Ever since the seminal work of Paul Grice, tautologies such as Business is business have been discussed from a number of angles. While most approaches assume that tautological utterances have to do with the operation of conversational maxims, an integrated analysis is still lacking. This paper makes an attempt at analysing tautologies within the framework of Levinson, who proposes a distinction between three pragmatic levels, namely Indexical Pragmatics, Gricean Pragmatics 1, and Gricean Pragmatics 2. It is shown that observations of (...) Ward and Hirschberg on the exclusion of alternatives, the claim of Autenrieth that the second NP in nominal equatives is predicative, and the recent insights of Bulhof and Gimbel on `deep' tautology, may be fruitfully integrated within Levinson's framework. The gist of this paper is to show that tautologies are not as tautological as once thought, because implicatures influence their truth conditions. Data are drawn from the author's corpus of authentic German examples. (shrink)

This paper analyses falsely implicating from the point of view of Gricean theory of implicature, focusing on the Story of the Mate and the Captain which is a classical example of lying while saying the truth. It is argued that the case of falsely implicating should be included within a general definition of lying. Whether Particularised Conversational Implicatures (PCI), as in the Story of the Mate and the Captain, and Generalised Conversational Implicatures (GCI) behave differently with regard to falsely implicating (...) is discussed with reference to Levinson's theory of presumptive meaning [Levinson, Stephen C., 2000. Presumptive Meanings. The Theory of Generalised Conversational Implicature. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass]. It turns out that, in contrast to PCIs, the case where the assertion is false and the implicature is true is not possible with GCIs. In addition, tautology and irony are analysed, and some repercussions on the speech act notion of lying are pointed out. (shrink)

We can distinguish a minimalist and a maximalist concept of lying. Whilst the former assumes that lying is the same communicative act for all human beings but can be used in a different way according to social and cultural contexts, the latter holds that there are as many different concepts of lying as there are different social and cultural configurations in which lies are used. In particular, some researchers claim that Asian (collectivist) cultures possess different concepts of lying than Western (...) (individualist) cultures. When carefully looking at pertinent studies, it appears that the concept of lying as constituting a violation of the first submaxim of Quality according to Grice is a good candidate for a minimalist (universal) concept of lying. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question whetherbullshitis a reasonable pragmatic category. In the first part of the paper, drawing on the insights of Harry Frankfurt’s seminal essay, bullshit is defined as an act of insincere asserting where the speaker shows a loose concern for the truth, and does not want the addressee to become aware of condition. The author adds to this definition the condition requiring that the bullshitter expresses morecertaintythan is adequate with respect to condition. In the second part of (...) the paper, it is discussed whether the above definition can cope with special types of bullshit considered to be a challenge to Frankfurt’s definition. These areevasive bullshitting,bullshit lies, andbald-faced bullshitting. It is shown that there is hope for establishing a reasonable pragmatic category of bullshitting if it is related to certain levels of pragmatic description, e.g. conversational implicatures, that can explain the putative challenges. (shrink)

The notion of an indirect speech act is at the very heart of cognitive pragmatics, yet, after nearly 50 years of orthodox (Searlean) speech act theory, it remains largely unclear how this notion can be explicated in a proper way. In recent years, two debates about indirect speech acts have stood out. First, a debate about the Searlean idea that indirect speech acts constitute a simultaneous realization of a secondary and a primary act. Second, a debate about the reasons for (...) the use of indirect speech acts, in particular about whether this reason is to be seen in strategic advantages and/or observation of politeness demands. In these debates, the original pragmatic conception of sentence types as indicators of illocutionary force seems to have been getting lost. Here, I go back to the seemingly outdated “literal force hypothesis” (seeLevinson 1983: 263–264) and point out how it is still relevant for cognitive pragmatics. (shrink)

Lying is a familiar and important concept for virtually all of us, and philosophers have written a lot about what it means to lie. Although it is commonly accepted that an adequate definition of lying captures people's use and understanding of this concept, there have been surprisingly few empirical studies on it. n recent years, however, there is a trend emerging to remedy this lacuna. In this paper, we provide an overview of these studies. Starting from a widely accepted philosophical (...) definition of lying, we focus on the following three questions: Is an intention to deceive required for lying? Is it possible to lie despite saying something true? Can you lie by falsely implicating? (shrink)

Studies on the nature of quotation have become a topic of growing interest among linguists and philosophers of language. What is the function and logical status of quotations? How can an analysis of quotation help to develop a general theory of the semantics-pragmatics interface? This volume is a collection of original papers by leading researchers in the field on such issues and related linguistic and philosophical aspects of quotations.

Though âeoepejorationâe is an important notion for linguistic analysis and theory, there is still a lack of theoretical understanding and sound descriptive analysis. In this timely collection, the phenomenon of pejoration is studied from a number of angles. It contains studies from phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics, and deals with diverse languages and their variants. Thus, the collection will appeal to all those linguists with a genuine interest in locating pejoration at the grammar-pragmatics interface.

Bringing together different theoretical frameworks, the volume provides thought-provoking discussions of how the notion of context can be understood, modeled, and implemented in linguistics.

Deceptive implicatures are a subtle communicative device for leading someone into a false belief. However, it is widely accepted that deceiving by means of deceptive implicature does not amount to lying. In this paper, we put this claim to the empirical test and present evidence that the traditional definition of lying might be too narrow to capture the folk concept of lying. Four hundred participants were presented with fourteen vignettes containing utterances that communicate conversational implicatures which the speaker believes to (...) be false. We further collected several potential proxy measures of lying, to get a better understanding of when a deceptive implicature is considered a case of lying. The results indicate that most implicatures (ten out of fourteen) were evaluated as lies and that lie ratings were closely tracked by the degree to which speakers were considered to have committed themselves to the truth of the content conveyed by their deceptive implicatures. (shrink)

Survey of different definitions of lying and deceiving, with an emphasis on the contemporary debate between Thomas Carson, Roy Sorensen, Don Fallis, Jennifer Saul, Paul Faulkner, Jennifer Lackey, David Simpson, Andreas Stokke, Jorg Meibauer, Seana Shiffrin, and James Mahon, among others, over whether lies always aim to deceive. Related questions include whether lies must be assertions, whether lies always breach trust, whether it is possible to lie without using spoken or written language, whether lies must always be false, whether (...) lies that are unsuccessful are still lies, and whether deception must aim at creating false beliefs as opposed to preventing people from acquiring true beliefs. (shrink)

The question of what characterizes feelings of being alive is a puzzling and controversial one. Are we dealing with a unique affective phenomenon or can it be integrated into existing classifications of emotions and moods? What might be the natural basis for such feelings? What could be considered their specifically human dimension? These issues are addressed by researchers from various disciplines, including philosophy of mind and emotions, psychology, and history of art. This volume contains original papers on the topic of (...) feelings of being alive by Fiorella Battaglia, Eva-Maria Engelen, Joerg Fingerhut, Thomas Fuchs, Alice Holzhey-Kunz, Matthias Jung, Tanja Klemm, Riccardo Manzotti, Sabine Marienberg, Matthew Ratcliffe, Arbogast Schmitt, Jan Slaby, and Achim Stephan. (shrink)

Martin Buber believed that life's deepest truth lies in human relationships. In this classic work he puts this belief into practice, applying it to the concrete problems of contemporary society.

We introduce the property “F-linked” of subsets of posets for a given free filter F on the natural numbers, and define the properties “μ-F-linked” and “θ-F-Knaster” for posets in a natural way. We show that θ-F-Knaster posets preserve strong types of unbounded families and of maximal almost disjoint families. Concerning iterations of such posets, we develop a general technique to construct θ-Fr-Knaster posets (where Fr is the Frechet ideal) via matrix iterations of <θ-ultrafilter-linked posets (restricted to some level of the (...) matrix). This is applied to prove consistency results about Cichoń's diagram (without using large cardinals) and to prove the consistency of the fact that, for each Yorioka ideal, the four cardinal invariants associated with it are pairwise different. At the end, we show that three strongly compact cardinals are enough to force that Cichoń's diagram can be separated into 10 different values. (shrink)

Die letzte Finanzkrise mit ihren gravierenden Auswirkungen auf die Weltwirtschaft fuhrt vor Augen: Der globale Finanzmarkt hat sich von der Realwirtschaft weitgehend losgekoppelt. Um solche Krisen in Zukunft zu verhindern, gilt es, die Finanzmarkte an der menschengerechten Gestaltung des Globalisierungsprozesses wirksam zu beteiligen und damit gesellschaftlich einzubinden. Dies wurde nicht nur der zusammenwachsenden Weltgemeinschaft, sondern auch der Effizienz des globalen Finanzmarktes dienen. Zu einer Globalisierung der Menschenrechte hat die Finanzindustrie einen entscheidenden Beitrag zu leisten. Mit dieser Zielsetzung ist in theologischer (...) Perspektive eine Wirtschaftsethik als Ethik der Anreizstrukturen fur Unternehmen und Unternehmer in der Finanzbranche zu entwickeln. Welche Rolle kommt dabei den institutionellen Investoren, den viel geschmahten Hedgefonds, den Rating-Agenturen, den Banken, der Bankenaufsicht und den grossen internationalen Finanzinstitutionen zu? Die Reform der Finanzmarkte muss innerhalb der Wirtschaftsstrukturen selbst beginnen, wenn der Nationalstaat nicht zum allmachtigen Regulierer verkommen soll. (shrink)

In this paper, I will reconstruct Kant’s theory of illusion from the perspective of his transcendental philosophy. I argue that it is Kant’s theory of dialectic as the “logic of illusion” that grounds both theoretical and practical error and that traces them back to a common root: the operation of rationalizing by theoretical and practical reason. I analyze different kinds of theoretical and practical errors and show how they are grounded in reason’s general propensity to rationalize. The paper exposes this (...) common root and shows which rules Kant develops in order to avoid rationalizing. (shrink)

Unter dem Namen "Oracula Sibyllina" ist eine Sammlung in Hexametern abgefasster Pseudoorakel uberliefert mit den Buchern 1-8 und 11-14 in etwa 4230 Versen. Die fruhesten Teile entstanden im judischen Milieu seit der 2. Halfte des 1. Jahrhunderts v. Chr.; nach 150 n. Chr. wurden diese durch christliche Autoren rezipiert, erganzt und uberarbeitet. Die historischen Anspielungen reichen bis in das 3. nachchristliche Jahrhundert; die Endfassung wurde wohl im 6. Jahrhundert abgeschlossen. Der Legende nach hat Tarquinius Superbus, der letzte legendare Konig Roms, (...) die Bucher direkt von der Sibylle von Cumae erworben. Im Tempel des Iuppiter Capitolinus aufbewahrt und von 15 Priestern gehutet, durften sie nur eingesehen werden, wenn der Senat dies wegen beangstigender Vorzeichen anordnete. Im Jahr 83 v. Chr. vernichtete ein Brand auf dem Kapitol die Sammlung, eine neue wurde aufgrund von Nachforschungen an griechischen Sibyllenheiligtumern zusammengestellt.". (shrink)

Der Band präsentiert die 21 wichtigsten Enzyklopädie- und Lexikonartikel des 16. bis 19. Jahrhunderts zum Themenfeld "Gedächtnis, Gedächtnislehre, Gedächtniskunst" mit Kommentaren, Übersetzungen (aus dem Lateinischen, Italienischen und Spanischen), ausführlicher Bibliographie und einem Nachwort, das das Verhältnis von frühneuzeitlicher Mnemonik und Enzyklopädik erörtert. Eröffnet wird hiermit eine mehrbändige Reihe »Documenta Mnemonica« (ca. 6 Bände), die die wichtigsten einschlägigen Zeugnisse seit der Antike bis zum Ende der Frühen Neuzeit in mehrsprachigen, kommentierten Quelleneditionen, Quellenverzeichnissen und Forschungsbibliographien dem internationalen Wissenschaftsdiskurs bequem und verläßlich zugänglich (...) macht. (shrink)

It is relatively consistent with ZFC that every countable $FU_{fin} $ space of weight N₁ is metrizable. This provides a partial answer to a question of G. Gruenhage and P. Szeptycki [GS1].

Polish translation of "Kleine Geschichte der abendländischen Metaphysik: Von Platon bis Hegel". The history of Western metaphysics is being unfold on the basis of nine outstanding philosophers. For ancient philosophy: Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus; for medieval philosophy: Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham; for the modern period: Descartes, Kant and Hegel. The final chapter outlines some prominent opponents of metaphysics in the 19th/20th Century (Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Heidegger). Metaphysics being a fundamental philosophical discipline, this book can also be (...) read as an introduction to philosophy as such. (shrink)

My aim is to relate Søren A. Kierkegaard’s early theory of stages as described basically in “Either-Or” to the theory of interest underlying the two process model of cognition of the Canadian psychologist Keith E. Stanovich with regard to the question of the highest formal goal we can pursue in our life. On the basis of Stanovich’s distinction between type 1 and type 2 processing and Kierkegaard’s distinction between an esthetical and an ethical stage of life, I argue for an (...) extension of Stanovich’s understanding of the goal structure of type 2 processing, for Kierkegaard’s ethical stage of life being a natural expression of our cognitive faculties and for a critical approach to Kierkegaard's idea of a religious stage as hinted at in “Fear and Trembling”. (shrink)

We investigate some aspects of bounding, splitting, and almost disjointness. In particular, we investigate the relationship between the bounding number, the closed almost disjointness number, the splitting number, and the existence of certain kinds of splitting families.

Let A[ω]ω be a maximal almost disjoint family and assume P is a forcing notion. Say A is P-indestructible if A is still maximal in any P-generic extension. We investigate P-indestructibility for several classical forcing notions P. In particular, we provide a combinatorial characterization of P-indestructibility and, assuming a fragment of MA, we construct maximal almost disjoint families which are P-indestructible yet Q-destructible for several pairs of forcing notions . We close with a detailed investigation of iterated Sacks indestructibility.

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 66 Heft: 2 Seiten: 162-182.

Social Justice, Health Inequities, and Access to New Age-Related Interventions Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 281-295 DOI 10.1007/s12376-009-0027-3 Authors Hans-Jörg Ehni, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Baden-Württemberg Germany Georg Marckmann, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Baden-Württemberg Germany Journal Medicine Studies Online ISSN 1876-4541 Print ISSN 1876-4533 Journal Volume Volume 1 Journal Issue Volume 1, Number 3.

This article provides unified axiomatic foundations for the most common optimality criteria in statistical decision theory. It considers a decision maker who faces a number of possible models of the world (possibly corresponding to true parameter values). Every model generates objective probabilities, and von Neumann–Morgenstern expected utility applies where these obtain, but no probabilities of models are given. This is the classic problem captured by Wald’s (Statistical decision functions, 1950) device of risk functions. In an Anscombe–Aumann environment, I characterize Bayesianism (...) (as a backdrop), the statistical minimax principle, the Hurwicz criterion, minimax regret, and the “Pareto” preference ordering that rationalizes admissibility. Two interesting findings are that c-independence is not crucial in characterizing the minimax principle and that the axiom which picks minimax regret over maximin utility is von Neumann–Morgenstern independence. (shrink)

Brendle, J., H. Judah and S. Shelah, Combinatorial properties of Hechler forcing, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 59 185–199. Using a notion of rank for Hechler forcing we show: assuming ωV1 = ωL1, there is no real in V[d] which is eventually different from the reals in L[ d], where d is Hechler over V; adding one Hechler real makes the invariants on the left-hand side of Cichoń's diagram equal ω1 and those on the right-hand side equal 2ω and (...) produces a maximal almost disjoint family of subsets of ω of size ω1; there is no perfect set of random reals over V in V[ r][ d], where r is random over V and d Hechler over V[r], thus answering a question of the first and second authors. (shrink)

When a conflict of duties arises, a resolution is often sought by use of an ordering of priority or importance. This paper examines how such a conflict resolution works, compares mechanisms that have been proposed in the literature, and gives preference to one developed by Brewka and Nebel. I distinguish between two cases – that some conflicts may remain unresolved, and that a priority ordering can be determined that resolves all – and provide semantics and axiomatic systems for accordingly defined (...) dyadic deontic operators. (shrink)

The article attempts a reformulation of globalization theory. We identify ‘flow speak’ and the flattened ontology of the social that goes with it as a major limitation in contemporary globalization theory. Contrary to the prevailing overemphasis on mobility and deterritorialization, we suggest an existential turn that orients future globalization thinking more towards issues of belonging, choice and commitment, and the rhythmicity of social relations. To highlight the processual character of this shift of perspective, we shall draw on the paradigmatic figure (...) of the ‘homecomer’. S/he, in our understanding, embodies the ambivalence between the lure of global options and the need for commitment to lasting bonds. Thus, we do not argue for a post-mortem on globalization theory, but maintain that a deeper understanding of globalization as a ‘way of being in the world’ would require a phenomenologically inclined repositioning of the concept. (shrink)

This paper develops a critical account of evil. By referring to Kant’s moral philosophy, I argue that evil actions have reasons and cannot be explained in terms of a lack of reason. However, these reasons of evil are not obvious but rather forms of rational self-deception. I therefore argue that the phenomenon of evil is complex and involves three dimensions: activity, reasons, and deception.