본고의 목적은 마왕퇴백서오행편에 나타나는 심성론의 구조분석을 통해서 ‘천도’와 ‘인도’의 의미를 재고찰하는데 있었다. 백서 『오행』편의 ‘오행’과 ‘사행’은 3단계를 거쳐 최종적으로 천도와 인도를 완성한다. 먼저 ‘내면에서 드러남[形於內]’과, ‘내면에서 드러나지 않음[不形於內]’은 천도라는 동일한 근원을 둔 일원론으로서, 곧 내적 연속성을 갖춘 것이다. 이에 따라 ‘덕지행’은 도덕자아를 완성[德]해가는 내면적 흐름[行]이자 사행의 도덕실천행위인 행(行)이 다시 내재화되는 수렴의 과정도 포함되므로 수심(修心)의 측면을 논한 것이다. 사행의 ‘행’은 덕을 완성해나가는 과정에서의 도덕실천행위로서, 수신(修身)의 측면에 가깝다. 덕이 도덕자아로서 정신적 차원의 도덕적 주체성의 의미를 내포한다면, 선은 도덕자아의 정신적 차원에 부합되어야 하는 객체성의 (...) 의미를 가지며 궁극적으로는 덕으로 복귀한다. 결국 천도와 인도는 상부구조와 하부구조로 구성된 일원론에 해당한다. 상부구조인 천도는 ‘인간내면에 선천적으로 부여된 도덕감정이자 도덕법칙으로, 자율적이고 주체적으로 도덕자아의 완성을 이룩할 수 있는 근거이자 완성태로서의 정신세계’이다. 하부구조인 인도는 ‘인간내면에 선천적으로 부여된 도덕감정이자 도덕법칙을 후천적 노력을 통해 외면으로 발출하는 도덕실천행위이며, 감각기관의 욕망이 도덕성에 부합되어야 하는 객체로서의 신체적 측면’이라고 할 수 있겠다. 이러한 양자는 서로 내적 연속성 하에서 인도가 천도로 귀결되는 천인합일사상일 뿐만 아니라, 수심과 수신의 확충과정 속에서 상호 보완적 관계를 가진다. (shrink)

This paper provides new examples of vagueness phenomena with comparatives. I show that comparatives of the form ‘x is ADJ-er than y’ can be vague due to a fuzziness in how much of some property makes for a difference in ADJ-ness. The sorites examples I provide cannot be assimilated to cases of indiscriminability or fuzziness in relevant dimensions, standards, or measurement procedures. A revised degree-based semantics with semiorders, a well studied threshold structure, is developed. The treatment of equatives captures the (...) truth of the claim that adjacent items in the sorites series are not relevantly distinguishable in ADJ-ness; and it avoids validating transitivities that would yield paradoxical conclusions. (shrink)

Among the many silk manuscripts excavated from Changsha Mawangdui Tomb 3 in Hunan province in the winter of 1973, one text was named Wu xing [by contemporary scholars]. Twenty years later, in the winter of 1993, there was a text [of itself] titled Wu xing among the many bamboo slip texts excavated from Jingmen Guodian Tomb 1 in Hubei.

Numerical categories such as parity, i.e., being odd or even, have frequently been shown to influence how particular numbers are processed. Mathematically, number parity is defined categorically. So far, cognitive, and psychological accounts have followed the mathematical definition and defined parity as a categorical psychological representation as well. In this manuscript, we wish to test the alternative account that cognitively, parity is represented in a more gradual manner such that some numbers are represented as “more odd” or “more even” than (...) other odd or even numbers, respectively. Specifically, parity processing might be influenced by more specific properties such as whether a number is a prime, a square number, a power of 2, part of a multiplication table, divisible by 4 or by 5, and many others. We suggest that these properties can influence the psychologically represented parity of a number, making it more or less prototypical for odd- or evenness. In the present study, we tested the influence of these numerical properties in a bimanual parity judgment task with auditorily presented two-digit numbers. Additionally, we further investigated the interaction of these numerical properties with linguistic factors in three language groups (English, German, and Polish). Results show significant effects on reaction times of the congruity of parity status between decade and unit digits, even if numerical magnitude and word frequency are controlled. We also observed other effects of the above specific numerical properties, such as multiplication attributes, which facilitated or interfered with the speed of parity judgment. Based on these effects of specific numerical properties we proposed and elaborated a parity continuum account. However, our cross-lingual study also suggests that parity representation and/or access seem to depend on the linguistic properties of the respective language or education and culture. Overall, the results suggest that the “perceived” parity is not the same as objective parity, and some numbers are more prototypical exemplars of their categories. (shrink)

As historiographical studies on ancient China gradually move from the center to the margins of the public's field of vision, research on historiographical studies concerning ancient China have been undergoing some unusual changes. A truly considerable quantity of bamboo slip and silk manuscripts have either been discovered by archaeologists or accidentally unearthed in the last twenty years. Although these have been made public very slowly, even maddeningly so, the few of them that have appeared before the world in (...) the course of time have again and again both elated relatively sensitive historiographers and placed them in a quandary. They also have once and again confronted the system of ancient history that had been regarded as "final" with the prospect of utter collapse and the need to be rewritten. After the Mozuizi discoveries in Gansu in the 1950s, there were those of Mawangdui, Yinqueshan, and Shuihudi in the 1970s, and those of Shuanggudui, Bajiaolang, Zhangjiashan, and Baoshan in the 1980s; and it is said that there were astounding discoveries, though not yet made public, at Jingmen and Lianyungang in the 1990s. These "bamboo slip and silk manuscripts" that touch upon almost every aspect of the pre-Qin and Han areas of "the schools of the various masters," "number lore" , "prescriptive techniques" , "law," and "institutions" make us ask ourselves in astonishment: How many more mysteries of ancient China are still buried under the ground? (shrink)

정치철학이라는 관점에서 보면 마왕퇴백서 『주역』 ｢목화｣편은 야누스의 얼굴을 지니고 있다. 하나는 ‘종도’적인 얼굴이고, 다른 하나는 ‘종군’적인 얼굴이다. ‘종도’는 군주와 함께 신하도 정치 주체로 인정해야 한다는 군신공치의 입장에 있다. 반면 ‘종군’은 군주만을 정치 주체로 인정하는 군주전제의 입장에 있다. 그런 의미에서 이 두 철학은 지향하는 바가 서로 다르기 때문에 원래는 양립 불가능한 것이다. ｢목화｣편은 이 두 성격의 철학을 동시에 표방하고 있다는 점에서 기존의 상식을 깨는 것이다. ｢목화｣편의 정치철학이 야누스의 얼굴을 갖게 된 것은 통일진(統一秦)의 뒤를 이어 중국을 재통일한 한왕조를 현실적･체계적･효율적으로 운영하기 위해서는 강력한 (...) 군주 권력과 상벌을 내용으로 하는 법체계가 확립돼야 한다는 시대적 요청에 유가가 한 발짝 다가간 것이라고 할 수 있다. (shrink)

통일진~전한초기에 유가는 『주역』을 이용해 유가 최초로 두 세계관을 수립한다. 하나는 ‘도기론(道器論)’이고, 다른 하나는 ‘태극론(太極論)’이다. 이것을 담고 있는 현존 최고(最古)의 문헌이 바로 마왕퇴백서 『주역』 ｢계사｣ 편이다. 도기론은 형이상의 ‘도(道)’와 형이하의 ‘기(器)’라는 이부 세계관으로 구성돼 있다. 또 이것은 ①‘도’의 영역, ②‘건곤(乾坤)･변(變)･통(通)･상(象)’이라는 주역의 영역, ③‘기(器)’라는 만물의 영역, ④인간의 영역이라는 사부 구조로 돼 있다. 인간의 영역은 다시 ‘법’이라는 사회･정치의 영역과 ‘신(神)’이라는 주술·신앙의 영역으로 세분된다. ①은 형이상의 세계이고, ②·③·④는 형이하의 세계다. 여기서 문제는 도기론에서 형이상의 ‘도’의 세계와 형이하의 ‘기’의 세계는 존재론적으로 주재･피주재의 관계로 설정돼 있지만, 사부 (...) 구조 내에서 『주역』·만물·인간이라는 영역 간의 관계는 명확히 설정돼 있지 않고 파편화돼 있다는 점이다. 태극론은 사부 구조 중형이하의 세계에서 파편화되고 무관계한 것처럼 보이는 영역 간의 관계를 명확한 형태로 이어주면서, 합리와 비합리의 세계를 통합하기 위해 유가가 새롭게 고안한 이론이라고 할 수 있다. (shrink)

Stein Tibetan 724 was earlier identified as a list of virtues of the Buddha Amitābha. A new reading of the document and identification of its Chinese source allow its re-identification instead as a list of the virtues of invoking the Buddha Amitābha in a loud voice. The article offers a corrected transcription of the manuscript, presents and examines possible sources, and suggests the most plausible proximate original for the Tibetan translation, briefly exploring the practice of loud invocation as a Buddhist (...) practice in medieval Dunhuang. (shrink)

This paper (from 2006) is now defunct. I argue against "realist primitivism". One of my arguments is a kind of "evolutionary debunking argument". Some of the material of this was incorporated into “Can Disjunctivists Explain Our Access to the Sensible World?” and "How Does Color Experience Represent the World?".

The topic of this issue of Contemporary Chinese Thought is the authorship, annotations, and philosophical interpretation of the Wuxing and evidence of the thought of Zisi and Mencius in the Wuxing. Four of the essays translated here are by Chen Lai, formerly professor of Chinese philosophy at Peking University and now dean of the School of Traditional Chinese Learning at Tsinghua University. An essay by Xing Wen, of Dartmouth College, provides context for a proper understanding of the Wuxing and Chen (...) Lai's scholarship on the Wuxing. (shrink)

This issue presents the research on early Chinese texts by Cao Feng, a philosophy professor at Tsinghua University. He is an expert in early Chinese political philosophy and philosophy of language found in transmitted and excavated texts. His extensive education in Japan has left him well versed in Japanese sinology. Although a critical researcher in the field of early Chinese thought and a very prolific writer in both Chinese and Japanese, Cao Feng is little known in the West. This issue (...) introduces three papers selected in consultation with the author: a reflection on the study of excavated texts, the "Huang" component of so-called Huang-Lao thought, and views on language in the Laozi. (shrink)

This book investigates context-sensitivity in natural language by examining the meaning and use of a target class of theoretically recalcitrant expressions. These expressions-including epistemic vocabulary, normative and evaluative vocabulary, and vague language -exhibit systematic differences from paradigm context-sensitive expressions in their discourse dynamics and embedding properties. Many researchers have responded by rethinking the nature of linguistic meaning and communication. Drawing on general insights about the role of context in interpretation and collaborative action, Silk develops an improved contextualist theory of (...) CR-expressions within the classical truth-conditional paradigm: Discourse Contextualism. The aim of Discourse Contextualism is to derive the distinctive linguistic behavior of a CR-expression from a particular contextualist interpretation of an independently motivated formal semantics, along with general principles of interpretation and conversation. It is shown how in using CR-expressions, speakers can exploit their mutual grammatical and world knowledge, and general pragmatic reasoning skills, to coordinate their attitudes and negotiate about how the context should evolve. The book focuses primarily on developing a Discourse Contextualist semantics and pragmatics for epistemic modals. The Discourse Contextualist framework is also applied to other categories of epistemic vocabulary, normative and evaluative vocabulary, and vague adjectives. The similarities/differences among these expressions, and among context-sensitive expressions more generally, have been underexplored. The development of Discourse Contextualism in this book sheds light on general features of meaning and communication, and the variety of ways in which context affects and is affected by uses of language. Discourse Contextualism provides a fruitful framework for theorizing about various broader issues in philosophy, linguistics, and cognitive science. (shrink)

Should we embrace nihilism, as Nolen Gertz suggests, or try to overcome it? For Nietzsche, nihilism must be overcome – if we're strong enough. The key, argues Alex Silk, is to see how nihilistic beliefs – that, say, nothing matters – derive from nihilistic feelings and bodily states. Understanding the basic features of human nature and experience at the root of nihilism paves the way toward a healthier, affirming perspective on ourselves and human life. Nietzsche’s rhetorical style helps us (...) incorporate such a perspective by engaging our feelings as well as our rational faculties. (shrink)

Recent philosophical inquiry into the relations thought to metaphysically structure the world has largely focused on the notion of metaphysical grounding, whereas previously analytic metaphysicians tended to talk in terms of ontological dependence. This raises the question of how metaphysical grounding and ontological dependence relate to one another. In this article, I sketch a picture of grounding as a form of metaphysically substantive sufficient condition and ontological dependence as a form of metaphysically substantive necessary condition, anchored in widely accepted principles (...) for how these relations work. As a case study, I apply this picture to Jack Casey's recent attempt to reduce ontological dependence to a special case of grounding. I argue that Casey's account fails and I show how the picture of grounding and ontological dependence presented here helps us diagnose where the account goes wrong, as well as how it makes sense of the phenomena Casey's account struggles with without having to resort to any ad hoc maneuvers. Thinking of grounding as a form of metaphysically substantive sufficient condition and ontological dependence as a form of metaphysically substantive necessary condition is thus shown to help sharpen our understanding of these phenomena and provide minimal constraints on any purported reductive account of one of the phenomena in terms of the other. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of the meaning of `ought', and the distinction between weak necessity modals (`ought', `should') and strong necessity modals (`must', `have to'). I argue that there is nothing specially ``strong'' about strong necessity modals per se: uses of `Must p' predicate the (deontic/epistemic/etc.) necessity of the prejacent p of the actual world (evaluation world). The apparent ``weakness'' of weak necessity modals derives from their bracketing whether the necessity of the prejacent is verified in the actual world. (...) `Ought p' can be accepted without needing to settle that the relevant considerations (norms, expectations, etc.) that actually apply verify the necessity of p. I call the basic account a modal-past approach to the weak/strong necessity modal distinction (for reasons that become evident). Several ways of implementing the approach in the formal semantics/pragmatics are critically examined. The account systematizes a wide range of linguistic phenomena: it generalizes across flavors of modality; it elucidates a special role that weak necessity modals play in discourse and planning; it captures contrasting logical, expressive, and illocutionary properties of weak and strong necessity modals; and it sheds light on how a notion of `ought' is often expressed in other languages. These phenomena have resisted systematic explanation. In closing I briefly consider how linguistic inquiry into differences among necessity modals may improve theorizing on broader philosophical issues. (shrink)

This chapter develops an account of the meaning and use of various types of legal claims, and uses this account to inform debates about the nature and normativity of law. The account draws on a general framework for implementing a contextualist theory, called 'Discourse Contextualism' (Silk 2016). The aim of Discourse Contextualism is to derive the apparent normativity of claims of law from a particular contextualist interpretation of a standard semantics for modals, along with general principles of interpretation and (...) conversation. Though the semantics is descriptivist, it avoids Dworkin’s influential criticism of so-called “semantic theories of law,” and elucidates the nature of “theoretical disagreements” about the criteria of legal validity. The account sheds light on the social, interpersonal function of normative uses of language in legal discourse. It also gives precise expression to Hart’s and Raz’s intuitive distinctions among types of legal claims (internal/external, committed/detached), while giving them a uniform type of analysis. The proposed semantics and pragmatics of legal claims provides a fruitful framework for further theorizing about the nature and metaphysics of law, the relation between law and morality, and the apparent practical character of legal language and judgment. Discourse Contextualism provides a solid linguistic basis for a broader account of legal discourse and practice. (shrink)

This manuscript presents an English translation of the work titled “Begründung Einer Strengen Implikation” by the German logician and mathematician Wilhelm Ackermann (1896-1962), first published in June 1956.

This paper demarcates a theoretically interesting class of "evaluational adjectives." This class includes predicates expressing various kinds of normative and epistemic evaluation, such as predicates of personal taste, aesthetic adjectives, moral adjectives, and epistemic adjectives, among others. Evaluational adjectives are distinguished, empirically, in exhibiting phenomena such as discourse-oriented use, felicitous embedding under the attitude verb `find', and sorites-susceptibility in the comparative form. A unified degree-based semantics is developed: What distinguishes evaluational adjectives, semantically, is that they denote context-dependent measure functions ("evaluational (...) perspectives")—context-dependent mappings to degrees of taste, beauty, probability, etc., depending on the adjective. This perspective-sensitivity characterizing the class of evaluational adjectives cannot be assimilated to vagueness, sensitivity to an experiencer argument, or multidimensionality; and it cannot be demarcated in terms of pretheoretic notions of subjectivity, common in the literature. I propose that certain diagnostics for "subjective" expressions be analyzed instead in terms of a precisely specified kind of discourse-oriented use of context-sensitive language. I close by applying the account to `find x PRED' ascriptions. (shrink)

Expressivism promises an illuminating account of the nature of normative judgment. But worries about the details of expressivist semantics have led many to doubt whether expressivism's putative advantages can be secured. Drawing on insights from linguistic semantics and decision theory, I develop a novel framework for implementing an expressivist semantics that I call ordering expressivism. I argue that by systematically interpreting the orderings that figure in analyses of normative terms in terms of the basic practical attitude of conditional weak preference, (...) the expressivist can explain the semantic properties of normative sentences in terms of the logical properties of that attitude. Expressivism's problems with capturing the logical relations among normative sentences can be reduced to the familiar, more tractable problem of explaining certain coherence constraints on preferences. Particular attention is given to the interpretation of wide-scope negation. The proposed solution is also extended to other types of embedded contexts—most notably, disjunctions. (shrink)

This chapter develops a contextualist account of normative language, focusing on broadly normative readings of modal verbs. The account draws on a more general framework for implementing a contextualist semantics and pragmatics, Discourse Contextualism. The aim of Discourse Contextualism is to derive the discourse properties of normative language from a contextualist interpretation of an independently motivated formal semantics, along with principles of interpretation and conversation. In using normative language, interlocutors can exploit their grammatical and world knowledge, and general pragmatic reasoning (...) skills, to manage an evolving system of norms. Discourse Contextualism provides a perspicuous framework for further philosophical theorizing about the nature of normativity, normative language, and normative judgment. Delineating these issues can help refine our understanding of the space of overall theories and motivate more fruitful ways the dialectics may proceed. Discourse Contextualism provides a linguistic basis for a more comprehensive theory of normativity and normative discourse and practice. (shrink)

This paper investigates how inquiry into normative language can improve substantive normative theorizing. First I examine two dimensions along which normative language differs: “strength” and “subjectivity.” Next I show how greater sensitivity to these features of the meaning and use of normative language can illuminate debates about three issues in ethics: the coherence of moral dilemmas, the possibility of supererogatory acts, and the connection between making a normative judgment and being motivated to act accordingly. The paper concludes with several brief (...) reflections on the theoretical utility of the distinction—at least so-called—between “normative” and “non-normative” language and judgment. Clarifying the language we use in normative conversation and theorizing can help us diagnose problems with bad arguments and formulate better motivated questions. This can lead to clearer answers and bring into relief new theoretical possibilities and avenues to explore. (shrink)

Kolodny and MacFarlane have made a pioneering contribution to our understanding of how the interpretation of deontic modals can be sensitive to evidence and information. But integrating the discussion of information-sensitivity into the standard Kratzerian framework for modals suggests ways of capturing the relevant data without treating deontic modals as “informational modals” in their sense. I show that though one such way of capturing the data within the standard semantics fails, an alternative does not. Nevertheless I argue that we have (...) good reasons to adopt an information-sensitive semantics of the general type Kolodny and MacFarlane describe. Contrary to the standard semantics, relative deontic value between possibilities sometimes depends on which possibilities are live. I develop an ordering semantics for deontic modals that captures this point and addresses various complications introduced by integrating the discussion of information-sensitivity into the standard semantic framework. By attending to these complexities, we can also illuminate various roles that information and evidence play in logical arguments, discourse, and deliberation. (shrink)

Current literature on ethical leadership and unethical leadership reflects a Western-based private sector perspective, pointing toward a compliance-oriented understanding of ethical and unethical leadership. As today’s executives increasingly have to ethically lead across different cultures and sectors, it becomes vitally important to develop a more holistic picture how ethical and unethical leadership is perceived in the Western and Eastern cultural cluster and the private and the public/social sector. Addressing this issue, the present study aims to identify cross-cultural and cross-sectoral commonalities (...) and differences in international executives’ perceptions of ethical and unethical leadership. Findings from in-depth interviews (N = 36) with executives from Western and Eastern cultures working in the private or the public/social sector reveal collectively held perceptions of ethical leadership (including leader honesty, integrity, concern for responsibility/sustainability, and people orientation) and of unethical leadership (referring to leader dishonesty, corruption, egocentrism, and manipulation). Results indicate limited support for a compliance-oriented perspective on ethical and unethical leadership but yield a much greater trend toward a value-oriented perspective. Concrete practice examples illustrate these different perspectives. Cultural and sectoral particularities of executive perceptions of ethical and unethical leadership are discussed. (shrink)

This paper develops a contextualist account of certain recalcitrant embedding phenomena with epistemic modals. I focus on three prominent objections to contextualism from embedding: first, that contextualism mischaracterizes subjects’ states of mind; second, that contextualism fails to predict how epistemic modals are obligatorily linked to the subject in attitude ascriptions; and third, that contextualism fails to explain the persisting anomalousness of so-called “epistemic contradictions” in suppositional contexts. Contextualists have inadequately appreciated the force of these objections. Drawing on a more general (...) framework for implementing a contextualist theory, I argue that we can derive the distinctive embedding behavior of epistemic modals from a particular contextualist interpretation of a standard semantics for modals, general mechanisms of local interpretation, and typical features of discourse contexts. Examining embedding phenomena with epistemic modals raises difficult broader issues about conventionalization and pragmatic reasoning, the varieties of context-sensitive language, and the roles of context in interpretation. The paper concludes by briefly examining how the proposed contextualist account compares with certain relativist/expressivist accounts. (shrink)

This paper develops an interpretation of Nietzsche’s ethics and metaethics that reconciles his apparent antirealism with his engagement in normative discourse. Interpreting Nietzsche as a metaethical constructivist—as holding, to a first approximation, that evaluative facts are grounded purely in facts about the evaluative attitudes of the creatures to whom they apply—reconciles his vehement declarations that nothing is valuable in itself with his passionate expressions of a particular evaluative perspective and injunctions for the free spirits to create new values. Drawing on (...) Nietzsche’s broader epistemological and psychological views, I develop a distinctive, and genuinely Nietzschean, version of constructivism. On this account, evaluative properties are grounded in affective valuations of the new philosophers. The proposed interpretation synthesizes a variety of disparate features of Nietzsche’s writings and improves on existing interpretations in the literature. The resulting version of constr.. (shrink)

This paper argues that a standard analysis of modals from formal semantics suggests a solution to the detaching problem — the problem of whether un-embedded 'ought'-claims can "detach" (be derived) from hypothetical imperatives and their antecedent conditions. On a broadly Kratzerian analysis, modals have a skeletal conventional meaning and receive a particular reading (e.g., deontic, epistemic, teleological) only relative to certain forms of contextual supplementation. I argue that 'ought'-claims can detach — subject to an important qualification — but only as (...) long as the 'ought's in the conditional premise and conclusion are interpreted relative to the same ordering sources. Although modus ponens can be shown to fail with hypothetical imperatives, the cases in question do not constitute a failure of detachment in the sense that ethicists have cared about. Rival wide-scoping accounts are proven to be linguistically problematic. They make incorrect predictions about the meanings of hypothetical imperatives, and founder in response to quantificational variants of the detaching problem. (shrink)

(2000). Caring at a Distance: (Im)partiality, Moral Motivation and the Ethics of Representation - Introduction. Ethics, Place & Environment: Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 303-309. doi: 10.1080/713665900.

This book combines insights from philosophy and linguistics to develop a novel framework for theorizing about linguistic meaning and the role of context in interpretation. A key innovation is to introduce explicit representations of context — assignment variables — in the syntax and semantics of natural language. The proposed theory systematizes a spectrum of “shifting” phenomena in which the context relevant for interpreting certain expressions depends on features of the linguistic environment. Central applications include local and nonlocal contextual dependencies with (...) quantifiers, attitude ascriptions, conditionals, questions, and relativization. The result is an innovative, philosophically informed compositional semantics compatible with the truth-conditional paradigm. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of mood selection with attitude predicates in French. I start by examining the “contextual commitment” account of mood developed by Portner and Rubinstein Proceedings of SALT 22, CLC Publications, Ithaca, NY, pp 461–487, 2012). A key innovation of Portner and Rubinstein’s account is to treat mood selection as fundamentally depending on a relation between individuals’ attitudes and the predicate’s modal backgrounds. I raise challenges for P&R’s qualitative analysis of contextual commitment and explanations of mood selection. (...) There are indicative-selecting predicates that are felicitous in contexts where there isn’t contextual commitment ; and there are subjunctive-selecting predicates that involve no less contextual commitment than certain indicative-selecting verbs. I develop an alternative account of verbal mood. The general approach, which I call a state-of-mind approach, is to analyze mood in terms of whether the formal relation between the predicate’s modal backgrounds and an overall state of mind represents a relation of commitment. Indicative mood in French presupposes that the informational-evaluative state determined by the predicate’s modal backgrounds is included in the informational-evaluative state characterizing the event described by the predicate. The account provides an improved explanation of core mood-selection puzzles, including subjunctive-selection with emotive factives, indicative-selection with fiction verbs, indicative-selection with espérer ‘hope’ versus subjunctive-selection with vouloir ‘want’, and indicative-selection with commissives versus subjunctive-selection with directives. Subjunctive-selection with modal adjectives is briefly considered. The mood-selection properties of the predicates are derived from the proposed analysis of mood, independently attested features of the predicates’ semantics, and general principles of interpretation. (shrink)

In the archetypical action thriller, the plot turns on a critical moment of insight. A car with out-of-state license plates, the gold tooth of the man behind the counter— something tips us off, and loose strands of evidence are woven into a meaningful pattern. Substituting a runaway trolley for suspicious vehicles and dental anomalies, we suggest that a similar denouement is at hand in the field of moral psychology. A number of theoretical proposals that were at one time regarded as (...) unconnected at best, and contradictory at worst, now show hope of reconciliation. Unknowns abound, but there are hints of an emerging consensus. At its core is a recognition that moral judgment is the product of interaction and competition between distinct psychological systems. The goal of the present essay is to describe these systems to highlight important questions for future research. Recent research in moral psychology has focused on two challenges to the longdominant cognitive development paradigm conceived by Piaget and nurtured by Kohlberg (Kohlberg, 1969; Piaget, 1965/1932; Turiel, 1983, 2005). The first challenge claims that moral judgment is accomplished by rapid, automatic and unconscious intuitions (Damasio, 1994; Haidt, 2001; Hauser, 2006; Mikhail, 2000; Schweder & Haidt, 1993), contra the cognitive developmentalists' assumption that moral judgment is the product of conscious principled reasoning. This challenge is built in part on studies demonstrating people's inability to articulate a rational basis for strongly held moral convictions (Bjorklund, Haidt, & Murphy, 2000; Cushman, Young, & Hauser, 2006; Hauser, Cushman, Young, Jin, & Mikhail, 2007; Mikhail, 2000). The second and related challenge claims that moral judgment is driven primarily by affective responses (Blair, 1995; Damasio, 1994; Greene & Haidt, 2002; Schweder & Haidt, 1993), contra the cognitive developmentalists' assumption that moral judgment results from the application of general principles in a "cold" cognitive process.. (shrink)

This paper examines distinctive discourse properties of preposed negative 'yes/no' questions (NPQs), such as 'Isn’t Jane coming too?'. Unlike with other 'yes/no' questions, using an NPQ '∼p?' invariably conveys a bias toward a particular answer, where the polarity of the bias is opposite of the polarity of the question: using the negative question '∼p?' invariably expresses that the speaker previously expected the positive answer p to be correct. A prominent approach—what I call the context-management approach, developed most extensively by Romero (...) and Han (2004)—attempts to capture speaker expectation biases by treating NPQs fundamentally as epistemic questions about the proper discourse status of a proposition. I raise challenges for existing context-managing accounts to provide more adequate formalizations of the posited context-managing content, its implementation in the compositional semantics and discourse dynamics, and its role in generating the observed biases. New data regarding discourse differences between NPQs and associated epistemic modal questions are introduced. I argue that we can capture the roles of NPQs in expressing speakers’ states of mind and managing the discourse common ground without positing special context-managing operators or treating NPQs as questions directly about the context. I suggest that we treat the operator introduced with preposed negation as having an ordinary semantics of epistemic necessity, though lexically associated with a general kind of endorsing use observed with modal expressions. The expressive and context-managing roles of NPQs are explained in terms of a general kind of discourse-oriented use of context-sensitive language. The distinctive expectation biases and discourse properties observed with NPQs are derived from the proposed semantics and a general principle of Discourse Relevance. (shrink)

Today many scholars seem to agree that citizens should be involved in expert deliberations on science and technology issues. This interest in public deliberation has gained attraction in many practical settings, especially in the European Union, and holds the promise of more legitimate governance of science and technology. In this article, the authors draw on the European Commission’s report ‘‘Taking the European Knowledge Society Seriously’’ to ask how legitimate these efforts to ‘‘democratize’’ scientific expertise really are. While the report borrows (...) from deliberative democrats’ normative accounts of legitimacy, the authors identify a tension between the principles for legitimate rule prescribed by deliberative democratic theory and the report’s celebration of diversity and dissent. While this inconsistency suggests that the legitimacy of deliberative governance arrangements is justified on empirical rather than normative grounds, it remains an open question whether studies of science and technology offer enough empirical support for such a justification. In this article, the authors address this pressing question and propose three possible responses. (shrink)

Recent decades have witnessed a flurry of interest in Nietzsche's metaethics — his views, if any, on metaphysical, epistemological, semantic, and psychological issues about normativity and normative language and judgment. Various authors have highlighted a tension between Nietzsche's metaethical views about value and his ardent endorsement of a particular evaluative perspective: Although Nietzsche makes apparently "antirealist" claims to the effect that there are no evaluative facts, he vehemently engages in evaluative discourse and enjoins the "free spirits" to create values. Nearly (...) every major type of metaethical "-ism" has been ascribed to Nietzsche in response. This chapter provides a critical introduction to Nietzsche's metaethics, focusing on matters concerning the nature and grounds of normativity. I begin by examining and raising challenges for Nadeem Hussain's prominent interpretation of Nietzsche as a revolutionary fictionalist. I argue that a constructivist interpretation (developed elsewhere) provides an improved account of the connections, for Nietzsche, between evaluative attitudes and the nature of value, and among practical nihilism, art, and value creation. Values, on this view, are treated as grounded purely in facts about creatures’ evaluative attitudes. The chapter concludes by considering several alternative subjectivist, constitutivist, and non-cognitivist interpretations. A nuanced understanding of the space of metaethical theories brings into relief a plausible normative and metanormative view that we can attribute to Nietzsche. (shrink)

This note presents challenge cases for prominent pragmatic responses to the proviso problem. I offer examples of uses of conditionals _if_ $\psi,\,\phi_{P}$ that seem to commit the speaker unconditionally to the presupposition _P_ of the consequent clause _ϕ_, even though the sentence’s predicted semantic presupposition _ψ_⊃_P_ is antecedently satisfied (contrary to context-repair accounts), and independence between _ψ_ and _P_ isn’t antecedently assumed (contrary to independence-driven accounts). The examples provided avoid problems with other examples from the literature used against pragmatic accounts. (...) I leave the matter as an unresolved challenge for satisfaction theories of presupposition. (shrink)

This paper develops an update semantics for weak necessity modals like ‘ought’ and ‘should’. I start with the basic approach to the weak/strong necessity modal distinction developed in Silk 2018: Strong necessity modals are given their familiar semantics of necessity, predicating the necessity of the prejacent of the actual world (evaluation world). The apparent “weakness” of weak necessity modals derives from their bracketing the assumption that the relevant worlds in which the prejacent is necessary (deontically, epistemically, etc.) need be (...) candidates for actuality. ‘Should φ’ can be accepted without needing to settle that the relevant considerations (norms, preferences, expectations, etc.) that actually apply, given the facts, verify the necessity of φ. I formalize these ideas within an Update with Centering framework. The meaning of ‘Should φ’ is explained, fundamentally, in terms of how its use updates attention toward possibilities in which φ is necessary. The semantics is also extended to deontic conditionals. The proposed analyses capture various contrasting logical properties and discourse properties of ‘should’ and ‘must’ — e.g., in sensitivities to standing contextual assumptions, entailingness, and force — and provide an improved treatment of largely neglected data concerning information-sensitivity. (shrink)

This paper analyses self-declared aims and representation of dementia patient organizations and advocacy groups in relation to two recent upheavals: the critique of social stigmatization and biomedical research focusing on prediction. Based on twenty-six semi-structured interviews conducted in 2016–2017 with members, service recipients, and board representatives of POs in Germany and Israel, a comparative analysis was conducted, based on a grounded theory approach, to detect emerging topics within and across the POs and across national contexts. We identified a heterogeneous landscape, (...) with the only Israeli PO focusing strongly on caretakers, whereas in Germany several POs claim to represent this patient collective. Shared aims of all POs were fighting social stigma, balancing the loss of patients’ individual autonomy, and the well-being of caretakers. By highlighting the emergence of new groups of dementia self-advocacy against the more traditional advocacy by others, this study highlights how advocacy and representation in the context of AD are embedded in the discursive context of stigmatization and revised disease conception. Future developments in early diagnosis and prediction of dementia, with more affected people likely to conduct dementia self-advocacy, might challenge existing representation structures even more. (shrink)

Contextualists and relativists about predicates of personal taste, epistemic modals, and so on (“CR-expressions”) agree that the interpretation of these expressions depends, in some sense, on context. Relativists claim that the sort of context-sensitivity exhibited by CR-expressions is importantly different from that exhibited by paradigm context-sensitive expressions. This bifurcation is often motivated by the claim that the two classes of expressions behave differently in patterns of agreement and disagreement. I provide cases illustrating that the same sorts of discourse phenomena that (...) have been thought problematic for contextualists can arise with paradigm context-sensitive expressions. These cases motivate a more unified treatment of paradigm context-sensitive expressions and the expressions that have figured in recent contextualism/relativism debates. (shrink)