• Nonmonotonicity and Knowability: As Knowable as Possible
    In Ramaswamy Ramanujam, Lawrence Moss & Can Başkent (eds.), Rohit Parikh on Logic, Language and Society, Springer Verlag. 2017.
  • Language, Games, and Evolution (edited book)
    with Anton Benz and Christian Ebert
    Springer-Verlag. 2011.
  •  16
    In this paper, we explain why the antecedent of a biscuit conditional is relevant to its consequent by extending Douvenʼs evidential support theory of conditionals making use of utilities. By this extension, we can also explain why a biscuit conditional gives rise to the inference that the consequence is (most likely) true. Finally, we account for the intuition that (indicative) biscuit sentences are false when the antecedent is false and allow for counterfactual biscuits.
  •  22
    In this paper an approach to the exhaustive interpretation of answers is developed. It builds on a proposal brought forward by Groenendijk and Stokhof (1984). We will use the close connection between their approach and McCarthy’s (1980, 1986) predicate circumscription and describe exhaustive interpretation as an instance of interpretation in minimal models, well-known from work on counterfactuals (see for instance Lewis (1973)). It is shown that by combining this approach with independent develo…Read more
  •  10
    In this paper, we explain why the antecedent of a biscuit conditional is relevant to its consequent by extending Douvenʼs evidential support theory of conditionals making use of utilities. By this extension, we can also explain why a biscuit conditional gives rise to the inference that the consequence is (most likely) true. Finally, we account for the intuition that (indicative) biscuit sentences are false when the antecedent is false and allow for counterfactual biscuits.
  •  14
    Introduction
    Synthese 174 (1): 1-3. 2010.
  •  11
    Exhaustive Interpretation of Complex Sentences
    Journal of Logic, Language and Information 13 (4): 491-519. 2004.
    In terms of Groenendijk and Stokhof’s (1984) formalization of exhaustive interpretation, many conversational implicatures can be accounted for. In this paper we justify and generalize this approach. Our justification proceeds by relating their account via Halpern and Moses’ (1984) non-monotonic theory of ‘only knowing’ to the Gricean maxims of Quality and the first sub-maxim of Quantity. The approach of Groenendijk and Stokhof (1984) is generalized such that it can also account for implicatures …Read more
  •  8
    Language structure: psychological and social constraints
    with Gerhard Jäger
    Synthese 159 (1): 99-130. 2006.
    In this article we discuss the notion of a linguistic universal, and possible sources of such invariant properties of natural languages. In the first part, we explore the conceptual issues that arise. In the second part of the paper, we focus on the explanatory potential of horizontal evolution. We particularly focus on two case studies, concerning Zipf’s Law and universal properties of color terms, respectively. We show how computer simulations can be employed to study the large scale, emergent…Read more
  •  45
    Arguments based on Leibniz's Law seem to show that there is no room for either indefinite or contingent identity. The arguments seem to prove too much, but their conclusion is hard to resist if we want to keep Leibniz's Law. We present a novel approach to this issue, based on an appropriate modification of the notion of logical consequence.
  •  46
    Foreword: Three-valued logics and their applications
    Journal of Applied Non-Classical Logics 24 (1-2): 1-11. 2014.
  •  106
    Vagueness, Truth and Permissive Consequence
    In T. Achourioti, H. Galinon, J. Martínez Fernández & K. Fujimoto (eds.), Unifying the Philosophy of Truth, Imprint: Springer. pp. 409-430. 2015.
    We say that a sentence A is a permissive consequence of a set X of premises whenever, if all the premises of X hold up to some standard, then A holds to some weaker standard. In this paper, we focus on a three-valued version of this notion, which we call strict-to-tolerant consequence, and discuss its fruitfulness toward a unified treatment of the paradoxes of vagueness and self-referential truth. For vagueness, st-consequence supports the principle of tolerance; for truth, it supports the requi…Read more
  •  11
    To determine what the speaker in a cooperative dialog meant with his assertion, on top of what he explicitly said, it is crucial that we assume that the assertion he gave was optimal. In determining optimal assertions we assume that dialogs are embedded in decision problems (van Rooij 2003) and use backwards induction for calculating them (Benz 2006). In this paper, we show that in terms of our framework we can account for several types of implicatures in a uniform way, suggesting that there is …Read more
  •  37
    Explaining Quantity Implicatures
    with Tikitu Jager
    Journal of Logic, Language and Information 21 (4): 461-477. 2012.
    We give derivations of two formal models of Gricean Quantity implicature and strong exhaustivity in bidirectional optimality theory and in a signalling games framework. We show that, under a unifying model based on signalling games, these interpretative strategies are game-theoretic equilibria when the speaker is known to be respectively minimally and maximally expert in the matter at hand. That is, in this framework the optimal strategy for communication depends on the degree of knowledge the s…Read more
  •  9
    Strengthening conditional presuppositions
    Journal of Semantics 24 (3): 289-304. 2007.
    In this paper it will be shown how conditional presuppositions can be strengthened to unconditional ones if we assume that the antecedent and consequent of a conditional presupposition are independent of one another. Our notion of independence is very weak, and based on Lewis' notion of orthogonality of questions. It will be argued that our way of strengthening these presuppositions does not give rise to some wrong predictions Geurts argued other proposed strengthening accounts do.
  •  23
    InSuppose and Tell, Williamson makes a new and original attempt to defend the material conditional account of indicative conditionals. His overarching argument is that this account offers the best explanation of the data concerning how people evaluate and use such conditionals. We argue that Williamson overlooks several important alternative explanations, some of which appear to explain the relevant data at least as well as, or even better than, the material conditional account does. Along the w…Read more
  •  42
    Natural kinds and dispositions: a causal analysis
    Synthese 198 (Suppl 12): 3059-3084. 2019.
    Objects have dispositions. Dispositions are normally analyzed by providing a meaning to disposition ascriptions like ‘This piece of salt is soluble’. Philosophers like Carnap, Goodman, Quine, Lewis and many others have proposed analyses of such disposition ascriptions. In this paper we will argue with Quine that the proper analysis of ascriptions of the form ‘x is disposed to m ’, where ‘x’ denotes an object, ‘m’ a manifestation, and ‘C’ a condition, goes like this: ‘x is of natural kind k’, and…Read more
  •  2
    One of the traditional pragmatic approaches to vagueness suggests that there needs to be a significant gap between individuals or objects that can be described using a vague adjective like tall and those that cannot. In contrast, intuitively, an explicit comparative like taller does not require fulfillment of the gap requirement. Our starting point for this paper is the consideration that people cannot make precise measures under time pressure and their ability to discriminate approximate height…Read more
  •  50
    Pragmatic value and complex sentences
    Mind and Matter 4 (2): 195-218. 2006.
    We investigate to what extent it is possible to determine a reasonable default pragmatic value of complex sentences in a compositional manner, and --when combined with a Boolean semantics --to see under which conditions it gives rise to reasonable predictions. We discuss several notions of pragmatic value, or relevance, and compare their behavior over complex sentences. Although the goal-oriented notions of relevance give rise to the same ordering relations between propositions,the conditions un…Read more
  •  25
    Towards a uniform analysis of any
    Natural Language Semantics 16 (4): 297-315. 2008.
    In this paper, Universal any and Negative Polarity Item any are uniformly analyzed as ‘counterfactual’ donkey sentences (in disguise). Their difference in meaning is reduced here to the distinction between strong and weak readings of donkey sentences. It is shown that this explains the universal and existential character of Universal- and NPI-any, respectively, and the positive and negative contexts in which they are licensed. Our uniform analysis extends to the use of any in command and permiss…Read more
  •  63
    The principle of stability now says that if sentence ϕ is true/false in a model M, then ϕ has to stay true/false if M is getting more precise. Formally, let M = D, I be a refinement of M = D, I . Then it has to be the case that for all ϕ: (i) If VM(ϕ) = 1, then VM (ϕ) = 1. (ii) If VM(ϕ) = 0, then VM (ϕ) = 0.
  •  23
    Review of Joseph Almog, Paolo Leonardi (eds.), The Philosophy of David Kaplan (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2009 (9). 2009.
  •  1
    Contains papers presented at the Thirteenth Amsterdam Colloquium in formal semantics, pragmatics and logic, which was held in Amsterdam, December 17-19, 2001.
  •  3
    Game-Theoretic Pragmatics Under Conflicting and Common Interests
    with Kris De Jaegher
    Erkenntnis 79 (Suppl 4): 769-820. 2014.
    This paper combines a survey of existing literature in game-theoretic pragmatics with new models that fill some voids in that literature. We start with an overview of signaling games with a conflict of interest between sender and receiver, and show that the literature on such games can be classified into models with direct, costly, noisy and imprecise signals. We then argue that this same subdivision can be used to classify signaling games with common interests, where we fill some voids in the l…Read more
  •  25
    Definition 1. A Strict partial order is a structure X, P , with P a binary relation on X that is irreflexive (IR) and Transitive (TR): (IR) ∀x : ¬P (x, x). (TR) ∀x, y, v, w : (P (x, y) ∧ P (y, z)) → P (x, z).
  •  35
    Introduction
    Synthese 174 (1): 1-3. 2010.
  •  52
    Tolerant reasoning: nontransitive or nonmonotonic?
    Synthese 199 (Suppl 3): 681-705. 2017.
    The principle of tolerance characteristic of vague predicates is sometimes presented as a soft rule, namely as a default which we can use in ordinary reasoning, but which requires care in order to avoid paradoxes. We focus on two ways in which the tolerance principle can be modeled in that spirit, using special consequence relations. The first approach relates tolerant reasoning to nontransitive reasoning; the second relates tolerant reasoning to nonmonotonic reasoning. We compare the two approa…Read more
  •  13
    Implicit versus explicit comparatives
    In Paul Egre & Nathan Klinedinst (eds.), Vagueness and Language Use, Palgrave-macmillan. 2010.