Topics in semantics and pragmatics
Basic Information
Dates
Description
The course acts as an introduction to work on foundational issues of meaning, communication and interpretation. The topics we will study include: the relation between meaning and intentions; the effect and role of context in determining what is meant; the relation between meaning and speaker’s commitments; the distinction between, on the one hand, what is said and, on the other, what is meant or conveyed or communicated without being said (in the relevant sense): this will lead us to the study of implications, presuppositions and expressive meaning.
Methodology
Methodology:
There will be a reading assigned to each session. For each of the readings the teacher will provide in advance a list of “reading questions” that should help the students understand the reading and focus on its most relevant parts. In class, we will discuss those reading questions and the teacher will typically also present and discuss some additional material. In each of the sessions, one of the students will do a short presentation of one particular issue within the topic discussed in that session.
Structure of the course, contents and primary readings:
October 8: Introduction.
October 15, 22: Meaning and intentions
Grice, H. P. (1957) “Meaning”, Philosophical Review, 66, 377-88.
Gluer, Kathrin. & Peter Pagin (2003) “Meaning Theory and Autistic Speakers”. Mind and Language. 18(1): 23-51.
October 29: Saying and implicating
Grice, P., (1975) “Logic and conversation” (in Grice, P.: 1989, Studies in the Way of Words, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA)
November 5: Assertion
Stalnaker, R. (1978). “Assertion”. In P. Cole (Ed.) Syntax and semantics (Vol. 9, pp. 315–332). New York: Academic Press. Also in R. Stalnaker, Context and content. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999, pp. 78–95.
November 12, 19: Lying vs. Untruthfully Implicating
Pepp, Jessica (2019). “Assertion, Lying, and Untruthfully Implicating,” in S. Goldberg, ed., The Oxford Handbook on Assertion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Stokke, A. (2013b). “Lying and asserting”. Journal of Philosophy, 110(1), 33–60.
November 26: Communication and commitments
Mazzarella, Diana, Robert Reinecke, Ira Noveck, Hugo Mercier (2018), “Saying, presupposing and implicating: How pragmatics modulates commitment”. Journal of Pragmatics, Volume 133, August 2018, Pages 15-27
December 3: Presuppositions
Abbott, Barbara (2008). “Presuppositions and common ground”. Linguistics and Philosophy, 21, 523–538.
December 10: Expressive meaning
Jeshion, Robin (2013). Slurs and Stereotypes. _Analytic Philosophy_ 54 (3):314-329.
Evaluation
Class participation (10%), class presentation (10%), two or three short papers or problem sets that will be related to the reading questions (80%).
General Learning Outcomes:
CB6 – Students should be able to critically understand central texts in the philosophy of language in a way that puts them in a position to develop and apply original ideas.
CB9 - Students should be able to communicate their knowledge and their arguments to specialized audiences in a clear and articulate way.
CG2. Students should be able to design, create, develop and undertake new and innovative projects in their area of expertise.
CG3. Students should be able to engage both in general and specific discussions in the domain of the philosophy of language. They should be able to conduct a philosophical discussion (orally and in written form), by putting forward, for example, general arguments or specific examples, in support of one’s position.
CG4. Students should be able to work both independently and in a team, in an international environment.
CG5. Students should be able to identify methodological errors, rhetorical, conventional and uncritical assumptions, vagueness and superficiality.
CE1. Students should be able to critically engage with the concepts and methods of contemporary philosophy of language.
CE2. Students should be able to identify the core arguments and theories of contemporary philosophy of language.
CE4. Students should be able to assess the writings of leading contemporary philosophers in the field of philosophy and the cognitive sciences.
CE5. Students should be able to identify and critically engage with the current state of a particular philosophical debate, and form a reasoned view, even if provisional, about it.
CE7. Students should be able to critically use specialized terminology in the field of philosophy of language.
Bibliography
Abbott, Barbara (2008). Presuppositions and common ground. Linguistics and Philosophy, 21, 523–538.
Hom, Christopher, (2010), “Pejoratives”, Philosophy Compass. Volume 5, Issue 2, 164–185
von Fintel, Kai: (2008). “What is presupposition accommodation, again?” Philosophical Perspectives 22 (1):137-170
García-Carpintero, M. (2018). On the Nature of Presupposition: A Normative Speech Act Account. Erkenntnis
Gauker, C. (2008). Against accommodation. Philosophical perspectives, 22, 171–205.
Gluer, Kathrin. & Peter Pagin (2003) “Meaning Theory and Autistic Speakers”. Mind and Language. 18(1): 23-51.
Grice, H. P. (1957) “Meaning”, Philosophical Review, 66, 377-88 (also in Grice (1989))
Grice, H. P. (1969) “Utterer’s meaning and intentions”, (in Grice (1989))
Grice, P., (1975) “Logic and conversation” (in Grice, P (1989))
Grice, P., (1978) "Further notes on Logic and Conversation" (in Grice, P. (1989))
Grice, P. (1989) Studies in the Way of Words, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Geurts, B. (2009) “Scalar implicatures and local pragmatics”. Mind and Language, 24-1, 51–79
Geurts, B (2018) Convention and common ground, Mind and Language 33 (2):115-129
Geurts, B. (2019). “Communication as commitment sharing: speech acts, implicatures, common ground”. Theoretical Linguistics, 45(1-2), pp. 1-30.
Geurts, B. (2019) Commitments continued. Communication as commitment sharing: speech acts, implicatures, common ground. Theoretical Linguistics, 45(1-2), pp. 111-125.
Jeshion, Robin (2013). “Slurs and stereotypes”. Analytic Philosophy, 54(3): 314–329
Marsili, Neri (2019) “The definition of assertion”, ms.
Mazzarella, Diana, Robert Reinecke, Ira Noveck, Hugo Mercier (2018), “Saying, presupposing and implicating: How pragmatics modulates commitment”. Journal of Pragmatics, Volume 133, August 2018, Pages 15-27
Pagin, Peter. 2009. Assertion Not Possibly Social. Journal of Pragmatics 41 (12): 2563–67.
Pagin, Peter. 2014. Assertion. Stanford Enciclopedia of Philosophy.
Pepp, Jessica (2019). “Assertion, Lying, and Untruthfully Implicating,” in S. Goldberg, ed., The Oxford Handbook on Assertion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Potts, Christopher, (2007) “The expressive dimension”. 2007. Theoretical Linguistics 33(2): 165–197.
Reboul, Anne (2006), HOT Theories of Meaning: The Link Between Language and Theory of Mind. Mind & Language, Vol. 21 No. 5 November 2006, pp. 587–596.
Sennet, A. (2018). Presupposition triggering and disambiguation. In G. Preyer, Beyond Semantics and Pragmatics. Oxford: OUP.
Simons, Mandy. (2003). Presupposition and accommodation: Understanding the stalnakerian picture. Philosophical Studies, 112, 251–278.
Simons, M., Tonhauser, J., Beaver, D., & Roberts, C. (2011). What projects and why. Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT), 22, 309–327.
Soames, Scott (1989) “Presupposition”, In D. Gabbay and F. Guenthner (eds), Handbook of Philosophical Logic IV, 553-616.
Stalnaker, R. (1978). “Assertion”. In P. Cole (Ed.) Syntax and semantics (Vol. 9, pp. 315–332). New York: Academic Press. Also in R. Stalnaker, Context and content. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999, pp. 78–95.
Stalnaker, R. (2002). Common ground. Linguistics and Philosophy, 25, 701–721.
Stokke, A. (2013b). “Lying and asserting”. Journal of Philosophy, 110(1), 33–60.
Williamson, T. (1996/2000). Knowing and Asserting. Philosophical Review 105, pp. 489–523; included with some revisions as chapter 11 of his Knowledge and its limits. New York: Oxford UP, 2000.
Other considerations
This course will be taught online. Please email the instructor for a link to the online sessions.