In his logical treatises, John Mair develops a method and a set of rules for the verification of modal propositions, which is in the spirit of his predecessors Ockham and Buridan, but ultimately goes beyond them. He calls this method positio de inesse. It is also by this method that the truth conditions for divided modal propositions are set out. There is a standard interpretation of it as a form of reductionist method, and scholars have been tempted to think that (...) it was motivated by an implicit rejection of de re modal properties shared by Mair and other sixteenth- century nominalists. After presenting the background to Mair’s writings on the semantics of modal propositions, in this paper we revisit Mair's version of the method of positio de inesse. We argue that it is based on some basic semantic rules and contend that this procedure analyzes divided modal propositions into singular de re sentences referring to possible objects. Consequently, we conclude that this method does not reflect a reductionist approach to modal discourse. We instead provide an alternative interpretation. (shrink)

Stephen Mulhall offers a new way of interpreting one of the most famous and contested texts in modern philosophy: remarks on "private language" in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. He sheds new light on a central controversy concerning Wittgenstein's early work by showing its relevance to a proper understanding of the later work.

A proposal that the biolinguistic approach to human languages may have identified,beyond the study of language, a specific structure of the human mind.

Noam Chomsky claims that we know the grammatical principles of our languages in pretty much the same sense that we know ordinary things about the world (e.g. facts), a view about linguistic knowledge that I term ''cognitivism''. In much recent philosophy of linguistics (including that sympathetic to Chomsky's general approach to language), cognitivism has been rejected in favour of an account of grammatical competence as some or other form of mental mechanism, describable at various levels of abstraction (''non-cognitivism''). I argue (...) for cognitivism and against non-cognitivism. First, I show that the distinction between competence and performance in current linguistics is as clearly made as ever it was, in spite of recent interest in linguistic processing modules. Second, I use these facts about the practice of theoretical linguistics to refute various proposals for a non-cognitivist construal of grammatical competence, and to support cognitivism by reflecting on the inapplicability of a multi-level account of linguistic competence. Cognitivism is then defended against several objections centring around the problems of rational integration and conceptualization of grammatical knowledge. Finally, the conception of competence argued for in relation to linguistics is placed in the larger context of cognitive science research and its implications for philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Why ever assert clarity? If It is clear that p is true, then saying so should be at best superfluous. Barker and Taranto (2003) and Taranto (2006) suggest that asserting clarity reveals information about the beliefs of the discourse participants, specifically, that they both believe that p . However, mutual belief is not sufficient to guarantee clarity ( It is clear that God exists ). I propose instead that It is clear that p means instead (roughly) 'the publicly available evidence (...) justifies concluding that p '. Then what asserting clarity reveals is information concerning the prevailing epistemic standard that determines whether a body of evidence is sufficient to justify a claim. If so, the semantics of clarity constitutes a grammatical window into the discourse dynamics of inference and skepticism. (shrink)

_Synthesizes the most important recent work on wonder and brings a number of disciplines into conversation. _.

Can language directly access what is true, or is the truth judgment affected by the subjective, perhaps even solipsistic, constructs of reality built by the speakers of that language? The construction of such subjective representations is known as veridicality, and in this book Anastasia Giannakidou and Alda Mari deftly address the interaction between truth and veridicality in the grammatical phenomena of mood choice: the indicative and subjunctive choice in the complements of modal expressions (words like must, may, can, and possible) (...) and propositional attitude verbs (such as know, believe, remember, dream, and persuade). Combining several strands of analysis-formal linguistic semantics, syntactic theory, modal logic, and philosophy of language- Giannakidou and Mari's theory not only enriches the analysis of linguistic modality, but also offers a unified perspective of modals and propositional attitudes. Their synthesis covers mood, modality, and attitude verbs in Greek and Romance languages including Italian and French, while also offering broader applications for languages lacking systematic mood distinction, such as English, and explaining interactions between modality, time, and evidentiality. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's philosophy of religion, as found in his brief remarks on religious belief and on magic, is as controversial as his philosophy of mathematics and his philosophy of mind. In fact, many scholars who tend to follow Wittgenstein in these latter areas are reluctant to accept what he has to say about religious belief and related topics. Wittgenstein seems to insulate religion from standard forms of rational criticism, and this is unacceptable to many philosophers who think they have good reasons (...) for rejecting any form of theism. (shrink)

Lepore and Stone devote Part I of their book to setting out a number of views that act as foils for their own positive ‘disambiguation’ view of interpretation developed in Part II. They divide their opposition into three camps: The Gricean rationalists, the neo-Gricean lexicalists, and the empirical psychologists. I try to show why a ‘disambiguation’ view of such phenomena is unappealing and why Relevance Theory provides a better account of these phenomena. I end with some brief remarks about what (...) all of this tells us about the interface between semantics and pragmatics. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein was one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century. This text discusses his philosophical method in his later period, sometimes referred to as morphology.

The papers in this collection present a diversity of views on the epistemology of religious belief. There is a diversity of views about the intelligibility of particular religious beliefs: for example, about the reality of God's existence and of miracles. There is further disagreement concerning the reasonableness of religious belief itself. Some contributors argue that locating grounds for believing in God is still a fruitful undertaking. Both issues raise the problem of the philosopher's position vis-a-vis religious belief. Are philosophers in (...) a privileged position to determine either the reasonableness or the intelligibility of religious belief? Or is philosophy, properly understood, a descriptive task? The papers in this collection present a diversity of views on this issue, too. Drawing on the works of Kierkegaard, a few of the contributors argue that philosophical description cannot be neatly divorced from religious persuasion. Whatever their views on these issues, however, the contributors accept that philosophical discussion cannot proceed very far without attention to what religious believers say about their beliefs and the practices in which they take part. (shrink)

Different opinions about the simplicity of God may be connected with different understandings of how abstract terms are used to name the properties which are affirmed of a being. If these terms are taken to signify parts of that being, this being is not a simple one. Thomas Aquinas, who attributes essence, existence and perfections to God, nevertheless thinks that these are not different parts of God. When essence, existence and perfections are attributed to God, they all denominate the same, (...) the Being of the first cause. For Aquinas, this is a consequence of his way of introducing the language about God by basing it upon the philosophical ways leading to God as first cause. Awareness of this connection between Divine attributes and the arguments for God’s existence is crucial for an adequate understanding of Aquinas’ position. (shrink)