The term 'covert mixed quotation' describes cases in which linguistic material is interpreted in the manner of mixed quotation — that is, used in addition to being mentioned — despite the superficial absence of any commonly recognized conventional devices indicating quotation. After developing a novel theory of mixed quotation, I show that positing covert mixed quotation allows us to give simple and unified treatments of a number of puzzling semantic phenomena, including (...) the projective behavior of conventional implicature items embedded in indirect speech reports and propositional attitude ascriptions, so-called 'c-monsters,' metalinguistic negation, metalinguistic negotiation, and 'in a sense' constructions. (shrink)

The phenomenon of mixed quotation exhibits clear signs of both the apparent transparency of compositional language use and the opacity of pure quotation. I argue that the interpretation of a mixed quotation in- volves the resolution of a metalinguistic presupposition. The leading idea behind my proposal is that a mixed-quoted expression, say, “has an anomalous feature”, means what x referred to with the words ‘has an anomalous feature’. To understand how this solves the paradox, (...) I set up a precise grammatical framework, explicitly connecting various levels of linguistic analysis: phonological forms, categorial syntax, and a dynamic picture of the semantics–pragmatics interface. In this framework I formalize and evaluate a presuppositional account of mixed quotation. Finally, I address the phenomenon of unquotation and argue that it is an essential ingredient for empirically adequate analysis of mixed quotation in natural language. (shrink)

Quotation exhibits characteristics of both use and mention. I argue against the recently popular pragmatic reductions of quotation to mere language use (Recanati 2001), and in favor of a truly hybrid account synthesizing and extending Potts (2007) and Geurts and Maier (2005), using a mention logic and a dynamic semantics with presupposition to establish a context-driven meaning shift. The main advantages are an account of error neutralization and shifted indexicality under quotation. The current paper addresses the problematic (...) data involving quoted non-constituents. (shrink)

It has proved challenging to account for the dual role that a directly quoted part of a 'that'-clause plays in so-called mixed quotation. The Davidsonian account, elaborated by Cappelen and Lepore, handles many cases well; but it fails to accommodate a crucial feature of mixed quotation: that the part enclosed in quotation marks is used to specify not what the quoter says when she utters it, but what the quoted speaker says when she utters it. (...) Here I show how the Davidsonian can do better. The proposal rests on the idea that mixed quotation involves deferred demonstration: a mixed quotati on specifies what the subject says partly by demonstrating the quoter's utterance of the unquoted part and partly by deferred-demonstrating the subject's utterance of the quotation-marked part. (shrink)

Cappelen and Lepore's "Uarieties of Quotation" builds on Davidson (1968, 1979) to give an account of mixed quotation. The result is a hach paper, which introduces interesting data and raises many thought-provoking questions. Given this, I can't possibly discuss the paper in its entirety. Instead, I intend simply to paraphrase their position, develop it a little, and then raise a few concerns.

Quotation is employed in mentioning linguistic items with varying degrees of specificity depending upon context, occasionally in the service of multiple purposes. It is also often employed in cases where the mentioned items are simultaneously being used in their ordinary roles. I argue that against appearances to the contrary, the recently proposed formal disambiguation approach to quotation fails to account for this quotational mixing of use and mention. I further argue that, given the ubiquity of the mixing in (...) question, the demonstrative theory, in its ability to accommodate such cases, fares better than its rivals. (shrink)

Mixed quotation exhibits characteristics of both mention and use. Some even go so far as to claim it can be described wholly in terms of the pragmatics of language use. Thus, it may be argued that the observed shifting of indexicals under all quotation shows that a monstrous operator is involved. I will argue the opposite: a proper semantic account of quotation can be used to exorcize Schlenker's monsters from semantic theory.

Quotation marks in natural language that do not function straightforwardly as devices for securing reference to linguistic objects have generally been categorized as instances of either mixed quotation or scare quotation. I argue that certain uses of quotation marks in natural language resist assimilation to either of these two theoretical categories, as well as to the more familiar categories of pure and direct quotation. It follows that we must recognize a novel type of (...) class='Hi'>quotation in natural language, which I call dummy quotation because it involves the contribution of semantically minimal `dummy meanings' to composition. I develop a semantic theory of dummy quotation and show that it is better able than rival proposals to account for the troublesome examples in question. (shrink)

It appears that in mixed quotations like the following, the quoted expression is used and mentioned at the same time: (1) George says Tony is his ``bestest friend''. Most theories seek to account for this observation by assuming that mixed quotations operate at two levels of content at once. In contradistinction to such two-dimensional theories, we propose that quotation involves just a single level of content. Quotation always produces a change in meaning of the quoted expression, (...) and if the quotation is mixed the shift is, to a first approximation at least, from '...' to ``what x calls '...''', where x is a variable whose value is determined by the context. We argue that quotation is generally context dependent in various ways, and that some of these ways are presuppositional in nature; we present a detailed analysis of the presuppositions in question. (shrink)

This paper presents syntactic and semantic rules for a fragment of English with mixed quotation. The fragment shows that quotation has a recursive and compositional structure. Quoted expressions turn out to denote characters, so the semantics of quotation simulates the pragmatics of speech, including dependence on utterance contexts and reference to mental entities. The analysis also accommodates varieties of unquotation, pure quotation, and causal reference.

Quotation exhibits characteristics of both use and mention. I argue against the recently popular pragmatic reductions of quotation to mere language use (e.g. Recanati 2001), and in favor of a truly hybrid account synthesizing and extending Potts (2007) and Geurts & Maier (2005), using a mention logic and a dynamic semantics with presupposition to establish a context-driven meaning shift. The current paper explores a `quotebreaking' extension to solve the problems posed by non-constituent quotation, and anaphora, ellipsis and (...) quantifier raising across quotation marks. (shrink)

Research on quotation has mostly focussed in the past years on mixed or open quotation. In a recent book-length discussion of the topic, Cappelen and Lepore have abandon their previous Davidsonian allegiances, proposing a new view that they describe as minimalist, to a good extend on the basis of facts concerning mixed quotation. In this paper I critically review Cappelen and Lepore’s new minimalist proposals, briefly outlining my preferred Davidsonian view as a useful foil. I (...) explore first their allegedly non-Davidsonian, anti-contextualist views about pure quotation, and then their new views on mixed quotation. I have complained in the first place that their proposals are not presented as perspicuously as they should be; and in the second place that, when we have a clearer picture of what appears to be the favoured account, the differences with their previous proposals and others already in the literature are not as great as they claim. (shrink)

I argue that free indirect discourse should be analyzed as a species of direct discourse rather than indirect discourse. More specifically, I argue against the emerging consensus among semanticists, who analyze it in terms of context shifting. Instead, I apply the semantic mechanisms of mixed quotation and unquotation to offer an alternative analysis where free indirect discourse is essentially a quotation of an utterance or thought, but with unquoted tenses and pronouns.

The issues addressed in philosophical papers on quotation generally concern only a particular type of quotation, which I call 'closed quotation'. The other main type, 'open quotation', is ignored, and this neglect leads to bad theorizing. Not only is a general theory of quotation out of reach: the specific phenomenon of closed quotation itself cannot be properly understood if it is not appropriately situated within the kind to which it belongs. Once the distinction between (...) open and closed quotation has been drawn and properly appreciated, it is tempting to consider that only closed quotation is relevant to semantics. Open quotation is more a matter of pragmatics: it is a matter of what people do with words, rather than a matter of content and truth-conditions. In this way one can provide the beginning of a justification for the neglect of open quotation in current semantic theorizing. There is some truth in this view, yet the phenomenon of 'mixed quotation', investigated at length in this paper, is interesting precisely because it shows that things are not so simple. Important issues concerning the interface between semantics and pragmatics will thus be raised. (shrink)

The issues addressed in philosophical papers on quotation generally concern only a particular type of quotation, which I call ‘closed quotation’. The other main type, ‘open quotation’, is ignored, and this neglect leads to bad theorizing. Not only is a general theory of quotation out of reach: the specific phenomenon of closed quotation itself cannot be properly understood if it is not appropriately situated within the kind to which it belongs. Once the distinction between (...) open and closed quotation has been drawn and properly appreciated, it is tempting to consider that only closed quotation is relevant to semantics. Open quotation is more a matter of pragmatics: it is a matter of what people do with words, rather than a matter of content and truth-conditions. In this way one can provide the beginning of a justification for the neglect of open quotation in current semantic theorizing. There is some truth in this view, yet the phenomenon of ‘mixed quotation’, investigated at length in this paper, is interesting precisely because it shows that things are not so simple. Important issues concerning the interface between semantics and pragmatics will thus be raised. (shrink)

The proposal of a semantics for quotations using explanatory notions drawn from philosophical theories of pictures. In Quotations as Pictures, Josef Stern develops a semantics for quotations using explanatory notions drawn from philosophical theories of pictures. He offers the first sustained analysis of the practice of quotation proper, as opposed to mentioning. Unlike other accounts that treat quotation as mentioning, Quotations as Pictures argues that the two practices have independent histories, that they behave differently semantically, that the inverted (...) commas employed in both mentioning and quotation are homonymous, that so-called mixed quotation is nothing but subsentential quotation, and that the major problem of quotation is to explain its dual reference or meaning—its ordinary meaning and its metalinguistic reference to the quoted phrase attributed to the quoted subject. Stern argues that the key to understanding quotation is the idea that quotations are pictures or have a pictorial character. As a phenomenon where linguistic competence meets a nonlinguistic symbolic ability, the pictorial, quotation is a combination of features drawn from the two different symbol systems of language and pictures, which explains the exceptional and sometimes idiosyncratic data about quotation. In light of this analysis of verbal quotation, in the last chapters Stern analyzes scare quotation as a nonliteral expressive use of the inverted commas and explores the possibility of quotation in pictures themselves. (shrink)

There are at least four varieties of quotation, including pure, direct, indirect and mixed. A theory of quotation, we argue, should give a unified account of these varieties of quotation. Mixed quotes such as 'Alice said that life is 'difficult to understand'', in which an utterance is directly and indirectly quoted concurrently, is an often overlooked variety of quotation. We show that the leading theories of pure, direct, and indirect quotation are unable to (...) account for mixed quotation and therefore unable to provide a unified theory. In the second half of the paper we develop a unified theory of quotation based on Davidson's demonstrative theory. 'Language is the instrument it is because the same expression, with semantic features (meaning) unchanged, can serve countless purposes.' (Davidson 1968). (shrink)

This chapter argues that while quotation marks are polysemous, the thread that runs through all uses of quotation marks that involve reference to expressions is pure quotation, in which an expression formed by enclosing another expression in quotation marks refers to that enclosed expression. We defend a version of the so-called disquotational theory of pure quotation and show how this device is used in direct discourse and attitude attributions, in exposition in scholarly contexts, and in (...) so-called mixed quotation in indirect discourse and attitude attributions. We argue that uses of quotation marks that extend beyond pure quotation have two features in common. First, the expressions appearing in quotation marks are intended to be understood, and that they are intended to be understood is essential to the function that such quotations play in communication, though this does not always involve the expressions contributing their extensional properties to fixing truth conditions for the sentences in which they appear. Second, they appeal to a relation to the expression appearing in quotation marks that plays a role in determining the truth conditions of the sentences in which they appear. (shrink)

The need for new insights to understand the effects of quoting slurs in linguistic communication has been evident over the past several years. Slurs seem to be capable of offending even when embedded in quotations or mentioned. This ability of the derogatory force of slurs to project out of embeddings like quotations is an instance of what I will call the ‘projectible force’ of slurs. This force is taken to be a particularly serious problem for content-based semantic theories, which claim (...) that what makes slurring utterances offensive is their derogatory content. The inert content criticism claims that quotations should render the content of a slur inert as quotations draw our attention only to the properties of the word itself. However, quoted or mentioned slurs can still offend, so the truth-conditional account of slurs must be wrong. I take the inert content criticism to be a locus of confusion. This confusion can be eliminated if we (1) disambiguate two notions of offense, (2) replace our naïve understanding of quotation with a more precise theory of quotation, and (3) use the deliverances of such a theory of quotation to help explain the different kinds of offense that can result from different features of slurring utterances. While this is not an attempt to defend the truth-conditional account of slurs, I will deliver something that both truth-conditional and prohibitionist accounts of slurs have failed to deliver: an explanation of how slurs under quotation can cause moral offense. (shrink)

In a novel move against Russellianism, Heck (2014) has argued that reports of the form S believes that p are semantically opaque on the grounds that there are no other means in English to report psychologically individuated beliefs, such as those Lois Lane reports using the names ‘Superman’ and ‘Clark Kent.’ I show that there are several other ways to meet this need. I focus on quotational reports of the form S believes “p,” which philosophers have overlooked or mischaracterized. I (...) argue that reports of this form are no more metalinguistic than those using the complementizer that. In both, the meaning of the report depends on the meaning, not the form, of the complement. Some distinguishing features of non-metalinguistic quotational reports are that their complements force “deictic shift” and have no transparent interpretation. Free direct speech and thought bubbles have the same properties. The “q-ascriptions” McCullagh (2017a) proposed to defend Russellianism against Heck are not in common use and on his account are unsuitably metalinguistic. The fact that quotational belief reports are opaque without being metalinguistic makes the Russellian thesis that the meaning of a name is its referent untenable, thereby undermining Russellianism about belief reports. (shrink)

This is a study of the syntax and semantics of reports containing speech-act and propositional attitude verbs with quotational complements. I make the case that while the quotational complements of some verbs, including _utter_, are nominal and metalinguistic, those of others, including _assert_ and _believe_, are clausal and nonmetalinguistic. Quotational reports with ‘say’ are ambiguous. When quotational complements are clausal, they are like _that_-clauses in being subordinate content clauses with main-clause form. Unlike _that_-clauses, quote-clauses force deictic shift and are unambiguously (...) opaque. I also argue that quotation marks serve a different function in “mixed” reports, and that use of the traditional “direct” and “indirect” is not consistent with their traditional definitions. (shrink)

This paper develops the view presented in our 1997 paper "Varieties of Quotation". In the first part of the paper we show how phenomena such as scare-quotes, echoing and mimicry can be treated as what we call Speech Act Heuristics. We then defend a semantic account of mixed quotation. Along the way we discuss the role of indexicals in mixed quotation and the noncancelability of reference to words in mixed quotation. We also respond (...) to some objections raised by Recanati, Saka, Stainton and Reimer. (shrink)

The analysis of mixed quotation proposed in Cappelen & Lepore (1997), purportedly as a development of Davidson's accounts of direct and of indirect quotation, is critically examined. It is argued that the analysis fails to specify either necessary or sufficient conditions on mixed quotation, and that the way it has been defended by its proponents makes its alleged Davidsonian parentage questionable.

I defend a semantic theory of quotation marks, according to which these are ambiguous, as they have several different acceptations involving corresponding different conventional indications. In particular, in allusion (“mixed”) uses, the corresponding conventional indication is one with an adverbial or prepositional content, roughly equivalent to “using the quoted expression or an appropriate version of it”. And in “scare” uses, the corresponding conventional indication is that the enclosed expression should be used not plainly but in some broadly speaking (...) distanced way, or that it is being so used by the utterer. I also defend this view against some alternative views on which allusion and distance indications are to be seen as pragmatically conveyed. In particular, I consider several views that attempt to explain especially allusion and distance indications as pragmatic suggestions generated from a meager conventional basis, and I argue that they cannot accommodate a number of linguistic phenomena and reflectively supported theses about the use of quotation marks. I lay special emphasis on the fact that the main pragmatic theories fail to pass an extremely plausible test for challenges to polysemic accounts of an expression. (shrink)

Most writers working on simultaneous use and mention assume a distinction between mixed quotation and scare quoting. The consensus is that MQ affects truth-conditions. Hence, many writers regard MQ as a semantic phenomenon. There is no such consensus about ScQ. On the face of it, there is a clear difference between: Alice said that life “is difficult to understand”. Several ‘groupies' followed the band on their tour. The words quoted in are attributed to Alice, and would seem false (...) if Alice had not uttered them. No such intuition is available for. This induces Cappelen & Lepore, leading writers in the field, to regard as a blend of Direct and Indirect Discourse and to propose the following semantic analysis : there is an utterance u such that Alice said u and u samesays “Life is difficult to understand” and u sametokens “is difficult to understand”. As for, they regard the impact of the quotation in it as being entirely pragmatic. I show, however, that there is no principled distinction between MQ and ScQ. The main points are: speech attribution to Alice in is defeasible; there are cases of simultaneous use and mention without “say” which are semantically relevant ; there is apparent MQ with reporting verbs that pose a problem because they cannot govern Direct Speech reports. Hence, it is illegitimate to appeal to the sametokening predicate in logical form. These examples that ‘refuse' to fall neatly under MQ or ScQ seal the fate of Cappelen & Lepore's account. To conclude, I discuss Benbaji's fully semantic theory. Benbaji adopts Cappelen & Lepore's views on MQ. But he also proposes a semantic account of ScQ. One option for him is to give up the Cappelen & Lepore story and extend his views on ScQ to all instances of simultaneous use and mention. I show, however, that this too fails. Therefore, in the end, only a pragmatic account of simultaneous use and mention remains as a viable option. (shrink)

When beginning to think about the relation between experimental music and the thought of Gilles Deleuze, this quotation seems to be a natural starting point. In Deleuze and Guattari’s affirmation of this phrase from John Cage they suggest a resonance between music and philosophy: in both fields the experimental approach entails a dismantling of predetermining codes and hierarchies, and with this arises the opportunity for an open-endedness that accommodates singular events and encounters. This understanding of experimentation, however, is not (...) as transparent as it seems. In the context of the uptake and critique of Deleuzian ideas in the theorisation of music and sound, as well as recent re-evaluations of the milieu of “experimental music,” critics have argued that a range of normative demands, ideological assumptions, and metaphysical reductions undermine the purported freedoms of both Cagean and Deleuzian experimentalism. -/- Here I can only deal with a small aspect of the wide historical and theoretical problem this involves; but in short my aim is to begin to construct a means through which Deleuze and Guattari’s thought can be used to help us examine some strategies that composers and performers in post-Cagean musical experimentalism developed to navigate around the demands, assumptions, and reductions of Cage’s thought. (shrink)

I show how, contrary to recent claims, so-called embedded imperatives are better analyzed in terms of mixed quotation. To this end I extend the presuppositional analysis of mixed quotation to include quotations of constructions.

Inspired by Schlenker's (2003) seminal 'Plea for Monsters', linguists have been analyzing every occurrence of a shifted indexical by postulating a monstrous operator. My aim in this paper is to show that Kaplan's (1989) original strategy of explaining apparent shifting in terms of a quotational use/mention distinction offers a much more intuitive, parsimonious and empirically superior analysis of many of these phenomena, including direct--indirect switches in Ancient Greek, role shift in signed languages, free indirect discourse in literary narratives, and (...) class='Hi'>mixed quotation. Format: . (shrink)

We investigate experimentally whether the perceived offensiveness of slurs survives when they are reported, by comparing Italian slurs and insults in base utterances (Y is an S), direct speech (X said: “Y is an S”), mixed quotation (X said that Y is “an S”), and indirect speech (X said that Y is an S). For all strategies, reporting decreases the perceived offensiveness without removing it. For slurs, but not insults, indirect speech is perceived as more offensive than direct (...) speech. Our hypothesis is that, because slurs constitute hate speech, speakers employ quotation marks to signal their dissociation from slur use. (shrink)

In this case, it is clear that the author feels that she has been treated badly by quite a few doctors throughout her life. At first read, the locus of her concern is perhaps a bit less clear. After all, many of her concerns seem to center around uses of humor in which she was not the butt of the joke. Indeed, she was included in the inner circle, treated as a confidant, by her doctors. From the perspective of someone (...) accustomed to being in the inner circle, it may not be immediately obvious why the attempts at humor failed. After all, isn’t humor meant to be a good way to help patients relax? Isn’t it a good way to bond with patients and to make them more comfortable? As Berger (2004) notes “humor offers modes of intimate communication through which these objectives can be achieved. Physicians’ use of quiet, respectful humor may provide patients with the “social license” to enter personal or sensitive content areas” (p. 827). If humor, or joking, is an effective tool in establishing channels of communication, then how or why did it go wrong here? The answer, in brief, is that not all humor is created equal. -/- Before going any further, we should acknowledge a few things. First, in this case the only form of humor that is on offer is joking, but humor is not limited to jokes. Usually, when we refer to humor broadly, as in the quotation above, the point can be taken to apply to jokes. However, if we refer specifically to jokes or joking the point may not apply to humor more broadly. This is so even if the jokes are meant to be humorous. Care should be taken lest we generalize in haste. Second, not all jokes are humorous, nor are all jokes intended to be humorous. Finally, much of what we will consider here—the purpose of joking, the orientation of care, the consideration of content—will be generally applicable to other forms of communication and, mutadis mutandis, should not be restricted to joking and humor. (shrink)

It’s generally assumed that a compositional semantic theory will have to recognise a semantic category of expressions which serve simply to pick out some one object: e-type expressions. Kripke’s views about names, Kaplan’s about indexicals and demonstratives, the standard Tarskian semantics for bound variables, Heim and Kratzer’s Strawsonian view about definites, even an analysis of indefinites, assume as much. In this thesis, I argue that recent advances in the semantics of names and of quotation, and in metaphysics, give good (...) reason to doubt there is such a category. I do so in two parts. In the first part, comprising about two thirds of the thesis, I combine two recent views, one from semantics and one from metaphysics. From semantics, I take over predicativism about names, the view, as one might have guessed, that names are predicates. From metaphysics, I take over the doctrine that there are temporal parts. Putting them together, I hold that the semantic contribution of the name ’Joan’, in a sentence like ’Joan is a barrister’, is a predicate, and in particular a predicate the extension of which is Joan’s temporal parts. Names are not, as is commonly thought, e-type expressions. In the second part, building on the first, I further undermine the existence of a semantically important category of e-type expressions by arguing that a construction which might be thought to mandate such a category, namely de re attitude ascriptions, in fact, when properly analysed, does not do so. I argue this by considering the nature of transparent occurrences of expressions in opaque contexts in general, and in particular by considering the phenomenon of mixed quotation. I present a new theory of it, and show how it can be parlayed into a new Fregean theory of de re attitude ascriptions. The thesis overall, then, will provide strong evidence against the semantic importance of e-type expressions either in language, or in thought. (shrink)

English direct discourse is easily recognized by e.g. the lack of a complementizer, the quotation marks (or the intonational contour they induce), and verbatim (`shifted') pronouns. Japanese employs the same complementizer for all reports, does not have a consistent intonational quotation marking, and tends to drop pronouns where possible. Some have argued that this just shows many Japanese reports are ambiguous: despite the lack of explicit marking, the underlying distinction is just as hard. On the basis of a (...) number of `mixed' examples, I claim that the line between direct and indirect em is blurred and I propose a unified analysis of speech reporting in which a general mechanism of mixed quotation replaces the classical two-fold distinction. (shrink)

This is a lively, provocative book and many of its arguments are convincing. In this critical study I summarize the book, then discuss some of the authors’ claims, dwelling on three issues: their objections to the view of François Recanati on “pre-semantic” effects; the relation between their theory of quotation and the Tarskian “Proper Name Theory,” which they reject; and their treatment of mixed quotation, which rests on the claim that quotation expressions are “syntactic chameleons.” I (...) argue that the objections to Recanati don’t expose any problem with his view, and that the “Proper Name Theory” has all the virtues of their own proposal. Finally I raise some queries about the technical apparatus of syntactic chameleonism. (shrink)

In this paper I present a linguistic investigation of the literary style known as free indirect discourse within the framework of formal semantics. I will argue that a semantics for free indirect discourse involves more than a mechanism for the independent context shifting of pronouns and other deictic elements. My argumentation is fueled by literary examples of free indirect discourse involving what I call language shifts: -/- Most of the great flame-throwers were there and naturally, handling Big John de Conquer (...) and his works. How he had done everything big on earth, then went up tuh heben without dying atall. Went up there picking a guitar and got all de angels doing the ring-shout round and round de throne...that brought them back to Tea Cake. How come he couldn’t hit that box a lick or two? (Hurston 1937, Their Eyes Were Watching God) -/- Free indirect discourse combines elements of both, but it seems decidedly closer to direct discourse. I examine the reigning semantic analysis of free indirect discourse, a variant of the demonstrative account of direct discourse featuring “double context dependence” (Banfield 1982,Schlenker 2004). After showing that this type of account has fundamental difficulties with language shift data like (1), I close with a brief sketch of an alternative analysis based on “mixed quotation.”. (shrink)

This book collects nine seminal essays by Mark Richard published between 1980 and 2014, alongside four new essays and an introduction that puts the essays in context. Each essay is an attempt, in one way or another, to understand the idea of a proposition. Part I discusses whether the objects of thought and assertion can change truth value over time. Part II develops and defends a relativist view of the objects of assertion and thought; it includes discussions of the nature (...) of disagreement, moral relativism, and responds to important objections to relativism. It also explores the idea that thoughts and assertions may be neither true nor false. Part III discusses issues having to do with relations between sentential and propositional structure. Among the topics discussed in Part III are the semantics of quotation, 'mixed quotation', opacity, philosophical analysis and propositional structure, and the semantics of demonstratives and clausal complements. (shrink)

This volume brings together new research on fiction from the fields of philosophy and linguistics. Fiction has long been a topic of interest in philosophy, but recent years have also seen a surge in work on fictional discourse at the intersection between linguistics and philosophy of language. In particular, there has been a growing interest in examining long-standing issues concerning fiction from a perspective that is informed both by philosophy and linguistic theory. -/- Following a detailed introduction by the editors, (...) The Language of Fiction contains 14 chapters by leading scholars in linguistics and philosophy, organized into three parts. Part I, 'Truth, Reference, and Imagination', offers new, interdisciplinary perspectives on some of the central themes from the philosophy of fiction: What is fictional truth? How do fictional names refer? What kind of speech act is involved in telling a fictional story? What is the relation between fiction and imagination? Part II, 'Storytelling', deals with themes originating from the study of narrative: How do we infer a coherent story from a sequence of event descriptions? And how do we interpret the words of impersonal or unreliable narrators? Part III, 'Perspective Shift', focuses on an alleged key characteristic of fictional narratives, namely how we get access to the fictional characters' inner lives, through a variety of literary techniques for representing what they say, think, or see. The volume will be of interest to scholars from graduate level upwards in the fields of discourse analysis, semantics and pragmatics, philosophy of language, psychology, cognitive science, and literary studies. -/- Table of Contents 1:Introduction, Emar Maier and Andreas Stokke Part I: Truth, Reference, and Imagination 2:Fictional reference as simulation, François Recanati 3:Sharing real and fictional reference, Hans Kamp 4:Fictional truth: In defense of the reality principle, Nils Franzén 5:On the generation of content, Sandro Zucchi 6:Do the imaginings that fictions invite have a direction of fit?, Manuel García-Carpintero Part II: Storytelling 7:In search of the narrator, Regine Eckardt 8:Extracting fictional truth from unreliable sources, Emar Maier and Merel Semeijn 9:Narrative and point-of-view, Samuel Cumming 10:A puzzle about narrative progression and causal reasoning, Daniel Altshuler 11:Isomorphic mapping in fictional interpretation, Matthias Bauer and Sigrid Beck Part III: Perspective Shift 12:Metalinguistic acts in fiction, Nellie Wieland 13:Computing perspective shift in narratives, Márta Abrusán 14:Derogatory terms in free indirect discourse, Isidora Stojanovic 15:Protagonist projection, character-focus, and mixed quotation, Andreas Stokke. (shrink)

Background Nursing students spend approximately half of their time in clinical practice. It is important that clinical supervisors understand nursing students’ path of learning and can support their growth and development during the different and multifaceted learning situations offered in the clinical-practice period. Objective Based on nursing students’ perspective and rooted in the didactics of caring science, to examine how a learning and constructive caring relationship between nursing students and supervisors in clinical practice can be formed. Design Qualitative and quantitative (...) concurrent triangulation design of mixed methods. Methods Focus group interviews with Finnish nursing students (n = 21) in the qualitative part of the study. In the quantitative part, a closed questionnaire with closed answers was analysed using descriptive statistics. The analysis process was conducted using inductive content analysis. Ethical considerations Ethical issues were considered throughout the research process according to ethical principles and scientific guidelines. Informed consent was obtained from the informants, confidentiality regarding the data material was guaranteed and quotations were anonymized. Results A caring relationship between nursing students and supervisors is based on mutual respect, the ethos of responsibility, motivation, willingness and professionalism. Dignity and a caring ethical approach, where nursing students feel they belong, are recognized, seen and heard enables learning and professional development. It is also significant that the supervisor’s actions and reflections are ethically defensible, equal and protect nursing students from suffering and various power relationships in clinical practice. Conclusion A good cooperative relationship and shared responsibility between the nurse education institution, which offers theory and prepares nursing students for the encounter with clinical practice and the healthcare organizations is crucial for enabling a caring relationship in clinical supervision. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bataille and Mysticism: A “Dazzling Dissolution”Amy Hollywood (bio)Within Georges Bataille’s texts of the late 1930s and 1940s, in particular those later brought together in the tripartite Atheological Summa, he repeatedly suggests that his primary models for writing and experience are the texts of the Christian and non-Western mystical traditions (often represented, in Bataille, by women’s writings) and those of Friedrich Nietzsche. 1 Inner Experience opens with evocations of Nietzsche, (...) and the final volume of the trilogy, On Nietzsche, is “devoted” to his work. References to mystical writings occur throughout Inner Experience and Guilty, and significant portions of both texts can be read as providing “guides” for inner experience analogous to the “itineraries” of Angela of Foligno (d. 1309) and Teresa of Avila (d. 1582) or as spiritual daybooks like those of Mechthild of Magdeburg (d. ca. 1275). These models are, I think, the key to understanding Bataille’s own writing strategies in the Atheological Summa. 2 Despite their apparent divergence, moreover, Bataille insists that mystical and Nietzschean texts reflect and are constitutive of the same experience and writing practice.Like both Nietzsche and the mystics, Bataille’s “antigeneric” writing mixes genres and styles within and between texts. 3 Throughout the course of his career, experience and writing are in a constant state of movement, flux, or chaos (to echo Bataille’s self-description in On Nietzsche). The Atheological Summa encapsulates within what purport to be three unified books the diversity of genres and styles that run throughout Bataille’s corpus as a whole. They contain ample quotation of Nietzsche’s texts and those of the mystics—undigested hunks and fragments of these allusive writings 4 —together with philosophical reflections, confessional meditations, diary fragments, letters, and, at the end of On Nietzsche, a set of six brief historical and theoretical appendices. Anything broaching traditional textual commentary is reserved for the margins of these nonbooks. Like many mystics, particularly women who were denied access to the traditional genres of sermon, biblical commentary, and philosophical or theological treatise, and like Nietzsche, who eschews and subverts traditional genre distinctions, Bataille comments and critiques through practice rather than exposition. Although Bataille acknowledges the oddity of his coupling the mystics and Nietzsche, he also rigorously defends it, arguing for a mystical and ecstatic experience in Nietzsche’s work. 5 As I hope to show, Bataille’s [End Page 74] experience of the failures of mysticism and of Nietzsche speak to each other and lead to Bataille’s necessary apostasy as his true discipleship.Repetition of the divergences between Bataille and the mystics, first stated by Bataille himself in Inner Experience, has become something of a commonplace, yet his claims have not been sufficiently explored or challenged. So, for example, Alain Arnauld and Giséle Excoffon-Lafarge unproblematically assert that despite all proximities between Bataille’s texts and those of the mystics, they differ in their aims or aimlessness. Michel Surya joins a host of other scholars whose primary concern is to demonstrate (against the insinuations of Sartre, made now almost fifty years ago) that Bataille was not a Christian. Whereas the mystics’ path ends with the divine encounter, Bataille renounces all objects, aims, or end for his quest and his desire. 6 Most importantly, he rejects all idealism and any hope for salvation. Bataille himself insists on his divergence from the Christian mystics in Inner Experience and Guilty. At the same time, his citations and mimings of central texts from the Christian mystical tradition show that what fascinates him within these writings is precisely the moment in which the soul desires “to live without a why,” embracing the suffering of hell—understood as the absence of/from the “object” of desire—as desire. 7 In a move later echoed by Jacques Lacan, Bataille claims that some medieval mystics attained that beyond of which he writes, but without knowing anything about it: “Exuberance is the point where we let go of Christianity. Angela of Foligno attained it and described it, but didn’t know it.” 8Commentators follow Bataille in resisting his identification with the mystics, then, whereas Nietzsche is a less troubling model for Bataille and his readers. In fact, Bataille... (shrink)

Nineteenth-century Bengal was a period of change, conflict and accommodation both among the bhadralok – literally translated to mean the gentle folk, the middle classes – as well as between them and the British rulers. The world view of the bhadralok and its search for a new paradigm had its material basis in changes in existing land relations, the emergence of the market and of urban spaces as well as the spread of education and literacy. Often changes in familial patterns, (...) new roles for girls and women, their education and introduction to wider society, reflected developments in Britain. As the colonial encounter brought about a range of changes in a rapidly evolving social, economic and geographic scenario, it is important to try and understand inter-personal dynamics and at the level of individual consciousnesses. Women started reflecting and writing about their lives by the middle of the last century; the preferred form was the journal or diary. Several wrote many years later, often in widowhood. Monica Chanda was one such woman: the only daughter of Sarala and J.N. Gupta, a member of the Indian Civil Service, she was persuaded, at the age of 70, to write about her childhood, a period of her life she loved reminiscing about to her children and grandchildren. Life in the districts, her mother's role as civil service wife par excellence, early schooling and its later denial are evocatively sketched in this brief memoir. The present article will deal with constructions of a post-Victorian Indo-Anglian girlhood as perceived by Monica, using extensive quotations from the unpublished text. It will also try to trace the symbiotic relationship with the British Raj – viewed often with mixed feelings by the colonized. (shrink)

The distinction between the use of a linguistic item and its mention is widely recognized as one of the basic tenets of contemporary philosophy of language. A common misconception of what is entailed by this distinction is that when an expression is being mentioned it is thereby not being used in its ordinary use. In this work I explore the workings of this false assumption and argue against it by rehabilitating linguistic reflexivity as an everyday mode of expression. By showing (...) that our ordinary means for mentioning linguistic items are highly sensitive to context, I argue that expressions are often used and mentioned simultaneously, a fact that has far-reaching consequences also outside the philosophy of language proper. ;The first chapter, "Mentionability in Frege and Russell", is devoted to identifying common strands in the works of these two pioneers of the analytic tradition as providing a deep source for the idea that mentioned expressions, by the very fact of being mentioned, are not simultaneously being used. In the second and third chapters I explore different manifestations of this notion in theories of quotation. In the second chapter, "Ideal Quotation", I discuss Sellars' theory and locate it at the locus of a large epistemological concern to distinguish sharply between an empirical aspect of language and a formal aspect. Whatever the merits of such a theory are for Sellars' specific theoretical purposes, it leaves little room for considering quotation as an actual, everyday means for mentioning expressions. The third chapter, "Quotation and the Mixing of Use and Mention", is devoted to an examination of contemporary attempts to account for our actual quoting practices. I argue that of the five theories of quotation currently available only a recent version of the demonstrative theory can accommodate the simultaneity of use and mention. The fourth chapter, "Norms and Mention", applies the results of the preceding chapters to a particular vexing problem which lies at the heart of the intersection between language and normativity---the threat of a normative skepticism inspired by Lewis Carroll's parable about licensing inferences in "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles". (shrink)

Using Natural Language Processing tools, the current study explores the evolution of objectivity practice in terms of attitude injection. Adopting the indicator of moral loading under the Moral Foundation Theory framework, it examined the moral judgments embedded in 20,679 culture war news articles published in five major U.S. newspapers from 1980 to 2021. Our findings revealed a distinct mixed journalistic liberal pattern and an apparent paradox in objectivity practice: the less moral judgments, the more liberal tendencies, which could be (...) caused by journalists’ watchdog role and the increase of liberal components in U.S. democracy. We then argue that the performance of traditional objectivity has remained robust, especially when accounting for the degree to which moral judgments can be attributed to source quotations. The study contributes to the literature by bridging moral psychology and the enactment of journalistic norms, applying MFT to evaluate degrees of objectivity in news. (shrink)

"Logic and ethics are fundamentally the same, they are not more than duty to oneself"(Otto Weininger). So goes the head quotation of Ray Monk's biography Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. Monk thereby introduces Wittgenstein's peculiar admiration for the crackpot author of Sex and Character along with Wittgenstein's moralistic dedication to logic. Monk elaborates with anecdotes. For instance, Wittgenstein would pace Bertrand Russell's room mixing logic with selfcriticism. Russell asked Wittgenstein whether he was thinking about logic or his sins. (...) "Both!" barked Wittgenstein. (shrink)

The true character of the Inca Empire is poorly set forth in works dealing with its economic and social structure. Too many historians or sociologists have attempted, in their enthusiasm, to make of it a state corresponding to a modern formula : a socialist, a totalitarian or a welfare state. From the sixteenth century on, how many arbitrary pictures have been drawn, propped up by quotations! In fact, among the chronicles and reports and documents which Spain, that rummager of old (...) papers, has handed down to us, and in the accounts of the Indians themselves, one finds enough mixed-up assertions and facts to bolster or justify the most diverse interpretations. Reality has frequently been confused with a schematic, abstract order which was the fruit of frequently gratuitous speculations. (shrink)

My beliefs during the first stage of my philosophical career were a mixed brew of ingredients taken from the Greek and Christian traditions. My tastes were conservative and even reactionary. I believed in the reality of substance, material and mental; I held that there are universal and necessary connections in nature which can be known. In short, I was a naive objectivist about things and about structures. I was a realist about values too. I believed that there are such (...) traits in nature as good and bad, right and wrong, beauty and ugliness, independently of my preferences. I was convinced further that goodness was a supreme causal agent; that—to paraphrase the familiar quotation—righteousness is power. I believed in God. With Plato I maintained that causality is not only efficient but final too; that nature exhibits both a mechanical and a moral order. And these two propositions were, to my view, but twin aspects of the one proposition that nature will not deceive my expectations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Commentary on “Towards a Design-Based Analysis of Emotional Episodes”Margaret A. Boden (bio)The theoretical work of Wright, Sloman, and Beaudoin is a significant contribution to our understanding of the nature and function of emotions, and potentially also to therapeutic method. Their message that emotions, as controlling and scheduling mechanisms, are essential to any complex intelligent system (that is: one with multiple and potentially conflicting motives, and situated in a changing (...) and unfriendly world) is important. It encourages cognitive psychologists to regard emotions as a central aspect of intelligence, not to sideline (or even to forget) them, as is too often done. In addition, it shows—at least in general outline—how emotions might be understood in computational terms.Critics of computational psychology too often assume that emotions and motivation must lie outside its scope. This is not so, although it is true that relatively little computational work has been done in this area. Interestingly, the very early days of AI saw a comparatively high proportion of models of multiple goal-seeking, affective processes, and even personality (see, for example, the papers in Tomkins and Messick 1963). But, inevitably, these were so crude as to be almost useless in illuminating the nature of emotion and motivation. As AI-workers and their psychologist colleagues found to their cost, it is difficult enough to model the pursuit of one goal, never mind the pursuit of several mutually conflicting goals. Accordingly, personality and emotion soon faded from the scene as preferred topics of computational research—but not before I too had argued that they could, in principle, be so addressed (Boden 1965; 1972).I suggested—in the sketchiest terms—that the concepts of William McDougall’s personality theory could be interpreted in a computational fashion (Boden 1965; 1972). His concept of sentiment, for example, marks what Wright et al. call “goal-sets,” and his master sentiment of self-regard relates to the descriptive and normative aspects of the self-image to which they draw our attention. He even described emotions as (conscious) control mechanisms, enabling the subject to monitor the incipient excitement of distinct types of motivation, and (sometimes) to adjust behavior so as to facilitate or inhibit the otherwise-inevitable response. What the target-authors have done is to put subtle and sophisticated computational flesh onto these minimalist theoretical bones.McDougall himself, of course, will be turning in his grave. He saw affect as partly conscious (as well as dispositional), and argued that consciousness—and purposive behavior too—cannot possibly [End Page 135] be given a mechanistic, or physicalist, explanation. Despite Wright et al.’s persuasive anti-reductionist remarks about the necessity for highly abstract (psychological) levels of explanation, he would not have accepted that such explanations could be computationally grounded. He even insisted that the neurophysiological ground of goal-seeking behavior involved a special sort of energy, or horme, intrinsically directed to specific ends. Presumably, no professional reader today would agree with McDougall on that point. But many may agree with him about consciousness. And many more will insist that consciousness is a crucial aspect—perhaps the crucial aspect—of emotion. Such critics will doubtless point out that our three authors explicitly “factor out,” or refuse to discuss, consciousness as such.Wright et al.’s rhetorical reserve on this point is defensible on two counts. First, even though emotions do involve conscious sensations, the dispositional and control aspects of affect are at least as important. Indeed, it is evident from the quotations from individuals reacting to bereavement that people often describe the phenomenology of grief in terms of these sorts of factors, rather than in a “purely qualitative” fashion (whatever that might be). Even so, these dispositional aspects of emotion are often overlooked, or regarded as less significant than the conscious phenomenology. And second, theoretical psychologists in general sideline consciousness: either they ignore it entirely, or they take it for granted philosophically and ask about the conditions under which it appears or disappears. They are well advised to do so, since we do not yet understand this concept (more accurately: this mixed bag of related concepts) at the philosophical level. Even a journal whose title has “Philosophy” as its leading... (shrink)

This book traces the history and techniques of underground photography, from the first pictures taken in the catacombs beneath Paris to the pyramids of Egypt, from American caves to Cornish tin mines. The opening chapters are concerned with the earliest experiments to record images without the aid of the sun in the 1860s. Innovative photographers have since used techniques ranging from limelight, Bengal fire, arc lights, and even magnesium mixed with gunpowder to specially designed electronic flashguns and powder burners. (...) Ten years in the writing, this is the only book of its kind and is based on primary sources of information throughout. Howes’ extensive use of quotations retains the immediacy of the challenges both amateur and professional photographers have had to overcome. The book is illustrated with 160 engravings, line drawings, and photographs, many of which have never been published before. Fully referenced and indexed, it can be used to identify and trace photographers and rare photographs worldwide. (shrink)