Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy
Graduate Reading Group (GRG) 2008/2009
Graduate students run a graduate reading group where they present and discuss their ongoing research.
In academic year 2023/2024, the convenors of the GRG are Marcelino Botín and Markel Kortabarria.
Sessions
Recursive Model of Consciousness. A Double Content Theory of Consciousness
Miguel Ángel Sebastián (U. Barcelona)
17 September 2008
11:00, Seminari del Department, UB
Problems with Referentialism about Definite Descriptions
After a short presentation of the main accounts of referentially used definite descriptions, I will present an objection to Keith Donnellan’s referentialist proposal. Then, I will argue that the Russellian-Gricean view has not been refuted by the objection put forward lately by Marga Reimer and Michael Devitt. I will discuss two of their arguments and try to show that they point at certain problems inherent to a referentialist proposal, as the one they defend, but which can be avoided in a Russellian-Gricean approach.
01 October 2008
11:00, Room 402, UB
Modulation and Linguistic Context-Dependency
In this talk I critically analyze the relation between linguistic context-dependence, modulation and compositionality as proposed by contextualists (chiefly Recanati and Bezuidenhout). I will point several serious shortcomings of the account of modulation (primary pragmatic processes) offered by Recanati (and largely accepted by Bezuidenhout). I think that these shortcomings endanger Recanati’s larger program, but I will not pursue that further line of argument here. In the first part of the presentation I will introduce the notion of modulation and framing it within the general debate regarding semantic contextualism and minimalism. In the second part I will very briefly present the general dialectic regarding context-dependence and compositionality. This is important because one reason why Recanati introduced modulation was to show that linguistic context-dependence and compositionality are compatible. In the third part I will present four objections to the account of modulation put forward by Recanati. First of all, I will point out that the argument for modulation is inconclusive. Secondly that it is on the verge of inconsistency and that modulation cannot be pre-propositional (i.e. a local process) as Recanati wants it to be. Thirdly, I will argue that some developments of the notion of modulation conflict with the principle of compositionality. Finally, coming from a different line of argument I will point out another problem for Recanati’s position: the position goes against his own linear account of sentence interpretation and implicature derivation, and more along the lines of the parallel model of sentence interpretation offered by relevance theory.
08 October 2008
10:00, Seminari del Department, UB
22 October 2008
10:00, Seminari del Department, UB
29 October 2008
09:00, Seminari del Department, UB
Liberales y Conservadores: un debate sobre la estructura de la justificación perceptiva
Mireia López (U. Girona)
La discusión contemporánea sobre el argumento a favor de la existencia del mundo externo de Moore ha dado lugar a un debate en torno a la estructura justificativa de las creencias perceptivas. El liberalismo y el conservadurismo son las dos propuestas confrontadas en este debate, aunque también hay posiciones intermedias. En este debate la discusión sobre la tesis de la carga teórica de la experiencia ha recibido, inmerecidamente, según mi opinión, poca atención. El objetivo principal de mi trabajo será mostrar que la tesis de la carga teórica de la experiencia supone un argumento decisivo a favor del conservadurismo y, a su vez, una evidencia en contra de todas las propuestas alternativas. Mi estrategia va a consistir en mostrar que las alternativas al conservadurismo resultan incompatibles con la tesis de la carga teórica al ignorar cierto presupuesto que se desprende de dicha tesis.
03 December 2008
10:00, Seminari del Department, UB
Supplementing Teleosemantics with an Informational Input
Marc Artiga (U. Valencia)
La teleosemántica es la teoría que intenta explicar la naturaleza del contenido a partir de la noción de función. Si bien muchos filósofos la han incorporado de alguna u otra manera, la propuesta de Ruth G. Millikan es la más conocida y debatida actualmente. Mi presentación constará de dos partes. En primer lugar, expondré y criticaré la división Millikaniana entre funciones propias directas y relacionales. En relación con esta crítica, intentaré mostrar una insuficiencia de su teoría teleosemántica, y propondré una posible solución: la introducción de un ‘informational input.’
17 December 2008
10:00, Seminari del Department, UB
21 January 2009
10:00, Seminari del Department, UB
On Selected Effects of Beliefs and Desires
Cristina Balaguer (U. Barcelona)
D. Papineau holds a selectionist-teleological approach to mental representation and explains the contents of beliefs and desires in terms of their (biological) purposes. Beliefs and desires have purposes because of the past operation of a selection process (natural selection or learning) which has favored some effect they have. I will present the main points of Papineau's approach in the first part of the talk and then to revise some objections.
28 January 2009
10:00, Seminari del Department, UB
04 March 2009
10:00, Seminari del Department, UB
11 March 2009
10:00, Seminari del Department, UB
Problems with Referentialism about Definite Descriptions
In this essay I discuss the distinction between attributive and referential uses of definite descriptions, and its relevance for the semantics of definite descripitons. After a brief presentation of the main distinctions and positions in the debate, I discuss an argument that has received many names in the literature: the argument from intentions, from standard use, from convention. I show that the argument fails when it is run for what I call 'specific' uses of definite descriptions. This suggests, by analogy, that it should not be taken seriously for referential uses either. In the end I develop an independent argument against postulating an ambiguity in the literal meaning of ‘the’, which is based on a certain characterization of referential uses, for which I argue previously.
29 April 2009
10:00, Seminari del Department, UB
06 May 2009
10:00, Seminari del Department, UB
13 May 2009
10:00, Seminari del Department, UB
20 May 2009
10:00, Seminari del Department, UB
On Tappenden's Account of Vagueness
Sergi Oms (U. Barcelona)
Imagine that you do not know what to say in front of the sentences 'John is tall' and 'Joe is tall' due to the fact that John and Joe are two borderline cases of being tall. You can say, then, that these sentences are indeterminate; neither true nor false. Imagine now that you are confronted to the sentence 'if John is tall, then Joe is'. As far as you can know, and having in mind the truth value of its constituents, you would be unable to assign any truth value to this second sentence. Hence, it would be also indeterminate. Now imagine that you know that Joe is taller than John. Then, it seems that you would say that the last sentence should be true. So, which is its truth value? Two of the main intuitions that underlie the phenomenon of vagueness are the truth-functional and the penumbral ones. After presenting and contrasting them, I will compare two theories of vagueness that see it as a semantic phenomenon: supervaluationism (which takes into account the penumbral intuition) and Tappenden's multivalued approach to vagueness (which takes into account the truth-functional intuition). Then I will analyze some (unsuccessful) criticisms to Tappenden's approach, some (almost unsuccessful) criticisms to supervaluationism and, finally, I will present my own worries about Tappenden's account.
03 June 2009
10:00, Seminari del Department, UB
Unarticulated Constituents: From Contextualism to Relativism
Dan Zeman (U. Barcelona)
My focus in the paper is on meteorological sentences such as “It is raining” as they are representative for the debate between literalism and contextualism in contemporary philosophy of language. In the first part I have a close look on two criteria for unarticulateness that have been proposed (Recanati’s “Optionality Criterion” and Stanley’s “Binding Criterion”), and point out that they overgeneralize. I then take issue with the main challenge to contextualism – that it cannot account for the so-called “bound readings” – and present Recanati’s way of answering the challenge, by employing variadic functions. I conclude that in the debate between the two authors the dialectical advantage is on Recanati’s side. In the second part I apply the machinery of variadic functions to other sentences, such as those comprising predicates of personal taste, epistemic modals or epistemic terms. The upshot is that variadic functions support (moderate) relativism for those domains.
10 June 2009
10:00, Seminari del Department, UB
Convenor:
Markel Kortabarria (markelkor96@gmail.com)
