Filip Kawczyński

In the paper I defend the idea of metametasemantics against the arguments recently presented by Ori Simchen (2017). Simchen attacks the view, according to which metametasemantics incorporating all possible metasemantic accounts is necessary to protect the metasemantic theories from the notorious problem of inscrutability of reference (see Sider 2011). Simchen claims that if metametasemantics is allowed it ‘absorbs’ metasemantic theories to the extent that it diminishes their explanatory value. Furthermore, in this way Simchen sets up two main metasemantic paradigms i.e. productivism (roughly speaking: speaker’s metasemantics) and interpretationism (audience’s metasemantics) as the rival theories inevitably excluding each other. I endeavour to undermine Simchen’s point by demonstrating that his argumentation mixes up deflationary reading of the predicate ‘is true’ with its substantial reading. Consequently, I demonstrate that accepting metametasemantics does not diminish explanatory value of various metasemantic theories and thus that there is no good reason to forbid metametasemantics. I also argue that even if we ignore the above-mentioned confusion in Simchen’s reasoning, his arguments still fail when considering various problems with the notion of diminishment of explanatory value and because the analogy that his arguments are based on is fairly weak. Eventually, I conclude that metametasemantics does not pose any danger to metasemantics and that it provides a solid ground for developing a theory that benefits from both productivism and interpretationism.

In the paper, I argue against Dummett’s and Stanley’s objections to the direct reference theory. Dummett and Stanley make use of the notorious descriptive names to formulate the objection against Kaplan’s argument in favour of the direct reference theory. Kaplan argued that difference in modal behaviour of sentences is a reason to regard some singular terms appearing in the sentences as directly referential. Dummett ad Stanley argue, on the other hand, that in the case of descriptive names and the descriptions used to fix the reference of the names, the modal difference between sentences arises merely from the fact that descriptive names are rigid, while descriptions are not. There is no reason then to claim that being directly or indirectly referential has anything to do with the modal differences between sentences. What I attempt to show in the paper is that Dummett and Stanley made wrong assumptions about the modal properties of descriptive names and the descriptions that are used to fix the reference of such names. In Section 1, I characterise descriptive names and discuss some controversies that they create. Section 2 is devoted to the review of Kaplan’s argument for the direct reference theory, while Section 3 presents Dummett’s and Stanley’s arguments against direct reference. In section 4, I raise two preliminary objections against Dummett’s and Stanley’s positions. In Section 5, I discuss in detail “the great mystery” of rigidity of descriptive names which in my opinion lies at the bottom of the whole issue of descriptive names and direct reference. I argue, contrary to Dummett and Stanley, that descriptive names and their mother descriptions have the same modal properties. The last section includes conclusions and presents how the results from the previous parts of the paper affect the arguments of Dummett and Stanley.

The paper concerns life and scientific achievements of Maria Kokoszyńska-Lutmanowa who was a significant logician, philosopher of language and epistemologist belonging to the second generation of the Lvov-Warsaw School. She is mostly known as the author of the important argumentation against neopositivism of the Vienna Circle as well as one of the main critics of relativistic theories of truth. The article is divided into five sections: 1. Life, 2. Main papers, 3. Views, 4. Pupils, 5. Summary, 6. References.

In this paper I investigate the nature of the relation between meaning-interdependence and analyticity. The theory within which meaning-interdependence reaches its peak and becomes omnipresent is meaning holism, according to which every two expressions are meaning-interdependent. A lot of people reject holism partially due to the impression that the theory leads to the picture in which language is self-sufficient in the sense that it is nothing but a game of meanings which is detached from reality. What stands behind that impression is probably something along the lines: analyticity stems from meaning-interdependence, so if all expressions are meaning-interdependent, then everything appears analytic. I defend holism from this kind of objection. I start with showing that analyticity traditionally understood cannot pour over language within holism, because it is not applicable to the theory at all. Then, I argue that adopting some weaker notion of analyticity leads to the ubiquity of analyticity indeed, but analyticity so understood is too weak to actually endanger holism. Finally, I demonstrate that the problems with analyticity appear only when meaning-interdependence is treated in extremely superficial way. I also propose a very simple hierarchy of meaning-interdependence, based on Pagin’s total-pair holism, which immediately repeal the ‘ubiquitous analyticity’ problem.

In the paper I give arguments to justify the thesis that-contrary to common opinion-there is no strong theoretical relation between Meaning Holism and Contextualism. I distinguish two holistic accounts: Global Holism and Local Holism, and I investigate what are the relations between them and various versions of Contextualism, namely Eliminativism, the Wrong Format View, and Moderate Contextualism. I show that: (1) Local and Global Holism are compatible with almost all (with merely one exception) versions of Contextualism; (2) Holism (in any version) neither entails nor is entailed by any version of Contextualism. Thus, I argue that when it comes to the issue of context-sensitivity, a meaning holist, either global or local, has a variety of options to choose between, and vice versa-being a contextualist of this or that kind one can choose to accept either Local or Global Holism, to accept both, or to avoid both. Except showing that the relation between Holism and Contextualism is weak, in the paper I also sketch several possible ways of modifying these theories to make them theoretically closer or more distant.

Artykuł stanowi porównanie dwóch strukturalnych teorii sądów logicznych: teorii Kazimierza Ajdukiewicza z lat sześćdziesiątych XX wieku oraz teorii Jeffreya Kinga z początku XXI wieku. Pierwsza część artykułu zawiera charakterystykę obu teorii. W części drugiej szczegółowo omówione zostają istotne podobieństwa pomiędzy stanowiskami. Następnie identyfikowane są różnice między nimi i przeprowadzona jest analiza mająca doprowadzić do uzyskania odpowiedzi na pytanie o to, czy różnice te są istotne, czy pozorne. Część trzecia dotyczy tego, czy możliwe jest uodpornienie omawianych teorii na tzw. problem Benacerrafa.

This paper is a comparison of two structural theories of propositions: the theory proposed by Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz in the 1960s and the theory developed by Jeffrey King at the beginning of the 21st century. The first section of the paper is an overview of these theories. The second part is a detailed discussion of significant similarities shared by them. In this section, I also identify and analyze ways in which these theories differ and attempt to determine if these differences are substantial or apparent. The last part is an attempt to determine if the discussed theories are capable of coping with the Benacerraf Problem.

In the paper I defend the idea of metametasemantics against the arguments recently presented by Ori Simchen. Simchen attacks the view, according to which metametasemantics incorporating all possible metasemantic accounts is necessary to protect the metasemantic theories from the notorious problem of inscrutability of reference. Simchen claims that if metametasemantics is allowed it ‘absorbs’ metasemantic theories to the extent that it diminishes their explanatory value. Furthermore, in this way Simchen sets up two main metasemantic paradigms i.e. productivism and interpretationism as the rival theories inevitably excluding each other. I endeavour to undermine Simchen’s point by demonstrating that his argumentation mixes up deflationary reading of the predicate ‘is true’ with its substantial reading. Consequently, I demonstrate that accepting metametasemantics does not diminish explanatory value of various metasemantic theories and thus that there is no good reason to forbid metametasemantics. I also argue that even if we ignore the above-mentioned confusion in Simchen’s reasoning, his arguments still fail when considering various problems with the notion of diminishment of explanatory value and because the analogy that his arguments are based on is fairly weak. Eventually, I conclude that metametasemantics does not pose any danger to metasemantics and that it provides a solid ground for developing a theory that benefits from both productivism and interpretationism.

In the paper I make an attempt to preserve Singular Propositions from the attack carried out by Jason Stanley. Stanley argues that propositions, in general, are not the bearers of modal properties, and thus he refutes one of the major arguments in favour of singular propositions (offered by David Kaplan). My aim is to show that Stanley’s reasoning is fallacious​ since the Expression-Communication Principle which is the basis for his argument suffers from being circular. In brief, a deeper insight into Stanley’s theory called Indexicalism reveals that according to the Principle two sentences express the same proposition when they... express the same proposition.

Meaning Holism and Contextualism are standardly acknowledged to be similar relativistic theories that often lead to similar troubles, in particular to issues concerning instability. On the other hand, the main rival of Contextualism, which is Minimalism, is taken to be resistant to these problems. In effect, it seems inevitable to see Meaning Holism and Minimalism as natural enemies. In my paper, I attempt to reject such a view. My argumentation consists of three main parts. First, I argue that Minimalism does not differ that much from Meaning Holism with respect to the instability issues as it also faces some of them (although in a slightly different way from the case of Holism of Contextualism). Second, I put forward several arguments to show that in fact Minimalism is not incompatible with the two versions of Meaning Holism I distinguish, namely Global Holism and Local Holism. I argue that a meaning holist has to accept some not uncontroversial principles to become an anti- minimalist – and vice versa. Finally, I demonstrate that Minimalism and Meaning Holism can be reconciled. Such a possibility occurs when something I called ‘purely semantic processes’ is allowed. The role of these processes is, roughly speaking, to protect literal meanings from being affected by strong pragmatic factors.

This paper is a comparison of two structural theories of propositions: the theory proposed by Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz in the 1960s and the theory developed by Jeffrey King at the beginning of the 21st century. The first section of the paper is an overview of these theories. The second part is a detailed discussion of significant similarities shared by them. In this section, I also identify and analyze ways in which these theories differ and attempt to determine if these differences are substantial or apparent. The last part is an attempt to determine if the discussed theories are capable of coping with the Benacerraf Problem.

In the paper, I discuss a possibility of defending the Direct Reference theory from its most dangerous threaten which is the notorious Frege's puzzle. I discuss two possible ways of doing that. First is based on King's theory of propositions as facts. I show that tools provided by King's theory are not enough to solve the puzzle. More promising is a method supported by new Soames's theory of propositions as cognitive event-types. I try to show that this framework allows us to develop a satisfying solution of the puzzle, which focuses​ on the notion of the cognitive value of the sentence.

Singular propositions are structured entities which sometimes include macroscopic concrete things as their elements. That leads to numerous difficulties, also those concerning modalities, good example of which is the famous argument developed by Plantinga, who concludes that accepting a theory of singular propositions leads to necessary existence of (apparently contingent) objects — elements of such propos¬itions. In the paper I present a possible way to avoid such harmful consequences and to undermine Plantinga’s reasoning. My approach involves the idea of two modes of evaluating propositions: “in a possible world” and “with regard to a possible world”, which I try to defend by introducing some solutions from the Hybrid Theory of proper names. I also argue that disposing of singular propositions and accepting Descriptivism does not allow to deal with the modal difficulties.

The main topic of this paper is the distinction between attributive and referential uses of definite descriptions. The first influential account of what is the logical form of a proposition expressed by a sentence 'The f is y' was proposed by Russell. Donellan noticed later that Russellian account does not apply to all such sentences and drew the distinction in question. First, we have to consider which language units are to be explored -- said Donnellan. Speaking of types involves unwelcome generality while speaking of tokens overlooks the role of speaker's intentions. The finest approach then is speaking of uses (according to the characteristics given by Jerzy Pelc). Specific feature which distinguish descriptions used referentially (in a sentence of the form 'The f is y') from those used attributively is that the descriptive aspect of the former is not essential (in contradiction to that of the latter), i.e. the description used referentially can be exchanged for another one (such that it is literally false about the object referred to), and the extension as well as the proposition expressed by the sentence will not change. To explain this effect (which is only described in Donellan's paper) we can adopt and extend Kaplan's view on propositions (originally designed for sentences with demonstratives) to sentences with descriptions used referentially and say that a proposition expressed by such a sentence consists of sense of the description used attributively in predicate and the object itself as a physical thing. This solution does not decide however, whether the distinction is semantic or pragmatic. To give the answer we would need to have precisely marked border between two mentioned disciplines