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16How Narrow is Narrow Content?Dialectica 48 (3-4): 209-229. 1994.SummaryIn this paper I discuss two influential views in the philosophy of mind: the two‐component picture draws a distinction between ‘narrow content’ and ‘broad content’, while radical externalism denies that there is such a thing as narrow content. I argue that ‘narrow content’ is ambiguous, and that the two views can be reconciled. Instead of considering that there is only one question and three possible answers corresponding to Cartesian internalism, the two‐component picture, and radical ex…Read more
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136Millikan’s Theory of Signs (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (3). 2007.Review of Millikan's book Varieties of Meaning (MIT Press/Bradford Books, 2004).
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72Reply to Romero and SoriaTeorema: International Journal of Philosophy 32 (2): 175-178. 2013.Response to Romero's and Soria's paper in the Symposium on *Truth-Conditional Pragmatics* (OUP 2010).
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93Predelli and García-Carpintero on "Literal Meaning"Critica 38 (112): 69-79. 2006.A summary of François Recanati's book Literal Meaning, followed by his response to the critical reviews of the same book by Stefano Predelli and Manuel García-Carpintero. /// Este texto da respuesta a los que, en este mismo número, Predelli y García-Carpintero dedican a mi libro Literal Meaning. En la primera seccíon hago un breve resumen de esta obra; en la segunda respondo a los comentarios críticos de Predelli y en la tercera a los de García-Carpintero.
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184Can we believe what we do not understand?Mind and Language 12 (1): 84-100. 1997.In a series of papers, Sperber provides the following analysis of the phenomenon of ill-understood belief (or 'quasi-belief', as I call it): (i) the quasi-believer has a validating meta-belief, to the effect that a certain representation is true; yet (ii) that representation does not give rise to a plain belief, because it is 'semi-propositional'. In this paper I discuss several aspects of this treatment. In particular, I deny that the representation accepted by the quasi-believer is semanticall…Read more
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6Response to Frapolli's contribution in the proceedings of the Granada workshop
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128Indexical Thought: The Communication ProblemIn Manuel García-Carpintero & Stephan Torre (eds.), About Oneself: De Se Thought and Communication, Oxford University Press. pp. 141-178. 2016.What characterizes indexical thinking is the fact that the modes of presentation through which one thinks of objects are context-bound and perspectival. Such modes of presentation, I claim, are mental files presupposing that we stand in certain relations to the reference : the role of the file is to store information one can gain in virtue of standing in that relation to the object. This raises the communication problem, first raised by Frege : if indexical thoughts are context-bound and relatio…Read more
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6Modes of presentation: perceptual vs deferentialIn Albert Newen, Ulrich Nortmann & Rainer Stuehlmann-Laeisz (eds.), Building on Frege: New Essays on Sense, Content, and Concept, Csli Stanford. pp. 197-208. 2001.Through perception we gain information about the world. We also gain information about the world through communication with others. There are concepts — indexical concepts, such as the concept of the present time ('now') or of the present place ('here') or the concept of oneself — which have a special link to perception. Are there concepts which are tied to communication in the same way in which indexical concepts are tied to perception? After discussing, and criticizing, a deflationary approach…Read more
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35Content, mode, and self-referenceIn Savas L. Tsohatzidis (ed.), John Searle's Philosophy of Language: Force, Meaning and Mind, Cambridge University Press. pp. 49-63. 2007.In this paper I argue that the self-referential component which Searle rightly detects in the truth-conditions of perceptual judgments comes from the perceptual ‘mode' and is not an aspect of the ‘content' of the judgment, contrary to Searle's claim.
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10Response to Brabanter's contribution in the proceedings of the Granada workshop
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35Indexicality, Context, and PretenseIn Noel Burton-Roberts (ed.), Pragmatics, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 213-229. 2007.In this paper, I argue that the notion of ‘context' that has to be used in the study of indexicals is far from univocal. A first distinction has to be made between the real context of speech and the context in which the speech act is supposed to take place — only the latter notion being relevant when it comes to determining the semantic values of indexicals. Second, we need to draw a distinction between the context of the locutionary act and the context of the illocutionary act: contrary to a st…Read more
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The Paradox of the First PersonIn Daniel Andler (ed.), Facets of rationality, Sage Publications. pp. 300-311. 1995.
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2Context and Content: From Language to ThoughtContemporary Foreign Languages Studies 1-14. 2011.In this paper I present an overview of my research in the philosophy of language in mind over more than thirty years, from my early work on speech act theory to my current work on mental files. The unifying theme is context-dependence,both in language and thought. I distinguish several varieties of context-dependence and, along the way, provide tentative accounts of various phenomena: performative utterances, indexicals, modulation (metonymy and loose talk, free enrichment), de se thought, the c…Read more
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The Iconicity of MetarepresentationsIn Dan Sperber (ed.), Meta-Representations: a Multidisciplinary Perspective, Oxford University Press. pp. 311-360. 2000.
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30Pragmatic ParadoxesGraduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 17 (1-2): 289-298. 1994.As several philosophers have noticed, the meaning of an utterance is twofold: besides what it says, there is what it shows—or rather what the uttering of the utterance shows. In certain cases, a contradiction may arise between what is said and what is is shown. Contradictions of this type, called ‘pragmatic contradictions’, must be carefully distinguished from ordinary contradictions, i.e., from contradictions internal to what is said.
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86Précis of *Oratio Obliqua, Oratio Recta: an Essay on MetarepresentationDialectica 58 (2): 237-247. 2004.A summary of my book *Oratio Obliqua, Oratio Recta*, published by MIT Press in 2000 ('Representation and Mind' series).
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203Domains of discourseLinguistics and Philosophy 19 (5). 1996.In the first part of this paper I present a defence of the Austinian semantic approach to incomplete quantifiers and similar phenomena (section 2-4). It is part of my defence of Austinian semantics that it incorporates a cognitive dimension (section 4). This cognitive dimension makes it possible to connect Austinian semantics to various cognitive theories of discourse interpretation. In the second part of the paper (sections 5-7), I establish connections between Austinian semantics and four part…Read more
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28Some Remarks on Explicit Performatives, Indirect Speech Acts, Locutionary Meaning and Truth-valueIn John Searle, F. Kiefer & Manfred Berwisch (eds.), Speech Act Theory and Pragmatics, Dordrecht. pp. 205-220. 1980.
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La logique des noms propresRevue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 172 (3): 542-545. 1982.
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61Précis de Literal MeaningPhilosophiques 33 (1): 231-236. 2006.Résumé de mon livre Literal Meaning (Cambridge University Press, 2004), à paraître dans la rubrique DISPUTATIO la revue canadienne Philosophiques, suivi de comptes rendus critiques par Steven Davis, Brendan Gillon, et Michel Seymour et de mes réponses.