The present paper discusses two interesting phenomena concerning phi-features on plural pronouns: plural pronouns that denote atomic individuals, and plural pronouns with more than one binder. A novel account of these two phenomena is proposed, according to which all occurrences of phi-features are both semantically and morphologically relevant. For such a ‘uniformly semantic account’ of phi-features, dependent plural pronouns constitute a theoretical challenge, while partial binding is more or less straightforwardly accounted for. In order to (...) make sense of the semantic effects of the phi-features on dependent plural pronouns, the following idea is pursued: the phi-features on a dependent plural pronoun reflect the range of values that the pronoun takes, rather than the particular value it denotes at a time. This idea is implemented in a compositional semantics by making use of choice functions. An appealing feature of the present account is that, unlike its predecessors, it accounts for dependent plural pronouns without c-commanding antecedents in essentially the same way as for those with c-commanding antecedents. It is also shown how this account of dependent plural pronouns can straightforwardly be augmented with set indices to account for partial binding. (shrink)

While writing this thesis, there were many things I wanted to get right. I wanted to get the data right. I wanted to get my analysis of the data right. I certainly wanted to get all my citations right, which can get pretty tricky when one is trying to finish a chapter at 2am. But if an error did creep in somewhere in the body of the thesis, that is not a disaster. Sooner or later, I will get a chance (...) to correct it in a future publication. However, this part of the thesis, which sits right at the beginning but was among the last to be written, is different. I only have one opportunity to express, in print, how thankful I am to the people whose assistance was so important to me over the past years. Which is unfortunate, since if I were to truly elaborate all I am thankful for, these acknowledgements would be the lengthiest chapter of the thesis. But I hope this brief version will suffice in its stead. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the semantics of distributivity, grammatical number, and cardinality predicates. I argue that constructions involving so-called ‘dependent plurals’, i.e. plurals lacking cardinality predicates occurring in the scope of certain quantificational items such as all and most, pose a challenge to familiar semantic frameworks that distinguish between two sources of multiplicity: mereological plurality and distributive quantification. I argue that dependent plural readings should be analysed as distinct both from cumulative readings and distributive readings, in the (...) classical sense. I demonstrate how this can be accomplished in a semantic framework where expressions are evaluated relative to sets of assignments, or plural info states Proceedings of the 7th Amsterdam Colloquium, ILLC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1990, in Dekker and Stokhof Proceedings of the 9th Amsterdam Colloquium, ILLC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1994, Some aspects of the Internal Structure of Discourse. The Dynamics of Nominal Anaphora. PhD thesis, University of Amsterdam, 1996). The specific formal implementation is based on a modified version of Brasoveanu’s :129–209. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-008-9035-0, 2008) Plural Compositional DRT. In this framework we are able to distinguish between two types of distributivity: weak distributivity across the assignments in a single plural info state and strong distributivity across multiple info states. I argue that both of these types of distributivity play a role in the semantics of natural language, accounting for the contrasting properties of ‘singular quantifiers’, such as each and every, and ‘plural quantifiers’, such as all and most. The contrasting properties of bare plurals and plurals involving cardinality modifiers are analysed in terms of the distinction between state-level and assignment-level plurality. (shrink)

Leibniz argues that Cartesian extension lacks the unity required to be a substance. A key premise of Leibniz’s argument is that matter is a collection or aggregation. I consider an objection to this premise raised by Leibniz’s correspondent Burchard de Volder and consider a variety of ways that Leibniz might be able to respond to De Volder’s objection. I argue that it is not easy for Leibniz to provide a dialectically relevant response and, further, that the difficulty arises from Leibniz’s (...) commitment to part-whole priority in the case of material wholes, a commitment not shared by De Volder. One major implication is that Leibniz relies on a bottom-up conception of material things, which makes his argument vulnerable to objections stemming from certain types of monist positions. (shrink)

Bare plurals (dogs) behave in ways that quantified plurals (some dogs) do not. For instance, while the sentence John owns dogs implies that John owns more than one dog, its negation John does not own dogs does not mean “John does not own more than one dog”, but rather “John does not own a dog”. A second puzzling behavior is known as the dependent plural reading; when in the scope of another plural, the ‘more than one’ meaning (...) of the plural is not distributed over, but the existential force of the plural is. For example, My friends attend good schools requires that each of my friends attend one good school, not more, while at the same time being inappropriate if all my friends attend the same school. This paper shows that both these phenomena, and others, arise from the same cause. Namely, the plural noun itself does not assert ‘more than one’, but rather the plural denotes a predicate that is number neutral (unspecified for cardinality). The ‘more than one’ meaning arises as an scalar implicature, relying on the scalar relationship between the bare plural and its singular alternative, and calculated in a sub-sentential domain; namely, before existential closure of the event variable. Finally, implications of this analysis will be discussed for the analysis of the quantified noun phrases that interact with bare plurals, such as indefinite numeral DPs (three boys), and singular universals (every boy). (shrink)

ASL can express plurals by repeating a noun, in an unpunctuated fashion, in different parts of signing space. We argue that this construction may come with a rich iconic component: the geometric arrangement of the repetitions provides information about the arrangement of the denoted plurality; in addition, the number and speed of the repetitions provide information about the size of the denoted plurality. Interestingly, the shape of the repetitions may introduce a new singular discourse referent when a vertex can be (...) inferred to denote a singular object. Thus one may point towards the first or last iteration of a horizontal repetition of BOOK to denote the left- or right-edge of the corresponding row. This yields a remarkable interaction between iconic semantics and standard logical semantics. We show that our analysis extends to ‘punctuated’ repetitions, which involve clearly individuated iterations of a singular noun. While these may initially look like coordinated indefinites, they are better handled by the same iconic framework as plural, unpunctuated repetitions. Some repetition-based mass terms also give rise to iconic effects, and to different readings depending on whether the repetition is continuous, unpunctuated, or punctuated. Our analysis highlights the need for a formal semantics with iconicity to study the integration of such iconic and logical conditions. It also raises a question: can similar facts be found in spoken language when gestures are taken into account? We suggest that several effects can be replicated, especially when one considers examples involving ‘pro-speech gestures’. (shrink)

The paper argues that two distinct and independent notions of plurality are involved in natural language anaphora and quantification: plural reference (the usual non-atomic individuals) and plural discourse reference, i.e., reference to a quantificational dependency between sets of objects (e.g., atomic/non-atomic individuals) that is established and subsequently elaborated upon in discourse. Following van den Berg (PhD dissertation, University of Amsterdam, 1996), plural discourse reference is modeled as plural information states (i.e., as sets of variable assignments) in (...) a new dynamic system couched in classical type logic that extends Compositional DRT (Muskens, Linguistics and Philosophy, 19, 143-186, 1996). Given the underlying type logic, compositionality at sub-clausal level follows automatically and standard techniques from Montague semantics become available. The idea that plural info states are semantically necessary (in addition to non-atomic individuals) is motivated by relative-clause donkey sentences with multiple instances of singular donkey anaphora that have mixed (weak and strong) readings. At the same time, allowing for non-atomic individuals in addition to plural info states enables us to capture the intuitive parallels between singular and plural (donkey) anaphora, while deriving the incompatibility between singular (donkey) anaphora and collective predicates. The system also accounts for empirically unrelated phenomena, e.g., the uniqueness effects associated with singular (donkey) anaphora discussed in Kadmon (Linguistics and Philosophy, 13, 273-324, 1990) and Heim (Linguistics and Philosophy, 13, 131-177, 1990) among others. (shrink)

Cognitive forms vary considerably as a human being detaches herself from what is closest and most personal and moves to communicate — in the broad sense of taking part in a common matter — across increasing relational distances. The article proposes to deal with the variety of cognitive formats which cannot `commonize' cognition to an equal degree, relating them to a set of regimes of engagement with the world that are identified in terms of the dependency between the human agent (...) and her environment. The good that engagement aims to guarantee orients how reality is grasped and specifies the format of what constitutes relevant information. This analysis offers new insight into the composition of communities as well as persons who have to cope with the plurality of cognitive formats and engagements from the very familiar to the most public. (shrink)

Arendt's concept of common sense has generally been misunderstood. It is almost exclusively interpreted in light of Kant's common sense, either as an espousal of the latter or as a distortion of it. This narrow reading of Arendtian common sense has led to a problem, as her uses of the concept do not always fit its Kantian understanding. This has led to accusing her of being inconsistent, or as holding on to several, incompatible concepts of common sense.This article argues that (...) Arendt has one complex concept of common sense, used more or less consistently throughout her writings. Rather than understanding Arendt's common sense in light of Kant's, as most readers do, I demonstrate its links to Aristotle and to the eighteenth‐century Scottish school of common sense. By doing so I turn attention to a difficulty that has thus far not been adequately treated, namely the fact that Arendt presents two, allegedly contradictory pictures of the relation between common sense on the one hand and science and philosophy on the other: a picture in which science and philosophy depend upon common sense, versus one in which they find themselves in a conflict that eventually leads to the loss or demise of common sense. The last part of the article suggests a way to settle the tension between these two pictures, by understanding the political significance Arendt ascribes to them as two distinct yet complementary ways of approaching the modern phenomenon of totalitarianism. (shrink)

Generically interpreted bare plural noun phrases license donkey anaphora. This fact has unexpected consequences both for the analysis of generics and for the analysis of donkey anaphors. Specifically, if we assume a kindsbased analysis of bare plurals as in Carlson (1980), we will be forced to give up the idea that donkey anaphors are variables – presumably in favor of an E-type analysis. Conversely, if we assume that donkey anaphors are variables, we will be forced to give up Carlson’s (...) treatment of generically interpreted bare plurals as denoting kinds – presumably in favor of an analysis employing a generic operator like that of Wilkinson (1991), which quantifies over objects directly, without the mediation of kinds. The two issues are thus dependent on one another, and cannot be decided independently. This paper will not attempt to choose between an E-type and a variable-based analysis of donkey anaphors, or between a kinds-based and a kinds-free analysis of generic bare plurals, but only to point out that the choice one makes with regard to either one of these issues appears to force a particular choice with respect to the other issue. (shrink)

Within natural language semantics, pronouns are often thought to correspond to variables whose values are contributed by contextual assignment functions. This paper concerns the application of this idea to cases where the antecedent of a pronoun is a plural quantifiers. The paper discusses the modelling of accessibility patterns of quantifier antecedents in a dynamic theory of interpretation. The goal is to reach a semantics of quantificational dependency which yields a fully semantic notion of pronominal accessibility. I argue that certain (...) dependency phenomena that arise in quantificationally created contexts require a representation of context wherein the labelling of antecedents is not rigid but rather dynamic itself. I propose a stack-based alternative to classic assignment functions, along the lines of Vermeulen (1993) and van Eijck (2001), and give a dynamic semantics of quantification which correctly accommodates the problematic anaphoric phenomena. (shrink)

This paper pursues some of the consequences of the idea that there are (at least) two sources for distributive/cumulative interpretations in English. One source is lexical pluralization: All predicative stems are born as plurals, as Manfred Krifka and Fred Landman have argued. Lexical pluralization should be available in any language and should not depend on the particular make-up of its DPs. I suggest that the other source of cumulative/distributive interpretations in English is directly provided by plural DPs. DPs with (...) plural agreement features can ‘release’ those features to pluralize adjacent verbal projections. If there is a lexical source for distributive/cumulative interpretations, there should be instances of such interpretations with singular DPs. But there should also be cases of distributive/cumulative interpretations that require the presence of DPs with plural agreement morphology. (shrink)

Noun phrases with overt determiners, such as <i>some apples</i> or <i>a quantity of milk</i>, differ from bare noun phrases like <i>apples</i> or <i>milk</i> in their contribution to aspectual composition. While this has been attributed to syntactic or algebraic properties of these noun phrases, such accounts have explanatory shortcomings. We suggest instead that the relevant property that distinguishes between the two classes of noun phrases derives from two modes of existential quantification, one of which holds the values of a variable fixed (...) throughout a quantificational context while the other allows them to vary. Inspired by Dynamic Plural Logic and Dependence Logic, we propose Plural Predicate Logic as an extension of Predicate Logic to formalize this difference. We suggest that temporal <i>for</i>-adverbials are sensitive to aspect because of the way they manipulate quantificational contexts, and that analogous manipulations occur with spatial <i>for</i>-adverbials, habituals, and the quantifier <i>all</i>. (shrink)

Mereological universalists and nihilists disagree on the conditions for composition. In this paper, we show how this debate is a function of one’s chosen semantics for plural quantifiers. Debating mereologists have failed to appreciate this point because of the complexity of the debate and extraneous theoretical commitments. We eliminate this by framing the debate between universalists and nihilists in a formal model where these two theses about composition are contradictory. The examination of the two theories in the model brings (...) clarity to a debate in which opponents frequently talk past one another. With the two views stated precisely, our investigation reveals the dependence of the mereologists’ ontological commitments on the semantics of plural quantifiers. Though we discuss the debate with respect to a simplified and idealized model, the insights provided will make more complex debates on composition more productive and deflationist criticisms of the debate less substantial. (shrink)

There has been much work on ontological dependence in recent literature. However, relatively little of it has been dedicated to the ways in which individual physical objects may depend on other distinct, non-overlapping objects. This paper gives several examples of such object-dependence and distinguishes between different types of it. The paper also introduces and refines the notion of an n-tet. N-tets (typically) occur when there are object-dependence relations between n objects. I claim that the identity (or, rather, what I call (...) the n-dentity) conditions for n-tets are not grounded in the individual identity conditions of each of the n objects, but instead are metaphysically basic. The paper then briefly discusses some ramifications of accepting object-dependence (and n-tets) on the philosophy of biology, ethics, and logic. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to (a) show that the received view of the problem of quantificational subordination (QS) is incorrect, and that, consequently, existing solutions do not succeed in explaining the facts, and (b) provide a new account of QS. On the received view of QS within dynamic semantic frameworks, determiners treated as universal quantifiers (henceforth universal determiners) such as all, every, and each behave as barriers to inter-sentential anaphora yet allow anaphoric accessibility in a number of situations. (...) We argue that universal determiners are not intrinsic anaphora barriers and that anaphoric accessibility under them is enabled factors including lexicon information and discourse effects of universal determiners. In support of this viewpoint, we first provide a data survey on the phenomena of QS and its interactions with plurals, rhetorical relations, and adverbial quantification. The results of the survey show that judgments of (naive) native English speakers on the QS examples are quite different from what is claimed in the literature. We argue that the various solutions in the literature, which in general accept that universal determiners are intrinsic anaphora barriers, fail to account for the facts from the survey data. We then describe the approach we adopt, which denies that universal determiners are anaphora barriers and reconstructs their semantics so that information in their scope can be released for anaphora. The constraints on QS noted in the literature we model in Segmented Discourse Representation Theory (SDRT) as conditions on the discourse relations which can hold between subordinated constituents. We show that this approach accounts for the QS data. (shrink)

Recently, philosophers have sought to determine the nature of individuals relevant to evolution by natural selection or evolutionary individuals. The Evolutionary Contingency Thesis is a claim about evolution that emphasizes the role of contingency or dependency relations and chance-based factors in how evolution unfolds. In this article, I argue that if we take evolutionary contingency seriously, then we should be pluralists about the types of individuals in selection.

In this paper we discuss a phenomenon we call perspectival plurality, which has gone largely unnoticed in the current debate between relativism and contextualism about predicates of personal taste. According to perspectival plurality, the truth value of a sentence containing more than one PPT may depend on more than one perspective. Prima facie, the phenomenon engenders a problem for relativism and can be shaped into an argument in favor of contextualism. We explore the consequences of perspectival plurality in depth and (...) assess several possible responses on behalf of advocates of relativism. (shrink)

Understanding causation in social-ecological systems (SES) is indispensable for promoting sustainable outcomes. However, the study of such causal relations is challenging because they are often complex and intertwined, and their analysis involves diverse disciplines. Although there is agreement that no single research approach (RA) can comprehensively explain SES phenomena, there is a lack of ability to deal with this diversity. Underlying this diversity and the challenge of dealing with it are different causal reasonings that are rarely explicit. Awareness of hidden (...) assumptions is essential for understanding how the causal reasoning of an RA is constituted, and for promoting the integration, translation, or juxtaposition of different RAs. We identify the following elements as particularly relevant for understanding causal reasoning: methods, frameworks and theories, accounts of causation, analytical focus, and causal notions. We begin with the idea that one of these elements typically figures as an entry point to an RA. This entry point is particularly important because it generates a path dependence that orients causal reasoning. In a subsequent step, when an approach is applied, causal reasoning concretizes as a result of a particular constellation of the remaining elements. We come to these insights by studying the application of four different RAs to the same social-ecological case (the collapse of Baltic cod stocks in the 1980s). On the basis of our findings we developed a guide for the analysis of causal reasoning by raising awareness of the assumptions, key elements, and the relations between these key elements for a given RA. The guide can be used to elicit the causal reasoning of RAs, facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration, and support disclosure of ethical/political dimensions that underlie management/governance interventions that are formulated on the basis of causal findings of research studies. (shrink)

A theory of the first-person plural occupies a unique place in philosophical investigations into intersubjectivity and social cognition. In order for the referent of the first-person plural—“the We”—to come into existence, it seems there must be a shared ground of communicative possibility, but this requires a non-circular explanation of how this ground could be shared in the absence of a pre-existing context of communicative conventions. Margaret Gilbert’s and John Searle’s theories of collective intentionality capture important aspects of the (...) We, but fail to fully account for this shared ground of communicative possibility. This paper argues that Merleau-Ponty’s concept of intercorporeity helps reconcile the positive aspects of these accounts while also explaining how the genesis of the social world is continuous with perceptual life in general. This enables an account of the first-person plural as dependent on reciprocal communicative interaction without the need to posit a primitive or primordial “we-mode” of consciousness. “Intercorporeity” designates a bodily openness to others that is not fundamentally different in kind from the general style of bodily comportment found in Merleau-Ponty’s rich analyses of perceptual life. (shrink)

Sentences with multiple occurrences of plural definites give rise to certain effects suggesting that distributivity should be modeled by polyadic operations. Yet in this paper it is argued that the simpler treatment of distributivity using unary universal quantification should be retained. Seemingly polyadic effects are claimed to be restricted to definite NPs. This fact is accounted for by the special anaphoric (dependent) use of definites. Further evidence concerning various plurals, island constraints, and cumulative quantification is shown to support (...) this claim. In addition, it is shown that the evidence against a simple atomic version of unary distributivity is not decisive either. In the (uncommon) cases where distributivity with definites is not strictly atomic, they can be analyzed as dependent on implicit quantifiers. (shrink)

The article addresses the following question: what is sense (smysl) as such, not to be confused with the sense of something. The sense as such sets the absolute limit for human conscious­ness, since we can be conscious only of that which makes sense, and, vice versa, what makes sense is part of our consciousness. Sense is devoid of semiotic nature, for sense as such cannot be conceptualized as something opposed to meaning or related otherwise to it or to anything denoted. (...) Sense is a tselostnost’ (integrity). Three basic axes for sense development are dis­cussed, that is, opposition-and-integration, unity-and-multiplicity, continuity-and-discreteness. The development of tselostnost’ (integrity) as the “what-and-such” svyaznost’ (linkage and coherence) may vary depending on the initial intuition of tselostnost’, laying down the basis for variations in pure reason. The author delineates a contour of the four types of pure reason developed by the four big cultures (European, Arab-Muslim, Indian and Chinese). This typol­ogy finds a sound parallel in the civilizational typology of reason proposed by A.V. Paribok. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dependent Co-Origination and Universal IntersubjectivityJoseph A. Bracken, SJTwo essays in a recent issue of Buddhist-Christian Studies dealt with the topic "Buddhist and Christian Views of Community." The first essay, by Rita Gross, was a careful analysis of the way in which the separation of home and workplace in contemporary Western society has tended to reduce effective community life to the nuclear family and thus pose significant disadvantages to (...) everyone involved (not only mothers, fathers, and their children but also non–family members, friends, and neighbors) within the broader civic community.1 A consumer-oriented culture catering to individual needs and desires has arisen to compensate for the pervasive feeling of loneliness and emptiness created by the relative lack of significant interpersonal relationships. In the second essay Donald Mitchell recounted the origin and unexpected growth of the International Focolare movment of which he is a longtime member.2 He noted how the founder of the movement, Chiara Lubich, and her women friends found inspiration for living together and working for the poor and the homeless around them in what they saw as the self-giving love of the three divine persons of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity both for one another and for all their creatures. This movement over time broadened to include first Protestant members, then Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus, all drawn by the goal of richer life in community along with group efforts to assist the underprivileged of this world.My own contribution to the topic of Buddhist and Christian views of community will focus on the same communitarian model of the doctrine of the Trinity that originally inspired Lubich and her followers in the years during and after World War II, but my remarks will be more philosophically oriented. Following the lead of the late Colin Gunton in his book The One, the Three and the Many,3 I will analyze the communitarian model of the Trinity for its value in setting forth a new paradigm for the relationship of the One and the Many. As Gunton perceptively notes in the early chapters of his book, Western civilization seems to be still preoccupied with a basically Platonic understanding of the One and the Many in which the One enjoys primacy over the Many as their transcendent principle of order and intelligibility.4 As a result, even though freedom and individual self-expression are theoretically prized in Western societies, in point of [End Page 3] fact there is a great deal of uniformity and even repression of individual differences so as to conform to the cultural standards imposed by some dominant individual or minority group within each society. In the end people seem to fear the threat to personal security represented by wide diversity and plurality more than they value their individual liberty.Looking to the doctrine of the Trinity set forth by the Greek-speaking fathers of the Church, however, Gunton finds a new paradigm for the One and the Many whereby the One is emergent out of the interplay of the Many with one another rather than transcendent over the Many as their necessary principle of order and intelligibility.5 The Many are defined by their internal relations to one another rather than by their common relation to an external One. The community thus achieved is a differentiated unity, not only tolerating differences of the Many among themselves, but even fostering those differences so as to produce in the end a more complex form of community. The application to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is obvious. The three divine persons are strictly defined with respect to one another; each of them has no self-identity apart from relation to the other two persons. Yet together they co-constitute the reality of the one God, a richly differentiated rather than blandly homogeneous unity.6The application to human beings and their membership in various communities, of course, is not so obvious. But Gunton believes that three principles or "transcendentals" for the understanding of the relation of human beings with one another and with God are at hand, given careful study of this communitarian model of the Trinity: namely, perichoresis, substantiality or... (shrink)

John Milbank argues for a new Christendom on the grounds that the "narrated practice" of Christianity provides our only hope for peaceful harmony amid differences. He defends this claim on the basis of a "pragmatic linguistic idealism," in which our various narrative traditions compete to appeal to our taste; he decisively rejects the possibility of any other criteria of evaluation or of a mutually critical dialogue. This oppositional stance toward other perspectives reveals the instability of Milbank's position, however, in that (...) it denies the possibility of harmony among differences upon which his defense of Christianity depends. (shrink)

A number of natural language constructions seem to provide access to structured pluralities — that is, pluralities of pluralities. A body of semantic work has debated how to model this additional structure and the extent to which it depends on pragmatics. In this article, after controlling for the distinction between ambiguity and underspecification, we present new data showing that structured pluralities are sometimes but not always available, depending on the form of the plural noun phrase used. We show that (...) these results challenge two longstanding theories of plurality. We sketch two different ways to account for these data and describe some of the diverging predictions they make. (shrink)

This paper consists in a study of Leibniz’s argument for the infinite plurality of substances, versions of which recur throughout his mature corpus. It goes roughly as follows: since every body is actually divided into further bodies, it is therefore not a unity but an infinite aggregate; the reality of an aggregate, however, reduces to the reality of the unities it presupposes; the reality of body, therefore, entails an actual infinity of constituent unities everywhere in it. I argue that this (...) depends on a generalized notion of aggregation, according to which a thing may be an aggregate of its constituents if every one of its actual parts presupposes such constituents, but is not composed from them. One of the premises of this argument is the reality of bodies. If this premise is denied, Leibniz’s argument for the infinitude of substances, and even of their plurality, cannot go through. (shrink)

This article presents conflict as the key concept in the overarching framework of Paul Ricœur’s philosophy. Against this backdrop, it sets out to present Ricœur’s theory of justice as an ongoing debate between what is taken to be the fundamental and the historical, context-dependent traits of human experience. Second, it reconstructs Hannah Arendt’s and Michael Walzer’s defenses of plurality, the autonomy of the political sphere and the creativity of human action. Finally, it argues for critical vigilance in the protection (...) of the autonomy of the political sphere against economic invasion and for the rekindling of our fundamental power to act. (shrink)

The evolutionary maintenance of sexual reproduction is a case of explanatory pluralism of central importance to evolutionary biology. I analyze this pluralism from an epistemological perspective. My thesis is that the various explanations of sex are explanatory by virtue of local factors and hence are importantly distinct from one another and cannot be subsumed under a single unifying framework. A critic may argue that philosophical accounts of mechanism can provide just such a framework. I show that this attempt at unification (...) fails because the accounts of sex are not explanatory simply in light of being their being mechanistic; rather they are explanatory because they are particular kinds of mechanisms. The explanatory power of a mechanism is dependent on its epistemological context and the contexts of these mechanisms differ. (shrink)

[EN] Several conceptions of trope bundles have postulated mutual relations of ontological dependence to explain the unity of the bundle. The idea is that a bundle is a plurality of tropes such that each one of them is dependent on any other. A variant of this idea is that there is a ‘nucleus’ of tropes all of them mutually dependent, and there is also a ‘periphery’ or ‘halo’ of tropes that are dependent on the tropes of the (...) nucleus, but the tropes of the nucleus are not dependent on them. There are several theoretical advantages that trope bundles conceived in this way have. A weakness of the position nevertheless is that it requires an equivalence relation of dependence. But it has been normally supposed that dependence is a strict order, i.e. it is relation irreflexive, asymmetric and transitive. Several recent works have put into question this traditional assumption. Those recent criticisms are discussed and it is argued that they are not convincing. Further arguments are presented for the irreflexivity and transitivity of dependence, from which asymmetry follows. Dependence, then, appears to be in fact a strict order. This implies that most forms of nuclear trope bundles are unintelligible. But not all of them, because nuclear tropes with a unique nuclear trope are coherent. [ES] Varias concepciones de cúmulos de tropos han postulado relaciones de dependencia ontológica mutuas para explicar la unidad del cúmulo. La idea es que un cúmulo es una pluralidad de tropos tal que cada uno de ellos es dependiente de cualquier otro. Una variante de esta idea es que hay un ‘núcleo’ de tropos todos ellos mutuamente dependientes y hay también una ‘periferia’ o ‘halo’ de tropos que son dependientes de los tropos del núcleo, pero los tropos del núcleo no son dependientes de ellos. Hay varias ventajas teóricas que tienen los cúmulos de tropos concebidos de este modo. Una debilidad de esta posición, sin embargo, es que requiere una relación de dependencia que sea una relación de equivalencia. Pero se ha supuesto normalmente que la dependencia es un orden estricto, esto es, una relación irreflexiva, asimétrica y transitiva. Varios trabajos recientes han puesto en cuestión este supuesto tradicional. Estas criticas recientes son aquí discutidas y se argumenta que no son convincentes. Se presentan argumentos adicionales para la irreflexividad y la transitividad de la dependencia, de lo que se sigue la asimetría. Entonces, la dependencia resulta ser un orden estricto. Esto implica que la mayoría de las formas de cúmulos nucleares de tropos son ininteligibles. Pero no todos, porque los cúmulos nucleares con un único tropo nuclear son coherentes. (shrink)

This paper argues that, given a simple [DP VP] sentence, the availability of a collective interpretation crucially depends on the syntactic and semantic properties of the subject DP, specifically the presence versus absence of a pluralizing function that makes the collective interpretation available. In support of my claim, I present Lebanese Arabic and Western Armenian examples in which an indefinite DP contains a cardinal numeral and there is no overt distributivity operator but the interpretation of the sentence is nevertheless obligatorily (...) distributive, regardless of the predicate. I show that neither a distributivity operator within the DP nor one on the predicate can explain this strictly distributive interpretation. Instead, I argue that in order to allow a collective interpretation, an indefinite DP must denote a quantifier over pluralities, a condition that is not always met in numeral-containing indefinite DPs. While the claims in this paper are based primarily on observations from Lebanese Arabic and Western Armenian, because both are morphologically rich languages, the fact that this constraint is operative in these two unrelated languages, in addition to striking similarities to the Russian gender system, suggest that it is an inherent property of DPs crosslinguistically. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to analyze Spanish first-person plural subjects as a cognitively grounded grammatical choice serving various discursive functions. Both the expressed and omitted variants of the subject will be considered, even if omission is by far the more frequent choice in Spanish and the more communicatively versatile one. The particularly vague reference of omitted nosotros ‘we’ – always involving an extension of the self towards a wider notional scope – results in a remarkable variety of (...) possible contextual projections. It can be used to signal speaker identities as well as manage interpersonal relationships through the iconic suggestion of viewpoint coincidence. First-person plural clauses are quantitatively and qualitatively investigated across two corpora of contemporary Spanish comprising a variety of spoken and written genres. It is found that, aside from the basic distinction between hearer-exclusive and hearer-inclusive first persons, a third, intermediate variant can be considered, that of empathic hearer-exclusive uses. These are typical of interactions where involvement of the audience is sought even if they are not referentially included in the subject, as is usual in some varieties of spoken mass-media discourse. Each one of the referential variants is used with different frequencies and contextual repercussions, depending on the socio-functional demands and goals of particular textual genres. (shrink)

This paper deals with the exceptions-tolerance property of generic sentences with indefinite singular and bare plural subjects (IS and BP generics, respectively) and with the way this property is connected to some well-known observations about felicity differences between the two types of generics (e.g. Lawler's 1973, Madrigals are popular vs. #A madrigal is popular). I show that whereas both IS and BP generics tolerate exceptional and contextually irrelevant individuals and situations in a strikingly similar way, which indicates the existence (...) of a basically equivalent tolerance mechanism, there is also a difference between them, unnoticed so far, which concerns the degree to which the properties of the legitimate exceptions can be characterized in advance. Following claims in Greenberg (2003), I argue that both this newly observed difference as well as the traditional felicity differences result from an underlying contrast in the type of ‘non-accidentalness’ expressed by the two types of generic sentences, and more formally, in the accessibility relations that their generic quantifier (Gen) is compatible with. To capture the new difference in tolerance of exceptions, I develop an improved version of the exceptions-tolerance mechanism for generic sentences suggested in Kadmon & Landman (1993), namely, a restriction on the set of individuals and situations quantified by Gen, which is partially vague to two different degrees using supervaluationist methods. The different degrees of vagueness in this restriction are shown to be systematically dependent on the two types of accessibility relations that IS and BP generics are compatible with, which are redefined as precise and vague restrictions on the generic quantification over worlds. (shrink)

While some form of evaluation has always been employed in science (e.g. peer review, hiring), formal systems of evaluation of research and researchers have recently come to play a more prominent role in many countries because of the adoption of new models of governance. According to such models, the quality of the output of both researchers and their institutions is measured, and issues such as eligibility for tenure or the allocation of public funding to research institutions crucially depends on the (...) outcomes of such measures. However, concerns have been raised over the risk that such evaluation may be threatening epistemic pluralism by penalizing the existent heterodox schools of thought and discouraging the pursuit of new ones. It has been proposed that this may happen because of epistemic bias favouring mainstream research programmes. In this paper, I claim that (1) epistemic pluralism is desirable and should be preserved; (2) formal evaluation exercises may threaten epistemic pluralism because they may be affected by some form of epistemic bias; therefore, (3) to preserve epistemic pluralism, we need some strategy to actively dampen epistemic bias. (shrink)

This is the second in a sequence of three essays which axiomatize and apply Edmund Husserl's dependence ontology of parts and wholes as a non-Diodorean, non-Kantian temporal semantics for first-order predicate modal languages. The Ontology of Intentionality I introduced enough of Husserl's dependence-ontology of parts and wholes to formulate his account of order as effected by relating moments of unity, and The Ontology of Intentionality II extends that axiomatic dependence-ontology far enough to enable its semantic application. Formalizing the compatibility [Vereinbarkeit] (...) relation implicated in Husserl's notorious doctrine of impossible meanings, the essay introduces a compatibility restriction on relations to formulate Husserl's distinction between singular [einheitliche] and plural [mehrheitliche] objects, using plural relating moments to define first-order versions of Husserl's notions of relation complexes (i.e. Sachverhalte), abstracta of n-ary relation complexes, categorial relations, abstract eide as unifications of categorial relations, semantic domains as completions of abstract eide, and material regions as semantic domains which are compatibility upper bounds of categorial relations. These concepts will enable the formal dependence-ontological noetic semantics for two-valued, first-order modal languages introduced in the sequel Two-Valued Logics of Intentionality, the third essay in the sequence. (shrink)

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have rippled across the United States’ (US) agri-food system, illuminating considerable issues. US seed systems, which form the foundation of food production, were particularly marked by panic-buying and heightened safety precautions in seed fulfillment facilities which precipitated a commercial seed sector overwhelmed and unprepared to meet consumer demand for seed, especially for non-commercial growers. In response, prominent scholars have emphasized the need to support both formal (commercial) and informal (farmer- and gardener-managed) seed systems to (...) holistically aid growers across various contexts. However, limited attention to non-commercial seed systems in the US, coupled with a lack of consensus surrounding what exactly a resilient seed system looks like, first warrants an exploration into the strengths and vulnerabilities of existing seed systems. This paper seeks to examine how growers navigated challenges in seed sourcing and how this may reflect the resilience of the seed systems to which they belong. Using a mixed-methods approach which includes data from online surveys (n = 158) and semi-structured interviews (n = 31) with farmers and gardeners in Vermont, findings suggest that growers were able to adapt – albeit through different mechanisms depending on their positionality (commercial or non-commercial) within the agri-food system. However, systemic challenges emerged including a lack of access to diverse, locally adapted, and organic seeds. Insights from this study illuminate the importance of creating linkages between formal and informal seed systems in the US to help growers respond to manifold challenges, as well as promote a robust and sustainable stock of planting material. (shrink)

This is the first of three essays which use Edmund Husserl's dependence ontology to formulate a non-Diodorean and non-Kantian temporal semantics for two-valued, first-order predicate modal languages suitable for expressing ontologies of experience (like physics and cognitive science). This essay's primary desideratum is to formulate an adequate dependence-ontological account of order. To do so it uses primitive (proper) part and (weak) foundation relations to formulate seven axioms and 28 definitions as a basis for Husserl's dependence ontological theory of relating moments. (...) The essay distinguishes between dependence v. independence, pieces v. moments, mediate v. immediate pieces and moments, maximal v. non-maximal pieces, founded v. unfounded qualities, integrative v. disintegrative dependence, and defines the concepts of the completion of an object, the adumbrational equivalence relation of objects, moments of unity which unify objects, and relating moments which relate objects. The eight theorems [CUT90]-[CUT97] show that relating moments of unity provide an adequate account of order in terms of primitive (proper) part and (weak) foundation relations. (shrink)

The reaction to multiple religious belonging has been fraught with anxiety in the monotheistic traditions. Nevertheless, increasing numbers of people report belonging to multiple religions. I propose that it is most useful to think of multiple religious belonging not so much as an expression of choice, but just the opposite. Multiple religious belonging is best explained as the ontological condition of two or more religious traditions constituting the self, so that the self’s possibilities are constrained by those religions. Furthermore, I (...) argue that multiple religious belonging per se does not threaten traditional religious communities. Threats are by definition future possibilities, and ontologically speaking, we always already belong to multiple religions. We belong to multiple religions because every religious tradition is an amalgam of earlier distinct traditions. There is nothing new about multiple religious belonging. It is nearly unremarkable. Two philosophers in particular-one a twentieth-century German phenomenologist, the other a second-century Indian Buddhist-have given particularly careful examination of the phenomenon of belonging. Hans-Georg Gadamer’s concept of Wirkungsgeschichte [history of effects] and Nāgārjuna’s teaching of śūnyatā [emptiness] both imply that multiple religious belonging is the ontological condition of all human beings, and that producing any monolithic religious identity requires significant mental gymnastics. (shrink)

“Neo-inclusivism” is explained and assessed as an approach to the problem of the conflicting claims to truth of different religions, with reference to inter alia John B. Cobb (Jr.), Gavin D'Costa and Paul Ingram. For the neo-inclusivist the truth of a religious tradition depends on its inclusivistic capacity, i.e. its capacity to assimilate other traditions. For ex ample, by being enriched and transformed through “radical openness” to other traditions, while remaining “committed” to her own tradition – so the neo-inclusivist claims (...) – the theology of the Christian can become “truly global”. Neo-inclusivism seemingly transcends the absolutist habits of inclusivists, i.e. to assess the religious other in view of criteria (the inclusivist's own religious tradition) with which the other does not identify himself or herself. However, the neo-inclusivist plays down the possible limits of inter religious openness and is overly optimistic about the possibility of a “truly global” theology. Moreover, whether the neo-inclusivist's “committed openness” significantly differs from the approach of those who arbitrarily use the definitive norms of their own religious tradition to assess other traditions, is at least debatable. Whatever the case may be, insofar as tolerance cannot tolerate intolerance, the neo-inclusivist is necessarily intolerant, and, in this sense, “absolutist”, towards those who make their own beliefs normative for all and shun themselves from the assessments and new insights of others. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.23(1) 2004: 82-107. (shrink)

This article proposes a new logical framework for NL quantification. The framework is based on Generalized Quantifiers, Skolem-like functional dependencies, and Maximality of the involved sets of entities. Among the readings available for NL sentences, those where two or more sets of entities are independent of one another are particularly challenging. In the literature, examples of those readings are known as Collective and Cumulative readings. This article briefly analyzes previous approaches to Cumulativity and Collectivity, and indicates (Schwarzschild in Pluralities. Kluwer, (...) Dordrecht, 1996) as the best proposal so far to deal with these readings. Then, it incorporates its insights in the logical framework defined in Robaldo (J Philos Log 39(1):23–58, 2009a), leading to a scalable logical account for NL quantification. (shrink)

We provide a semantic analysis of respective readings, including butnot limited to the interpretation of examples containing the adverbrespectively, which accounts for a number of facts that haveeither proven difficult for previous studies or heretofore goneunnoticed in the literature. The analysis introduces the new notionsof property sum and proposition sum which integrate smoothly with existing analyses of plurals and distributivity. The analysis also admits of a straightforward account of previouslyunacknowledged examples involving filler-gap dependencies that areproblematic for contemporary syntactic theories. Ramifications (...) anddirections for future research are discussed. (shrink)

Limited distribution phenomena related to negation and negative polarity are usually thought of in terms of affectivity where affective is understood as negative or downward entailing. In this paper I propose an analysis of affective contexts as nonveridical and treat negative polarity as a manifestation of the more general phenomenon of sensitivity to (non)veridicality (which is, I argue, what affective dependencies boil down to). Empirical support for this analysis will be provided by a detailed examination of affective dependencies in Greek, (...) but the distribution of any will also be shown to follow from (non)veridicality. (shrink)

Negative Concord (NC) constructions such as the news anchor didn’t warn nobody about the floods (meaning ‘the news anchor warned nobody’), in which two syntactic negations contribute a single semantic one, are stigmatized in English, while their Negative Polarity Item (NPI) variants, such as the news anchor didn’t warn anybody about the floods, are prescriptively correct. Equating acceptability with grammaticality, this pattern has led linguists to treat NC as ungrammatical in “Standard” or standardized English (SE). However, it is possible that (...) SE grammars do generate NC sentences, and their low incidence and acceptability is instead due to social factors. To explore this question, and the relationship between NC and NPI constructions, we compared the acceptability of overtly negative noun phrases (e.g. nobody), NPIs (e.g. anybody), and bare plurals (e.g. people), in negative contexts and in conditionals. Negative items were followed by a consequence which supported their single negative meaning, while conditional items were followed by a consequence compatible with the NPI and the bare plural but not the negative noun phrase. Acceptability ratings of the critical NC sentences were reliably lower than constructions with NPIs and bare plurals, but the consequences for all three of these sentence types were rated highly. This reflects an asymmetry in participants’ acceptance of NC and their readiness to interpret it in context. A follow-up study with only conditionals revealed that speakers can also find NPIs infelicitous in conditional contexts with consequences that are compatible with a negative interpretation of the NPI, and that negative arguments are felicitous in these same contexts. Taken together, the results support the hypothesis that speakers who do not accept NC have grammars that generate both NC and NPI constructions, and further, that these speakers have two underlying structures for any-NPIs in English. (shrink)

This unique volume explores what ethics has to offer the practicing physician, nurse, and allied health care worker. The authors introduce the basic vocabulary of ethics and present and discuss the most commonly used ethical theories, using case studies to illustrate how ethics work within the context of health care. Newcomers to the field will learn what ethics is all about and how it relates to the pragmatic concerns of the health care professional. Those who already have a working knowledge (...) of the field will find a new approach to ethical theory--personalism--which the authors believe can make the practical use of ethics more effective and reliable. (shrink)