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12Non-doxastic Attitude Reports, Information Structure, and Semantic-Pragmatic InterfaceReview of Philosophy and Psychology 1-48. forthcoming.Truth conditions of sentences ascribing non-doxastic propositional attitudes seem to depend on the information structure of the embedded clause. In this paper, we argue that this kind of sensitivity is a semantic phenomenon rather than a pragmatic one. We report four questionnaire studies which explore the impact of the information structure on the truth conditions of non-doxastic attitude ascriptions from different perspectives. The results of the first two studies show that the acceptability o…Read more
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9Parasitic intentions. A case against intentionalismInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.This paper presents a novel argument against intentionalism about demonstrative reference. The term ‘intentionalism’ is used to denote the view saying that the referent of a demonstrative expression is determined by the speaker’s intention. My argument focuses on ‘mismatch cases’, roughly, the cases in which the speaker’s intention determines a different object from the one which appears to be the referent in the light of contextual factors. The opponents of intentionalism claim that intentional…Read more
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45Against intentionalism: an experimental study on demonstrative referenceLinguistics and Philosophy 45 (5): 1027-1061. 2022.In this paper, we present two experimental studies on reference of complex demonstratives. The results of our experiments challenge the dominant view in philosophy of language, according to which demonstrative reference is determined by the speaker's intentions. The first experiment shows that in a context where there are two candidates for the referent—one determined by the speaker’s intention, the other by some “external” factors—people prefer to identify the referent of a demonstrative with t…Read more
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5Roundabout Semantic Significance of the “Attributive/referential” DistinctionKriterion - Journal of Philosophy 1 (27): 30-40. 2013.In this paper, I argue that contrary to the approach widely taken in the literature, it is possible to retain Russell’s theory of definite descriptions and grant some semantic significance to the distinction between the attributive and the referential use. The core of the argumentation is based on recognition of the so-called “roundabout” way in which the use of a definite description may be significant to the semantic features of the sentence: it is a case where the use of a description contrib…Read more
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21Conditionals and specific links—an experimental studySynthese 199 (3-4): 7365-7399. 2021.Based on the new experimental evidence, we argue that a link between a conditional antecedent and the consequent is semantically expressed rather than pragmatically conveyed. In our paper, we focus on particular kinds of links which conditionals may convey in a context. For instance, a conditional ‘If p, q’ may convey a thought equivalent to ‘p will cause q’, ‘p is the best explanation for q’, ‘q follows from p’, etcetera. The traditional theoretical literature on conditionals seems to imply tha…Read more
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25Are Descriptions Really Descriptive? An Experimental Study on Misdescription and ReferenceReview of Philosophy and Psychology 10 (3): 609-630. 2019.This paper presents an experimental study on definite descriptions. According to the classical views, a definite description, i.e., a phrase of the form “the F”, has – roughly speaking - purely descriptive semantics, that is, it designates the object which uniquely (opt. uniquely in a context) satisfies the description. However, as several philosophers including Keith Donnellan have argued, there are uses of definite descriptions on which these expressions do not seem to designate objects which …Read more
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535Descriptions and non-doxastic attitude ascriptionsPhilosophical Studies 175 (6): 1311-1331. 2018.This paper addresses a certain objection to the quantificational theory of definite descriptions. According to this objection, the quantificational account cannot provide correct interpretations of definite descriptions embedded in the non-doxastic attitude ascriptions and therefore ought to be rejected. In brief, the objection says that the quantificational theory is committed to the view that a sentence of the form “The F is G” is equivalent to the claim that there is a unique F and it is G, w…Read more
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Rigid Designation and Definite DescriptionsFilozofia Nauki 19 (4). 2011.The aim of this paper is to discuss an idea that referentially used definite descriptions are rigid designators or, at least, „weakly” rigid designators in some sense of this term. In the first part, the views of Nathan Salmon, Howard Wettstein and Michael Devitt are presented. The author observes that none of these positions provides a conclusive argument in the discussion on the issue in question. In the second part, it is argued that referentially used descriptions are in some sense rigid. Th…Read more
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Zagadki Russella a nazwowa interpretacja deskrypcji określonychPrzeglad Filozoficzny - Nowa Seria 91. 2014.
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The Attributive–Referential Distinction and Uses of Definite DescriptionsFilozofia Nauki 22 (3): 27-42. 2014.
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63Roundabout Semantic Significance of the “Attributive/referential” DistinctionKriterion - Journal of Philosophy 27 (1): 30-40. 2013.In this paper, I argue that contrary to the approach widely taken in the literature, it is possible to retain Russell's theory of definite descriptions and grant some semantic significance to the distinction between the attributive and the referential use. The core of the argumentation is based on recognition of the so-called "roundabout" way in which the use of a definite description may be significant to the semantic features of the sentence: it is a case where the use of a description contrib…Read more
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The Attributive Use and Russell's ParadigmFilozofia Nauki 21 (2). 2013.According to the prevailing view, Russell’s theory of descriptions provides an adequate semantic account of sentences with definite descriptions in the attributive use. The author challenges this assumption. Firstly, he presents two general ‘Strawsonian’ objections to Russell’s theory, which, as he argues, are valid in the case of attributive assertions. Those are arguments against the so called existential reading and the uniqueness-reading of an attributively used sentence of the form “The F …Read more
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58Definite Descriptions and the Argument from InferencePhilosophia 42 (4): 1099-1109. 2014.This article discusses the “Argument from Inference” raised against the view that definite descriptions are semantically referring expressions. According to this argument, the indicated view is inadequate since it evaluates some invalid inferences with definite descriptions as “valid” and vice versa. I argue that the Argument from Inference is basically wrong. Firstly, it is crucially based on the assumption that a proponent of the view that definite descriptions are referring expressions concei…Read more
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7W obronie zasady domknięcia: polemika z argumentacją Freda DretskegoPrzeglad Filozoficzny - Nowa Seria 81 (1): 167-183. 2012.