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One of Pavel Tichý’s celebrated observations was that definite descriptions do not denote individuals but individual offices. In our paper, we compare Tichý’s concept of individual offices to the concept proposed by Arthur N. Prior, who differentiated between the strong and the weak "the". The aim of our paper is to point out parallels and differences. The differences stem in particular from their different approaches to contingency given by their accepted ontology. In addition, we would like to enrich Tichý’s analysis of individual offices by including certain features of Prior’s concept. The proposed outline might provide a challenge for a more detailed analysis of definite descriptions in Tichý’s Transparent Intensional Logic.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Artykuł przedstawia model nadawczego aktu referencji komunikatywnej. Jest on ufundowany na dwóch innych aktach: akcie semantycznej referencji oraz akcie wczytania świata w adresata (akcie przypisania adresatowi roli odbiorcy). Oba akty są wzajemnie sprzężone poprzez akt metareferencji, dzięki któremu zanika Quine’owski efekt referencyjnego niezdeterminowania. Akt metareferencji jest wywoływany przez akt przypisania sobie roli nadawcy. Z kolei ten akt jest wywoływany przez akt wczytania świata w odbiorcę. Funkcją aktu metareferencji jest „wykonanie” fuzji aktu referencji semantycznej z aktem wczytania świata w adresata. Nad tym ostatnim aktem jest ufundowany lokowania odbiorcy w świecie, a nad nim akt konstytuowania ścieżki komunikacyjnej łączącej nadawcę z odbiorcą. W zależności od rodzaju aktu lokowania odbiorcy w świecie, konstytuowane ścieżki komunikacyjne mogą należeć do trzech kategorii: zakończonych, jedno-promiennych; zakończonych, wielo-promiennych oraz otwartych wielo-promiennych. Typ ścieżki determinuje typ więzi fizycznej łączącej nadawcę ze światem wczytanym w adresata. Nad aktem referencji semantycznej, skierowanym do adresata, jest ufundowany akt typizacji odbiorcy. Ten ostatni akt wraz z aktem wczytania świata w odbiorcę stanowią ufundowanie dla aktu konstytuowania bramek komunikatywnych w świecie wczytanym w odbiorcę. Bramki te determinują oczekiwany przez nadawcę sposób kwitowania odbioru transmisji komunikatywnej, przesyłanych do odbiorcy wiadomości na dany temat i w określony, oczekiwany sposób. Dzięki wszystkim wymienionym aktom składowym, nadawca ustanawia metrykę typizacyjną odbiorcy, czyli sposób, w jaki odbiorca jawi się nadawcy w procesie transmisji aktu referencji komunikatywnej.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvi2.07 W artykule omawiam teorię prawdy zaproponowaną przez Haima Gaifmana z perspektywy radzenia sobie z różnymi problematycznymi zdaniami. Zamierzam pokazać, że koncepcja ta narażona jest na poważne zastrzeżenia, tak samo jak związana z nią teoria Saula Kripkego. Gaifman punktem wyjścia swojej teorii czyni łamigłówkę silnego kłamcy. W celu jej rozwiązania postuluje, by wartości logiczne przypisywać nie zdaniom-typom, lecz ich egzemplarzom. Przyjmuje ponadto, że wartość logiczna danego zdania-egzemplarza zależy nie tylko od leksykalnych i strukturalnych własności odpowiadającego mu zdania-typu, ale także od jego umiejscowienia w sieci powiązań zachodzących pomiędzy poszczególnymi zdaniami-egzemplarzami. Dwa egzemplarze tego samego zdania-typu mogą mieć różne wartości logiczne. Przedstawiona teoria jest więc paradygmatem kontekstualnej teorii prawdy. Pojęcie zdania-egzemplarza Gaifman zastępuje ogólniejszym od niego pojęciem znacznika. Wartość logiczna jest przypisywana znacznikowi przez odpowiedni algorytm (tzw. pointer semantics). Artykuł zawiera omówienie zarówno aparatu technicznego teorii Gaifmana, jak i jego wad.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvi2.06 Regardless of the form it may take, the process of translation still tends to be viewed as a technical activity, a cumbersome yet necessary operation to be performed in pursuit of higher goals. Yet as a phenomenon, with its profoundness it seems to be calling for closer attention. Thus the following work aims to prove how relevant the notion of translation is for the philosophical debate—specifically, for the enquiry into the nature of truth as considered from the pragmatic perspective. Firstly then, theories of the two fathers of pragmatism, Charles Sanders Peirce’s and William James’s, will be briefly recalled. Subsequently, the analysis will expose the role of translation process in each account. Recognition of the translative element will shed a new light on Peirce’s and James’s dispersed remarks concerning truth and offer an interesting ground on which they may be consolidated. Finally, the study yields a broader perspective on the idea of translation process as such, underscoring its philosophical potential.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvi2.01 When J. L. Austin first presented his work on speech acts, it concentrated primarily on explaining how our utterances can change the non-linguistic reality around us. A new fruitful area of study explaining how saying something can constitute doing something else than saying was established, and for a very long time—in fact, until this day—philosophers debate what makes a promise a promise and not just a plan, what distinguishes an assertion from a conjecture, and what kind of mental states are required of a speaker for her illocution to be successful. The original framework, as presented by Austin’s colleague, John Searle, has shaped a vast landscape of many very different research projects, such as explaining the normative structure underlying performing speech acts, exploring the connections between illocutions and other pragmatic phenomena such as implicature and presupposition, or investigating how speech acts influence the conversational scoreboard, to name just a few. Yet another area of research centres on applying speech act theoretic devices to tackle apparently distant problems in philosophy of language, such as reference, disagreement or lying.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvi2.03 Insinuations are indirect speech acts done for various reasons: a speaker S may insinuate P (i) because an insinuation is more polite, and S can save face by non-explicitly saying P (Brown, Levinson, 1987; Searle, 1975), (ii) because S can deny having insinuated P and avoid the responsibility of explicitly stating P, or (iii) because S perceives herself to be in a competitive rather than cooperative conversation, and she wants to pursue her interests strategically (Asher, Lascarides, 2013; Camp, 2018; Lee, Pinker, 2010; Pinker et al., 2008). These views assume that to insinuate P, S must also intend to use the deniability of P for dealing with a possible non-cooperative hearer. I argue that this requirement is too strong and falls short of accounting for cases in which S intentionally performs a deniable indirect speech act, but S has no intention to use that deniability.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvi2.05 Artykuł jest próbą opisu presupozycji w sensie Strawsona przy użyciu aparatury pojęciowej teorii aktów mowy. Porównanie dwóch pojęć, presupozycji propozycjonalnej Strawsona z prezupozycją jako warunkiem przygotowawczym mocy illokucyjnej, prowadzi do wniosku, iż są to zupełnie różne pojęcia. Tymczasem w świetle intuicji językowej, dodatkowo opartej na pracy Austina (1962), wydaje się, że istnieje tylko jeden rodzaj presupozycji: warunki przygotowawcze. To oznaczałoby, iż presupozycja propozycjonalna presuponowana przez dane zdanie jest, w pewnym sensie, redukowalna do warunku przygotowawczego czynności illokucyjnej wykonywanej przez wypowiedzenie tego zdania. Ta hipoteza jest tutaj uzasadniana przez podanie przykładów presupozycji propozycjonalnych, presuponowanych przez zdania używane do wykonania elementarnych aktów illokucyjnych różnych typów.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvi2.04 Korta and Perry (2011) argue that the object a speaker refers to with a demonstrative expression combined with a pointing gesture is determined by her directing intention rather than by her demonstration. They acknowledge that our use of the ordinary concept of “what is said” is affected by our judgements about the speaker’s responsibility for the results of her careless pointing; however, they claim that the effects are perlocutionary and have no bearing on determining the referential content of the speaker’s act. I argue that the consequences of careless pointing are illocutionary and play a role in determining demonstrative reference. I also distinguish between two types of referential content which are attributable to the speaker’s utterance and shape its discursive behaviour: what is intended, which is determined by the speaker’s directing intention, and what is public, which depends on what she can legitimately be held responsible for.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvi2.02 This paper offers a systematic classification and characterization of speech acts and their norms. Recently, the normative approach has been applied to various speech acts, most notably to constatives. I start by showing how the work on the norms of assertion has influenced various approaches to the norms of other speech acts. I focus on the fact that various norms of assertion have different extensions, i.e., they denote different clusters of illocutions as belonging to an assertion. I argue that this has consequences for theorising about norms of other speech acts and generates certain arbitrary divisions. In the central part, I analyse two groups of speech acts. Firstly, ordinary speech acts, like predictions or retractions. Secondly, I indicate how the normative view can be extended to so-called ancillary speech acts, like presuppositions or implicatures. I end with a discussion of possible extensions of the normative approach, focusing on the debate on lying.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvi1.09 In the paper, I argue against Dummett’s and Stanley’s objections to the direct reference theory. Dummett and Stanley make use of the notorious descriptive names to formulate the objection against Kaplan’s argument in favour of the direct reference theory. Kaplan argued that difference in modal behaviour of sentences is a reason to regard some singular terms appearing in the sentences as directly referential. Dummett ad Stanley argue, on the other hand, that in the case of descriptive names and the descriptions used to fix the reference of the names, the modal difference between sentences arises merely from the fact that descriptive names are rigid, while descriptions are not. There is no reason then to claim that being directly or indirectly referential has anything to do with the modal differences between sentences. What I attempt to show in the paper is that Dummett and Stanley made wrong assumptions about the modal properties of descriptive names and the descriptions that are used to fix the reference of such names. In Section 1, I characterise descriptive names and discuss some controversies that they create. Section 2 is devoted to the review of Kaplan’s argument for the direct reference theory, while Section 3 presents Dummett’s and Stanley’s arguments against direct reference. In section 4, I raise two preliminary objections against Dummett’s and Stanley’s positions. In Section 5, I discuss in detail “the great mystery” of rigidity of descriptive names which in my opinion lies at the bottom of the whole issue of descriptive names and direct reference. I argue, contrary to Dummett and Stanley, that descriptive names and their mother descriptions have the same modal properties. The last section includes conclusions and presents how the results from the previous parts of the paper affect the arguments of Dummett and Stanley.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvi1.06 Philosophers discuss whether we should commit ourselves to fictional objects or not. There is a test—quite widespread among philosophers—to settle the matter: if fictional objects are required to give an adequate semantic/pragmatic analysis of either intra-fictional or extra-fictional sentences, then we are committed to them; if we can account for this analysis without them, we are not so committed. I am going to consider this test and I will claim that on its own it cannot be considered a definitive test.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvi1.07 The chief purpose of this paper is to advance a defence of the old-fashioned view that empty names are neither proper names nor any other kind of interpretable expressions. A view of this sort usually makes it easy to account for the meaning of first-order sentences in which they occur in subject position: taken literally, they express no fully-fledged particular propositions, are not truth-evaluable, cannot be used to make assertions and so on. Yet, semantic issues arise when those very sentences are embedded in the scope of propositional attitude verbs. Such (intensional) constructions, indeed, turn out to be literally meaningful, truth-evaluable, and eligible for making assertions. The novel solution put forward here is to combine a version of sententialism with the idea that de dicto reports play a distinctive kind of metalinguistic expressive function. Roughly, that of enabling the ascriber to make explicit a mismatch between the way the embedded sentences are used by the ascribee and the way they are ordinarily used ̶ and, in turn, a mismatch between the way the (empty) names occurring in them are used by the ascribee and the way they are ordinarily used. Fictional names are then regarded as a mere subset of empty names. Accordingly, the above strategy is applied to account for the meaning and use of parafictional (and fictional) sentences and fictional vocabulary in general.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvi1.10 This paper advances the thesis that the proper names of some institutions, such as the names of universities, heads of state and certain positions or agencies, inherit the linguistic types of the nouns which denote the basic category of the objects that the names refer to, e.g., “university”, “school” or “company”. A reference by those names may select particular aspects of institutions, in the same way that “city” or “book” selects the physical, legal or informational aspects of objects in the extension of the nouns. This view is based on Asher’s and Pustejovsky’s conception of dot-type semantics.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvi1.05 In this article, I argue for two theses. The first is that, among different existing accounts of proper name semantics, indexicalism—a stance that treats proper names as indexical expressions—is best suited to explaining various phenomena exhibited by the use of proper names in fictional discourse. I will discuss these phenomena and compare the solutions offered by traditional descriptivist and causal-historical theories of proper name reference with those proposed by indexicalists. Subsequently, I will offer a novel account of indexicalism about proper names, which uses the apparatus of so-called hybrid expressions (Ciecierski, 2020; Künne, 1992; Predelli, 2006) as an alternative to traditional Kaplanian semantics for demonstratives. I offer an argument explaining why, among the variety of indexical views, one should favour such a hybrid theory over other available ones (e.g., Pelczar, Rainsbury, 1998; Rami, 2014) based on the analysis of “distributed utterances” (McCullagh, 2020) and statements that employ more than one fictional context.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvi1.08 This paper argues that García-Carpintero’s theory of proper names (the Mill-Frege theory) and his theory of fiction-making do not work well together. On the one hand, according to the Mill-Frege theory, proper names have metalinguistic senses which are involved in ancillary presuppositions. These metalinguistic senses and the name-bearing relation depend on acts of naming that create words for referential use. On the other hand, his theory of fiction-making claims that when the creator of a fiction uses sentences, she is not really performing the speech acts that one typically performs with those uses in default contexts; instead, they are merely pretended acts. Specifically, when she uses the sentences that typically perform speech acts of naming in default contexts, she merely pretends to do so. In this situation, these acts do not establish a name-bearing relation and thus these acts do not have a semantic significance. This result entails a flawed conceptualization of the speech act of fiction-making; specifically, one where such speech act is rendered defective.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvi1.04 Fictional characters elicit prima facie conflicting intuitions. On the one hand, a fictional character seems linked to the particular work of fiction (a novel, a poem, a movie, etc.) in which it appears: Ulysses is described in one way in Homer’s epic poems, in another way in Virgil’s Aeneid, and in a still different way in Dante’s Divine Comedy. It is natural to distinguish Homer’s Ulysses from Virgil’s and Dante’s ones, since each of them has specific properties. On the other hand, we have the strong temptation to think that Ulysses is the same fictional character that persists in the passage from one poem to another, despite the change of features. The article tackles this kind of problems by focusing on the cognitive side. By adopting the theory of mental files, I will argue that all issues on the identity of literary characters here presented can be addressed without assuming the existence of fictional objects. Presumption of co-reference between multiple depictions of a given literary character is represented in our mind by means of a network of files, each one indexed to a work of fiction in which the character appears. Indexed files have a meta-representational function, so they do not need acquaintance with real objects. Linked indexed files do not refer, but still a unique reference is presuppose. They would have the same referent, if there was one.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvi1.03 The paper focuses on fictional discourse, discourse about fiction and dynamic relations between them. The immediate impulse came from François Recanati and his recent analysis of parafictional statements (performed by uttering sentences like “in Conan Doyle’s stories, Sherlock Holmes is a detective who solves mysteries”). Confrontation of basic theoretical assumptions concerning functions of fictionals names, status of fictional characters, the role of pretence, etc. (Sections 1 and 2) results in an alter¬native analysis: unlike Recanati’s version, it does not assume the switch to the mode of pretence as an ineliminable part of parafictional statements (3, 4). The author’s aim is not to replace one analysis by its rival but to show that the same sentence can be used not only to perform various functions, but also to perform the same (here: parafictional) function in various ways—and generally to demonstrate the variety of language games going on in this sphere (5). Special attention is paid to their specific dynamics, including fluctuation between “serious” and fictional mode of speech and re-evaluations of the status of previous utterances, serving to preserve the continuity of conversation or restore it on a new basis (6).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvi1.11 E. E. Constance Jones (1848–1922) was one of the first women to study philosophy at the University of Cambridge. On her view, “Dorothea” (from George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch) applies to a fictional character, which has existence in fiction, and “fairy” applies to fairies, which have existence in imagination. She proposes a novel account of negative existentials, on which “fairies are non-existent” is both meaningful and true, given that there are at least two kinds of existence: one that fairies have (so that we can talk about them) and another that they lack (so that we can truly say that they “are non-existent”). Contrary to Russell’s objection in The Principles of Mathematics, accounting for negative existentials does not require distinguishing existence and being, nor does it require rejecting the existential theory of judgment (according to which every sentence is about something that exists).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvi1.02 Fictional characters do not really exist. Names of fictional characters refer to fictional characters. We should divorce the idea of reference from that of existence (the picture of the name as a tag has limited applications; the Predicate Calculus, with its existential quantifier, does not adequately reflect the relevant concepts in natural language; and model theory, with its domains, might also have been misleading). Many puzzle-cases are resolved this way (among other things, there is no problem assigning negative existential statements the appropriate truth values). And fictional characters, although not existing, have real powers through their representations, which are real.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxvi1.01 This special issue of Semiotic Studies is devoted to proper names, and continues to some extent the line of research discussed in the contributions to the special issue of Organon F, 28(1), on names and fictions. Modes of existence of proper names pose interesting challenges and research problems for semiotics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of literature. Contributions to this issue concentrate mainly on fictional names, fictional discourse, and narrative fiction, but also on empty names, descriptive names, and names of institutions. The authors employ and compare different theoretical approaches, and the discussion may have important consequences for theories of meaning and reference, and for ontology.

If you are reading this, there is a good chance that you are interested in conditionals. Also, depending on how deep your interest is, you may recognize the first sentence of this paragraph as an example of a conditional statement. If you did not recognize this, you should know that conditionals are complex expressions of the form “If A, then C” (formally, “A > C”). We often use them to indicate a connection between two states of affairs, expressed by the antecedent A (or if-clause) and a consequent C (or then-clause). For example: “If you ever lose your credit card, immediately inform your bank”, “If there is an action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”, “If the river were to rise another two feet, the subway system would be flooded”. By asserting statements like these, one usually suggests a relationship between two states, such that one affects the other. In other words, the second somehow obtains under the condition of the first [...].

In this paper, I raise the problem of dealing with counterpossible conditionals for theories of subject matter. I argue that existing accounts of subject matter need to be revised and extended to be able to a) provide reasonable (potentially non-degenerate) verdicts about what counterpossibles are about, b) explain the intuition that counterpossibles are in some sense about what would happen if the antecedent were true, and c) explain in what sense counterpossibles can be about individuals. I sketch how one could extend atom-based and way-based theories of subject matters to handle the problem. Then, I raise the problem that it might be desirable for a theory of subject matter to prevent the inference that certain counterpossibles are about the kinds of things that they seem to mention.

This paper discusses the question of whether all counterfactuals with necessarily false antecedents (counterpossibles) are vacuously true. The orthodox view of counterpossibles (vacuism) answers that question in the affirmative. This paper explains vacuism before turning to examples from science that seem to require us to reason non-trivially using counterpossibles, and it seems that the counterpossibles used in such cases can be true or false. This is a threat to vacuism. It is then argued that the same kind of reasoning which produces non-trivial counterpossibles in scientific cases can be extended to the case of counterpossibles in mathematics. Ordinary counterfactual reasoning relies on rejecting background assumptions in order to assume the truth of the antecedent. A failure to perform this process in the counterpossible case is what leads one to vacuism and it is explained how this process produces non-vacuous; counterfactuals, scientific counterpossibles, and mathematical counterpossibles.

Logic was once thought to describe the laws of thought; however, a plurality of logics has now replaced classical logic, obscuring rather than clarifying the nature of deduction with an embarrassment of riches. In cognitive science, on the other hand, logic is not thought to be a psychological theory of human reasoning. Research on human reasoning has focussed on deduction, although human reasoning is thought to be much richer, and two competing theories dominate contemporary discourse in cognitive science—the syntactic, formal-rule, and the semantic, mental-model theory. Jean Piaget also proposed a psychological theory of reasoning, and, in contrast to the dominant theories, he advocated an operatory theory. Deduction is an integral part of Piaget’s theory, and, in this paper, I briefly outline Piaget’s operatory theory of propositional reasoning before explicating the nature of deduction embodied in it. I conclude that the nature of propositional deduction according to Piaget lies in the interpropositional grouping, a natural structure at the heart of propositional reasoning constituted by a closed system of operations of thought regulated by laws of transformation. I then argue that the nature of propositional deduction lies specifically in the lattice constituted by the inclusion/order relations between the propositions of the interpropositional grouping. Piaget did not conceive of the interpropositional grouping as a logic; nevertheless, I wind up arguing that a logic conceived as Piaget intimated would complement the plurality of logics with a natural logic

It is commonly believed that the role of context cannot be ignored in the analysis of conditionals, and counterfactuals in particular. On truth conditional accounts involving possible worlds semantics, conditionals have been analysed as expressions of relative necessity: “If A, then B” is true at some world w if B is true at all the A-worlds deemed relevant to the evaluation of the conditional at w. A drawback of this approach is that for the evaluation of conditionals with the same antecedents at some world, the same worlds are deemed as relevant for all occasions of utterance. But surely this is inadequate, if shifts of contexts between occasions are to be accounted for. Both the linguistic and logical implications of this defect are discussed, and in order to overcome it a modification of David Lewis’ ordering semantics for counterfactuals is developed for a modified language. I follow Lewis by letting contexts determine comparative similarity assignments, and show that the addition of syntactic context parameters (context indices) to the language gives the freedom required to switch between sets of relevant antecedent worlds from occasion to occasion by choosing the corresponding similarity assignment accordingly. Thus an account that extends Lewis’ analysis of a language containing a single counterfactual connective > to a language containing infinitely many counterfactual connectives >c, each indexed by a different context name c, overcomes the limitations of traditional analyses. Finally it is also shown that these traditional accounts can be recovered from the modified account if certain contextual restrictions are in place.

In my article, I present a new version of a probabilistic truth prescribing semantics for natural language indicative conditionals. The proposed truth conditions can be paraphrased as follows: an indicative conditional is true if the corresponding conditional probability is high and the antecedent is positively probabilistically relevant for the consequent or the probability of the antecedent of the conditional equals 0. In the paper, the truth conditions are defended and some of the logical properties of the proposed semantics are described.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxv1.01 The subject matter of all texts comprising this volume is a category of representation. Although it is not always explicit, the reference to the notion of representation enables to bring together shared characteristics of research into consciousness, enhancement of cognitive processes, metaphor and modes of coding of information in the mind.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxv1.06 In this paper, I analyze the semantics of the first person pronoun “I” from the perspective of the user/producer distinction. In the first part of the paper, I describe the Simple View (SV) and propose three interpretations of its thesis (following de Gaynesford, 2006). In the second part, I analyze the notions of use and production of a linguistic token. In the next part, I show that all of the interpretations of SV are sensitive to counterexamples. In the end, I discuss possible answers of the proponents of SV and argue against them. The first aim of this paper is to show that SV is wrong, and the second is to convince the reader that the user/producer distinction is of high importance in the philosophy of language.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxv1.04 A metaphor within the framework of semiotics can be embodied in various semiotic systems, which is a prerequisite for a multilateral, in-depth analysis of its generation and interpretation. The purpose of the article is the conceptualisation of metaphor in the framework of semiotics and analysis using methods of analogy and transference. One of the main problems of metaphor theory is to provide means to represent the process of metaphor generation for understanding the nature of the phenomenon. The use of the offered methods in metaphor generation and interpretation opens up a multifaceted understanding of the object under study.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxv1.05 The format of mental representation is the way information is organized in the mind. The discussion surrounding the format of representation addresses the problem of what representational primitives are and the rules of information processing. In philosophy, the discussion is dominated by the distinction between analog and digital representational systems. It is thought that this distinction can bring us closer to an understanding of the nature of perceptual and discursive representations. I argue that the analog-digital distinction cannot meet that expectation. The analog-digital distinction is neither sufficient nor necessary to explain the distinction between perceptual and discursive representations (and perception and thinking, respectively). I propose an alternative interpretation of the concept of representational format which provides us a better understanding of the difference between iconic and discursive representations. I explain the differences between formats of representations in terms of differences in information processing. I demonstrate, how this alternative interpretation of the concept of the representational format can explain the constraints put on the contents of representational systems.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxv1.02 The article suggests answers to the questions of how we can arrive at an unambiguous characterization of consciousness, whether conscious states are coextensive with subjective ones, and whether consciousness can be graded and multidimensional at the same time. As regards the first, it is argued that a general characterization of consciousness should be based on its four dimensions: i.e., the phenomenological, semantic, physiological and functional ones. With respect to the second, it is argued that all informational states of a given organism are subjective (as they are biologically individuated), but not all are necessarily conscious. Finally, where the third question is concerned, in each of the four dimensions of consciousness a graded element is identified: quality of information in the phenomenological one, abstractness in the semantic one, complexity in the physiological one, and usefulness in the functional one. The article also considers certain consequences of the solutions proposed, as well as some practical applications of the 4D-view of consciousness.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxv1.07 This paper is a review of Paweł Grabarczyk’s latest book, Directival Theory of Meaning: From Syntax and Pragmatics to Narrow Linguistic Content. I focus mostly on two concepts constitutive for the directival theory of meaning—that of linguistic trial and that of meaning directive. These two concepts, while ingeniously developed by Grabarczyk, are not free of problems and somewhat controversial assumptions. I start with describing the basis of Grabarczyk’s proposal, as well as of the historical background from which it originated. Then, I move on to the analysis of the notion of linguistic trial. After that I focus on the concept of meaning directive, criticising certain assumptions that come with it. The conclusion is that while Grabarczyk’s version of the directival theory of meaning is an interesting proposal, most of its shortcomings stem from the fact that for a theory that is supposed to work well on natural languages, too many examples pertain to artificial languages. Until an analysis of a natural language in the style of the directival theory of meaning is conducted, it is not possible to properly judge the value of this theory.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxv1.03 The epistemological consequences of the increasing popularity of artificial cognitive enhancements are still confined to the margins of philosophical exploration, with priority given instead to ethical problems requiring urgent practical solutions. In this paper, I examine the less popular, yet still important, problem of the threats to which the very knowledge-forming process is exposed when its subject uses artificial cognitive enhancers. The theory of knowledge I call upon is borrowed from virtue epistemologists who, together with proponents of active externalism, seek to define the conditions that will protect artificially enhanced agents from a loss of epistemic agency. I invoke three such conditions (authenticity, integration and reciprocal causation), rejecting the last one. Incorporating active externalism into virtue epistemology points to the possibility of treating extended systems, composed of humans and artifacts, as extended subjects of knowledge. In the final part, however, I present two arguments against such an extension of epistemic agency.

DOI: http://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxiv2.07 In this paper, I aim to characterize the pragmatist and anti-deflationist notions of truth. I take Habermas’s rather recent discussion (1999) and present the interpretation that his notion of truth relies on the reliabilist conception of knowledge rather than the internalist conception that defines knowledge as a justified true belief. Then, I show that my interpretation is consistent with Habermas’s project of weak naturalism. Finally, I draw some more general implications about the pragmatist notion of truth.

DOI: http://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxiv2.03 In light of recent developments in argumentation theory, we begin by considering the account that Aristotle gives of what he calls sophistical refutations (elenchoi sophistikoi) and of the usefulness of being able to recognise various species of them. His diagnosis of one of his examples of the grouping that he labels epomenon is then compared with a very recent account of the matter, which, like Aristotle, calls on us to attribute a mistake or confusion to anyone who uses this kind of argument. From examination of three other examples that Aristotle himself supplies of epomenon, it appears that there are cases of inferences of this kind that we need not, and perhaps cannot, avoid making. The suggestion is made that this is because the whole family of what Peirce calls abductions have important characteristics in common with epomenon.

DOI: http://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxiv2.06 According to the quotational theory of meaning ascriptions, sentences like “‘Bruder (in German) means brother” are abbreviated synonymy claims, such as “‘Bruder (in German) means the same as ‘brother’”. After discussing a problem with Harman’s (1999) version of the quotational theory, I present an amended version defended by Field (2001; 2017). Then, I address Field’s responses to two arguments against the theory that revolve around translation and the understanding of foreign expressions. Afterwards, I formulate two original arguments against both Harman’s and Field’s versions of the theory. One of them targets the hyperintensionality of quotations and the other raises a problem pertaining to variant spellings of words.

DOI: http://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxiv2.02 The aims of this paper are to illustrate where previous attempts at the characterisation of slippery slope arguments (SSAs) have gone wrong, to provide an analysis which better captures their true nature, and to show the importance of achieving a clear definition which distinguishes this argument structure from other forms with which it may be confused. The first part describes the arguments of Douglas Walton (2015) and others, which are found wanting due to their failure to capture the essence of the slippery slope and their inability to distinguish SSAs from other consequentialist forms of argument. The second part of the paper puts forward a clear analysis of what is special about SSAs: it is argued that all SSAs, properly so-named, claim that reaching a certain conclusion, A, involves the negation of a thitherto accepted principle, P, and that that principle is necessary to argue against further conclusions (B, C, …, Z) which are considered unacceptable.

DOI: http://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxiv2.04 Within the Gricean framework in pragmatics, communication is understood as an inferential activity. Other approaches to the study of linguistic communication have contended that language is argumentative in some essential sense. My aim is to study the question of whether and how the practices of inferring and arguing can be taken to contribute to meaning in linguistic communication. I shall suggest a two-fold hypothesis. First, what makes of communication an inferential activity is given with its calculability, i.e. with the possibility to rationally recover the assigned meaning by means of an explicit inference. Secondly, the normative positions that we recognize and assign each other with our speech acts comprise obligations and rights of a dialectical character; but this fact does not entail nor presuppose an argumentative nature in language or speech. Both inferring and arguing are needed, however, in the activity of justifying and assessing our speech acts.

DOI: http://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxiv2.05 In this paper I argue that the notions of speaker’s reference and semantic reference—used by Kripke in order to counter the contentious consequences of Donnellan’s distinction between the referential use and the attributive use of definite descriptions—do not have any application in the interpretive interaction between speaker and hearer. Hearers are always concerned with speaker’s reference. Either, in cases of cooperation, as presented as such by the speaker or, in cases of conflict, as perceived as such by the hearer. Any claim as to semantic reference is irrelevant for the purposes of communication and conversation. To the extent that the purpose of semantic theory is to account for linguistic communication, there is no reason to take definite descriptions to have semantic reference.

DOI: http://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxiv2.01 The disciplines of general philosophy, philosophy of language, and linguistics have in common an interest in saying what it is that we can infer: what meaning, what truth; and how those inferences are to be justified. To do this, philosophers and linguists have endlessly discussed the concepts of truth and of meaning, and also the means of inference and its degrees of reasonableness and reliability. These debates do not narrow down to definitive answers, rather they broaden and spread their concerns into ever-widening fields of investigation [...].

DOI: http://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxiv1.09 Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem is sometimes said to refute mechanism about the mind. §1 contains a discussion of mechanism. We look into its origins, motivations and commitments, both in general and with regard to the human mind, and ask about the place of modern computers and modern cognitive science within the general mechanistic paradigm. In §2 we give a sharp formulation of a mechanistic thesis about the mind in terms of the mathematical notion of computability. We present the argument from Gödel’s theorem against mechanism in terms of this formulation and raise two objections, one of which is known but is here given a more precise formulation, and the other is new and based on the discussion in §1.

DOI: http://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxiv1.12 Certain selected issues around the Gödelian anti-mechanist arguments which have received less attention are discussed.

DOI: http://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxiv1.01 The articles in this issue can be divided into three groups. Krajewski’s article, Yong Cheng’s contribution, and a short note by Rudy Rucker, provide detailed mathematical analysis of Lucas-Penrose type arguments. In the second group, with articles by Arnon Avron, Stepan Holub, Panu Raaikiainen, and Albert Visser, the authors discuss the status and various methodological and technical problems of the anti-mechanist arguments. In essence: what does the problem of “minds vs. machines” really mean, and how can it, and how should it, be formulated? Moreover: How to evaluate the merit of arguments that mix formal mathematics and philosophical considerations? The third group consists of the articles that, while including issues from the other two groups, concentrate of more specific themes: an analysis of Georg Kreisel’s observation that it does not logically follow from the fact that a formal system is subject to the second Gödel incompleteness theorems that there are absolutely no means available to prove its consistency (Jeff Buechner); Per Martin-Löf’s proof that there are no absolute unknowables in constructive mathematics (V. Alexis Peluce); diagonal arguments and Chomsky’s approach to linguistic competence as contrasted with arithmetic competence (David Kashtan); and the role in the anti-mechanist arguments of difficulties in capturing the nature of natural numbers in formal systems (Paula Quinon).

DOI: http://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxiv1.07 This is a paper for a special issue of Semiotic Studies devoted to Stanislaw Krajewski’s paper (2020). This paper gives some supplementary notes to Krajewski’s (2020) on the Anti-Mechanist Arguments based on Gödel’s incompleteness theorem. In Section 3, we give some additional explanations to Section 4–6 in Krajewski’s (2020) and classify some misunderstandings of Gödel’s incompleteness theorem related to AntiMechanist Arguments. In Section 4 and 5, we give a more detailed discussion of Gödel’s Disjunctive Thesis, Gödel’s Undemonstrability of Consistency Thesis and the definability of natural numbers as in Section 7–8 in Krajewski’s (2020), describing how recent advances bear on these issues.

DOI: http://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxiv1.11 This paper reassesses the criticism of the Lucas-Penrose anti-mechanist argument, based on Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, as formulated by Krajewski (2020): this argument only works with the additional extra-formal assumption that “the human mind is consistent”. Krajewski argues that this assumption cannot be formalized, and therefore that the anti-mechanist argument – which requires the formalization of the whole reasoning process – fails to establish that the human mind is not mechanistic. A similar situation occurs with a corollary to the argument, that the human mind allegedly outperforms machines, because although there is no exhaustive formal definition of natural numbers, mathematicians can successfully work with natural numbers. Again, the corollary requires an extra-formal assumption: “PA is complete” or “the set of all natural numbers exists”. I agree that extra-formal assumptions are necessary in order to validate the anti-mechanist argument and its corollary, and that those assumptions are problematic. However, I argue that formalization is possible and the problem is instead the circularity of reasoning that they cause. The human mind does not prove its own consistency, and outperforms the machine, simply by making the assumption “I am consistent”. Starting from the analysis of circularity, I propose a way of thinking about the interplay between informal and formal in mathematics.