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81Natural languages are vehicles of information, arguably the most important, certainly the most ubiquitous that humans possess. Our everyday interactions with the world, with each other and with ourselves depend on them. And even where in the specialised contexts of science we use dedicated formalisms to convey information, their use is embedded in natural language.1..
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24Update semantics1 embodies a radical view on the relation between context and interpretation. The meaning of a sentence is identified with its context change potential, where contexts are identified with information states. The recursive definition of semantic interpretation is stated in terms of a process of updating an information state with a sentence. Meanings of sentences, then, are update functions. In general, these are partial functions, since the possibility to update with a sentence ma…Read more
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52Meaning in MotionIn Klaus von Heusinger & Urs Egli (eds.), Reference and Anaphoric Relations, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 47--78. 2000.The paper sketches the place of dynamic semantics within a broader picture of developments in philosophical and linguistic theories of meaning. Some basic concepts of dynamic semantics are illustrated by means of a detailed analysis of anaphoric definite and indefinite descriptions, which are treated as contextually dependent quantificational expressions. It is shown how a dynamic view sheds new light on the contextual nature of interpretation, on the difference between monologue and dialogue, and o…Read more
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45World and Life as One: Ethics and Ontology in Wittgenstein’s Early ThoughtStanford University Press. 2002.This book explores in detail the relation between ontology and ethics in the early work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, notably the _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus_ and, to a lesser extent, the _Notebooks 1914-1916_. Self-contained and requiring no prior knowledge of Wittgenstein's thought, it is the first book-length argument that his views on ethics decisively shaped his ontological and semantic thought. The book's main thesis is twofold. It argues that the ontological theory of the _Tractatus_ is fun…Read more
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51The architecture of meaning : Wittgenstein's tractatus and formal semanticsIn David K. Levy & Edoardo Zamuner (eds.), Wittgenstein’s Enduring Arguments, Routledge. 2008.With a few notable exceptions formal semantics, as it originated from the seminal work of Richard Montague, Donald Davidson, Max Cresswell, David Lewis and others, in the late sixties and early seventies of the previous century, does not consider Wittgenstein as one of its ancestors. That honour is bestowed on Frege, Tarski, Carnap. And so it has been in later developments. Most introductions to the subject will refer to Frege and Tarski (Carnap less frequently) —in addition to the pioneers just…Read more
Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Linguistics |
Ludwig Wittgenstein |
Formal Semantics |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Language |
20th Century Philosophy |