It is a common view that radical contextualism about linguistic meaning is incompatible with a compositional explanation of linguistic comprehension. Recently, some philosophers of language have proposed theories of 'pragmatic' compositionality challenging this assumption. This paper takes a close look at a prominent proposal of this kind due to François Recanati. The objective is to give a plausible formulation of the view. The major results are threefold. First, a basic distinction that contextualists make between mandatory and optional pragmatic processes needs (...) to be revised. Second, the pragmatic theory can withstand a Davidsonian objection only by rejecting the importance of a distinction between primitive and non-primitive semantic items. Thirdly, however, the theory is now open to a worry about how it should be understood: either the theory consists in a very broad functionalist generalization about communication, which makes it explanatorily inert, or it boils down to a highly particularist view about linguistic meaning. Finally, I argue that Recanati's notion of 'occasion meaning' is problematic and suggest replacing it with the notion of speaker meaning, which is explanatorily more basic. (shrink)

According to the dominant view, the later Wittgenstein identified the meaning of an expression with its use in the language and vehemently rejected any kind of mentalism or intentionalism about linguistic meaning. I argue that the dominant view is wrong. The textual evidence, which has either been misunderstood or overlooked, indicates that at least since the Blue Book Wittgenstein thought speakers' intentions determine the contents of linguistic utterances. His remarks on use are only intended to emphasize the heterogeneity of natural (...) language. Taking into account remarks written after he finished the Investigations, I show how Wittgenstein anticipated the basic tenets of Gricean intention-based semantics. These are, in particular, the distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘non-natural’ meaning and the distinction between what a speaker means by an utterance and what the expression uttered means in the speaker’s natural language. Importantly, Wittgenstein also believed that only the meaning of the speaker determined the content of ambiguous expressions, such as ‘bank’, on a particular occasion of utterance. (shrink)

I respond to comments from Mark Bowker, Jessica Keiser, and Eliot Michaelson on my book, Talking About. The response clarifies my stance on the nature of reference, conflicting intentions, and the sense in which language may have proper functions.

I argue that introspection recruits the same mental mechanism as that which is required for the production of ordinary speech acts. In introspection, in effect, we intentionally tell ourselves that we are in some mental state, aiming thereby to produce belief about that state in ourselves. On one popular view of speech acts, however, this is precisely what speakers do when speaking to others. On this basis, I argue that every bias discovered by social epistemology applies to introspection and other (...) forms of self-directed representation. If so, it becomes unclear in what sense social epistemology is social. (shrink)

Gricean intentionalists hold that what a speaker says and means by a linguistic utterance is determined by the speaker's communicative intention. On this view, one cannot really say anything without meaning it as well. Conventionalists argue, however, that malapropisms provide powerful counterexamples to this claim. I present two arguments against the conventionalist and sketch a new Gricean theory of speech errors, called the misarticulation theory. On this view, malapropisms are understood as a special case of mispronunciation. I argue that the (...) Gricean theory is supported by empirical work in phonetics and phonology and, also, that conventionalism inevitably fails to do this work justice. I conclude, from this, that the conventionalist fails to show that malapropisms constitute a counterexample to a Gricean theory. (shrink)

Many theorists assume that a request is sincere if the speaker wants the addressee to perform the act requested. I argue that this assumption predicts an implausible mismatch between sincere assertions and sincere directives and needs to be revised. I present an alternative view, according to which directive utterances can only be sincere if they are self-directed. Other-directed directives, however, can be genuine or fake, depending on whether the speaker wants the addressee to perform the act in question. Finally, I (...) argue that this new perspective opens the door to a satisfying theory of authentic expression, for both assertive and directive utterances. Authenticity consists in the combination of genuine and sincere speech, for example, in the case of assertion, when speakers assert something which they both believe (sincerity) and want the addressee to believe (genuineness). (shrink)

Buchanan (2014) argues for a Gricean solution to well-known counterexamples to direct reference theories of content. Peet (2016) develops a way to change the counterexample so that it seems to speak against Buchanan’s own proposal. I argue that both theorists fail to notice a significant distinction between the kinds of cases at issue. Those appearing to count against direct reference theory must be described such that speakers have false beliefs about the identity of the object to which they intend to (...) refer, beliefs that appear relevant to the determination of what constitutes communicative success. This suggests, further, that cases of this sort do not provide a basis for robust generalizations about singular reference. (shrink)

Many philosophers have argued or taken for granted that Frege's puzzle has little or nothing to do with identity statements. I show that this is wrong, arguing that the puzzle can only be motivated relative to a thinker's beliefs about the identity or distinctness of the relevant object. The result is important, as it suggests that the puzzle can be solved, not by a semantic theory of names or referring expressions as such, but simply by a theory of identity statements. (...) To show this, I sketch a framework for developing solutions of this sort. I also consider how this result could be implemented by two influential solutions to Frege's puzzle, Perry's referential-reflexivism and Fine's semantic relationism. (shrink)

I argue for a theory of the optimal function of the speech act of referring, called the edenic theory. First, the act of singular reference is defined directly in terms of Gricean communicative intentions. Second, I propose a doxastic constraint on the optimal performance of such acts, stating, roughly, that the speaker must not have any relevant false beliefs about the identity or distinctness of the intended object. In uttering a singular term on an occasion, on this theory, one represents (...) oneself as not having any confused beliefs about the object to which one intends to refer. This paves the way for an intentionalist theory of reference that circumvents well-known problems, which have not been adequately addressed before in the literature. (shrink)

Speakers are confused about identity if they mistake one thing for two or two things for one. I present two plausible models of confusion, the Frege model and the Millikan model. I show how a prominent objection to Fregean models fails and argue that confusion consists in having false implicit beliefs involving the identity relation. Further, I argue that confused identity has characteristic corruptive effects on singular cognition and on the proper function of singular terms in linguistic communication.

Combining new insights from cognitive science and speech act theory, Unnsteinsson develops a compelling theory of singular reference which avoids well-known puzzles. The theory, Edenic intentionalism, is grounded in a mechanistic perspective on explanation in cognitive science and a new Gricean account of speaker meaning and speaker reference.

Many philosophers have assumed, without argument, that Wittgenstein influenced Austin. More often, however, this is vehemently denied, especially by those who knew Austin personally. We compile and assess the currently available evidence for Wittgenstein’s influence on Austin’s philosophy of language. Surprisingly, this has not been done before in any detail. On the basis of both textual and circumstantial evidence we show that Austin’s work demonstrates substantial engagement with Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. In particular, Austin’s 1940 paper, ‘The Meaning of a Word’, (...) should be construed as a direct response to and development of ideas he encountered in Wittgenstein’s Blue Book. Moreover, we argue that Austin’s mature speech-act theory in How to Do Things with Words was also significantly influenced by Wittgenstein. (shrink)

Silencing is usually explained in terms of conventionalism about the nature of speech acts. More recently, theorists have tried to develop intentionalist theories of the phenomenon. I argue, however, that if intentionalists are to accommodate the conventionalists' main insight, namely that silencing can be so extreme as to render certain types of speech act completely unavailable to victims, they must take two assumptions on board. First, it must be possible that speakers' communicative intentions are opaque to the speakers themselves. Secondly, (...) it needs to be assumed that structural oppression can have hidden psychological effects on its victims. Since both assumptions can be motivated independently, I argue that silencing can be fully understood without appealing to linguistic conventions. (shrink)

In response to Stephen Neale (2016), I argue that aphonic expressions, such as PRO, are intentionally uttered by normal speakers of natural language, either by acts of omitting to say something explicitly, or by acts of giving phonetic realization to aphonics. I argue, also, that Gricean intention-based semantics should seek divorce from Cartesian assumptions of transparent access to propositional attitudes and, consequently, that Stephen Schiffer's so-called meaning-intention problem is not powerful enough to banish alleged cases of over-intellectualization in contemporary philosophy (...) of language and mind. (shrink)

I argue that what speakers mean or express can be determined by their implicit or unconscious states, rather than explicit or conscious states. Further, on this basis, I show that the sincerity conditions for utterances can also be fixed by implicit states. This is a surprising result which goes against common assumptions about speech acts and sincerity. Roughly, I argue that the result is implied by two plausible and independent theories of the metaphysics of speaker meaning and, further, that this (...) is a robust basis on which to make an inference, with a fair degree of confidence, about the relationship between expression and implicit attitudes. (shrink)

Paul Pietroski has developed a powerful minimalist and internalist alternative to standard compositional semantics, where meanings are identified with instructions to fetch or assemble human concepts in specific ways. In particular, there appears to be no need for Fregean Function Application, as natural language composition only involves processes of combining monadic or dyadic concepts, and Pietroski’s theory can then, allegedly, avoid both singular reference and truth conditions. He also has a negative agenda, purporting to show, roughly, that the vocabulary of (...) standard truth conditional semantics is far too powerful to plausibly describe the linguistic competence of mere human minds. In this paper, I explain some of the basics of Pietroski’s compositional semantics and argue that his major objection to standard compositionality is inconclusive, because a similar argument can be mounted against his own minimalist theory. I argue that we need a clear distinction between the language of the theorist---theoretical notation---and the language whose nature we are trying to explain. The theoretical notation should in fact be as expressively powerful as possible. It does not follow that the notation cannot be used to explain mere human linguistic competence, even if human minds are limited in various ways. (shrink)

I develop and argue for a novel theory of the mental state of identity confusion. I also argue that this mental state can corrupt the proper function of singular terms in linguistic communication. Finally, I propose a theory according to which identity confusion should be treated as a the source of a new sort of linguistic performance error, similar to malapropism, slips of the tongue, and so-called intentional obfuscation (inducing false belief by manipulating language in specific ways). -/- Going into (...) a bit more detail, I start by arguing that contemporary analytic philosophy, and philosophy of language in particular, has been dominated by a ‘puzzle-driven’ methodology. This tradition, I claim, seeks to provide a coherent system for describing semantic features of all conceivable cases where a speaker is confused about the identity or distinctness of an object. On my view, identity confusion is a mental state of an agent who either believes falsely that a is identical to b or believes falsely that a is not identical to b. I show how many influential arguments in philosophy – e.g., Kripke on semantic reference and speaker’s reference – are invalidated because of false assumptions about the state of identity confusion. -/- More positively, I assume an ‘explanation-driven’ approach, combining strands in Gricean intentionalism and Ruth Millikan’s teleosemantics. On this view, confused speakers are ‘sub-optimal’: their mental state disrupts the proper function of the relevant singular terms in their idiolects. Furthermore, I flesh out a theoretically fruitful notion of ‘edenic reference,’ which idealizes away from confusion in defining the optimal or stabilizing function of singular terms. I argue that speakers must satisfy certain broadly cognitive constraints if their utterances are to play a role in explaining the maintenance of a practice of using a singular term in a linguistic community. (shrink)

Meanings as Species, by Mark Richard. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. vii + 212.

1. [without special title]--2. Alternation/Parallel montage.

Miller's metaphysics, including his approach to God, is broad, deep, and original, with the potential to make a fruitful contribution to contemporary philosophy. Yet it has not received the critical attention it deserves. Miller's work deserves critical attention because of its thorough and original defense of three highly controversial positions: that existence is a real property of concrete individuals; that it is possible to prove, without assuming any principle of sufficient reason, that there is an uncaused cause of the universe; (...) and that the uncaused cause is the simple God of classical theism. Miller's position on existence is an important alternative in current analytical philosophy to what Miller calls the "Frege-Russell-Quine" theory, and the neo-Meinongian positions of Terence Parsons and Ed Zalta. Miller's argument for an uncaused cause of the universe has been described one of the most ambitious theistic arguments produced by a well-respected, contemporary, analytic philosopher. Analysis of Existing: Barry Miller's Approach to God is the first clear, systematic interpretation of Miller's theistic philosophy. (shrink)

The paper presents a semantics for quantified modal logic which has a weaker axiomatization than the usual Kripke semantics. In particular, the Barcan Formula and its converse are not valid with the proposed semantics. Subclasses of models which validate BF and other interesting formulas are presented. A completeness theorem is proved, and the relation between this result and completeness with respect to Kripke models is investigated.

This article discusses the metatheoretical foundations of a critical realist approach to critical discourse analysis and counterposes them to insufficiently realist tendencies in Norman Fairclough's critical discourse analysis, on the one hand, and anti-realist post-Marxist discourse theory on the other. The first section argues that Fairclough's approach is progressive in many ways, but lacks metatheoretical rigour with respect to important demarcation problems. These mainly concern CDA's understanding of discourse as mediating entity, its underlying dialectical-relational approach and overarching concept of social (...) practices. The discussion of Fairclough's approach necessitates a treatment of the relation of discourse and epistemology, in which the heritage of Foucault plays a crucial role and a brief engagement with ideology, in which Althusser is a major point of departure. The thesis is advanced that, among other things, Althusserian and Foucauldian residues in CDA's metatheory esta.. (shrink)

In the framework of ethical social choice theory, sustainability is justified by efficiency and equity as ethical axioms. These axioms correspond to the Suppes–Sen grading principle. In technologies that are productive in a certain sense, the set of Suppes–Sen maximal utility paths is shown to equal the set of non-decreasing and efficient paths. Since any such path is sustainable, efficiency and equity can thus be used to deem any unsustainable path as ethically unacceptable. This finding is contrasted with results that (...) seem to indicate that an infinite number of generations cannot be treated equally. (shrink)

A modified version of Normann's hierarchy of domains with totality [9] is presented and is shown to be suitable for interpretation of Martin-Löf's intuitionistic type theory. This gives an interpretation within classical set theory, which is natural in the sense that $\Sigma$ -types are interpreted as sets of pairs and $\Pi$ -types as sets of choice functions. The hierarchy admits a natural definition of the total objects in the domains, and following an idea of Berger [3] this makes possible an (...) interpretation where a type is defined to be true if its interpretation contains a total object. In particular, the empty type contains no total objects and will therefore be false (in any non-empty context). In addition, there is a natural equivalence relation on the total objects, so we derive a hierarchy of topological spaces (quotient spaces wrt. the Scott topology), and give a second interpretation using this hierarchy. (shrink)

NIHILISMUS ist seit Nietzsche das Schlüsselwort, das den Zugang zu unserer Epoche öffnen könnte. Doch wir haben ihn verschlossen, indem wir das Wort zum Unwort und Schmähwort erklären, obwohl der Nihilismus, dieser "unheimlichste Gast" schon längst in unserem Haus an unserem Tische sitzt. Wir selbst sind Nihilisten, obwohl wir den Nihilismus, kaum dass wir das Wort in den Mund genommen haben, schon überwinden möchten. Elmar Dod stellt sich in dieser philosophischen Studie dem Nihilismus, entwickelt ihn in seiner erregenden Bandbreite, (...) nimmt seine Herausforderung an, ohne nach bequemen Überwindungen zu schielen. Dabei zeigt er, wie wir als Nihilisten leben müssen, überleben können - sogar mit reicheren Möglichkeiten für eine ideologiefreie nihilistische Lebenspraxis. (shrink)

: Two major philosophers of the twentieth century, the German existential phenomenologist Martin Heidegger and the seminal Japanese Kyoto School philosopher Nishida Kitarō are examined here in an attempt to discern to what extent their ideas may converge. Both are viewed as expressing, each through the lens of his own tradition, a world in transition with the rise of modernity in the West and its subsequent globalization. The popularity of Heidegger's thought among Japanese philosophers, despite its own admitted limitation to (...) the Western "history of being," is connected to Nishida's opening of a uniquely Japanese path in its confrontation with Western philosophy. The focus is primarily on their later works (the post-Kehre Heidegger and the works of Nishida that have been designated "Nishida philosophy"), in which each in his own way attempts to overcome the subject-object dichotomy inherited from the tradition of Western metaphysics by looking to a deeper structure from out of which both subjectivity and objectivity are derived and which embraces both. For Heidegger, the answer lies in being as the opening of unconcealment, from out of which beings emerge, and for Nishida, it is the place of nothingness within which beings are co-determined in their oppositions and relations. Concepts such as Nishida's "discontinuous continuity," "absolutely self-contradictory identity" (between one and many, whole and part, world and things), the mutual interdependence of individuals, and the self-determination of the world through the co-relative self-determination of individuals, and Heidegger's "simultaneity" (zugleich) and "within one another" (ineinander) (of unconcealment and concealment, presencing and absencing), and their "between" (Zwischen) and "jointure" (Fuge) are examined. Through a discussion of these ideas, the suggestion is made of a possible "transition" (Übergang) of both Western and Eastern thinking, in their mutual encounter, both in relation to each other and each in relation to its own past history, leading to both a self-discovery in the other and to a simultaneous self-reconstitution. (shrink)

The article aims to contribute to the sociological theory of the welfare state by addressing a fundamental puzzle of social policy, namely, the weakness of its claim to be a rational effort of society dealing with problems of social integration. Drawing on the work of Franz-Xaver Kaufmann, I distinguish between the cultural or ideational side of the welfare state and the social engineering or outcome side, arguing to take the rhetoric and symbolism of social policy more seriously. The integration of (...) society is more due to the communicative action of social policy than to its organizational quality. As early as the axial age civilizations, symbolism and ideology emerged as an autonomous field of social conflict and societal union. Taking ancient Israel as an example, I argue that societal integration may take place even in the absence of strong institutional correlates of social politics. This can help to explain why the welfare state in modern society is compatible with ever-increasing economic and social inequality. (shrink)

The present review essay discusses Peter Bratsis’s work Everyday Life and the State. It is argued that Bratsis produces a sound contribution to the on-going debate on state theory, which has its particular strengths in the innovative treatment of the public-private divide and an elaborate critique of fetishistic and ideological relations in the field of the political. In this, Bratsis builds on a broad range of structuralist, poststructuralist and dialectical positions. Deficiencies of his work are likewise to be found in (...) this bricolage of theoretical approaches: it is argued that conflicting epistemological and ontological fundamentals are not sufficiently taken into account, which consequently leads to reductionist and errant conclusions. This is especially evident in the confusion of ‘structuralist’ and ‘dialectical’ heuristics, which leads to an insufficiently materialist picture of the state in relation to ‘everyday life’. (shrink)

Distributive justice on the income and on the service aspects is the most vexing modern day problem for the creation and maintenance of an all inclusive health care system. A pervasive problem of all current schemes is the lack of effective cost control, which continues to result in increasing burdens for all public and private stakeholders. This proposal posits that the responsibility and financial obligation to achieve an ideal outcome of equal and affordable access and benefits for all citizens is (...) misplaced. The Good Samaritan demonstrated basic ethical principles, which are revisited, elaborated and integrated into a new approach to health care. The participants are limited to individual contributors and beneficiaries and organized as a citizen carried, closed, independent, and self-sufficient self-governing cooperative for their own and the benefit of a minority of disadvantaged health care consumers. The government assumes oversight, provides arbitration, enforces democratic decision making, a scheme of progressive taxation, a separate and transparent accounting system, and a balance between income and reinvestment in health care. The results are a fair distribution of cost, its effective control, and increased individual motivation to take on responsibility for personal health as a private good and a sharpened focus towards community health. At the sociopolitical level the government as well as employers are released from the inappropriate burden of catering to individual health. (shrink)

Das weltweit einzige und in seiner Konzeption einzigartige philosophische Fachwörterbuch - nun in 2., durchgesehener Auflage um ca. 20.000 Einträge erweitert - enthält rund 65.000 Stichwörter aus allen Sparten der Philosophie einschließlich aktueller und philosophisch relevanter Begriffe aus angrenzenden Wissenschaftsbereichen. Knappe, informative und übersichtliche Angaben zum Fachgebiet und Kontext ordnen alle Einträge ihrer Bedeutungsrichtung zu und verdeutlichen ihren Gebrauch. Ein differenziertes System von Querverweisen verbindet die Einträge miteinander und erleichtert dem Benutzer das Auffinden der korrekten Übersetzung.