Semantic Shifts in Argumentative Processes: A Step Beyond the ‘Fallacy of Equivocation’

In naturally occuring argumentation, words which play a crucial role in the argument often acquire different meanings on subsequent occasions of use. Traditionally, such semantic shifts have been dealt with by the fallacy of equivocation. In my paper, I would like to show that there is considerably more to semantic shifts during arguments than their potentially being fallacious. Based on an analysis of a debate on environmental policy, I will argue that shifts in meaning are produced by a principle I call local semantic elaboration. I will go on to show that semantic shifts in the meaning of a word, the position advocated by a party, and the questions that the parties raise during an argumentative process are neatly tailored to one another, but can be incommensurable to the opponent's views. Semantic shifts thus may have a dissociative impact on a critical discussion. By linking the structure of argumentation to its pragmatics, however, it may be revealed that there are two practices that account for a higher order of coherence of the debate. The first practice is a general preference for disagreeing with the opponent, the second practice is the interpretation of local speech acts in terms of an overall ideological stance that is attributed to the speaker. Because of these practices, parties do not criticize divergent semantic conceptions as disruptive, but they treat them as characteristic and sometimes even metonymic reflections of the parties' positions.     

Algebras of Intervals and a Logic of Conditional Assertions

Intervals in boolean algebras enter into the study of conditional assertions (or events) in two ways: directly, either from intuitive arguments or from Goodman, Nguyen and Walker's representation theorem, as suitable mathematical entities to bear conditional probabilities, or indirectly, via a representation theorem for the family of algebras associated with de Finetti's three-valued logic of conditional assertions/events. Further representation theorems forge a connection with rough sets. The representation theorems and an equivalent of the boolean prime ideal theorem yield an algebraic completeness theorem for the three-valued logic. This in turn leads to a Henkin-style completeness theorem. Adequacy with respect to a family of Kripke models for de Finetti's logic, ukasiewicz's three-valued logic and Priest's Logic of Paradox is demonstrated. The extension to first-order yields a short proof of adequacy for Körner's logic of inexact predicates.     

Arguments for adjuncts

It is commonly assumed across the language sciences that some semantic participant information is lexically encoded in the representation of verbs and some is not. In this paper, we propose that semantic obligatoriness and verb class specificity are criteria which influence whether semantic information is lexically encoded. We present a comprehensive survey of the English verbal lexicon, a sentence continuation study, and an on-line sentence processing study which confirm that both factors play a role in the lexical encoding of participant information.     

Metaphors in behavioral genetics

Behavioral geneticists sometimes use metaphorsto describe the role of genes in humanbehavior. In this paper, five sample texts areanalyzed: a popular book, a textbook, ascientific review article, and two originalscientific articles representing differentapproaches in behavioral genetics. Metaphorsare found in all the different kinds of sampletexts, not only in the popular book and thetextbook. This suggests that metaphors are usednot only for rhetorical or pedagogical purposesbut play a more fundamental role in scientificunderstanding. In the sample texts, themetaphors tend to be antideterministic, i.e.,they do not imply genetic determinism butstress the interaction of multiple genes andmultiple environmental factors. No conclusioncan be drawn, however, as to whetherantideterminism is representative ofpresent-day behavioral geneticists in general.Certain historically important metaphors thatmay imply genetic determinism are qualified,avoided, or explicitly rejected. There aretensions between some of the metaphors, makingthem difficult to combine. All the metaphorsthat are used appear empirically apt, howeversometimes only with certain qualifications.     

A Kripke Semantics for the Logic of Gelfand Quantales

Gelfand quantales are complete unital quantales with an involution, *, satisfying the property that for any element a, if a b a for all b, then a a* a = a. A Hilbert-style axiom system is given for a propositional logic, called Gelfand Logic, which is sound and complete with respect to Gelfand quantales. A Kripke semantics is presented for which the soundness and completeness of Gelfand logic is shown. The completeness theorem relies on a Stone style representation theorem for complete lattices. A Rasiowa/Sikorski style semantic tableau system is also presented with the property that if all branches of a tableau are closed, then the formula in question is a theorem of Gelfand Logic. An open branch in a completed tableaux guarantees the existence of an Kripke model in which the formula is not valid; hence it is not a theorem of Gelfand Logic.     

Style in Philosophy: Part I

In this article, I attempt to restore the philosophical significance of that nonformalizable, noniterable, "singular' element of natural language that I call "style." I begin by critically addressing the exclusion of such instances of natural language by both semantics-oriented logical analysis and a restricted variation of structuralist linguistics. Despite the obvious advantages – with regard to style – of "pragmatic"approaches to language, such pragmatism merely returns to rule-determination in the guise of "normativity." Although style by definition resists any kind of rule-determination – whether posed in terms of semantics or intersubjective regulations of speech-acts – there can be no consideration of language that ignores the persistence of style in natural language. In terms of cognition, any discursive agent understands more than allowed by either semantics or speech-act theory. I ascribe this element of excessive signification to the role of style. My principal thesis is twofold: (1) a hermeneutic approach (exemplified by Schleiermacher) to literature should reveal the heuristically decisive role played by style in philosophy; and, more radically still, (2) style, in fact, may be crucially determinative of philosophical discourse in general. I suggest that a closer scrutiny of the lesser-known works of Ludwig Wittgenstein, conventionally regarded as having dreamt of a "philosophy without style," may consolidate the restoration of style's philosophical import.     

Absolute Probability Functions for Intuitionistic Propositional Logic

Provided here is a characterisation of absolute probability functions for intuitionistic (propositional) logic L, i.e. a set of constraints on the unary functions P from the statements of L to the reals, which insures that (i) if a statement A of L is provable in L, then P(A) = 1 for every P, L's axiomatisation being thus sound in the probabilistic sense, and (ii) if P(A) = 1 for every P, then A is provable in L, L's axiomatisation being thus complete in the probabilistic sense. As there are theorems of classical (propositional) logic that are not intuitionistic ones, there are unary probability functions for intuitionistic logic that are not classical ones. Provided here because of this is a means of singling out the classical probability functions from among the intuitionistic ones.     

‘Ought implies Can’ and the law

In this paper, we investigate the ‘ought implies can’ (OIC) thesis, focusing on explanations and interpretations of OIC, with a view to clarifying its uses and relevance to legal philosophy. We first review various issues concerning the semantics and pragmatics of OIC; then we consider how OIC may be incorporated in Hartian and Kelsenian theories of the law. Along the way we also propose a taxonomy of OIC-related claims.     

Natural language semantics in biproduct dagger categories

Biproduct dagger categories serve as models for natural language. In particular, the biproduct dagger category of finite dimensional vector spaces over the field of real numbers accommodates both the extensional models of predicate calculus and the intensional models of quantum logic. The morphisms representing the extensional meanings of a grammatical string are translated to morphisms representing the intensional meanings such that truth is preserved. Pregroup grammars serve as the tool that transforms a grammatical string into a morphism. The chosen linguistic examples concern negation, relative noun phrases, comprehension and quantifiers.