Indrek Reiland: Language as Expression of Thought
Indrek Reiland (University of Vienna) Language as Expression of Thought ABSTRACT: In his famous paper “Language as Thought and as Communication” Sellars argued (perhaps implicitly against Grice) that language should primarily be viewed as a form of expression of conceptual thought and not as a vehicle for communication (Sellars 1969). However, he also suggested understanding expression of thought and thought itself in a way which makes language prior to thought. This presents a package of answers to two separate questions. First, whether we can understand language and linguistic meaning in expressive, non-communicative terms (Sellars) or whether they’re somehow essentially communicative or audience-directed (Grice, Davidson)? Second, whether language is prior to conceptual thought and can explain it (Sellars), whether conceptual thought is prior to language and can explain it (Grice, Lewis), or whether they’re somehow on a par (Davidson)? In this talk, I will present a view which takes public language as it exists to be conventionally expressive of thought and thus not essentially communicative, and explore whether and in what sense it is committed to taking some conceptual thought to be prior to language and involved in the explanation of it.
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Willem deVries: Semantic Holism and the Clash of the Images
Willem deVries (University of New Hampshire) Semantic Holism and the Clash of the Images ABSTRACT: I begin with a quick review of Sellars’ distinction between the Manifest and Scientific Images and why that distinction is significant for his thought. He thinks the Scientific Image will replace the Manifest Image, but with an important qualification: we will need to “join” the language of intentions to the descriptive vocabulary of science. I then explain why Sellars thought this qualification poses no particular difficulty. But I then argue that he is wrong about that, presenting two arguments. The first I call the argument from semantic holism, which makes the point that Sellars cannot presume that the descriptive resources science makes available and the expressive resources that underwrite normativity in his view are distinct enough that we can sensibly talk of “joining” the one to the other, as if they could initially be entirely separable. The second argument, from the unity of a person is, in fact, perhaps the same argument from a different perspective: the holistic unity between the epistemic and agential aspects of a person again put into doubt any attempt to separate a purely descriptive vocabulary or language-fragment from […]
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Thematic Series: Diego Marconi: Grounds of Semantic Normativity
LMS Centre cordially invites everyone to the second talk of the Online LMS Series “Inferentialism on Naturalized Grounds”: Diego Marconi (University of Torino) Grounds of Semantic Normativity ABSTRACT: There are two prevalent accounts of semantic normativity: the prescriptive account, which can be found in some of Wittgenstein’s remarks, and the regularity account, which may have been Sellars’s view and is nowadays defended by some anti-normativists. On the former account, meanings are norms that govern the use of words; on the latter, they are regularities of use which, in themselves, do not engender any prescriptions. I argue that only the prescriptive view can account for certain platitudes about meaning, which motivate the very idea of semantic normativity. After some preliminary clarifications about the form that alleged semantic norms should take in order to be prima facie plausible, I argue -against some antinormativists- that whatever normativity is involved in the meaning of words cannot be brought back to a general norm of truth as distinct from specifically semantic norms, for semantic norms already involve a norm of truth (or truthfulness, depending on how they are phrased). Next, I examine what I take to be the strongest objection to semantic […]
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Thematic Series: Antonio Scarafone & John Michael: Getting Ready to Share Commitments
LMS Centre cordially invites everyone to the sixth talk of the Online LMS Series “Inferentialism on Naturalized Grounds”: Antonio Scarafone (Central Europen University) & John Michael (University of Milan) Getting Ready to Share Commitments ABSTRACT: Paul Grice’s theory of meaning has been widely adopted as a starting point for investigating the evolutionary and developmental emergence of linguistic communication. In this picture, reasoning about complexes of intentions is a prerequisite for communicating effectively at the prelinguistic level, as well as for acquiring a natural language. We argue that this broadly ‘Gricean’ picture rests on an equivocation between theories of communication and theories of cognition, and that it leads to paradoxical or implausible claims about human psychology. We defend an alternative conception of prelinguistic communication, inspired by Bart Geurts and based on the notion of commitment. Adopting a commitment-first approach makes it possible to avoid the pernicious equivocation, and it provides a better systematisation of the key empirical findings. We develop our argument with respect to: (1) infants’ sensitivity to ‘ostensive signals’; (2) infants’ pointing; (3) and infants’ endorsement of normative attitudes in joint activities. Finally, adopting a commitment-first approach makes it possible to argue that sophisticated forms of […]
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Miloš Taliga: What is knowledge if it is not a justified true belief?
Miloš Taliga (FF UMB, Banská Bystrica) What is knowledge if it is not a justified true belief? ABSTRACT IN SLOVAK: Ak je pravdivosť objektívnou vlastnosťou výrokov, tak stojíme pred nasledujúcou dilemou: Ak je podmienka pravdivosti nutnou podmienkou poznania, tak sa poznanie nemôže vyvíjať a ani zanikať, pretože pravdivé výroky sa nemôžu stať nepravdivými, a súčasne, ak podmienka pravdivosti nie je nutnou podmienkou poznania, tak poznaním môže byť aj niečo, čo je nepravdivé. Podmienka pravdivosti buď je alebo nie je nutnou podmienkou poznania. Preto, poznanie sa buď nemôže vyvíjať a ani zanikať alebo poznaním môže byť aj niečo, čo je nepravdivé. Prednáška sa pokúša dilemu odvrátiť kritickou analýzou jej konjunktívnej premisy. Odmieta podmienku pravdivosti ako nutnú podmienku poznania, aby vytvorila priestor pre vývoj a zánik poznania. Argumentuje, že vývoj a zánik poznania sa dajú vysvetliť, ak budeme poznanie chápať (približne) ako nevyvrátené kritizovateľné hypotézy.
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Thematic Series: Bernhard Weiss: From Tools to Rules: The Evolution of Rule Following
LMS Centre cordially invites everyone to the second talk of the Online LMS Series “Inferentialism on Naturalized Grounds”: Bernhard Weiss (University of Cape Town) From Tools to Rules: The Evolution of Rule Following ABSTRACT: The paper is interested in likely routes for the evolution of normative practice, which, it is here assumed, is a necessary precursor to the development of language. It argues that each normative practices requires a policing practice, consisting of, at least, moves of commendation, condemnation and retraction, and it contrasts policing with mere monitoring practice. So the evolution of norms can be seen to be the development of policing from mere monitoring practice. It conjectures that a likely site for such a development to take place is in the active transmission of technology, notably, toolmaking technology. Using data and observations drawn from the archaeological record and the psychology of mimicry, it attempts to illustrate the likely emergence of policing practices. For a pre-published version of the paper please contact the organizer at: matej.drobnak@uhk.cz When: April 6, 14:05 – 15:30 CET Where: Zoom, Meeting ID: 968 254 2971 https://cesnet.zoom.us/j/9682542971 Inferentialism on Naturalized Grounds is a series of online talks which accompanies the […]
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Barbora Šipošová: The role of joint attention for successful cooperation: insights from studies with children
Barbora Šipošová (FHS UK, Praha) The role of joint attention for successful cooperation: insights from studies with children ABSTRACT: The capacity for flexible cooperation in humans exceeds that of other species to such an extent that humans have received the label of being a hypercooperative species. The central question is, what are the cognitive processes supporting this capacity? Joint attention—the ability to coordinate attention to an object or event—is a key feature. Without joint attention, we would not be the cooperating species we are now. First, I will introduce a new look at different ways people coordinate their attention and establish common knowledge with others. Second, I will focus on my experimental studies with children and present the findings suggesting that attention sharing significantly increases cooperative and prosocial behavior.
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Thematic Series: Hans-Johann Glock: Norms, Reasons and Anthropological Naturalism
LMS Centre cordially invites everyone to the fourth talk of the Online LMS Series “Inferentialism on Naturalized Grounds”: Hans-Johann Glock (University of Zurich) Norms, Reasons and Anthropological Naturalism ABSTRACT: This article addresses the two most important areas of potential conflict between inferentialism and naturalism, namely normativity and rationality. Concerning the first, it sides with inferentialism, while at the same time developing a normativist position less vulnerable to naturalistic objections. There is nothing problematic or mysterious about semantic normativity or normativity in general. But one needs to distinguish different types of normativity and recognize that statements of norms can be perfectly truth apt. Concerning the second area of conflict, my verdict is partly naturalistic. It rejects overly intellectualist accounts of the normative practices that underlie meaning and content. The article ends with a plea for an ‘anthropological’ naturalism that eschews both ontological super-naturalism and epistemological naturalism. The attendance at the talk assumes that the paper has been pre-read. To obtain a pre-pusblished version of the paper, please contact the organizer at: matej.drobnak@uhk.cz When: March 23, 14:05 – 15:30 CET Where: Zoom, Meeting ID: 968 254 2971 https://cesnet.zoom.us/j/9682542971 Inferentialism on Naturalized Grounds is a series of online […]
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Ronald Loeffler: Belief as a first-person plural cognitive attitude, and recognizing common ground
Ronald Loeffler (Grand Valley State University) Belief as a first-person plural cognitive attitude, and recognizing common ground ABSTRACT: Belief is standardly assumed to be an intrinsically private cognitive attitude in the following sense: for any non-psychological, non-social first-order content that p – any content that does not contain specifically psychological or social concepts – believing that p does not intrinsically involve any recognition by the subject, that there are, or might be, others who do, might, or should endorse p as well. All such recognition is instead assumed to be due to special cognitive states or processes accompanying the first-order belief that p – such as higher-order thoughts containing the psychological concept of belief, or processes of mentally simulating others’ doxastic processes. Focusing on the kinds of beliefs involved in conscious, normgoverned, rational deliberation, this paper develops a theory of belief that rejects this mainstream assumption. Viewing such beliefs as, literally, propositional attitudes, I propose that believing that p intrinsically involves taking an implicit normative attitude towards others: p is treated by the subject, just due to the cognitive attitude taken towards p, as what “we jointly” are doxastically committed to. “Doxastic commitment” here means that nothing incompatible […]
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Thematic Series: Anke Breunig: Wilfrid Sellars on Science and the Mind
LMS Centre cordially invites everyone to the second talk of the Online LMS Series “Inferentialism on Naturalized Grounds”: Anke Breunig (University of Halle) Wilfrid Sellars on Science and the Mind ABSTRACT: This paper explores some ideas of Wilfrid Sellars to raise two difficulties for a naturalistic approach to the mind. The first difficulty, which is methodological, is a corollary of Sellars’s distinction between two images of man-in-the-world, the manifest and the scientific image. For Sellars, taking science seriously requires that we think of it as constructing a unified image of man-in-the-world of its own. I argue that it is the rivalry between the manifest and the scientific image which gives rise to the mind-body-problem. The challenge for a naturalistic solution to the mind-body-problem is that it is not legitimate to isolate single scientific results from their theoretical context in order to integrate them piecemeal into the manifest image. According to Sellars, a satisfactory solution to the mind-body-problem must attempt nothing less than a fusion of both images which somehow respects and preserves the unity of each. The second, substantial difficulty for a naturalistic approach to the mind is that of coming to terms with the normativity of […]
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