Russellian or singular propositions are very useful in semantics to specify "what has been said" by a literal and serious utterance of a sentence containing a proper name, an indexical or a demonstrative, or for modeling demonstrative thoughts. I3ased on an example given by S. Guttenplan, I construct a case showing that if our only option for modeling demonstrative thoughts is a singular proposition à la Russell, we run the risk of admitting infallible empirical beliefs. I defend the principle of (...) the fallibility of our representations by appealing to Perry's notion of a relational mode of presentation that allows us to generalize the proposition which is the content of the perceptual belief in cases of hallucination or misidentification, so that there is no "immunity to error through misidentification" in the province of demonstrative thought. (shrink)

I shall examine Quine’s conception of logic, of propositional attitudes, and of the unity of knowledge in order to show that there are some tensions in Quine’s system. I first propose a conception of the use or application of logic, stating that logic strictly speaking applies to intentional phenomena or to things that presuppose the existence of intentional phenomena. Then, I consider briefly Quine’s philosophy of logic and discuss some issues. In Quine’s philosophy, logic stays at the very center of (...) the web of our beliefs; it is central in science and ordinary knowledge as well. Then I examine Quine’s tendency to “quine” the mental, given his own maxim of minimum mutilation. Finally, I consider Quine’s thesis of the unity of knowledge, the thesis that there is continuity from ordinary to scientific knowledge. If I am right about the use of logic and the presence of the propositional attitude idiom in ordinary knowledge and social sciences and humanities, I think there is a problem of consistency in Quine’s system, and that Quine himself pointed to a part of the solution. (shrink)

Thomas Reid introduced the notion of social operation of mind in the theory of mind and language. Hhis friend James Gregory developed this notion and gave it a meaningful role in classical Uuniversal Grammar, especially in the General Theory of the Mmoods of Vverbs. Bbefore Reid and Gregory, the classical Philosophical Grammar presupposes, inter alia, that the mind is self-contained; in other words, that mental contents and operations are all independent from the natural and social environment. Ssome of these operations (...) have a modus/dictum structure corresponding, grosso modo, to the actual distinction between psychological mode and conceptual mental content, also analogous to the distinction between illocutionary force and propositional content, which is partially reflected in the system of verbal moods of natural languages. The famous Grammaire de Port-Royal already pointed to a serious limitation of this model. Arnauld & Lancelot wrote: “Oon ne se commande pas proprement à soi-même” (“Oone does not command properly to oneself”). I will try to show that Reid realized clearly that what we call today “individualism” does not allow us to characterize adequately the social aspects of language, and consequently headed for a different conception of the mind, an anti-individualist one. The notion of social operation of the mind is the cornerstone of that reform undertaken by Reid in the philosophy of mind. Furthermore, he and Gregory defended that natural languages were created especially to expresses those social aspects of language and mind. (shrink)

Leclerc-Andre_Spontaneous-linguistic-understanding.

My aim is to provide an analysis of cognitive experience from the point of view of philosophy of mind, by identifying and describing different components or features present in it. But different things are called ‘experience’ and some are more complex than other. I will first examine different uses of the word ‘experience’ to clear the way and to avoid cases of circularity. Then I try to restrict the investigation and introduce the mode and content of experience, and take BonJour’s (...) suggestion of what cognitive experience is as a starting point. In my view, the two main features of experience are Horizontal Intentionality and Vertical Intentionality. The first is the most striking and fundamental; it constitutes the continuity of experience. Vertical Intentionality selects objects of experience, so that our experience is always experience of something. In Perception, something is identified and recognized by the application of concepts. Attention is required, especially when we get involved in complicated operations or manipulations. Finally, the last feature is constituted by a huge set of dispositions, particularly abilities to keep track our thoughts and former experiences. Cognitive Experience in the full sense is the result of the interaction and mutual support of these features. (shrink)

After the seminal works of Putnam (1975), Burge (1979), and Kripke (1982), the next important contribution to externalism is certainly Davidson’s (mainly 1987, 1988, 1989, 2001). By criticizing the positions of these philosophers, Davidson elaborated his own brand of externalism. We shall first present some features of Davidson’s externalism (the importance of historical-causal connections for the foundation of language and thought, for the explanation of how language can be learned, and how attitudes can be identified by the interpreter, and finally (...) how mental content is determined by appealing to the idea of triangulation), to prepare the discussion of a few problems. We then discuss two questions in Davidson’s externalism. First, how to reconcile the fact that external factors determine mental content, as Putnam, Burge and Davidson himself argued convincingly, with token-physicalism, the thesis that mental events are identical with physical events occurring “in the head” (or the thesis that mental events supervenes locally on brain activities)? The second main problem is how to reconcile the first person authority with some prima facie consequences of externalism, mainly that we should know the relevant parts of our (natural and social) environment in order to know the content of our own thoughts? We argue that Davidson’s answer to the first question is not successful, while his answer to the second was a breakthrough. (shrink)

Sur la définition de la métaphore et sur son rôle, un débat majeur a opposé Jacques Derrida et Paul Ricoeur. Cet ouvrage enregistre les plaidoiries du pseudo-apôtre de la métaphore "morte" et du champion de la métaphore métaphoriquement vive. Il les met en perspective en citant à comparaître les théoriciens du trope de la ressemblance depuis Aristote jusqu'à Searle, depuis la poétique et la rhétoriques anciennes jusqu'à la pragmatique contemporaine. Ce procès de la métaphore dissout l'opposition du mort et du (...) vif. Il montre que l'écart entre les théories substitutives, comparatistes,interactives et pragmatiques de la métaphore procède de l'occultation des lieux partagés, dont le dévoilement incite à la complémentarité plutôt qu'à la disqualification réciproque. Il montre également que le débat actuel qui tente de conquérir le rôle cognitif de la métaphore à l'encontre d'une fonction décrétée "ornementale" relève d'une perspective d'emblée rétrécie qui néglige sa polyvalence fondamentale. (shrink)

La pensée fondamentale de Wittgenstein affirme que les constantes logiques ne représentent pas, ne fonctionnent pas sémantiquement comme des noms. En apparence triviale, cette pensée, nous le montrerons, à des ramifications étonnantes dans la philosophie du premier Wittgenstein, en particulier en ce qui concerne sa conception de la logique. Notre but est d'interpréter l'aphorisme en question en montrant comment il se rapporte aux thèses et théories les plus importantes du Tractatus, et comment il permet de les faire tenir ensemble d'une (...) façon cohérente, justifiant par là son caractère "fondamental". Nous tentons également d'apporter une réponse aux questions suivantes : les propositions complexes sont-elles encore - comme les propositions atomiques - des "images" de la réalité? et quelle est cette "logique des faits" dont parle Wittgenstein dans l'aphorisme sous examen? (shrink)

In what follows, I present only part of a program that consists in developing a version of actualism as an adequate framework for the metaphysics of intentionality. I will try to accommodate in that framework suggestions found in Kripke’s works and some positions developed by Amie Thomasson. What should we change if we accept “fictional entities” in the domain of the actual world? Actualism is the thesis that everything that exists belongs to the domain of the actual world and that (...) there are no possibilia. I shall defend that there are abstract artefacts, like fictional characters, and institutions. My argument could be seen as a version of Moore’s paradox: it is paradoxical to say: “I made it, but I do not believe it exists”. Moreover, there are true sentences about them. I will examine what it means to include abstract artefacts in the domain of the actual world. I favour a use of “exist” that includes beings with no concrete occupation of tri-dimensional space; to exist, it is enough to have been introduced at some moment in history.artefacts, like fictional characters, exist in that sense. I argue that it is important to distinguish two perspectives in order to clarify the kind of knowledge we have of fictional characters. However, their existence presupposes a relation of dependence to a material basis and the mental activities of many people. (shrink)

My aim in this programmatic paper is to explore the relationship among three important notions: intentionality, disposition and artefact. There wouldn’t be artefacts without what I call “intentional work,” a sustained activity directed to the production of some good. I first present contextualism as a method. Then I use it to delimit the problematic concept ARTEFACT, with the intention to apply it to repertoires of mental dispositions that affect directly our personal identity. The unavoidable but loose criterion of human intervention (...) is used, at least to some degree. Attitudes are intentional states with conceptual content, and concepts are dispositions. We acquire concepts during our lives, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes explicitly through definition of some kind, and each cognitive agent has a unique repertoire of concepts and a unique idiolect as well. The idea that our mental representations are artefacts might sound strange at first sight, but I shall try to show that it makes full sense. Most of our mental dispositions –those provided with a conceptual content– are themselves artefacts. At the end, we are all different psychologically and culturally because our idiolects and repertoires of concepts are different. For a large part, what makes our species so special is an ongoing process through which homo sapiens makes itself what it is.Keywords: Intentionality, disposition, artefact, contextualism, repertoire. (shrink)

Nosso objetivo é identificar; na filosofia de nosso seculo, 0 que ha de tipicamente platonista. Para tanto, eu dou uma definiciio do platonismo como uma tese ontologica e gnoseologica, que reconhece a existencia de entidades niio sensiveis, que niio podem ser tocadas, nem vistas, nem ouvidas, etc, mas que so podem ser conhecidas gracas a uma intuiciio de um tipo um pouco especial, que certos filosofos de nosso seculo, como Husserl, chama ram de "intuiciio categorial", ou "intuiciio das essencias". Depois, (...) eu faco um sobrevoo, comecando pela filosofia da matemdtica, principalmente a de Frege, em seguida, examino afilosofia da linguagem e da logica, a ontologia (principalmente a "teoria dos objetos" de Meinong) e a epistemologia (sobretudo, 0 "objetivismo" de Popper). Por fim, eu examino 0 programa naturalista e sua significaciio para a etica, mostrando que nada impede, ainda hoje, de sustentar as ideias de Platiio em diversos campos da Filosofia. (shrink)

Os demonstrativos foram considerados tradicionalmente como expressões referenciais. É o que encontramos na história da filosofia desde o início da tradição gramatical ocidental que sempre tratou os demonstrativos como pronomes. A maior provocação no livro de King consiste precisamente em romper com essa tradição ao apresentar os demonstrativos complexos (“esta mesa”, “aquele homem” etc.) como termos quantificados (e, portanto, termos não-referenciais). King apóia seu tratamento sobre exemplos escolhidos que parecem favorecer sua tese, como “aquele arquiteto que construiu essas pirâmides era (...) um gênio”, quando o locutor da frase não tem nenhum alvo referencial em mente e não pode apontar para ninguém no contexto da enunciação. Mostrarei: 1) que o tratamento de King representa uma tremenda ruptura com a tradição e desconsidera as intuições de gerações e gerações de lingüistas e filósofos da linguagem; 2) que King apóia sua tese em evidências de natureza puramente sintática sem discutir metodologicamente o peso que devemos atribuir a essas evidências sintáticas nas discussões de semântica; 3) que King não leva em conta todos os dados disponíveis, forçando os dados por ele recolhidos a entrar numa mesma teoria unificada, mas, para isso, paga um preço alto: uma redundância inaceitável na semântica das expressões demonstrativas simples. (shrink)

After the seminal works of Putnam, Burge, and Kripke, the next important contribution to externalism is certainly Davidson’s. By criticizing the posi-tions of these philosophers, Davidson elaborated his own brand of exter-nalism. We shall first present some features of Davidson’s externalism, to prepare the discussion of a few problems. We then discuss two questions in Davidson’s externalism. First, how to reconcile the fact that external factors determine mental content, as Putnam, Burge and Davidson himself argued convincingly, with token-physicalism, the thesis (...) that mental events are identical with physical events occurring “in the head”? The second main problem is how to reconcile the first person authority with some prima facie consequences of externalism, mainly that we should know the relevant parts of our envi-ronment in order to know the content of our own thoughts? We argue that Davidson’s answer to the first question is not successful, while his answer to the second was a breakthrough. (shrink)

La pensée fondamentale de Wittgenstein affirme que les constantes logiques ne représentent pas, ne fonctionnent pas sémantiquement comme des noms. En apparence truiviale, cette pensée, nous le montrerons, à des ramifications étonnantes dans la philosophie du premier wittgenstein, en ce qui concerne partmulzer sa conception de la logique. Notre but est d'interpréter l'aphorisme en question (T 4.0312) en montrant comment il se rapporte aux thèses et théories les plus importantes du Tractatus, et comment il permet de les faire tenir ensemble (...) d'une façon cohérente, justifiant par là son caractère "fondamental". Nous tentons également d'apporter une réponse aux questions suivantes: les propositions complexes sont-elles encore — comme les propositions atomiques — des "images" de la réalité? et quelle est cette "logique des faits" dont parle Wittgenstein dans l'aphorisme sous examen? (shrink)

C'est dans leur théorie générale des modes verbaux que les grammairiens philosophes classiques ont essayé de rendre compte de ce que nous appelons aujourd'hui les « aspects illocutoires de la signification », et de formuler les principes d'une sémantique des énoncés non déclaratifs. Je voudrais montrer, dans cette étude, ce qui fait l'originalité de la position adoptée par les grammairiens philosophes dans le cadre de leur théorie « idéationnelle » du langage : tout en reconnaissant la nécessité de recourir à (...) des critères formels pour identifier un mode particulier dans une langue particulière, ils estimaient que les peuples auraient pu, s'ils l'avaient jugé utile, marquer et distinguer formellement toute la variété des types d'illocution par des flexions verbales caractéristiques. Je distingue deux approches dans la théorie générale des modes verbaux de la Grammaire Générale classique : l'une est réductionniste, parce qu'elle réduit toutes nos énonciations à des expressions de jugements ; l'autre conçoit les modes comme des marqueurs d'actes de pensée. La première rappelle les tentatives de ceux qui, comme D. Lewis et D. Davidson, cherchent à interpréter les énoncés non déclaratifs en leur assignant des conditions de vérité ; la seconde s'apparente plutôt à la Théorie des Actes de Discours ou à l'approche proposée par E. Stenius. La première partie de cette étude présente, en s'inspirant de la méthodologie de I. Lakatos, la Grammaire Générale classique comme un programme de recherche scientifique. La seconde partie présente les deux approches mentionnées et examine leurs dévelop- pements respectifs.The Grammairiens philosophes of the classical period {circa 1660-1800) tried to accommodate, in their general theory of the moods of verbs, what we call today the " illocutionary aspects of meaning ", and to set the principles of a semantics for non-declarative sentences. I would like to show in this study in what consists the distinctive character of the approach proposed by the grammairiens philosophes in the framework of their " ideational " theory of language : they accept the necessity of formal criteria to identify a particular mood in a particular language, but they also held up the following position : the nations could have, if they had found it useful, marked and distinguished formally all the variety of illocution types by the use of characteristic verbal inflexions. I distinguish two approaches in the general theory of the verbal moods of classical Universal Grammar : one of them is reductionist, because it analyses all kinds of illocution as an expression of a judgment ; the other one conceives the moods as markers of the acts of the mind. The first one recalls the approach of those who, like D. Lewis and D. Davidson, try to interprète non-declarative sentences by assigning them truth- conditions ; and the second one bears more resemblances with the Theory of Speech Acts, or with the position defended by E. Stenius. The first part of this study exposes the framework of the classical Universal Grammar as a scientific research programme, following the methodology of I. Lakatos. The second part deals with the two approaches just mentioned and examine their respective developments. (shrink)

Je présente d’abord quelques notions de base de la sémantique philosophique, en particulier celles de signification linguistique, compré-hension linguistique, conditions de vérité, et “ce qui est dit”. La signi-fication linguistique ne doit pas être confondue avec “ce qui est dit” par l’énonciation littérale d’une phrase en contexte, cette dernière notion, centrale dans le contextualisme actuel, pouvant être reconstruite comme sémantique ou pragmatique selon le rôle que l’on fait jouer à la notion de signification du locuteur. J’examine ensuite de quelle façon (...) ces notions se combinent dans diverses approches ou “figures historiques”, en insistant sur la relation langage-pensée. La première est la théorie idéationnelle du langage, défendue par Arnauld et Locke. La seconde est la sémantique philosophique classique, qui se développe dans la première moitié du XXe siècle. La troisième est le contextualisme actuel, développé en parti-culier par Travis et Récanati. La comparaison révèle ceci: quant à la façon dont est reconstruite la notion de “ce qui est dit”: l’idéisme et le contex-tualisme s’accordent pour en faire une notion pragmatique, en opposition à la sémantique philosophique classique assortie de l’appareil gricéen.I first present a few basic notions of philosophical semantics, namely that of linguistic meaning, linguistic understanding, truth-con-ditions, and What Is Said. I try to show, like contextualists today urge us to, that the distinction between linguistic meaning and What Is Said by a literal utterance of a sentence in a context should not be blurred. The notion of What Is Said, of central importance for contextualism, can be construed as a semantic or a pragmatic notion according to the role played by the notion of speaker meaning in one’s favorite theory. Then I present an overview of three historical approaches in the history of the sciences of language, focusing on the language-thought relation and showing how these notions combine differently. The first is the ideational theory of language, defended by Arnauld and Locke. The sec-ond is the classical philosophical semantics developed in the first half of XXth century. The third is today’s contextualism, developed mainly by Travis and Recanati. Here is what the comparison reveals: the “way of ideas” and contextualism agree that the notion of What Is Said should be construed as a pragmatic notion, in opposition to classical philosophical semantics cum the Gricean apparatus. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that the plasticity of sense, the fact that tokens of the same type frequently express different Sinne, does not constitute a threat to human linguistic communication. The first part presents the phenomenon. I try to make clear that the appropriate notion of meaning for natural languages is not the one developed in logical semantics; meanings in natural languages are not fixed once and for all, stable. Consequently, What Is Said by an utterance (...) is not something determined exclusively by literal meaning. The second part shows that the plasticity of sense was known in the ideational theories of language, especially that of Arnauld & Nicole. The third part introduces the notions of Plan and Mindreading and show how they contribute to the success of communication.O objetivo deste artigo é mostrar que a plasticidade do sentido, o fato de que os exemplares de um tipo, freqüentemente, não expressam o mesmo Sinn, não constitui uma ameaça para a comunicação lingüística humana. A primeira parte apresenta o fenômeno da plasticidade do sentido. Tentarei mostrar que a noção de significado apropriada para as línguas naturais não é aquela desenvolvida na semântica lógica; o significado, nas línguas naturais, não é estável, fixado de uma vez por todas. Conseqüentemente, o que é dito em uma enunciação não é algo determinado exclusivamente pelo significado literal. A segunda parte mostra que a plasticidade do sentido era conhecida nas teorias ideacionais da linguagem, particularmente a de Arnauld & Nicole. A terceira parte introduz as noções de Plano e Leitura de mente e mostra como elas contribuem a explicar o sucesso da comunicação. (shrink)

L’interprétation dite “computationelle” de la pensée logico-linguistique de Hobbes est aujourd’hui courante. Ele attribue à Hobbes l’idée que penser ou raisonner, c’est essentiellement manipuler des symboles apartenant à une langue publique, c’est calculer sur des noms comme on calcule normalement sur des chiffres ou des lignes . Ce que nous aurions immédiatement dans l’esprit, ce sont des mots, les noms des choses, et non des représentations mentales de ces choses qui leur seraient associées par convention. Cette interprétation soulève bien des (...) problèmes qui ont été discutés dès le XVIIe siècle. Je voudrais montrer qu’il y a, sous la manipulation ou calcul des noms, une ratiocinatio interna sine verbis, un calcul sur des phantasmata qui mérite déjà certainement le titre de pensée. (shrink)