This self-contained introduction to natural language semantics addresses the majortheoretical questions in the field. The authors introduce the systematic study of linguistic meaningthrough a sequence of formal tools and their linguistic applications. Starting with propositionalconnectives and truth conditions, the book moves to quantification and binding, intensionality andtense, and so on. To set their approach in a broader perspective, the authors also explore theinteraction of meaning with context and use (the semantics-pragmatics interface) and address some ofthe foundational questions, especially in connection (...) with cognition in general. They also introducea few of the most accessible and interesting ideas from recent research to give the reader a bit ofthe flavor of current work in semantics. The organization of this new edition is modular; after theintroductory chapters, the remaining material can be covered in flexible order. The book presupposesno background in formal logic (an appendix introduces the basic notions of set theory) and only aminimal acquaintance with linguistics. This edition includes a substantial amount of completely newmaterial and has been not only updated but redesigned throughout to enhance itsuser-friendliness. (shrink)

This paper studies the distribution of ‘list readings’ in questions like who does everyone like? vs. who likes everyone?. More generally, it focuses on the interaction between wh-words and quantified NPs. It is argued that, contrary to widespread belief, the pattern of available readings of constituent questions can be explained as a consequence of Weak Crossover, a well-known property of grammar. In particular, list readings are claimed to be a special case of ‘functional readings’, rather than arising from quantifying into (...) questions. Functional readings are argued to be encoded in the syntax as doubly indexed traces, which straightforwardly leads to a Crossover account of the absence of list readings in who likes everyone?. Empirical and theoretical consequences of this idea for the syntax and semantics of questions are considered. (shrink)

Consciousness is arguably the most important area within contemporary philosophy of mind and perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the world. Despite an explosion of research from philosophers, psychologists, and scientists, attempts to explain consciousness in neurophysiological, or even cognitive, terms are often met with great resistance. In The Consciousness Paradox, Rocco Gennaro aims to solve an underlying paradox, namely, how it is possible to hold a number of seemingly inconsistent views, including higher-order thought (HOT) theory, conceptualism, infant and (...) animal consciousness, concept acquisition, and what he calls the HOT-brain thesis. He defends and further develops a metapsychological reductive representational theory of consciousness and applies it to several importantly related problems. Gennaro proposes a version of the HOT theory of consciousness that he calls the "wide intrinsicality view" and shows why it is superior to various alternatives, such as self-representationalism and first-order representationalism. HOT theory says that what makes a mental state conscious is that a suitable higher-order thought is directed at that mental state. -/- Thus Gennaro argues for an overall philosophical theory of consciousness while applying it to other significant issues not usually addressed in the philosophical literature on consciousness. Most cognitive science and empirical works on such topics as concepts and animal consciousness do not address central philosophical theories of consciousness. Gennaro’s integration of empirical and philosophical concerns will make his argument of interest to both philosophers and nonphilosophers. (shrink)

In The Dynamics of Meaning , Gennaro Chierchia tackles central issues in dynamic semantics and extends the general framework. Chapter 1 introduces the notion of dynamic semantics and discusses in detail the phenomena that have been used to motivate it, such as "donkey" sentences and adverbs of quantification. The second chapter explores in greater depth the interpretation of indefinites and issues related to presuppositions of uniqueness and the "E-type strategy." In Chapter 3, Chierchia extends the dynamic approach to the (...) domain of syntactic theory, considering a range of empirical problems that includes backwards anaphora, reconstruction effects, and weak crossover. The final chapter develops the formal system of dynamic semantics to deal with central issues of definites and presupposition. Chierchia shows that an approach based on a principled enrichment of the mechanisms dealing with meaning is to be preferred on empirical grounds over approaches that depend on an enrichment of the syntactic apparatus. Dynamics of Meaning illustrates how seemingly abstract stances on the nature of meaning can have significant and far-reaching linguistic consequences, leading to the detection of new facts and influencing our understanding of the syntax/semantics/pragmatics interface. (shrink)

Recently there has been a lively revival of interest in implicatures, particularly scalar implicatures. Building on the resulting literature, our main goal in the present paper is to establish an empirical generalization, namely that SIs can occur systematically and freely in arbitrarily embedded positions. We are not so much concerned with the question whether drawing implicatures is a costly option (in terms of semantic processing, or of some other markedness measure). Nor are we specifically concerned with how implicatures come about (...) (even though, to get going, we will have to make some specific assumptions on this matter). The focus of our discussion is testing the claim of the pervasive embeddability of SIs in just about any context, a claim that remains so far controversial. While our main goal is the establishment of an empirical generalization, if we succeed, a predominant view on the division of labor between semantics and pragmatics will have to be revised. A secondary goal of this paper is to hint at evidence that a revision is needed on independent grounds. But let us first present, in a rather impressionistic way, the reasons why a revision would be required if our main generalization on embedded SIs turns out to be correct. In the tradition stemming from Grice (1989), implicatures are considered a wholly pragmatic phenomenon and SIs are often used as paramount examples. Within such a tradition, 㳊 semantics is taken to deal with the compositional construction of sentence meaning (a term which we are using for now in a loose, non technical way), while pragmatics deals with how sentence meaning is actually put to use (i.e. enriched and possibly modified through reasoning about speakers’ intentions, contextually relevant information, etc.). Simply put, on this view pragmatics takes place at the level of complete utterances and pragmatic enrichments are a root phenomenon (something that happens globally to sentences) rather than a compositional one.. (shrink)

This collection presents some of the most vital and original recent writings on Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, the three greatest rationalists of the early modern period. Their work offered brilliant and distinct integrations of science, morals, metaphysics, and religion, which today remain at the center of philosophical discussion. The essays written especially for this volume explore how these three philosophical systems treated matter, substance, human freedom, natural necessity, knowledge, mind, and consciousness. The contributors include some of the most prominent writers (...) in the field, including Jonathan Bennett, Michael Della Rocca, Jan A. Cover, Catherine Wilson, Stephen Voss, Edwin Curley, Don Garrett, and Margaret D. Wilson. (shrink)

When dealing with the issue of the relations among science, philosophy and theology, one finds several misunderstandings. One is that natural sciences essentially offend the value of the human person. Many think that the central place of empirical data in natural sciences is in disharmony with the universal tenets of both philosophy and theology. The idea that science and philosophy are necessarily in conflict is based on a misunderstanding of both science and philosophy. The actual current paradigm shifts in natural (...) sciences opens a new field for fruitful interaction with philosophy and theology. (shrink)

Among the authors of the 13th century, Albert the Great is perhaps - together with Thomas Aquinas - the one who chose to confront more closely the metaphysical instances of the Liber de causis. The anonymous work, an original readaptation of Proclus’ Elementatio theologica, not only found in Albert one of its most passionate interpreters, but also profoundly shaped his thought. It is difficult to establish whether it was more the Liber de causis that modelled Albert’s philosophical and theological reflection, (...) or Albert’s reading of it that profoundly influenced the posterity of the De causis. One of the best known aspects of Albert’s thought is undoubtedly his metaphysics of flow, and more particularly his attempt to harmonise the Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo with the Neoplatonic model of procession and emanation. In this article I jointly analyse: Albert’s definition of the flow; the way he describes the process of creation by the First Cause; the different definitions he offers of the first product of the First Cause. In this way, I hope to show that the nature of the flow - considered in its moment of origin - can be more adequately understood if considered in its relationship to that of the first created product, and vice versa. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary work contains the most sustained attempt at developing and defending one of the few genuine theories of consciousness.

The Scriptum in Librum de causis traditionally attributed to Pseudo-Adam of Bocfeld occupies an important place in the history of the Latin reception of the Liber de causis. Previous studies have h...

We started from the fact that type theory, in the way it was implemented in IL, makes it costly to deal with nominalization processes. We have also argued that the type hierarchy as such doesn't play any real role in a grammar; the classification it provides for different semantic objects is already contained, in some sense, in the categorial structure of the grammar itself. So, on the basis of a theory of properties (Cocchiarella's HST*) we have tried to build a (...) language (IL*) whose syntax does not contain any explicit typing of expressions. Some of the consequences that this move brings about in the overall organization of the grammar can be summarized as follows:it allows for a simple treatment of infinitives, gerunds, factives and, in general, all those phenomena which might be analyzed as cases of nominalization;it provides a simpler and more constrained semantics than IL, since IL* doesn't go beyond second order, and its non-modal basis is axiomatizable;it suggests that the role of logical form in a theory of grammar could be that of a family of theories of semantic objects;it eliminates the extrinsic limitations of a type hierarchy on the choice of the system of syntactic categories.I think that it is interesting to notice how having an explicit semantic framework helps to provide a sense in which it is legitimate to regard the syntax of a language as ‘autonomous’. (shrink)

Consciousness is arguably the most important interdisciplinary area in contemporary philosophy of mind, with an explosion of research over the past thirty years from philosophers, psychologists, and scientists. It is also perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the world despite the fact that it is familiar to each of us. Consciousness also seems resistant to any straightforward physical explanation. This book introduces readers to the contemporary problem of consciousness, providing a clear introduction to the overall landscape and a fair-minded critical (...) survey of various theories of consciousness. Beginning with essential historical background to the problem of consciousness, Rocco Gennaro explores the following key topics and debates: the metaphysical problem of consciousness, including varieties of dualism and materialism; consciousness and neuroscience, particularly the question of whether consciousness can be reduced to brain activity or attentional mechanisms; representational and cognitive theories of consciousness; consciousness and psychopathology; animals, machines, and consciousness. Extensive use is made of interesting phenomena throughout the book, ranging from blindsight, synaesthesia, and change blindness to phantom limb syndrome, split-brain cases, and dissociative identity disorder. The inclusion of chapter summaries, annotated further reading, and a glossary make this book essential reading for anyone seeking a clear and informative overview of the problem of consciousness, not only in philosophy but related fields such as psychology and cognitive science. (shrink)

The tow, the fire, the Heavens and God, Article 156 of Tempier’s Syllabus and John of Naples. Through the examination of the direct textual tradition of the March 1277 condemnation, the indirect tradition and the possible interpretations linked to each of the main variants, the article attempts to reconstruct the original meaning of article 156 of Tempier’s Syllabus. The issue at the heart of the question is whether the impossibility of fire burning the tow after the cessation of the celestial (...) movement is due to the fact that God would then also cease to exist (quia nec Deus esset or quia Deus non esset, prevailing variants in the manuscript and indirect tradition), or to the fact that nature would cease to exist (quia natura deesset, minority variant chosen by Roland Hissette in his own edition of the text of the condemnation published in 1977, and since then commonly accepted). On the basis of the evidence provided especially by two quodlibetal questions by John of Naples, it is suggested that the correction proposed by Hissette is unnecessary, and that article 156 concerns the inseparability of God’s cosmological function as mover of the Heavens from His own Divine nature. The appendix contains the first critical edition of John of Naples’ Quodl. III, q. 10. (shrink)

Providing a new conceptual scaffold for further research in biology and cognition, this book introduces the new field of cognitive biology, a systems biology approach showing that further progress in this field will depend on a deep recognition of developmental processes, as well as on the consideration of the developed organism as an agent able to modify and control its surrounding environment. The role of cognition, the means through which the organism is able to cope with its environment, cannot be (...) underestimated. In particular, it is shown that this activity is grounded on a theory of information based on Bayesian probabilities. The organism is considered as a cybernetic system able to integrate a processor as a source of variety (the genetic system), a regulator of its own homeostasis (the metabolic system), and a selecting system separating the self from the non-self (the membrane in unicellular organisms). Any organism is a complex system that can survive only if it is able to maintain its internal order against the spontaneous tendency towards disruption. Therefore, it is forced to monitor and control its environment and so to establish feedback circuits resulting in co-adaptation. Cognitive and biological processes are shown to be inseparable. (shrink)

This article draws on the perspectives opened up by two recent collective volumes, one dedicated to the Tabula Aurea and the Concordantiae textuum discordantium [...] Thomae Aquinatis produced in the 15th century by Peter of Bergamo, and completed by his confrere Ambrose ‘de Alemania’ (Mario Meliado / Silvia Negri [Hrsg.], Widerspruche und Konkordanz. Peter von Bergamo und der Thomismus im Spatmittelalter), and the other focusing the tradition of the Summistae, i.e. the Renaissance and modern commentators on the Summa theologiae of (...) Thomas Aquinas (Lidia Lanza and Marco Toste [eds], ‘Summistae’. The Commentary Tradition on Thomas Aquinas’ ‘Summa Theologiae’ from the 15th to the 17th Centuries). On this basis, I propose to examine the way in which certain genres and specific types of theological and philosophical writings can mark an often decisive shift in the content and orientation of a particular tradition of thought (in this case, the Thomist tradition). (shrink)

In this chapter, I first review and assess evidence regarding brain damage or neural abnormalities associated with some psychopathologies and cognitive deficits, such as hemispatial neglect, agnosias, amnesia, somatoparaphrenia, and others. It becomes clear just how closely normal mental functioning and consciousness depend upon normal brain functioning as well as how some very specific mental changes occur when, and only when, very specific brain damage occurs. I then explore the metaphysical implications of these results with respect to the nature of (...) mind and consciousness. In particular, I examine the plausibility of materialism, roughly the view that mental processes are brain processes, in light of the evidence discussed and in contrast to a dualist conception of the mind (whereby mental states are not physical in some sense). I also explore the prospects for a conscious afterlife based both on the brain damage evidence adduced and the metaphysical implications discussed. (shrink)

Three fundamental forms of semiotic process (reference, addressing, and intentionality) are presented and their relations to language explained. After that, the fundamental inference forms (formal deduction, induction, and abduction) are presented and their connections with semiosis shown. Finally, we show some important differences between semiosis and inference, and propose to see information processing as a dynamical attractor of inference.

Proposing a comparative reading of the main writings of Machiavelli and More, the essay detects the compresence of political realism and utopian tension in Machiavellian thought as well as the intrinsic bond between idealism and realist irony that characterises More’s Utopia. Relying on such a reading, the essay underlines the deep affinities that, notwithstanding the noticeable differences between them, allow to identify a common substratum deeply rooted in the origins of modernity. The analysis aims at problematizing the utopia-realism divide, in (...) order to develop a nuanced interpretation in order to escape the simplistic dichotomous reading which is widespread in the literature. (shrink)

In Thinking About Consciousness , David Papineau [2002] presents a criticism of so-called 'actualist HOT theories of consciousness'. The HOT theory, held most notably by David Rosenthal, claims that the best explanation for what makes a mental state conscious is that it is the object of an actual higher-order thought directed at the mental state. Papineau contends that actualist HOT theory faces an awkward problem in relation to higher-order memory judgements; for example, that the theory cannot explain how one could (...) later recall an earlier experience that was not introspected. He argues that, on the HOT theory, we are even left with the absurd conclusion that the consciousness of, say, an earlier visual experience might even depend on the later act of memory. I show that Papineau's criticism of actualist HOT theory not only fails, but also that it seriously mischaracterizes and underestimates the theory. In particular, Papineau badly conflates the crucial difference between an introspective state and an outer-directed first-order conscious state. (shrink)

From past research it is well known that social exclusion has detrimental consequences for mental health. To deal with these adverse effects, socially excluded individuals frequently turn to other humans for emotional support. While chatbots can elicit social and emotional responses on the part of the human interlocutor, their effectiveness in the context of social exclusion has not been investigated. In the present study, we examined whether an empathic chatbot can serve as a buffer against the adverse effects of social (...) ostracism. After experiencing exclusion on social media, participants were randomly assigned to either talk with an empathetic chatbot about it (e.g., “I'm sorry that this happened to you”) or a control condition where their responses were merely acknowledged (e.g., “Thank you for your feedback”). Replicating previous research, results revealed that experiences of social exclusion dampened the mood of participants. Interacting with an empathetic chatbot, however, appeared to have a mitigating impact. In particular, participants in the chatbot intervention condition reported higher mood than those in the control condition. Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications, as well as directions for future research are discussed. (shrink)