The connection between sense, verification, and mode of verification never entirely disappeared from Wittgenstein’s philosophy. However, there was a time – the years 1929– 1932 – when Wittgenstein upheld explicitly verificationist views: he identified a proposition’s meaning with the mode or method of its verification, and he said that to understand a proposition is to know how the proposition is verified. This has been regarded as puzzling, in view of the fact that the Tractatus is usually considered not to be (...) committed to verificationism; indeed, it is usually regarded as incompatible with verificationism. Several people have proposed to revise such a received view: Michael Wrigley (1989) has claimed that verificationism must be implicit in the Tractatus; and P. M.S. Hacker (1986) has argued that the Tractatus, though not verificationist, is not as distant from verificationism as it has been taken to be. In another paper (Marconi, forthcoming) I discuss their views. Here I will just notice that, even if one regards the Tractatus as implicitly verificationist, the problem remains of explaining why and how did Wittgenstein reach the explicitly – indeed, blatantly – verificationist outlook of the early Thirties. This is the first question I would like to try to answer in this paper. The second question is, why was such rampant verificationism short-lived? Or in other words, why was verificationism de-emphasized so that, although verificationist themes are undoubtedly present in the later Wittgenstein’s writings, the extreme formulations of the early Thirties tend to disappear after 1933? (shrink)

"Diego Marconi analizza in questo saggio alcune tappe fondamentali della riflessione di Wittgenstein, illlustrando i motivi per cui gran parte della discussione filosofica odierna risalga all'esperienza intellettuale del filosofo di Vienna: dal "sapere senza fondamenti" al "pensiero debole", dalla filosofia analitica all'ermeneutica.

Putnam and others have argued that semantic externalism extends to artifactual kind words such as “pencil” or “doorstop”. I first show that, even with natural kinds, externalism applies to words for ground level kinds. The issue then arises of which categories of artifacts should be identified as kinds in the relevant, restricted sense. I argue that, though there are natural taxonomies of artifactual categories at least some of which have well-defined ground levels, even words for such kinds do not appear (...) to have externalist semantics, as they do not support ignorance or error arguments. Some think that membership to any kind is determined by objective features. Against this, I argue that the makers’ productive intentions are often crucial in selecting which pattern of features counts as constitutive of a kind. Though externalists may insist that membership to a kind is ultimately determined by sharing objective features, the resulting version of externalism can hardly be distinguished from internalism. (shrink)

. David Chalmerss version of two-dimensional semantics is an attempt at setting up a unified semantic framework that would vindicate both the Fregean and the Kripkean semantic intuitions. I claim that there are three acceptable ways of carrying out such a project, and that Chalmerss theory does not coherently fit any of the three patterns. I suggest that the theory may be seen as pointing to the possibility of a double reading for many linguistic expressions (a double reading which, however, (...) is not easily identified with straightforward semantic ambiguity). (shrink)

This introduction is a short critical presentation of the topic and main arguments of Andrea Iacona’s book Logical Form. Furthermore, it summarizes the commentators’ views on two central issues: Iacona’s rejection of the uniqueness thesis, i.e. his claim that no single notion of logical form can be adequate to the tasks that logical form has been supposed to perform, and the relation between a sentence’s logical form and its truth conditions.

Eva Picardi was a critic of both Chomskyan naturalism and Davidsonian semantic individualism. Though basically agreeing with her on both counts, I reject her identification of Chomsky’s notion of “tacit knowledge” of language with Dummett’s notion of implicit knowledge, and I argue that Eva’s criticism of the latter notion does not apply to the former. In the second part of the paper, I take Eva’s side in criticizing individualism, providing further reasons for the existence of a semantic standard and trying (...) to explain what it is and why we are committed to it. (shrink)

In the following, I will mean by ‘verificationism’ the doctrine according to which understanding a sentence entails that one knows how to verify it, i.e. how to determine its truth value. It is not the only possible meaning of ‘verificationism’, nor perhaps the most common. However, it is with reference to this sense of ‘verificationism’ that I am going to ask the question whether the Tractatus is committed to verificationism.

What's the relation between being a P and being called 'P', for example, between being a cat and being called 'cat'? Surely something might be a cat without being called 'cat'; indeed, cats as such might not be called 'cats'. If the word 'cat' disappeared from the language, the event would not entail the disappearence of cats. What about the converse implication? Does being called 'cat' entail being a cat? It would seem so. For suppose 'cat' refers to certain objects, (...) and let Moon be one such object. Consider the statement that Moon is a cat. The statement is true just in case Moon is one of the objects that 'cat' refers to, which she is. Hence, the statement is true, therefore Moon is a cat. Being among the objects that 'cat' refers to entails being a cat. However, it is one thing to say that 'cat' refers to certain objects, and (possibly) a different thing to say that certain objects are called 'cats'. Spiders are often called 'insects', yet 'insect' does not refer to spiders: it is not correct to call spiders 'insects'. "Being called" is often intended as a descriptive notion: whether something is, or is not called 'P' is just a fact that can be stated in terms of people's behavior or patterns of behavior. Reference, on the other hand, may not be descriptive in this sense. Philosophers have often been trying to characterize the quasi-technical notion of reference by suitably restricting or qualifying the everyday, descriptive notion of "being called". Success in such an enterprise would amount to showing that being called* 'P' -a suitably modified version of being called 'P'- entails being P. Whether the enterprise is bound to fail is not the topic of this article. Here, I would like to show that one such attempt did fail, whereas another, more recent attempt that would seem to be bound to fail for analogous reasons does not fail; or not for such reasons, anyway. A few decades ago, some philosophers believed that being called 'P' was (with some qualifications) a sufficient condition for being a P.. (shrink)

In discussions in cognitive science, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and linguistics, it is often taken for granted that we (as well as some machines) have certain abilities, such as the ability to do multiplications or the ability to identify grammatical sentences. Such abilities are regarded as in some sense infinitary, and they are identified with, or taken to be based upon, knowledge of the relevant rules (the rule of multiplication, or the rules of grammar). In what follows, I (...) argue that whatever such abilities we do possess are not infinitary in any plausible sense. Therefore, the (alleged) infinitary nature of our (or a machine's) knowledge of such rules cannot be accounted for by bringing it back to infinitary abilities. (shrink)

I discuss Paolo Casalegno's objections to my views about semantic normativity as presented in my book Lexical Competence (MIT Press, 1997) and in a later paper. I argue that, contrary to Casalegno's claim, the phenomenon of semantic deference can be accounted for without having to appeal to an “objective” notion of reference, i.e. to the view that words have the reference they have independently of whatever knowledge or ability is available to or within the linguistic community. Against both Casalegno and (...) Timothy Williamson, I argue that a semantic norm based on objective reference would be really inapplicable, even though a speaker might believe to be guided by such a norm. (shrink)

Je m’efforcerai de donner plus de poids aux doutes de Pascal Engel relatifs à deux affirmations de Timothy Williamson dans Philosophy of Philosophy: que les expériences de pensée philosophiques portent sur une possibilité métaphysique par opposition à une possibilité conceptuelle, et que le raisonnement contrefactuel joue un rôle crucial pour atteindre les conclusions modales pertinentes dans les arguments fondés sur des expériences de pensée. Dans le premier cas, je soutiendrai qu’à moins de comprendre la notion de conceptuel dans un sens (...) psychologique, il est difficile de saisir la différence entre des expériences de pensée qui « portent sur des concepts » ou possibilités conceptuelles et des expériences de pensée qui « portent sur des êtres réels » ou possibilités métaphysiques. Dans le second cas, je soutiendrai qu’il n’est pas clair que les contrefactuels sont des prémisses indispensables dans des arguments fondés sur des expériences de pensée ou que le raisonnement contrefactuel prend l’avantage sur le raisonnement déductif ordinaire pour atteindre des conclusions modales. (shrink)

Chinese traditional characters share with Peirce’s existential graphs the fact of being endowed with an object-language that they describe through a nonlinear syntax and in an iconic way. Here iconicity is not restricted to images and perceptive similarity since diagrams and graphic metaphors are iconic too. The graphs are shown to be a borderland between Western traditional logic and Chinese traditional writing and culture, so the écart (Jullien’s concept for cultural distance) between characters and graphs is preserved even though graphs (...) break with the Western prejudice in favor of conventionality at the expense of iconicity in logical systems. The take-home lesson for the study of writing systems is to substitute the orality-writing duality with the interplay among orality, writing, and pictures thus shifting from a linguistic typology to a semiotic one. (shrink)

A Parábola dos Três Anéis é famosa em suas versões de Boccaccio e Lessing. Partilham a ideia fundamental de que apenas uma religião é verdadeira, mas a condição humana não nos permite saber qual é a verdadeira. É uma ideia inerentemente moderna enfatizar os limites do conhecimento humano enquanto se argumenta contra formas puras de ceticismo e relativismo. O resultado da parábola é a amizade em ambas as versões, mas a questão da verdade permanece no centro da estrutura conceitual subjacente (...) às histórias. Pelo contrário, os estudiosos passaram a dar muito mais relevância ao lado ético do diálogo, para que o relacionamento interpessoal não seja apenas o resultado de um processo cognitivo. O encontro pessoal deve ser anterior à questão da verdade. Esta nova abordagem é desafiada pela natureza do relacionamento com o outro. Deveria ser simétrico e mútuo? As opiniões sobre o diálogo inspiradas por Lévinas devem responder negativamente. Se quisermos manter a relevância da amizade, deveríamos preferir a ideia de diálogo de Buber. No nosso mundo, apesar disso, as desigualdades são tais que a simetria e a mutualidade não podem ser a condição padrão do diálogo e devemos ser antecipadamente responsáveis pelo outro (no sentido da servidão lévinasiana pelo outro). Uma mediação entre estes dois pontos de vista pode ser encontrada na noção de interindependência de Panikkar, como argumentarei. Na verdade, esta noção combina a interdependência presente na relação Eu-Tu de Buber e a independência ou separação sublinhada por Lévinas na relação com o outro entendida em termos de relação entre termos absolutos. (shrink)

Diego Marconi; VIII*—On the Structure of Lexical Competence, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 95, Issue 1, 1 June 1995, Pages 131–150, https://do.

The "impure" indexicality of the pronoun we is exploited to widen or reduce its scope, depending on rhetorical expediency. This has powerful and mostly damaging effects on public discourse. In fact, collective identities are seldom precisely defined, and when they are they often turn out to be less discriminating than the “we” rhetoric assumes them to be.

A emoção sempre foi definida como um estado afetivo que se contrapõe à cognição ou à atividade racional. Tal distinção é hoje radicalmente negada pelas pesquisas em neurociências. As emoções, stricto sensu, se expressam sob forma de manifestações intensas, abruptas, inesperadas. Convém, por isso, reconhecer que a emoção envolve uma experiência sensorial e uma dimensão comportamental ou expressiva representada pela resposta motora que ela suscita . Assim, as emoções comportariam sentimentos e/ou atitudes , cujas manifestações variam segundo a intensidade, as (...) circunstâncias e a natureza dos agentes desencadeadores. Dessa gama enorme de possibilidades depende a caracterização precisa dos estados mentais que tais sensações suscitam e as formas de conduta que elas engendram. A atitude emocional, todavia, nem sempre se distingue do comportamento voluntário, aquele guiado pela decisão do agente. Algumas emoções não somente desencadeiam certas formas de comportamento, como são modos apropriados de os indivíduos se adaptarem às situações vividas. É dessa interação que trata o nosso trabalho. (shrink)

Externalism about artifactual words requires that (a) members of an artifactual word’s extension share a common nature, i.e. a set of necessary features, and (b) that possession of such features determines the word’s extension independently of whether the linguistic community is aware of them (ignorance) or can accurately describe them (error). However, many common artifactual words appear to be so used that features that are universally shared among members of their extensions are hard to come by, and even fewer can (...) be plausibly regarded as necessary; morevoer, it is highly doubtful that a speaker could manage to refer to kind A while being utterly ignorant of the role the As play in the A-producing community, and it is no less doubtful that an artifactual word that was used to refer to certain objects would keep referring to them (and be regarded as having referred to them) once it has been shown that the associated description is utterly false of such objects, the reason being that we could easily make things that do fit the associated description. Against generalized externalism, it is suggested that artifactual words come in (at least) three different semantic varieties: a few have an externalist semantics, others have an internalist semantics, still others have neither but rather behave as “family names” in Wittgenstein’s sense. (shrink)

In this article I first sketch what I take to be two Quinean arguments for the continuity of philosophy with science. After examining Wittgenstein’s reasons for not accepting the arguments, I conclude that they are ineffective on Wittgenstein’s assumptions. Next, I ask three related questions: Where do Quine’s and Wittgenstein’s philosophical views essentially diverge? Did Wittgenstein have an argument against the continuity of science with philosophy? Did Wittgenstein believe until the end of his philosophical career that scientific results are philosophically (...) irrelevant? It will be seen that all three questions are related with Wittgenstein’s distinction between conceptual and factual issues. I conclude that the opposition between Quinean philosophy and Wittgensteinian philosophy is genuine. (shrink)

1. The issue - The reflection I am proposing was stimulated by some recent research on the mental processing of proper names. However, the issue I am raising is independent of both the particular nature of such results and the fact that they are accepted as well established. The question I would like to ask is whether (neuro)psychological results on the mental processing of language can falsify (or confirm) semantic theses about natural language. By a semantic thesis I mean something (...) like any of the following. (shrink)

In On Certainty, Wittgenstein addressed the issue of beliefs that are not to be argued for, either because any grounds we could produce are less certain than the belief they are supposed to ground, or because our interlocutors would not accept our reasons. However, he did not address the closely related issue of justifying a conclusion to interlocutors who do not see that it follows from premises they accept. In fact, Wittgenstein had discussed the issue in the Remarks on the (...) Foundations of Mathematics; his view had been that certain inferential practices are constitutive of our notions of thinking and inferring. I argue that his treatment of unfounded beliefs in On Certainty essentially replicates, mutatis mutandis, his treatment of basic logical inference. (shrink)