0. Introduction The past decade has seen Cognitive Linguistics (CL) emerge as an important, exciting and promising theoretical alternative to Chomskyan approaches to the study of language. Even so, sheer numbers and institutional inertia make it the case that most current neurolinguistic research either assumes that the Chomskyan formalist story is more or less correct (and thus that the task of neurolinguistics is to determine how the brain implements GB, for instance), or that the there are two possibilities, Chomskyanism (...) or associationism/connectionism, and that the task of neurolinguistics is to discover which is really the way the brain does it. In either case, the theoretical apparatus of CL is not being explored by neurolinguistics, and hence the promise CL holds for making genuine fruitful contact with theoretical neurobiology is not materializing as quickly as one might hope. This paper is an attempt to make some initial steps at fulfilling this promise. (shrink)

Herman Cappelen investigates how language and other representational devices can go wrong, and how to fix them. We use language to understand and talk about the world, but what if our language has deficiencies that prevent it from playing that role? How can we revise our concepts, and what are the limits on revision?

Carey proposes that the acquisition of the natural numbers relies on the interaction between language and analogical processes: specifically, on an analogical mapping from ordinal linguistic structure to ordinal conceptual structure. We suggest that this analogy in fact requires several steps. Further, we propose that additional analogical processes enter into the acquisition of number.

Abstract One perspective in contemporary linguistic theory defends the idea that the language faculty may result from the combinations of diverse systems and principles. As a case study, I critique a recent proposal by Juan Uriagereka and colleagues according to which the evolutionary emergence of the language faculty can be identified through studying the computational structure of knots as present within the fossil record. I here argue that the ability to conceptualize and, thereby, create knots is not parasitic (...) on the ability to conceptualize and create language. On the contrary, these two domains are entirely distinct, unrelatable in terms of their computational complexity, expressive power or, most importantly, in terms of their requisite mental operations and principles. The overall approach defended here can profitably be employed in the study of the relationship between language and thought, as I briefly discuss in the case of the role of language in spatial reorientation. (shrink)

The current discussions of conceptual schemes and related topics are misguided; for they are based on a tacit assumption that the difference between two schemes consists in the different distributions in truth-values. I argue that what should concern us, in the discussions of conceptual schemes and related issues, is not truth-values of assertions, but rather the truth-value-status of the sentences used to make the assertions. This is because the genuine conceptual innovation between alternative theories or languages does not lie in (...) differences in determining truth-values of their sentences, but turns on whether these sentences have truth-values when considered within the context of a competing one. This new interpretation of the notion of conceptual schemes, which I refer to as presuppositional languages, is not only good in itself—for establishing the intelligibility and tenability of the notion—but quite beneficial in its effect on other related issues. (shrink)

In the philosophy of language, conceptual role semantics (hereafter CRS) is a theory of what constitutes the meanings possessed by expressions of natural languages, or the propositions expressed by their utterance. In the philosophy of mind, it is a theory of what constitutes the contents of psychological attitudes, such as beliefs or desires. CRS comes in a variety of forms, not always clearly distinguished by commentators. Such versions are known variously as functional/causal/computational role semantics, and more broadly as use-theories (...) of meaning. Nevertheless, all are united in seeking the meaning or content of an item, not in what it is made of, nor in what accompanies or is associated with it, but in what is done with it, the use it is put to. Roughly, according to CRS, the meaning or propositional content of an expression or attitude is determined by the role it plays in a person’s language or in her cognition. Currently, many view CRS as the main rival to theories that take notions such as truth or reference as central (for example, Davidson 2001), although the relationship between the two is not straightforward. The following outlines the main varieties of CRS, provides a cursory survey of its history, introduces the central arguments offered in its favor, and provisionally assesses how the variants fair against a number of prominent criticisms. (shrink)

Conceptual Engineering, the practice of stipulating a change in the meaning of a word in order to improve it in some fashion, for some end, has proved a popular topic among philosophers of language in recent times. Deutsch (Philos Stud 177:3935–3957, 2020) has argued that it has received an undue degree of interest since its implementation falls onto one of the horns of a dilemma: either the change to be effected is in the global semantic meaning of the given (...) word/concept, in which case it is infeasible, or it is merely in the local speaker-meaning, in which case it is largely trivial. I suggest, however, that there is a deeper, more troubling, objection to Conceptual Engineering. My criticism does not strictly take the form of a dilemma, since some cases may fall upon both horns at once and others may be able to squeeze through the gap, but it does involve highlighting two potential weaknesses of the project: one of those, as with Deutsch, is the danger of triviality, although it is not concerned only with the division between semantic and speaker meaning. It seems clear that there are cases where a particular authority or legislature has the capacity to alter a word’s legal meaning; others where certain groups may discuss the best way to use a technical term, each putting forward their preferred suggestions; and individual speakers are at liberty to choose to use a word with a particular intention. None of this is new, nor controversial, and, thus, is largely trivial. In all cases, but particularly where meanings are manipulated without due authority, inexplicitly, or in order to further a particular theoretical conception, however, there is a strong chance that the engineer will be led to commit one of the fallacies of language to which philosophy is particularly vulnerable (Hinton Evaluating the language of argument, Springer, Cham, 2021). These include fallacies of vagueness, equivocation, and persuasive definition. In this paper, I use examples to illustrate the likely fallaciousness of conceptual redefinitions and highlight in particular the ‘Philosophical Fallacy’, outlined by Nelson (A theory of philosophical fallacies.Translated by Leal F, Carus D. Springer, Cham 2016). I conclude that, as a method for philosophers, Conceptual Engineering is, in broad terms, either trivial or fallacious. (shrink)

This article characterizes aspect-perception as a distinct form of judgment in Kant's sense: a distinct way in which the mind contacts world and applies concepts. First, aspect-perception involves a mode of thinking about things apart from any established routine of conceptualizing them. It is thus a form of concept application that is essentially reflection about language. Second, this mode of reflection has an experiential, sometimes perceptual, element: in aspect-perception, that is, we experience meanings—bodies of norms. Third, aspect-perception can be (...) “preparatory”: it may help us to decide what linguistic norms to develop and how to conceptualize—make the world thinkable. Fourth, the article discusses the forms of justification for which aspect-perception allows—the necessity and normativity involved in employing this form of judgment. (shrink)

The main objective of the paper is to provide a conceptual apparatus of a general logical theory of language communication. The aim of the paper is to outline a formal-logical theory of language in which the concepts of the phenomenon of language communication and language communication in general are defined and some conditions for their adequacy are formulated. The theory explicates the key notions of contemporary syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. The theory is formalized on two levels: (...) token-level and type-level. As such, it takes into account the dual – token and type – ontological character of linguistic entities. The basic notions of the theory: language communication, meaning and interpretation are introduced on the second, type-level of formalization, and their required prior formalization of some of the notions introduced on the first, token-level; among others, the notion of an act of communication. Owing to the theory, it is possible to address the problems of adequacy of both empirical acts of communication and of language communication in general. All the conditions of adequacy of communication discussed in the presented paper, are valid for one-way communication (sender-recipient); nevertheless, they can also apply to the reverse direction of language communication (recipient-sender). Therefore, they concern the problem of two-way understanding in language communication. (shrink)

Large language models (LLMs) have been proposed as candidate models of human semantics, and as such, they must be able to account for conceptual combination. This work explores the ability of two LLMs, namely, BERT-base and Llama-2-13b, to reveal the implicit meaning of existing and novel compound words. According to psycholinguistic theories, understanding the meaning of a compound (e.g., “snowman”) involves its automatic decomposition into constituent meanings (“snow,” “man”), which are then connected by an implicit semantic relation selected from (...) a set of possible competitors (FOR, MADE OF, BY, …) to obtain a plausible interpretation (“man MADE OF snow”). Here, we leverage the flexibility of LLMs to obtain contextualized representations for both target compounds (e.g., “snowman”) and their implicit interpretations (e.g., “man MADE OF snow”). We demonstrate that replacing a compound with a paraphrased version leads to changes to the embeddings that are inversely proportional to the paraphrase's plausibility, estimated by human raters. While this relation holds for both existing and novel compounds, results obtained for novel compounds are substantially weaker, and older distributional models outperform LLMs. Nonetheless, the present results show that LLMs can offer a valid approximation of the internal structure of compound words posited by cognitive theories, thus representing a promising tool to model word senses that are at once implicit and possible. (shrink)

Things we can say, and the ways in which we can say them, compete with one another. And this has consequences: words we decide not to pronounce have critical effects on the messages we end up conveying. For instance, in saying Chris is a good teacher, we may convey that Chris is not an amazing teacher. How this happens is an unsolvable problem, unless a theory of alternatives indicates what counts, among all the things that have not been pronounced. It (...) is sometimes assumed, explicitly or implicitly, that any word counts, as long as that word could have replaced one that was actually pronounced. We review arguments for going beyond this powerful idea. In doing so, we argue that the level of words is not the right level of analysis for alternatives. Instead, we capitalize on recent conceptual and associated methodological advances within the study of the so-called “language of thought” to reopen the problem from a new perspective. Specifically, we provide theoretical and experimental arguments that the relation between alternatives and words may be indirect, and that alternatives are not merely linguistic objects in the traditional sense. Rather, we propose that competition in language is significantly determined by general reasoning preferences, or thought preferences. We propose that such non-linguistic preferences can be measured and that these measures can be used to explain linguistic competition, non-linguistically, and more in depth. (shrink)

This article explores the correlations between linguistic figurative features and their corresponding conceptual representations, by considering their respective continuities and discontinuities in language shift. I compare the figurative encoding of emotions in Kriol, a creole of northern Australia, with those of Dalabon, one of the languages replaced by this creole, with a particular focus on evidence from metaphorical gestures. The conclusions are three-fold. Firstly, the prominent figurative association between the body and the emotions observed in Dalabon is, overall, not (...) matched in Kriol. Secondly, although this association is not prominent in Kriol, it is not entirely absent. It surfaces where speakers are less constrained by linguistic conventions: in non-conventionalized tropes, and gestures in particular. Indeed, some of the verbal emotion metaphors that have disappeared with language shift are preserved as gestural metaphors. Thus, Kriol speakers endorse the conceptual association between emotions and the body, in spite of the lower linguistic incidence of this association. The third conclusion is that therefore, in language shift, conceptual figurative representations and linguistic figurative representations are independent of each other. The former can persist when the latter largely disappear. Conversely, the fact that speakers endorse a certain type of conceptual representation does not entail that they will use corresponding linguistic forms in the new language. The transfer of linguistic figurative representations seems to depend, instead, upon purely linguistic parameters. (shrink)

This article contains the results of a theoretical analysis of the phenomenon of natural language understanding (NLU), as a methodological problem. The combination of structural-ontological and informational-psychological approaches provided an opportunity to describe the subject matter field of NLU, as a composite function of the mind, which systemically combines the verbal and discursive structural layers. In particular, the idea of NLU is presented, on the one hand, as the relation between the discourse of a specific speech message and the (...) meta-discourse of a language, in turn, activated by the need-motivational factors. On the other hand, it is conceptualized as a process with a specific structure of information metabolism, the study of which implies the necessity to differentiate the affective (emotional) and need-motivational influences on the NLU, as well as to take into account their interaction. At the same time, the hypothesis about the influence of needs on NLU under the scenario similar to the pattern of Yerkes-Dodson is argued. And the theoretical conclusion that emotions fulfill the function of the operator of the structural features of the information metabolism of NLU is substantiated. Thus, depending on the modality of emotions in the process of NLU, it was proposed to distinguish two scenarios for the implementation of information metabolism - reduction and synthetic. The argument in favor of the conclusion about the productive and constitutive role of emotions in the process of NLU is also given. (shrink)

The article examines the interpretation peculiarities of notions about objectiveness through the prism of grammatical characteristics of the noun in Bulgarian language in comparison with Russian. The author suppose that conceptualization of objectiveness primarily related to quantitative categorization. Specific, individual objects are conceptualized as ''a single unit''; specific set of similar specific objects conceptualized as ''many''; fractional objects conceptualized as uncounted items, converse is also true – uncounted items conceptualized as fractional objects. Depending on other characteristics (structure of (...) the object, the object functioning, interaction with the object, even through relation to the object, a unit can be conceptualized as functional ''many'' (dual nouns), and many – as a functional ''single unit'' (collective nouns). The following grammatical classes are distinguished by the method of conceptual categorization of objectiveness: 1) class of counable nouns (having correlative singular and plural forms) – they reflect the conceptualization of the whole as ''a single unit'' and of multiplicity as ''many''; 2) class of dual nouns (having plural form only) – they reflect conceptualization of the whole as ''many'' and located on the periphery of the language objectiveness; 3) class of collective nouns (having a singular form only) – they reflect the conceptualization of multiplicity as ''a single unit'' and also located on the periphery of the language objectiveness; 4) class of nouns serving as names for the masses (both real and abstract) (having only single or plural form) –they reflect the conceptualization of fractional as ''non-integral (continuum)'' and located between the core of the language objectiveness and its periphery. Their periferal location is the reason for dual and collective nouns to be the weakest elements of the language objectiveness. This is typical for the Bulgarian language and to a lesser extent for Russian and other Slavic languages whose sintetizm also ''supports'' the classes relatively stable. The comparison of methods of conceptualization and grammatical categorization of objectiveness in Bulgarian and Russian has led to conclusion that the greatest affinity between the two languages is observed in the ''prototypical'' nuclear objectiveness represented by countable nouns having correlative singular and plural forms, and the greatest differences were found on the periphery of objectiveness represented in both languages by dual collective nouns. (shrink)

Philosophy strives to give us a firmer hold on our concepts. But what about their hold on us? Why place ourselves under the sway of a concept and grant it the authority to shape our thought and conduct? Another conceptualization would carry different implications. What makes one way of thinking better than another? This book develops a framework for concept appraisal. Its guiding idea is that to question the authority of concepts is to ask for reasons of a special (...) kind: reasons for concept use, which tell us which concepts to adopt, adhere to, or abandon, thereby shoring up—or undercutting—the reasons for action and belief that guide our deliberations. Traditionally, reasons for concept use have been sought either in timeless rational foundations or in concepts’ inherent virtues, such as precision and consistency. Against this, the book advances two main claims: that we find reasons for concept use in the conceptual needs we discover when we critically distance ourselves from a concept by viewing it from the autoethnographic stance; and that sometimes, concepts that conflict, or exhibit other vices such as vagueness or superficiality, are just what we need. By considering not what concepts are absolutely best, but what concepts we now need, we can reconcile ourselves to the contingency of our concepts, determine the proper place of efforts to tidy up thought, and adjudicate between competing conceptions of things—even things as contested as liberty or free will. A needs-based approach separates helpful clarification from hobbling tidy-mindedness, and authoritative definition from conceptual gerrymandering. (shrink)

This study takes a holistic view of flow and anti-flow experiences as interactive subsystems in blended English as a foreign language learning and examines the dynamic complex construct in the field of instructed second language acquisition. We first rephrased the 22-item Classroom Flow Questionnaire to better reflect the context of blended EFL learning. The modified CFQ was then administered to 661 first language Chinese EFL learners. A final 14-item Foreign Language Flow Scale was developed based on (...) results from a series of reliability and validity tests. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis results have demonstrated that foreign language learning flow is a three-dimensional construct involving Enjoyment, Boredom, and Anxiety, thus conceptualizing and validating flow as a continuum with both positive and negative ends. Moreover, participants reported that they experienced the lowest degree of enjoyment, while with respect to the negative flow, they almost experienced similar degree of boredom and anxiety. The present study contributes to the development of the conceptual framework for flow in ISLA as well as constructive pedagogical implications for L2 researchers and educators. Suggestions for future research are also provided. (shrink)

The historical problem about the origins of the language of rights derives its importance from the conceptual problem: of "two fundamentally different ways of thinking about justice," which is basic? Is justice unitary or plural? This in turn opens up a problem about the moral status of human nature. A narrative of the origins of "rights" is an account of how and when a plural concept of justice comes to the fore, and will be based on the occurrence of (...) definite speech-forms—the occurrence of the plural noun in the sense of "legal properties." The history of this development is currently held to begin with the twelfth-century canonists. Later significant thresholds may be found in the fourteenth, sixteenth, and eighteenth centuries. Wolterstorff's attempt to find the implicit recognition of rights in the Scriptures depends very heavily on what he takes to be implied rather than on what is stated, and at best can establish a pre- history of rights-language. (shrink)

To make the case for non-conceptualism, Heck draws on an apparent dichotomy between linguistic and iconic representations. According to Heck, whereas linguistic representations have conceptual content, the content of iconic representations is non-conceptual. Based on the case of cartographic systems, the authors criticize Heck’s dichotomous distinction. They argue that maps are composed of semantically arbitrary elements that play different syntactic roles. Based on this, they claim that maps have a predicative structure and convey conceptual content. Finally, the authors argue that, (...) despite their differences, maps and sentences can logically interact with each other through heterogeneous inferences. These considerations not only challenge the view that conceptual content and inferential processes necessarily involve linguistic representations; furthermore, they provide a new perspective for thinking about maps, their semantics and syntax, and their interaction with linguistic systems. (shrink)

In two eye-tracking studies we investigated the influence of Mandarin numeral classifiers – a grammatical category in the language – on online overt attention. Mandarin speakers were presented with simple sentences through headphones while their eye-movements to objects presented on a computer screen were monitored. The crucial question is what participants look at while listening to a pre-specified target noun. If classifier categories influence Mandarin speakers' general conceptual processing, then on hearing the target noun they should look at objects (...) that are members of the same classifier category – even when the classifier is not explicitly present. The data show that when participants heard a classifier they shifted overt attention significantly more to classifiermatch objects than to distractor objects, but when the classifier was not explicitly presented in speech, overt attention to classifier-match objects and distractor objects did not differ. This suggests that although classifier distinctions do influence eye-gaze behavior, they do so only during linguistic processing of that distinction and not in moment-to-moment general conceptual processing. (shrink)

We argue in this paper that unveiling of concepts is a viable means of promoting the growth of African languages in contemporary African studies. We show that African languages face serious threat of extinction due to neglect from their users and undue influence of colonial languages. We contend that the ratio of indigenous languages used as official languages compared to colonial languages is poor and despicable. The growth of African languages has been stunted due to the multilingual nature of African (...) continent. It has rendered the languages underdeveloped, thereby limiting their propagation and audience. We demonstrate how conversational thinking aids the growth of African languages and philosophy through conceptual articulation. Conversational thinking whose arumaristic approach aims at creating new thoughts and unveiling new concepts offers African philosophers a robust tool for expanding the vocabularies of African indigenous languages by creating concepts from underexplored African traditional wisdom and clichés. (shrink)

Perhaps in addition to language being a potential medium of domain-general thought, as suggested by Carruthers, language may also play another role in conceptual development: Words are “essence placeholders.” Evidence is presented from studies on categorization, object individuation, and inductive inference in infancy. The assumption that words are essence placeholders may be a mechanism by which infants acquire kind concepts.

Since the rise of modern natural science there has been deep tension between the conceptual and the natural. Wittgenstein's discussion of how we learn a sensation-language contains important resources that can help us relieve this tension. The key here, I propose, is to focus our attention on animal nature, conceived as partially re-enchanted. To see how nature, so conceived, helps us relieve the tension in question, it is crucial to gain a firm and detailed appreciation of how the primitive-instinctive, (...) a central part of animal nature, actually serves the conceptual. I offer such an appreciation by closely examining §244 of the Philosophical Investigations and Peter Winch's discussion of it. The general aim is to bring out a certain kind of Wittgensteinian “naturalism”, a “naturalism” that is fully alive to the rootedness of conceptuality in nature. A concomitant aim is to illustrate the truth of Wittgenstein's saying that in philosophy one often has to pay close attention to details. (shrink)

Stephen May (2011) holds that language rights have been insufficiently recognized, or just rejected as problematic, in human rights theory and practice. Defending the “human rights approach to language rights”, he claims that language rights should be accorded the status of fundamental human rights, recognized as such by states and international organizations. This article argues that the notion of language rights is far from clear. According to May, one key reason for rejecting the claim that (...) class='Hi'>language rights should be considered as human rights is the widespread belief that language rights are collective rights. In order to address this kind of objection, the collective character attributed to language rights must be carefully assessed, distinguishing two different views of what a collective right is. (shrink)

Where is language? Answers to this have attempted to 'incorporate' language in an 'extended mind', through cognition that is 'embodied', 'distributed', 'situated' or 'ecological'. Behind these concepts is a long history that this book is the first to trace. Extending across linguistics, philosophy, psychology and medicine, as well as literary and religious dimensions of the question of what language is, and where it is located, this book challenges mainstream, mind-based accounts of language. Looking at research from (...) the Middle Ages to the present day, and exploring the work of a range of scholars from Aristotle and Galen to Merleau-Ponty and Chomsky, it assesses raging debates about whether mind and language are centred in heart or brain, brain or nervous-muscular system, and whether they are innate or learned, individual or social. This book will appeal to scholars and advanced students in historical linguistics, cognitive linguistics, language evolution and the philosophy of language. (shrink)

Carruthers labels as “too strong” the thesis that language is necessary for all conceptual thought. Languageless creatures certainly do think, but when we get clear about what is meant by “conceptual thought,” it appears doubtful that conceptual thought is possible without language.

As researchers interested in social aspects of sport, we enmesh ourselves in the work of memory, (re)membering and forms of ‘capturing’ sport and sport experiences. While nostalgia is at play in these social constructions of sport, for researchers we contend that the concept of nostalgia can prove devious. In this paper, we illustrate the social significance afforded to nostalgic experiences or events, and consider their representation in social sciences sport research. We develop and apply arguments concerning the senses, nostalgia, and (...) language in line with the ‘abilities’ view of concepts. The consequences of nostalgia can, we contend, be underplayed, taken for granted and/or ignored by sport researchers in ways that curtail more critical readings of sport phenomena. Our purpose is to interrogate the construction and a/effects of nostalgia as hidden/implicit/latent and heuristic. We advocate methodological critique that addresses the elusive, apparent, ‘capturable’ and confusing nature of nostalgia within sport research. (shrink)

« On ne naît pas femme: on le devient.»: “One is not born but becomes (a) woman,” thus spake Simone de Beauvoir in Le deuxième sexe (1949), The Second Sex (1953, 2009). Which one? And how, in what language(s), would one read that line today in the age of gender variance and trans revolution? Why The Second Sex again? This article spotlights the translingual simplexity of the Beauvoirean lifeline, its conceptual genius that appears second to none, whether in French (...) or English or Korean or Chinese …. (shrink)

Further critical and theoretical essays by a long-time participant in the Art & Language movement.

Fixing Language: An Essay on Conceptual Engineering, by CappelenHerman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. x + 212.

The article presents a case study of ethno-linguistic policy in the ethnic Republics of Central Russia (the Chuvash Republic and the Republic of Tatarstan), with special emphasis on the analysis of language acts and correlated legislation. It raises an important problem concerning the efficacy of the Language Laws and their conceptual foundations. One of the main assets in facing this problem is adequate reflection on the actual ethno-linguistic situation by the legislature, ensuring peaceful and productive social development. Analysis (...) of the conceptual fundamentals and the concrete language laws in action as well as instrumental interaction shows a wide range of factors influencing the efficacy of policies. Acknowledgement of the bilingual situation by the legislatures of the Republics manifests a valuable perspective on productive development, provided the language laws are implemented intelligently and supported in the educational and cultural spheres. Multilingualism as a universal form of socialization should be recognized as a valuable opportunity and receive the necessary legislative support. (shrink)

Roger Schank's research in AI takes seriously the ideas that understanding natural language involves mapping its expressions into an internal representation scheme and that these internal representations have a syntax appropriate for computational operations. It therefore falls within the computational approach to the study of mind. This paper discusses certain aspects of Schank's approach in order to assess its potential adequacy as a (partial) model of cognition. This version of the Language of Thought hypothesis encounters some of the (...) same difficulties that arise for Fodor's account. (shrink)

Work on the relation between figurative language and the law is a fairly recent trend, within legal discourse studies, linguistics, and semiotics. The work in conceptual metaphor theory, for example, is starting to unpack the underlying metaphorical and metonymic structure of legal language, producing some new and important insights into the nature of this language. Missing from this emerging line of inquiry are the views of the Neapolitan philosopher Giambattista Vico, who was the first to understand the (...) power of figurative language in the creation of symbolic systems, like language and the law. His tripartite evolutionary model of language shows that there is not one language of the law, but three “languages.” By integrating Vico’s model with the work in conceptual metaphor theory it will be possible to penetrate the underlying conceptual structure of legal discourse and thus lead to a more insightful science of this discourse. (shrink)

Semantic noise, the effect ensuing from the denotative and thus functional variability exhibited by different terms in different contexts, is a common concern in natural language processing (NLP). While unarguably problematic in specific applications (e.g., certain translation tasks), the main argument of this paper is that failing to observe this linguistic matter of fact as a generative effect rather than as an obstacle, leads to actual obstacles in instances where language model outputs are presented as neutral. Given that (...) a common and long-standing challenge in NLP is the interpretation of ambiguous – i.e., semantically noisy – cases, this article focuses on an exemplar ambiguity-resolution task in NLP: the problem of anaphora in Winograd schemas. The main question considered is: to what extent is the standard approach to disambiguation in NLP subject to a stagnant “image of language”? And, can a transdisciplinary, dynamic approach combining linguistics and philosophy elucidate new perspectives on these possible conceptual shortcomings? In order to answer these questions we explore the term and concept of noise, particularly in its presentation as semantic noise. Owing to its definitional plurality, and sometimes even desirable unspecificity, the term noise is thus used as proof of concept for semantic generativity being an inherent characteristic in linguistic representation, and its concept is used to interrogate assumptions admitted in the resolution of Winograd schemas. The argument is speculative and theoretical in method, and the result is an analysis which provides an account of the fundamentally dialogical and necessarily open-ended effects of semantic noise in natural language. (shrink)

Phenomenology and analytic philosophy were born out of the same historical problem---the growing crisis about how to characterize the proper methods and role of philosophy, given the increasing success and separation of the natural sciences. A common 18th and 19th century solution that reached its height with John Stuart Mill’s psychologism was to hold that the while natural science was concerned with “external, physical phenomena”, philosophy was concerned with “internal, mental phenomena”, and thus proceeded by turning our observational gaze inward (...) at the mind, rather than outward towards the world. Both Husserlian phenomenology and early analytic philosophy grew from dissatisfaction with psychologism, and figures from both traditions developed relentless criticisms of psychologism, beginning with Brentano and G.E. Moore[i] and reaching its peak with Frege / and Husserl. (shrink)

The paper offers a conceptual and phenomenological analysis of the language of depersonalization. The depersonalization syndrome or disorder has no known common pathogenesis and shows no characteristic behavioral manifestations. A conceptual analysis of the key terms in the subjective complaints would therefore have consequences for clinical research into the phenomenon of depersonalization.

Fixing Language: An Essay on Conceptual Engineering By CappelenHermanOxford University Press, 2018. x + 212 pp.

RésuméCompte tenu de la tendance croissante à politiser des sujets autrefois banals, nous les philosophes devrions nous garder de ce que les concepts que nous développons soient mal compris ou mal interprétés pour étayer des arguments que nous n'avions jamais envisagés. Pour soutenir cette assertion, je développe une étude de cas sur la notion de « rationalité biologique » d'Alex Kacelnik ; je montre en quoi je pense qu'elle est vulnérable aux abus et je suggère des façons de la repenser (...) pour qu'elle soit plus résistante. Je conclus en exhortant les universitaires — tout particulièrement ceux qui travaillent sur des sujets normativement chargés, dont je fais partie — à concevoir leurs concepts de manière à ce qu'ils soient moins susceptibles d’être associés à des discours dommageables ou même à des politiques oppressives. (shrink)

The charges of fideism and relativism have long been leveled against Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion. However, the philosopher most influenced by Wittgenstein's understanding of religion, D. Z. Phillips, is guilty of neither fideism nor conceptual scheming. The contribution of Wittgenstein to an understanding of religious belief is much more nuanced than critics generally appreciate. Likewise, the relationship of Wittgenstein's philosophy to that of Davidson and to pragmatism, especially in its Rortyan manifestations, is shown to be friendlier than is often recognized.

We investigate the hypothesis that our conceptual systems provide two formally distinct ways of representing categories by investigating the manner in which lexical nominals (e.g., tree, picnic table) and phrasal nominals (e.g., black bird, birds that like rice) are interpreted. Four experiments found that lexical nominals may be mapped onto kind representations, whereas phrasal nominals map onto class representations but not kind representations. Experiment 1 found that phrasal nominals, unlike lexical nominals, are mapped onto categories whose members need not be (...) of a single kind. Experiments 2 and 3 found that categories named by lexical nominals enter into both class inclusion and kind hierarchies and thus support both class inclusion (is a) and kind specification (kind of) relations, whereas phrasal nominals map onto class representations which support only class inclusion relations. Experiment 4 showed that the two types of nominals represent hierarchical relations in different ways. Phrasal nominals (e.g., white bear) are mapped onto classes that have criteria of membership in addition to those specified by the class picked out by the head noun of the phrase (e.g., bear). In contrast, lexical nominals (e.g., polar bear) specify one way to meet the criteria specified by the more general kind concept (e.g., bear). Implications for the language–conceptual system interface, representation of hierarchical relations, lexicalization, and theories of conceptual combination are discussed. (shrink)