Semiotic Studies

Introduction

2024-11-08T03:47:19+01:00

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvii2.01

The six papers collected in this volume address a broad range of problems related to the theme of context and content. Among the topics discussed by the authors are the relation between mental and linguistic content, the role of context in the determination of the semantic values of demonstrative expressions, the foundational question about the nature of propositions and their role as objects of propositional attitudes, the temporal versus eternal nature of desire contents and challenges posed by attitudes de se to the traditional view of contents. Some of these papers were presented at the 3^rd Context, Cognition and Communication, which took place in Warsaw in September 2022, and one paper was discussed in the workshop Demonstratives and Indexicals III dedicated to Una Stojnić’s book Context and Coherence (2021). The workshop was organized in Warsaw in January 2023 as part of the project “Semantic and Epistemological Aspects of Ostension: From Demonstrating Procedures to the Exploitation of the Context of Utterance”.

Demonstratives, Gestures, and Logical Form

2024-11-07T08:58:13+01:00

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvii2.02

In Context and Coherence (2021), Una Stojnić defends two theses about demonstrative reference: that the deictic gestures accompanying uses of demonstratives are syntactically encoded in multi-modal syntactic constructions, and that deictic gestures so encoded are syntactically individuated by objects and individuals. Critical scrutiny of both theses reveals surprising lessons about the relationship between demonstratives and logic, but such scrutiny also reveals weaknesses in Stojnić’s arguments for the theses.

Twardowski on Content and Meaning

2024-11-08T03:47:19+01:00

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvii2.03

Kazimierz Twardowski elaborated an original conception of intentionality in his habilitation thesis, On the Content and Object of Presentations, in 1894. He gives a crucial place to the notion of content, as the basis of any presentation. This allows him to offer a solution to the problem of objectless presentations. But I will focus here on a property he attributes to content, that is, its ability to convey meaning. Outside the proper scope of philosophy of language, he provides a conception of meaning that does not focus on reference but rather on designation. His theory does not account for the Fregean distinction between sense and reference, so I will propose a comparison between the two philosophers’ conceptions of meaning.

The Act-Type Theory of Propositions as a Theory of Cognitive Distinctness

2024-11-07T08:59:29+01:00

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvii2.04

Soames and others have proposed that propositions are types of acts of predication. Soames has extended the act-type theory by proposing a distinction between direct and mediate predication. He does this in order to distinguish between the propositions expressed by sentences containing complex singular terms and those expressed by sentences containing proper names which denote the objects that those complex singular terms denote. In particular, he uses his extension to account for the cognitive distinctness of such propositions. I argue that Soames’ extension of the act-type theory is not the best way to do so. I propose an alternative version of the act-type theory, which makes the distinctions that Soames wants to make without Soames’ extension.

On Semantic Content, Belief-Content and Belief Ascription

2024-11-07T08:59:59+01:00

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvii2.05

It is no surprise to anyone familiar with Fregean and Millian Theories that they struggle to explain the intuitive truth-value of sentences with proper names in modal and cognitive (such as belief) contexts, respectively. In this paper, I suggest that we can avoid the problems these theories face while at the same time preserving important intuitions by drawing a sharp distinction between semantic content (truth-conditions) and cognitive content (the content of cognitive attitudes), and by fixing the scope of Fregean and Millian theories to cognitive and semantic content, respectively. An immediate worry for this type of hybrid account is to explain the contribution of cognitive contents to the truth-conditions of attitude ascriptions. If they are different contents and the cognitive content is not part of the semantics, how can the truth-value of belief ascriptions be sensitive to cognitive content? If the semantic content follows Millianism, how can belief ascriptions that are otherwise identical but have different co-referring names have different truth-values? To answer these questions, I use Predelli’s (2005) semantic framework and argue that the truth-value of belief ascriptions is relativized not only to a world but also to a point of evaluation used to interpret the world. It is the point of evaluation that brings the cognitive content back to semantics and explains away the contradiction.

Desire Contents and Temporal Adverbs

2024-11-08T03:47:19+01:00

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvii2.06

In this paper, I endorse and discuss “desire temporalism”—the view that desire contents are temporal. Though it makes a claim limited to desire contents, it is considerably stronger than standard temporalism (at least, when it comes to desires), which is simply the view that there are temporal contents. Having introduced desire temporalism, I focus on a potential objection to it. The objection proceeds from the plausible observation that desire ascriptions with certain kinds of temporal adverbials can serve as counterexamples to desire temporalism. This is so if temporal adverbials denote times which correspond to the time indications in the ascribed attitude content. I respond to this objection by arguing that these temporal adverbials do not play such a role—instead of corresponding to time indications in the desire content, we can see them as contributing to the circumstance of evaluation relative to which the content is assessed. This would allow desire temporalism to evade the objection. Looking for a way to implement this idea, I consider Brogaard’s (2012) composite tense operators as a promising avenue to explore, but opt instead for an approach to tense more popular in formal semantics, according to which tenses are temporal pronouns. In the final section of the paper, I show how this pronominal theory of tense can be pressed into service of just such a claim as advanced earlier, so we have a way of evading the challenge posed by these time-denoting temporal adverbials.

Saving the Traditional View of Contents From the Messy Shopper and His Crazy and Amnesiac Acolytes

2024-11-07T09:01:05+01:00

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvii2.07

In this paper I propose a way of saving the traditional view of contents and attitudes from the threat posed by famous scenarios such as Perry’s messy shopper. I argue that, with the solution I suggest, traditionally construed beliefs and contents can play all the roles we traditionally want them to play, including the notoriously problematic explanation of action. I dub the view laid out here the Double Belief Theory because it analyzes de se attitudes as, in fact, two conjoined beliefs, one of which is a second-order belief about the other.