Local pragmatics: Issues and reflection

Pragmatic effects triggered by embedded structure have caused problems to Grice’s Theory of Conversational Implicature. This long-standing view is challenged by local pragmatics proposed by Mandy Simons. As to the theoretical development, Robyn Carston, Francois Recanati, and Emma Borg respectively raise their comments, while Simons positively responds to these commentaries and further elaborates her stance. In this article, the argumentation among these scholars is presented first, and much attention is paid to the value and influence of the argumentation, which would shed light on the current debate between semantics and pragmatics.

Jules Vuillemin et la philosophie analytique

Résumé Dans cette communication, qui reprend en partie les idées exposées il y a trente ans dans un article de Critique, François Recanati entreprend de caractériser la philosophie analytique en discutant une demi-douzaine de traits supposés distinctifs de la discipline : l’usage de la logique, l’importance de la philosophie du langage considérée comme philosophie première, le refus de réduire la philosophie à l’histoire de la philosophie, l’idée que la philosophie est une discipline de second niveau, l’idée qu’un progrès est possible en philosophie, ou encore – trait fondamental selon l’auteur – le caractère intersubjectif de la pratique analytique, qui rappelle la pratique scientifique et constitue ce que François Recanati appelle « l’esprit scientifique » de la philosophie analytique. A chaque étape du parcours, l’auteur s’interroge sur les aspects de cette philosophie qui pouvaient susciter des réserves de la part de Jules Vuillemin, malgré son admiration globale pour ce courant.

SOBRE A DETERMINAÇÃO CONTEXTUAL DO QUE É DITO

RESUMO Duas versões contemporâneas do contextualismo radical em filosofia da linguagem, uma defendida por François Recanati e outra por Charles Travis, centram sua crítica à distinção tradicional entre semântica e pragmática na categoria de dito (what is said), tal como descrita por Paul Grice. Ambas as versões se contrapõem à ideia de que o que é dito é determinado plenamente pelo significado convencional da sentença proferida acrescido da fixação do valor de elementos indexicais. Ambas sustentam, a partir desta crítica, que uma enunciação não necessariamente expressa um conteúdo proposicional associado ao significado literal da sentença. Neste artigo, busco mostrar que a partilha desta tese negativa geral esconde divergências importantes. Centrando minha análise na reformulação feita por Recanati da categoria de what is said, busco mostrar como ela se organiza a partir da preservação e radicalização de princípios essenciais da pragmática griceana, bem como da ideia de que elementos subsentencias possuem um conteúdo proposicional mínimo atrelado à sua significação. Em seguida, busco apontar como a negação total da pragmática griceana e deste mínimo proposicional por Travis não apenas revela uma divergência profunda em relação a Recanati, mas gera problemas para a tentativa de reestruturação da noção de what is said.

Descriptive Names and Singular Thought

This chapter is concerned with an apparent disagreement between Gareth Evans (1982) and David Kaplan (1989) with regard to the capacities of names introduced into the language by describing their referents. The question at issue is whether such expressions are potential sources of novel singular thought. While Evans’ response is an emphatic “no,” Kaplan’s response is an equally emphatic “yes.” The chapter attempts to resolve (or rather dissolve) this apparent dispute by suggesting that the two philosophers have importantly different phenomena in mind when they talk of “thoughts”—including (and in particular) singular thoughts. Whereas Evans construes thoughts as mental states, Kaplan construes them as semantic contents. Before concluding, it argues for the superiority of the proposed resolution of the Evans/Kaplan debate over that of Francois Recanati (2012), who invokes his Mental File Framework in an attempt to reconcile the seemingly contrary views of Evans and Kaplan.

Singular Thought, Russellianism, and Mental Files

Many philosophers believe that there is a kind of thought about an object that is in some sense particularly directly about the object. The chapter will use the terms de re or singular thought for thoughts of this sort. It outlines a broadly Russellian approach to singular thought on which to have a singular thought about an object o is to have a thought whose content is a singular proposition having o as a constituent. It then explores some of the consequences of this view. It also critically discusses recent attempts by Francois Recanati and Robin Jeshion to explicate the notion of singular thought by means of the notion of a mental file.

Nomes Ficcionais e Nomes Vazios: Crítica à Teoria da Referência sem Referentes de Mark Sainsbury

Mark Sainsbury apresentou através da sua teoria da Referência sem Referentes (RSR) um caminho intermediário entre a teoria da referência direta de Stuart Mill e o descritivismo de Frege. A maior virtude da RSR é que ela permite que expressões que contêm nomes vazios (como ‘Vulcano é um planeta que orbita entre o sol e Mercúrio’) sejam ao mesmo tempo inteligíveis e passíveis de ser valoradas como verdadeiras ou falsas. Por outro lado, a partir da distinção que François Recanati (2018) estabelece entre declarações ficcio-nais, metaficcionais e paraficcionais, o objetivo neste artigo é o de argumen-tar que a RSR gera valores de verdade indesejados para as declarações que contêm nomes ficcionais. Como proposta para lidar com o problema, lançamos as linhas gerais da teoria artefactual de Amie Thomasson (1999) e da teoria dos dois modos de predicação de Peter van Inwagen (1977/1983) e Edward Zalta (1983) de modo que os nomes ficcionais são genuínos e referentes a artefatos abstratos.

Reply to François Recanati

In his present contribution François Recanati has said some very kind things about me and some very astute things about language. He recognizes something new and important which came into prominence, and enjoyed its heyday, at least in Anglophone philosophy, roughly in a post-war period stretching up to around Austin’s death in 1962. This was a period marked by a new sort of conception of what a philosophical question might be, and how one might coherently be formulated—of what philosophy ought to look like. He recognizes, too, those waiting in the wings to turn the clock back to a time of what they saw as a less complicated, more straightforward, and more comfortable form of philosophy; one in which we need not question ourselves, and our own ability to find our way about, to the extent that Austin and Wittgenstein asked us to do. Austin’s death was a signal to such philosophers to launch their attack. And Recanati has done much detailed work to show how such attacks—ones deploying such things as ‘the Geach point’ and Grice’s deployment of the notion implicature—come up short. What I will aim for here is to place what he sees in a somewhat wider setting. In it some of his main points can be supported in a slightly different way. I will also come to one point, at the end, on which, as frequent allies as we are, we part company....