正文
清华逻辑沙龙
Co-reference Without Referent
Abstract:
There is an essential requirement of communication: participants must focus on the same subject matter. Otherwise, they simply talk past each other. In verbal communication, the requirement consists of an epistemic thesis and a semantic thesis. The epistemic thesis is that participants must recognize that they are talking about the same subject matter, and the semantic thesis is that the (token) words they use must co-refer (or be co-extensive, for non-singular terms). An orthodox explanation of verbal communication appeals to what the words are about, i.e. the referent (or extension), to fulfill the semantic thesis. For example, different tokens of ‘cat’ co-refer as long as they all refer to the very same species of mammal. But recent works by Laura Schroeter, Simon Prosser, and Alexander Sandgren show that the orthodox explanation faces some difficulties, which it can hardly overcome by itself, in fulfilling the common focus requirement. Based on their works, I argue a different explanation of co-aboutness can be developed. I call the new explanation the independence model. I will discuss two versions of the independence model. According to the first version, the semantic assignment of a certain word is a collective cooperation among participants of a communication (or a historical-cultural tradition). To make the cooperation possible, participants must share a consensus that they are aiming at assigning the same referent to the same term. But this consensus does not require the participants to have an agreement on which referent to be assigned. The second version of the independence model shows that co-aboutness can be explained as a result of the interaction among contextual/environmental factors of a communication event. This explanation also appeals to a certain
consensus among participants, but the consensus here is not about the prospective semantic value, but instead, it is about some contextual/environmental factors of the communication. The independence model entails that the semantic thesis can be fulfilled without appealing to reference. I will then briefly discuss
why the independence can serve as a useful instrument for further research and what we can do with the independence model at hand.
Speaker:
周 炼
清华大学“水木学者”博士后，墨尔本大学哲学博士。
研究兴趣是语言哲学。
时间：5.20 (周四) 下午
2：30 - 4：00
地点：清华大学蒙民伟人文楼
329
