In his Oratio Obliqua, Oratio Recta, Recanati maintains two main theses regarding meta-representational sentences embedding allegedly empty proper names. The first thesis concerns both belief sentences embedding allegedly empty names and (internal) meta-fictional sentences (i.e., sentences of the form “in the story S, p”) embedding fictional, hence again allegedly empty, names. It says that such sentences primarily have fictive truth-conditions: that is, conditions for their fictional truth. The second thesis is that a fictive ascription of a singular belief, assigning to (...) a certain metarepresentational sentence fictive truth-conditions, amounts to the factive ascription of a pseudo-singular belief, assigning to that very sentence factual truth-conditions as well. In what follows, I will first try to show that the first thesis is definitely correct only for a rather limited range of cases, i.e. cases of meta-representational sentences embedding absolutely empty proper names. Second, I will claim not only that that the notion of a pseudo-singular belief is not so clear as it may seem, but also that, for those cases for which the first thesis is correct, we do not really need the sentences involved to also have factive truth-conditions. (shrink)

The name of the second author was incorrect in the initial online publication. The original article has been corrected.

We present a maximum-entropy based system for identifying Named Entities (NEs) in biomedical abstracts and present its performance in the only two biomedical Named Entity Recognition (NER) comparative evaluations that have been held to date, namely BioCreative and Coling BioNLP. Our system obtained an exact match f-score of 83.2% in the BioCreative evaluation and 70.1% in the BioNLP evaluation. We discuss our system in detail including its rich use of local features, attention to correct boundary identification, innovative use of external (...) knowledge resources including parsing and web searches, and rapid adaptation to new NE sets. We also discuss in depth problems with data annotation in the evaluations which caused the final performance to be lower than the optimal. (shrink)

In the initial online publication, the second author’s given name should have been displayed in full and in the running head the names were not properly abbreviated.

The essay adopts the Tractarian view that configurations of objects are expressed by configurations of names. Two alternatives are considered: The objects in atomic facts are (1) without exception particulars; (2) one or more particulars plus a universal (Gustav Bergmann). On (1) a mode of configuration is always an empirical relation: on (2) it is the logical nexus of 'exemplification.' It is argued that (1) is both Wittgenstein's view in the Tractatus and correct. It is also argued that exemplification is (...) a 'quasi-semantical' relation, and that it (and universals) are "in the world" only in that broad sense in which the 'world' includes linguistic norms and roles viewed (thus in translating) from the standpoint of a fellow participant. (shrink)

A debut picture book that explores the importance of pronouncing names properly and celebrates cultural identity. Saajin loves his name--he loves it so much that he sees it spelled out in the world around him in his snacks, in the sky and sometimes he even sings it aloud. On his first day of school, Saajin is excited to meet his new classmates, but things take a turn when the teacher mispronounces his name as Say-jin and he is not sure how--or (...) if he should--correct her. After trying to live with the different version of his name for a while and some thoughtful conversations with his family about the meaning behind it, Saajin realizes the importance of reclaiming his name and embracing his identity. This empowering story, accompanied by energetic and vibrant art by Samrath Kaur, will resonate with any reader who has ever felt misunderstood. (shrink)

This paper studies the uses of proper names within a communication-theoretic setting, looking at both the conditions that govern the use of a name by a speaker and those involved in the correct interpretation of the name by her audience. The setting in which these conditions are investigated is provided by an extension of Discourse Representation Theory, MSDRT, in which mental states are represented as combinations of propositional attitudes and entity representations . The first half of the paper presents the (...) features of this framework that are needed to understand its application to the account of names that follows. N-labelled entity representations, where N is a proper name, play a pivotal part in this account: A speaker must have an N-labelled ER in order to be in a position to use a name N, and the interpreter must either have such a representation, or else construct one as part of his interpretation. The paper distinguishes different types of name uses in terms of what they presuppose about the role of N-labelled ERs on the side of the interpreter. (shrink)

The name of the second author was incorrect in the initial online publication. The original article has been corrected.

In the original publication of the article, the author name in the seventh reference in the reference section has been misspelled. Now the same has been provided in this correction.

The authors would like to correct a misspelling in the name of one of the authors due to a typographical error. The name should read Atur Turakhia, not Artur Turakhia. This does not change the conclusions or interpretations presented.

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. The fourth author’s name is Bianca Crewe, not Bianca Crew. The original article has been corrected.

We investigate a new paradigm in the context of learning in the limit, namely, learning correction grammars for classes of computably enumerable (c.e.) languages. Knowing a language may feature a representation of it in terms of two grammars. The second grammar is used to make corrections to the first grammar. Such a pair of grammars can be seen as a single description of (or grammar for) the language. We call such grammars correction grammars. Correction grammars capture the (...) observable fact that people do correct their linguistic utterances during their usual linguistic activities. We show that learning correction grammars for classes of c.e. languages in the TxtEx-model (i.e., converging to a single correct correction grammar in the limit) is sometimes more powerful than learning ordinary grammars even in the TxtBe-model (where the learner is allowed to converge to infinitely many syntactically distinct but correct conjectures in the limit). For each n ≥ 0, there is a similar learning advantage, again in learning correction grammars for classes of c.e. languages, but where we compare learning correction grammars that make n + 1 corrections to those that make n corrections. The concept of a correction grammar can be extended into the constructive transfinite, using the idea of counting-down from notations for transfinite constructive ordinals. This transfinite extension can also be conceptualized as being about learning Ershov-descriptions for c.e. languages. For u a notation in Kleene's general system $(O,\, < _o )$ of ordinal notations for constructive ordinals, we introduce the concept of an u-correction grammar, where u is used to bound the number of corrections that the grammar is allowed to make. We prove a general hierarchy result: if u and v are notations for constructive ordinals such that $u\, < _o \,v$ , then there are classes of c.e. languages that can be TxtEx-learned by conjecturing v-correction grammars but not by conjecturing u-correction grammars. Surprisingly, we show that— above "ω-many" corrections—it is not possible to strengthen the hierarchy: TxtEx-learning u-correction grammars of classes of c.e. languages, where u is a notation in O for any ordinal, can be simulated by TxtBe-learning ω-correction grammars, where ω is any notation for the smallest infinite ordinal ω. (shrink)

In the original publication of an article the name “Idhe” occurs incorrectly including in the very beginning, in the title of the review. Now the correct name has been published in this correction.

Saul Kripke’s paradoxical argument in Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982) has generated an extravagant number of responses. A major debate prompted by this book has focused on the plausibility and role of the supposed normative character of meaning; the argument itself is often taken to rely on the assumption that meaning is irreducibly normative. Following Boghossian (1989), the normativity of meaning has been understood as closely tied to the existence of semantic correctness conditions. After a brief introduction to (...) the background of the debate, this work will focus on whether the normativity of meaning may be better understood as stemming from a different type of correctness, namely linguistic correctness. Linguistic correctness differs from semantic correctness insofar as it is related to conventional, and not truth-functional, meaning. I will begin by clarifying some of the features of linguistic correctness. First, I will outline some reasons why the distinction between linguistic and semantic correctness should be maintained. Then, I will anticipate a possible criticism and argue that linguistic correctness does not belong to the domain of pragmatics, as it is relevant to our understanding of conventional meaning. Finally, I will try to show that linguistic “oughts” are constitutive of meaning. Having established these basic features of linguistic correctness, I will investigate whether the fact that it is constitutive of meaning can vindicate the idea that meaning is robustly, irreducibly normative. By applying arguments from the realm of moral philosophy – within which, too, there have been attempts to show that constitutive facts can give rise to categorical moral norms – I will argue that linguistic correctness cannot give rise to categorical semantic norms. Linguistic correctness may be, nevertheless, a useful tool for explaining some of our intuitions about meaning. (shrink)

Christian Doppler, an Austrian physicist, described in 1842 the apparent change in frequency of a wave when motion of the source or the observer is involved. Named after him, this change in observational frequencies is known as the Doppler Effect. The formula for calculating the frequency change is taught in universities, textbooks, Youtube, and on the internet. Understanding the Doppler effect is used in applications such as radar. Yet, the formula is wrong, yielding a different result when applying the same (...) velocity, once to the source, then to the observer. This article will show the formula, the error, the correction to the formula, and how it disproves Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity. (shrink)

In the original publication of the article, the name “Tamsin Phillipa Paige” has been incorrectly cited throughout the article as “Tasmin Phillipa Page”. The correct name should read as Tamsin Phillipa Paige.

Was there such a person as Lewis Carroll? An affirmative answer is suggested by the thought that Lewis Carroll was Charles Dodgson, and since there was certainly such a person as Charles Dodgson, there was such a person as Lewis Carroll. A negative answer is suggested by the thought that in arguing thus, the two names ‘Lewis Carroll’ and ‘Charles Dodgson’ are being inappropriately treated as though they were completely on a par: a pseudonym is, after all, a false or (...) fictitious name. Perhaps we should say instead that there was really no such person as Lewis Carroll, but that when Charles Dodgson published under that name, he was pretending that there was, and further, pretending that the works in question formed part of the literary output of this pretendedly real individual. Whether or not this is correct for the case of ‘Lewis Carroll’, I will be suggesting that an account of this second style–a fictionalist account, for short–is appropriate for at least a good many pseudonyms. We shall get to reasons why it might nonetheless not be especially appropriate in the present case in due course: one advantage of the ‘Lewis Carroll’/‘Charles Dodgson’ example, such qualms notwithstanding, is that everyone is familiar not only with both names but with which of them is the pseudonym. Another is that, as we shall have occasion to observe below, Dodgson himself had some interesting views on this particular case of pseudonymy. (shrink)

This paper addresses early modern botanical nomenclature, the practices of identifying and publishing synonyms in particular, as a collaborative “information science”. Before Linnaean nomenclature became the lingua franca of botany, it was inevitable that, over time, the same plant was given several names by different people, which created confusion and made communication among botanists increasingly difficult. What names counted as synonyms and actually referred to the same plant had to be identified by meticulously comparing living and dried specimens of this (...) and similar plants as well as relevant illustrations und descriptions in the botanical literature. Identifying synonyms required and generated an ever-expanding mass of data, which was used continuously to adjust and rearrange plant names. Despite the greatest care, judgements on synonyms were not definitive, which meant that published lists of synonyms for individual species of plants were in a state of flux and had to be constantly updated, corrected, and rewritten. This required long-term international collaborations, the accumulated results of which were not published once but consecutively, in augmented and corrected editions of a book. As a result of this networked approach, synonyms are networked names that reflect the epistemic interconnectedness of the botanical community. These questions will be discussed with a focus on the Dutch botanist Johannes Burman, who placed synonyms at the centre of his work as posthumous editor—and co-author—of the botanical manuscripts that were left behind by other botanists. (shrink)

In Naming and Necessity Saul Kripke offers a number of arguments in order to show that no descriptivist theory of proper names is correct. We present here a certain version of descriptivist theory -we will characterize it as an individual-use reference-fixing descriptivist theory that appeals to descriptions regarding how a name is used by other speakers. This kind of theory can successfully answer all the objections Kripke puts forward in Naming and Necessity. Such sort of descriptivist theory is (...) furthermore compatible with the picture about reference that Kripke presents. It also seems to be able to account for some phenomena that are difficult to explain on Kripke’s view (the existence of informative identity statements and true negative singular existential statements). (shrink)

Close attention to the meanings of certain sentences--Counterfactual-Identity sentences--Reveals that no theory in which proper names are simple designators can be a complete and correct semantics of english. An account of connotation is outlined according to which connotation varies with the linguistic environment and with the context of utterance: this accounts for the fact that no proper name is synonymous with a cluster of descriptions.

In his Oratio Obliqua, Oratio Recta, Recanati maintains two main theses regarding meta-representational sentences embedding allegedly empty proper names. The first thesis concerns both belief sentences embedding allegedly empty names and (internal) meta-fictional sentences (i.e., sentences of the form “in the story S, p”) embedding fictional, hence again allegedly empty, names. It says that such sentences primarily have fictive truth-conditions: that is, conditions for their fictional truth. The second thesis is that a fictive ascription of a singular belief, assigning to (...) a certain metarepresentational sentence fictive truth-conditions, amounts to the factive ascription of a pseudo-singular belief, assigning to that very sentence factual truth-conditions as well. In what follows, I will first try to show that the first thesis is definitely correct only for a rather limited range of cases, i.e. cases of meta-representational sentences embedding absolutely empty proper names. Second, I will claim not only that that the notion of a pseudo-singular belief is not so clear as it may seem, but also that, for those cases for which the first thesis is correct, we do not really need the sentences involved to also have factive truth-conditions. (shrink)

We examined all 208 closed cases involving official findings of research misconduct published by the US Office of Research Integrity from 1992 to 2011 to determine how often scientists mention in a retraction or correction notice that there was an ethical problem with an associated article. 75 of these cases cited at least one published article affected by misconduct for a total of 174 articles. For 127 of these 174, we found both the article and a retraction or (...) class='Hi'>correction statement. Since eight of the 127 published statements consisted of simply the word ‘retracted,’ our analysis focused on the remaining 119 for which a more detailed retraction or correction was published. Of these 119 statements, only 41.2% mentioned ethics at all (and only 32.8% named a specific ethical problem such as fabrication, falsification or plagiarism), whereas the other 58.8% described the reason for retraction or correction as error, loss of data or replication failure when misconduct was actually at issue. Among the published statements in response to an official finding of misconduct (within the time frame studied), the proportion that mentioned ethics was significantly higher in recent years than in earlier years, as was the proportion that named a specific problem. To promote research integrity, scientific journals should consider adopting policies concerning retractions and corrections similar to the guidelines developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics. Funding agencies and institutions should take steps to ensure that articles affected by misconduct are retracted or corrected. (shrink)

The relationship between thought, language, and the world is an intimate one. When we have an idea or thought about the world and we wish to express that idea or thought to others we utter a sentence or make a statement. If the statement correctly describes the world then it is true. Moreover, it seems as though our ability to have more complex or sophisticated thoughts about the world increases as the complexity of our language or our ability to use (...) the language increases. Understanding the complex relationship between language, thought, and the world is one of the central aims of philosophy. This book is an attempt to increase our understanding of this complex relationship by focusing on certain philosophical issues that arise from our ability to refer to objects in the world though the use of language. In particular, it is an attempt to solve the puzzles of reference and belief that Frege and Russell presented within the context of a theory of direct reference for proper names. (shrink)

This article addresses the longstanding puzzle of what Cratylus’ silence means. It argues that Plato’s Cratylus goes silent to convey his position regarding the correctness of names, and it does this by demonstrating how Cratylus is silent in imitation of a literary trope for portraying the significance of a character’s silence. The philosophical payoff of this imitation is that, for Cratylus, correctness consists not in saying, but in showing.

Naming common odors is a surprisingly difficult task: Odors are frequently misnamed. Little is known about the linguistic properties of odor misnamings. We test whether odor misnamings of old adults carry information about olfactory perception and its connection to lexical-semantic processing. We analyze the olfactory–semantic content of odor source naming failures in a large sample of older adults in Sweden (n = 2479; age 58–100 years). We investigate whether linguistic factors and semantic proximity to the target odor name (...) predict how odors are misnamed, and how these factors relate to overall odor identification performance. We also explore the primary semantic dimensions along which misnamings are distributed. We find that odor misnamings consist of surprisingly many vague and unspecific terms, such as category names (e.g., fruit) or abstract or evaluative terms (e.g., sweet). Odor misnamings are often strongly associated with the correct name, capturing properties such as its category or other abstract features. People are also biased toward misnaming odors with high-frequency terms that are associated with olfaction or gustation. Linguistic properties of odor misnamings and their semantic proximity to the target odor name predict odor identification performance, suggesting that linguistic processing facilitates odor identification. Further, odor misnamings constitute an olfactory–semantic space that is similar to the olfactory vocabulary of English. This space is primarily differentiated along pleasantness, edibility, and concreteness dimensions. Odor naming failures thus contain plenty of information about semantic odor knowledge. (shrink)

Regrettably, in the original version of this article the name of one of the authors was spelt incorrectly. "Li Yan Hsu" should be "Li Yang Hsu".

In the original publication of the article, the corresponding author name was inadvertently missed out. The corresponding author name is ‘‘Fergus Green’’. The original article has been corrected.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Theopompos Not Theophrastos:Correcting an Attribution in Plutarch Demosthenes 14.4Brad L. CookModern reconstructions of Theopompos' presentation of Demosthenes are based on five passages, all of which are found in Plutarch's Demosthenes.1 Of these passages, two are favorable to the orator and two are starkly negative, with the fifth being neutral.2 In the negative passages Theopompos attacked the orator with such harshness, branding him unstable, unjust, and unworthy, that the two (...) favorable passages are often overshadowed in modern reconstructions of Theopompos' opinion of Demosthenes.3 Moreover, some scholars, both in the past and again recently, go one step further and argue that one of the favorable texts, Demosthenes 14.4 (F 327), should be attributed to Theophrastos. I argue that the attribution to Theophrastos in this passage is the mistake of a meddlesome scribe in one manuscript and that the reading "Theopompos" of most manuscripts should be accepted. This means that what little survives of Theopompos' opinion of the orator remains complex and not simply negative. The changes made to the other positive text, Demosthenes 18.2 (F 328), I hope to deal with on another occasion.In Demosthenes 14.4 (F 327), Demosthenes stands up to defy the cruel whim of the Athenian mob:[End Page 537]And, in addition,4 Theopompos recounts that when the Athenians were proposing him for a certain prosecution then, when he would not listen, made a commotion, he rose and said "As a counsellor, o men of Athens, even if you don't want to, you will use me; but as a false accuser, not even if you want to."The difficulty with this passage is that not all the manuscripts attribute the statement to Theopompos. The primary dissenting manuscript is Madrid 4685 (14th c.), previously known as Codex Matritensis 55 and commonly cited as N.5 Modern editions of Plutarch follow N and print "," whereas works on Theopompos follow the other manuscripts and print "." This disagreement has not received thorough examination in recent publications.6 A brief review of the arguments [End Page 538] for and against the reading of N, considering first the intrinsic character of the manuscript and then its standing in the manuscript tradition will indicate that we should reject the reading of N and keep the attribution to Theopompos.Every known manuscript and every printed text of Demosthenes 14.4 read "" until 1880. In that year Charles Graux published his examination of N and its reading in Demosthenes 14.4 of "."7 N consists of two parts. The first part contains Nikias–Crassus (the Nikias is from 24.2), Alcibiades–Coriolanus, Demosthenes–Cicero, and Agesilaos–Pompey.8 This first part of N has many readings that are distinct from the other manuscripts, and Graux argued that these readings are superior to those of the other manuscripts, especially in the Demosthenes–Cicero.9 Graux therefore not only accepted "." in Demosthenes 14.4 because of the readings in N but also supported "" by claiming that Theopompos was always hostile to Demosthenes and would never say anything favorable to him; thus Graux saw the reading "" in the other manuscripts as an error in transmission.10 [End Page 539]Response to the Madrid manuscript and Graux's high opinion of it was generally favorable.11 Several scholars, however, rejected Graux's unrestrained praise of N and argued that among the many improved readings there were interpolations.12 Gudeman complained that the scribe of N, a "semilearned librarius," was particularly intrusive with proper names and altered and interpolated the received text. Gudeman listed some of these intrusions in Demosthenes and Cicero; of note are Demosthenes 5.7, 10.3, and 23.6 as well as Cicero 36.7.13 In Demosthenes 5.7 Plutarch attributes a certain detail to Hermippos. N has a semieducated but incorrect gloss on Hermippos, calling him. But the Hermippos here is certainly Hermippos of Smyrna of the third century B.C., a writer of Lives, not the homonymous fifth–century poet.14 In [End Page 540] Demosthenes 10.2 Plutarch quotes Ariston of Chios who records an anecdote of Theophrastos about the orator. At Demosthenes 10.3 Plutarch continues, ""; N replaces with. But... (shrink)

Courts of criminal jurisdiction commonly allow for mitigating circumstances when determining the punishment of convicted wrongdoers. This paper looks at some of the moral issues raised by mitigation, and asks in particular whether the damage that arraignment or conviction does to the good name of a previously well-reputed person may ever reasonably be considered as a circumstance justifying the imposition of a penalty lighter than is standard for the offence. It is argued that making an allowance for the loss of (...) good name is sometimes required by justice and that a number of principled and practical objections that have been raised against the practice are unconvincing. Key Words: celebrity • justice • law • mitigation • punishment • reputation. (shrink)

In some ways that have been largely ignored, ethnic-group names might be similar to names of other kinds. If they are, for instance, analogous to proper names, then a correct semantic account of the latter could throw some light on how the meaning of ethnic-group names should be construed. Of course, proper names, together with definite descriptions, belong to the class of singular terms, and an influential view on the semantics of such terms was developed, at the turn of the (...) nineteenth century, from discussion of a puzzle about some differences in the cognitive value of certain statements of identity. Clearly, that a = a (e.g., that Mark Twain was Mark Twain) is trivial, and its truth could be known a priori, just by thinking. On the other hand, that a = b (e.g., that Mark Twain was Samuel Clemens) is of course informative and knowable only by empirical investigation. To solve this puzzle, Frege famously proposed that those variations in the cognitive value of statements of identity “can arise only if the difference between the signs corresponds to a difference in the mode of presentation of that which is designated.” On his view, although in the above statements of identity, the singular terms, ‘a,’ and, ‘b,’ may designate the same thing, they do so with different senses, or under different modes of presentation of that object. When the puzzling statements involving ‘a’ and ‘b’ are true, they may then be said to have exactly the same reference. But since those singular terms pick out the object of reference differently (i.e., under different senses or modes of presentation), therefore the cognitive value of these statements also varies significantly. On this account, then, the reference of a non-vacuous proper name is secured by the name’s sense, or mode of presentation, which constitutes its semantic content. And given that Fregeans (here under the influence of Russell) cash out that sense as consisting in whatever concept (or cluster of concepts) could be uniquely associated with that name, they might hold, for example, that the property of being the author of Huckleberry Finn, and that of being an American who lived his early life in Hannibal, Missouri, and later became a famous writer, amount to the senses of ‘Mark Twain,’ and ‘Samuel Clemens,’ respectively.. (shrink)

According to relativized transcendentalism, the meaning of expressions, consisting in their intension and extension, is provided by a set of (syntactical, semantical and pragmatical) rules which prescribe their correct use in a context. We interpret a linguistic system by fixing a domain (of the values of the variables) and by assigning exactly one object to each individual constant and n-tuples of objects to predicates. The theory says that proper names have a purely referential role and that their meaning is therefore (...) limited to the individual they designate. Since all singular terms must refer to exactly one referent there are no so-called empty names. A proper name is defined as a syntactically unstructured term in a language L used in a context C such that the truth condition for a sentence (Φα in L and C consists in the fact that, in accord with the rule which maps items from the set of individual constants into the set of objects, a refers to an object x and x satisfies Φ. It is shown how - by using this theory - puzzling problems concerning Frege's morning star and evening star, allegedly empty names, changes of name etc. can easily be solved. (shrink)

According to relativized transcendentalism, the meaning of expressions, consisting in their intension and extension, is provided by a set of (syntactical, semantical and pragmatical) rules which prescribe their correct use in a context. We interpret a linguistic system by fixing a domain (of the values of the variables) and by assigning exactly one object to each individual constant and n-tuples of objects to predicates. The theory says that proper names have a purely referential role and that their meaning is therefore (...) limited to the individual they designate. Since all singular terms must refer to exactly one referent there are no so-called empty names. A proper name is defined as a syntactically unstructured term in a language L used in a context C such that the truth condition for a sentence (Φα in L and C consists in the fact that, in accord with the rule which maps items from the set of individual constants into the set of objects, a refers to an object x and x satisfies Φ. It is shown how - by using this theory - puzzling problems concerning Frege's morning star and evening star, allegedly empty names, changes of name etc. can easily be solved. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"Divine Person" as Analogous NameDylan SchraderThe position of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Thomistic school that human beings cannot name God and creatures univocally is well-known.1 This includes the term "person," which is predicated of the Trinity, of angels, and of human beings truly but analogically. In contrast, it might seem that, when speaking of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in respect of one another, "divine person" must (...) be univocal.2 [End Page 217]The seventeenth-century Discalced Carmelites of Salamanca (the Salmanticenses) thought otherwise. They argued that the ratio3 of "divine person" is common to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit not univocally, but analogically, and that this follows from established Thomistic principles.4 Their position makes for an interesting case study in religious language, as the Salmanticenses apply a highly developed material logic to the central mystery of Christian faith.Words, Concepts, and ThingsIn On Interpretation (Peri hermeneias), Aristotle explains that words immediately signify concepts and, by means of concepts, things.5 This so-called "semantic triangle" makes it easy to misunderstand univocity and analogy if we do not first determine how a particular thinker conceives of the relationship among words, concepts, and things. To discern how the Salmanticenses understood this relationship, it is most helpful to look to their counterparts, the Discalced Carmelites at neighboring Alcalá de Henares outside Madrid, commonly called the Complutenses.6 The Complutenses' Artium cursus [End Page 218] serves as philosophical handmaid to the Salmanticenses' Cursus theologicus, and is therefore essential for correctly interpreting the latter's claims about grammar, logic, and metaphysics.7To begin with the verbal element, this is how the Complutenses, following a fairly typical account, explain the difference between a vocal sound, a name, and a term: A vocal sound (vox) is speech considered simply as an audible phenomenon, the pure sound wave. A name (nomen) is a vocal sound that signifies something. A term (terminus) is a name insofar as it serves as one end of a proposition.8 Terms may be purely mental (as when a proposition is conceived of in the mind alone), or they may be spoken or written.Names and terms are useful precisely because they signify. The Complutenses define "signifying" (significare) as "representing to the knowing power something other than [the signifier] itself."9 A name or term points beyond itself so that something else can become known to the mind through that name or term.When it comes to spoken (or written) terms, a term is "common" (communis) if it signifies more than one thing. Common terms may be "non-transcendent" (non transcendens) or "transcendent" (transcendens). Common terms are non-transcendent if they are predicated of certain things (such as "man" or "animal"). They are transcendent if they are predicated of all things. Six terms are usually acknowledged to be transcendent: "being" (ens); "thing" (res); "true" (verum); "good" (bonum); "something" (aliquid); and "one" (unum).10 [End Page 219]Here it is necessary to distinguish first and second "intention" (intentio).11 The Carmelites take "first intention" properly to be the act whereby the intellect knows things in accord with what is in them as realities.12 This act of the intellect is the "formal first intention," while the thing known is the "objective first intention." A name signifying a thing in this way is a "name of first intention."But the intellect can also attend to those things not in accord with what is in them from their own perspective as realities, but instead with reference to their character as acted upon by the intellect itself. This act is called "second intention."13 An example of first intention is the intellect's knowing that "man is an animal," whereas an example of second intention is its knowing that "'animal' is a genus."The Complutenses stress that first and second intention are, properly speaking, acts of the intellect—distinct ways of attending to what it knows—even though logicians often use "first intention" and "second intention" as shorthand to refer to the objects of these acts.14 In fact, because objective second intentions (the objects of the intellect's second-intentional acts) are beings of reason... (shrink)

Kaplan’s solution to the indexical version of Frege’s Puzzle in terms of the character of linguistic expressions has been greatly influential and much discussed. Many philosophers regard it as being correct, or at least as being on the right track. However, little has been said about how character is supposed to apply to proper names, and how it could account for the name version of the Puzzle. In this paper I want to fill this gap. I sketch some solutions to (...) the name version of Frege’s Puzzle in terms of character, and argue that all of them are flawed in some way: they are either semantically implausible or fail to account for all relevant phenomena. (shrink)

Kaplan’s (1989a) solution to the indexical version of Frege’s Puzzle in terms of the character of linguistic expressions has been greatly influential and much discussed. Many philosophers regard it as being correct, or at least as being on the right track. However, little has been said about how character is supposed to apply to proper names, and how it could account for the name version of the Puzzle. In this paper I want to fill this gap. I sketch some solutions (...) to the name version of Frege’s Puzzle in terms of character, and argue that all of them are flawed in some way: they are either semantically implausible or fail to account for all relevant phenomena. Keywords: reference, Frege’s Puzzle, proper names, cognitive value, philosophy of language. (shrink)

Yes, Aristotle was named ‘Aristotle’. I want to show that since ‘Aristotle’ is a proper name, this is true by definition. My theory of proper names is a version of Russell's, a theory that a name is equivalent in meaning to definite description which single out the individual, if there is one, to which the name refers. Braithwaite at one time said that the proper name ‘Aristotle’ meant the description ‘the individual named “Aristotle” ’. This theory, which makes it contradictory (...) to suppose that Aristotle was not named ‘Aristotle’ I will argue is the correct one. This will involve some explanation of what naming is, which I will carry out in the first two sections. My contention is that naming is an activity that can be done either explicitly or non-explicitly. And names can be conferred either on the basis of acquaintance or by associating the name with descriptions. (shrink)

Common names, for Mill, have both connotation and denotation. Thus ‘horse’ connotes certain properties, and the name ‘horse’ denotes the things that have those properties. By contrast, proper names have no connotations; they do not denote in virtue of the possession of certain properties by their denotations, but so to speak, directly. Thus Socrates received his name by being dubbed ‘Socrates’; and he might just as well have been given any other name. This contrast is misleading. After all, we might (...) have named horses by another name, too; e.g., ‘cow’ or ‘Pferd’. However, once the convention by which they are called ‘horses’ is established, it is not correct to call them ‘cows’. A horse is not a cow. Just so Socrates could have been named ‘Plato’ or ‘Moses’, but once he has been named ‘Socrates’, it is just as wrong to call him ‘Plato’ as it is to call a horse a ‘cow’. What is correctly called a ‘horse’ is so called in virtue of its possession of certain properties, just as what is called ‘Socrates’ is so called in virtue of his possession of the requisite properties. From this point of view, proper names are words like any others. (Leonard Linsky, Oblique Contexts, University of Chicago Press 1983, pp. 16f.). (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the semantics of proper names from two different points of view. As everyboy knows, there is a standard account of the semantics of proper names - it is Kripke's account, essentially. And there is a certain amount of neuropsychological research on proper names, or on the mental representation, or processing of proper names -not too small an amount, at this point. There is a certain amount of evidence, and there are a few theories, none of (...) them regarded as definitive, if I read the state of the art correctly. It may be thought that such neuropsychological work is simply irrelevant to the concerns of semantics, and vice-versa. For semantics is concerned with the truth conditions of sentences per se, and neuropsychology has nothing to say about that; neuropsychology, on the other hand, is concerned with several mental performances involving proper names -retrieving them from memory, or using them as cues to a person's face- and with their place within semantic memory, and semantics has nothing to say about that. The truth conditions that semantics is after are defined on the ground of a metaphysical notion of truth, whereas the only notion of truth that can be relevant to psychology is an epistemological notion: i.e. psychology may be interested in, and may have something to say about the procedures by which we come to regard a sentence as true, not about the conditions on which it is "objectively" true. (shrink)

Veltman’s test semantics and developments thereof reject the canon about semantic contents and attitude ascriptions in favor of dynamic alternatives. According to these theories the semantic content of a sentence is not a proposition, but a context change potential (CCP). Similarly, beliefs are not taken to be relations between agents and propositions, but agents and CCPs. These deviations from the canon come at the cost of an elegant explanation about the correctness of belief. Standardly, it is taken that the content (...) of a belief is correct just in case the content of that belief is true. The proponent of the test semantics cannot appeal to this explanation since they hold that certain contents, namely epistemically modalized contents, do not express propositions, and are neither true nor false. After motivating the need for an account of the correctness of belief within the dynamic framework, I argue that the few extant accounts in the literature are unsatisfactory. A novel account is proposed that avoids the problems of competing views. (shrink)

This paper is about an aspect of philosophic life, showing, in the case of one Platonic dialogue in particular, that the texts that later Platonists employed in a quasi-scriptural capacity could influence their lives in important ways. The Cratylus was seen as addressing the question of how names could be regarded as 'correct', raising the role of the name-giver to the level of the law-giver. It begins with the question of how a personal name could be correct. The ancient text (...) that offers us most evidence of the philosophic manipulation of proper names is Porphyry's Life of Plotinus, which makes it quite clear that the revision of individuals' names, and in particular the giving of a Greek name to those of non-Greek origins, had become a regular practice. The name, it seems, was intended to capture something of the actual nature of the individual in question. There is evidence that the practice goes back to the age of Lucian, and specifically to the circle of Numenius, whose own name is also that of a bird. His religious dialogue Hoopoe suggests that there was something special in bird-names; Lucian's Gallus reincarnates Pythagoras as a bird, while his Death of Peregrinus has the eponymous sham philosopher ultimately adopting a bird-name too. Curiously, the final name that Porphyry bears also closely recalls the name of a bird. This may be explained as the apt naming of one who rose to the highest philosophic vision in accordance with the 'flight of the mind' passage in Plato's Phaedrus. (shrink)

Sex offenders are sometimes offered or required to undergo pharmacological interventions intended to diminish their sex drive (anti-libidinal interventions or ALIs). In this paper, we argue that much of the debate regarding the moral permissibility of ALIs has been founded on an inaccurate assumption regarding their intended purpose—namely, that ALIs are intended solely to realise medical purposes, not correctional goals. This assumption has made it plausible to assert that ALIs may only permissibly be administered to offenders with their valid consent, (...) in line with the approach taken to most other interventions with a medical aim. However, we argue that, contrary to this assumption, the state's intention in relation to at least some ALIs is, at least in part, to achieve correctional objectives. We evaluate two legal regimes for ALI provision—section 645 of the California Penal Code and the mental health regime in England and Wales. In each case, we identify the state's implicit purpose in imposing ALIs and argue that the Californian and English regimes both serve as counterexamples to the view that ALIs are intended solely for medical purposes. While the moral implications of our argument are not straightforward, it raises the question whether consent is required for permissible imposition of ALIs, and more generally, whether the moral permissibility of crime-preventing interventions using medical means should be assessed against the standards of medical ethics or against those of criminal justice ethics. (shrink)

John Burgess has recently argued that Timothy Williamson’s attempts to avoid the objection that his theory of vagueness is based on an untenable metaphysics of content are unsuccessful. Burgess’s arguments are important, and largely correct, but there is a mistake in the discussion of one of the key examples. In this note I provide some alternative examples and use them to repair the mistaken section of the argument.

This paper discusses Claytons theory on Comprehensive enrolment of children by their parents. This paper supports Claytons view that we should not enrol children. However, Cameron raises objections which cause problems for the application of this framework. Namely, the cost of giving up a belief, choices made for us in childhood and the application of the PRR (Public Reason Restriction) to the way the parent-child relationship should function. Some modifications to Clayton’s framework and further debate is required to fully address (...) these issues. The conclusion is that we should be able to enrol children in activities that would be of low future cost if rejected but we should not enrol children in activities of high future rejection cost. This enrolment is tempered by the statement “the fundamental motivation of parents should be to conform with public reason i.e. to treat their children in accordance with norms that are capable of acceptance by any free and equal person”. As Clayton states: “I am not ruling out the imposition of a comprehensive doctrine on the child. I am rejecting its imposition in the absence of an argument from public reason”. The structure of this essay is as follows: In Section One I explore Clayton’s theories of end state autonomy and autonomy as a precondition, I then look at the plausible relationship between the state-citizen and child-parent relationships. The Public Reason Restriction is then examined in connection with comprehensive enrolment. In the next section, I look at objections to Clayton’s view from Cameron and any subsequent replies to this from Clayton. I then conclude by discussing the differences between the two views and add my own view to this. (shrink)

Using both quantitative and qualitative approaches, this study investigated the preference of learners of English as a foreign language for four types of written corrective feedback, which are often discussed in the literature, on grammatical, lexical, orthographic, and pragmatic errors. In particular, it concerned whether such preference is influenced by two learner variables, namely, foreign language enjoyment and proficiency level. The preference for selective vs. comprehensive WCF was also examined. The participants in the study were 117 University students in a (...) Thai EFL context. Analysis of questionnaire data revealed a tendency for learners to prefer more explicit types of WCF for most error types, irrespective of their proficiency and FLE level. High proficiency level learners rated less explicit WCF types as useful to some degree, whereas their low proficiency level counterparts did not. Similar results were found for the two FLE groups. Besides, the FLE level seemed to play a role in perceiving the value of WCF in terms of scope. The results of follow-up interviews showed that the linguistic features of learners' first language, existing knowledge of the target language, affective feelings, and teacher's role were the main factors contributing to variation in learners' preferences. Possible pedagogical implications are discussed. (shrink)

According to standard philosophical and clinical understandings, pain is an essentially mental phenomenon. In a challenge to this standard conception, a recent burst of empirical work in experimental philosophy, such as that by Justin Sytsma and Kevin Reuter, purports to show that people ordinarily conceive of pain as an essentially bodily phenomenon—specifically, a quality of bodily disturbance. In response to this bodily view, other recent experimental studies have provided evidence that the ordinary concept of pain is more complex than previously (...) assumed: rather than tracking only bodily or only mental aspects of pain, the ordinary concept of pain can actually track either of these aspects. The polyeidic analysis of the folk concept of pain, as proposed by Emma Borg et al., captures this complexity. Whereas previous empirical support for the polyeidic view has focused on the context-sensitivity of the folk concept of pain, here we discuss individual differences in people’s ‘pain priors’—namely, their standing tendencies to think of pain in relatively mind-centric or body-centric ways. We describe a preliminary empirical study and present a small number of findings, which will be explored further in future work. The results we discuss are part of a larger programme of work which seeks to integrate philosophical pain research into clinical practice. For example, we hypothesise that variations in how patients with chronic pain are thinking about pain could help predict their responses to treatment. (shrink)

Do the terms “logical positivism” and “logical empiricism” mark a philosophically real and significant distinction? There is, of course, no doubt that the first term designates the group of philosophers known as the Vienna Circle, headed by Moritz Schlick and including Rudolf Carnap, Herbert Feigl, Philipp Frank, Hans Hahn, Otto Neurath, Friedrich Waismann and others. What is debatable, however, is whether the name “logical positivism” correctly distinguishes their doctrines from related ones called “logical empiricism” that emerged from the Berlin Society (...) for Scientific Philosophy around Hans Reichenbach which included Walter Dubislav, Kurt Grelling, Kurt Lewin and a young Carl Gustav Hempel.1 The .. (shrink)

How should we understand the categorical distinction Aristotle draws between praxis and poesis? If this distinction gains its meaning only in a specific social and cultural context, what does this tell us about another famous Aristotelian distinction, namely, the distinction he draws between two types of justice: corrective and distributive? In particular, what is the orienting role of this distinction (and what should we make of this) in accounts of justice based on Kantian right and accounts based on Rawls’ principles (...) of justice? (shrink)

In March of 2014 Nature Publishing Group, responsible for the publication of journals such as Nature and ScientificAmerican, was subject to criticism for its requirement that contributing authors waive their moral rights in relation to their published articles. Some of the rights included under the umbrella term ‘moral rights’ are the right to have any copies of one’s work reproduced accurately and without alteration; the right to the accurate attribution of one’s work under one’s own name; and the right not (...) to have the work of others falsely attributed to oneself. The Nature Publishing case, from the criticism it sparked to the group’s own response, highlights a category error that occurs when moral rights are conceived of as property rights. Rather, moral rights are natural, non-proprietary rights. In correcting this category error it becomes evident that moral rights offences are not property offences, such as theft, but fraud offences—like plagiarism and forgery. Subsequently, whereas property rights, by definition, are able to be transferred or waived, it can be shown that no justification can be made for treating moral rights as transferrable or able to be waived. (shrink)

Recently Saul Kripke has drawn attention to a puzzle about belief and proper names, a puzzle of which philosophers have been aware for a long time, but which has never been completely resolved. Kripke gives a new, bilingual illustration of the puzzle:1 Pierre, while living in his native France, learns much about the city of London, which he calls ‘Londres,’ and comes to believe something which he would express in French with the words, ‘Londres est jolie.’ Using standard principle of (...) translation, it seems correct for us to say, ‘Pierre believes that London is pretty.’ Suppose however that Pierre learns English, travels to London, learns that the name of the city he is in is ‘London,’ and sincerely and comprehendingly asserts, ‘London is not pretty.’ On the basis of his assertion, it seems correct for us to say, ‘Pierre believes that London is not pretty.’ But suppose he does not realize that ‘Londres’ is also a name for the city he is in, so he retains the belief which he would express with the French words, ‘Londres est jolie.’ Then, by the same principles of translation as before, it seems that we are still justified in saying, ‘Pierre believes that London is pretty.’ But now we have attributed to Pierre contradictory beliefs, and that does not seem acceptable, since Pierre has committed no logical oversight.Kripke believes that this is the same puzzle as one that arises in older, monolingual examples, such as that used by Quine: suppose Tom believes that Cicero denounced Cataline. Since ‘Tully’ is another name for Cicero, it seems acceptable to paraphrase his belief and say, ‘Tom believes that Tully denounced Cataline.’ But suppose Tom does not realize that Cicero and Tully are the same person, and suppose, in fact, that he sincerely and comprehendingly asserts, ‘Tully did not denounce Cataline.’ Then it also seems acceptable to say, on the basis of Tom’s assertion, ‘Tom believes that Tully did not denounce Cataline.’ But now we have attributed to Tom contradictory beliefs, and, as in the Pierre example, that does not seem acceptable. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Undercutter, the Woodcutter, and Greek Demon Names Ending in -tomos (Hom. Hymn to Dem 228-29)Christopher A. FaraoneEarly in the homeric Hymn to Demeter, the disguised goddess, when offered employment as a nurse for a young child, responds with the following boast about her knowledge of protective magic (lines 227-30):1228 M: Ignarra, DelatteI will nurse him, and I do not expect—through any weak-mindedness of his nurse—that witchcraft or an (...) "undercutter" will harm him, for I know an antidote far stronger than a "woodcutter" and I know an excellent defense against woeful witchcraft.Scholars have long noted that in her boast the goddess seems to imitate a magical charm. Richardson (1974) points out, for instance, the peculiar "incantatory" character of these verses, signaled by such devices as the repetition of words and sounds, chiasmus, and the anaphora of oida—a word that elsewhere in epic is limited to special kinds of song, for example, that of the Muses (Th. 27-28) or the Sirens (Od. 12. 189-91). In addition [End Page 1] to these general features, Paul Maas showed more than fifty years ago that the second line of Demeter's boast is quite similar in structure to the penultimate line of a hexametrical incantation inscribed on a late fourth-or early third-century B.C.E. lead amulet from Phalasarna, Crete:2shall not harm me with ointment or with application or with drink or with incantation.The striking similarities in content (both texts are concerned with protective magic) and form (the identical placement of the words... in a single hexametrical verse) can hardly be coincidental, and, although one can never rule out the possibility that the amulet may be quoting or adapting the language of the hymn, it seems much more likely that Maas is correct in thinking that both depend on an even earlier hexametrical charm.3There is general agreement, then, that Demeter's boast reflects or mimics a protective incantation in both its form and content. There is also a wide consensus that: (1) the words hupotamnon and hulotomos, closely conjoined by chiasmus (), must have similar meanings; and (2) they both refer to agents who "cut the "4 or "cut under" something.5 There has, however, [End Page 2] been a notable lack of agreement on who or what precisely the "undercutter" and the "woodcutter" are. Nearly a century ago T. W. Allen, marshaling a number of cross-cultural parallels, suggested that both were euphemistic names for the worms blamed for toothaches in adults and for teething pains in children.6 In recent years, however, Allen's interpretation has generally been supplanted by Richardson's suggestion (1974, 230) that the terms antitomon, hupotamnon, and hulotomos "must all refer to the same thing, namely the cutting of herbs for magical purposes" and that both hupotamnon and hulotomos probably designate a human agent versed in this special art. Thus he translates line 229 as "I know an antidote more powerful than the herb-cutter, " a rather terse formulation that presumably should be expanded as follows: "I know an antidote more powerful than (the poison that) the herb-cutter (knows)." According to Richardson's reading, then, both "undercutter" and "woodcutter" refer to human agents who may try to poison the baby with noxious herbs, and Demeter's boast contrasts the superior (defensive) herbal lore of wet nurses to that of professional herbalists, who are in fact regularly called root cutters (rhizotomoi). This interpretation is quite reasonable, and in recent years it seems to have ousted Allen's in subsequent editions and translations.7 This judgment may, however, be premature: some recently discovered or reedited magical texts suggest that names ending in - were also used regularly to describe harmful gods or demons who were thought to cause pain by cutting into the human body. I shall therefore attempt here a revised version of Allen's argument, namely that the word hulotomos probably [End Page 3] does not refer to a worm, but rather to a supernatural force or demon who attacks the gums of teething babies. Since there are no parallels for such names in the form or, my... (shrink)