Presumably, the exponent of logical normativity believes it to be the case that rational agents ought to reason logically. If the converse holds, and the exponent of logical normativity believes either that it is false that rational agents ought to reason logically or that the claim that rational agents ought to reason logically is not truth–functional, then any attempt to formulate sound arguments in support of their position will be either question–begging or self–contradictory. To argue in favour of the normative (...) status of logic involves the assumption that the issue is substantive. I draw a distinction between deontic and axiological normativity as applied to logical theory and demonstrate that because deontic sentences are not truth–functional, logic cannot be normative in the deontic sense. I conclude that the only sense in which logical theory may be thought of as normative is axiologically. (shrink)

What follows is a short thought experiment that aims to show, reductio ad absurdum, that narrow qualia internalism is probably inconsistent with a physicalist/functionalist theory of mind. Those wishing to rebut the argument presented here will need to demonstrate why spatial proximity and the right sort of causal connection of functionally isolated components are necessary to the instantiation of qualia.

As is shown in the introduction of the book, the notion "illocutionary act" is used with quite a number of essentially different meanings; consequently, it is quite unclear what an "illocutionary act" is actually supposed to be. This problem is the starting point of the thesis. An argument is stated, to the effect that the introduction and use of scholarly terms like, for instance, "illocutionary act", or "performative sentence", is not entirely arbitrary. It is argued that technical terms should not (...) be re-defined without a reason, but in the absence of reasons to the contrary should be used in the way in which they have originally been introduced. This argument is applied to the notion "illocutionary act". John L. Austin is the one who introduced this notion. Consequently, his conception of these acts should be adopted unless there are good reasons to the contrary. Therefore the book provides a detailed analysis of Austin's account, and his original conception of these acts is reconstructed. The most popular alternative account of "illocutionary acts" is John R. Searle's. Therefore, secondly, the book provides an analysis of Searle's famous account of "illocutionary acts" - the first really detailed one available, including Searle's own work. It is shown that what Searle presents is in fact extremely sketchy, and can certainly not be viewed, as it often is, as an elaborated theory. It is further argued that the fundamental assumptions about language which Searle intends to illustrate with his account of "illocutionary acts" are mistaken, so that in general a theory following the lines Searle suggests is doomed to failure. Finally it is shown that Searle's account of "illocutionary acts", as far as it goes, is not an adequate adoption of the conception Austin introduced. Hence Searle's account is no reasonable alternative to Austin's account. (shrink)

In the 1950s, Chomsky and his colleagues began attempts to reduce the complexity of natural language phonology and syntax to a few general principles. It wasn’t long before philosophers, notably John Searle and H. Paul Grice, started looking for ways to do the same for rational communication (Chapman 2005). In his 1967 William James Lectures, Grice presented a loose optimization system based on his maxims of conversation. The resulting papers (especially Grice 1975) strike a fruitful balance between intuitive exploration (...) and formal development. Though the work is not particularly formal, it marks the birth of modern formal pragmatics. Pragmatics is central to the theory of linguistic meaning because, to paraphrase Levinson (2000), the encoded content of the sentences we utter is only the barest sketch of what we actually communicate with those utterances. Utterance interpretation involves complex interactions among (i) semantic content, (ii) the context of utterance, and (iii) general pragmatic pressures (of which Grice’s maxims are one conception). The starting point for a formal pragmatics is the observation that speakers agree to a remarkable extent on the interpretations of the utterances they hear, suggesting that there are deep regularities across speakers, utterance contexts, and sentence types in how (i)–(iii) interact. An overarching challenge for pragmatic theory is that semantic content and the context of utterance influence each other. It is common, for instance, to find that the meaning of a sentence is crucially incomplete without contextual information. Indexicals and demonstratives are paradigm cases: ‘I am here now’ doesn’t have a fully specified denotation without information about who the speaker is, when he is speaking, and where he is speaking. Similarly, modal auxiliaries like must admit of a wide range of interpretations.. (shrink)

Cognitive technology is an increasingly important form of technology that can deal with meaning by either replicating or simulating human cognition. Cognitive technology can make use of information technology, but it strives to go beyond mere information processing by recognizing, changing, and creating meaning. This presents us with a two-sided challenge: On the one hand, cognitive technology is challenged to ‘understand’ meaning in ordinary language. And on the other, it challenges us to rethink fundamental questions of human cognition and sense-making. (...) Both challenges demand a better understanding of the difference between the technical transformation of symbols and the understanding of meaning in the ordinary sense. After explaining the topic in relation to both the insights and the limitations of the reflections by Turing, Searle, and Heidegger, this paper primarily builds on Wittgenstein’s contributions to a better understanding of the difference between two conceptions of meaning and their implications for technical replication and simulation. The paper shows that Wittgenstein developed his early calculus account of meaning into that of language games and that language games not only come in many different varieties, but are also much more flexible than calculi. Of particular interest will be the difference between rigid and creative rule-following. Creative rule-following involves an intricate interplay of very different bodily, mental, and cultural constituents, so that its simulation is not merely a technical problem but also requires clarification of a number of profound philosophical questions. It will become clear that the challenge of cognitive technology shows up at unexpected places and that is much bigger than usually assumed. (shrink)

One aspiration of an analytic jurisprudential theory is to provide an account of how legal obligations arise, including the legal obligation of judges to apply only legally valid norms when adjudicating cases. Also, any fully adequate theory should enable a solution to a ‘chicken-egg’ puzzle regarding legal authority: legal authority can exist only in virtue of rules that authorize it, but such rules require a legal authority as their source. Which came first? This article argues that it is difficult to (...) see how a particular type of positivist theory (featuring a fundamental norm that plays certain roles) can solve the puzzle and also account for the aforementioned adjudicative duty. The challenge can be framed in terms of the need to be able to derive a legal ‘ought’ (applying to courts) from only ‘is’-statements expressing social facts, where the requisite derivation cannot rely on what John Searle has called ‘institutional facts’. (shrink)

It is obvious that there are kinds of cognition -- mental problem solving -- that do not require spoken language. But it should not be obvious that peculiarly conceptual thought is independent of spoken language. This paper is a critical survey of arguments concluding that conceptual thought must be independent of language. The special emphasis is on arguments that John Searle has put forward, but others are considered as well. These include the claim that only the intentionality of thought (...) is "intrinsic", arguments from the nature of speech acts, appeals to the fact that animals and babies think, and the computational theory of mind (this last not being one of Searle's arguments). Finally, there is an argument from a certain conception of linguistic communication. (shrink)

The Speech act models of Searle and Bach/Hamish mistakenly reconstruct Austin's concept of "illocutionary act". In Austin's view, "illocutionary acts" are not pure acts of communication but social acts achieved by communicative behavior. Following Searle's "Speech Acts" and Strawson's "Intention and Convention in Speech Acts" today's speech act theory looks upon illocutionary acts as pure acts of communication, involving "conventionality" (in a certain sense) only as part of speaker's meaning. However, following Austin, to perform an illocutionary act is (...) to bring about conventional consequences which are not adequately dealt with in the speech act models of Searle and Bach/Hamish. (shrink)

When recalling events that one personally experienced, sometimes one sees oneself in the remembered scene: from an external, detached 'observer perspective'. In such cases one remembers from-the-outside. Remembering from-the-outside is a common yet curious case of personal memory. This book disentangles the puzzles posed by such memories.

Under John Searle’s theory of institutional facts, the law can be understood both as an institution governed by foundational documents and practices, and as a method for creating new institutions through the codification of the assignment of functions, usually of the form ‘X counts as Y in circumstances C’. The architect Christopher Alexander’s notion of pattern languages, schematic templates for problem-solving widely adopted by computer programmers, can be developed within a legal system as a coherence constraint on the (...) assignment of functions such that codified legal solutions do not conflict with other legal solutions to related or distinct problems. (shrink)

The openness of joint awareness between two or more subjects is a perceptual phenomenon. It involves a certain mutual awareness between the subjects, an awareness that makes reference to that very awareness itself. Properly characterized, such awareness can generate iterated awareness ‘x is aware that y is aware that x is aware...’ to whatever level the subjects can sustain. The openness should not be characterized in terms of Lewis–Schiffer common knowledge, the conditions for which are not met in many basic (...) cases of joint attention. A range of phenomena, including linguistic communication and other interpersonal relations, that have previously been described in terms of common knowledge should rather be seen as involving open joint awareness. An Appendix to this chapter discusses the relations of this approach to Barwise's discussions, and disputes the claim that these mental phenomena require the postulation of self-involving situations. (shrink)

Comparatives are among the most extensively investigated constructions in generative grammar, yet comparatives involving attributive adjectives have received a relatively small amount of attention. This paper investigates a complex array of facts in this domain that shows that attributive comparatives, unlike other comparatives, are well-formed only if some type of ellipsis operation applies within the comparative clause. Incorporating data from English, Polish, Czech, Greek, and Bulgarian, we argue that these facts support two important conclusions. First, violations of Ross’s Left Branch (...) Condition that involve attributive modifiers should not be accounted for in terms of constraints on LF representations (such as the Empty Category Principle), but rather in terms of the principle of Full Interpretation at the PF interface. Second, ellipsis must be analyzed as deletion of syntactic material from the phonological representation. In addition, we present new evidence from pseudogapping constructions that favors an articulated syntax of attributive modification in which certain types of attributive modifiers may occur outside DP. (shrink)

Hegel’s Logic reveals an insightful and subtle engagement with the traditional problem of free will as it emerges from our basic commitment to the explicability of the world. While the dominant current interpretations of Hegel’s theory of agency find little of significance in the Logic and suggest that Hegel avoided the traditional problem, Yeomans argues both that the problem is unavoidable, and that the two versions of the Logic fruitfully engage the tensions between explicability and both the control and alternate (...) possibilities constitutive of free agency. In particular, Yeomans examines Hegel’s response to three different versions of the principle of sufficient reason that have historically seemed to make free will problematic. The central three chapters take up each of these versions in turn. For each, Yeomans first explores the nature of its challenge to free will with glances both at Hegel’s precursors and contemporaries and at the philosophy of action of our own time. Then Yeomans delves into the arguments of Hegel’s Logic to see how he construed the problematic concepts in question. Finally, Yeomans returns to the issue of free will to bring Hegel’s interpretations of the concepts in the Logic together with elements of his moral psychology from his practical philosophy both to show how the problem of free will can be resolved, and to trace in outline the shape of free will that such a resolution produces. The key connection between the Logic’s reflections on the form of explanation and the practical philosophy’s theory of the will is that both attempt to do justice to the mutual necessity of self-determination and external influence. (shrink)

What is it to be capable of thoughts about an objective world? What is involved in the unity of consciousness? How is the ability to attribute attitudes to other persons to be understood? The three symposia in this volume develop new approaches to these central questions in the philosophy of mind. The contributors include leading philosophers of the middle and younger generation working in Britain. All the issues discussed have an interdisciplinary dimension, and each symposium contains a contribution from a (...) noted psychologist working in the same field. The volume will be of interest not only to philosophers of mind, but also to those concerned with metaphysics, epistemology, developmental pscychology, animal psychology, and the nature of consciousness. (shrink)

The philosopher Kant is a key thinker in shaping our contemporary concept of morality, freedom, and happiness. This book argues that Kant believes in God, but that he is not a Christian, and that this opens up an important and neglected dimension of Western Philosophy.

The aim of the book is to make Socrates' investigation and resolution of the questions that still concern us as human beings more accessible to serious contemporary readers.

The Foundations of Cognitive Science is a set of thirteen new essays on key topics in this lively interdisciplinary field, by a stellar international line-up of authors. Philosophers, psychologists, and neurologists here come together to investigate such fascinating subjects as consciousness; vision; rationality; artificial life; the neural basis of language, cognition, and emotion; and the relations between mind and world, for instance our representation of numbers and space. The contributors are Ned Block, Margaret Boden, Susan Carey, Patricia Churchland, Paul Churchland, (...) Antonio Damasio, Hanna Damasio, Donald Davidson, Daniel Dennett, Ilya Farber, James Higginbotham, Christopher Peacocke, Will Peterman, Zenon Pylyshyn, John Searle. Anyone interested in the exploration of the human mind will enjoy this book. (shrink)

The concept of right (jus) as a moral power is traced in Leibniz's earliest to latest philosophical work.

Ever since Greek antiquity "disembodied knowledge" has often been taken as synonymous with "objective truth." Yet we also have very specific mental images of the kinds of bodies that house great minds--the ascetic philosopher versus the hearty surgeon, for example. Does truth have anything to do with the belly? What difference does it make to the pursuit of knowledge whether Einstein rode a bicycle, Russell was randy, or Darwin flatulent? Bringing body and knowledge into such intimate contact is occasionally seen (...) as funny, sometimes as enraging, and more often just as pointless. Vividly written and well illustrated, Science Incarnate offers concrete historical answers to such skeptical questions about the relationships between body, mind, and knowledge. Focusing on the seventeenth century to the present, Science Incarnate explores how intellectuals sought to establish the value and authority of their ideas through public displays of their private ways of life. Patterns of eating, sleeping, exercising, being ill, and having (or avoiding) sex, as well as the marks of gender and bodily form, were proof of the presence or absence of intellectual virtue, integrity, skill, and authority. Intellectuals examined in detail include René Descartes, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and Ada Lovelace. Science Incarnate is at once very funny and deeply serious, addressing issues of crucial importance to present-day discussions about the nature of knowledge and how it is produced. It incorporates much that will interest cultural and social historians, historians of science and medicine, philosophers, sociologists, and anthropologists. (shrink)

This chapter examines a key focal characteristic of the Scottish Enlightenment, namely, its delineation of how a ‘science of man’ can inform and structure an account of ‘society’. The key contribution of the Scots to the rise of the human sciences lies in a conception of society as a set of interlocked institutions and behaviours. The Scots provided an analysis of both social statics and social dynamics, which shifted the focus away from the individualism that characterized early modern jurisprudence. Humans (...) as social beings are best understood in society and not as monadic individuals. The Scottish analysis also sidelined the centrality traditionally allotted to the political. Humans are social as well as political animals. Political institutions are simply one kind of institution among several, to be given no greater priority than the rest. (shrink)

This book offers a broad-based critical survey of recent anti-realist arguments in the philosophy of science, cultural theory, hermeneutics, the sociology of knowledge and the interpretation of quantum-mechanics.

Aristotle admits the possibility of many vices opposed to one virtue, but insists that there are always at least two, related as deficiency and excess. The doctrine that "virtue is in a mean" is thus both true and useful.

separated from evaluating entailment. Current approaches to semantic inference in question answer-.

first-order HMM, the current tag t0 is predicted based on the previous tag t−1 (and the current word).1 The back- We present a new part-of-speech tagger that ward interaction between t0 and the next tag t+1 shows demonstrates the following ideas: (i) explicit up implicitly later, when t+1 is generated in turn. While unidirectional models are therefore able to capture both use of both preceding and following tag con-.