Interpreting anaphoric expressions: a cognitive versus a pragmatic approach

1994 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mira Ariel
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Cognitive Theory ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Actual Data ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Distribution Of Zeros ◽  
Pragmatic Theory ◽  
Mental Entity ◽  
Gricean Maxims ◽  
Natural Discourse

Levinson (1985, 1987a & b, 1991) and Ariel (1985a & b, 1987, 1988a & b, 1990a, 1991) have each proposed to anchor discourse and sentential anaphora within a more general theory of communication. Levinson chose a general, extra-linguistic pragmatic theory. He uses Grice's Quantity maxim to account for the distribution of zeros, reflexives, pronouns and lexical NPs, claiming that coreferent readings are preferred, unless a disjoint reading is implicated (by the revised Gricean maxims he offers). I have proposed a specifically linguistic, cognitive theory, whereby speakers guide addressees' retrievals of mental representations corresponding to all definite NPs (coreferent as well as disjoint) by signalling to them the degree of Accessibility associated with the intended mental entity in their memory. An examination of actual data reveals that Levinson's predictions regarding definite NP interpretations are often not borne out. In addition, his proposals cannot account for many anaphoric patterns actually found in natural discourse. Accessibility theory, it is argued, can account for both types of problematic data.

Statistical Method and the Peircean Account of Truth

2000 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-314
Author(s):  
Andrew Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Method ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Philosophical Discussion ◽  
Pragmatic Theory ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Definition Of

Peirce is often credited with having formulated a pragmatic theory of truth. This can be misleading, if it is assumed that Peirce was chiefly interested in providing a metaphysical analysis of the immediate conditions under which a belief or proposition is true, or the conditions under which a proposition or belief is said to be madetrue. Cheryl Misak has exposed the subtleties in Peirce's discussion of truth, especially showing the difficulties faced by any ascription to him of an analytic definition of truth. In this paper I follow Misak in urging that Peirce's contribution to the philosophical discussion about the nature of truth was not of that kind. What makes his pragmatic approach distinctive is that rather than attempting to state the nature of truth per se, it attempts to uncover the beliefs and expectations we commit ourselves to when we make specific claims that such and such is true or is the case.

Cognitive Imagining and Literary Fictions

2020 ◽  
pp. 17-43
Author(s):  
Jonathan Gilmore
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Cognitive Theory ◽  
Explanatory Framework ◽  
Truth In Fiction

This chapter offers a sketch of the book’s general explanatory framework: a cluster of theories and commitments about mental representation identified as the cognitive theory of the imagination. This chapter shows where that general theory must be modified and supplemented to be employed in the characterization and explanation of the particular kind of imagining constitutive of engagements with works of literature. In particular, this chapter identifies a neglected explanatory significance for theories of the imagination and truth in fiction of attending to fictions from an external standpoint (one that attends to, e.g., its genre, plot, style, and functions).

A Pragmatic Approach to More Efficient Corporate Disclosure

2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 357-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. Bloomfield
Keyword(s):  
Financial Disclosure ◽  
Corporate Disclosure ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Pragmatic Theory ◽  
Disclosure Of Information ◽  
Theory Of Language ◽  
And Linguistics

SYNOPSIS This paper uses a Pragmatic theory of language (drawn from philosophy and linguistics) to diagnose the causes of excessive financial disclosure and propose a regulatory solution. The diagnosis is that existing disclosure regulations are one sided, effectively encouraging firms to disclose any information that might be relevant, but failing to discourage disclosure of information that adds little to what investors already know. This one-sidedness limits investors' ability to draw inferences that items the firm chooses not to disclose are not newsworthy (an inference Pragmatic theorists call “implicature”). The solution is to encourage or require firms to supplement comprehensive disclosures with an “elevated” disclosure that is brief enough to force firms to be selective in choosing what information to include. Regulations can enhance implicature through rules that prohibit firms from elevating disclosures that are less newsworthy than disclosures that are not elevated.

Introduction to Symposium on Constructing Self with Others

1997 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 323-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
David F. Barone
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Cognitive Theory ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
The Self ◽  
Object Relations Theory ◽  
Research Support ◽  
Relational Schema ◽  
Self Evaluation ◽  
Socially Constructed

The notion that the self is interpersonally embedded can be found throughout psychology's history. This article presents convergent work from different areas of contemporary psychology that supports and elaborates this notion. M. Baldwin's (1997) experimental work in social cognition demonstrates that self-evaluation varies with the relational schema that is activated. C. R. Snyder and R. L. Higgins (1997) present a social–cognitive personality theory of how people maintain their self theories to satisfy internal and external audiences. S. J. Blatt, J. S. Auerbach, and K. N. Levy's (1997) object-relations theory of the role of mental representations of self and others in psychopathology is supported by research that changes in these representations are associated with improvement in psychotherapy. J. Martin and J. Sugarman's (1997) social–cognitive theory of counseling and psychotherapy as conversational reconstructions of self theories also has research support and raises the issue of whether the self is agentic if socially constructed.

The Structure of Bias

Mind ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 129 (516) ◽  
pp. 1193-1236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabbrielle M Johnson
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Implicit Attitudes ◽  
Functional Characterization ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Social Bias ◽  
Explicit Bias ◽  
Mental Entity ◽  
Implicit And Explicit ◽  
Inputs And Outputs

Abstract What is a bias? Standard philosophical views of both implicit and explicit bias focus this question on the representations one harbours, for example, stereotypes or implicit attitudes, rather than the ways in which those representations (or other mental states) are manipulated. I call this approach representationalism. In this paper, I argue that representationalism taken as a general theory of psychological social bias is a mistake, because it conceptualizes bias in ways that do not fully capture the phenomenon. Crucially, this view fails to capture a heretofore neglected possibility of bias, one that influences an individual’s beliefs about or actions toward others, but is, nevertheless, nowhere represented in that individual’s cognitive repertoire. In place of representationalism, I develop a functional account of psychological social bias which characterizes it as a mental entity that takes propositional mental states as inputs and returns propositional mental states as outputs in a way that instantiates social-kind inductions. This functional characterization leaves open which mental states and processes bridge the gap between the inputs and outputs, ultimately highlighting the diversity of candidates that can serve this role.

Extreme self-sacrifice beyond fusion: Moral expansiveness and the special case of allyship

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Crimston ◽  
Matthew J. Hornsey
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Biological Markers ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Relevant Dimension ◽  
Special Case

AbstractAs a general theory of extreme self-sacrifice, Whitehouse's article misses one relevant dimension: people's willingness to fight and die in support of entities not bound by biological markers or ancestral kinship (allyship). We discuss research on moral expansiveness, which highlights individuals’ capacity to self-sacrifice for targets that lie outside traditional in-group markers, including racial out-groups, animals, and the natural environment.

A pragmatic approach to teaching clinical physical diagnosis

1981 ◽  
Vol 45 (9) ◽  
pp. 585-588
Author(s):  
MJ Kutcher ◽  
TF Meiller ◽  
CD Overholser
Keyword(s):  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Physical Diagnosis ◽  
Approach To Teaching

Mental representation of economic crisis in Italian and Swiss samples 1The authors would like to thank Maurizio Mistri for his help in the construction of items. This research was supported by a grant from the Italian Murst (ex 40%).

2001 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucia Savadori ◽  
Eraldo Nicotra ◽  
Rino Rumiati ◽  
Roberto Tamborini
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
National Context ◽  
Cluster Procedure ◽  
Total N ◽  
Two Samples ◽  
Important Symptom

The content and structure of mental representation of economic crises were studied and the flexibility of the structure in different social contexts was tested. Italian and Swiss samples (Total N = 98) were compared with respect to their judgments as to how a series of concrete examples of events representing abstract indicators were relevant symptoms of economic crisis. Mental representations were derived using a cluster procedure. Results showed that the relevance of the indicators varied as a function of national context. The growth of unemployment was judged to be by far the most important symptom of an economic crisis but the Swiss sample judged bankruptcies as more symptomatic than Italians who considered inflation, raw material prices and external accounts to be more relevant. A different clustering structure was found for the two samples: the locations of unemployment and gross domestic production indicators were the main differences in representations.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document