Ludovic Soutif

This paper challenges the hypothesis that ideophonic sequences are syntactic structures built from lexical roots by the recursive operation Merge through the mediation of a functional head, taken to be either a coordinate (Corver 2015) or a determiner (Corver 2023). Drawing on Generative Grammar theory and new data from Brazilian Portuguese, we argue that the evidence for this hypothesis is weak at best. We first show that these sequences do not behave consistently as constituents. While they can stand alone, be coordinated, and resist intrusion, they fail to undergo movement and ellipsis. Taken together, this suggests that they are most likely linear sequences. They lack the formal features responsible for mediating grammatical interactions with the surrounding syntactic context and on which asymmetric structures are built. Moreover, the evidence on which Corver relies is mostly phonological and as such does not provide strong support for the conclusion that ideophonic sequences are asymmetric structures. Following the general tenets of Minimalism, we conclude that, in the absence of strong and uncontroversial evidence, it is best to assume that sequences formed by canonical ideophones are linear strings or symmetric structures distinct from ordinary syntactic phrases.

In this paper, I argue, on the basis of textual evidence, that two conceptions of object instead of one are present in the Tractatus. One of them, based on the notions of a complete analysis of meaningful sentences and of absolute simplicity, was explicitly endorsed by Wittgenstein on purely logical grounds as the official doctrine of the book while the other, based on the notions of a multidimensional formal analysis and of singularity, was noncommittally entertained by him in the form of an analogy between the object’s relation to its ‘surrounding’ logical space (of states of affairs) and the relation of a phenomenal item to the specific sense modality it belongs to and in which it is located. Armed with this distinction, I attempt to clarify the debate around the issue of the exemplarity of certain categories of things (particulars, universals) with respect to the logical notion of a Tractarian object. I also give my interpretation of how Wittgenstein deals in the Tractatus with the problem of the incompatibility of certain color ascriptions, and of the related episode of the abandonment of logical atomism in the early so-called ‘transitional period’.

Using semantic and syntactic methods, we prove the compatibility of the truth of universally quantified slurring sentences of the form [all Ss are Ns] or [all Ss are S*s] with the existential core of moral and semantic innocence. We also show that proving their mutual compatibility by means of logic leaves untouched the moral problem tied to their material truth. Finally, we trace the problem back to the failure to signal in the spelling of the slurring term’s meaning that the derogatory concept it denotes is not universally accepted.

RESUMO O presente artigo contempla uma das tentativas mais significativas e controversas de explicar o significado de pejorativos como itens lexicais, a saber, a de Hom e May. Após apresentarmos em linhas gerais a teoria, identificamos conjuntos de sentenças pejorativas que saem verdadeiras nessa teoria e para as quais a questão da sua compatibilidade com a visão por eles defendida (a chamada Inocência Moral e Semântica) permanece em aberto. Explorando o arcabouço teórico padrão da teoria dos modelos em que Hom e May (presumivelmente) trabalham, damos uma prova de sua compatibilidade com a visão. Dado que as questões relativas tanto à importância moral de pejorativos quanto aos efeitos práticos de seu proferimento não são resolvidas pela prova, destacamos, em seguida, implicações morais e pragmáticas indesejáveis para algumas das sentenças pejorativas sob escrutínio, mostrando assim que a visão de Hom e May, interpretada de maneira ampla, não é tão moral e semanticamente inócua como deveria ser.

In this critical notice we review Bozickovic's recent attempt to settle two interrelated issues: (i) the issue of the cognitive significance of indexical thoughts expressed at a time in the face of difficulties posed by cases in which the subject either mistakes two objects for one or one for two different objects; (ii) that of the cognitive dynamics of temporal indexical thoughts in the face of difficulties posed by cases in which the belief seems to be retained while the proper adjustments fail to be made (that is, in cases such as Rip Van Winkle's). We argue that, despite its elegance and merits, the proposal falls short of accounting for the problematic cases in their full complexity. For one thing, the intended non-modal construal of Frege's Criterion of Difference promoted by Bozickovic does not block, in our view, the "proliferation" of senses brought about by the occasion-sensitivity of the individuation of demonstrative thoughts. For another, the proposal fails to appreciate the need for the subject to have an adequate conception of the object of her thought when it comes to orienting herself in space and time. That being so, we conclude that neither (i) nor (ii) is settled.

In this essay I consider Kaplan’s challenge to Frege’s so-called dictum: “Logic (and perhaps even truth) is immune to epithetical color”. I show that if it is to challenge anything, it rather challenges the view (attributable to Frege) that logic is immune to pejorative colour. This granted, I show that Kaplan’s inference-based challenge can be set even assuming that the pejorative doesn’t make any non-trivial truth-conditional (descriptive) contribution. This goes against the general tendency to consider the truth-conditionally inert logically irrelevant. But I take it that Kaplan is right and take his examples to show that truth-conditional inertness need not entail inferential inertness. I end up assessing the Kaplan-Frege “debate” as giving edge to the former to the extent that clarity is achieved through Kaplanian inferences on what should be considered part of the explanandum.

Starting from Brentano’s classical characterization of intentionality, we review the radical enactivist proposal about basic cognition and show that the underlying assumption that stripping teleosemantics of its representationalist commitments results in no explanatory loss is unwarranted. Significant features of basic cognition are lost, or so we argue, with the RECtification of teleosemantics that are retrieved by means of an alternative dubbed metaphysically non-committal content-ascriptivism.

Logical Investigations (notably, The Thought) is one of the works wherein Frege voices his hostility to psychologism in logic, science, and semantics. Such hostility lies, arguably, behind his threefold conceptual distinction between thought (Gedanke), thinking (Denken), and ideas (Vorstellungen). In this essay I investigate, to begin with, Frege’s motivations for drawing the distinction and keeping thinking episodes (one of the meanings of ‘thoughts’ in English) out of the picture. It turns out, or so I argue, that psychologism threatens, on Frege’s view, to destroy the objectivity requirement by which thoughts are defined as answerable contents. I then draw a connection between this feature in Frege’s view and an on-going debate in philosophy of mind and language over the nature of world-directed thoughts and show that the feature lies at the heart of the singularist stance. Finally, I show that, despite Frege’s own hostility to all that bears the mark of the subjective in logic, science, and semantics, a psychological argument can be mounted in support of singularism (i.e. the view that some of our thoughts are about particulars qua particulars) using his disparaged notion of idea (Vorstellung) and that, appearances notwithstanding, the argument is compatible with the objectivity requirement on answerable thought-contents.

Modelling the semantic behaviour of expressives in such a way that one be in a position to predict some, at least, of their distinctive properties is the purpose of any theory aiming at accounting for so-called expressive meaning. In this paper, we review a semantic framework coined by its author the Theory of Bias. We show that the two-tiered account of the meaning of expressives (notably, sentential interjections and pejorative epithets) favored by this framework has the resources to provide a consistent explanation of their semantic behaviour in prima facie awkward statements such as ‘alas, I am unfavorably disposed towards something’ or ‘that stupid Trump isn’t stupid’. On the critical side, we argue that, not being intended to account for the meaning of expressives alone, the theory has hard times explaining the unshiftability of their bias, as opposed to the shiftability of the bias of discourse particles —a further member, according to some authors, of the category of expressives lato sensu— and that it fails to pinpoint unpluggability as the crucial test for expressive content. We conclude that, in spite of its merits, the theory need be theoretically enhanced and methodologically sharpened.

I take issue with Glezakos’s explanation of why Frege’s puzzle is un-puzzling. On her view, Frege’s statement – how can sentences of the form a=a and a=b, if true, differ in cognitive value if they express the same semantic content/are made true by the same object’s self-identity? – should not be considered any puzzling either because it is on the whole circular, or because, neutrally stated, it cannot even be set up. I argue against this that if, as she takes it, Frege’s statement is “problematic” it is not for the reasons she gives, but because it rests upon a couple of questionable assumptions: i) there is no ambiguity as to which aspect of the sign (in its relation to the referent) is relevant to a neutral statement of the puzzle ii) it is of the (sentence) forms themselves one may sensibly say they differ in cognitive value.

One of the conundrums of Wittgenstein’s so-called ‘1914–1916 Notebooks’ concerns the role played by the visual instances of logical analysis. As a matter of fact, in discussing in that work the requirement that the logical analysis of meaningful sentences be complete, Wittgenstein often takes as examples statements about the colored parts of the subject's visual image (Gesichtsbild). In view of this, it might be thought that the requirement is not laid down in the Notebooks on logical grounds, but somehow on psychological or psychophysical ones. In this paper I argue this is not so and that the requirement is exemplified rather than justified by the analysis of statements about the products of the subject’s visual imagination. I also argue that, on Wittgenstein’s syntactic notion of a complete logical analysis, our unanalyzed statements embody as they are the requirement that their sense be fully determinate; which is just what is meant by the idea that the analysis must be complete.

Parmi toutes les pensées que nous avons sur le monde, certaines portent sur des objets particuliers de façon plus directe (ou moins lâche) que les pensées dites descriptives et sont, pour cette raison, qualifiées de singulières. La pensée exprimée par l’énoncé : « Jean Nicod est mort en 1924 » n’est, intuitivement, pas la même que celle exprimée par l’énoncé : « L’auteur de la Géométrie dans le monde sensible est mort en 1924 », ne serait-ce que parce que la seconde ne porte sur l’individu particulier auquel réfère le nom propre Jean Nicod (dans le premier énoncé) qu’indirectement, via la satisfaction par ce dernier d’un ensemble de conditions descriptives. La thèse selon laquelle notre espace cognitif serait peuplé d’authentiques pensées singulières n’est pourtant pas, loin s’en faut, triviale et mérite d’être évaluée à la lumière des différentes approches possibles du phénomène. Ce livre tente de le cerner en présentant et évaluant les théories sémantiques, épistémiques et cognitives les plus significatives de la pensée singulière. Il promeut une approche intégrée qui vise à donner son juste poids aux aspects mis en lumière par ces théories. Il est assorti d’un commentaire de deux extraits de texte: l’un, de Bertrand Russell, souvent considéré comme le locus classicus de la thèse singulariste et des théories épistémiques de l’accointance; l’autre, du philosophe américain contemporain Kent Bach, sur la portée de la conception essentialiste orthodoxe des pensées de re.

I discuss the view tentatively put forward by Recanati in Mental Files to turn two potentially contradictory claims compatible: the claim to the effect that acquaintance is a necessary condition of singular thought and the claim that we do entertain acquaintanceless singular thoughts (i.e. thoughts directed at particulars as particulars). Key to the proposal is a normative construal of the acquaintance constraint. I show the proposal as it stands is wanting, first, because the norm the users of descriptive names are subject to has no (determinate) conditions of satisfaction within the framework ; second, because the kind of mental simulation involved in exploiting the norm in this type of case is misdescribed as a “local lapse into fiction” ; third, because it leaves the issue pertaining to the conditions of satisfaction of the acquaintance norm over time unaddressed.

No debate acerca da singularidade de, pelos menos, alguns de nossos pensamentos sobre o mundo, assume-se corriqueiramente que o responsável pela natureza singular do episódio mental não é o próprio episódio e, sim, a proposição singular expressa quer por um proferimento assertórico de sentença singular autônoma, quer pela cláusula complementar em um relato de atribuição de atitude proposicional. As rotas semânticas padrão assumem que a singularidade do episódio mental (conceitual) é por assim dizer “herdada” da singularidade do conteúdo. Argumento que este pressuposto apresenta uma lacuna, pois desconsidera o papel desempenhado em certos atos de pensamento, chamados de episódicos, por habilidades cognitivas tais como a capacidade de perceber objetos particulares, de vivenciar (novamente) ou de projetar-se mentalmente em direção a acontecimentos particulares pessoais, diretamente responsáveis por sua singularidade. No entanto, contra a tese de que haveria capacidades episódicas aí envolvidas, argumento que a singularidade dos atos de pensar episódicos se dá pelo exercício pontual no espaço e no tempo dessas capacidades e há, portanto, um sentido não derivado em que eles podem ser qualificados como singulares.

ABSTRACT: In this article, I show and discuss the relevance of Wittgenstein's arguments as to the spatial structure of sight to recent issues in the philosophy of mind. The first, bearing upon the dimensionality of the manifolds at play in depiction, plays a critical role in Clark's attempt to provide an independent account of qualia and of their differentiative properties. The second, pertaining to the properly spatial structure formed by the data of sight, is explicitly appealed to in the debate on the realistic character of any genuinely spatial scheme. I argue that if Wittgenstein rightly assumes that the simultaneous presence of sensible places in vision is a key condition for objectivity, he fails nevertheless to warrant the allegedly realistic character of the scheme employed in his own search for a phenomenological description of the visual field.RÉSUMÉ: Dans cet article, nous montrons et discutons la pertinence des arguments de Wittgenslein sur la structure spatiale de la vision pour certains problèmes récents en philosophie de l'esprit. Le premier, qui porte sur la dimensionnalité des variétés en jeu dans le processus de dépiction, joue un rôle décisif dans la tentative de caractérisation indépendante des qualia et de leurs propriétés discriminatives par Clark. Le second, qui a trait à la structure proprement spatiale formée par les données de la vue, est au centre des débats sur le caractère réaliste de tout schème authentiquement spatial. L'idée que nous défendons ici est que, si Wittgenstein a raison de supposer que la présence simultanée des places sensibles dans la vision est une condition déterminante de l'objectivité, il ne parvient pas en revanche à garantir le caractère censément réaliste du scheme utilisé dans sa propre recherche d'une description phénoménologique du champ visuel.

No presente verbete faço a revisão crítica de algumas entre as mais expressivas tentativas de resolver o chamado ‘problema da dinâmica cognitiva’. De acordo com Kaplan (1989) – que é responsável pelo próprio apelido, a questão que se coloca é: o que significa dizer de uma pessoa que expressou uma crença particular num determinado contexto de proferimento que ela reteve ou mudou de crença fora desse contexto? E caso ajustes (linguísticos, psicológicos) sejam necessários para manter a relação com o conteúdo semântico original, quais são nossas intuições a respeito de casos em que um sujeito cognitivamente saudável perdeu temporariamente a noção do tempo e/ou a capacidade de rastrear objetos no espaço? Exploro diversas respostas a essas perguntas com o intuito de dizer se elas conseguem acomodar os fatos (semânticos, epistêmicos, cognitivos) aí envolvidos. Abstract: In this paper I review some of the most significant attempts to solve the so-called ‘problem of cognitive dynamics’. According to Kaplan (1989), who coined the phrase, the following questions arise – as to the topic: what does it means to say of an individual who expressed a particular belief in a given context of utterance that he/she has re tained orchanged his/her mind with respect to it once the context is left? And assuming that (linguistic or psychological) adjustments are required to keep on being related to the original semantic content, what are our intuitions about the case of a cognitively healthy subject who temporarily lost the ability to keep track of time and/or objects in space? I investigate different ways of answg those questions with a view to saying whether they accommodate all the relevant (semantic, epistemic, cognitive) facts or not.

Neste artigo, tentamos mostrar que um problema comum aos capítulos XVI e XX das Observações filosóficas é o da aplicabilidade dos conceitos e «proposições» da geometria à realidade física e perceptiva (visual, em particular), e que o modo pelo qual Wittgenstein aborda esse problema nessa obra difere radicalmente, a despeito de aparentes similitudes, daquele que caracteriza as teorias semânticas do a priori visual em termos de estipulações (notadamente, o de Carnap em 1922). O esclarecimento do estatuto dos enunciados sobre os objetos do espaço visual como regras de sintaxe e a abordagem do problema da aplicação de nossos conceitos geométricos à realidade perceptiva em termos de condições práticas de emprego permite a Wittgenstein dissolver, não sem alguma ambiguidade no vocabulário empregado, as falsas aparências ontológicas suscitadas pelas teorias que postulam a existência de um universo de discurso intermediário entre os corpos físicos e os números.

In this paper, I discuss a view of de re thoughts that can be naturally endorsed in the wake of Russell's account. This is the view that a thought is about the very thing (res) rather than a mere characterization of it if and only if it is constitutively tied, if not to the existence, at least to the identity of its object and the thinker knows which/who the object of his/her thought is. Faced with the challenge of accommodating far from uncommon cases of mistaken identity or substantial confusion on the part of the subject, I argue that the integrity of the view can be preserved and that the restrictions set on its truth by the advocates of the two-component picture and the anti-essentialists can be lifted.

Quoique l'on ne trouve qu'un nombre limité de références à Nicod dans les manuscrits de la période dite « intermédiaire » de Wittgenstein, une lecture attentive de La Géométrie dans le monde sensible s'avère pourtant décisive pour comprendre la nature du projet phénoménologique de Wittgenstein de la fin des années vingt. Nous nous proposons de montrer que la prise en compte ainsi que la reformulation du problème posé par Nicod en 1924, celui de la nature de la relation d'inclusion spatiale, conduit Wittgenstein à remplacer dès 1929 l'ancien critère logique du simple et du complexe (celui du Tractatus logico-philosophicus) par un critère phénoménologico-grammatical inédit et désabsolutisé applicable à toute donnée visuelle quelle qu'elle soit. Plus généralement, la priorité donnée par Wittgenstein au visuel dans son « investigation phénoménologique des impressions sensorielles » trouve sa meilleure justification dans l'esquisse par Nicod d'une géométrie de la vision à la fois complète et indépendante. Nous montrons en particulier que les propriétés structurales du champ visuel mises au jour par Nicod dans sa construction (diversité et simultanéité des places sensibles, coloréité) sont tacitement utilisées par Wittgenstein pour justifier la possibilité d'une description phénoménologique conçue, précisément, comme description des places ou « localités » constitutives de cet espace perceptif.