Meanings are the most elusive objects of linguistic research. The article summarizes the type of evidence we have for them: various types of metalinguistic activities like paraphrasing and translating, the ability to name entities and judge sentences true or false, as well as various behavioral and physiological measures such as reaction time studies, eye tracking.

This talk is based on Krifka (2001). Its topic is the interpretation of quantifiers in questions. I will use English data for illustration, but the phenomena to be discussed appear to be general enough to be relevant for other languages as well, at least those languages that have nominal quantifiers.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:25. HUME'S ANTINOMIES I There are many contradictions in Hume. So much is readily admitted by all Hume scholars. But there is little agreement on what these contradictions show about Hume's thought in general. Many interpretations are based upon the view that Hume's contradictions are signs of his carelessness or lack of thoroughness. He is seen either as having lost all interest in giving a comprehensive or consistent account (...) of human nature or as not having pushed far enough his analysis of the philosophical problems facing him. Other interpretations suggest that Hume, the "skeptic," has recklessly introduced these contradictions in order to confuse us. He is perhaps not altogether serious and is laughing at those who take too serious a view of the "science" of metaphysics and his own contribution 2 to it. Others again argue that the contradictions (or some fundamental class of them) are the consequence of Hume's philosophical presuppositions or his psychological method. Given his particular beliefs and his method, these contradictions had to arise with logical necessity. However, the general opinion seems to be that, if Hume is not to be dismissed as a merely negative skeptic whose philosophy is of no great consequence, he needs to be excused or defended, i.e. his contradictions, which are 4 seen as "inconsistencies," have to be explained away. His discussions of the self, causality, substance, or the relationship of reason and the passions must be, and — it is believed — can be shown not to be contradictory, if all the relevant factors are considered. However, reconstructions of Hume's analysis of the self or causality, for instance, which involve the explaining away of contradictions soon find themselves in a rather peculiar quandary, since they also have to show that Hume's own admissions of the contradictory nature of his analysis is mistaken. Such "defenses" issue only in other 26. accusations, namely that Hume, in addition to not having expressed himself very clearly in his writings, failed to understand them himself when he referred back to them. If only for this reason, I think that interpretations which involve an explaining away or minimizing of the contradictions in Hume are suspect. It is my opinion that Hume needs no such defenses or excuses -- at least not in so far as the most important contradictions are concerned. On the contrary, I believe that Hume can be understood properly, only if we take full account of them. I want in this paper to argue that there is in Hume a fundamental class of contradictions which he believed were neither accidental nor created by his analysis, but were essential characteristics of the human mind. The contradictions uncovered by his analysis can be understood only if they are recognised as one aspect of a more complex problematic. They must have a "deeper" significance for Hume because they are the symptoms of the infirmities... which are common to human nature (T265). These are 'Hume's 7 "antinomies. " In this analysis I have allowed myself to be guided by a more or less Kantian conception of "antinomy" and "antinomical." In fact, I believe that there is a definite similarity between Kant's doctrine of the "Antinomy of Pure Reason" and Hume's "operations" which are equally natural and necessary in the human mind, yet in some circumstances... directly contrary (T266). But the present paper is not so much a sustained comparison of Hume and Kant in this regard as it is an attempt to elucidate the g peculiar nature of several contradictions in Hume. For I believe that, if we have a better understanding of the nature of these contradictions, we will also be able to say something more definite about Hume's theory of mental activity and certain aspects of the relationship of skepticism and naturalism (or: Pyrrhonism and Newtonianism, destructive and constructive side, negative and positive phase, etc.) in his thought. To this end, I shall first 27. explain what I mean by "antinomy" here. Secondly, I shall show in what sense Hume was aware of having discovered something very much like an antinomical dimension in human nature, and, finally, I shall offer some suggestions as to the relevance of this... (shrink)

While language is presumably unique to humans, there are possible pre-linguistic features that developed in the course of human evolution which predate features of language, and might have even been essential for its evolution. A number of such possible preadaptations for human language have been discussed, like the permanent lowering of the larynx, the ability to control one’s breath, or the inclination of humans to imitate. In this paper I would like to point out another candidate for a preadaptation, namely (...) the functional differentiation of the hands and the way in which they cooperate in manual actions. (shrink)

This paper develops a way to model performative speech acts within a framework of dynamic semantics. It introduces a distinction between performative and informative updates, where informative updates filter out indices of context sets (cf. Stalnaker, Cole (ed), Pragmatics, Academic Press, 1978), whereas performative updates change their indices (cf. Szabolcsi, Kiefer (ed), Hungarian linguistics, John Benjamins, 1982). The notion of index change is investigated in detail, identifying implementations by a function or by a relation. Declarations like _the meeting is (hereby) (...) adjourned_ are purely performative updates that just enforce an index change on a context set. Assertions like _the meeting is (already) adjourned_ are analyzed as combinations of a performative update that introduces a guarantee of the speaker for the truth of the proposition, and an informative update that restricts the context set so that this proposition is true. The first update is the illocutionary act characteristic for assertions; the second is the primary perlocutionary act, and is up for negotiations with the addressee. Several other speech acts will be discussed, in particular commissives, directives, exclamatives, optatives, and definitions, which are all performative, and differ from related assertions. The paper concludes a discussion of locutionary acts, which are modelled as index changers as well, and proposes a novel analysis for the performative marker _hereby._. (shrink)

Although the ethics of Kant and Scheler there is a considerable difference in form, but both are among the fundamental ethics of self-discipline. Kant's willingness to explore the moral self-discipline, and Scheler's love in order to explore the moral self-discipline. But Kant's rational self-discipline and different, Scheler stressed that personal self-discipline. For Scheler, the good moral character is the carrier of the essence of personality is an absolute time-oriented, and is in the absolute time of their behavior and the behavior (...) by continuing to build in, so the moral good must with absolute time characteristics. She Lelun both Kant and the difference between how much science, they are ultimately concerned about the moral good of the problem. (shrink)

Die Studie versucht, das Politische als ein zwischenmenschliches Urteilshandeln zu erklären. Der Urteilstypus, der dem zugrundeliegen muß, wird systematisch ausgewiesen und - neben den Leuten selbst - der Philosophie, Politischen Theorie, Rechtswissenschaft und auch Theologie vorgelegt.Anlaß und Stoff für die Beweisführung bildet die Berliner Diskussion über die Möglichkeiten menschlicher Rationalität um J. G. Fichte und seine vielfältigen Kritiker, darunter Carl Schmitt. Durch die Art, wie der untersuchte Urteilstypus aus sich heraus Einheit und Kraft gewinnt und so kommunikativ zu wirken vermag, (...) ergibt sich ein neues Bild von Demokratie-Theorie: Das Politische ist wesentlich unvertretbar; die Urteilenden selber sinnen einander Einsatz an und rufen sich zur Entscheidung auf. So wird man Bürger.Im Sinn einer solchen nicht von bloß privaten Interessen bestimmten Gemeinschaftlichkeit wurde Fichte insbesondere in China aufgenommen, als es sich in Begegnung mit Berliner Philosophie zu erneuern begann. Das vorliegende Buch erinnert auch an dieses Stück gemeinsamer Zukunft. (shrink)

to appear in Lisa Matthewson (ed.), Cross-linguistic perspectives on the semantics of quantification, Elsevier.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:46 HUME IN THE GOTTINGISCHE ANZEIGEN: 1739-1800 Surprisingly little historical and systematic work has been done on the early reception of Hume's philosophy in Germany. Although there are quite a number of papers and books devoted to discussing Kant's relation to Hume, these are, for the most part, thoroughly uninformed by the historical background of Kant's reception of Hume. The question of what Kant actually knew of Hume is (...) raised over and over again, but, in the absence of new evidence, does not seem to admit of any satisfactory answer. These two circumstances, namely, the lack of historical work on Hume's reception in eighteenthcentury Germany, and the seeming futility of discussions concerning Kant's knowledge of Hume, are closely related. For, given the relative sparsity of Kant's remarks on Hume, new light on the Kant-Hume relation will have to come from the general background of Kant's thinking and writing. Once we know that works of Hume were known in Germany, how they were seen, and how they figured, if they did, in the thought of Kant's contemporaries, we will perhaps be able to make more sense of Kant's sometimes 2 cryptic remarks about Hume. But I believe it would be a serious mistake to look at Hume's reception in Germany from an exclusively Kantian point of view. Quite independent of the Kant-Hume relation philosophically important as it obviously is — it should prove interesting to see how Hume was received by his contemporaries in Germany, and whether their view of him reveals interesting aspects of his thought that were seen neither in Britain nor in France. It is clear, however, that the discussion of the reception of Hume in eighteenth-century Germany 47 is far too large an undertaking to be attempted in one article. Therefore I shall attempt to trace, by means of a descriptive bibliography, the rough outline of the history of his reception in just one German publication: the Göttingische Anzeigen von gelehrten Sachen (GGA). This journal seems to me a particularly good place to start an account of Hume's German Rezept ionsgeschichte because, first, it covers the entire period during which Hume could have influenced German thought. For the GGA began appearing in 1739, the very year in which Hume's Treatise was first published, and it is still being published today. Thus it can supply us with a continuous series of documents from 1739 to the present. Second, since the GGA was begun when Hannover, and thus Gottingen, were closely linked to Britain because of the Personalunion, it had a greater interest in British thought than most other German journals. Thus it reported British developments more quickly than did other German 4 journals. Third, and partially as a result of the British connection, the GGA very soon became one of the most prestigious German journals. What was being said in its reviews carried greater weight, or, at the very least, must be assumed to have been more widely read, than what was put forward in many other German publications. It is useful to divide Hume's early German influence into roughly four different periods. The first period lasted from 1739 to the early 5 seventies. This period saw the translation of most of Hume's works into French and German, and it may be characterized as the time of Hume's first reception. The second period began in the early seventies and lasted to the early eighties. During this time, Hume's Scottish critics Reid, Oswald and Beattie, as 48 well as their and Hume's critic, Joseph Priestley, became better known in Germany, and thus changed the German view of Hume. But this change appears also to have been connected with the more thorough discussion of Hume in Germany itself, and with the reception of Hume's posthumously published writings. The third period I see beginning with the appearance of Kant's first Critique (1781) and the Prolegomena (1783), which, at first, were seen by him as well as by his contemporaries as a continuation of the Humean enterprise. This clearly had significant effects on the way in which Hume was... (shrink)

This paper describes the local context of Kant’s scientific education. It provides an informed sense of what Kant’s scientific training was like by presenting each relevant member of the philosophy faculty at the university in Königsberg where Kant was a student, and the scientific activities each one was engaged in. On the basis of this picture, it is argued that Kant’s relationship with one of his teachers, Martin Knutzen, may have been much more negative or critical than is typically supposed. (...) This evaluation has important implications especially for understanding Kant’s early works in natural philosophy. (shrink)

Verzameling filosofische verhandelingen over tijd onder de titel Kairos = de juiste tijd of het juiste moment in het Grieks.