Temporal reference in natural language is inherently context dependent: what counts as a moment in one context may be structurally analysed in another context, and vice versa. In this note we outline a way of accounting for this phenomenon within event-based semantics.

This paper discusses the semantics of bare existentials , i.e. existentials in which nothing follows the post copular NP (e.g. There are four sections ). While it has sometimes been recognized that the interpretation of such sentences depends in some way on context, the exact nature of the context dependence involved has not been properly understood. It is shown that the meaning of bare existentials involves a set-denoting implicit argument, and that the range of interpretations found with bare (...) existentials is predictable from the general properties of implicit arguments. An explicit analysis within a dynamic setting is presented. (shrink)

Nonindexical Context-Dependence and the Interpretation as Abduction Approach Inclusive nonindexical context-dependence occurs when the preferred interpretation of an utterance implies its lexically-derived meaning. It is argued that the corresponding processes of free or lexically mandated enrichment can be modeled as abductive inference. A form of abduction is implemented in Simple Type Theory on the basis of a notion of plausibility, which is in turn regarded a preference relation over possible worlds. Since a preordering of doxastic alternatives taken for (...) itself only amounts to a relatively vacuous ad hoc model, it needs to be combined with a rational way of learning from new evidence. Lexicographic upgrade is implemented as an example of how an agent might revise his plausibility ordering in light of new evidence. Various examples are given how this apparatus may be used to model the contextual resolution of context-dependent or semantically incomplete utterances. The described form of abduction is limited and merely serves as a proof of concept, but the idea in general has good potential as one among many ways to build a bridge between semantics and pragmatics since inclusive context-dependence is ubiquitous. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that humanlanguage is context-dependent in a veryspecific way. In order to support this thesis,a detailed comparison is made between the waysin which verbal expressions depend on thecontext of occurrence and evaluation and animalcommunication systems. The comparisonhighlights a series of analogies anddifferences between human language and thecommunication systems of other animals. Myproposal is to use the term `indexicality' toindicate the characteristic way of using thecontext in human language and to use the moregeneral (...) phrase `context-dependence' for thecorresponding phenomenon in animalcommunication systems. (shrink)

Limited distribution phenomena related to negation and negative polarity are usually thought of in terms of affectivity where affective is understood as negative or downward entailing. In this paper I propose an analysis of affective contexts as nonveridical and treat negative polarity as a manifestation of the more general phenomenon of sensitivity to (non)veridicality (which is, I argue, what affective dependencies boil down to). Empirical support for this analysis will be provided by a detailed examination of affective dependencies in Greek, (...) but the distribution of any will also be shown to follow from (non)veridicality. (shrink)

This paper considers a now familiar argument that the ubiquity of context -dependence threatens the project of natural language semantics, at least as that project has usually been conceived: as concerning itself with `what is said' by an utterance of a given sentence. I argue in response that the `anti-semantic' argument equivocates at a crucial point and, therefore, that we need not choose between semantic minimalism, truth-conditional pragmatism, and the like. Rather, we must abandon the idea, familiar from Kaplan (...) and others, that utterances express propositions `relative to contexts' and replace it with the Strawonian idea that speakers express propositions by making utterances in contexts. The argument for this claim consists in a detailed investigation of the particular case of demonstratives, which I argue demand such a Strawsonian treatment. I then respond to several objections, the most important of which allege that the Strawsonian account somehow undermines the project of natural language semantics, or threatens the semantics -pragmatics distinction. Please note that the paper posted here is an extended version of what was published. (shrink)

Quantum-mechanical event descriptions are context-dependent descriptions. The role of quantum (nondistributive) logic is in the partial ordering of contexts rather than in the ordering of quantum-mechanical events. Moreover, the kind of quantum logic displayed by quantum mechanics can be easily inferred from the general notion of contextuality used in ordinary language. The formalizable core of Bohr's notion of complementarity is the type of context dependence discussed in this paper.

We introduce a “reason-based” framework for explaining and predicting individual choices. It captures the idea that a decision-maker focuses on some but not all properties of the options and chooses an option whose motivationally salient properties he/she most prefers. Reason-based explanations allow us to distinguish between two kinds of context-dependent choice: the motivationally salient properties may (i) vary across choice contexts, and (ii) include not only “intrinsic” properties of the options, but also “context-related” properties. Our framework can accommodate (...) boundedly rational and sophisticatedly rational choice. Since properties can be recombined in new ways, it also offers resources for predicting choices in unobserved contexts. (shrink)

Linguistic expressions frequently make reference to the situation in which they are uttered. In fact, there are expressions whose whole point of use is to relate to their context of utterance. It is such expressions that this article is primarily about. However, rather than presenting the richness of pertinent phenomena (cf. Anderson & Keenan 1985), it concentrates on the theoretical tools provided by the (standard) two-dimensional analysis of context dependence, essentially originating with Kaplan (1989)--with a little help from (...) Stalnaker (1978) and Lewis (1979a, 1980), and various predecessors including Kamp (1971) and Vlach (1973). The current article overlaps in content with the account in Zimmermann (1991), which is however much broader (and at times deeper).. (shrink)

Aims and Scope -/- This volume brings together original papers by linguists and philosophers on the role of context and perspective in language and thought. Several contributions are concerned with the contextualism/relativism debate, which has loomed large in recent philosophical discussions. In a substantial introduction, the editors survey the field and map out the relevant issues and positions.

The phenomenon of context dependence is so multifaceted that it is tempting to classify it as hetergenous. It is especially evident in the case of the difference between context dependence as understood in the philosophy of language and context dependence as understood in the philosophy of mind. One of the aims of the present volume is to show that as varied as the phenomenon of context dependence is, the similarities between its different manifestations are profound and (...) undeniable. More importantly, as evidenced in a number of papers presented on the subsequent pages of this volume, a broad perspective on the phenomenon of context dependence helps us to re-apply theories devised for one of the subfields of philosophy to the other subfields. Since the connections and analogies between many uses of contextualism may not be initially obvious, keeping an open perspective and the willingness to learn from the work of others may sometimes be crucial for finding new, satisfactory solutions. (shrink)

Our visual systems account for stimulus context in brightness perception, but whether such adjustments occur for stimuli that we are unaware of has not been established. We therefore assessed whether stimulus context influences brightness processing by measuring unconscious priming with metacontrast masking. When a middle-gray disk was presented on a darker background, such that it could be consciously perceived as brighter via simultaneous brightness contrast , reaction times were significantly faster to a bright annulus than to a dark (...) annulus. We further show that context-dependent brightness priming does not correlate with visibility using an objective measure of awareness and that context-dependent, but not context-independent brightness priming, occurs equally strongly for stimuli below or above the subjective threshold for awareness . These results suggest that SBC occurs at early levels of visual input and is not influenced by conscious perception. (shrink)

Euler famously used diagrams to illustrate syllogisms in his Lettres à une princesse d’Allemagne [1]. His diagrams are usually seen as suffering from a fatal “ambiguity problem” [11]: as soon as they involve intersecting circles, which are required for the representation of existential statements, it becomes unclear what exactly may be read off from them, and as Hammer & Shin conclusively showed, any set of reading conventions can lead to erroneous conclusions. I claim that Euler diagrams can, however, be used (...) rigorously, if they are read in conjunction with the premises they are supposed to illustrate. More precisely, I give rigorous “heterogeneous” inference rules (in the sense of Barwise and Etchemendy) – rules whose premises are a sentence and a diagram and whose conclusion is a sentence – which allow to use them safely. I conclude that one should abandon the preconception that diagrams can only be used rigorously if they can be given a context-independent semantics. Finally, I suggest that context-dependence is a widespread feature of diagrams: for instance, Mumma [12] noticed that what may be read off from a Euclidean diagram depends not only on the diagram’s appearance, but also on the way it was constructed. (shrink)

A member of Jehovah’s Witnesses agreed to receive blood when alone, but rejected it once the elders were present. She insisted that the elders should stay, they were allowed to do so, and she bled to death. Was it all right to allow her to have the elders present when she made her final decision? Was it all right to allow her to bleed to death? It was, according to an anti-paternalist principle, which I have earlier defended on purely utilitarian (...) grounds. The thrust of the present argument is that the principle stands even in cases with context-sensitive preferences. However, my utilitarian argument to this effect must now rely on something other than J.S. Mill’s standard presumption that in most cases the individual makes the right choices for herself. A reference to the general trust in the system of healthcare is essential to the utilitarian defense of the anti-paternalistic principle. (shrink)

The usefulness of contextually guided processors is investigated a little further. A more general use for binding V1 cell responses than the one in Phillips & Singer's target article is proposed, which takes into account that strong responses of these cells can mean more than the presence of lines and edges. The possibility of different grouping depending on the activities of neighboring cells is essential to the approach.

John Searle claims that social-scientific laws are impossible because social phenomena are physically open-ended. William Butchard and Robert D’Amico have recently argued that, by Searle’s own lights, money is a social phenomena that is physically closed. However, Butchard and D’Amico rely on a limited set of data in order to draw this conclusion, and fail to appreciate the implications of Searle’s theory of social ontology with regard to the physical open-endedness of money. Money is not physically open-ended in the strong (...) sense that Butchard and D’Amico require, and their argument for the possibility of social-scientific laws fails as a result. (shrink)

Object identification via a perceptual-demonstrative mode of presentation has been studied in cognitive science as a particularly direct and context-dependent means of identifying objects. Several recent works in cognitive science have attempted to clarify the relation between attention, demonstrative identification and context exploration. Assuming a distinction between ‘ demonstrative reference' and ‘perceptual-demonstrative identification', this article aims at specifying the role of attention in the latter and in the linking of conceptual and non conceptual contents while exploring a spatial (...) context. First, the analysis presents an argument to the effect that selection by overt and covert attention is needed for perceptual-demonstrative identification since overt/covert selective attention is required for the situated cognitive access to the target object. Second, it describes a hypothesis that makes explicit some of the roles of attention: the hypothesis of identification by epistemic attention via the control of perceptual routines. (shrink)

This study explored the influence of the context-dependent effect of mood as well as individual differences in neuroticism and action vs. state/volatility orientation on predecisional processing in a multiattribute choice task. One hundred and twenty participants acquired information about choice options after filling out personality questionnaires. Results showed that participants in a positive mood processed the information longer in enjoy than in done-enough context. In turn, participants in a negative mood processed the information more selectively in enjoy than (...) in done-enough context. It also appeared that this effect is reinforced for participants with low neuroticism and volatility orientation, while it is weakened for those with low neuroticism and action orientation. Results were interpreted in accordance with the differential-processual approach. (shrink)

This paper argues that truth values of sentences containing predicates of “personal taste” such as fun or tasty must be relativized to individuals. This relativization is of truth value only, and does not involve a relativization of semantic content: If you say roller coasters are fun, and I say they are not, I am negating the same content which you assert, and directly contradicting you. Nonetheless, both our utterances can be true (relative to their separate contexts). A formal semantic theory (...) is presented which gives this result by introducing an individual index, analogous to the world and time indices commonly used, and by treating the pragmatic context as supplying a particular value for this index. The context supplies this value in the derivation of truth values from content, not in the derivation of content from character. Predicates of personal taste therefore display a kind of contextual variation in interpretation which is unlike the familiar variation exhibited by pronouns and other indexicals. (shrink)

Opinions about cognitive enhancement (CE) are context-dependent. Prior research has demonstrated that factors like peer pressure, the influence of authority figures, competition, moral relevance, familiarity with enhancement devices, expertise, and the domain of CE to be enhanced can influence opinions. The variability and malleability of patient, expert, and public attitudes toward CE is important to describe and predict because these attitudes can influence at-home, clinical, research, and regulatory decisions. If individual preferences vary, they could influence opinions about practices and (...) regulations due to disagreements about the desirable levels of risks and benefits. The study of attitudes about CE would benefit from psychological theories that explain judgments. In particular, we suggest that variability in risk and benefit sensitivity could psychologically mediate judgments about CE in many contexts. Drawing from prospect theory, which originated in behavioral economics, it is likely that framing effects, shifted reference points, and the tendency to weigh losses (risks) more heavily than gains (benefits) predict decisions about CE. We suggest that public policy could benefit from a shared conceptual framework, such as prospect theory, that allows us to describe and predict real-world decisions about CE by patients, experts, and the public. (shrink)

Some utterances of sentences such as ‘Every student failed the midterm exam’ and ‘There is no beer’ are widely held to be true in a conversation despite the facts that not every student in the world failed the midterm exam and that there is, in fact, some beer somewhere. For instance, the speaker might be talking about some particular course, or about his refrigerator. Stanley and Szabó (in Mind and Language v. 15, 2000) consider many different approaches to how contextual (...) information might give meaning to these ‘restricted quantifier domains’, and find all of them but one wanting. The present paper argues that their considerations against one of these other theories, considerations that turn on notions of compositionality, are incorrect. (shrink)

The causal view of categories assumes that categories are represented by features and their causal relations. To study the effect of causal knowledge on categorization, researchers have used Bayesian causal models. Within that framework, categorization may be viewed as dependent on a likelihood computation (i.e., the likelihood of an exemplar with a certain combination of features, given the category's causal model) or as a posterior computation (i.e., the probability that the exemplar belongs to the category, given its features). Across three (...) experiments, in combination with computational modeling, we offer evidence that categorization is better accounted for by assuming that people compute posteriors and not likelihoods, though both probabilities are closely related. This result contrasts with existing analyses of causal-based categorization, which assume that likelihood computations give a good approximation of human judgments. We also find that people are able to compute likelihoods in a closely related task that elicits judgments of consistency rather than category membership judgments. Our analyses show that people do use causal probabilistic information as prescribed by a Bayesian model but that they flexibly compute likelihoods or posteriors depending on the task. We discuss our results in relation to the relevant literature on the topic. (shrink)

Recently, Casasanto and Lupyan (2015) have proposed an appealing and daring thesis: there are no context-independent concepts—that is, all concepts are ad hoc concepts. They argue that the seeming stability of concepts is merely due to commonalities across their different instantiations but that, in fact, there is nothing invariant in them. In their view, concepts only exist when they are instantiated for categorizing, communicating, drawing inferences, etc., and those instantiations are produced on the fly from a set of contextual (...) cues. However, the main weakness of Casasanto and Lupyan’s framework is that it lacks a proposal for articulating it within a theory on the structure of concepts. My aim is to show that the ad hoc cognition framework can be characterized by means of a prototype theory of concepts developed in terms of a conceptual similarity space. (shrink)

Let DDQ be the thesis that definite descriptions are quantifiers. Philosophers often deny DDQ because they believe that quantifiers do not depend on context in certain ways, ways in which definite descriptions do depend on context. In this paper, we examine one such argument, which, if sound, would entail the negation of DDQ.We show that this argument fails, and draw some consequences from its failure.

Based on the premise that what is relevant, consistent, or true may change from context to context, a formal framework of relevance and context is proposed in which • contexts are mathematical entities • each context has its own language with relevant implication • the languages of distinct contexts are connected by embeddings • inter-context deduction is supported by bridge rules • databases are sets of formulae tagged with deductive histories and the contexts they belong (...) to • abduction and revision are supported by a notion of consistency of formulae and sets of formulae which are relative to a context, and which can, in turn, be seen as constituents of agendas. (shrink)

We examine if and to what extent choice dispositions can allow dependence on contexts and maintain consistency over time, in a dynamic environment under uncertainty. We focus on one of the context dependence properties, opportunity dependence because of being affected by anticipated regret, where the consequentialist choice framework is maintained. There are two sources of potential inconsistency: one is arrival of information, and the other is changing opportunities. First, we go over the general method of resolution of potential inconsistency, (...) by taking any kinds of inconsistency as given constraints. Second, we characterize a class of choice dispositions that are consistent to information arrival, but may be inconsistent to changing opportunities. Finally, we consider the overall requirement of dynamic consistency and show that it necessarily implies each of consistency to information arrival and independence of choice opportunities. The last result states that the two kinds of potential inconsistency cannot “compensate” each other to recover dynamic consistency overall. (shrink)

Behavioural welfare economics has lately been challenged on account of its use of the satisfaction of true preferences as a normative criterion. The critique contests what is taken to be an implicit assumption in the literature, namely that true preferences are context-independent. This assumption is considered not only unjustified in the behavioural welfare economics literature but unjustifiable – true preferences are argued to be, at least sometimes, context-dependent. This article explores the implications of this ‘critique of the inner (...) rational agent’. I argue that the critique does not support a wholesale shift away from the use of true preferences as an evaluative standard in normative economics; instead, the critique implies that behavioural welfare economists need to inquire into and establish the ‘source’ of particular context-dependent choices in individuals’ decision-making. The source determines the permissibility of correcting individuals’ context-dependent choices and can, in some situations, support decisive welfare judgements. (shrink)

How much context-sensitivity is there in English? Cappelen and Lepore’s answer: Not very much. On their view, context-sensitivity is confined to a ‘Basic List’, ‘plus or minus a bit’, that includes pronouns, demonstratives, temporal and spatial adverbs like ‘here’, ‘now’, and ‘yesterday’, and a short list of context dependent nouns and adjectives. Shockingly, the authors claim that ‘Lepore is ready’, ‘Cappelen has had enough’, and ‘Cappelen is quite tall,’ have a context-invariant meaning. Nor is that meaning (...) incomplete, in the sense of being something that can only be given a truth value relative to an enrichment. No, simultaneous utterances of ‘Lepore is ready’ always express the same proposition—that Lepore is ready—one that is true or false. When is it true? Cagily, the authors inform us that it is true if and only if Lepore is ready. One might wish to inquire further as to when Lepore is ready. For example: ‘If Lepore is ready for breakfast but not ready to learn to play golf, is Lepore ready?’ and ‘Given that I am always ready for a fulfilling relationship, am I ever not ready?’ Whenever they are faced with questions such as these, the authors defer to the arena of metaphysics, where they admit to being ‘rank amateurs’. (shrink)

In Section 1 we describe the Sorites paradox and lay out options for a solution. In Section 2 we consider approaches which deny that all premises are true, and note that these solutions all seem open to a certain serious objection. In Section 3 we note a problem for the principle of transitivity of the conditional and present a contex- tualist resolution of the problem, according to which the “counterexamples” to transitivity involve the informal fallacy of shifting the context. (...) In Section 4 we consider the possibility of applying the contextualist resolution of the general transitivity puzzle to Sorites arguments in particular, discussing the views of Kamp, Pinkal and Soames. Our negative conclusion, developed in Section 5, is that the paradoxes can be formulated in a way that does not commit the informal fallacy: context is held fixed. In the final section, we suggest a different defense against the objection used in Section 2. (shrink)

Several philosophers offer explanations of linguistic vagueness by appealing to the referential context-dependence of vague terms. Timothy Williamson argues pre-emptively that any such approach must fail, on the grounds that context-dependence is neither necessary nor sufficient for vagueness. He supports this claim, in turn, by example. This paper argues that his examples fail to show that context-dependence is either unnecessary or insufficient for vagueness, and hence that he has failed by his own lights to show that it (...) cannot explain vagueness. (shrink)

Does context and context-dependence belong to the research agenda of semantics - and, specifically, of formal semantics? Not so long ago many linguists and philosophers would probably have given a negative answer to the question. However, recent developments in formal semantics have indicated that analyzing natural language semantics without a thorough accommodation of context-dependence is next to impossible. The classification of the ways in which context and context-dependence enter semantic analysis, though, is still a matter (...) of much controversy and some of these disputes are ventilated in the present collection. This book is not only a collection of papers addressing context-dependence and methods for dealing with it: it also records comments to the papers and the authors' replies to the comments. In this way, the contributions themselves are contextually dependent. In view of the fact that the contributors to the volume are such key figures in contemporary formal semantics as Hans Kamp, Barbara Partee, Reinhard Muskens, Nicholas Asher, Manfred Krifka, Jaroslav Peregrin and many others, the book represents a quite unique inquiry into the current activities on the semantics side of the semantics/pragmatics boundary. (shrink)

In the debate about semantic context dependence, various truth-conditional frameworks have been proposed. Indexicalism, associated with e.g. Jason Stanley, accounts for contextual effects on truth conditions in terms of a rich covert syntax. Truth-conditional pragmatics, associated with e.g. François Recanati, does not locate the mechanisms for context dependence in the syntactic structure but provides a more complex semantics. In this dissertation, the hypothesis that indexicalism and truth-conditional pragmatics are empirically equivalent is explored. The conclusion that the hypothesis is (...) correct emerges, when claims and accounts in the debate are made formally precise, within the framework of model-theoretic semantics. -/- . (shrink)

Schyns et al. make a strong case for context-dependent feature discovery. The features computed from specialized and diverse data-sets help to coordinate their activity by adapting so as to emphasize what is related across sets. Their perspective can be strengthened and extended by formal arguments for the contextual guidance of learning and processing and by neurobiological and psychological evidence of structures and processes that implement this guidance.

All sorts of things are context-dependent in one way or another. What it is appropriate to wear, to give, or to reveal depends on the context. Whether or not it is all right to lie, harm, or even kill depends on the context. If you google the phrase ‘depends on the context’, you’ll get several hundred million results. This chapter aims to narrow that down. In this context the topic is context dependence in language (...) and its use. It is commonly observed that the same sentence can be used to convey different things in different contexts. That is why people complain when something they say is ‘taken out of context’ and insist that it be ‘put into context’, because ‘context makes it clear’ what they meant. Indeed, it is practically a platitude that what a speaker means in uttering a certain sentence, as well as how her audience understands her, ‘depends on the context’. But just what does that amount to, and to what extent is it true? (shrink)

Most research on risk aversion in behavioral science with human subjects has focused on a component of risk aversion that does not adapt itself to context. More recently, studies have explored risk aversion adaptation to changing circumstances in sequential decision-making tasks. It is an open question whether one can identify evidence, at the single subject level, for such risk aversion adaptation. We conducted a behavioral experiment on human subjects, using a sequential decision making task. We developed a model-based approach (...) for estimating the adaptation of risk-taking behavior with single-trial resolution by modelling a subject’s goals and internal representation of task contingencies. Using this model-based approach, we estimated the subject-specific adaptation of risk aversion depending on the current task context. We found striking inter-subject variations in the adaptation of risk-taking behavior. We show that these differences can be explained by differences in subjects’ internal representations of task contingencies and goals. We discuss that the proposed approach can be adapted to a wide range of experimental paradigms and be used to analyze behavioral measures other than risk aversion. (shrink)