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JOURNAL OF SEMANTICS A."\ 1:\'TER."\:\TIO�AI.JOl R.\i,\1. lOR TifE 1.:\'TERDISCIPU�:\HY STIDY OJ TilE �E..\l""'rllC...

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JOURNAL OF

SEMANTICS

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ICG Prinung

Volume 3, Number 3

September 1984

JOURNAL OF SEMANTICS

CONTENTS ROBERT R. VAN OIRSOUW, Accessibility of Deletion in Dutch. . .

201

NICHOLAS ASHER, Meanings don't Grow on Trees. . . . . . . . . . .

229

ARNOLD M. ZWICKY and JERROLD M. SADOCK, A Reply to Martin on Ambiguity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B. CORNULIER, Detachment =f ''Meaning Detachment"

249 257

Review Articles

PETER BOSCH: Hans-Jiirgen Eikmeyer and Hannes Rieser, Words, Worlds and Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

261

KIM STERELNY: A ndrew Woodfield, Thought and Object. . . . . . .

277

GE CALIS: John R. Searle, Intentionality. An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

295

Announcements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

301

on the lnte<do>etpllflMJ Study of the Semantu:s of Natural �uor;e 21th - 30th !IIJIUSI, 19U, Kine, Niedentcin, Genno!ny

Third International Colloquium

PROCESSING Sporuo<ed by

REFERENCE

the Journal of Semantics, the Department of PhJ looophy of � of the UnJ..,..,,y of Ni Jme&en ...r the Jnte

\. lo C:I5Cio. profc::�r of Italian UnguiSt K .., :11 lhe l'niwr.>il) of Am:.terdam, present'> here a new ed1tion and an anal)sis of a X\1 lth centul)· e.•.sa> wh1ch has remamt>tl unknown O\er the ccnturic::s but which t"<Jntains linguistiC and cpi�temologic idea.., of grat value for the h1storr of lingUistic thoughr

P 13esnicr( 1648-170S ). ltnguist, suggests in hi.� Reumon des umgu(!S a S)'l!tem for learnmg fore ago languages through thctrcompario;on and addrc&.csba-;ic fan guistk problems �uch �the reJauon between languaf(e and culture, and the role of the metaphor S):.tem

Laun)

based

in

ltngUL�Iic evolurion. He proposes an wcx:td' and ''simple"

on Re-.lSon and compo!>C..'d uf a basic�� of rules (cmlng frum

on which upphe.s a sec of derl\"atinnal rule. v.. tuch gaves ,1s outp ut the other

foretgn languages. These rules have a rational nature but are c.xplam�'/x) = .1' (ljl/x), where those probabilities are defined.10 Equipollence, however, does not provide us with a criterion of same information content . A speaker may be certain of two sentences, con ditional upon any information whatsoever (and hence they will be equipol lent) and still claim that they do not convey the same information, be cause they are intuitively about different objects, different properties and the like. A criterion that captures this intuition is the following. Two sentences S and S' have the same information content for a speaker A just in case their representations are strongly equipollent under every speaker content function for A. 1/> and 1jJ are strongly equipollent under .1' iff 1/> and 1jJ are equipollent under .1' and if 1/> or 1jJ are logically complex, their atomic constituents (either sentences or formulas) are also equipollent under .1' . 11 Let us say that speakers judge two expressions to be syn onymous just in case they have the same information content and the same truth-conditional content. Strong equipollence allows us to distinguish between the information content, and hence the meaning, of (1 ) and (2). Though (1 ) and (2) must be equipollent by our criterion, they are not, for most speakers, strongly equipollent, since there is no reason for correlating degrees of belief about Porky and his �nting with degrees of belief about Horatio and his flying. Let us now consider the case of (1 2) and (1 3). Recall that we have assumed that gorse and furze have the same intension. Consequently, accord ing to our constraint, the conditional distributions for (1 2) and ( 1 3 ) must at least btr' equipollent under all speaker content functions. Nevertheless, this allows that (1 2) and (1 3) may not take the same con-

243 d itional values everywhere. Though presumably the conditional probability of

(I 2) is always 1

where defined at all, the probability of { 1 3) may be less

than 1 , conditional upon certain info rmation that the speaker might accept or countenance (e .g., the information that gorse grows only in Wales and furze is primarily to be found in England's Lake District). Within the framework set out here , this is allowed, because we may assume that there can be a speaker content function that does not return a distribution for (12) at all but only (1 3). The rationale behind this is that a belief in

(I 3)

is sensitive to a variety o f background assumptions,

whereas (12) requires intuitively no special background assumptions at

all ; and thus, it seems reasonable to suppose that (12) and (1 3 ) belong to

(I 3) is necessarily

true ,

representation associated with (1 3) a value of less than 1 . What remains to be accounted for are the speaker judgments o f sen tence pairs (3) and

(4), (5)

and

(6), (7)

and

(8),

and (1 0) and (1 1 ). The

answer or explanation involves detailed questions about how we are to represent the tru th-conditions of these sentences, but presumably the sentences in each pair have the same truth-conditions. In some of the cases, it seems that the representations of the truth-conditions will be identical; in these cases, the two sentences must have the same information content, and so we do predict synonymy. We would, for instance, expect our algorithm to assign the same representation of truth-conditions to (3 ) and (4), though when quantifiers are present, the order of the quanti fiers in sentences and their passivizations may not only force a change

in

the representations but a change in truth-conditions as well. Perhaps the same could be said of

(5)

and

(6),

and of

(7) and (8). 1 2 A detailed examin

ation of problems involving such sentences, however, would require extensive treatment of the structure of a representational system for determining truth-conditions and the algorithm that would map syn tactic structures into such representations. That is beyond the scope o f this paper. Th e present framework, however , offers a means with which to investigate these problems . By distinguishing information content and truth-conditional content, we can begin to tie together a number of different problems confronting semantics. Mates's criterion of synonymy, though perhaps misnamed , tells us something about complicated intentional contexts - namely, that perhaps the truth-conditions for reports about belief and other intentional states involve not only truth-conditions of their embedded clauses but also the information content of these embedded clauses for the subject. Though info rmation content approximates truth-conditional content, there are also discrepancies; as we saw with the case of (12) and (1 3), speakers may have beliefs that distinguish with respect to information content

Downloaded from jos.oxfordjournals.org by guest on January 1, 2011

quite different clusters of beliefs. Note that though

it is perfectly consistent for a speaker content function to assign the

244

5 . SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS: A FINAL NOTE

Lewis is right to point out that there are at least two notions of meaning. He distinguished between them in the wrong way, however, The dis-


b etween two expressions with the same intension. This distinction general izes the intuition behind Frege's account of the informativeness of certain identity statements (Frege, 1 966), and moreover is compatible with a directly referential truth-conditional semantics for natural kind terms, proper names and indexicals, made famous by Kripke , Putnam and Kaplan (Kripke, 1972 , Putnam, 1 975a, Putnam, 1 975b, Kaplan, 1 977). 13 Here we have seen that distinguishing between truth-conditional content and information content is important to sorting out our intuitions about synonymy. Speakers provide judgments both about semantic content and about informativeness, and they sometimes conflate the two notions. Consequently, adequate semantic theories may diverge more definitely from intuitions about synonymy, when speakers conflate informativeness with semantic content. In general, then, synonymy judgments are less reliable than other sorts of judgments. We should not ask a truth-conditional theory of meaning to provide more than truth-conditional equivalence toward a criterion of synonymy, provided we have a sufficiently precise notion of truth-conditions. In formativeness, on the other hand, should not be a phenomenon that the truth-conditional component has to explain, since a semantic theory has to do with a certain relation between language and the world, while in formativeness has to do with a relation between the world, language and an individual speaker's psychological states. These are two distinct areas of study . Informativeness is a notion that must be accounted for in terms of functional role and sameness of information content defmed in terms of functional role. We might call this "speaker synonymy." Speaker synonymy will be a function of not only the meaning of expressions in the language but also of many idiosyncrasies of the speaker's experiences. These idiosyncrasies should not be part of a theory of meaning for the language. For instance, the structure as well as the content of the in dividual's memories and the kind of inferencing mechanism that a person actually uses to process linguistic data, will all be relevant to determining speaker meaning. While these structures may share certain features with the relevant structures of all speakers of the language, divergences will often account for informativeness. A good semantic theory should be able to distinguish between "speaker meaning" and truth-conditional content, and thus avoid the problems with synonymy that L-meaning failed to solve.

245 tinction

is

not between syntax and semantics, but ra ther between in

formation content and truth-conditional content. Distinguishing between info rmation content and truth-conditional content solves two problems at once. It takes the burden off syntax and the search for meaning-pre serving transformations, and semantic synonymy is n ow a matter of truth conditional equivalence. On the other hand, it explains away those ap parent problems with synonymy at the lexical level by allowing that sen tences may be semantically synonymous (in the sense of having the same descriptive content) without being speaker-synonymous (their having the same functional role). Lewis's strategy, however, raises an important issue for semantics: required for semantics? It seems clear that

not

all syntactic information is

relevant to semantics; some configurational

information must be discounted, if we are to avoid puzzles about the synonymy of sentences (3}(1 0), for instance. On the other hand , con figurational information is important in deciding aspects of quantifier scope (Cooper, 1 983) and anaphora (Kamp , 1 98 1 ). Depending on the syntactic theory considere d , the requirements may vary. It is an issue, unfortunately, that goes far beyond the scope of this paper.

The University of Texas at A ustin Center for Cognitive Science GRG 220

Austin, Texas 78712

NOTES 1 . Camap, 1 947, anticipated these difficulties with his notion of intensional iso morphism. 2. For a discussion of this point, see Davidson, 1 967, Platts, 1 979, McDowell, 1 976 . 3 . See Brame, 1 976, chapters 1 and 2 for details. 4. One could solve this problem by requiring that two L-meanings be identical iff the intensions paired with each other by means of the isomorphism also have the same '1abels" or lexical strings in the terminal nodes of the full phrase structure tree. This distinguishes between (1 2) and (1 3) at the cost of saying that no two distinct sentences are synonymous with each other. But clearly, speakers find distinct sen tences to be synonymous, so this is not a viable option. 5 . Capturing entailments and other semantic predictions in such an extensional theory might require, however, a different approach. In Asher, 1 983 , I argue that the best way for an extensional theory to capture facts about entailment, contra dictoriness and the like is to resort to proof-theoretic definitions of these terms within the context of a Tarskian formal theory of tru th . But since extensional theories following Lewis's lead would likewise have a coarse meaning given by a Tarskian theory of truth as well as the more finegrained E-meanings and E' -meanings to deal with synonymy, there need be no insurmou ntable problem in defining some


is

What syntactic information

246

REFERENCES Asher, N . , 1 982: Truth Conditions and Semantic Competence: Toward a Theory of Linguistic Understanding. Ph .D. thesis, Yale University . Asher, N., 1 9 8 3 : The Trouble with Extensional Semantics. Forthcoming in : Philo

sophical Studies. D. Bonevac, 1 9 8 3 : How Extensional is Extensional Perception? (Forth coming in Linguistics and Philosophy). Barwise, J., 1 9 8 1 : Scenes and Other Situations. Journal of Philosophy 78 : 369-397. Barwise, J. and J. Perry, 198 3 : Situations and A ttitudes. MIT Press, Cambridge, Asher, N. , &

Massachusetts.


semantic relations using the coarser notion of meaning. Mter all, this is the approach followed for Lewis's intensional theory. 6 . Some may resort here to properties to solve these difficulties; but property theorists of course will have to determine somehow which properties are assigned to which common n ouns, adjectives and verbs, and this is really n o different than the problem intensional semantics has with intensionally isomorphic sentences that plausibly differ in meaning. 7 . Barwise and Perry (1983 : 5 3 ) suggest that situation types need not be partial functions, though they do introduce them in the book as such (p . 7) . If situation types need not be partial functions, then obviously the meanings of ( 1 4) and (1 5) may differ. If situation types are not partial functions, however, I find it diffi cult to see how they can represent "chunks" of the world, since they might both verify and refute a particular sentence. I find this possibility unintelligible, unless we no longer consider the notions of verification and refutation as one way of explicating the notion of truth conditions. 8. 1llis allows us to consider many�orted fust order languages where the domain of quantification may range not only over individuals, but sets of individuals, events, and the like. An example of this sort of representational system is given in Karnp, 1 98 1 . Though some may argue that the expressive p ower of such a language will not by sufficient to determine correctly the truth-conditions of natural language dis course, it is not at all clear that a many�orted language is not sufficient to produce a viable semantic theory. 9. Otherwise, conditional probability functions would not provide models for first order logic. 10. The term "equipollence" is due to Field, 1 977. 1 1 . We can define in a relatively straightforward way a conditional distribution for representations that are equivalent to open sentences or formulas of a first order language. We simply replace the occurrence of each free variable with an arbitrary name or tag for an arbitrary individual. This has, however, a consequence for the mapping of proper names in the natural language into the representational system; in effect we shall map proper names of English into predicates in the representational system that apply to these tags for arbitrary individuals. But we can still adopt a directly referential theory of proper names in a natural language with such a device. 1 2 . If we treat names as predicates (see note 1 1 ), it seem s that th e second ocrurrence of Tom in (7) will only make a trivial addition to the first order representation of (8); otherwise the two representations will be identical. This trivial addition should make no difference to the strong equipollence of (7) and (8). 1 3 . I investigate this compatibility in Asher, 1 982.

247

Mates, B., 1 95 2 : Synonymity. In : L. Linsky (ed.), Seman tics and the Philosophy of Language. University of lllinois Press, Urbana; pp . 1 1 1 -1 38. McDowell, J., 1 976: Truth Conditions, Bivalence, and Verificationism. ln : G. Evans and J. McDowell (eds.), Truth and Mean ing. Oxford University Press, Oxford ; pp. 42-66. Montague, R., 1974: Formal Philosophy. Yale University Press, New Haven. Platts, M., 1 979: Ways ofMeaning. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. Putnam, H ., 1 975 : The Meaning of 'Meaning'. In: H. Putnam (ed.), Mind, Language and Reality: Philosophical Paper8, Volume 2. Cambridge University Press, Cam bridge; pp. 2 1 5 -2 7 1 . Putnam , H., 1 97 5 : Explanation and Reference. In: H . Putnam (ed.), Mind, Language and Reality: Philosophical Paper8, Volume 2. Cambridge University Press, Cam bridge; pp. 1 96 -2 14.


Brame, M., 1 976: Conjectures and Refu tations in Syn tax and Smuzntics. North Holland, Arnste�dam. Bresnan, J. (ed.), 1 982: The Mental Representation of Grammatical Relafiong_ MIT Press, Ca m bridge. Burge, T., 1 978: Belief and Synonymy . Journal ofPhilosophy 75: 1 1 9-1 38. Carnap, L , 1 947: Meaning and Necessity. University of Cll icago Press, Olicago. Chomsky , N., 1 982: Lectures on Government and Binding. Faris Publications, Dordrecht. Cooper, R., 1 983: Quantification and Syntactic Theory. D. Reidel, Dordrecht. Cresswell, M., 1 973 : Logics and Languages. Methuen & Co., London. Davidson, D., 1 % 7 : Truth and Meaning. Synthese 1 7: 304-3 23. Field, H., 1 977: Logic, Meaning and Conceptual Role. Joumal of Philosophy 74: 3 79-409. Frege, G., 1 96 6 : On Sense and Reference. ln: M. Black and P. Geach (eds.), Trans la tions from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege. Basil Blackwell, Oxford; pp. 56-78. Kamp, H. , 1 98 1 : A Theory of Truth and Semantic Repre sentation. ln : J. Groenen dijk, Th . Janssen & M. Stokhof (eds.), Formal Methods in the Study ofLanguage. Mathematisch Centrum Tracts, Amsterdam; pp. 277-3 22. Also published in: Tru th, Interpretation and Information, J. Groenendijk, Th . Janssen & M. S tokhof (� .). Faris Publicati..ms, Dordrecht; pp. 1 -4 2. Kaplan, D., 1 97 7 : Demonstratives. Unpublished Mimeograph. Kripke, S., 1972: Naming and Necessity. ln: D. David!!On and G. Harman (eds.), Semantics ofNatural Language. Reidel, Dordrecht; pp. 25 3-3 5 5 . Leblanc, H . , 1 983: Alternatives t o Standard First Order Semantics. ln : D. Gabbay & F. Guenthner (eds.), Handbook of Philosophical Logic, Volume I: Elements of Classical Logic. Reidel, Dordrecht; pp. 1 89-274. Lewis, D., 1 97 2 : General Semantics. 1n: D. Davidson and G. Harman (eds.), Seman· tics of Natural Language. Reidel, Dordrecht; pp. 1 69-2 18.

Journal of Semantics 3: 249-256 A REPLY TO MARTIN ON AMBIGUITY ARNOLD M. ZWICKY AND JERROLD M. SADOCK

0. INTRODUCfiON

'Negation, Ambiguity, and the Identity Test' in this journal ( 1 982),

linguists in deciding whether or not particular sentences are ambiguous, examin.es the application of these tests to negation by

not in English , and

concludes that claims by Atlas ( 1 9 77) and Kempson ( 1 975) that there is no ambiguity between an external and an internal interpretation of

not

have not been p roven. We do not propose to reconsider the negation issue here (but see Blackburn ( 1 983) for a response to Atlas that is generally consistent with our remarks); rather we are conunenting on Martin's interpretations of (a) the function of identity tests in linguistic argu mentation; (b) the notio n of the term

undcrstarrling

word

in linguistic analysis; and (c) the use of

in Zwicky and Sadock ( 1 97 5 ; hereafter ZS). We

contend that M is mistaken on all three points and that in consequence his analysis fails as an explication o f id entity tests.

1 . THE FUNCfiON OF IDENTITY TESTS

We begin b y pointing out that nentity tests are designed

to

determine

whether a particular string of words in some language is to count as a single entity in the syntax of that language, or as two syntactically dist inct entities. We take as uncontroversial the claim that ( 1 ) represents (at least) two syntactically d istinct entities. (1)

We saw her duck

Equally uncontroversial, in our view , is the claim that (2) represents (at least) two syntactically distinct entities. (2)

The bill is huge

Counterposed to examples like ( 1 ) and (2) are examples like (3), which we


In

John N. Martin attempts an explication of the 'identity tests' used by

2 SO b elieve uncontroversially represents only o ne syntactic entity (d isregarding the inherent vagueness of names like Jill an�

Herb).

Jill met Herb's cousin

(3)

(Note that no semantic claims follow directly from what we have above.

In

said

particular, it is not true that a string s represents two syntactical

ly d istinct entities if and only

if its

range of meanings can be expressed as

(sl v s2) for some sl and s2. The ranges of meanings for

(I ) and (2) can be

so expressed , it is true, but so can the range of meanings for (3) - for instance, as 'Jill met Herb 's female cousin' or as 'Jill met Herb 's male The point of looking for tests is to

shed

light on cases where pre

theoretical intuitio ns are unclear, while maintaining the distinction between

(I) and (2)

on the one hand, and (3) on the other. Identity tests rely on a

class of reduction transformations (o r elliptical constructions, if one prefers a nontransfonnational recasting o f these ideas) subject to an identity condition. Among these transformatio ns are those illustrated in (4) below . Jill m et Herb 's cousin, and Laura met Herb 's cousin

(4)

a. Jill met Herb 's cousin and

S so did Laura l l Laura did too 5

b . Jill and Laura (each) met Herb's cousin

In

(4a) one occurrence of

so

did

met Herb 's cousin is replaced b y an expression, did too ; and in (4b), one occurrence of met Herb 's cousin is In both cases, the material that is replaced or missing must be

or

missing .

syntactically identical to other material

in the sentence. When we con

(2), w hich represents two syntactically different en S2 , we see that for such reduction transformations, S l and

sider a string like tities

S2

Sl

and

count as nonidentical ; it follows that although (Sa) represents four

syntactically d ifferent entities, (Sb ) represents only two . (S)

a. The b ill is huge and the bill is astonishing

b.

The bill is huge and astonishing

(2) and (3) has semantic (2) has its associated semantic readings The beak is huge') corresponding to S l and

The syntactic difference between examples like correlates. Each syntactic entity in (sl , The expense is huge' ; s2,

S2

respectively , so that the string (Sa), with its conjoined full clauses, has

four semantic readings - one reading for each of the four syntactic entities it represent s ; but the reduced (Sb ), representing only two syntactic entities,


cousin '.)

251 lacks the two 'cro ssed ' readings o f (Sa), 'The expense

is astonishing' and

'The beak

is

is huge and the beak

huge and the expense is astonishing', and

has only the 'parallel' readings of (Sa), The expense is huge and the ex pense is astonishing' and 'The beak is huge and the beak is astonishing ' . The string i n (3), ir. contrast , represents only one syntactic entity, and the same will be true for the conjunction of full clauses in (4) as well as for any of the reductions in (4a-c). Even though

(3) and (3 ') each represents only one syntactic entity, it is

still possible to state two different sets of truth Jill met Herb 's cousin

(3 ')

Laura met Herb 's cousin

conditions for each in such a w ay that its truth conditions are equivalent to a disjunction , (cl v c2) for

(3),

(dl v d2) for

(3 ').

The full conjunction

in (4) then has the truth conditions (cl v c2) & (dl v d2), equivalent to a disjunction of four pairs of conditions - (cl & dl ) v (cl & d2) v (c2 & d l ) v (c2 & d2) - and t h e reduced conjunctions i n (4 ) have the sam e truth con ditions, including the 'crossed' truth conditions (cl & d2) and (c2 & dl ). Therefore , semantic considerations alone are not enough to distinguish true ambiguity from generality. We stress again that the reason why tests based on certain reduction transformations distinguish cases like

is

(2)

from those like

a string representing two distinct syntactic entities and

(3) is that (2) (3) is a string

representing one syntactic entity, while reduction transformations require syntactic id entity between the reduced material and material in another conjunct. What constitutes syntactic nonidentity , at least in the clear cases?

(6)

a.

A

d ifference in syntactic structure at some point in a string ;

this can be a simple difference in constituent organization, as in

Ann and Beth and Carol wa/ disagree,

o r more complex (a

matter of transformational derivation, or in some analyses, sub category membership), as in

FArl likes Fred more than Gerald;

b . a difference in syntactic structure at some point in a string, accompanied by the occurrence of one or more phonological (or orthographic) stretches representing distinct lexical items, as in ( l ) ; c . the occurrence of one or more phonological (or orthographic) stretches representing distinct words, like the two words

bill in

(2) ; d . the occurrence at some point of a phrase (like

Delbert kicked


(3)

252

the bucket)

that is either the product of the ordinary rules of

the syntax or is an idiom. (6) is a list o f the types of am biguity that must be recognized in the syn tactic descriptio n of a language - subtypes of structural ambiguity in (6a), ambiguities that are both structural and lexical in (6b), and subtypes of lexical ambiguity in (6c) and (6d) . The identity tests are tests for am

biguities in

the syntactic description of a string: t o b e somewhat more

precise,

A

(7)

string

is

syntactically ambiguous as between syntactic represen

T, if reduction trans

formations of the appropriate sort (n amely those requiring syn tactic identity), when applying

to T,

yield st rings with only two

('parallel') syntactic representations, not four. Note that

(7)

is not a definition of syntactic ambiguity, but only a (suf

ficient) condition relating syntactic ambiguities in one set of strings to those

in another.

If

(7) is

to b e at all useful, rather than merely true, we

must be able to argue, independently of identity tests, that certain strings are syntactically ambiguous in certain ways.

In

this connection, we point out that

M is entirely (1 ) again.

the identity tests to zeugma . Consider st ring that it is structurally ambiguous in (8) and (8)

correct

in

relating

One way to argue

is

to adduce two sets of strings like those

(1)

represents the (essentially accidental)

(9) -

a . We saw them duck b . We saw him duck c . We saw her meditate d . We saw her vanish

(9)

a. We saw their d uck b . We saw his duck c. We saw her mallard d . We saw her wildebeest

from which we conclude that

confluence of two different patterns.

In

each set, the strings are

(un

controversially , we hope) unambiguous, and within each set they have the same constituent structure ; but these constituent structures differ in (8) and

(9),

the difference residing in the substring

T

comprising the last

two words of these strings. If reduction transformations respect syntactic identity, it follows that they cannot apply to the string in

(10) to

yield those in

(1 1 ).


tations S l and S2, differing in some substring

253

(10)

a. We saw their duck and we saw them duck b . We saw her meditate and we saw her mallard

(11)

a . *We saw their and them duck b . *We saw her meditate and mallard

The strings in (1 1 ) are zeugmatic, indeed fatally so for the purposes of comprehension. The same syntactic id entity condition that predicts (I I) to be zeugmatic bars the crossed syntactic representations in (1 2b) from ( 1 2a), itself a conjunction of two strings like (1). a . We saw her duck and we saw her crow b . We saw her duck and crow

The same observations can be made about simpler examples like

(13)

a.?? She filled a pen with pigs and ink. [zeugma] b . We noticed, and then contemplated, a pen. [only two re presentations]

In general, syntactic identity conditions both rule out certain reduced conjunctions and also bar particular syntactic structures for others.

2. THE WORD

In our discussion in the preceding section, as in ZS, we assumed a Saus surean conception of word (in fact, of the more inclusive technical notions lexical item and expression). For us, a word is a pairing of phonological (or orthographic) form and meaning. It is not meaning alone : gorse and furze are two different words, not one. And it is not sound (or script) alone : knight and night are two different words, not one, and so are pen 'writing implement ' and pen 'enclosure for animals'. Martin , unfortunately, speaks of the zeugmatic (14) and ( 1 5) - his ( 1 8) and (19) - as ''involving the same syntactic entity . . . used in two different senses" (p. 26 1 ).

( 1 4)

Tony Benn is a radical and so is the square root of2

( 1 5)

Ink goes in pens and so do pigs

We grant that the two occurrences of radical in ( 1 6) are both nouns and have the same pronunciation (and spelling), and that the two occurrences


( 1 2)

254 of pen in (I 7) are both nouns and have the same pronunciation (and spelling). (16)

Tony Benn is a radical and the square root of 2 is a radical

(17)

Ink goes in pens and pigs go in pens

(18)

Tony Benn is a liberal and the square root of 2 is irrational

Oearly distinct words with identical pronunciations are a commonplace occurrence in every language , and they arise historically in a number of ways - by the phonological convergence of different words, by semantic divergence from a single word , by borrowing from other languages or dialects, and by invention. To deny that they exist is to take appearance (in this case , phonology) for reality . It is also to confound the task of distinguishing these cases from an intuitively quite different set of phe nomena, such as the possibility of interpreting past verb forrns as referring to the recent or remote past , the poSSibility of understanding brother to refer to an older or younger brother, and the like .

3 . UNDERSTANDINGS

The technical term understanding (a count noun) was introduced in ZS specifically to avoid the necessity of deciding ahead of time when the term reading would be appropriate. The term (semantic) reading is usually reserved for the idiosyncratic semantic content asso ciated with individual lexical items - and derivatively, with the semantic content associated with syntactic constructions by virtue of compositional semantic principles operating on the content of the parts of those constructions. In the case of a word like pen, to say that it has two readings is to say, albeit loosely, that there are two words pro nounced [prn] , each with its own reading. To say that a word like kudu has


But that does not mean that they are the same entity, any more than the fact that identical twins are of the same sex and look alike means that they are the same person. The two different occurrences of radical in (1 6) are two different nouns that happen to be pronounced (and spelled) the same, and this difference counts as much in making the first VP in (16) non identical to the second as would the difference between is liberal and is irrational, which have phonologically (and orthographically) distinct ad jectives in them ; (1 6) is ineligible for reduction to (14) for the same reason that (18) is ineligJ.'ble for any reduction in its VPs .

255 only one reading is to say that there i s only one word

kudu,

the semantic

aspect of the word including sufficient specification to distinguish it from {inter alia)

wildebeest, zebra,

and

springbok,

b ut sufficient generality to

allo w reference to kudus o f all ages, both sexes, all sizes, and so on. The point of seeking a neutral word is to allow discussion of such un clear examples as the adjective luud (as in It is hard

to find the answer and The answer is hard to find), the verb break (as in The rock broke and Kevin broke the rock) and the negator not, among a great many prob lematic cases in English. The strategy is to exploit the semantic conse quences of the syntactic principle {7) above. First , we establish some difference in sets of truth conditions c1 and

(cl

v

c2)

c2

characterizes the truth conditions associated with a

phonologically {or orthographically) characterized unit w. Then we in vestigate the behavior of w under reduction by transformations requiring syntactic identity . The conjunction of one occurrence of w with another

has as its truth conditions a set equivalent to the disjunction of four sets of truth conditions (as in our discussion of {Sa) above). If the reduction of one occurrence of w on syntactic identity with another occurrence maintains all four sets of conditions, then w is a single ('unambiguous') word. If the reduction of one occurrence of w on syntactic identity w ith another occurrence reduces the number of sets of disjoined conditions to two of the original four, then w represents two distinct words. This discussion is simplified if we talk about a set of truth conditions as an

understanding.

The previous paragraph can be summ arized by saying

that if reductions under syntactic identity preserve the two understandings of w, w is a single word, but if they reduce the understandings to one {in other words, if they eliminate the 'crossed ' understandings), w represents two distinct words. Our desire to have a neutral term like

understanding is consistent with M (p . 264) rejects a states-of

an analysis in terms of 'states of affairs'.

affairs approach on the grounds of ontological parsimony , but there is much to be said for an ontology with a middle ground between individual possible worlds and intensions, the two alternatives

M

offers. Among other

things, we should like to have a way of making such ordinary observations as that the (unambiguous) English word

cousin

is unspecified as to sex,

relative age w ith respect to ego, generational level with respect to ego, maternal/paternal connection, and any number of other meaning dis tinctions that are the subject of consid erable lexical differentiation in other languages.


such that

256 4 . FINAL REMARKS It seems to us that M has seriously mistaken the intentions and proposals in ZS. Almo st surely , some of his misconceptions were e ncouraged by our exposition, which was directed at an audience of linguists. We simply assum ed that a difference in words constituted a difference of syntactic structure, 9J that tactic structure as

bene sees a waUaby does not have quite the same syn bene sees an aardvark or Janet sees a waUaby, though

their labeled tree structures above the terminal nodes are identical. And we simply assumed that an 'ambiguous word'

is

really two words with the

same pronunciatio n, as Saussure proposed a hundred years ago . Starting

reading, ambiguity, and identity test. is beside the point , given

We believe that most of his analytical apparatus

M's misconceptions on the function of identity tests and on the nature of the word , and given his decision not to explore 'states of affairs' as ex plicanda of uruierstandings.

Linguiftics DqJartment Ohio State University and

Linguistics DqJartment University of Or icago

REFERENCES A tlas, J.D. , 1 9 7 7 : Negation, ambiguity , presupposition. L inguistics and Philosophy 1 : 3 2 1-3 36. Blackburn, W.K., 1983: Ambiguity and non�pecificity: A reply to Jay David A tlu. Linguistic� and Philosophy 6 : 4 79-498. Kempson, R.M., 1975: Presupposition and the Delimitation of Semantics. Cam bridge Univ. Press, Cambridge. Kimball, J.P. (ed.), 1 9 7 5 : Syntax and Semantics IV. Academic Press, New York. Martin, J.N ., 1 9 8 2 : Negation, am biguity, and the identity terJ.. Journal of Semantics 1 : 2 5 1-274. Zwicky, A .M . & Sadock, J.M., 1975 : Ambiguity tests and how to fail them. In: Kimball (ed.): 1-36.


from the roughly contrary position on b oth matters, Martin has con structed a complex explication of

Journal of Semantics 3 : 257-260

DETACHMENT

f "MEANING DETACHMENT " B. DE CORNULIER

Detachment role: If P can be proven, and if moreover P -:> Q can be proven, then Q can be proven When someone says, If I am not crazy, it is raining, if he tacitly assumes, I am not crazy, he may obviously imply: It is raining. Such examples (p . 2) illustrate the fact that something like Detachment is commonly exploited in ordinary speech. 2) I assume that the notion meaning is such that the following relation holds:

Meaning-implication relation: U P means Q, then P implies Q 3) From the combination of 1 and 2 , the following rule can be derived:

Meaning Detachment rule (weak version): If P can be proven, and if moreover (P means Q) can be proven, then Q can be proven A

'thesis' corresponding to this 'rule' is informally stated as follows (p. 3):

Meaning Detaclunent thesis (weak version): (P plies Q

&

(P means Q)) im

Meaning Detachment, henceforth MD, is used to explain why, by saying X, and that X means Q, one may be committed to the truth of Q. Example, if one says: (Athens was a republic� - Thisi means that Athens had a president reelected every two years, (where indices indicate the referential scope o f ''this"), he is committed t o the truth o f the proposition Athens had a president reelected every two years, and this is accounted for by MD, which applies to the conjunction of the first sentence with the second one,


The basic idea of my book Meaning Detachment is explicated as follows in its very first four pages: 1 ) Recall the Detachment rule, alias Modus Ponens (where ponens means detaching), according to which, in Propositional Calculus:

258 which says what the first o n e means. When the speaker p roperly means, or implicates in the sense of Grice , the proposition to the truth of which he is conunitted by MD, I call this a case of "strong" Meaning Detachment , accounted for by the following formula (which is not logically necessary ; p . l 4):

Meaning Detachment thesis means Q

(strong version): (P & (P means

Surprisingly, the frrst example by which illustrate the MD analysis is:

R.

Hauser &

C.

Gerstner

If I am not crazy, it is raining,

Q))

(1 983)

which in my

relation between such an example and M D "is not explicitly shown" in my book; therefore, they "could not resist to state explicitly" this correlation as follows:

(1)

P=

(2)

P means Q = I am

(3)

Q = It is raining

I am not crazy not crazy means It is raining

Then comes their appreciation: in this analysis, clause little more than an

ad hoc

(2)

"seems to be

assumption" ; this fully justifies their con

clusion : "An informal analysis employing such freedom in the intuitive reconstruction of concrete examples can fit anything into the schema" of my rule. But as we saw above , a different analysis was proposed on the second page of the book under review: replace Hausser's and Gerstner's reconstructed clause under discussion

2,

which is avowedly gratuitous, by the very sentence

(If I am not crrzzy, it is raining),

do without MD, simply

use something like the Detachment rule, and you get the analysis of the reviewed book.

This misunderstanding is not accidental, it is related to the very way in which Hausser & Gerstner present the principle of MD:

''Comulier formulates Modus Ponens as a rule of communication of the following form (. . ) : (P & (P means Q) implies Q - weak version: (P & (P means Q) means Q" - strong version : .

First minor misunderstanding: these are the "theses", not the ''rules" of MD (they are clearly distinguished on page

3

of the book). Second modifi

cation by the reviewers: they omit a second closing parenthesis after

P


view neither requires, nor allows, applying such a rule. They fmd that the

259

means Q

(see above), which is crucial to the sense of these theses. Third

misunderstanding: they present Meaning Detachment as my ''formulation" of Detachment, while these two rules are clearly distinguished on pages

1

to

3

of my book, where the former is derived from the latter plus the

Meaning-hnplication relation; this confusion may be the source of their curious reconstruction of my analysis of sentences of the type IfP, Another misunderstanding, which gives a strange idea of

Detachment, will

Q. Meaning

appear by comparing my formulation, and their re

construction, of the analysis of an example which I warned was not "obvious" ; I write ( p .

1 6-1 7):

Do you mean that I may go out? - Of course!

(28)

is to ask him, not only if he means something, but if I may go out; the

positive answer doesn't mean simply "Yes I do", but also "Yes you may". The principle of this exchange is the following: since the con junction of P with (P means Q) means Q, to ask someone who is al ready responsible for P if he is also responsible for (P means Q) is, by anticipating the effect of meaning detachment on possible answers, to ask him if he is responsible for Q. Through this anticipated operation, the question about meaning in (28) amounts to asking for a permission".

R.

Hausser &

C.

Gerstner do not mention this analysis, neither do they

mention less complicated examples with an interplay of question and answ er, b ut they feel compelled to reconstruct my analysis as follows:

" (1 ) P = Do you mean that (2) P means Q

=

Do

I may go out?

you mean that I may go out?

means I want to go

out.

(3 ) Q =

I want to go out."

This, again, fully justifies their general conclusion about the book they are reviewing. But their reconstruction, mentioning the question examined in dependently of the answer, does not take the least account of the inter play between question and answer, which is the core of my analysis. The

P means Q

value should rather be assigned, first of all, to such an ex

pected answer as bined with some

You may go out, Gerstner's clause

Yes, I mean (by P) that you may go out, which, com previous utterance P of the asked person , would induce by MD. One of the things which make look Hausse r's &

2

particularly gratuitous is that, to reconstruct a P means


"In certain questions, meaning detachment is exploited in a Jess ob vious way. To ask of someone in authority ·

260 Q

proposition, they do not even exploit the fact that the word

occurs in the question. The misunderstandings

since

their tone

is

1

mean

of the reviewers are all the more excusable

by no means aggressive. But they are worth correcting

b ecause of the personalities of the reviewers, because of the high scientific standard of the Journal in which the review was published, and because what was misunderstood was the very principle of the book under review.

Pont-Hus 44390 Petitmars, France

1 . No other review of my boo k presented such miliUndontandings. A detailed criticism of Meaning Detachment was published in Recanati (1 982), which I try to take account of in my formulation of MD in Comulier (1 984).

REFERENCES Comulier, B. de, 1 980 : Meaning Detachment. John Benjamins, Almterdam . Comulier, B. de, 1 984: A propos des Enonces Per[ormati[s. In: u Fra11fais Mo derne, 5 2 : 1 15-1 2 1, OLF, Paris. Hausser, R., & C. Gerstner, 198 3 : Review of Meaning Detachment (Comulier, 1 980). In: Journal of Semantics 2, 3/4; 350-352. Recanati, F., 1 982: Let hroncis per[ormatift. Editions de Minuit , Pam.


NOTES

Journal of Semantics 3 : 257-260

DETACHMENT

f "MEANING DETACHMENT " B. DE CORNULIER

Detachment role: If P can be proven, and if moreover P -:> Q can be proven, then Q can be proven When someone says, If I am not crazy, it is raining, if he tacitly assumes, I am not crazy, he may obviously imply: It is raining. Such examples (p . 2) illustrate the fact that something like Detachment is commonly exploited in ordinary speech. 2) I assume that the notion meaning is such that the following relation holds:

Meaning-implication relation: U P means Q, then P implies Q 3) From the combination of 1 and 2, the following rule can be derived:

Meaning Detachment rule (weak version): If P can be proven, and if moreover (P means Q) can be proven, then Q can be proven A

'thesis' corresponding to this 'rule' is informally stated as follows (p. 3):

Meaning Detaclunent thesis (weak version): (P plies Q

&

(P means Q)) im

Meaning Detachment, henceforth MD, is used to explain why, by saying X, and that X means Q, one may be committed to the truth of Q. Example, if one says: (Athens was a republic� - Thisi means that Athens had a president reelected every two years, (where indices indicate the referential scope of ''this"), he is committed to the truth of the proposition Athens had a president reelected every two years, and this is accounted for by MD, which applies to the conjunction of the first sentence with the second one,


The basic idea of my book Meaning Detachment is explicated as follows in its very first four pages: 1 ) Recall the Detachment rule, alias Modus Ponens (where ponens means detaching), according to which, in Propositional Calculus:

258 which says what the first one means. When the speaker p roperly means, or implicates in the sense of Grice , the proposition to the truth of which he is conunitted by MD, I call this a case of "strong" Meaning Detachment , accounted for by the following formula (which is not logically necessary ; p . l 4):

Meaning Detachment thesis means Q

(strong version): (P & (P means

Surprisingly, the frrst example by which illustrate the MD analysis is:

R.

Hauser &

C.

Gerstner

If I am not crazy, it is raining,

Q))

(1 983)

which in my

relation between such an example and M D "is not explicitly shown" in my book; therefore, they "could not resist to state explicitly" this correlation as follows:

(1)

P=

(2)

P means Q

(3)

Q = It is raining

I am not crazy

=

I am not crazy means It is raining

Then comes their appreciation: in this analysis, clause little more than an

ad hoc

(2)

"seems to be

assumption" ; this fully justifies their con

clusion: "An informal analysis employing such freedom in the intuitive reconstruction of concrete examples can fit anything into the schema" of my rule. But as we saw above, a different analysis was proposed on the second page of the book under review: replace Hausser's and Gerstner's reconstructed clause under discussion

2,

which is avowedly gratuitous, by the very sentence

(If I am not crrzzy, it is raining),

do without MD, simply

use something like the Detachment rule , and you get the analysis of the reviewed book.

This misunderstanding is not accidental, it is related to the very way in which Hausser & Gerstner present the principle of MD:

''Comulier formulates Modus Ponens as a rule of communication of the following form (. . ): (P & (P means Q) implies Q - weak version: (P & (P means Q) means Q" - strong version : .

First minor misunderstanding: these are the "theses", not the ''rules" of MD (they are clearly distinguished on page

3

of the book). Second modifi

cation by the reviewers: they omit a second closing parenthesis after

P


view neither requires, nor allows, applying such a rule . They fmd that the

259

means Q (see above), which is crucial to the sense of these theses. Third misunderstanding: they present Meaning Detachment as my ''formulation" of Detachment, while these two rules are clearly distinguished on pages 1 to 3 of my book, where the former is derived from the latter plus the Meaning-hnplication relation; this confusion may be the source of their curious reconstruction of my analysis of sentences of the type IfP, Q. Another misunderstanding, which gives a strange idea of Meaning Detachment, will appear by comparing my formulation, and their re construction, of the analysis of an example which I warned was not "obvious" ; I write ( p. 1 6-1 7):

(28)

Do you mean that I may go out? - Of course!

is to ask him, not only if he means something, but if I may go out; the

positive answer doesn't mean simply "Yes I do", but also "Yes you may". The principle of this exchange is the following: since the con junction of P with (P means Q) means Q, to ask someone who is al ready responsible for P if he is also responsible for (P means Q) is, by anticipating the effect of meaning detachment on possible answers, to ask him if he is responsible for Q. Through this anticipated operation, the question about meaning in (28) amounts to asking for a permission".

R. Hausser & C. Gerstner do not mention this analysis, neither do they mention less complicated examples with an interplay of question and answ er, b ut they feel compelled to reconstruct my analysis as follows: " (1 ) P = Do you mean that I may go out? (2) P means Q = Do you mean that I may go out? means I want to go out. (3 ) Q = I want to go out." This, again, fully justifies their general conclusion about the book they are reviewing. But their reconstruction, mentioning the question examined in dependently of the answer, does not take the least account of the inter play between question and answer, which is the core of my analysis. The P means Q value should rather be assigned, first of all, to such an ex pected answer as Yes, I mean (by P) that you may go out, which, com bined with some previous utterance P of the asked person , would induce You may go out, by MD. One of the things which make look Hausser's & Gerstner's clause 2 particularly gratuitous is that, to reconstruct a P means


"In certain questions, meaning detachment is exploited in a Jess ob vious way. To ask of someone in authority ·

260 Q

proposition, they do not even exploit the fact that the word

occurs in the question. The misunderstandings

since

their tone

is

1

mean

of the reviewers are all the more excusable

by no means aggressive. But they are worth correcting

b ecause of the personalities of the reviewers, because of the high scientific standard of the Journal in which the review was published, and because what was misunderstood was the very principle of the book under review.

Pont-Hus 44390 Petitmars, France

1 . No other review of my boo k presented such miliUndontandings. A detailed criticism of Meaning Detachment was published in Recanati (1 982), which I try to take account of in my formulation of MD in Comulier (1 984).

REFERENCES Comulier, B. de, 1 980 : Meaning Detachment. John Benjamins, Almterdam . Comulier, B. de, 1 984: A propos des Enonces Per[ormati[s. In: u Fra11fais Mo derne, 5 2 : 1 15-1 2 1, OLF, Paris. Hausser, R., & C. Gerstner, 198 3 : Review of Meaning Detachment (Comulier, 1 980). In: Journal of Semantics 2, 3/4; 350-352. Recanati, F., 1 982: Let hroncis per[ormatift. Editions de Minuit , Pam.


NOTES

Journal of Semantics 3 : 26 1 -2 7 5

REVIEW ARTICLE Hans-Jilrgen Eikmeyer and Hannes Rieser (eds.), Words, JYorlds, and Con texts. New Approaches in Word Semantics. (= Research in Text Theory Vol . 6). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York, 1 98 1 . viii + 5 1 5 pp. Ooth DM 178,-. ISBN 3-1 1.008504-6 . Peter Bosch The study of word meanings has been pursued in many different ways and by a number of different scientific disciplines. The universal difficulty of

without sacrificing the versatility and flexibility of word

meaning

to the

precision of a scientifically acceptable statement. Pe rhaps the solution to

this difficulty will eventually come from the insight that word meaning, after all,

is

not one unified thing that could be handled by any one theory

b ut requires many theories, supplementing each other, and each dealing only with particular aspects of the complex notion of meaning. For the time being, in any case , it would certainly seem advisable to leave many options open and take a generally pluralistic attitude.

In the volume to be reviewed , Eikmeyer and Rieser present recent results in the study of word meaning that derive from some of the major approaches in linguistics and philooophy. Developments originating from psychology, anthropology, and artificial intelligence play a more

this book. Considering , however, the great amount of is found already in philo&:>phy and linguistics, the restriction

marginal. role in d iversity that of scope

is understandable and would appear quite

sensible.

Among the approaches present are the European Structuralist tradition, Frame Theory, Formal Semantics, Speech Act Theory, Conversation Analysis, and - as a novelty - Catastrophe Theory . Many of the twenty papers in the volume, however, do not clearly fall into any particular one of these

categories but propose combinatio ns or variants of the better

established traditions. The book has a very detailed and useful subject index, though, un fort unately, no index of names. It is also unfortunate that the individual contributions are not preceded by abstracts, though there are summaries of all pap ers included in the ed itorial introduction. The first paper, on "Adverbs of Causation", by Max

Cresswell, attempts to

provide a semantics for this rather diverse class of expressions, based on

David Lewis's analysis of causation. Under Lewis's analysis the causal state ment

"a

caused

b" is

entailed by the counterfactual conditional "if a had


the subject has been the fact that it is hard to be precise on something as fluctuating, iliosyncratic, vague , and elusive as the meanings of words

262

b

not occurred,

would not have occurred". Titis counterfactual then

interpreted in the possible world id iom :

a

respect to a world w, if and only if there is a world w '

are true in w and there true and

is

counterfactually implies b with '

such that a and

is no world more similar to w than w

'

b

in which a is

b not .

This would apply to the simplest case of adverbs of causation, like

fatally,

as in

Catherine fatally slipped, as follows :

Catherine fatally slipped

in the real world if and only if she slipped at time time t ' and if there

is a world w

'

t

and died at a later

in which she did not slip at

t ' and there is no world closer to ' slipped at t and did not die at t .

die at

t and

'

did not

the real world than w in which she

thing to do . Without some clarifiCation however of the notion that a '

particular w orld w is closer to a given world w than another world, there is no clear advantage of the poSSib le worlds idiom over the initial counter factual formulation, at least as far as the application of the approach to actual data

is

concerned . This

is

not to say that the intuitive formulation

in terms of the counterfactual conditional

is

satisfactory, but rather that

one formulation tells us as little as the other. Take the case where Catherine slipped on the roof, fell off and died. We may b e inclined to describe this situation by saying that Catherine fatally slipped . And this means that we would assume that , had she not slipped, she would still be alive. Now we can surely imagine circumstances where she did not slip and went on living happily ever after. And we could also imagine that she did slip but held on to the spout and was saved from her uncomfortable positio n by the ftre brigade, or that she landed in a swim ming pool next to the building or on a hay stack and climbed right up to the roof again to carry on with whatever she might have been doing there . - But in what sense should we say that these circumstances, or wo rlds, are fu rther removed from the actual world than the world where she does not slip and dies a peaceful death in the fall-out shelter like all the rest of us?

Is it just that we would consider it unlikely, or instances of great luck, if she falls into the swimming pool or on the hay stack? Perhaps we should say that the latter would certainly not be the ordinary course of events, not the sort of thing we would expect, other things being equal. - At any rate, it

is

these notio ns of likelihood, ordinary course of events, or default

expectation that need closer analysis. Talking of "distances" between different possib le worlds only covers up what needs Still, this

is

to

be investigated .

not strictly Cresswell's problem but a problem of the analysis

is the one from ''fatally" to the is interesting and illuminating . Category of Modality", Angelika Kratzer

of counterfactuals. The important step

counterfactual conditional. And this step

In her paper on "The Notional


Unfortunately, however, Cresswell d oes not provide us with a distance measure between po SSible worlds, and this would probably be a difficult

263 d evelops her notion of modality as an explication of c omm on semantic properties of a long list of Gennan expressions, not only comprising equivalents of the notorious may,

can, or rTU.Jst. simple necessity,

There is, first of all, the notion of

"A

reconstructs as follows :

which Kratzer

proposition is a simple necessity in a world

w with respect to the conversational background f if and only if it follows from f(w ). The new notion of a conversational b ackground is explained "

as follows (we restrict our considerations here to epistemic conversational backgrounds): an epistemic background is a function that assigns sets of propositions to possible worlds, namely those propositions that are known in the world in question . As for the remaining notions, Kratzer

if p

proposition p follows from a Si't of propositions A

if and

is true in all those worlds of W where all propositions of

A

are tru e . (W is the set of all poSSible worlds, and a proposition is taken as a subset of W, i.e. the subset of all those worlds where the p roposition i s true.) The interesting innovation here is clearly the notion of a

background

and one may expect that fu rther work will uncover a large number of illuminating applications for this notion. But let us consider an example.

I am standing outside my front door and cannot fmd my keys, I am sure I took them with me when I went o ut. This is a situation where I may senSibly say "I must have lost my keys" and have in mind what Kratzer calls a 'simple necessity'. That is, the p roposition I express Suppose

although

by the above sentence is true if and only if it follows from the relevant epistemic background , here from what

I

know in that world . An un

fortunate consequence of this analysis is the following. Suppose that, in the above situation, have to infer it . Perhaps

I I

already know that

I

lo st my keys and do not

saw them drop into a sewer .

Also

in this case the

proposition 'follows', in Kratzer's sense, from my epistemic background aoo hence there is no difference between this situation and the earlier one. Still , one could hardly deny that the utterance

"I must have lost my keys"

is appropriate only in the frrst kind of situation. Any analysis that treats both situations alike mis se s something crucial about the use and perhaps also about the semantics of

must.

We say rTU.Jst

just

in case we know not

directly but on the b asis of an inference, and Kratzer's analysis should be amended to incorporate this distinction. But such an amendment may not be a trivial matter, because the relevant distinction between 'knowing directly' and 'knowing on the basis of inference' is not easy to draw . For instance the inferred knowledge of Fred being unmarried from the know ledge that he is a bachelor would seem to count rather as 'direct knowledge' ; it would seem odd if someone, having heard that Fred is a b achelor, were to conclude : "Oh , he must be unmarried then". On the other hand , there is less oddity in the conclusion 'rrhere must be about

5300

American


explains that a only

264 soldiers in Grenada" if the previous information is that seven hundred soldiers have b een withdrawn from an original strength of six thousand .

Yet,

both conclusions wo uld seem to rest on 'analytical' inferences in

some sense of 'analytical'. Peter Lutzeier 's article on ''Words and Worlds" offers interesting con siderations of the use of possible worlds in natural language semantics. Lutzeier stresses that, as far as the interpretation of what people say in their language is concerned , not all possible worlds are quite on a par: there is fust o f all the actual world in which our speakers live that oc cupies a position of primacy; then there are all those possible worlds that

fairy tales and fiction books. Eventually there may also be possible worlds that are just ''too far away" from the actual wo rld of the speakers to be relevant for a semantics of their language . The notion of possible worlds that Lutzeier subsequently develops formally would seem to be able to handle such distinctions. And that is certainly a valuable result. Un fortunately , however, Lutzeier leaves us at this general level and refers the reader to future empirical investigatio ns that would have to specify the "fixed , most prominent set of world types" for a linguistic c orrunu nity. Lutzeier subsequently applies his notions to analyses of words like

possibly, constructions ilke x knows that p, and some German prepositions. These applications, however, are not very convincing, at least to m e , as analyses of the semantics of the corresponding expressions, and should probab ly rather be seen as having the statu s of illustrations for the formal approach.

Ekkehard

Konig 's paper is an excellent and well rounded-off study of

''The Meaning of Scalar Particles in Ge rman ". It is one of the few papers in the volume that are in the fust instance concerned with a particular set of data and provil e new insight into these data rather than using them in the discussion of matters mainly theoretical . The result is admirable : a o ne-piece account for the semantics of expressions like also, too , either, even, just, etc., o f which German has considerably more than English . The originality of the work here presented is not only in the actual proposal but also in the fact that Konig would seem the fust who has ever attempted to provide a uniform semantics for the expression s of th� superficially very diverse class, whereas there have been, on the other hand , quite a few studies on isolated expressions like

only

or even.

The fust step Konig takes is to propose a uniform syntactic classi ficatio n of the expressions under discu ssion in tenns of a categorial gram mar: they are modif1ers of expressions or phrases in just about any cate-


are within the range o f what our speakers would consider as future possi bilities , counterfactual alternatives, or as what they would create in their

265 gory , yielding new phrases of exactly the same syntactic category . In the syntactic analysis, however, Konig relies on earlier research by

Hans

Altmann. Despite its mainly empirical orientation the paper is also of theoretical interest. Many scalar particles have been seen as not con tributing to the truth-conditions of sentences in which they occur, or, ex pressed in a less flattering way for truth-conditional semantics: t ruth conditional semantics had nothing to · say about scalar particles. Now Konig shows that scalar particles do contribute to the truth-conditions, and it is here that their uniform semantic properties show. The contributbn by Hans.Jilrgen Eikmeyer and

Hannes Rieser,

''Meanings,

aims, as the title indicates, at an integration of notions from fonnal se mantics and the study of systems of knowledge and belief. The proposal

is roughly the following : linguistic meaning should be taken to incorporate factual knowledge and belief both in the form of extension-detennining functions (intensions) and in the form of stereotypes in the sense pro posed by Hilary Putnam. Stereotypes are not unifonn across a speech comm unity but differ according to the 'linguistic division of labour' (Putnam). Eikmeyer and Rieser explicate this notion in terms of what they call "backgrounds". These are sets of propositions believed to be true by speakers and these sets differ per subject matter between the respective experts and laymen . Different backgrounds again allow access to different contexts. These notions concerning knowledge and belief are linked up by Eikmeyer and Rieser with the central notions of intensio nal semantics

via a redefinitio n of possible worlds

as pairs of contexts and backgrounds

and by adjusting the notion of cornpositionality of intensio ns to the new notion of linguistic meaning .

An application of this approach that f�gures centrally in the paper is its aptness for the treatment of phenomena of vagueness in natural language. Vagueness, as conceived by the authors, can be brought about or can be eliminated by switching contexts: what is vague in one context may well be precise with respect to another c ontext and vice versa. This is an admirable programme, and one of it s main attractions in comparison with most other current approaches lies in the flexibility that can b e achieved by taking explicitly and systematically parameters like context and background into account. There are, however, a few prob lems that must not be overlooked. They derive mainly from the differ ent strands of research that Riese r and Eikmeyer are integrating. The first concerns the notion of context, which the authors want to see 'holistical ly' and in a realist spirit : contexts are just there, out in the world, and are left unanalyzed , without any internal structure. The authors assume, how-


Intensions and Stereotypes, A New Approach to linguistic Semantics"

266

Michael Grabski 's paper ''Quotations as lndexicals and Demonstratives" is an excellent and illuminating piece of work, attempting an outline of a semantics of quotation in a framework akin to David Kaplan's double indexing approach. Very little work on quotations has yet been done and Grabski is led by very careful observation to the perhaps surprising result that quotation shares interesting and important properties with demon stration and anaphora. John C. Bigelow 's paper ''Truth and Universals" is certainly one of the philosophically most exciting contributions in this volume . He proposes a reconstruction of the Kripkean realist notion of possible worlds on the basis o f Russell's philosophy in his 1 9 1 2 book 1heProblemsofPhilosophy. The most attractive feature of Bigelow's proposal is that he can avoid the major internal puzzle that has bugged intensional semantics : the paradox (if you wish to call it that) of belief contexts. This, taken together with the fact that possible worlds in Bigelow's approach are no longer primi tive unanalyzed entities must certainly be regarded as a major achieve ment in the philosophy of semantics. It is only the price that has to be paid which makes the proposal less attractive: universals must be reckoned among the primitive notions of the theory. But whatever one's attitude


ever, a number of functions that take contexts as arguments, or sets of contexts and even the set of all c ontexts. These functions cbuld, of course , never be calculated - and hence would be of rather limited empirical use because the set of c ontexts will remain non-denumerably infinite as long as we take contexts as unstructured , un-parametrized, wholes. Another difficulty I have concerns the constructi:>n of linguistic meanings as values of functio ns more generally. This view implies that, once the relevant parameters are fixed , there is no question any more about what the meaning of an expression is . But is the interpretation of linguistic expressions by humans really that deterministic? And if it is then we have here a deterministic theory all right but we shall hardly be able to apply it empirically, i.e. make actual predictions, because actual speakers can never really survey and take into account all relevant parameters in their linguistic behaviour. We would need an additional 'performance' theory. But then, why first make a theory about angels, i.e. abstract entities, if all we want is a theory about the chickens that are the real world down-to-earth instantiations of the angels of the theory? Surely, these questions are not specifically directed at Eikmeyer and Rieser, but concern linguistic theory formation more generally. Only one feels tempted to pose them again in this context, because Eikmeyer and Rieser make every effort to drive semantic theory into a more empirical and in that sense realistic perspective.

267 is towards countenancing intensional entities, Bigelow's paper will certain ly retain its value as a contribution to a better understanding of what ontological commitments come with a commitment to intensions.

Burghard Rieger's

paper "Feasable Fuzzy Semantics. On Some Problems

of How to Handle Word Meaning Empirically" is one of the papers, and there are several in this volume, that present genuinely n ew ideas about word semantics. Rieger, as I understand him, wo uld fundamentally sub scnbe to Zadeh's fuzzy semantics. Only there is a prob lem with that approach which has overshadowed some of its more attractive features: from where do we get the actual degrees of elementhood for the elements

and an eagle again is less of a bird than a sparrow, we still cannot do very much with this ranking in fuzzy semantics, unless we have a way of measuring the degree to which these feathered b ipeds are birds. Rieger pro poses an operational solution to this difficulty, based on the intuitive as sumption that a meaning of a word cannot be entirely independent of the meanings of the words with which it co-occurs. Hence one clue we have, as speakers or listeners as well as qua linguists, in de termining word meaning is the linguistic context . Rieger develops this simple intuition into automatic proced ures and probes how far it might get us. In a first step intensities of co-occurrence of words in a particular corpus are calculated and in a number of following steps a variety of semantic spaces are constructed that reflect different aspects of word m eaning. The results of these procedures applied to a c orpus of German news paper articles and carried out automatically by a computer are reproduced in Rieger's paper by means of a sample list of some lexical items. They are in striking agreement with the intuitions of German native speakers, and

this is the more surprising because the corpus Rieger used was really fairly small and certainly not very representative for ordinary Ge rman usage . One should c ertainly look forward to seeing Rieger's approach applied to much larger and more varied corpora. But what we have seen is very promising already. The few caveats I have are the following. I fail to see how co-occur rence based data should reveal very much about c ontextually largely un determined vocabulary , such as, in particular, the so-called logical vocabu lary of quantifier expressions, conjunctions, and also particles, prepo sitions, auxiliaries and their like. I have similar difficulties with highly general 'content ' words, which wo uld also seem

to

depend so little on their

environment (as far as their abstract , context independent , meaning is concerned) that even the analysis of very large corpora would probably tell us much less about them than just a hand ful of examples of use plus


of a particular fuzzy se t? How do we determine these degrees empirical ly? If a penguin is less of a bird than a duck and a duck less than an eagle

2 68 ostensive definitions. Still , this is not much more than

a priori scepticism

and one would have to wait and see . Another point is the relationship between the 'rough' statistics-based semantic de scriptions we get from Rie ger (or from a dictionary , though in a less

U!Eful and illuminating form) and

the 'fme ' semantic descriptions one would want to provide for fully con textualized expressions. I would certainly assume that the former are needed as ingredients for the latter, but how we get from one to the other is still far from clear. But then ,

this

is not the problem at which

Rieger's paper is directed and my sceptical remarks should not d ivert the reader from the b rillia nce and originality of Rieger's proposal. They rather se rve to c ontextualize it by hinting at m atters that still have to be

The paper by

Joachim BaOweg

and

Helnu.tt Frosch,

"Formal Semantics

for the Progressive of Stative and Non-Stative Verbs", makes a not very convincing a ttempt at provid ing a semantics for what they call 'verbs of change '. The only e xample considered is the Gemi.an places , its English equivalent to

faD asleep.

einschlafen,

and , in

My trouble starts already with

the in itial intuitio ns. Ballweg and Frosch claim that if John

slept

is true

at an interval t we may c onclude that it is also true for each subinterval of

t.

Well, if that is so , it must be a matter of John being known as a particu

larly sound sleeper. But it is certainly not a matter of the m eaning of the

sentence . Unfortunately, it !Eerns that the authors need this false as

John slept with John fell asleep and John was falling asleep. For the latter sentences they claim that their truth at an interval t does not allow the inference that they are also true at each subinterval oft. John fell asleep should rather be seen as being true at an sumption in order to contrast

interval at the beginning of which John is awake and the end of which he is asleep and

John was falling asleep

is different in that here we may not

conclude that at the end of t John is actually asleep , nor that at the

beginn ing

of it he was awake . The sentence is true, Ballweg and Frosch

would claim, at any subinterval of the interval at which it is true that John fell asleep . The fundamental intuition of the authors is that during an interval of falling asleep the degree of being asleep increases between each two successive time points. Now, perhaps this is true in some cases, and perhaps it is even typically the case . But I should deny emphatically that the meaning of John

feD asleep has anything to do w ith the

nature of

the transition process . The focu s of such a statement would rather be on the

state of being awake and the state of being process that leads from one to the other. When I know John was awake at time t 1 and I see that he is asleep at t 2 (where t2 is later than t 1 - not many hours later , though) I may assert that he fell asleep, no matter what happened in b etween. By c ontrast, John was difference

between the

asleep , but not on the


taken up .

269

falling asleep focusses on the process rather than on the difference between the states before and after. It

is

probably the formal semantics Ballweg and Frosch have developed

for the description of processes of gradual change that leads them into claims about the data that are at points hard to justify. And this pro posal of a "semantics of change" seems to be what they are really in terested in in this paper. Ballweg's own paper, which follows the joint paper with Frosch and

is

about ..Simple Present Tense and Progressive

Periphrases in German" fares much b etter with respect to the fit between formal proposal and data. The form al apparatus jointly developed with Frosch is here extended and applied to German data that not only p rovide formalism may even provide a better understanding. A weakness here is that what has been called ''anaphoric reference to time" (Partee) is de termined ad hoc , that is, simply by fixing an arbitrary time , and the mechanisms of temporal anaphora remain in the dark.

Wolfgang

Wildgen 's contnb ution . ..Archetypical Dynamics in Word Se

mantics: An Application of Catastrophe Theory" will, for many less mathematically minded readers, be a hard-going piece. I shall not make an attempt here at summ arizing the already fairly densely written paper but restrict myself to what I take to be its main thrust . There are many phenomena in natural language semantics that have never been treated and many of them have even entirely escaped se manticists' attention. In particular I am referring to phenomena o f variation and , more generally , dynamic aspects of the semantics of natural language.

This is

due , in part , to the great advances that have been made with res

pect to the more static properties of natural language by adopting the Fregean tradition of logic and semantics. The Fregean approach naturally abstracts from anything dynamic and also divides linguistic phenomena from their psychological connection in areas like memory or perception. Wildgen explores in his paper, and has explored in more c omprehensive stu dies be fore, the possibilitie s that differential topology, and Rene Thorn's Catastrophe Theory in particular, may have

to

offer as a descriptive

apparatus not just for tackling those neglected areas but probably for a far more comprehensive linguistic theory. Wildgen introduces the basics of Catastrophe Theory and exemplifies applications with respect to linguistic descriptions of adjectives of degree and a semantics of colour terms. There is certainly, as Wildgen himself emphasizes, not enough material yet for anybody to judge these first serious attempts in the application of Catastrophe Theory

to

Semantics (after some sketchy

work by Thorn himself in the early Seventies). But Wildgen does his best to be as concrete and perspicuous as possible, also about problems en-


a good illustration for what the formalism can do but for which the

270 countered . What to me seems at issue now, however, is not so much to pass a judgement on first descriptive results but rather to get acquain t ed with the e � ntially new perspective this approach can offer: explicit fonnal description in areas that up to now have b ee n neglected

just

be

cause we lacked the heuristics of suitable formal descriptions and because informal theorizing did not seem to lead much further. Wildgen's paper is an extremely stimulating and infonnative piece of interdisciplinary work with competent accounts of relevant work in psychology , linguistics, philosophy , and mathematics, and it must be ad mired for the coherence of perspective it can offer. As to the develop ments in Catastrophe Theory, with which many readers are most likely

Waltraud Brennenstuhl

and

Thomas T. BaUmer

have two joint papers in

this volwn e , both concerned with different aspects of one large research enterprise : "An Empirical Approach to Frame Theory: Verb Thesaurus Organization" and "Lexical Analysis and Language Theory". The research in the background of both papers is a thesaurus of German verbs which Balhner and Brennenstuhl compiled in the Mid-Seventies . The thesaurus constitutes nothing less than a semantic classification of practically all German verbs. It is based on a close analysis of about eight thousand non-composite verbs. The first step of their classification procedure consists of an intuitive j udgement : given three verbs, which two are semantically more similar? Repeated application of this step yields about eight hundred similarity classes of verbs

verb models. verb model groups on the

(verb categories),

which are

grouped into forty

The models are again grouped into

eleven

basis of which three

verb types

are

defm ed . This procedure is empirical in the (weak) sense that it relies throughout on native speakers' intuitions as to meaning similarity and as to presupposition relations between the verb s and between the various categories, models, and model groups. Additional testing has been carried out

post festum

by Brennenstuhl and Ballmer to provide further em

pirical support . Unfortunately , the infonnatio n provided on these tests and their results remains rather sketchy and we more or less have to take the authors on trust when they say that the tests led to results that generally support the classifiCations o f their thesaurus. There is another point , however, where I have serious doubts: the in tuitive context-independent semantic similarity judgements on which the fust step of the classification is based. I remain unconvinced that the ability for such j udgements should be part of a native speaker's linguistic competence - mainly because there is no kind of language use for which such an ability

is

needed. But still, I b elieve that the total result should be


least familiar, Wildgen provides in addition to a difficult b ut compre hensible introduction a very c omprehensive list of references.

271 judged independently of such doubts. Even i f the assum ed intuitions do not generally exist , one may be inclined to believe that they should d evelo p in the course of comparing some eight thousand verbs, time and again on different levels of analysis and in different oppositions. Further more, Ballm e r and Brennenstuhl can present, in the end , a highly co herent and plausible overall structure, so th�t even a sceptic like myself will probably have to acknowledge that this is at least

one way in which

the German verb lexicon may be structured for at least some German speakers. Thirdly , since the structure

is

embedded into a comprehensive

framework of interesting and in part entirely new linguistic observations on other than lexical levels (in particular with respect to syntax and it might be reasonable to suppose that individual differences that may exist on lower levels of the verb classification will even out on the more general and more ab stract levels. This is guaranteed not by any

a priori

a ssumption that "small mistakes won't matter" (theoretically they might just as well add up into one big mistake) but rather by what has been dubbed the "conspicuous fluency of d ialogue" among native speakers and their equally c onspicuous efficient interaction. No such assurance is available for other intuition-b ased thesauri that are nothing but word

lists

without any implications whatever for g ramm a r or other structures

found in the language . Since languages are, e ven though not literally purpose-made , con tinually re-adjusted in their development to the purposes they have to serve, in particular to being used for connnunication about a socially shared world, one may reasonably expect to fmd some reflection of the structure of this world also in the language. Brennenstuhl and Ballmer go a step further and argue, quite convincingly and supported by quantitative data from their thesaurus, that this structure can largely be found in the lexicon of a language . One may expect, for instance, that verb s designating important processe s in that socially shared world will be lexicalized and will play a fundamental role in the structure of the lexicon. We shoul d , more generally , and quite contrary t o what many linguist s have thought about the relation between

the world,

knowledge of the language

and

knowledge of

be able to abstract fundamental patterns of our factual know

ledge from the linguistic structure or the lexicon structure in particular. Ballmer and Brennenstuhl take this notio n seriously and produce what seems to me the m o st generally applicable and intuitively plausible frames that I have seen. The thesaurus structure automatically yields one additional advantage: it provides an overall structure in which the frames are inter related . The second of the two papers explains in great detail the role of the thesaurus in a theory of language.

I

have alluded to the importance of


morphology) that flow directly from the hypothetical lexical structure ,

272 these consid erations above but

I

cannot go into an account of further

details, of which there are many , and many very exciting ones. The papers are both clearly written and well structured and generally, though not in

all places, persuasively argued . Most importantly however, they present what is probably one of the very few really original and theoretically exciting contributions to the large scale study of vocabularies that have been made in the last decades.

Dieter Metzing 's paper on "Frame Representation and Lexical Semantics" is a survey article, infonning the reader about various notions of knowledge representation as d eveloped in Artificial Intelligence . Unfortunately , the

is

not very c learly written and much of the material can be found in

better presentation elsewhere, though perhaps not as compressed . Dif ferences between the different approaches in AI are not very clearly articulated and some of the really central notions like algorithm, or

default,

heUTistic,

that should be properly explained to the reader less familiar

with AI remain marginal . In their paper on ''Word Semantics, Lexical Systems, and Text Inter p retation",

Fritz Neubauer

and

Janos S. Pet6fi present

a lexicon system

that is geared to meet the high and theoretically stimulating d emands of automatic text interpretation. The emphasis is not on implementational aspects but rather on the explicitness that is required for the purpose . This perspective demands a lexicon system that not only contains something like abstract word m eanings but is also capable of getting at the much more specific meanings a word may have in a particular occurrence in a text. Furtherm ore, there must b e a sufficient amount of factual knowledge available in the system to yield all the information a reader can extract from a text. The end product of the operation of text-interpretation, as conceived of by PetOfi and Neubauer , would be a representation in some d isambiguated canonical interlanguage which can serve as the basis for further p rocessing (ab stracting, translating, indexing, etc.). The lexicon system prese nted consists, roughly, of one bilingual lexicon that translates object language expressions into the interlanguage and con versely, p lu s one lexicon that provides explications for the expressions of the canonical interlanguage . These explications are divided , where appli cable, into a comp onent of stereotypical or c omm on-sense understanding and another comp onent of expert understandin g . One very pleasing feature o f the very systematic and clear exposition Neubauer and Petofi give is that they have also taken the trouble to provide the reader with examples and not just with an emp ty theoretical format for the lexicon sy stem. The examples are based on a thorough analysis of in formation p rovided in current dictionaries , encyclopaedias, and textbooks up

to university

leve l .


piece

273 There are two points I should like to make with respect to the pro posal: the first concerns the empirical basis of the information represented. Since dictionaries, encyclopaedias, and textbooks are intended to provide scientifically accurate objective information, we may end up with a lexicon system that is quite different from any native speaker's mental lexicon system, which must be assumed to contain also large portions of unwarranted belief, prejudice, and other attitudes that are anything but 'objective' but guide the speaker in his process of interpretation. Interpretations not

mimic

produced

by

the

Neubauer-Petofi

system may thus

'natural' interpretation processes very well. But perhaps

this is not intended . There are sufficie ntly many other applications for the

in greater detail.

A

sentence like ''It needs a man to do that" will require

quite different representations of meaning for the word man d epending on what the local oppositions are : for instance a woman, a boy, or indeed another adult male human being . Certainly, in the last case it will be hard to understand what is meant without recourse to objectively and scientifical

ly unwarranted prejudice about what p eople think is a 'real' man. One might go further from here , arguing that this 'prejudiced m eaning' would even provide a good basis in the case of the other two oppositions and thus may be mo re generally applicable and more useful than the dictionary entry 'aduh male human' (which is more likely to result from encyclo paedias, d ictionaries, and text books). But then these remarks are probably jumping the gun. We must acknowledge what there is: a very detailed and well-founded proposal for the construction of a lexicon system . And if we had the actual lexicon system already at our disposal, questions like the ones hinted at would come up naturally in the course of operating the system and could be attended to or rejected fo r other priorities in due course .

Horst Geckeler 's contrib ution on

"Structural Semantics" provides a survey

of the developments of the 'Tubingen School" of European structuralism , under Coseriu, Geckeler, and associates.

Anglika Ballweg-schramm

describes in her paper on "Some Comments on

Lexical Fields and Their Uses in Lexicography" some current work in the compilation of a dictionary at the

/nstitut filr Deutsche Sprache in Mann

heim.

Aflnfred Pinkal's

contribution on "Some Semantic and Pragmatic Proper

ties of Gerrnan glauben " p rovides a convincing unified analysis of certainly the major senses of this German equivalent of the English believe, largely in


system . The point may become of greater imp ortance, however, once mec�ms for contextual adjustment of word m eanings are considered

274 the spirit of C harles Peirce's famous proposal. Although Pinkal emphasizes the desirability of a formal semantic description, he settles in this paptr for an informal account along the lines of what analytic philosophers have called •conceptual analysis'. The difficuhy for an account in formal terms would mainly lie in the fact that there is no framework currently available that can smo othly incorp orate, next to the formal semantics, also pragmatic matters like Gricean irnplicatures, which Pinkal requires in the course of his analysis. There are also a number of contextually fixed parameters in the analysis that could indeed be injected into a formal treatment but are not really well enough understood and thus may well turn out Trojan horses.

Walther Kindt concludes the volume with reflections on ..Word Semantics and Conversational Analysis". The paper is largely programm atic in nature, never very concrete, and the line of argument is not always easy to follow. Kindt states some of these limitations himself. There are a num ber of interesting insights, though, in his paper that would certainly merit further development. It is probably all too clear that I have not been able to do justice to all the contnbutions in this volume. What I have tried to focus on are the ideas and developments that to me seemed to be of the most general interest.


Willis J. Edmondson argues very convincingly in his paper ..Illocutionary Verbs and C onversational Behaviour" that we ought to distinguish the conceptualizations speakers of a language have as to the "things they do with words" from a technical cla&'lification of what people do in actual discourse. The fanner is a matter of common sense or of conceptual analysis, the latter is the business of an empirical theory of conversation b ehaviour. Searle's illocutionary acts are conceptualizations evoked in the native speaker by the corresponding illocu tionary verbs and not technical terms of a theory of conversation behaviour. They are not, Edmondson argues, suitable as such and cannot, as has often been assumed, be used in a scientific description of what people are doing in discourse. In the main part of the paper, Edmondson presents a classification of illocutionary acts that is geared to this purpose and is rather a classification of events in conversation behaviour than a classification of English speakers' con ceptualizations. This opens up the possibility of matching the illocutionary terms in the English lexicon against these classes and thus can give insight into how people perceive conversation behaviour, as well as into the semantics of these terms. A presupposition for Edmondson's approach is a descriptivist rather than Austinian perfonnative view of illocutions, for which Edmondson provides a number of persuasive arguments.

275 On the whole, Eikmeyer and Rieser's book is a very stimulating collection of work with consequences that in many cases reach well beyond lexical semantics.

Nijmegen University Dept ofPh ilosophy P. O. Box 9 1 08 6500 HK Nifmegen - Holland


Finally a word on some technical matters. One hundred and seventy eight German Marks is not cheap by any standard and is indeed a frightening price for the private buyer. But then the book is excellently produced in traditional fashion, type-set and cloth-bound. A particularly remarkable feature is that footnotes actually appear at the foot of the page where they belong. What is hard to understand, however, and hard to justify, is that the publisher could apparently not spare the money to employ a copy editor to improve the texts stylistically and , worse, with regard to spel ling and grammar . The English of several of the authors (most of whom are not native speakers of English) is rather poor. If de Gruyter are set to enter the international English language book market they should not go on embarrassing themselves and their authors this way. The authors and editors of this book certainly deserve better.

JoUT7Ull ofSemantics 3 : 277-294

REVIEW ARTICLE

Andrew Woodfield (ed.), Thought and Object. Oarendon Press, Oxford, 1982. xi + 3 1 6 pp . £ 1 7 .50. Kim Sterelny I. INTRODUCTION


'Thought and Object' is an interesting and characteristic set of essays. It's representative of functionalism, the most influential contemporary ap proach to philosophy of mind . The two central problems for any broadly physicalist theory of mind are those of subjectivity and intentionality. This collection focuses on various aspects of the problem of intentionality. Since the six contributions to this book (from Dennett , Burge , Kent Bach, Stich, McGinn, and Woodfield) are not excessively brief, I will not discuss the papers in series. Instead, I will try to extract and discuss a number of central themes running through the book. I will sketch these, before taking them up in some detail. But frrst a preliminary observation. Beliefs are one thing ; attributions of belief another. So two poles along which issues can be discussed are the psychological and the sernantical. A theory of belief is a psychological theory. A theory of belief attribution is a theory about a certain class of sentences. It is therefore a semantic theory . The two issues obviously have relations one for another, so it's unsurprising that the papers in the book all touch on both. However, the relative weight varies: Dennett and Bach focus primarily on the psy chological, while the others focus primarily on the theory of belief at tnbution. Let me now turn to some main themes of Woodfield's col lection . One focus of this book is representationalism, the idea that belief is a relation to an appropriately functionally salient inner representation . Most representationalists1 take these representations to be sentence-like in im portant ways. McGinn is sympathetic to this line, but, in various ways, Dennett, Stich, and Bach call it into question. Even if the Representationalist is right, important issues remain to be settled . Each belief of mine is an inner token of a representation. But we are not primarily interested in belief tokens but belief types. Not just my belief that Andropov is dead, but the beliefs of others as well. So how do we taxonomize beliefs. Under which conditions do we count some belief of mine the same belief as the belief of another? McGinn argues persuasively and vigorously for a two scheme taxonomy of belief.l Belief tokens have many properties. Any taxonomy will regard some as central, others as peripheral. The central properties are those crucial to the role the concept

278

thoughts. So, semantic properties are not relevant to one taxonomy of belief. But that's not the same as their being irrelevant tout court. Lycan, McGinn3 suggest that we need as well a wtle taxonomy of belief: a taxonomy which counts belief tokens as the same only if their referential properties are the same. They are the same only if they have the same truth conditions, which in tum requires that they are causally connected to the same environment . More on this later. A fmal thread linking many of these papers together is the distinction, or alleged distinction, between de re and de dicta belief. This distinction gets both explicit defense - from Bach and , in some ways, Burge - and ex tended criticism, especially by Dennett . Recent philosophy of belief is often convoluted, knotty, a torture to read . Rarely is it worse than on this issue . One reason is a thicket of rival terminologies: de re / de dicta, opaque/transparent , relational/non-relational, wide/narrow. It is often un clear whether these are supposed to mark the same distinction . It is still less clear whether there are supposed to be two different kinds of belief, or merely two different styles of belief attnb utions. I try to unravel a few of these knots at the end of this notice . let's now turn to representationalism .


of belief plays in psychological theory. Lycan and McGinn argue that in fact this concept plays two independent roles. One role is internal to the psychological organisation of the believer. Here we are interested in the explanation of behaviour. Belie fs (and other propositional attitudes) play a central role in mediating b etween sensory stimulation and behaviour. For this purpose , belie fs are individuated by cognitive role, i.e. (roughly) two belief tokens will count as tokens of the same belief: if they are apt to be formed from the same kinds of transducer stimulations; if they play roughly the same inferential role ; if, given similar hopes, expectations, etc. they would produce roughly the same behaviour. All of which is to say: they are tokens of the same belief if they play the same cognitive role or internal functtmal role. Now, beliefs that play the same internal functional role need not have the same truth and referential properties. Thus con sider a cloned brain of mine in a b ottle . let 's suppose its transducer stimulations have mimicked mine. It's Sterelny-in-a-bottle . Its internal states are narrow-functionally the same as mine, but are all truth (and reference) valueless, since it 's never had any causal commerce with the world . Fodor has christened this line o f thought 'methodological solipsism' . Its plausibility can b e demonstrated b y Twin E arth examples as well as cloned brains. Reagan and Twin Reagan's thoughts are about different objects: Reagan fears USSR; Twin Reagan fears Twin USSR. But that's a difference that makes no difference to their behaviour, so , if we are con cerned to explain their behaviour , we can regard them as having the same

279 11 A LANGUAGE OF THOUGHT?


The 'brain sentence ' model of thought has obvious attractions. It (unlike some of its rivals) generalises neatly to other propositional attitudes. Hopes, for example, differ from beliefs in functional import. Beliefs both stand to evidence, and are acted on, in quite characteristic ways. While hopes aren't behaviourally irrelevant, they do not have their hands on the rudder in the way beliefs do. Further the language of thought model ex plains why beliefs have both a syntax and a semantics. Beliefs are like sentences in being true or false and in having referential structure. They also have a syntax, for we can have indefmitely many. So just as we need a recursive syntax to explain our language using ability, a recursive syntax would underlie our capacity to have an unbounded number of distinct thoughts. It is important to explain the causal potence of thought . Our behaviour partly depends on our particular stock of propositional attitudes. This fact frts naturally into a representationalist model. For on that model, thoughts are functionally salient inner symbols. Different attitudes will have dif ferent causal consequences. For they are fonnally distinct, and in virtue of this distinctness play different computational roles in our functional organisation. Oedipus tokens an 1-want-to -marry-Jocasta, not an !-want-to marry-Mum (pace Freud). Since the beliefs causal powers inhere in the representation itself, not the state of affairs represented, those different representations have different consequences for behaviour. Despite these and other advantages,4 Dennett will have none of this. Much of his long paper is given over to rebutting this picture and sketching an alternative. I am impressed by neither. The critique of sententialism reiterates and extends earlier papers. The critique is complex, but the central worries are firstly that sententialism is too narrow and secondly that it can give no coherent account of narrow functional role .5 Indeed , Dennett's long discussion (pp. 14-37) seems to vacillate between two in consistent lines of thought. The fust is that sententialism is too narrow , too fme-grained because it is syntactic (pp. 22-24, p . 3 7). The second is that sententialism can give no account of belief identity, for it cannot, as it needs to , identify syntax prior to an account of cognitive role (e .g. pp. 29-3 1 ). Dennett thinks sententialism is committed to a "startlingly strong" (p. 2 1 ) account of belief identity, given by the schema: x believes what y believes iff ( 3 L) ( 3 s) (L is a language of thought and s is a sentence of L and there is a token o f s in both x and y). The sententialist is committed to no such strong claim. For there are a multiplicity of levels of functional descriptions. The formal properties of an internal symbol, and its cognitive role are both aspects of the state's

280 function within the individual's mental life . They are both functionally determined . Further, since e .g. the inferential propertie s o f a representation are determined by its form, cognitive role supervenes on, and thus pre supposes, syntactic structure. Still , cognitive role might be a more abstract and general level of functional description than syntactic structure. Cog nitive role could have different syntactic realizations, just as syntactic form can have different orthographic (or neurographic) realizations. Then belief id entity could be defmed by appeal to cognitive role rather than syntactic form. While Dennett takes this point , he trivialises by disre garding the possib ility of three levels of functional description: cognitive role ; syntactic ; neurographic .6

Hence when he discusses this central

I

am

23-24).

here supposing that the syntax of our language of thought is

determined by the internal functional organisation of the mind . In places, Dennett see m s to doubt this. In virtue of what, he asks, is a token of s a token of s? He suspects that to this question there is no answer: we can not identify the sentences of L together with their structure solipsistically. It's hard to extract a clear argument for this claim. Nonetheless, I w ill try to reconstruct what seems to be one crucial argument . Consider a transducer signal, Re p . What would determine its syntactic analysis?

'We can't determine its syntactical form . . . except by determining its particular powers of combination and cooperation with the other ele ments, and ultimately its environmental import via those powers of interaction" (p. 30)

Two points are to be made here. First , note that Dennett fails to distin guish cognitive role and syntactic role . Grounds for attributing a syntactic analysis to Rep that are simultaneously grounds for attributing cognitive role . This idea can be resisted . Consider for instance the organisation of perceptual info rmation. There may be alternative internal organisations, alternative ways of decomposing the black box of perception.

If so, it will

probably be appropriate to speak of different syntaxes of perceptual representation, because of different interactions

within that box.

But

those representations may play just the same roles with respect to other cognitive functions: they might be accessed to memory , guide motion, and so forth in just the same way .

In

that case they would have the same

cognitive role within their respective organisms, but have different syn taxes. Secondly , the fmal quoted clause commits Dennett to the view that syntactic

id entification requires reference not just

to

the organism's

internal organisation but also to its embodiment in its environment. But Dennett 's nice discussion of methodological solipsism provides a good


strategy for sententialism the middle and top level get blurred (pp.

281


argument against this claim. For he points out that internal semantics is the only semantics available to the user of the symbols, the brain itself. Since the brain does use these symbols (if cognitive psychology is at all on the right track), it must be able to re-identify them despite its lack of direct access to their referential properties. Hence they must be identifiable independently of their full semantics. I d on't think Dennett's critique of sententialism works. Let me turn now to Dennett's positive account of belief and belief identity, developed through his concept of notional worlds. A subject's notional world is the world depicted by his beliefs. h 's how the world would be if all the subject's beliefs were true. One's fear world, I expect, is how the world would be if all one's fears were realised, and so on for the other attitudes. Dennett thinks systems with quite different functional organisations could inhabit the same notional world. He wants to demarcate represent ational powers from representational means. So we need to know how notional worlds are determined . To answer this question, Dennett returns to some ideas in his 'Intentional Systems'. A being's notional world is that world which is its ideal evolutionary niche. h 's the world its inner functional organisation best suits it to . A hardwired system is equisuited for a large class of possible worlds. The more plastic the system, the more its functional organisation will reflect its experience, and the class of possible worlds that constitute the notional world narrows down, though Twin Earth and similar cases show that it is never narrowed down to a single world. Let me explain why I am unconvinced by this suggestion. i) It seems to be just 2. restatement of behaviourism. Given the way notional worlds are determined , any two systems that are input-output equivalent have the same set of beliefs. They share notional worlds, be cause they are equally adapted to any environment. And vice versa, since the point of notional worlds is to abstract away from differences in the way input/output relations are mediated . The functional structure of the system is important for notional world identification only in its de termination of input/output structure. I will recycle just one argument 7 against positions of this type. Suppose Sue is a person and Sally a robot that mimics Sue's behaviour in virtue of an excellent physical and psy chological theory of Sue. Sally uses this theory to calculate what Sue would do in Sally's position, then does it . Sally has lots of beliefs about Sue, but doesn't have Sue's beliefs. But on Dennett's theory, they are input/output equivalent, hence share notional worlds, hence are universal co-believers. A decidedly implausible consequence. ii) Dennett wants a good taxonomy : he wants to capture similarities in belief that escape language of thought theories. We do this by 'super imposing' notional worlds and comparing for points and regions of similar-

282


ity. I am not worried by the vagueness of this talk. But I do object to taking the metaphor literally. What are notional worlds and their ele ments? When is an element in one world the same as an element in another? Talk of notional worlds is a metaphor, but the way Dennett understands this metaphor is circular. He wants an account of representational powers independent of representational media . He eschews causal intercourse between representation and represented as a means of underwriting the former notion . So instead he relies on a possible worlds metaphor. But the only way ofcashing that metaphor is through a theory of representation. It's no accident that Dennett's illustrations of the metaphor are all rep resentations: fictions, and Winograd's famous block world programme. But a theory of propositional attitudes cannot rely on such illustrations, for what makes them representations are the thoughts of their creators. iii) At best, notional worlds defme na"ow functional equivalence. But a theory of belief needs as well an account of intentionality, an account of how beliefs relate to the world . Dennett is not explicit on this issue, but he seems to have in mind a "best fit" model (e .g. pp. 73-74). If an ele ment of my notional world is suitably like an element of this world, the belief object is the real world object. The central difficulty for this sug gestion is that it puts unreasonably severe constraints on the possibilities of misrepresentation. I cannot have beliefs about an object if my beliefs are largely wrong. 8 Nor does it solve the Twin Earth problems. Both water and Twin water are equally like Oscar's notional water, so which, if either, is his belief about? iv) As far as I can see, Dennett's account of belief does not generalise properly to other attitudes. For instance, what account is on offer for fear? We can coin an analogous metaphor easily enough, but what features of my narrow psychology fix the fear world? The ideal niche story perhaps fixes my notional world, but that is because we have fixed on certain out puts: those that would play a role in my survival and flourishing. But no alternative criterion seems available to do the parallel job for fear and other attitudes. Cashing the fear world metaphor looks particularly difficult because fear worlds can be inconsistent: I can fear both p and not p with out irrationality. Kent Bach and Stephen Stich give theories that, if correct, would un dermine sentential accounts of belief. Bach develops a theory of de re belief that is representational but not sententialist. De re beliefs are not, he thinks, ''fully conceptualised", hence are not inner sentences. I will take up his views when I tum to that intractable issue. Stich's line is less directly relevant for he offers a theory of belief attribution. One ad vantage of sententialism is that it sheds light on belief attnbutions. A sentence of the form "s believes p" will be true iff (i) s tokens an inner sentence that shares appropriate properties with p, and (ii) that token is

283 functionally salient in an appropriate way. Just in what way takes some stating of course , as does the relevant dimensions of similarity between inner token and outer attribution. Nonetheless, this seems an insightful view of the problem. Stich however gives a theory of belief attnb ution which, if it works, might make the appeal to inner representation re dundant . Since the theory is interesting in its own right, I will now con sider it in some detail. I should first say that Stich's paper is admirably clear, well written, readable .

III . STICH'S CARNAPIAN REVIVAL


Stich's basic idea is this. The psychological state attributed by a belief sentence is a state similar to a possible state of the utterer: namely, the state that would typically cause the utterance of the content sentence. My statement : "Thatcher believes that Reagan is senile" is true only if Thatcher is in a psychological state relevantly similar to that possible state of mine which would typically play a central role in the production of my "Reagan is senile" tokens. Suitably tidied up, this proposal solves some of the problems of Car napian analyses. h solves the problem of the attribution of beliefs to speakers of other languages, and to alinguals, though of course, as some discussion of Woodfield makes clear (p. 277) only by great generosity about similarity. The chimp b elieves that that is a banana, because he is in a state relevantly similar to one that, were I in it , would typically cause my ''that is a banana" utterances. Of course , we need an account of relevant similarity. Stich provides one through the notion of content similarity, in tum seen as a multi-dimensional concept. He factors it into four vectors. Two of these are internal. States are similar in content if they play a similar role in our functional or ganisation. The other vectors are wide : states are similar in content if they have similar causal histories. I think Stich is right to see similarity as multi vectored , but I think we need only two: an internal notion of overall functional similarity, and a wide notion of causal history. While Stich's theory is an advance on Camapian accounts, I still think the language of thought model offers a better overall picture of belief attribution and of b eliefs themselves. Here is why. 1 . Stich's account does not generalise to other attitudes. The account depends on two factors: (1 ) beliefs frequently do produce linguistic behaviour, and (2) when they do, it's usually an utterance with the same content as the belief, since assertion is the main form of language use. So the belief that p is the typical cause of the utterance that p . N o such story holds for the other propositional attitudes. Doubtless in

284 linguals the other attitudes - wanting, fearing, hoping - have consequences for linguistic behaviour. But we cannot suppose that for each attitude there will correspond a characteristic lump of linguistic behaviour. The fear that p will have consequences for behaviour, but not typically token ing p . Stich's idea that the belief that p

is

the typical cause of saying p

depends on the fact that no other attitude normally has that consequence. So, for example, 'Thatcher fears that Re agan

is

senile" cannot be

analysed as the claim that Thatcher is in a psychological state that were

I

to have it would typically cause my "Reagan is senile" tokens. St ich's account fails to generalise.

2.

Stich wants

his

account of belief to be consistent with the fact that

lations to each other . These are features of what he caDs the ''global archi tecture" of folk psychology. While

his

account i3 consistent with this architecture, consistency

very weak condition .

I

is

a

think we should ask for m ore : our account of

belief should explain these principles. Stich's agnosticism about the

nature

If this

demand is appropriate,

of the psychological states attri

buted by belief sentences can be turned against him . His account yields no story about

I

why beliefs are

structured, semantic , inferentially potent ;

would make the same complaint about Woodfield's theory of belief

attribution. For ( 1 ) Stich says very little about beliefs except that they can be functionally characterised, and that they play a special role in linguistic behaviour, and

(2)

he cannot appeal to the

content sentence

of belief

ascriptions. He cannot explain the semantic and syntactic features of thoughts in terms of those features of thought ascriptions. For natural language in general, hence thought ascriptions in particular, has semantic properties only by virtue of the thoughts of language users. So it would be circular to invoke the semantic and syntactic features of thought as criptions to explain those features of thought. Stich thus gives no account of the properties of the states identified by the content sentences of belief ascriptions. The language of thought view has at least the advantage of being committal.

IV. METHODOLOGICAL SOLIPSISM

Methodological 9:>lipsism

is

a term of Fodor's.9

He

argued for it from a

computational model of the mind. Computational processes are both symbolic, in that they apply to representations, and formal, in that they apply in virtue of the syntax of those representations.

So, if psychological

processes are computational, the processes that mediate stimulii and behaviour can be descnbed in a semantics-free way. That

is,

they can be


beliefs have structure , semantic properties, and stand in inferential re

2 85

"Brains

are

syntactic engines,

so

in the end and in principle the control

functions of a hwnan nervow system must be explicable at this level or

remain forever mysteriow. The alternative is to hold - most implausibly - that

content

or meaning or

semantic value

could be independent,

detectable causal properties of events in the nervous system" (p. 26)

The idea is that brains have access only to pulses from transducers. So to suppose that semantic properties - features of our real environment play a direct causal role involves the absurd idea that brainware could have direct access to being. But that is manifestly i mpoSSJ.b le. Our environment gets to affect our psy chology only by affecting the pulses. So the full story must be tellable in terms of pulses alone. The trouble with this line of argument is that it shows too much. For instance, Fodor, Dennett , Lycan, McGinn and I all want to recognize the cognitive role of some of these inner states. Tokening a Reagan-is-senile; tokening a Reagan-is se nescent is to token sentences with the sa me cognitive role. If I token one, and you another, we are co-thinkers despite the formal distinctness of the sentences. A parallel argument now shows that cognitive role is inert or redundant. For of course the brain has no direct access to cognitive role, but only to its particular syntactic instantiation. So it's instantiation that does the real work. But similarly, brains do not have direct access to the syntax of a representation. For a bit of brainwave has this form only in virtue of


described in terms that presuppose nothing about the real world objects, if any , of an ind ividual's representations. Explaining behaviour requires no semantics for representations. The Twin Earth thought experiment can make this line of thought plausible, for Twin Earth cases are limiting case s of internal fu nctional si milarity. In one sense, Earthites do not have the same propositional attitudes as those of our Twin Earth doppelganger. I want Kasparov to win the world chess championship. My doppelganger has never seen a game of Kasparov in his life: he wants Twin Kasparov to win . The se mantics of our thoughts differ. But obviously this difference makes no difference to the explanations of behaviour. Any account of those processe s that link my t ransd ucer stimulations to my bodily motions will apply equally to Twin me. While this is a limiting case of fu nctional similarity, the appropriate taxonomy for a fu nctional dissecti on of the causes of behaviour seems to ignore referential semantics. What counts is fonnal id entity or similarity of represe nt ations, not identity of what those representations represent. This line of thought is certainly very plausible, and is accepted by the contributors to 'Thought and Object', Burge excepted. The attempts at a demonstrative argument given by De nnett and McGinn don't quite suc ceed, though. Dennett argues as follows:

286 having a certain neural structure together with highly complex relations to other structure s. So syntactic form

is

either uncoded, hence inert, or

coded into neural structures, hence redundant . And so on to the quarks and gluons. Thus, this way of putting the argument

is

inconsistent with function

alism itself. For that is the thesis that our inner states are perspicuously, robustly, and projectably descnb able through a hierarchy of levels of in creasing abstractness . At e ach level there are a set of robust generalisations unstatable at lower levels . Dennett's way of putting the point does not eliminate the possibility that semantics stands to cognitive role as cog nitive role stands to syntax. The same charge can be levelled at McGinn .

"beliefs play a role in the agent's psychology just in virtue of the in trinsic properties of the implicated internal representations" (p. 208).

Of course, in one sense, the only intrinsic properties of brainware are first order physical. In another sense, semantic properties can be intrinsic . Dretske, 10 for instance, suggests that

infomuztion

can be an intrinsic

property of a representation: in those situations in which the feature that codes the information is the feature in virtue of which it

is causally salient.

Despite my doubts ab out the attempts to construct apodictic argu ments for methodological solipsism, the idea is persuasive . Not however to Burge. He denies that there is any solipsistic sense of belief. The content of a belief is

not

a function of that which

thought uncontroversial for

de re

is

internal to the believer. This is

o r relational senses of belief. Burge

suggests that it holds quite generally . He is on to an important point here. For if we restrict ourselves to folk taxonomy , to folk psychology, he is undoubtedly right . All folk styles of belief attrib ution, including opaque or de

dicto

styles, involve wide taxonomies. Belief tokens p and q do not

c ount as the same if they diffe r in truth value, or in the individuals and kinds they refer to . Opaque contrasts with transparent attribution only in that referential identity is not

sufficient for belief identity .

Take , for instance, one of Burge's examples. Suppose Oscar has

dieto)

(de

the belief that some water contains no oxygen. Twin Oscar has a

b elief he would express in the same words. Are these beliefs one and the same? Construed opaquely , no. One could be true, the other false, if

XYZ is

oxygenfree . Twin Oscar's belie f

is a

different conceptual structure

from that of Oscar's. For only Oscar has the

concept of -water.

Neither

Twin Oscar nor anyone in his linguistic community has ever heard of water, seen it or even imagined it . So Twin Oscar cannot have this con cept. His belief is not Oscar's (pp.

108-1 1 1 ).

Burge thus correctly argues that we use no fully narrow style of belief


For he simply robustly claims:

287 attribution (p .

102,

pp.

1 1 1 -1 1 2).

But he slides from this to the view that

there is no u se ful narrow taxonomy (p .

1 12).

There is no good argument

for this further claim, for it is unsupported by his observation (pp.

1 1 8)

1 17-

that w e n eed a semantic taxonomy . I think w e need both, a s I will

argue in the next section. Nor is the stronger claim independently plausible. For if computational models of psychological processes are correct, the b rain's view of inner symbols is syntactic . It must be, for c omputational processes depend solely on formal properties of the representation. Burge shows that our folk styles of belief attribution are at least partly semantic . He does not show that they ought to be, or that they

need

to

be. Let's tum to this issue.

The advantages of distinguishing between wide and narrow functional psychology is that it gives us two ways of taxonomising belief: an internal, or narrow taxonomy based on functional role, and a wide taxonomy based on truth conditions. Lycan was the flrst to see this as one advantage : the flrst to stop trying to show that one of these taxonomies is the right taxonomy. We all token many internal representations. There will be many similarities and dissimilarities between these tokens. A priori, there is no reason to suppose that there is just one good way of partitioning these tokens into types. Lycan and McGinn offer complimentary reasons for a d ouble taxonomy. Let's consider them. Lycan concentrates more on puzzle cases. Consider for exaample the

de

se cases. Oscar is sitting in a room looking at something he believes to be a

window ; in fact, it 's a mirror. He sees a snake under a chair on which a man Qtimself) is sitting. He tokens a that-poor-bastard-is-about-to-be-bitten. Does he believe he is about to be bitten? A currently standard line claims that he does not, thereby recognizing a special class of self-regarding beliefs. The two scheme theory enables us to avoid this unpleasant con clusion: we answer both yes and no. The truth conditions of "that poor bastard is about to be bitten" and "I

am about to be bitten" are the same .

So in one sense Oscar does believe he is about to be bitten. But in another sense, and one likely to be more important in this context (will Oscar engage in snake-avoiding behaviour) the answer is no. Oscar tokens a sen tence whose cognitive role is quite distinct from "I

am about to be bitten" .

Stich a lso argues that our taxonomy of belief is multidimensional by consideration of a range of ingenious and well described puzzle cases,

11

for instance the beliefs o f Mr . Oddsee whose system of visual discrimination varies sharply from the norm (pp.

1 85-1 89).

In a really excellent paper, McGinn extends this notion from belief to


V. TWO SCHEME THEORlliS

288 meaning. 12 The notions of sameness of belief and sameness of meaning have two, independent vectors: cognitive role and refe rential semantics. Moreover , McGinn defends this idea on general theoretical grounds, not

just

puzzle cases. He deploys a number of arguments based on the nature

of belief states, the notion of a representation (pp .

point of a semantic theory.

2 1 1 -2 13 ),

I will sketch just the latter. point of a theory of meaning?

What , asks McGinn, is the

One point ,

where Dummett, Quine, and others start , is that the theory must

language use.

and the

explain

Thus we get the idea that a theory of meaning is a theory of

understanding. (Since the problem of sentence

production

adds to the

problem complexity without perspicuity.) The theory must explain use,

with an internalist conception of meaning. "Each of these proposals carries a certain conception of what the state

of semantic understanding consists in: that state will be defined by dispositions to verbal (and other) behavior it induces. What determines use is a state of the head" (p. 2 1 8). Meaning, on such theories, is the causal role of the state of semantic under standing. It is cognitive role, an intra-individual notion. This line would be right if we required from a theory of meaning only that it explain use . But it's not : language is as well a system of world-word relationships.

A second

role of a theory of meaning is to give an account of these relationships. Hence the role of theories of truth and reference in a theory of meaning. On the basis of considerations of

this

kind, McGinn gives an insightful

survey of contemporary approaches to semantics, with some emphasis on Dumm ett. Many fail because they are one component theories: those of Dummett, and Katzian translational semantics. Of course, both these t!leories are candidates for part of the theory of meaning: that part character ising use. The Davidson-McDowell theory is

not

solely about language

world relations, for many constraints (evidence, translation, charity) are imposed on candidate theories of truth. However, McGinn argues - con vincingly - that they are somewhat confused and ad hoc two scheme theories.

I

think

this

approach is right. But three problems stand in need of

solution if McGinn and his allies are to be vindicated. Let me outline them briefly.

(1)

So far,

I

have simply assum ed that we need to talk about the truth

conditions of propositional attitudes. Why need we do so? McGinn devotes a good deal of space to this difficult issu e 13 (pp.

220-229),

adopting a

relative of the Field-Devitt position . We need the semantic notions of truth and reference in a theory of communication. We employ semantic con-


but not contain elements that "go beyond" use. Thus we get the rejection of truth theoretic approaches to semantics by Dummett et al., together

289 cepts when we take people's utterances, and the beliefs thereby revealed, to be generally reliable indicators of the world . We do take people's utterances that way because it enormously increases our ability to gain knowledge about the world . This line of thought raises complex and difficult issues. So too does its main rival : the view that we need se mantic concepts to explain why some beliefs lead to individual and species success.

Too

complex for full treatment here.

(2) If narrow taxonomy is what we

need to explain behaviour, why do

we not use it? Folk psychology enshrines wide individuation, near enough, in transparent belief ascription. When I say that Jack Smart believes of Quine that he is the greatest living philosopher, I classify

brain token

a dominantly truth-conditional taxonomy. But though

transparent roughly equals wide, equal opaque. When b eliefs are

Burge emphasizes that

na"ow

fails to

ascribed opaquely, identity of truth

conditions is a necessary though notoriously insu fficient condition for identity of belief. No folk psychological concepts are narrow . That's no refutation of the idea that we should embrace, as separate enterprises, wide and narrow psychology . But unexplained it would be an embarrass ment. I have two candidate explanations to advertise_ Michael Devitt has suggested that the opaque taxonomy of folk psy chology offers us an intellectual economy, though at a price. Since truth conditions are relevant to opaque classification, the explanatory pur poses of wide psychology can be served , though less efficiently, by opaque taxonomy . For it divides belief-tokens more finely than wide psychology requires. Similarly , since

the way a state

of affairs is represented is relevant

to opaque taxonomy, it will not co-classify tokens with distinct cognitive roles. Again , the partition is

finer

than we need . Nonetheless, opaque

taxonomy, though not maximally economical, is a general purpose taxo nomy . A second suggestion. Perhaps truth conditions serve an indexing role for narrow psychological states. Folk psychology embodies little in the way of input information usable in a narrow functional characterisation of a state. We know the usual environmental causes of most o f our cognitive states. We know what usually causes fried-chicken-and-watermelon appearances, but, qua folk psychologists, we know near enough nothing about the pattern of retinal images, transducer firings and the like that make up narrow psychologies' input descriptions. It 's precisely

this

lack that the

truth conditional element of opaque belief characterisation replaces, albeit only roughly and in normal conditions.

(3) In this

notice I have used functional notions profligately. I have

helped myself to notions like narrow functional identity and similarity, and to other narrow functional concepts : cognitive role, syntactic role, and the like . Thus I have claimed that two t9kens are tokens of the same


according to

his

290 belief only if they play the same, or similar, functional roles. Now, functional states are the same, or similar, with respect to a particular functional organisation. They are holistically individuated. So a state of mine

is

functionally identical to a state of David Armstrong's only if we

share a functional organisation that defines that state . Similarly, for similarity. This

may be no problem for the p rogramme of defining beliefs functional

ly. For there are plenty of shared functional organisations. Thus psycholo gical models of memory, perceptions, and the like are possible. Similarly for more speculative models; for instance Dennett's account of conscious ness. These are characteristically general and abstract: significant functional are probably right for all of us. It 's also clear that I instantiate many idiosyncratic functional organi sations. The particular

way

(say) my long term memory is structured is

idiosyncratic . The location of the kinds of information together with their accessing routes will intimately reflect the vagaries of my personal history. No one else's memory will be organised in my way. So McGinn's idea faces a crunch question : what functional organisation

defines belief states? Is it a structure that we more or less share, or is it idiosyncratic? a

shared

If

it is a shared structure, the idea that a shared belief is

functional role works. But if it is idiosyncratic, I and Armstrong

can be co-believers only in the roughest and loosest sense. I do not know the answer to

this

question, but I think there is some

reason for pessimism. Let me illustrate this by pinching an example from Dennett's

[ 1 98 1 ]

paper. Jacques comm its murder in Trafalgar Square;

Sherlock arrests him; Boris reads about it in The Tunes, and David in Pravda. They all believe a Frenchman has been arrested in Trafalgar Square . But their experiences are very different : they came by this knowledge by d ifferent routes. So it is not at all obvious that their various encodings of this information are functionally similar. If this suspicion is right , it's trouble . For then narrow (and opaque) ascription would be very rough indeed . The functional similarities between Armstrong and me that allow us to be co-believers would be both loose and arbitrary .

In

tum it would be harder to resist eliminationists like

Churchland and Stich . I think that preserving folk concepts requires their integration with cognitive psychology. That will not be possible if those kinds are based only on instances.

loose and arbitrary similarities between their


capacities are left unanalysed . If these models are right for any of us, they

29 1 VI. DE RE PUZZLES

The

de re I de dicta

distinction is a philosophical mess, both in itself and

in its relation to other important distinctions in the theory of belief. Discussion of the distinction plays a significant role in this collection: it is the central concern of one paper (Bach), and of a long section of another (Dennett). Dennett, like Stich, expresses a healthy scepticism about this whole issue, unravelling some of the worst tangles, and illuminating the issue, as usual, with the aid of some nicely constructed examples.

In

particular, there is a gentle parody of Putnam's Twin Earth examples, involving identical pizza parlours between which a dupe is unsuspectingly

(de dicta

and de re) does the victim

have about the two parlours when he awakes? I will say a little about Dennett's view before moving to Bach's defense of the distinction. Dennett makes a lot of sense on this puzzle. He emphasizes the im portance of psychologising the issue. We can make innumerable distinctions between beliefs, but few will be of interest . The de re

I de dicta

distinction

is worth drawing only if it plays a role in psychological theory. Dennett

thinks

that it does not . He rightly emphasizes that we must distinguish

b eliefs from belief attnbutions. The fact, if it is a fact, that we have two styles of attribution beliefs does

not

show that we have two psychological

states. We may just be descnbing the one state in different ways. Further, Dennett gets at a confusion in certain concepts of

de re

belief. There seems simuhaneously to b e the idea that the necessary con ditions for

de re· belief are internal to narrow psychology (for instance the de re belief is

notion of a vivid name) together with the idea that what a

about essentially individuates it. We can easily defme a bastard concept : a belief is

de re

about A if and only if the internal token of the believer

contains a vivid name of A. But composite concepts like this are psycho logically uninteresting. It

mixes, as we have seen

from the last section, two

quite separate theoretical concerns. Nonetheless, I think Dennett's scepticism excessive. Advocates of the distinction are getting at real phenomena about belief: indeed, they are getting at two phenomena, but they are run together. Suppose I have a belief about A. I have suggested that beliefs require an inner representation: in this case, a representation containing some term referring to A. There will be many ways of referring to A in my language of thought : names, descriptions of various kinds, even depictions if brainese includes ideo grams. The kind of referring expression may well be relevant to internal psychology. Causal theorists 14 claim that if an expression falls into a particular class (most names and demonstratives, some pronouns, 'refer ential' descriptions), then the singular term , and hence the whole internal token, will have a distinct and characteristic relationship to memories,


transported while asleep. What beliefs

292 other beliefs, perceptual and linguistic capacities. Relations quite different than if the expression had been a Russellian description. It

is

not that

these expressions are more strongly about A; they can be empty. Rather, their route of reference is different ; they are functionally different from other singular terms. So the

de re I de dicto

distinction can be an attempt to draw a real

distinction between representational states. A

de re

attribution of belief

would be true only if that kind of belief was being tokened in the be liever. Kent Bach certainly has something like this in mind. One problem with this idea is that it is very crude : there will be many different kinds of internal states that purport to represent individuals: bivalent classifi Altern atively , we can understand the distinction from our two scheme perspective. We would then understand

de re

belief not as a distinctive

style of belief, but as a semantic taxonomy of belief. Dennett rejects taxonomies that essentially include the object (or kind) the belief is about. But he focuses only on narrow psychological concerns. There are others : we need to explain individual and evolutionary success and failure ; we need to explain c omm unication and its success; we need to explain the adaptive point of complex syntax-using organs like our brains. A psychol ogy attempting these tasks will require a semantic taxonomy: it will, for instance, need to appeal to what perceptual states are about. Dennett is right to reject attempts to make the

de re I de dicta

dis

tinction do double duty. It cannot both be a semantic taxonomy serving the needs of wide taxonomy, and a distinction within narrow functional psychology. He is wrong to leave little room for either. His own notional attitude taxonomy is too coarse for narrow needs, for it generalises over different representational means, but since it

is

internal, it will not do for

wide psychology either. Kent Bach's paper in defense of the distinction is technically ingenious, intelligent , and relatively clear-minded. It's a defense of the

dicto

distinction

within

de re I de

internal psychology. However, the account suffers

from three fundamental defects. 1 . It's a one scheme theory. Bach accepts a liberal version of methodo logical solipsism, then tries to re construct the theory of belief entirely within narrow psychology. This I think leads him into a series of dark remarks about indexicality and modes of presentation (pp. 1 35 -1 39) while trying to solve various puzzle cases from within a one-scheme theory . 2.

Bach has in mind an untenable dualism. He contrasts Russellish

d escriptive beliefs with those based on immediate perception. But there are an enormous range of intermediate cases: cases in which the object of belief is picked out by names, demonstratives, pronouns, improper definite


cation is very coarse and unlikely to be adequate .

293

VII . FINAL REMA RKS

1his is a good collection, nicely symptomatic of current work: with all its interests, darkness, confusions and advances. I recommend it: in particular the papers by McGinn, Stich and Dennett are well written, full of argu ment, interest , and sharply chosen examples. Good stuff! 16 Department ofPh ilosophy R esearch School of Social Sciences Au stralian National University Can be"a. A CT.

NOTES For instance, Fodor (1 975, 1 978), Field (1 978), Harman ( 1 975), Devitt ( 1 98 1). The idea h�U been around for a while, but I think Lycan ( 1 98 1 ) was the first to explicitly endorse it. 3 . Devitt too in a forthcoming book (Devitt (1 984)). 4. Fuller lists will be found in Fodor (1 978), Lycan ( 1 98 1), Sterelny ( 1 983). 5. Dennett, following Kaplan, calli this "character". 6. To paraphrase Lycan: a certain inner state of mine could be: the result of per ceptual integration together with conceptualisation and the cause of certain signals to m y motor effectives; a tokening of 'there u a make under my foot'; a sequence of the characters 't' concatenated with 'b' . . . ; a sequence of neuron firings; etc. 7. A fuller discussion of an equivalent position u in Sterelny ( 1 98 1). 8. A view well rebutted in McGinn (1 977)). 9. In Fodor (1 980). 10. Dretske (198 1). 1.

2.


descriptions, and the like. From the perspective of narrow psychology, we do not have one kind of belief, we have many. 3 . His central theoretical concept is never made clear and plausible. The basic idea is that de re beliefs are not fully conceptualized. By con trast to de dicto beliefs, their content is not fully propositional. It's very unclear what is meant by this claim : he certainly does not think of de re beliefs as like internal open sentences, or internal sentences with a name . De re beliefs include a "mode of presentation". It's this, presumably, that is not conceptualized . I see no reason to accept this idea. In his analysis of perceptual belief, the mode of presentation is a perceptual state of some kind. Why should we think perceptual states unconceptual? Bach refers to Dretske in this connection, but that author has pointed out that per ceptual states only become available for cognitive deployment after conceptualization. 15 So the whole notion of conceptualization is left, in my view, unsatisfactorily opaque.

294 1 1 . Stich's view is notationally different from that of Lycan. Instead of thinking that we have separate taxonomies of belief, Stich suggests that we have a complex taxonomy, but that pragmatic considerations affect the relative importance of the vee ton. 1 2. I think partly anticipated in Field (1 979) and Putnam ( 1 978). 1 3 . See also Michael Devitt's extended and careful discussion of these issues in his ( 1 984). 14. See especially Devitt (1 98 1). 1 5 . He calls this process digitalisation (Dretske ( 1 9 8 1)). 1 6 . Thanks to Michael Devitt and Bill Lycan for reading earlier versions of this stuff.

REFERENCES

3 79-409.

Field, H., 1 978: Mental Representation. Erkenntn is 1 3 , 9-6 1 . Fodor, J., 1 9 7 5 : Th e Langwzge of Though t. Harvester Press, Hassocks, Sussex. Fodor, J., 1978: Propositional Attitudes. The Monist 6 1 . 4 . Fodor, J., 1 9 80 : Methodological Solipsism Considered as a Research Strategy in Cognitive S cience, Behavioral and Brain Science 3 . 1 . Harman, G . , 1975: Th ought. Princeton Univemty Press, Princeton. Lycan, W., 1 9 8 1 : Towards a Homuncular Theory of Believing. Cognition and Brain Theory 4 .2. McGinn, C., 1977: Charity, Interpretation and Belief. Journal of Philosophy 74. 52 1-535.

Pu tn am , H., 1 978: Reference and Understanding. In: H. Pu tn am , Meaning and the

Moral Sdence!, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London Sterelny, K., 1 9 8 1 : Critical Notice of D.C. Dennett's Brainstorms, A ustralasian Journal ofPhilosophy 5 9. 4. Sterelny, K., 1983: Mental Representation: What Language is Brainese, PhilosophiCtZl Studies 4 3 : 365-382.


Dennett, D.C., 1978: Brainstonns. Bradford, Cambridge, Mass. Dennett, D.C., 1 9 8 1 : Three Kinds of Intentional Psychology. In: Healey, R. (ed). Reduction, Time and Reality, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K. Devitt, M., 1 9 8 1 : Designation. Columbia U.P., New York. Devitt, M., 1984: Reali/IT11 and Truth. Forthcoming from Princeton U.P., Princeton. Dretske, F., 1 98 1 : Know/edge and the Flow of Information. Buil Blackwell, Oxford. Field, H., 1977: Logic, Meaning and Concep tual Role. Journal of Philosophy 74:

Journal of Semantics 3: 295-299

· REVIEW ARTICLE John

R. Searle, Intentionality. An Essay in the Hzilosophy ofMind. Cam

bridge University Press, Cambridge/New York,

0 5 2 1 22895 6 (hard £ 7 50 (paper).

cover);

0 5 2 1 27302 1

1 983.

Pp. x +

(paper). Price:

278. ISBN £ 20.00 I

Ge Calis In ancient times the term "intentional" perhaps only meant what it still means today in ordinary language, viz. "deliberate" or even only ''pur

it , i.e ., to distinguish intentional being, or representation, in explaining how the mind can have knowledge . Brentano discovered the directedness of the acts of consciousness to ward the intentional (or imm anent) object, i.e . , that intentionality con cerns the fundamental structure of consciousness itself: consciousness is always consciousness of something . Husserl not only fonnulated more precisely what functions these acts of consciousness have (they 'con stitute meaning'), he also introduced as an intennediate the 'noerna' (see

also F�llesdal, 1982). By some, this 'noerna' is interpreted nowadays as the software programme in cognitive processing. Noernata are supposed to be 'donnant' abstract hierarchical structures (about sets of possible objects of consciousness as-a-whole as well as about the possible modi of consciousness) that can

be

'awoken' and devel oped by input data. In

this

way the corresponding mental acts (and thus the mind) can refer to, or be directed at, the particular object we are specifically aware of (for example by seeing it , or perhaps only believing , imagining or desiring it). Noemata thus offer an internally specified , unifying, but always trans cendent perspective: there is always more to be known or said about the immanent object. The mental acts form a process of fulffihne nt. Because the conditions of satisfaction are internally specified in the noerna , an analysis of the constitution of meaning can 'bracket ' ontological questions concerning the 'real', 'objective ' existence of the object. Intentionality and noerna are perplexingly ambiguous and complex notions about infinite knowledge, far removed from ordinary language. A host of Hu�rl interpreters have tried to exemplify his concepts. However, because of this complexity, and precisely because very o ften all kinds of ontological

issu es

were reintroduced, the result was rather that

many heterogeneous philosophical movements or schools developed around some notion or other of intentionality. For that reason, intentionality, besides being a complex notio n, has also remained one of the most ob scure


posive". But aheady in scholastic philosophy it was used to explain how a b eing can be present in another being without physically coinciding with

296

''What is one to do in the face of all thls distinguished past? My own approach has been simply to ignore it, partly out of ignorance of m ost of the traditional writings on Intentionality and partly out of the conviction that my only hope of resolving the worries which led me into this study in the first place lay in the relentless pursuit p f m y own investigations. It is w orth pointing this out because several people who read the manu,;:dpt claimed to find interesting agreements and dis agreements with their favorite authors".

However , the point is not that every writer on Intentionality should, a gain and again, comment on .Brentano 's or Hu sserl 's original writings. The point is that whatever insights a n author develops on his own must be related to the large p hilosophical contours in current discussio ns. For that purpose se condary writings (for examp le F�llesdal 's ) can do fine. But Searle mentions Brentano an d Husserl only once , and that only in passing and without any reference. His critics , like Hofsta dter , Fo dor and Pylyshyn, are not mentio ned at all . He does not even refer to Drey fus ' (1982)


and confusing philo sophical notions. Nevertheless, in recent Cognitive · Science , and especially in t he so- called Computational Approach of M ind in Cognitive Psychology and Arti ficial Intelli ge nce (cp. Fo dor , 1983; Py1yshyn , 1984), this intentional notio n of rep resentatio n and perspective is of course more relevant t han ever before. Here we f ind the contemporary cou nterparts of the dif fere nt p hilo !l:>phical v iewpoi nts a nd a lso , again, the con comitant con fusing discussio ns. In this comp lex histori cal context Searle 's newest book , which bears precisely the title Intentionality. An Essay in the Philosophy of Mmd, should carry a special s ignillca nce. But does it present a better elaborated a nd clearer picture of the notions involved? Unfortunately , the answer mu st be negative. Sear le presents a private conceptual analy sis which is not embedded in history. It is roote d in a gro ssly no nspecific biolo gical concept of min d , ra ther than in a more refined noema tic or progranunatic concept. Searle stre sses the 'hardware ' aspect of cognitive processing and belittles the signi ficance of 'software ' approaches. Yet , nowhere does he argue , let alo ne state , that the se two approaches are not mutually ex clusive. In a ctual fact , the dile mma is a false one. He thus inevitably provokes attitu des of sharp a ntagonism on the part of representatives of the mainstream of Cognitive Science (see also the many comments on Searle 's famous 1980 article). Searle regards tra ditio n as something of a me ss, suggesting that traditio n, rather than the natu re of this dif ficuh problem area itself is responsible for all t he remaining unclarities. Searle wants above all to be clear - and in a way he certainly is - but he does not w ish to clear up the histo rical 'mess'. In his I ntro ductio n (p. ix) he w rites :

297


excellent reader , ahhough this includes a chapter on Intentional States by Searle himself, anticipating this new book. In the Introduction of this book Dreyfus relates, with great care, to tradition and current discussions. Searle may be forgiven for not wishing to get entangled in the complex and often confusing labyrinth of the tradition. But he should, at least, take the trouble of making it clear to his readers where and how he links up with that tradition. (Of course, Searle has read a great deal of the con temporary and the older literature, which, though not explicitly mentioned, is somehow incorporated into the text.) Moreover, he should also take care not to duplicate what other authors, like Husserl, have already done, and perhaps not always so badly. Now what is the use of this book? If one reads it against the back ground of other literature as mentioned above (and Dennett, 1 978; Hauge land, 198 1 ; Hofstadter & Dennett, 1981 could be added) and the pre liminary articles in the excellent discussion Journal 1he Behavioral and Brain Sciences, it can be very useful. It has already been said that Searle's style of writing is very clear. Vague notions can be clarified or sharpened by reading him. Often one sees the vacuousness or triviality of certain popular notions (and also, one has to admit , some of Searle himself), due to the clarity of his formulations. In short, in spite of the serious short comings just commented upon, this book seems to me to be an excellent catalyst in the process of training one's thinking about intentionality. Searle is a very inspiring sparring partner because he continually invents new debating ploys and ingenious puzzles. The book has ten chapters, entitled : 1 . The nature of Intentional states; 2. The Intentionality of perception ; 3 . Intention and action; 4. In tentional causation; 5 . The background; 6 . Meaning; 7 . Intensional reports of Intentional states and speech acts; 8. Are meanings in the head? 9 . Proper names and intentionality; 1 0 . Epilogue: Intentionality and the brain. Right at the beginning of the first chapter Searle writes something which is crucially important for the understanding of his ultimate goals, but which antagonizes at least this reviewer . Searle claims that not all conscious states are intentional, and thus does not regard intentionality as the crucial characteristic of consciousness. Is Searle really that much of a stranger in this land? Mental states are only intentional, according to Searle, if you can ask: ''What is S about?" (p. 2). Undirected anxiety is thus not con sidered intentional by Searle, apparently because he wishes to make an absolute distinction between such cognitive processes as just being aware of one's anxiety and being aware of, say, frightening snakes, - a distinction which most of us will only regard as between different levels of intention ality. Yet , as a result of a complex argument, Searle does not exclude the possibility of self-referential forms of intentionality (chapters 2 and 3). He has a similar criterion to distinguish mental acts. Forming a mental

298 image of the Golden Gate Bridge is a mental act, he says, but believing something is just a state or event. In

his

Introduction Searle explains that one of his objectives with this

book is to provide a foundation for his earlier books

Expression and Meaning:

Speech Acts

and

"Intentional states represent objects and states

of affairs in the same sense of 'represent' that speech acts represent ". (p.

4)

However

(p. vii),

"their capacity to represent is not intrinsic but is

derived from the Intentionality of the Mind. The intentionality of mental states, on the other hand , is not derived from some more prior forms of Intentionality but is intrinsic to the states themselves". This is a very important issue which returns many times throughout the book. Even of perception and action, he says interesting things about these intrinsic or internal conditions of satisfaction in relation with the well-known problems of homunculi and infinite regress. The same holds for another preliminary statement, now about the confusing relation between inten sionality (Language again) and Intentionality (the Mind): 'The only con nection between them is that some sentences about Intentionality-with-a-t are intensional-with-an-s".

(p. 24)

The most important issue that non-linguists, familiar with Searle's writings, will be on the lookout for is his current elaboration of the notion of "causal power of the brain", now coupled with "intentional causation", launched and hotly debated in

his 1980 article. It is presented in chapter 4 10,

and completed with his solution of the Mind-Body problem in chapter

the epilogue of the book. Th e reader should check for himself whether this b uys him anything. Some might fmd it inspiring, some might not . In this reviewer's opinion its main merit lies in its clarity, and perhaps less in its contents.

Nijmegen University Department of Psychology P.O. Box 91 04 6500 HE Nijmegen The Netherlands

REFERENCES Dennett, D.C., 1978: Brainstonn B. PhOosophicol Es!iOys on Mind and hychology. Bradford Books, Montgomery Vt.. Dreyfus, H.L. (ed.) , 1 9 82: Husserl, Intentionality and Cognitive Science. MlT -Press, Bradford Books, Cambridge, Mass. Fodor, J.A., 1 983: The Modularity of Mind: An Es!Dy on Faculty hychology. MlT .Press, Bradford Books, Cam bridge, Mass.


before Searle discusses the more basic forms of Intentionality, especially

299

Fpllesdal,

D., 1 9 82: Brentano and Husserl on intentional objects and percep tion.

Husserl's notion of noerna. ln : H.L. Dreyfus (ed.).

Haugeland, J. (ed.), 1 9 8 1 : Mind Design. Philosophy, Psychology, A rtificial In· telligence. Bradford Books, Montgomery Vt. Hofstadter, D.R. and D.C. Dennett (eds.), 1 98 1 : The Mind 's I. Fan tasies and Re· flec tions on Selfand SouL Basic Books, New York. Pylyshyn, Z.W., 1 9 84:

Computation and Cognition. Toward a Foundation for Cognitive Science. MIT-Press, Bradford Books, Cam bridge, MilS$. Searle, J.R. , 1 980: Minds, brains, and programs. The Behavioral and Brain &iences, 3 ; 4 17-45 7. Searle, J.R., 1 982: What is a n Intentional State? I n : H.L. Dreyfus (ed.).


ANNOUNCEMENTS

PRAGMATICS DOCUMENTATION CENTER

bibliography of pragmatics from

1 938

through

1 985 .

This bibliography

will be a completely revised, integrated, expanded and updated version of J. Verschueren, 1 978, Pragmatics: An Annotated Bibliography (Amster dam: John Benjamins, xvi +

270

pp.) and the five supplements which have

appeared in the JoW7Zal ofPragmatics

{1 978-1 982).

The bibliography is intended to cover the field of pragmatics in its widest sense, including not only studies dealing with speech acts, pre suppositions, implicatures, and the like, but also some aspects of artificial intelligence, m any

forms of anthropological, sociolinguistic , psycho

linguistic and neurolinguistic research, most forms of discourse analysis and conversational analysis, and various applications of these various domains of inquiry. Everyone who is, has been, or will

be

active in any of the areas cited

is

kindly invited, in order to facilitate the compilation, to send a copy of their past and future publications (in any language , with full bibliographical reference) to the following address :

Pragmatics Documentation Center J. VerschuerenfJ. Nuyts Univemty ofAntwerp Linguistics (Genn. Phil.) Universiteitsplein 1 B-2160 Wilrijk Belgium


A Pragmatics Documentation Center is being organized at the University of Antwerp (VIA), Belgium. Its frrst task will be to compile an annotated

INTERNATIONAL PRAGMATICS CONFERENCE Viareggio , Italy , September 1 -8 , 1985

First circular Organizers: Marcella Bertuccelli Papi (Universite de Geneve) Jef Verschueren (Belgian National Fund for Scientific Re search)

A im of the conference

recent years witnessed ever-increasing diversification. Various disciplines which m ake use of pragmatic concepts and which can directly contribute to our understanding of human communication , exist side by side, with different alleged aims and purposes, methodologies, and terminologies. It is the aim of this conference to contribute to the theoretical coherence which is needed to improve the comparability and applicability of research results.

Structure There will

be

five morning sessions during e ach of which two lectures will

be delivered by representatives of different disciplines dealing with prag matic aspects of language . To promote discussion, texts will

be

distnbuted

in advance. The tentative list of lecturers includes: H . CLARK (Stanford), U . ECO (Bologna), P. HOPPER (Binghamton), D. HYMES (Philadelphia), S. LEVINSON (Cambridge), D. PARISI (Roma), C . PERFETTI (Pisa), L J . PRIETO (Gen�ve), Ch . SCHWARZE (Konstanz), A . ZAMPOLLI (Pisa). Afternoon sessions will be organized around the themes touched upon during the morning lectures.

On the fmal day, a general synthesis and evaluation will follow in the form of a round table discussion.

Call for papers Papers on any topic studied from a pragmatic perspective are invited . Abstracts (in English) should

be

sent

(before February 15, 1985)

to :

Marcella BERTUCCELU PAPI, Universite de Geneve, Departement de langues et litteratures romanes, 3 Rue Condolle, CH-1 205 Gen�ve, Switzerland (tel. 022/360 7 17) and


The field of pragmatics (as originally defmed by Charles Morris) has in

303 Jef VERSCHUEREN, University of Antwerp , linguistics (Germ . Phil .), Universiteitsplein 1 , B-2 6 1 0 Wilrijk, Belgium (tel. 03/2 3 0 1 680) (Proceedings of the conference will

be published by John Benjamins

B .V . ,

Amsterdam .)

Conference fees A

registration fee of $ 20.-- should be paid to the following account :

1 6260/00 Marcella Papi, Cassa di Rispamio di Firenze, Viareggio.

The City Council of Viareggio will provide reduced rate s for accom modation. Detailed information will be included in the second circular.


Accommodation

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