Author : Herman Cappelen
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 209 pages
File Size : 16,33 MB
Release : 2013-11
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0199686742
In this book the authors argue that there are no such things as essential indexicality, irreducibly de se attitudes, or self-locating attitudes.
Author : Herman Cappelen
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 209 pages
File Size : 30,22 MB
Release : 2013-11-14
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0191510246
When we represent the world in language, in thought, or in perception, we often represent it from a perspective. We say and think that the meeting is happening now, that it is hot here, that I am in danger and not you; that the tree looks larger from my perspective than from yours. The Inessential Indexical is an exploration and defense of the view that perspectivality is a philosophically shallow aspect of the world. Cappelen and Dever oppose one of the most entrenched and dominant trends in contemporary philosophy: that perspective (and the perspective of the first person in particular) is philosophically deep and that a proper understanding of it is important not just in the philosophies of language and mind, but throughout philosophy. They argue that there are no such things as essential indexicality, irreducibly de se attitudes, or self-locating attitudes. Their goal is not to show that we need to rethink these phenomena, to explain them in different ways. Their goal is to show that the entire topic is an illusion—there's nothing there. The Context and Content series is a forum for outstanding original research at the intersection of philosophy, linguistics, and cognitive science. The general editor is François Recanati (Institut Jean-Nicod, Paris).
Author : José Luis Bermúdez
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 175 pages
File Size : 12,21 MB
Release : 2016
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 0198796218
No words in English are shorter than "I" and few, if any, play a more fundamental role in language and thought. In Understanding "I": Thought and Language Jose Luis Bermudez continues his longstanding work on the self and self-consciousness. Bermudez develops a model of how language-users understand sentences involving the first person pronoun "I." This model illuminates the unique psychological role that self-conscious thoughts (typically expressed using "I") play in action and thought - a unique role often summarized by describing "I" as an essential indexical. The book opens with an argument directly supporting the indispensability of "I"-thoughts in explaining action. After motivating a broadly Fregean approach linguistic understanding it critically examines Frege's own remarks on "I" as well as the Fregean account offered by Gareth Evans. The main part of the book develops an account of the sense of "I" that explains a cluster of related phenomena, including essential indexicality, immunity to error through misidentification, the shareability of "I"-thoughts, the relation between "I" and "you," and the role of autobiographical memory in self-consciousness.
Author : Jessica Brown
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 309 pages
File Size : 46,8 MB
Release : 2011-01-27
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 019957300X
Assertion is a fundamental feature of language. This volume will be the place to look for anyone interested in current work on the topic. Philosophers of language and epistemologists join forces to elucidate what kind of speech act assertion is, particularly in light of relativist views of truth, and how assertion is governed by epistemic norms.
Author : Eros Corazza
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 383 pages
File Size : 35,87 MB
Release : 2004-09-30
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 019927018X
This volume presents a fascinating investigation of the role that indexicals play in our thought. Indexicality is crucial to the understanding of such puzzling issues as the nature of the self, the nature of perception, social interaction psychological pathologies and psychological development.
Author : Herman Cappelen
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 25,71 MB
Release : 2016-04-07
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0191047422
Context and Communication offers an introduction to a central theme in the study of language: the various ways in which what we say (or ask, or think) depends on the context of speech and thought. The period since 1970 has produced a vast literature on this topic, both by philosophers and by linguists. It is one of the areas of philosophy (and linguistics) where most progress has been made over the last few decades. This book explores some of the central data, questions, concepts, and theories of context sensitivity. It is written to be accessible to someone with no prior knowledge of the material or, indeed, any prior knowledge of philosophy, and is ideal for use as part of a philosophy of language course by students of philosophy or linguistics. Context and Communication is the first in the series Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy of Language. Each book in the series provides an introduction to an important topic in philosophy of language. Three more volumes are in preparation, on reference, the metaphysics of meaning, and conceptual analysis and philosophical methodology. These textbooks can be used as a module in a philosophy of language course, for either undergraduate or graduate students.
Author : Herman Cappelen
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 249 pages
File Size : 50,43 MB
Release : 2019-03-14
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0192576003
When theorizing about language, we tend to assume that speakers are cooperative, honest, helpful, and so on. This, of course, isn't remotely true of a lot of real-world language use. Bad Language is the first textbook to explore non-idealized language use, the linguistic behaviour of those who exploit language for malign purposes. Two eminent philosophers of language present a lively and accessible introduction to a wide range of topics including lies and bullshit, slurs and insults, coercion and silencing: Cappelen and Dever offer theoretical frameworks for thinking about these all too common linguistic behaviours. As the text does not assume prior training in philosophy or linguistics, it is ideal for use as part of a philosophy of language course for philosophy students or for linguistics students. Bad Language belongs to the series Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy of Language, in which each book introduces an important area of the philosophy of language, suitable for students at any level.
Author : Herman Cappelen
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 184 pages
File Size : 43,37 MB
Release : 2021
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0192894722
Can humans and artificial intelligences share concepts and communicate? One aim of Making AI Intelligible is to show that philosophical work on the metaphysics of meaning can help answer these questions. Cappelen and Dever use the externalist tradition in philosophy of to create models of how AIs and humans can understand each other. In doing so, they also show ways in which that philosophical tradition can be improved: our linguistic encounters with AIs revel that our theories of meaning have been excessively anthropocentric. The questions addressed in the book are not only theoretically interesting, but the answers have pressing practical implications. Many important decisions about human life are now influenced by AI. In giving that power to AI, we presuppose that AIs can track features of the world that we care about (e.g. creditworthiness, recidivism, cancer, and combatants.) If AIs can share our concepts, that will go some way towards justifying this reliance on AI. The book can be read as a proposal for how to take some first steps towards achieving interpretable AI. Making AI Intelligible is of interest to both philosophers of language and anyone who follows current events or interacts with AI systems. It illustrates how philosophy can help us understand and improve our interactions with AI.
Author : Peter Ludlow
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 50,45 MB
Release : 2019
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0198823797
We often find ourselves communicating from radically different perspectives on the world. In this new book Ludlow explains how we successfully communicate across some radically diverse perspectival positions, including diverse temporal, spatial and personal positions, through our use of cognitive dynamics.
Author : Manuel García-Carpintero
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 357 pages
File Size : 36,44 MB
Release : 2016-01-07
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 0191022233
This volume addresses foundational issues concerning the nature of first-personal, or de se, thought and how such thoughts are communicated. One of the questions addressed is whether there is anything distinctive about first-person thought or whether it can be subsumed under broader phenomena. Many have held that first-person thought motivates a revision of traditional accounts of content or motivates positing special ways of accessing such contents. Gottlob Frege famously held that first-person thoughts involve a subject being 'presented to himself in a particular and primitive way, in which he is presented to no-one else.' However, as Frege also noted, this raises many puzzling questions when we consider how we are able to communicate such thoughts. Is there indeed something special about first-person thought such that it requires a primitive mode of presentation that cannot be grasped by others? If there really is something special about first-person thought, what happens when I communicate this thought to you? Do you come to believe the very thing that I believe? Or is my first-person belief only entertained by me? If it is only entertained by me, how does it relate to what you come to believe? It is these questions that the volume addresses and seeks to answer.
