The paper presents a cognitive conception of propositions as semantic contents of (some) declarat... more The paper presents a cognitive conception of propositions as semantic contents of (some) declarative sentences. The conception expands solution spaces for previously intractable empirical problems in natural-language semantics and pragmatics, while also explaining how an agent who is unable to cognize propositions can know or believe them, and how sophisticated agents acquire the concept and believe things about them by monitoring their own cognitions. Finally, an account is given of what it is for a sentence to mean that p in a language that doesn’t require having thoughts about p or L. Nevertheless, semantics isn’t psychology; agents with different psychologies can speak semantically identical languages, while those with the same purely internal states (embedded in similar immediate environments) can speak different languages. Cognitive semantics can be realist and naturalistic without being a branch of psychology.
Page 1. May 2005 May 2005 Kripke on Epistemic and Metaphysical Possibility: Two Routes to the Nec... more Page 1. May 2005 May 2005 Kripke on Epistemic and Metaphysical Possibility: Two Routes to the Necessary Aposteriori by Scott Soames School of Philosophy USC To Appear in Saul Kripke Edited by Alan Berger Cambridge University Press Page 2. 1 1 ...
Philosophical Foundations of Language in the Law, 2011
When signing up for insurance benefits at my job, I was asked, "Do you have children, and if so a... more When signing up for insurance benefits at my job, I was asked, "Do you have children, and if so are they young enough to be included on your policy?" I replied that I had two children, both of whom were over 21. The benefits officer responded, "That's too vague. In some circumstances children of covered employees are eligible for benefits up to their 26 th birthday. I need their ages to determine whether they can be included on your policy." She was right; my remark was too vague. The information it provided was insufficiently specific to advance our common conversational purpose. However, it was not vague, or at any rate not too vague, in the sense in which philosophical logicians and philosophers of language study vagueness. Vague predicates-like 'old', 'bald', 'rich', and 'red'-are those for which there are "borderline cases" separating things to which the predicate clearly applies from those to which it clearly does not. When o is a borderline case for a predicate P, there is, in some sense, "no saying" whether or not the proposition expressed by He/she/it is P (said demonstrating o) is true. According to some theories of vagueness, the proposition is undefined for truth, or untruth, and so can't correctly be characterized either way. According to others, it is true or false-even though it is impossible, in principle, to know which. On still other theories, it is only partially true (or true to some degree). For present purposes we needn't worry about which of these theories is correct, or which is most illuminating in discussions of the law. The present point is simpler. The problem with my remark to the benefits officer-the sense in which it was too vague-is not a matter of its susceptibility to borderline cases. What I stated, on December 10, 2009, was that my two children were then both over 21 years old. That statement is true if and only if both were born on or before December 9 th , 1988 (which they were). Granted, sticklers may wonder how to classify
I. In the past decade and a half the development of transformational grammar has not only produce... more I. In the past decade and a half the development of transformational grammar has not only produced new insights regarding the structure of natural languages but has also provided a new conception of the explanatory goals of linguistics and of the theoretical devices needed to achieve ...
... Dative Movement and Pronominalization (Problem) 339 77. Particle Movement and Pronominalizati... more ... Dative Movement and Pronominalization (Problem) 339 77. Particle Movement and Pronominalization (Problem) 341 Page 10. viii Contents 78. Particle Movement, Dative Movement, and Pronouns 343 79. Pronominalization and THERE-Insertion (Problem) 348 80. ...
Page 1. June 2007 Revised June 2007 Drawing the Line Between Meaning and Implicature – and Relati... more Page 1. June 2007 Revised June 2007 Drawing the Line Between Meaning and Implicature – and Relating both to Assertion By Scott Soames School of Philosophy University of Southern California Page 2. 2 Drawing the Line Between Meaning and Implicature – ...
The paper presents a cognitive conception of propositions as semantic contents of (some) declarat... more The paper presents a cognitive conception of propositions as semantic contents of (some) declarative sentences. The conception expands solution spaces for previously intractable empirical problems in natural-language semantics and pragmatics, while also explaining how an agent who is unable to cognize propositions can know or believe them, and how sophisticated agents acquire the concept and believe things about them by monitoring their own cognitions. Finally, an account is given of what it is for a sentence to mean that p in a language that doesn’t require having thoughts about p or L. Nevertheless, semantics isn’t psychology; agents with different psychologies can speak semantically identical languages, while those with the same purely internal states (embedded in similar immediate environments) can speak different languages. Cognitive semantics can be realist and naturalistic without being a branch of psychology.
Page 1. May 2005 May 2005 Kripke on Epistemic and Metaphysical Possibility: Two Routes to the Nec... more Page 1. May 2005 May 2005 Kripke on Epistemic and Metaphysical Possibility: Two Routes to the Necessary Aposteriori by Scott Soames School of Philosophy USC To Appear in Saul Kripke Edited by Alan Berger Cambridge University Press Page 2. 1 1 ...
Philosophical Foundations of Language in the Law, 2011
When signing up for insurance benefits at my job, I was asked, "Do you have children, and if so a... more When signing up for insurance benefits at my job, I was asked, "Do you have children, and if so are they young enough to be included on your policy?" I replied that I had two children, both of whom were over 21. The benefits officer responded, "That's too vague. In some circumstances children of covered employees are eligible for benefits up to their 26 th birthday. I need their ages to determine whether they can be included on your policy." She was right; my remark was too vague. The information it provided was insufficiently specific to advance our common conversational purpose. However, it was not vague, or at any rate not too vague, in the sense in which philosophical logicians and philosophers of language study vagueness. Vague predicates-like 'old', 'bald', 'rich', and 'red'-are those for which there are "borderline cases" separating things to which the predicate clearly applies from those to which it clearly does not. When o is a borderline case for a predicate P, there is, in some sense, "no saying" whether or not the proposition expressed by He/she/it is P (said demonstrating o) is true. According to some theories of vagueness, the proposition is undefined for truth, or untruth, and so can't correctly be characterized either way. According to others, it is true or false-even though it is impossible, in principle, to know which. On still other theories, it is only partially true (or true to some degree). For present purposes we needn't worry about which of these theories is correct, or which is most illuminating in discussions of the law. The present point is simpler. The problem with my remark to the benefits officer-the sense in which it was too vague-is not a matter of its susceptibility to borderline cases. What I stated, on December 10, 2009, was that my two children were then both over 21 years old. That statement is true if and only if both were born on or before December 9 th , 1988 (which they were). Granted, sticklers may wonder how to classify
I. In the past decade and a half the development of transformational grammar has not only produce... more I. In the past decade and a half the development of transformational grammar has not only produced new insights regarding the structure of natural languages but has also provided a new conception of the explanatory goals of linguistics and of the theoretical devices needed to achieve ...
... Dative Movement and Pronominalization (Problem) 339 77. Particle Movement and Pronominalizati... more ... Dative Movement and Pronominalization (Problem) 339 77. Particle Movement and Pronominalization (Problem) 341 Page 10. viii Contents 78. Particle Movement, Dative Movement, and Pronouns 343 79. Pronominalization and THERE-Insertion (Problem) 348 80. ...
Page 1. June 2007 Revised June 2007 Drawing the Line Between Meaning and Implicature – and Relati... more Page 1. June 2007 Revised June 2007 Drawing the Line Between Meaning and Implicature – and Relating both to Assertion By Scott Soames School of Philosophy University of Southern California Page 2. 2 Drawing the Line Between Meaning and Implicature – ...
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