Scottish Nous

Procrastination + Charity

There is a nice vocab builder at FreeRice.com.  These words get hard, and the premise is kind of cute.  They'll donate twenty grains (yes, grains) of rice for every word you get correct.  It's a non-profit, and honestly, you don't even see that ads while playing.  It also learns, and so provides a pretty accurate measure of your vocabulary level.  Play it once and post your level/grains in the comments!  Before you play, go to the settings and force it to start at level one.  I died on "anserine" which, apparently, means "goose-like".  Level: 42 Grains: 2540

The Paradox of Grammar

Via Musings of an Editress:

A curious paradox exists in regard to grammar. On the one hand it is felt to be the dullest and driest of academic subjects, fit only for those in whose veins the red blood of life has long since turned to ink. On the other, it is a subject upon which people who would scorn to be professional grammarians hold very dogmatic opinions, which they will defend with considerable emotion.

The quotation is excerpted from W. Nelson Francis, "Revolution in Grammar," in Aspects of American English (Elizabeth M. Kerr & Ralph M. Aderman eds., 1963).

Kit Fine, Compositionality Proper and Coordination Relations

I apologize for the slight delay in the promised forthcoming posts.  I had intended to read Kit Fine's paper sooner and send him some questions/comments, but I now have suspicions that he may be sitting on NYU's admissions committee.  Since I have applied to NYU (although sadly, it appears I was not a first round draft pick), I'd rather not do anything that might be perceived as a pathetic attempt at insincere, opportunistic ladder-climbing.

At the UCSB conference, Kit Fine presented a revised version of Frege's argument in which he substituted variables for proper names.  You can see a quick sketch of Frege's original argument here.  Fine's version appeals to what seems to be an obvious fact: the cognitive significance, i.e., meaning, of "x" is no different from the cognitive significance of "y".  For the record, Fine was careful to avoid talk of "cognitive significance" when he presented, but since I just intend one to read that as "meaning", I'll use the term occasionaly for the sake of literary variation.  Now you're asked to consider the meaning of the identities "x = x" and "x = y".  Just like "Hesperus = Hesperus" differs in meaning from "Hesperus = Phosphorus", "x = x" differs in meaning from "x = y".  The same values need not be substituted for the variables in "x = y".   But if reference is the only kind of meaning, and if the meaning of a sentence is wholly a function of the meaning of its parts, how does one account for this?

Fine's answer is to deny the principle of compositionality being appealed to.  In my last post, here, I offered premise two as a gesture in the direction of compositionality: the meaning of a sentence is wholly a function of the meaning of its parts.  Now that's not exactly compositionality, of course, but I intended lines (5) and (6) of the argument to be going a long way towards giving more of the idea behind compositionality.  A full and precise statement of the principle of compositionality being appealed to in Frege's argument would involve a complicated syntactic algebra, and the rules of such an algebra will operate on the components of the sentence in a well-defined order that depends upon the structure of the sentence as the function f(x, =, y) suggests.  Obviously, the value of f(x, =, y) will not be the same as the value of f(=, x, y).  But enough of that.  Fine wishes to reject this simpler principle of compositionality (i.e., the principle Frege relies upon) for what he called "Compositionality Proper".

It's easy to see what Compositionality Proper is, but it's not so easy to see whether or not it's true.  Or, at least, whether or not it's true in way that allows it to underwrite semantic facts.  In effect, Fine wants the new compositionality function to operate not on the crude ordered sequence containing only "x", "=", "y", but rather on a more fine-grained sequence you can think of as containing subdivisions of "x", "=", and "y".  Subdivisions of variables, names, properties, etc... are created by introducing "coordination relations" as basic semantic facts.  Say that "x" can be subdivided into "x*" (x star) and "x'" (x prime). Compositionality Proper (CP) operates not over the crude variable "x", but over "x*" and "x'".  Using CP will return different values for the following functions 1) f(x* = x*) and 2) f(x* = x').  Say that (1) is coordinated while (2) is not.

Now you know have a nifty analog of Frege's argument argument which uses variables, you know which step in the argument Fine rejects, you know what Compositionality Proper is, and you've got a straightforward account of what these coordination relations are.  I consider this post a success.  (Fine's argument is reproduced solely from memory, but I think this is exactly right.)  If you want to picture these coordination relations as Fine does, think of a little strings linking the coordinated variables.  Soames humorously dubbed this "string theory".

Frege's Argument for Senses

I returned last night from the UCSB conference "Advances in the Theory of Meaning".  The most interesting talk, according to me, was Kit Fine's sketch of a new semantic theory motivated by 1) the alleged unsoundness of the Fregean argument that there is more than one kind of meaning, 2) its purported ability to deal with Kripke's puzzle about belief, 3) and the preservation of direct reference theories.  The conference was worth attending for this bit of brain stimulation alone.

Frege's argument for senses involved three premises.  Here's a quick sketch:

1) The "cognitive significance" (read: meaning) of Hesperus = Hesperus is different from the cognitive significance of Hesperus = Phosphorus.
2) The meaning of sentence is wholly a function of the meaning of its parts.
3) The reference of Hesperus = The reference of Phosphorus.

Premise (2) is the compositional theory of meaning. Premise (3) is obviously true, and premise (1) is used to get the contradiction.  Now supppose for reductio:

4) Reference is the only kind of meaning of which the meaning of a sentence is a function.

It follows that:

5) The meaning of Hesperus = Hesperus is just f(Hesperus, =, Hesperus). (from 2)
6) The meaning of Hesperus = Phosphorus is just f(Hesperus, =, Phosphorus). (from 2)
7) The meaning of f(Hesperus, =, Hesperus) is the same as the meaning of f(Hesperus, =, Phosphorous). (by 3, substitution)

Contradiction (1 and 7).  Therefore, the supposition for reductio is false (if 1-3 are true), and reference is not the only kind of meaning of which the meaning of a sentence is a function.  But since reference is certainly one such kind of meaning, there must be at least one other kind of meaning of which the meaning of the sentence can be a function.  Call that kind of meaning "sense".

This will be the first in a series of posts on Fine's take.  I'll update later with a similar argument Fine ingeniously presented using variables instead of names.  Later, I'll follow with the reasons why Kit Fine takes this argument to be unsound.  Then, after I get to Kit's paper on the subject, I'll post some of my initial concerns over his new semantic theory.  As things currently stand, Fine has forced me to worry much more about this argument than I had previously, and he may well be spot on.  But reaching that conclusion requires a lot more serious thought on my part.  I do like my Fregean senses, but I'm certainly not so committed that I can't be persuaded via argument to relinquish them.

Weeeeee!

I just received this in the e-mail:

Thank you for registering for the Third Steven Humphrey Excellence in Philosophy Conference entitled *Advances in the Theory of Meaning* (February 17-20, 2006).

For more information about the conference, please visit the UCSB Department of Philosophy Website (www.philosophy.ucsb.edu).

Sincerely, Conference Staff

May I point out that, among others, I get to hear Kaplan, Graff, Williamson, Yablo, Glanzberg, Stalnaker, Fine, Soames and Kripke?  All. In. One. Conference.

Philosophy of Language 101

Check out Guerilla Radio.  Tonight, Nathan Salmon joins the show as a guest.  From the website, here's the topic of discussion:

What is the philosophy of language? How does the philosophy of language differ from linguistics, or from other branches of philosophy? Why do philosophers study language? What is the purpose of language? How does language relate to the mind, both of the speaker and the interpreter? How does language relate to the world? What is the nature of meaning? What is the relation between meaning and reference? How are sentences composed into a meaningful whole, and what are the meanings of the parts of sentences? Why do expressions have the meanings they have? How do words and sentences acquire meanings?

Be sure and join the GRS crew and special guest Nathan Salmon, Ph.D. (University of California, Santa Barbara) for an important discussion about the Philosophy of Language and the upcoming Steven Humphrey Excellence in Philosophy Conference entitled *Advances in the Theory of Meaning*

And I'll be in attendance at this conference!  The show airs from 7:00 - 8:00 PM (PST).