I argue that there are irreducibly non-propositional intentional states, mental states that are about things (states such as fearing snakes, liking ice-cream, and so on) but which do not have a propositional content. I provide a positive account of such states and offer philosophical insights concerning concepts and content that emerge once they are recognized. / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 302-304).

This dissertation argues for the existence of functional attitude predicates, light attitudes, such as light say and light see. Two phenomena are identified as functional attitudes: evidentiality and logophoric say-complementizers. I propose that reportative evidential markers and logophoric licensing complementizers are cross-linguistic variations of overt morphosyntactic realizations of the same light attitude: a functionalized predicate say. The parallel between evidentiality and logophoricity drawn here highlights their properties that have not been discussed or formally accounted for until now, and explains why they are in a typological complementary distribution across the world's languages. At the same time, direct and reportative evidentials even within the same language exhibit a number of syntactic and semantic differences that have not been noticed in the literature before. I derive them from the analysis of reportative and direct evidentials as different kinds of functional predicates: say and perceive, respectively. After establishing the nature of evidentials, I develop their syntactic and semantic properties formally. I claim that light attitudes are hosted by a projection cP, which selects CP and has properties similar to that of the light verb projection vP, such as argument structure, thematic roles, and `flavors'. The semantic composition of light attitudes is based on that of lexical attitudes, for which I am following and expanding ideas from de-compositional semantics. This allows for a simple and conceptually motivated analysis that does not need any additional theoretical primitives. I develop novel methodology to test for evidential challengeability and newness of evidentials that take the between-evidential differences into account. The results support the representation of the evidential contribution as a presupposition.

This dissertation examines the syntax and semantics of clausal complements. It identifies semantic underpinnings for some syntactic properties of the arguments of propositional attitude verbs. The way clausal arguments compose with their embedding predicates is not uniform and semantic differences emerge from the syntactic context clausal arguments appear in. Three case studies are taken up: clausal arguments of nouns, dislocated clausal arguments (sentential subjects and topics), and infinitival complements with overt subjects (AcI constructions). Chapter Two assembles evidence to support Stowell’s (1981) claim that the clausal complements of nouns are modifiers. It is shown that the clausal complements of nouns behave like adjuncts in their ability to bleed condition C (Kuno 2004 and Jacobson 2003, and explored here further). The compositional strategy used to compose attitude nouns with their arguments, following Kratzer (2006), is shown to account for this behavior and to be commensurate with observations made by Grimshaw (1990). I then show how the modifier status of clausal complements of nouns is determined by the way in which nominals are formed from clause-taking verbs. Chapter Three examines another complementation strategy, found with fronted clauses. New data from binding is provided in support of Koster’s (1978) hypothesis that clauses do not move. Specifically, fronted clauses fail to show the effects of syntactic reconstruction. An analysis, making crucial use of de re attitude ascription, is offered to account for ‘apparent’ binding into fronted clauses. Chapter Four makes the case for enriching the meanings of clausal complements. By examining some new patterns with accusative with infinitive (AcI) constructions (such as I see him to be a fool), I argue for decomposing certain doxastic attitude verbs, putting the introduction of alternatives into the complement. Here too the role of de re attitude ascription is shown to play a crucial role. It is argued that AcI constructions involve de re attitude ascription, with added constraints (determined by the lexical content of the embedding verb) on the nature of the Acquaintance Relation (Kaplan 1968, Lewis 1979). Several predictions about the kinds of verbs that can participate in AcI are borne out.

What meaning does a name have in a sentence? How do we escape the inevitable difficulties that arise in delineating an individual's meaning through one's speech? The need arises for a distinction between proper names on the basis of the kinds of objects to which they refer. This distinction can provide the theoretical tools needed to solve the problems of empty names, negative existential statements, cognitive significance and substitution failure. Through a study of these issues, the fallacies inherent in current theories of meaning for proper names becomes apparent, as they fail to provide adequate or complete solutions. By elucidating a distinction between two kinds of proper names, labels and tags, we are able to provide solutions to the problems of naming where other theories fail.

The overarching topic of this dissertation is the semantics and pragmatics of definite descriptions. It focuses on the question whether sentences such as ‘the king of France is bald’ literally assert the existence of a unique king (and therefore are false) or simply presuppose the existence of such a king (and thus fail to express propositions). One immediate obstacle to resolving this question is that immediate truth value judgments about such sentences (sentences with non-denoting descriptions) are particularly unstable; some elicit a clear intuition of falsity whereas others simply seem awkward or strange. Because of these variations, truth value judgments are generally considered unreliable. In the first chapter of the dissertation, an explanation of this phenomenon is developed. It is observed that when these types of sentences are considered in the context of a discourse, a systematic pattern in judgments emerges. This pattern, it is argued, should be explained in terms of certain pragmatic factors, e.g. whether a speaker’s utterance is interpreted as cooperative. A detailed and general explanation of the phenomenon is then presented which draws importantly on recent research in the semantics and pragmatics of questions and focus. It is shown that the behavior of these judgments can be systematically explained, that truth value judgments are not as unreliable as standardly assumed, and that the proposed explanation best supports the conclusion that definite descriptions presuppose rather than assert existence. In the second chapter, the following problem is investigated. If definite descriptions are assumed to literally assert existence, a sentence such as ‘Hans wants the ghost in his attic to be quiet’ is incorrectly predicted to be true only if Hans wants there to be a (unique) ghost in his attic. This prediction is often considered evidence against Russell’s quantificational analysis and evidence in favor of the referential analysis of Frege and Strawson. Against this claim, it is demonstrated that this problem is a general problem about the existence commitments of natural language determiners, i.e. not an argument in favor of a referential analysis. It is shown that in order to avoid these undesirable predictions, quite radical changes to the semantic framework are required. For example, it must be assumed that a sentence of the form ‘The F is G’ has the open sentence ‘x is G’ as its asserted content. A uniform quantificational and presuppositional analysis of definites and indefinites is outlined which by exploiting certain features of so-called dynamic semantics unproblematically assumes that the asserted contents indeed are open sentences. In view of the proposed quantificational/presuppositional analysis, the dissertation is concluded by a rejection of the argument put forward by Reimer (1998) and Devitt (2004) that definite descriptions are ambiguous between attributive (quantificational) and referential (indexical) uses. Reimer and Devitt’s argument is (in contrast to Donnellan, 1966) based primarily on the assumption that definite descriptions are conventionally used to communicate singular thoughts and that the conventional meaning of a definite description therefore must be fundamentally indexical/directly referential. I argue that this argument relies crucially on tacit assumptions about semantic processing for which no empirical evidence is provided. I also argue that the argument is too general; if sound, it would be an argument for an indexical treatment of most, if not all, other determiners. I then conclude by demonstrating that the view does not explain any new data and thus has no clear motivation. In short, this dissertation provides a detailed pragmatic explanation of a long-standing puzzle about truth value judgments and then outlines a novel dynamic semantic analysis of definites and indefinites. This analysis solves a significant problem about existence commitments — a problem that neither Russell’s nor the Frege/Strawson analysis are equipped to handle. This analysis is then defended against the claim that definite descriptions are ambiguous.

A glass couldn't contain water unless it contained H2O-molecules. Likewise, a man couldn't be a bachelor unless he was unmarried. Now, the latter is what we would call a conceptual or analytical truth. It's also what we would call a priori. But it's hardly a conceptual or analytical truth that if a glass contains water, then it contains H2O-molecules. Neither is it a priori. The fact that water is composed of H2O-molecules was an empirical discovery made in the eighteenth century. The fact that all bachelors are unmarried was not. But neither is a logical truth, so how do we explain the difference? Two-dimensional semantics is a framework that promises to shed light on these issues. The main purpose of this thesis is to understand and evaluate this framework in relation to various alternatives, to see whether some version of it can be defended. I argue that it fares better than the alternatives. However, much criticism of two-dimensionalism has focused on its alleged inability to provide a proper semantics for certain epistemic operators, in particular the belief operator and the a priori operator. In response to this criticism, a two-dimensional semantics for belief ascriptions is developed using structured propositions. In connection with this, a number of other issues in the semantics of belief ascriptions are addressed, concerning indexicals, beliefs de se, beliefs de re, and the problem of logical omniscience.

A literatura filosófica sobre a Psicologia do Senso Comum se estende desde a década de 1970, e abrange diversas questões sobre nosso entendimento interpessoal cotidiano, nossa capacidade de interação e coordenação de atividades, o arcabouço conceitual intuitivo que relaciona estados mentais e atitudes proposicionais a comportamentos, e os mecanismos cognitivos de leitura mental que nos permitem atribuir estados mentais a outras pessoas. Nesta dissertação eu examino o desenvolvimento histórico desta literatura, identificando dois debates distintos, o primeiro (principalmente entre Paul Churchland e Jerry Fodor dos anos 70 aos anos 90) tendo como foco a relação entre a teoria da Psicologia do Senso Comum e teorias científicas (da neurociência e das ciências cognitivas), e o segundo (o debate contemporâneo) tendo como foco os mecanismos cognitivos de leitura mental e o papel das atribuições de estados mentais e atitudes proposicionais nas teorias da cognição corporificada, situada e estendida. Além do exame histórico do que argumento serem dois debates distintos e da transição conceitual entre ambos, também apresento aqui minha crítica à abordagem eliminativista contemporânea de Matthew Ratcliffe e, como alternativa, articulo os princípios de uma abordagem pluralista que combina leitura mental e interpretação contextual situada como fundamentais para a cognição social / The philosophical literature on Folk Psychology began in the 1970s, and encompasses various questions about our everyday interpersonal understanding, our ability to interact and coordinate activities, the intuitive conceptual framework that relates mental states and propositional attitudes to behaviors, and the cognitive mechanisms of mindreading that allow us to attribute mental states to other people. In this thesis I examine the historical development of this literature, identifying two distinct debates, the first (mainly between Paul Churchland and Jerry Fodor from the 70s to the 90s) focusing on the relationship between the theory of Folk Psychology and scientific theories (in neuroscience and cognitive science), and the second (the contemporary debate) focusing on the cognitive mechanisms of mindreading and the role played by attributions of mental states and propositional attitudes in theories of embodied, situated and extended cognition. In addition to the historical examination of what I argue are two distinct debates as well as of the conceptual transition between them, here I present my criticism of Matthew Ratcliffe\'s contemporary eliminativist approach and, as an alternative to it, I articulate the principles of a pluralistic approach that combines both mindreading and situated contextual interpretation as fundamental for social cognition

Mindreading is the capacity to attribute psychological states to others and to use those attributions to explain, predict, and understand others’ behaviors. In the past thirty years, mindreading has become the topic of substantial interdisciplinary research and theorizing, with philosophers, psychologists and, more recently, neuroscientists, all contributing to the debate about the nature of the neuropsychological mechanisms that constitute the capacity for mindreading. In this thesis I push this debate forward by using recent results from developmental psychology as the basis for critiques of two prominent views of mindreading. First, I argue that the developmental studies provide evidence of infant mindreading and therefore expose a flaw in José Bermúdez’s view that certain forms of mindreading require language possession. Second, I argue that the evidence of infant mindreading can also be used to undermine Alvin Goldman’s version of Simulation Theory.

A literatura filosófica sobre a Psicologia do Senso Comum se estende desde a década de 1970, e abrange diversas questões sobre nosso entendimento interpessoal cotidiano, nossa capacidade de interação e coordenação de atividades, o arcabouço conceitual intuitivo que relaciona estados mentais e atitudes proposicionais a comportamentos, e os mecanismos cognitivos de leitura mental que nos permitem atribuir estados mentais a outras pessoas. Nesta dissertação eu examino o desenvolvimento histórico desta literatura, identificando dois debates distintos, o primeiro (principalmente entre Paul Churchland e Jerry Fodor dos anos 70 aos anos 90) tendo como foco a relação entre a teoria da Psicologia do Senso Comum e teorias científicas (da neurociência e das ciências cognitivas), e o segundo (o debate contemporâneo) tendo como foco os mecanismos cognitivos de leitura mental e o papel das atribuições de estados mentais e atitudes proposicionais nas teorias da cognição corporificada, situada e estendida. Além do exame histórico do que argumento serem dois debates distintos e da transição conceitual entre ambos, também apresento aqui minha crítica à abordagem eliminativista contemporânea de Matthew Ratcliffe e, como alternativa, articulo os princípios de uma abordagem pluralista que combina leitura mental e interpretação contextual situada como fundamentais para a cognição social / The philosophical literature on Folk Psychology began in the 1970s, and encompasses various questions about our everyday interpersonal understanding, our ability to interact and coordinate activities, the intuitive conceptual framework that relates mental states and propositional attitudes to behaviors, and the cognitive mechanisms of mindreading that allow us to attribute mental states to other people. In this thesis I examine the historical development of this literature, identifying two distinct debates, the first (mainly between Paul Churchland and Jerry Fodor from the 70s to the 90s) focusing on the relationship between the theory of Folk Psychology and scientific theories (in neuroscience and cognitive science), and the second (the contemporary debate) focusing on the cognitive mechanisms of mindreading and the role played by attributions of mental states and propositional attitudes in theories of embodied, situated and extended cognition. In addition to the historical examination of what I argue are two distinct debates as well as of the conceptual transition between them, here I present my criticism of Matthew Ratcliffe\'s contemporary eliminativist approach and, as an alternative to it, I articulate the principles of a pluralistic approach that combines both mindreading and situated contextual interpretation as fundamental for social cognition