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Linguists and philosophers commonly distinguish between semantics and pragmatics, where the former concerns the truth or falsity of linguistic items and the latter concerns aspects of the use of such items that may make them unassertable even when true. Common though the distinction is, there is an ongoing controversy about where exactly the line between semantics and pragmatics is to drawn. We report two experiments meant to investigate empirically whether there is any pre-theoretic distinction that might help settle the debate. The same experiments are meant to shed light on a related question, namely, whether pragmatic aspects of language use pertain only at the level of assertability and not at that of believability. Our results suggest that ordinary people do not reliably distinguish among truth, assertability, or believability. We argue that this has consequences for the methodology of experimental semantics and pragmatics.

In this chapter we explain that the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation involves at the same time a pragmatic and a critical treatment of argumentative discourse. Starting from the speech act dimension of pragmatics, we indicate for each of the five components of the pragma-dialectical research program what a normative pragmatic approach amounts to. First we discuss the critical conception of reasonableness developed in the philosophical component of the research program, second the model of a critical discussion designed in the theoretical component, third the resolution-oriented analysis of argumentative discourse carried out in the reconstruction component, fourth the qualitative and quantitative research of the pursuit of reasonableness and effectiveness in argumentative discourse conducted in the empirical component, and fifth the development of adequate instruments for the analysis, evaluation and production of argumentative discourse in all sorts of argumentative practices undertaken in the practical component.

A partire dalla rilettura di un passo della "Retorica" di Aristotele,si sostiene che l'ascoltatore, non solo è parte costitutiva del linguaggio, ma è anche il motore reale del parlare. Tanto da proporre di riscrivere la formula "parlante-ascoltatore" in "ascoltatore-parlante". Ne seguono osservazioni sul ruolo della negazione nelle lingue verbali e una rilettura della nozione wittgensteiniana di "gioco linguistico".

Ciò che viene detto trae il suo significato dal non detto che le parole dette mostrano senza dirlo. Questa complessa relazione semantica viene studiata con l'aiuto di Freud e Wittgenstein.

‘True’ and ‘False’ are defined through a linguistic rule requiring the negation operator. This is the elaboration of an idea proffered for the first time by the Stoics on the basis of some remarks by Aristotle and then in modern times by Frege and Wittgenstein. Another thesis of this essay is the following: the true/false rule is a sort of UR-Regel underlying all linguistic practices (including prayers and commands) and all human cultures. Reinterpreting the notion of Spielraum put forward by Wittgenstein in 4.463 of the Tractatus, I will present an implicational pragmatic theory of a true proposition. Jokes and reductio ad absurdum are explained as examples of Spielraum.

This book illustrates how pragmatics transcends the boundaries of linguistics. This volume covers Gricean pragmatics as well as topics including: conversation and collective belief, the norm of assertion, speech acts, what a context is, the distinction between semantics and pragmatics and implicature and explicature, pragmatics and epistemology, the pragmatics of belief, quotation, negation, implicature and argumentation theory, Habermas’ Universal Pragmatics, Dascal’s theory of the dialectical self, theories and theoretical discussions on the nature of pragmatics from a philosophical point of view. Conversational implicatures are generally meaning augmentations on top of explicatures, whilst explicatures figure prominently in what is said. Discussions in this work reveal their characteristics and tensions within current theories relating to explicatures and implicatures. Authors show that explicatures and implicatures are calculable and not (directly) tied to conventional meaning.

Argomento del saggio è il complesso fenomeno conosciuto come “rivendicazione” o “riappropriazione semantica”. Con questa espressione si intende il processo grazie al quale un termine dispregiativo (slur) viene rivendicato dal gruppo target (o da alcuni suoi membri) perdendo così l’originaria carica aggressiva fino a poter acquisire anche connotazioni positive in grado di esprimere orgoglio e/o rafforzare il senso di appartenenza al gruppo. Attraverso un confronto tra le principali posizioni presenti nel dibattito su questo tema, vengono messi in luce i vantaggi e i potenziali rischi di questa interessante strategia di “bonifica” del linguaggio d’odio. The topic of the essay is the complex phenomenon known as "appropriation," or "reclamation", i.e. the process by which a slur is used by targeted groups for non-derogatory purposes, also in order to express pride and solidarity within the group. Through a comparison of the main positions present in the debate on this issue, the advantages, and potential risks of this interesting strategy of defense against hate speech are highlighted.

Una riflessione a grandi linee sull'evoluzione del rapporto tra filosofia e storia della filosofia nella cultura italiana a partire dal Risorgimento fino a oggi

The author finds the genesis of her concept of aporia in the Derrida Seminar of the 1970s on La vie la mort. The essay problematizes the co-belonging between life and death in Plato's Gorgias and starting from this datum compares Derrida's position with the dialectical-metaphysical one.

The text draws the lines of an education ontology, according to progressive levels of in-depth analysis of the experience. The first one is proper of the fundamental pedagogy and sets up its central category: the educative relationship is consignment of a meaning heritage to self-realization. The second one is proper of the philosophy of education, whose purpose is justifying a more original consignment, beyond its ethos, to the history and the being. As a matter of fact, both the immanence in the history and the conscience of a correlated transcendence are constitutive of the consignment. This is a further level and the task becomes foundational: what is not explained within the experience and the spontaneous and scientific knowledge is cleared, so that you can reach certainties that are founded in a profound way. If you do not justify rationally, ideas and ideals tend to deteriorate into ideologies.

Il saggio esplora la posizione di Ch. M. Wieland all'interno del dibattito filosofico-pedagogico del 700 di lingua tedesca, sia per quanto attiene alla conoscenza sia per quanto attiene alla possibilità di crescita e di formazione dell'individuo. Ci si propone di evidenziare come l'autore nel corso del tempoo rimanga sostanzialmente fedele alla convinzione che ci si debba aprire al confronto con gli altri, e che socraticamente si debba partire dalla conoscenza di sé per intraprendere qualsiasi percorso formativo

The article aims to show the critique of domination and power by means of some texts by Blaise Pascal. The topic focuses on cognitive activity and the faculty of knowledge.

The essay shows, between autobiography and theoretical reflection, the link between metaphysics and poetry in the reflection of the philosopher Leonardo Samonà. The author uses the concept of "retraction" to cross both the vision of Samonà's metaphysics and the vision of poetry.

What determines the meaning of an utterance is a logical matter and as such must be treated independently of the bio-cognitive constraints that operate in our bodies. This thesis, whose great supporter was Frege, implies a clear notion of rationality that seems not to bear comparison with what we know on the limits of our rationality. Various theories (Kahneman and Tversky 1983; Gigerenzer et al., 1999), thematizing the need to consider our rationality beginning from the bio- cognitive constraints that our body imposes on a mass of information, can be of great utility for facing the problem of what type of rationality operates in phenomena of linguistic understanding (Ferreira and Patson 2007; Christiansen and Chater, 2016). From this picture it will clearly emerge that understanding is a performance of human organisms that cannot be described without considering the effective bio- cognitive constraints at work in our actions.

La Prefazione si riferisce al volume che raccoglie i contributi (alcuni con modifiche e integrazioni) apparsi negli Atti (pubblicati nel 2011) del Convegno che si tenne nel 2009 a Bolognetta, paese Tommaso Bordonaro, autore-protagonista del libro autobiografico, scritto in italiano popolare, dal titolo "La spartenza" (nel 1990 il racconto autobiografico di Tommaso Bordonaro vinse il Premio Pieve-Banca Toscana). Ai contributi pubblicati negli Atti del 2011 sii aggiungono diversi articoli e recensioni apparsi negli anni in diverse riviste e quotidiani nazionali. Spartenza è parola dialettale. Derivata da spàrtiri ‘dividere, separare’, si sviluppa in una numerosa e complessa serie di sensi, tutti collegati e legati alla lacerazione del distacco, della separazione, della partenza e della dipartita. Essa vale infatti ‘partenza’, come anche ‘l’atto di congedarsi’; significa ‘il distaccarsi dalle persone care’, ma anche‘l’abbandono’, ‘l’essere diviso’, fino ad assumere il valore di ‘bivio’. Come nome di un museo dell’emigrazione e come titolo di un racconto autobiografico di un semicolto emigrato in America la parola sintetizza e ingloba, dunque, l’esperienza umana dell’erranza, dello sradicamento, della volontà-necessità di “ripartire”. Si tratta di un’esperienza che, mentre resta al centro del racconto di Bordonaro, si staglia sulla storia della Sicilia di oggi dove, più che altrove e più che mai, se ne avverte il peso e la tragicità.

The paper is devoted to the concept of Gestaltist Compositionality. It is divided into two parts. The first part will introduce a minimal definition of «Gestaltist Compositionality». Moreover, it will prove that the computations implemented by this model of compositionality are sufficiently flexible to ensure the presence of several orders of semantic determination. The second part will be devoted to an investigation of the consequences of this result with particular reference to the identification of some versions of compositionality which relax the condition of semantic atomism without weakening the links of determination between understanding of the compounds and understanding of the components. These versions give priority to a particular interpretation of the “whole-parts” dependencies, on which are based the assertions of compositionality. In the conclusions, we we will suggest a possible theoretical extension of this last perspective with particular reference to language operations of interlocution.

The topic of this paper is the complex phenomenon of verbal abuse. The aim is to show the productivity of a pragma-rhetorical approach in addressing this issue. Indeed, integrating modern pragmatics with classical rhetoric, this approach does not isolate words from social practices and therefore is not exclusively focused on slurs (as is the case in the current debate on this topic in the field of the philosophy of language) but it concerns verbal abuse in general. I argue that this wider approach, especially thanks to its focus on the intertwining of linguistic and social components, is more adapted to shedding light on the role that words play in performing violence. Particularly, I take into account three (interrelated) controversial issues: (1). the question of whether intrinsically offensive words exist; (2). the problem concerning the existence of the so-called “neutral-counterpart” of a slurring word; (3). the reclamation or rehabilitation of a slur. Finally, I briefly focus on the case of the N-word as a paradigmatic example able to show the advantages of the pragma-rhetorical approach.

In pragmatic theories, the notion of inference plays a central role, together with the communicative act in which it is activated. Although some scholars, such as Levinson, Sperber and Wilson, propose detailed and accurate analyses of this notion, we will maintain that these analyses can be better systematized if seen through Peirce’s notion of abduction. We will try to maintain that the variety of inferential processes in play in a linguistic act is mostly of an abductive nature. Moreover, we will maintain that the typological tripartition of abductions discussed by Eco (1981) allows to account for a signi cant part of the mechanisms involved in the comprehension of an utterance, ranging from quasi-immediate and spontaneous levels of understanding to processes that draw on creative resources. In our proposal the vast majority of our linguistic activities implies the automatic retrieval of a habit of action (automatic abduction). In the other cases we need more onerous processes. We might need to identify, among a range of possibilities, the appropriate rule (habit of action/linguistic routine) to be applied to the contextual situation (abduction by selection) or, depending on the context and on our background knowledge, we might be forced to create ex novo a new linguistic routine (creative abduction). In our view, this typology of abductive inferences (Eco, 1981; see also Bonfantini and Proni, 1980) provides us with all the necessary tools to account for the different inferential demands entailed by different levels of the process of lan-guage comprehension. On the basis of this typology we can, develop a finne-grained model of linguistic inferences and, thus, simplify the terms of some problematic nodes debated within contextualist approaches.

Il saggio si propone di evidenziare l’operatività, nella prospettiva di un’ontologia fenomenologica e dialettica, del nesso tra fenomeno ed essenza a partire dal reciproco implicarsi del visibile e dell’invisibile, e come alla luce della sua tematizzazione attuata da Merleau-Ponty sia possibile riprendere l’eredità vivente della metafisica.

Riguardo alla possibilità di una terza via di conoscenza, la tesi tommasiana del desiderio naturale presente in tutte le creature, tese a ricongiungersi al loro principio, apre alla terza cognitio, detta quasi experimentalis, distinta dalla cognitio per naturam che procede per rationem tantum e dalla cognitio per gratiam che procede per fidem (speculativa tantum) [=rivelazione]. Essa, infatti, procede coniecturaliter per aliqua signa (affectiva, producens amorem Dei ovvero sapientia) ed è detta quasi experimentalis, proprio perché procede «in maniera indiziale, attraverso certi segni», anticipando in modo imperfetto la cognitio beatifica. L'inizio del III libro della Summa contra gentes, basandosi sulle argomentazioni dei due libri precedenti, espone la tesi sulla finalità universale del creato in quanto omne agens agit propter finem: il fine dell'uomo è infatti la felicità, alla quale tendono tutte e tre le cognitiones, ma che è raggiungibile compiutamente solo dall'ultima di esse. Dio ha un doppio rapporto con gli enti razionali: l'esse in, che è un modus communis per tutte le creature, e l'habitare in, che è un modus specialis. Mentre il primo è per convenientiam creaturae, il secondo è detto novus perché è per convenientiam creaturae rationali: la razionalità in quanto differenza specifica del genere 'creatura' è la condizione necessaria seppur non sufficiente perché sia possibile l'inabitazione di Dio. Si tratta di una partecipazione per razionalità alla vita divina mediante i due atti del conoscere e dell'amare (intelligere e velle), secondo la comune naturale tensione ad "assimilari Deo in hoc quod est causa». Ma oltre questo modo di presenza causale, il modus specialis appare come la possibilità di relazione condizionata alla razionalità (intelletto e volontà) della creatura e all'intelletto e volontà di Dio di donarsi: questo è compiuto o attualizzato, dunque, per mezzo della gratia gratum faciens, che superadditur alla natura e nella quale «Deus dicitur esse sicut cognitum in cognoscente et amatum in amante». Il saggio, avendo esaminato la relazione Dio-uomo nel dominio del dono di sé a partire dal concetto di grazia e la partecipazione di sé alla creatura razionale per assimilationem nella carità, che abbraccia e coinvolge in uno stesso atto sia l'intelletto che la volontà (contemplazione infusa), culmina nella trattazione dell'unio affectus ovvero sabiduría secreta, avvalendosi di un'analisi testuale del Cántico Espiritual B di San Juan de la Cruz.

The author discusses the reading of Sophocles Antigone by Giuseppe Nicolaci and this becomes the opportunity to address the issue of the birth of ethics. Antigone is thus summoned as a partner of a question that Nicolaci considers starting from Kant and Lacan.

Viene studiato il radicamento nella storia della lingua italiana delle scelte linguistiche di Camilleri.

The foundations of Peircean's and Saussurean's Semiotics itself is centered on two mathematical ideas coming from differential calculus and theory of continuity. Other mathematical ideas can be founded in some of the most important ideas in Semiotics. The papers investigates the relationships between Mathematics and Semiotics in both a historical and theoretical way.

In this paper we describe the relationships between two fundamental “cognitive gestures” of human beings: naming and counting. In particular, we try to define these relationships by examining the theoretical efforts of such authors as Euclide, Frege, Wittgenstein, Chomsky and Aristotle. The analysis is centered around justifying the mutual dependence between noun and number in human cognition.

Nota introduttiva alla nuova edizione italiana del De Motu Animalium di Aristotele

Some recent theoretical analyses of collective behavior in social ontology, philosophy of mind and situated cognitive science have proposed arguments to revive the notion of group mind as the proper bearer of joint cognitive processes and actions. In this paper I analyse two kinds of arguments supporting this view: first, since group reasons in joint actions claim, at least sometimes, to have a priority over individual reasons, then groups are psychologically autonomous from their members. Second, the structure of the causal and functional dynamics of individual and collective cognition mirror each other in such a way that, by parity of reasoning, we must talk of a collective mind as underlying collective cognition in the same way that we talk of individual minds underlying individual behavior. I will argue that both the discontinuity and parity arguments fail to establish the conclusion of the existence of a group mind. In fact, while the phenomenon of the priority of group reasons can be explained within an individualistic framework, as I will argue by reference to John R. Searle’s social ontology, the parity arguments can succeed only if we accept the cost of a radical deflationary stance towards the identity and unity of mind.

Layered Discourse Representation Theory (LDRT) is a general framework for representing linguistic content. Different types of content (e.g. asserted, presupposed, or implicated information) are separated by putting them on different layers, all of which have a model-theoretic interpretation, although not all layers are interpreted uniformly. It is shown how LDRT solves so-called `binding problems’, which tend to arise whenever different kinds of content are separated too strictly. The power of the framework is further illustrated by showing how various kinds of contextual information may be accommodated.

The authors have tried to make the potentiality inherent in the concept of the linguistic game evident by taking it back to its original context in the work of Wittgenstein. This paper aims to re-examine some features of Wittgenstein’s thought, considering in particular the notion of ‘language-game’. The authors believe that the language-game might play a role in overcoming once and for all the classic distinction between semantics and pragmatics. We deal with the exegetical discussion of the notion ‘language-game’ as it was interpreted in two different senses: as a synonym of calculus or as a minimal unit of linguistic activity that is directed to obtaining certain pragmatic effects in a societal context. The latter, broader interpretation, is characterized by three different features: topicality, broader normativity and multimodality. Starting from an interpretation of language game as a pragmatic act, the authors work out a possible parallel between language games and the notion of pragmeme as presented by Mey. Both language game and pragmeme refer to an extended notion of the linguistic symbol seen as a non- linear, multimodal concept that overlaps the mere verbal unit of expression and is now considered as a set of diverse expressive resources (such as gesture, tone of voice and so on). This comparison will also work for a problem common to both language-game and pragmeme, that is the need to set a boundary to these units of analysis, thanks to which they could be identified. The authors advance a possible solution to this problem, which is rooted in a rethinking of Wittgenstein’s notions. The proposal consists in focusing on the topic for which the language game is played. The topic is taken to be the organizing aspect of understanding of the game. The societal rules, the worldly knowledge, often taken to be the ground of understanding in our discourse are considered as merged together in a holistic unit called language game.

International audience; 'Structuralisme' est un terme qui a beaucoup de significations. Ici, je vais employer le terme ‘structure’ dans la signification générale, rappelée par Christian Puech dans son Introduction, de “système de systèmes de valeurs”. L’idée que les langues sont des systèmes de systèmes de valeurs ne nait ni avec Saussure ni avec Troubetskoy ou Jakobson. Il s’agit d’un point de vue qui est apparu plusieurs fois dans l’histoire de la pensée et qui, pourtant, autant de fois a été oublié. Je vais donner quelques-unes des preuves qui montrent qu’Aristote a été parmi les premiers à penser que la langue verbale est justement un système de systèmes de valeurs.

Al fine di individuare le caratterische specifiche che rendono le lingue storico-natuali diverse dai codici si segue una procedura insolita. Vengono elencate le attività cognitive che non sarebbero possibile senza il concorso di una lingua verbale.

Diversamente da quanto si legge in letteratura, Aristotele fu un filosofo che ha messo a fuoco le cause naturali della variabilità, nel tempo e nello spazio, delle lingue verbali. Dante, pur non conoscendo la lingua greca e potendo accedere alle opere aristoteliche tramite le traduzioni latine, teorizza il linguaggio in sintonia con questo aspetto della filosofia aristotelica. Nel saggio si mette in luce la somiglianza tra la locutio vulgaris teorizzata nel De vulgari eloquentia e la nozione di dialektos descritta da Aristotele nelle opere biologiche. Vengono anche esaminate le ragioni aristoteliche del motivo per cui secondo Dante gli angeli non hanno bisogno di locutio vulgaris e quindi non parlano.

In the preface to the Philosophische Untersuchungen Wittgenstein writes that he owes to the Italian professor of economics Piero Sraffa "the most important ideas contained in the book". As Sraffa has not writed anything on language, this statement was never given a detailed content. Amartya Sen, who knew the Italian economist during the years spent in Cambridge as a PhD student, in an article (2003) suggests that, during his conversations with Wittgenstein, Sraffa made use of philosophical-linguistic ideas he had learned from Gramsci, while he worked as a student in Turin for the newspaper "Ordine Nuovo" directed by Gramsci himself. Thus, Gramsci, through Sraffa, played a decisive role in the transition from the first to the second Wittgenstein. Not only the young Gramsci but also the Gramsci of the Quaderni indeed considered language as one of the main interests of his theoretical and political research. The essay provides historical evidences of contacts between Gramsci and Sraffa from 1918 to 1937 (death of Gramsci) and, through a comparative and philologically accurate analysis, shows the correspondences between the two philosophies of language. At least three Wittgensteinians concepts depend on the influence of Sraffa-Gramsci: the notion of praxis, the idea of linguistic game, the foundation of the linguistic norm on the authority-prestige of some speakers. This comparison is also a way to clarify some of the main concepts of the second Wittgenstein's philosophy of language .