of predicates in inductive (...)
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  44. Do jurists need pre-conventions?Pierluigi Chiassoni - 2016 - Revus.
    The paper offers a comparison between the legal theory of normative facts on the one hand, and Bruno Celano’s theory of pre-conventions on the other, suggesting two ways that the latter may be of use to well-meaning jurists.
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  45. Putting Syntax First: On Convention and Implicature in Imagination and Convention.John Collins - 2016 - Mind and Language 31 (5):635-645.
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  46. Introduction for Inquiry Symposium on Imagination and Convention. [REVIEW]E. Michaelson & J. Armstrong - 2016 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 59 (2):139-144.
  47. Celano: ontological commitment and normative bite.José Juan Moreso - 2016 - Revus 30:77-80.
    In his article on pre-conventions, Celano presents, what the author calls, the Ontological Commitment Thesis and the Normative Bite Thesis. In this short comment, the author argues that the two theses are together both incompatible with the idea that pre-conventions are facts which have causal powers in human behaviour; also, if the ontological thesis is abandoned, normative determination could not be obtained. In other terms, the author argues that either pre-conventions are part of our causal explanation of human behaviour or (...)
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  48. What laws are experienced as. A comment on Celano’s Pre-conventions.Marco Segatti - 2016 - Revus.
    The aim of this comment is to discuss tentatively one way of understanding, for the study of legal phenomena, some of the implications of recognising the existence of peculiar entities which Celano calls pre-conventions. This comment speculates that, if Celano is right, then so-called paradigm cases of law lose some of their philosophical centrality. To study pre-conventions, one needs to collect accounts of situations in which relevant agents use criteria for identifying legal phenomena that only approximate valid sources of law. (...)
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  49. A new type of convention?Dale Smith - 2016 - Revus 30:69-76.
    In “Pre-conventions: A fragment of the Background”, Bruno Celano argues for the existence and philosophical significance of what he calls “pre-conventions” – a type of convention distinct from those hitherto discussed in the literature, and which transcends a number of orthodox philosophical distinctions. In these comments, I suggest that Celano may have shown that there is a distinct type of convention governing judgments of style or taste. If so, we may learn some important lessons by examining this new type of (...)
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  50. Quotation, demonstration, and iconicity.Kathryn Davidson - 2015 - Linguistics and Philosophy 38 (6):477-520.
    Sometimes form-meaning mappings in language are not arbitrary, but iconic: they depict what they represent. Incorporating iconic elements of language into a compositional semantics faces a number of challenges in formal frameworks as evidenced by the lengthy literature in linguistics and philosophy on quotation/direct speech, which iconically portrays the words of another in the form that they were used. This paper compares the well-studied type of iconicity found with verbs of quotation with another form of iconicity common in sign languages: (...)
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