Philosophy Concordance - online philosophical quotations

Thus Chomsky (2000b, p. 58) asks “how closely human language approaches an optimal solution to design conditions that the system must meet to be usable at all.

A number of different two-dimensional approaches to semantics have been developed in the literature, by Kaplan (1979, 1989), Stalnaker (1978), Chalmers (1996, 2002a, 2004), and Jackson (1998), among others; and closely related two-dimensional analysis of modal notions have been put forward by Evans (1977) and by Davies and Humberstone (1981).

One can diagnose the situation by noting that character is most closely tied to the patterns of context-dependence associated with an expression, rather than to the expression's cognitive significance.

In the case of indexicals, the patterns of context-dependence of an expression are themselves closely associated with the expression's cognitive significance.

In the case of descriptive names such as 'Julius', deep necessity (as opposed to superficial necessity) seems closely connected to apriority, and deep intensions are closely connected to an expression's cognitive role.

As defined here, FA-intensions are closely tied to apriority for some sentences: especially for A-involving sentences, and for tacitly A-involving sentences such as those involving descriptive names and perhaps natural kind terms (if these are indeed tacitly A-involving).

But if there are other sources of the necessary a posteriori and the contingent a priori (such as ordinary proper names and indexicals), then in these cases, FA-intensions will not be closely tied to apriority at all.

This analysis is closely related to "hidden-indexical" analyses of belief ascriptions, with primary intensions playing the role of "modes of presentation".

Closely related is the study of the biological bases of human language, an investigation to which Eric Lenneberg has made substantial contributions.

And if closely knit groups are not lacking who seek to restore law and order and put psychology on its proper path, they look to a variety of models.