This article1 investigates a particular use of generic sentences (or “characterizing” sentences, in the terminology of Krifka e.a. 1995), which is most prevalent with indefinite singular subjects. Such subjects cannot always be interchanged with bare plural NPs, as has been famously pointed out by Lawler (1973).

The classical analysis of donkey sentences like (1.a,b) in Kamp (1981) and Heim (1982) assigns them truth conditions as given in (2.a). That is, they are treated as quantifications over farmer-donkey pairs. Partee (1984) and Kadmon (1987) have pointed out that the proper reading of (1.b), and a preferred reading of (1.a), is rather a quantification over farmers, as illustrated in (2.b).

In the logical, philosophical and linguistic literature, a number of theoretical frameworks have been proposed for the meaning of questions (see Ginzburg (1995), Groenendijk & Stokhof (1997) for recent overviews). I will concentrate on two general approaches that figured prominently in linguistic semantics, which I will call the proposition set approach and the structured meaning approach (sometimes called the “propositional” and the “categorial” or “functional” approach). I will show that the proposition set approach runs into three problems: It does not (...) always predict the right focus structure in answers, it is unable to distinguish between polarity (yes/no) and a certain type of alternative questions, and it does not allow to formulate an important condition for a type of multiple constituent questions. On the other hand, I will show that the main argument brought forward against the structured meaning framework, namely that it does not give us an elegant way to account for embedded questions, does not withstand closer scrutiny. In this I will take up an issue raised in von Stechow (1990), namely, that the greater expressive power of the structured meaning approach might be necessary for the proper treatment of semantic phenomena like question formation and focusation. (shrink)

This paper discusses historical-critical thought to address the problems of restoration and preservation of tape music, proposing viable solutions to the matter of digitizing the historically valuable data that exists on and is represented by magnetic tapes. A detailed program of research and restoration and some software for helping in creation of critical editions of the musical works are proposed. We also present some of the issues and controversies that must be considered and approaches we have applied in the preservation (...) of tape music, highlighting how these interpretations can impact later performances of these tape documents. Fundamentally, we argue that the act of tape music restoration has a parallel with the interpretation of the “Urtext score” in the performance of music from the Common Practice Era. (shrink)

Abstract:Robert Sugden has suggested a normative standard of freedom as ‘opportunity’ that is supposed to help realign normative economics – with its traditional rational choice orientation – with behavioural economics. While allowing preferences to be incoherent, he wants to maintain the anti-paternalist stance of orthodox welfare economics. His standard, though, presupposes that people respond to uncertainty about their own future preferences by dismissing any kind of self-constraint. We argue that the approach lacks psychological substance: Sugden's normative benchmark – the ‘responsible (...) person’ – can hardly serve as a convincing role model in a contractarian setting. An alternative concept is introduced, and some implications are briefly discussed. (shrink)

Speech acts have sometimes been considered as unembeddable, for principled reasons. In this paper, I argue that speech acts can be embedded under certain circumstances. In particular, I consider denegation and conjunction of speech acts, quantification into speech acts, conditionalization of speech acts, the embedding of speech acts by verbs like say and wonder, speechact-modifying adverbials like frankly, clauses commenting on speech acts, like certain uses of because-clauses, parentheticals, and appositive relative clauses. A crucial distinction is made between speech acts (...) and speech act potentials, linguistic objects that can be used to perform speech acts when applied in a specific communicative situation. I develop a semantic theory in which speech act potentials are captured as semantic functions that change a world-time index, reflecting the nature of speech acts as events that happen in the world. As index changers, speech act potentials become nearly regular semantic objects, with a proper semantic type on which other semantic objects can operate on. In this way, speech acts (or rather, speech-act potentials) become part of the recursive structure of language. (shrink)

T. 1. Wortschatz -- T. 2. Überlieferung, Textkritik, Grammatik.

A tour de force examination of the contemporary ideological landscape by one of the world's leading analysts of globalization.

This influence of accent has been taken as evidence that adverbial quantification is focus sensitive (cf. Rooth (1985)) or presupposition sensitive (cf. von Fintel (1994), Rooth (1995)). I will discuss a problem that has been identified by von Fintel and Rooth, the requantifiation problem. Roughly stated, standard accounts of indefinites as NPs that introduce new discourse referents are at odds with standard accounts of the focus sensitivity or presupposition sensitivity of (1), which force us to assume that indefinites may pick (...) up existing discourse referents and “requantify” over them. I will argue for a special class of indefinites that pick up existing discourse referents, which I will call non-novel indefinites, to explain the nature.. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Klio Jahrgang: 99 Heft: 2 Seiten: 676-679.

The critique of capitalism is the bedrock on which rests the reputation of Frankfurt School critical theory. Though critical theory has often been heralded – or criticized and rejected – as a reformulation of Marxian theory for our times, its relation with the critique of political economy, and in particular the economic treatises, has barely been studied. Friedrich Pollock, who was Max Horkheimer’s lifelong friend and close associate at the Institute for Social Research, was responsible for all administrative and financial (...) questions, but he wrote few theoretical essays and Wiggershaus calls him ‘the last unknown member of the Frankfurt School’. Nevertheless this article asks whether not only has his influence on early critical theory been sorely underestimated, but also his impact on the late philosophies of Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse. (shrink)

Grounded procedures of separation are conceptualized as a learned concept. The simultaneous cultural universality of the general idea and immense diversity of its implementations might be better understood through the lens of dual inheritance theories. By drawing on examples from developmental psychology and emotion theorizing, we argue that an innate blueprint might underlie learned implementations of cleansing that vary widely.

Enjoyment of negative emotions in music is seen by many as a paradox. This paper argues that the paradox exists because it is difficult to view the process that generates enjoyment as being part of the the same system that also generates the subjective negative feeling. Compensation theories explain the paradox as the compensation of a negative emotion by the concomitant presence of one or more positive emotions. But compensation brings us no closer to explaining the paradox because it does (...) not explain how experiencing sadness itself is enjoyed. The solution proposed is that an emotion is determined by two critical processes—labelled motivational action tendency (MAT) and subjective feeling (SF). For many emotions the two processes are coupled in valence. For example, happiness has positive MAT and positive SF, annoyance has negative MAT and negative SF. However, in an aesthetic context, such as listening to music, emotion processes can become decoupled. Sadness retains its negative SF but the aversive, negative MAT is inhibited, leaving sadness to still be experienced as a negative valanced emotion, while contributing to the overall positive MAT. Individual differences, mood and previous experiences mediate the degree to which the aversive aspects of MAT are inhibited. The reason for hesitancy in considering or testing this parallel processes hypothesis, as well as the preponderance of research on sadness at the exclusion of other negative emotions, are discussed. (shrink)

The work of the German philosopher Manfred Frank has profoundly affected the direction of the contemporary debate in many areas of philosophy and literary theory. This present collection, first published in 1998, brings together some of his most important essays, on subjects as diverse as Schleiermacher's hermeneutics, the status of the literary text, and the response to the work of Derrida and Lacan. Frank shows how the discussions of subjectivity in recent literary theory fail to take account of important (...) developments in German Idealist and Romantic philosophy. The prominence accorded language in literary theory and analytic philosophy, he claims, ignores key arguments inherited from Romantic hermeneutics, those which demonstrate that interpretation is an individual activity never finally governed by rules. Andrew Bowie's introduction situates Frank's work in the context of contemporary debates in philosophy and literary theory. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Eric Voegelin’s intellectual project has typically been described as involved in the rehabilitation of classical political philosophy and in the diagnosis of Gnostic tendencies in modernity. In his work, however, he repeatedly points to the late-medieval/early modern concept of toleration as a necessary addition to the Platonic-Aristotelian legacy he was concerned with retrieving. This article explores Voegelin’s understanding of toleration, and especially its Bodinian origins. As the article demonstrates, his understanding of toleration is deeply intertwined with a Bodinian understanding (...) of religion, and as such it may be more difficult to integrate with other elements of Voegelin’s thought than he himself believed. (shrink)

Entre las tesis características del Postscriptum de Kierkegaard se encuentra la distinción entre el conocimiento objetivo y el subjetivo, y en concreto la afirmación de que el conocimiento ético y el ético-religioso son subjetivos. El presente artículo busca ofrecer una interpretación de esta posición que salvaguarde el elemento cognitivo de la tesis en cuestión, notando el paralelo entre la distinción kierkegaardiana entre conocimiento objetivo y subjetivo y la aristotélica entre conocimiento teórico y práctico.

El artículo busca, a través de una exposición general de su obra de filosofíamoral, presentar la concepción de la conciencia moral desarrollada por JosephButler. Se busca así presentar el pensamiento de este autor a la comunidadfilosófica hispanoparlante, y responder a algunas críticas que ha recibido departe de filósofos como Elizabeth Anscombe.

1. Bd. Die Kategorie des Seinszusammenhanges und die Einheit des Seins.

The classics of transcendental philosophy (Kant’s “Criticism,” Descartes’s “Metaphysics,” and Fichte’s “Doctrine of Science”) all conceive of rational autonomy as the ultimate ground for justification. Correspondingly, their philosophical pedagogy is focused on seizing and making that very autonomy or active self-determination intellectually and existentially available. But in the concrete way of proceeding, the three models diverge. Descartes expects one to become master of oneself and “the world” by methodologically suspending his judgement on what cannot qualify itself to be undoubtable. Kant (...) leads us to where we can triangulate universal conditions of the possibility of knowledge through individually acquiring the competence to judge the legitimacy of encountered propositional claims. Fichte confronts us with the idea of the identity of self-consciousness and objectivity. (shrink)