Peter Pagin

Asserting is the act of claiming that something is the case—for instance, that oranges are citruses, or that there is a traffic congestion on Brooklyn Bridge (at some time). We make assertions to share information, coordinate our actions, defend arguments, and communicate our beliefs and desires. Because of its central role in communication, assertion has been investigated in several disciplines. Linguists, philosophers of language, and logicians rely heavily on the notion of assertion in theorizing about meaning, truth and inference. The nature of assertion and its relation to other speech acts and linguistic phenomena (implicatures, presuppositions, etc.) have been subject to much controversy. This entry will situate assertion within speech act theory and pragmatics more generally, and then go on to present the current main accounts of assertion.

This paper starts from the observation that the standard arguments for compositionality are really arguments for the computability of semantics. Since computability does not entail compositionality, the question of what justifies compositionality recurs. The paper then elaborates on the idea of recursive semantics as corresponding to computable semantics. It is then shown by means of time complexity theory and with the use of term rewriting as systems of semantic computation, that syntactically unrestricted, noncompositional recursive semantics leads to computational explosion (factorial complexity). Hence, with combinatorially unrestricted syntax, semantics with tractable time complexity is compositional.

This article is concerned with the principle of compositionality, i.e. the principle that the meaning of a complex expression is a function of the meanings of its parts and its mode of composition. After a brief historical background, a formal algebraic framework for syntax and semantics is presented. In this framework, both syntactic operations and semantic functions are partial. Using 20 the framework, the basic idea of compositionality is given a precise statement, and several variants, both weaker and stronger, as well as related properties, are distinguished. Several arguments for compositionality are discussed, and the standard arguments are found inconclusive. Also, several arguments against compositionality, and for the claim that it is a trivial property, are discussed, 25 and are found to be flawed. Finally, a number of real or apparent problems for compositionality are considered, and some solutions are proposed.

Davidson’s 1965 paper, “Theories of Meaning and Learnable Languages”, has invariably been interpreted, by others and by myself, as arguing that natural languages must have a compositional semantics, or at least a systematic semantics, that can be finitely specified. However, in his reply to me in the Żegleń volume, Davidson denies that compositionality is in any need of an argument. How does this add up? In this paper I consider Davidson’s first three meaning theoretic papers from this perspective. I conclude that Davidson was right in his reply to me that he never took compositionality, or systematic semantics, to be in need of justification. What Davidson had been concerned with, clearly in the 1965 paper and in “Truth and Meaning” from 1967, and to some extent in his Carnap critique from 1963, is that we need a general theory of natural language meaning, that such a theory should not be in conflict with the learnability of a language, and that such a theory bring out should how knowledge of a finite number of features of a language suffices for the understanding of all the sentences of that language.

I consider a problem from pragmatics for the radical interpretation project, relying on the principle of charity. If a speaker X in a context c manifests the attitude of holding a sentence s true, this might be because of believing, not the content of s in c, but what results from a pragmatic enrichment of that content. In this case, the connection between the holding-true attitude and the meaning of s might be too loose for charity to confirm the correct interpretation hypothesis. To solve this problem, I apply the coherence raising account of pragmatic enrichment developed in Pagin 2014. The result is that in upward entailing linguistic contexts, the enriched content entails the prior content, and so charity prevails: the speaker also believes the prior content. In downward entailing contexts this would not hold, but I argue that enrichments tend not to occur in downward entailing contexts.

It was pointed out, first by Robert Stalnaker, then also by Andy Egan, that David Lewis’s model of centered-worlds contents has undesired consequences for communication of de se contents. The recent years have seen a number of attempts to save the model by amending it to handle de se communication. Proposals include the appeal to sequences of individuals in the centers, to ersatz classical propositions, and to operations of “re-centering”. The authors are Dilip Ninan and Stephan Torre, Sarah Moss and Max Kölbel, and Alan Gibbard and Clas Weber. The present paper discusses these attempts. The conclusion is that they fail.

In Our Knowledge of the Internal World, Robert Stalnaker describes two opposed perspectives on the relation between the internal and the external. According to one, the internal world is taken as given and the external world as problematic, and according to the other, the external world is taken as given and the internal world as problematic. Analytic philosophy moved from the former to the latter, from problems of world-construction to problems of self-locating beliefs. I argue in this paper that these problems are equivalent: both arise because experience and objective, external facts jointly underdetermine their relation. Both can be seen as a problem of expressive completeness; of the internal language in the former case, and of the non-indexical language in the second.

Are sensation ascriptions descriptive, even in the first person present tense? Do sensation terms refer to, denote, sensations, so that truth and falsity of sensation ascriptions depend on the properties of the denoted sensations? That is, do sensation terms have a denotational semantics? As I understand it, this is denied by Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein rejects the idea of a denotational semantics for public language sensation terms, such as 'pain'. He also rejects the idea that speakers can recognize sensations. I think these views are mistaken. In this paper I shall present the following: first, my own basic views on how public language sensation terms relate to sensations (section 1); second, to what extent these views are inconsistent with some of Wittgenstein's main tenets about sensations and sensation language, as set out in Philosophical Investigations ## 243-315, and what I take to be Wittgenstein's main arguments, in the same text, for those tenets (sections 2 and 3); third, why I think that those arguments are inconclusive (sections 4 and 5); and fourth, what I see as the best arguments for my own views (section 6). Sections 3 and 5 are concerned with the bearing of the private language argument on these matters.

In his recent paper ‘Analyticity: An Unfinished Business in Possible-World Semantics’ (Rabinowicz 2006), Wlodek Rabinowicz takes on the task of providing a satisfactory definition of analyticity in the framework of possible-worlds semantics. As usual, what Wlodek proposes is technically well-motivated and very elegant. Moreover, his proposal does deliver an interesting analytic/synthetic distinction when applied to sentences with natural kind terms. However, the longer we thought and talked about it, the more questions we had, questions of both philosophical and technical nature. Hence the idea of this little paper – for how better to honor a philosopher than by trying very hard to criticize him? After quickly running over some background in possible worlds semantics and setting out Wlodek's proposal against that background, we shall bring up and discuss our questions in sections 3 – 5. In the final section, we shall also make a stab at a different solution to the problem, making use of our own earlier idea of relational modality.

In earlier work (Glüer, K. and P. Pagin. 2006. Proper names and relational modality. Linguistics & Philosophy 29: 507–35; Glüer, K. and P. Pagin. 2008. Relational modality. Journal of Logic, Language and Information 17: 307–22), we developed a semantics for (metaphysical) modal operators that accommodates Kripkean intuitions about proper names in modal contexts even if names are not rigid designators. Graeme Forbes (2011. The problem of factives for sense theories. Analysis 71: 654–62.) criticizes our proposal. He argues that our semantics predicts readings for certain natural language sentences which these simply do not have. These sentences contain mixed contexts involving factive attitude verbs. We argue that the readings our semantics predicts do indeed exist, even if it might take a little work to bring them out. Moreover, denying their existence would have some rather unattractive consequences

Suppose you are stranded on an island and you want to get over to the nearby mainland. Your only option is to swim. But is the other shore close enough? If you embark and it isn’t, you drown. So you prefer to know before taking off. Happily, you are well equipped. You have not only a yardstick, but also a theodolite for measuring angles, and a good knowledge of trigonometry. You then determine the distance to the other shore by means of triangulation. You fix two points, A and B, on your own shore, and identify a third point, C, in sight on the opposite shore. You then measure the distance between A and B with your yardstick, and the two angles ABC and CAB with your theodolite. With this information you can calculate the distances AC and BC to the other shore.

In the recent debate on the semantic/pragmatic divide, Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore (2005) on the one hand, and Fran¸cois Recanati (2004) on the other, occupy almost diametrically opposed positions as regards the role of semantics for communication, while largely agreeing on important features of pragmatics. According to Cappelen and Lepore (CL), semantic context sensitivity of natural language sentences is restricted to what is determined by a particular minimal set of canonically context sensitive expressions. If you try to go beyond that set, as has often been done in recent semantic theories, to reach a position of moderate contextualism, your reasons will force you to the much more extreme position of radical contextualism. That is CL’s instability thesis. They argue for it by means of a number of examples intended to illustrate how you are off on a slippery slope if you admit any context sensitivity beyond the basic one. If radical contextualism is true, systematic semantics is not possible, since, according to CL, there cannot be any systematic theory of speech act content. The one exception is that whatever is said by the utterance of a sentence, its minimally context dependent content is part of it. Precisely this is denied by Recanati. Not only is this “minimal proposition” not part of speech act content. The minimal proposition plays no..

However, if Wittgenstein’s so called rule-following considerations are correct, then this reason for believing in the validity of (C), is mistaken. The conclusion of those considerations is that we must reject the idea that rules are things which determine possible cases of application before those cases are actually encountered and decided by speakers. If this is right, then there is no rule which determines the meanings of new sentences, i.e. before those sentences have actually been used. Therefore, it might seem that (C) is not valid for natural languages.

Saul Kripke's thesis that ordinary proper names are rigid designators is supported by widely shared intuitions about the occurrence of names in ordinary modal contexts. By those intuitions names are scopeless with respect to the modal expressions. That is, sentences in a pair like (a) Aristotle might have been fond of dogs, (b) Concerning Aristotle, it is true that he might have been fond of dogs will have the same truth value. The same does not in general hold for definite descriptions. If one, like Kripke, accounts for this difference by means of the intensions of the names and the descriptions, the conclusion is that names do not in general have the same intension as any normal, identifying description. However, this difference can be accounted for alternatively by appeal to the semantics of the modal expressions. On the account we suggest, dubbed 'relational modality', simple singular terms, like proper names, contribute to modal contexts simply by their actual world reference, not by their descriptive content. That account turns out to be fully equivalent with the rigidity account when it comes to truth of modal and non-modal sentence (with respect to the actual world), and hence supports the same basic intuitions. Here we present the relational modality account and compare it with others, in particular Kripke's own

När är det befogat att tillskriva mening (betydelse) till beteenden? I början av 2001 presenterade en av Stockholms gratistidningar en artikel om det så kallade kroppsspråket. Rubriken var "Kroppen ljuger inte". Ämnet för artikeln var egentligen den evidens som en persons gester och kroppshållning ger om hennes sinnestillstånd eller personlighet ("självsäker", "stressad", "osäker", "nervös", "ljuger", "arg", "manipulativ", "spänd" eller "misstänksam"). Enligt artikeln är dessa gester och kroppshållningar inte avsedda att ge andra information om ens inre tillstånd. De är alltså inte kommunikativa. Likafullt ger de sådan information, ibland kanske mot personens egen önskan. Trots det beskrivs de som semantiskt meningsfulla: "Varje min och rörelse kan tolkas symboliskt".

Tänk dig att du kommit som Robinson Crusoe till en nästan öde ö, dvs till en ö du trodde var öde till dess att du träffade Fredag. Fredag förefaller tala ett språk, men det är helt olikt varje språk du hittills stött på. Du bestämmer dig efter ett tag för att försöka lära dig det. Det förefaller gå bra. Av allt att döma får du god kontakt med Fredag. Ni delar med er av mat till varandra. Ni lyckas uppfatta en del av varandras åtbörder: pekgester, uttryck för uppskattning, en anmodan att komma eller gå, och annat. På grundval av detta lyckas du, eller åtminstone förefaller det så, inleda ett samarbete med Fredag ifråga om att skaffa fram mat. Fredag börjar till och med hjälpa dig att bygga en inhägnad för några höns ni fångat. Under tiden detta pågår börjar du försöka använda en del ord eller andra uttryck du hört Fredag yttra. Du har t.ex. hört honom ibland yttra "ptocha" när ni pekat ut hönsfåglar för varandra, och försöker göra detsamma själv. Några gånger ler han uppmuntrande men andra gånger brummar han misstroget och gör en huvudrörelse som du börjat uppfatta som nekande. Du förstår först inte varför. Senare märker du att en fågel du pekat ut när Fredag gjort den nekande rörelsen plötsligt fäller ut vingarna och flyger ut ur inhägnaden. Samma sak händer igen. Och efter ett tag börjar du märka små skillnader i färg, ifråga om näbbens storlek och klornas längd, så att du själv kan skilja mellan fåglar som flyger iväg och fåglar som inte gör det. Du drar slutsatsen att "ptocha" står för den art av hönsliknande fåglar som har flygförmåga. Den här processen fortsätter. Du identifierar verb och adjektiv, pronomen, prepositioner och räkneord, liksom logiska partiklar som (Fredags motsvarigheter till) "och", "eller", "inte", "om..., så...". Du kan sätta ihop hela meningar som Fredag själv inte yttrat, men som består av delar som han yttrat..

The paper discusses the question whether T-theories explain how it is possible to understand new sentences, or learn an infinite language, as Davidson claimed. I argue against some commentators that for explanatory power we need not require that T-theories are implicitly known or mirror cognitive structures. I note contra Davidson that the recursive nature of T-theories is not sufficient for explanatory power, since humans can work out only what is computationally tractable, and recursiveness by itself allows for intractable computational complexity. I finally consider the complexity of T-theories, transformed into term rewriting systems, and find that the complexity of such systems is indeed tractable. Therefore Davidson's claim stands, even though a further condition had to be met.

This paper is concerned with the resources available for insensitive invariantism in epistemology to handle the intuitions that have been appealed to, both for contextualism and for subject-sensitive invariantism. It is argued that proposals by Tim Williamson and Jessica Brown are not adequate, and that subject-sensitive inductive fails to account for some crucial intuitions. It is then argued that the chauvinistic nature of the psychology of insensitive invariantism provides adequate resources for such an account. A subject is chauvinistic simply by taking his own beliefs to be true, and by judging attributions accordingly. This is first illustrated with meaning attributions in the theory of interpretation, and then applied to knowledge attributions.