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10Response to Brabanter's contribution in the proceedings of the Granada workshop
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34Indexicality, 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, Parthasarati Banerjee, Mahasweta Chaudhury & Oliver Guillaume (eds.), Facets of Rationality, Sage. pp. 300-311. 1995.
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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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The Simulation of BeliefIn Pascal Engel (ed.), Believing and Accepting, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 267-298. 2000.
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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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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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79Précis 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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200Domains 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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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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108Reference through Mental Files : Indexicals and Definite DescriptionsIn Carlo Penco & Filippo Domaneschi (eds.), What Is Said and What Is Not, Stanford. pp. 159-173. 2013.Accounts for referential communication (and especially communication by means of definite descriptions and indexicals) in the mental file framework.
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27Literalism and Contextualism: Some VarietiesIn Gerhard Preyer & Georg Peter (eds.), Contextualism in Philosophy: Knowledge, Meaning, and Truth, Clarendon Press. pp. 171--196. 2003.Both Literalism and Contextualism come in many varieties. There are radical, and less radical, versions of both Literalism and Contextualism. Some intermediate positions are mixtures of Literalism and Contextualism. In this paper I describe several literalist positions, several contextualist positions, and a couple of intermediate positions. My aim is to convince the reader that the Literalism/Contextualism controversy is far from being settled. In the first section, I look at the historical dev…Read more
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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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60Précis 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.
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156Compositionality, Flexibility, and Context-DependenceIn Wolfram Hinzen, Edouard Machery & Markus Werning (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Compositionality, Oxford University Press. pp. 175-191. 2012.It has often been observed that the meaning of a word may be affected by the other words which occur in the same sentence. How are we to account for this phenomenon of 'semantic flexibility'? It is argued that semantic flexibility reduces to context-sensitivity and does not raise unsurmountable problems for standard compositional accounts. On the other hand, it would be a mistake to assume too simple a view of context-sensitivity. Two basic forms of context-sensitivity are distinguished in the p…Read more
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20Response to Dokic's contribution in the proceedings of the Granada workshop
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5The received view about meteorological predicates like ‘rain' is that they carry an argument slot for a location which can be filled explicitly or implicitly. The view assumes that ‘rain', in the absence of an explicit location, demands that the context provide a specific location. In an earlier article, I have provided a counter-example to that claim, viz. a context in which ‘it is raining' receives a location-indefinite interpretation. On the basis of that example, I have argued that when ther…Read more
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192Open quotationMind 110 (439): 637-687. 2001.The issues addressed in philosophical papers on quotation generally concern only a particular type of quotation, which I call ‘closed quotation’. The other main type, ‘open quotation’, is ignored, and this neglect leads to bad theorizing. Not only is a general theory of quotation out of reach: the specific phenomenon of closed quotation itself cannot be properly understood if it is not appropriately situated within the kind to which it belongs. Once the distinction between open and closed quotat…Read more
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16Relativized PropositionsIn Michael O'Rourke & Corey Washington (eds.), Situating Semantics : Essays on the Work of John Perry, Mit Press. pp. 119-153. 2007.Can we solve the problem of the essential indexical, and account for de se belief, by appealing to 'relativized propositions' (functions from rich indices to truth-values)? According to John Perry, we cannot. This paper offers a detailed examination and a critique of Perry's argument.
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10What is said and the Semantics/Pragmatics DistinctionIn Claudia Bianchi (ed.), The Semantics/Pragmatics Distinction, Csli Stanford. pp. 45-64. 2002.A critique of pragmatic Minimalism.
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1Truth-conditional pragmaticsIn Asa Kasher (ed.), Pragmatics: Critical Concepts, . pp. 509-511. 1998.
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13Putnam is known for having demonstated the existence of a new form of context-dependence, namely that which characterizes natural kind terms. Terms like ‘tiger' and ‘water' are indexical, Putnam says, since their conditions of application varies with the context of use — in a suitably broad sense of ‘context'. In this talk I focus on the relation between Putnam's semantics and a body of views I call ‘contextualism'. Contextualism generalizes context-sensitivity : it claims that sentences carry c…Read more
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496Contextual Dependence and Definite DescriptionsProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 87 57-73. 1987.François Recanati; IV*—Contextual Dependence and Definite Descriptions, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 87, Issue 1, 1 June 1987, Pages 57–74, h.