Filosofia da linguagem - Resenha Crítica

Interperspectival Content – LUDLOW (M)

1 de julho de 2019

LUDLOW, P. Interperspectival Content. Oxford University Press, 2019. 272 pages. Resenha de: MARTONE, Filipe. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.42 n.3 July/Sept. 2019.

Peter Ludlow’s most recent book is a systematic defense and exploration of what he calls interperspectival contents. Such contents are a sui generis kind of content expressed in language by tense and indexical expressions. They are essentially perspectival, and they cannot be eliminated or reduced to non-perspectival contents. Moreover, the ‘inter’ in ‘interperspectival’ means they are not subjective, private things: they are shared across agents situated in different perspectives. According to Ludlow, reality is shot through with such contents, from language and thought to computation and the flow of information, and they are needed to explain a number of phenomena, including intentional action, rule-following and the passage of time. In a sense, then, Ludlow’s new book is the perfect antithesis to ^{Cappelen & Dever (2013}). He makes a comprehensive case that perspectivality is not merely philosophically interesting, but also that it runs as deep as basic physics (Ch. 8). The book is ambitious, broad-ranging and interdisciplinary, and it would be impossible to discuss all of its contents in a short review. For this reason, I concentrate on the main points of his theory (laid out in the first three chapters) and try to spell them out in a bit more detail.

Perry’s messy shopper and Lewis’ twin gods convinced almost everybody that certain beliefs and desires must involve an essentially perspectival ingredient if they are to explain human intentional action adequately. Referential content, they claimed, is not enough. Because this perspectival ingredient is expressed in language by tense and indexicals, it is usually referred to as ‘indexical content’, but Ludlow prefers to call it ‘interperspectival content’, or ‘perspectival content’ for short (p. 3). Since Perry’s and Lewis’ work, philosophers started seeing ineliminable perspectival components everywhere: in emotion, perception, consciousness, temporal reasoning, ethical agency and in normative behavior more generally. Of course, they disagree on the precise nature of this perspectival component (e.g. if it reflects a deep feature of reality or is merely a narrow psychological state), but there is widespread agreement that it must be there to explain various aspects of human activities. There is a vocal minority, though, who remains deeply unconvinced. The most notable case is that of ^{Cappelen and Dever (2013}), henceforth C&D.

C&D’s work had a huge impact, so it is a natural starting point for Ludlow. In the first chapter, he uses C&D objections as a foil to show why interperspectival contents are indispensable. His main target are the so-called Impersonal Action Rationalizations (IAR). IARs attempt to explain an agent’s behavior only in terms of non-perspectival attitudes. C&D argue that IARs are perfectly adequate explanations of behavior, even though they are perspective-free. If they are right, this would show that there is no necessary connection between perspectivality and agency, pace Perry and Lewis. To better see the point, it is useful to reproduce here two action rationalizations Ludlow discusses, one personal and the other impersonal (p. 26):

Personal Action Rationalization (explanation) 1.

Belief: François is about to be shot.
Belief: I am François.
Belief (Inferred): I am about to be shot.
Desire: That I not be shot.
Belief: If I duck under the table, I will not be shot.
Action: I duck under the table.

Impersonal Action Rationalization (explanation) 1.

Belief: François is about to be shot.
Desire: François not be shot.
Belief: If François ducks under the table, he will not be shot.
Action: François ducks under the table.

For C&D, IAR-1 is an adequate explanation of why François ducked, and therefore the supposedly essential perspectival component is dispensable. Ludlow grants that some IARs have the appearance of genuine explanations, but he claims that we have good reasons to suspect that they appear that way because there is “something enthymematic” (p. 27) about them. For instance, IAR-1 seems to work only because the premise that François believes that he himself is François is implicit. This is not a new argument, but Ludlow gives it a different spin by asking us to consider a case in which François lacks the perspectival belief that he himself is François, but still ducks. The lack of a first-personal belief seems to make his ducking completely random and unconnected to the attitudes described in the rationalization.

To me, however, the most interesting argument Ludlow offers against C&D appeals to temporal beliefs. Ludlow notes that François’ attitudes are already knee-deep in temporal perspectival contents:

The desire is not that François timeline be free of getting-shot events; it is too late to realize such a desire. You can’t get unshot. His desire is that he not get shot now. Similarly for François’ belief: His belief is that if he ducks under the table now he will not get shot now. (p. 27)

Thus, even if the first-person perspective is somehow eliminated from the rationalization, temporal perspectival contents must remain, otherwise we cannot explain why François ducks at the moment he ducks. For some reason, the role of temporal perspectival contents in action explanation has mostly slipped under philosophers’ radars, and Ludlow does a nice job of bringing it out¹. In fact, because temporal contents do not involve the complexities of the first-person, they seem to make a better and more straightforward case for the indispensability of the perspectival element, as ^{Morgan (2019}) argued.

Another interesting aspect of the first chapter is the discussion of C&D’s example of the aperspectival god. C&D claim that there could be a god who does not have perspectival thoughts but who could nevertheless act upon the word just by thinking things like ‘the door is closed’, and the door is closed. This example is supposed to show that there could be intentional action without perspectivality. But, Ludlow argues, this is very implausible. Suppose the aperspectival god creates a universe containing only ten qualitatively identical doors arranged in a circle (p. 33). How can the god form a particular intention to close one of the doors in this case? Indexical-free definite descriptions cannot single out any of them, and neither can proper names, since to name something you must first be able to identify it, either perceptually or by description. Even being omniscient, there must be a perspectival way of singling out one particular door in the god’s ‘awareness space’ (e.g. ‘that door’), otherwise she would not be able to form a particular intention about it. Ludlow’s example bears some similarities to Strawson’s massive reduplication universe (¹⁹⁵⁹: 20-23), and both have more or less the same moral: every act of particular identification seems to ultimately rest on demonstrative (i.e. perspectival) identification. If this is right, then the aperspectival god would not be able to form particular intentions in these cases, and hence could not act upon particular objects. Ludlow concludes that perspectival components are indispensable.

Having established why we need perspectival contents, in the second chapter Ludlow goes on to explain what they are. In particular, by focusing on tense, he argues that perspectival contents are substantial features of reality, and not merely superficial aspects of language or thought. His argument leans heavily on a methodological doctrine he calls Semantic Accountability. As he puts it, “the basic idea is that meaningful use of language carries ontological commitments” (p. 16), and “that the metalanguage of the semantics must be grounded in the world and the contents that are expressed in the metalanguage are features of the external world” (p. 38). In other terms, if we cannot purge perspectival contents from the metalanguage that gives the semantics of a certain piece of perspectival discourse, then we must treat these contents as irreducible and ineliminable features of reality. Ludlow argues that this is not only the case with tense, but also with information theory, computation and even with physics. As we can see, the doctrine of semantic accountability plays a crucial role in the whole book.

In the second chapter he also expands on the two central notions of the book, namely, perspectival position and perspectival content. In short, perspectival positions are “egocentric spaces anchored in external positions” (p. 6), where external positions are objective locations in space and time. Because we are embedded in such positions, certain things will be there or here, past or future, and so on, with respect to us. More importantly, Ludlow argues that perspectival positions are not a matter of phenomenology, i.e., of how things are experienced by the relevant agents. According to him, the same perspectival position can have different phenomenal experiences associated with them, whereas different perspectival positions can yield the same phenomenal experience (p. 7).

Now, things get more complicated with interperspectival contents. Because they are primitives for Ludlow (p. 42), it is pretty hard to define them precisely. He attempts to circumvent this difficulty by employing several metaphors. First, he asks us to think of perspectival positions in terms of panels on a storyboard. Each panel is anchored in the agents’ perspectival position and represents the world from their point of view. For example, in a situation where I say ‘I am here’ and you say ‘you are there’, there is a panel representing my utterance, your utterance and the world from my perspectival position, and a panel representing your utterance, my utterance and the world from your perspectival position. The interperspectival content, in turn, “consists of this collection of storyboard panels…and a theory of how the panels in the storyboards are related (p. 42). As I understand it, this theory describes the events occurring – my utterance and your utterance – in a way that explains what we are doing, our motivations, beliefs and emotions in that situation. This explanatory theory would be the perspectival content. Another metaphor Ludlow offers is that of a dramaturge who has all the panels before her. The dramaturge knows how to coordinate them and has a theory of what is happening (p. 42). Finally, Ludlow emphasizes that perspectival contents are shared. When I say ‘I am here’ and you say ‘you are there’, we are expressing the same perspectival content, but from different perspectival positions. That is, we are expressing the same theories from different perspectives (p. 40), and to do that we have to use a different set of expressions. The same phenomena occurs with perspectival contents expressed across different temporal positions. If I think ‘today is a fine day’, and in the next day I think ‘yesterday was a fine day’, my thought episodes have the same referential content and the same perspectival content under a different verbal clothing.

The fact that perspectival contents are shared and remain stable across perspectival positions might make them look just like referential contents, since the latter also have the same properties. But Ludlow quickly points out that this cannot be right, for referential contents cannot explain action, emotion, and so on (p. 45), as he argued in the first chapter. Thus, whatever perspectival contents are, they cannot be referential contents. In fact, in the next chapter he is going to claim that perspectival contents bear important similarities to Fregean senses, which are notoriously richer and more fine-grained than referential content.

I understand that perspectival content is a pretty difficult notion to grasp, but the fact that Ludlow’s attempts to ‘define’ them are not so obviously equivalent makes things somewhat more confusing. For instance, in various passages he seems to identify perspectival contents with theories of some sort:

the resulting local theory is your interperspectival content.” (p. 72, italics mine).

I’ve offered a proposal in which we think of interperspectival contents as local theories that we express in different ways from different perspectival positions. (p. 75, italics mine)

Earlier, though, when discussing the storyboard metaphor, he talks about perspectival contents as being the combination of the panels (i.e. perspectival positions) and a theory, and not just the theory itself (p. 42). The following passage is also a bit odd: “[a]s we saw in Chapter 1, stripping the perspectival content from these theories [i.e. action rationalizations] neuters them” (p. 71). This makes it seem that perspectival contents are something contained or invoked in theories, and not theories in themselves. Also, assuming that perspectival contents are identified with theories, it is not clear how to interpret this passage: “[p]erspectival contents, when expressed, do not supervene on the state of a single individual, but they rather supervene (at least partly) on multiple individuals in multiple perspectival positions.” (p. 44). It surely sounds weird to say that a theory supervenes on individuals in perspectival positions; supervenience does not seem to be the right sort of relation here. Although I think I understand what perspectival contents are, I confess that I still feel a bit confused about the particulars and how they are supposed to work exatcly.

In the third chapter, Ludlow sets out to explain our “cross-perspective communication abilities” (p. 57), that is, how we manage to communicate across perspectival positions. As I mentioned earlier, in order to express the same perspectival content across spatial, temporal or personal perspectival positions we need to adjust its verbal expression. But how exatcly do we do that? To answer this question, Ludlow draws from his theory of Interpreted Logical Forms (ILFs)² and from his theory of microlanguages³. The problem ILFs set out to explain was the problem of how using different expressions at different times could count as attributing the same attitude to an agent (p. 66). The basic idea is that, in making attitude reports, we are offering a “contribution to our shared theory of the agent’s mental life” (p. 67). This theory has two components: the Modeling Component and the Expression Component. The Modeling Component is roughly the ability to model an agent’s mental life, and it is sensitive to various factors, such as our interests and goals, our common ground, our knowledge of folk psychology, and so on. The Expression Component, in turn, involves a tacit negotiation among speakers regarding which expressions to use to talk about the agent’s belief structure as modeled by the Modeling Component. Drawing from research in psychology, Ludlow calls this process of negotiating expressions entrainment (p. 68). The result of entrainment is a microlanguage built on the fly, in the context, to describe the relevant agent’s attitudes. Thus, given our models and our local microlanguages, different words sometimes express the same content, sometimes different contents, or leave the matter open (p. 68). This same general idea applies in the case of perspectival contents and how they are expressed across different perspectival positions. The ability to form microlanguages help us express local theories, constructed on the go, about perspectival information. In other terms (as I understand it), by modeling perspectival information and by building microlanguages we are able to express shared local theories so as to explain action, emotion, and so on, from different perspectives and about agents in different perspectival positions. To illustrate this point, Ludlow again uses the metaphor of the storyboard:

… we can think of the storyboards as illustrating the Modeling Component. The overarching theory of content attribution combines the perspectival information (illustrated by the multiple storyboards), coordinates its expression across the agents represented, and combines that with fine grained contents as in the Larson and Ludlow ILF theory (…) The resulting local theory is your interperspectival content. (p. 72)

What I have discussed so far covers, I think, the main body of Ludlow’s theory of perspectival contents. These chapters are dense and complicated, and some points would benefit from a lengthier exposition. For example, ILFs and microlanguages are very important to the overall theory, and it would help if they were explained in a bit more detail. This also happens later in the book, when he uses his theory of the dynamic lexicon to account for the passage of time. I suspect that readers who are not familiar with Ludlow’s earlier work might fail to fully appreciate his point.

In the fourth chapter, Ludlow considers alternative accounts of perspectival contents: token reflexive theories, Lewis’ de se, Kaplan’s theory of indexicals and demonstratives, and use theories. He argues that all of them try to purge perspectival contents from the semantics, but sooner or later they reappear with a vengeance. According to him, such sanitized semantics (especially token-reflexive theories) fail to do the very thing they were supposed to do, i.e., explain action, emotion, temporal reasoning, etc., and they often end up surreptitiously reintroducing perspectival contents in the metalanguage. His objections to Perry’s reflexive-referential theory, in particular, are very compelling. He ends with an interesting discussion of rule-following and normative behavior in general, which provides the perfect hook for the next chapter, where he applies his theory to computation and information theory. In short, he argues in that chapter that perspectival contents are necessary to understand the very notion of information, and that “all information flow, whether natural or the product of human intentions, ultimately bottoms out in perspectival contents.” (p. 134).

In the sixth chapter, Ludlow argues for what he calls A-series and B-series compatibilism. This is the thesis that we can combine the immutable ordering of events in time (the B-series) with the tensed series of events (the A-series) without generating puzzles. Again, he draws on his earlier work on the dynamic lexicon (^{Ludlow 2014}) and relates it to his theory of perspectival contents to explain how that is possible. He claims that both the B-series and the A-series are needed to account for the passage of time, and perspectival contents and the dynamic lexicon play an essential role in his explanation. Also, he notes that one can endorse his view of the A-series without being a presentist. A detailed argument for this latter claim, however, is found in the appendix. The remaining chapters deal with further metaphysical issues and argue that perspectival contents cannot be eliminated even from science, both in its practice and in its theories.

In sum, Ludlow’s book puts forward provocative claims and an interesting and novel theory of perspectivality. The amount of ground covered in such a relatively short book is admirable. Even if it is not all that clear that Ludlow’s theory can explain everything it is meant to explain – after all, its ambitions are far from humble -, his arguments, objections and examples are vivid and persuasive, and they cannot be ignored by philosophers working on these issues. Philosophically inclined computer scientists, information theorists and physicists might also find the book an interesting read.

References

CAPPELEN, H., AND DEVER, J., 2013. The Inessential Indexical. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [ Links ]

LARSON, R., AND LUDLOW, P., 1993. “Interpreted Logical Forms.” Synthese 95, 305-56. [ Links ]

LUDLOW, P., 2014. Living Words: Meaning Underdetermination and the Dynamic Lexicon. Oxford: Oxford University Press . [ Links ]

LUDLOW, P., 2000. “Interpreted Logical Forms, Belief Attribution, and the Dynamic Lexicon.” In. K.M. Jaszczolt (ed.), Pragmatics of Propositional Attitude Reports. Elsevier Science, Ltd. [ Links ]

MORGAN, D. 2019. “Temporal indexicals are essential”. Analysis 79 (3):452-461. [ Links ]

STRAWSON, O. 1959. Individuals: An essay in Descriptive Metaphysics. 7th Edition, New York, Routledge. [ Links ]

Notas

¹An exception is ^{Morgan (2019}).

²Cf. ^{Larson & Ludlow (1993}) and ^{Ludlow (2000}).

³Cf. ^{Ludlow (2014}).

Filipe Martone – University of Campinas Department of Philosophy Campinas, SP Brazil. E-mail: filipemartone@gmail.com

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Tags: Ação, Filosofia da linguagem, Indexicalidade, Informação, Interperspectival Content (T), LUDLOW P (Aut), Manuscrito (Ma), MARTONE Filipe (Res), Oxford University Press (E), Theory of interperspectival contents

Marxismo e filosofia da linguagem: Problemas fundamentais do método sociológico na ciência da linguagem – VOLÓCHINOV (B-RED)

1 de maio de 2018

VOLÓCHINOV, Valentin (Círculo de Bakhtin). Marxismo e filosofia da linguagem. Problemas fundamentais do método sociológico na ciência da linguagem. Tradução, notas e glossário de Sheila Grillo e Ekaterina Vólkova Américo. Ensaio introdutório de Sheila Grillo. São Paulo: Editora 34, 2017, 373p. Resenha de: PISTORI, Maria Helena. Bakhtiniana – Revista de Estudos do Discurso, v.13 n.2 São Paulo May/Aug. 2018.

Poucos duvidam que há muito precisávamos da tradução de Marxismo e filosofia da linguagem. Problemas fundamentais do método sociológico na ciência da linguagem (MFL), feita diretamente do original russo. E é suficiente a observação da referência bibliográfica completa, registrada acima, para constatar estarmos diante de um importante e competente trabalho, e não apenas de uma nova tradução daquela que é, possivelmente, a mais conhecida obra do Círculo de Bakhtin entre nós, brasileiros. Aliás, uma tradução realizada por pesquisadoras brasileiras comprometidas com o pensamento bakhtiniano, conhecidas e reconhecidas na área dos estudos do discurso.

O texto que temos agora responde ampla e muito especialmente a nosso tempo-espaço: são 39 anos depois da primeira edição de MFL, pouco mais de 40 anos que nós, brasileiros, temos contato com a obra do Círculo (Cf. ^{Brait, 2012}, p.219). E isso nos deu tempo para buscar compreendê-la em maior profundidade, estudá-la, buscar-lhe a contextualização, dialogar com pesquisadores daqui e de outros espaços que dela também se ocuparam, dialogar mais detidamente com ela e com algumas traduções dela no Ocidente. Tudo isso nos permite afirmar que a recepção de MFL, hoje, é bem diferente daquela da década de 70: não há mais a novidade e a surpresa, ou o impacto causado pelas obras do Círculo que aos poucos foram sendo descobertas pelos primeiros estudiosos brasileiros. Em nossa academia, há muitos pesquisadores que fundamentam seus estudos da linguagem e da literatura, ou mesmo de educação e em outras ciências humanas, no pensamento haurido em fontes bakhtinianas; diferentes grupos de pesquisa que estudam Bakhtin e o Círculo, de norte ao sul do país. Na área dos estudos da linguagem, a Análise Dialógica do Discurso/ADD (Cf. ^{Brait, 2010}, p.9-31), de inspiração no pensamento do Círculo, alcança muitos estudiosos, ajudando-nos a compreender o discurso responsivamente. Mais ainda: temos, aqui no Brasil, um periódico acadêmico, bilíngue, cujo foco são os estudos bakhtinianos, de forma específica e em seu diálogo com outras áreas do conhecimento: Bakhtiniana. Revista de Estudos do Discurso. Nosso tempo-espaço é outro, e esta tradução responde a muitas das questões que, ao longo dos anos, foram levantadas pela anterior. Não é possível tratar de tudo isso neste texto: escolhemos partir dos dados da referência bibliográfica e fazer algumas comparações entre esta e a anterior. Ao final, trataremos brevemente do Ensaio introdutório, de Sheila Grillo, sem dúvida um texto brilhante e alentado que emoldura¹ esta tradução e, por meio dele, permite novas leituras de MFL.

Autoria. Várias questões nos chamam a atenção na referência. Em primeiro lugar, a autoria da obra. Se, na conhecida versão brasileira do francês para o português, cuja primeira edição é de 1979, constava a autoria de Mikhail Bakhtin (V. N. Volochínov), agora temos VOLÓCHINOV, Valentin (Círculo de Bakhtin). As tradutoras nos esclarecem: nos originais russos que foram a fonte da tradução (primeira edição de 1929 e segunda de 1930), a autoria é de Valentin Nikoláievtch Volóchinov. Nos parênteses, o Círculo de Bakhtin sinaliza ao leitor o âmbito em que foi produzida a obra, o que ainda nos remete aos variados debates acerca da autoria, sobretudo no Ocidente, desde que os trabalhos bakhtinianos começaram a ser conhecidos na Europa e Américas. Aliás, muito contribuíram para esse debate os textos de Roman Jakobson (e de Marina Yaguello), autores do Prefácio e da Apresentação daquela primeira edição, especialmente a conhecida frase de Jakobson: “Acabou-se descobrindo que o livro em questão e várias outras obras … foram na verdade escritos por Bakhtin…” (1981, p.9). Atualmente conhecemos várias das obras e ensaios de Volóchinov, respeitado linguista do grupo, com quem Bakhtin, Medviédev e outros membros certamente dialogaram. A autoria de MFL, colocada dessa forma, parece fazer jus à realidade daquele momento. No final do livro, consta ainda um “Sobre o autor”, com dados biográficos de Volóchinov (1895-1936), que possibilitam ao leitor conhecer um pouco de sua trajetória de vida, na Universidade de Leningrado (atualmente Universidade Estatal de São Petersburgo), no Instituto de História Comparada das Literaturas e Línguas do Ocidente e do Oriente (ILIAZV) e no Círculo de Bakhtin, como linguista, crítico de música, de arte e literatura.

Tradução. Voltando à referência inicial, observamos que a tradução, notas e glossário são de Sheila Grillo e Ekaterina Vólkova Américo. Caso o leitor não as conheça, o livro traz, ao final, um “Sobre as tradutoras”. A primeira – Sheila Grillo, doutora em Linguística pela USP, professora associada da FFLH/USP, tendo realizado pesquisas em diferentes universidades francesas, no Instituto Górki da Literatura Mundial (Moscou), em arquivos de Valentín Volóchinov em São Petesbrugo e na Biblioteca Lenin (Moscou); é ela a autora do primoroso Ensaio introdutório. A segunda – Ekaterina Vólkova Américo, também é doutora pela USP, em Língua e Literatura Russa e professora da Universidade Federal Fluminense/UFF. Além das publicações individuais, ambas assinam a tradução de outros trabalhos do Círculo: O método formal nos estudos literários, de Pável Medviédev, e Questões de estilística no ensino da língua, de Mikhail Bakhtin. Na realidade, conhecem profundamente o pensamento bakhtiniano, não apenas a língua russa; e o leitor brasileiro, do qual são parte. Em relação a ele, em artigo que comentam o trabalho de traduções brasileiras de autores do Círculo, Grillo e Américo (2014) reconhecem a tensão entre a fidelidade ao texto russo e o contexto de recepção na língua portuguesa e afirmam:

Temos em mente um leitor estudioso da obra do Círculo de Bakhtin, isto é, um leitor ávido por compreender conceitos produzidos em um contexto intelectual preciso, em um tempo e em uma cultura distantes” (p.82).

Pretendem, assim, uma tradução que evite a “aproximação indevida da teoria do autor com correntes semióticas ocidentais […]” (p.81), mas que esteja atenta ao distanciamento temporal e cultural da produção de MFL. Nessa busca, no cap.2 O problema da relação entre a base e a superestrutura, já observamos muito maior clareza em relação à questão dos gêneros discursivos, preocupação dos membros do Círculo desde a década de 20 e pouco explicitada na tradução anterior, o que se tornou alvo de críticas recorrentes. Se temos ali “A psicologia do corpo social é justamente o meio ambiente inicial dos ‘atos de fala‘ de toda espécie […]” (1981, p.42), na nova tradução temos “[…] a psicologia social é justamente aquele universo de discursos verbais multiformes que abarca todas as formas […]” (2017, p.107). E adiante: “A psicologia do corpo social se manifesta essencialmente nos mais diversos aspectos da ‘enunciação’ sob a forma de diferentes modos de discurso, sejam eles interiores ou exteriores” (1981, p.42). Na nova tradução: “Na maioria das vezes a psicologia social se realiza nas mais diversas formas de enunciados, sob o modo de pequenos gêneros discursivos, sejam eles internos ou externos, que até o presente momento não foram estudados em absoluto” (2017, p.107). Ou, ainda, o título do capítulo A interação verbal (1981, p.110) é substituído por A interação discursiva, com a justificativa de estar ali presente o mesmo adjetivo russo do famoso texto de Bakhtin – Os gêneros do discurso (2017, p.201). Todos esses cuidados, porém, também respondem a críticas e debates que se seguiram e continuam surgindo em relação aos textos e conceitos elaborados pelos membros do Círculo. Assim, se num primeiro momento, num contexto francês (e depois brasileiro), a obra respondeu às teorias linguísticas daquele momento, com elas dialogando, aquiescendo, complementando, concordando, discordando, agora o diálogo continua, sob novas bases. Como afirma Brait, na orelha da nova tradução, reiterando sua importância e pertinência:

No estágio atual dos estudos bakhtintinianos, as (re)traduções , no Brasil e no exterior, devem-se à consciência de que o pensamento dialógico exige o conhecimento dos contextos de produção e de reprodução, para melhor situar os trabalhos, sua originalidade, seu diálogo polêmico ou não com outras vertentes do conhecimento. Nessa busca, a acessibilidade das fontes russas, arquivos e bibliotecas, possibilita a descoberta de primeiras edições, trabalhos não publicados, esboços preparatórios, documentos que atestam a vida profissional e acadêmica dos autores. […] os (re)tradutores são especialistas que se debruçam sobre as fontes primárias não apenas para divulgar obras e autores, mas para esclarecer a gênese e o alcance do pensamento. E as leituras se ampliam, enveredando por novos caminhos.

Notas. As notas representam, a meu ver, um ganho precioso para o leitor. Fiéis aos originais consultados, são em número bem maior do que aquelas que conhecíamos na primeira tradução: na atual tradução, 163: 107 do autor e 56 das tradutoras; na tradução anterior, 107: 96 notas do autor, 05 trazidas do tradutor do russo para o francês e 06 dos tradutores do francês para o português. No Prólogo na versão anterior, tínhamos apenas uma explicação da tradutora para o francês do que seria o “Skaz”, a partir da tradução francesa de La poétique de Dostoïevski; na correspondente Introdução atual, temos a oportunidade de um rico diálogo com Volóchinov nos comentários que ele mesmo adiciona ao texto principal. Assim, conta-nos que MFL é o “único trabalho marxista sobre a linguagem” que havia até então (1929), na nota de rodapé 1 (p.83); ou nos conta como os “fundadores do marxismo definiram o lugar que a ideologia ocupa na unidade da vida social”, na nota de rodapé 2 (p.84); apresenta sua visão acerca do positivismo e “o culto do ‘fato’ […] como algo inabalável e firme” (p.84), na nota de rodapé 3; ou destaca a pertinência do estudo que propõe na terceira parte – “o problema do enunciado alheio”- como um diálogo com os teóricos da literatura, nota de rodapé 10 (p.88).

As notas de rodapé são ainda um lugar privilegiado de diálogo com as tradutoras, que nos fornecem informações valiosas à compreensão do texto, ora por meio de notas históricas: “Aqui o autor se refere à abolição da servidão que, apesar de ocorrida em 1861, expressa um processo em curso desde o final da primeira metade do séc. XIX […]” (nota de rodapé 8, p.105); literárias, como a nota 7 (p.104), sobre a personagem principal de um romance de Turguêniev, ou a nota 66, sobre a obra de Dostoiévski, na tradução em português, “Pequenos retratos” em Diário de um escritor (1873): meia carta de um sujeito […] (p.235), entre outras. Ainda há aquelas que justificam a escolha de termos para a tradução, como a nota de rodapé 12 (p.117), a respeito do debatido/controvertido termo russo perejivánie, “tradução da palavra alemã Erlebnis, que pode significar ‘vivência’ ou ‘experiência'”. Nesse sentido, importante ressaltar um princípio que guiou as tradutoras, em contraposição às opções anteriores de diferentes traduções, expresso por Grillo e Américo: “As escolhas dos tradutores [das versões em francês – dialectologie sociale, e inglês – behavioral speech genres da expressão rietchevye jiznennye jánry] parecem revelar que eles estavam menos preocupados com os termos empregados em russo, do que em encontrar paralelos com o contexto intelectual da época em que realizaram as traduções” (2014, p.80). Princípio que, sem dúvida, responde a críticas realizadas ao longo dos anos a noções como intertextualidade, gêneros do discurso e outras, que tiveram seu entendimento prejudicado em virtude de traduções anteriores que obliteraram o sentido do termo em russo. Bem interessantes para nós, estudiosos da linguagem, são as notas de n.28 e 29 (p.166-7), em que as tradutoras comentam as “dificuldades” de Volóchinov na tradução dos termos saussureanos, já que o Curso de linguística geral foi traduzido na Rússia apenas em 1933, depois da publicação de MFL, portanto. É sempre o respeito ao leitor, a resposta antecipada a questões correntes entre os estudiosos, e a contextualização cuidadosa de termos, noções e obras.

Glossário. Considerando a ampla divulgação do pensamento bakhtiniano, o fato de que suas obras não foram conhecidas do público na ordem em que foram produzidas ou mesmo traduzidas nas várias línguas, o glossário é precioso, além de preciso e redigido por pesquisadoras que conhecem o conjunto das obras do Círculo. Nas palavras de Grillo e Américo (2014, p.81), sua elaboração: “[…] nos auxiliará na manutenção de uma coerência na tradução dos conceitos bem como na compreensão do núcleo conceitual de MFL pelo leitor brasileiro”. Assim, os verbetes primeiramente são apresentados no original russo (em transliteração), com as páginas em que apareceram na presente edição; a seguir, as autoras não só o definem, mas colocam em diálogo o conceito com a própria obra em questão, por vezes com o todo do Círculo e ainda com o contexto de sua produção. Três exemplos:

Ato discursivo individual e criativo ou ato individual de fala, ou ato discursivo (individuálno-tvórtcheski akt riétchi ou individuálni ákt govoriénia, p.140, 148, 153, 200, 225, ou retchevói akt, p. 200) – conceito que se origina na obra de Humboldt e é posteriormente desenvolvido na de Potebniá. A língua é um processo constante de criação individual por meio dos atos discursivos dos seus falantes, diferentemente da sua concepção como conjunto de regras gramaticais e de seu léxico, ideia que Humboldt associa ao resultado do trabalho do linguista. Em Marxismo e filosofia da linguagem (MFL), o enunciado ora é equiparado ao ato discursivo ora é concebido como um produto deste (p.200) (p.353).

Fundo de apercepção (appertseptívni fon, p.254) – também traduzido por “fundo aperceptivo”, termo proveniente da psicologia e da filosofia. O termo aparece em trabalhos posteriores de Bakhtin como O discurso no romance (Teoria do romance I) e Os gêneros do discurso, e compreende as vivências interiores em que o discurso alheio é percebido (p.359).

Signo ou signo ideológico (znak, p.91, ou ideologuítcheski znak, pp.92-4) – dividem-se em signo interior (vnútrenni znak) e signo exterior (vniéchni znak), sem traçar um limite preciso entre ambos. O signo interior é a vivência no contexto de um psiquismo individual, determinado por fatores biológicos e biográficos. O signo exterior existe em um sistema ideológico coletivo e surge no processo de interação entre indivíduos socialmente organizados. Suas formas são condicionadas pela organização social desses indivíduos, pelas condições mais próximas da sua interação, do horizonte social da época e de dado grupo social: ou seja, a existência determina e refrata-se no signo. O signo é a realidade material da ideologia. Os objetos que chamam a atenção da sociedade entram no mundo da ideologia, se formam e se fixam nele, tornando-se signos ideológicos ao adquirirem uma ênfase social. A realidade que se torna objeto do signo constitui o seu tema. Uma vez que as diferentes classes sociais compartilham os mesmos signos, neles se cruzam ênfases multidirecionadas e portanto um signo se torna o palco da luta de classes. O signo pode tanto refletir quanto distorcer a realidade (p.366-7).

Anexo. O trabalho de tradução revela não apenas os estudos profundos das tradutoras como também a pesquisa nos arquivos originais, sobretudo no arquivo pessoal de Valentin Nikoláievitch Volóchinov, preservado no Arquivo Estatal da Federação Russa, em Moscou. É assim que o leitor é brindado com um Anexo, não expresso na Referência bibliográfica, que apresenta o Plano de trabalho de Volóchinov para a elaboração de MFL, constituído pelo terceiro relatório que produziu no ILIAZV, entre janeiro de 1927 e maio de 1928. São 27 páginas valiosas, em que podemos verificar como foi projetada a escritura de MFL, comparar o projeto com sua realização, conferir alterações (poucas), etc., observar o método de trabalho investigativo/produtivo do autor.

Ensaio introdutório. É o derradeiro texto que emoldura esta tradução. Sem dúvida, o texto de uma pesquisadora séria e competente (admirável!), Sheila Grillo, o ensaio nos mostra que a obra é uma “resposta à ciência da linguagem do séc. XIX e início do século XX” na Rússia. Como o prefácio de Patrick Sériot³, que também acrescenta um profundo estudo à tradução francesa mais recente de MFL⁴, o ensaio destaca a importância de ler no contexto original da obra, mas não se detém na questão da existência ou não do Círculo de Bakhtin, foco daquele prefácio. Aqui, a autora vai reconstruir a “biblioteca virtual” de Volochínov, por meio dos textos citados por ele em MFL, com o generoso objetivo de dar “acesso a novas camadas de sentido” (^{GRILLO, 2017}, p.8) ao leitor brasileiro. Para compreender a posição teórica que ocuparam aquele tempo-espaço da linguística russa, a autora envereda por dois caminhos: (1) a leitura de manuais de linguística e de história da linguística contemporâneos russos (como os linguistas russos interpretam o período); (2) a observação do diálogo entre tais autores, os textos citados em MFL e a posição de Volóchinov. Desse modo, só podemos lhe agradecer por ter ajudado a nós, brasileiros, a preencher a lacuna que tínhamos em relação àquele fecundo período da linguística russa. É um texto obrigatório para todos aqueles que desejam se aprofundar nos estudos bakhtinianos.

Enfim, esta resenha não pôde disfarçar o tom apreciativo entusiasmado e altamente positivo em relação à nova (e tão esperada, necessária) tradução. Nós, os leitores, certamente acrescentaremos novas “contrapalavras” (1981, p.132) em nosso diálogo com o enunciado concreto que temos em mãos; ou buscaremos “antipalavras” (2017, p.232) às palavras da nova tradução. No grande tempo que nos separa da época da(s) primeira(s) publicação(s) – 1929/1979, ainda que não tão grande, os sentidos renascem e se renovam⁵, no novo cronotopo, este espaço-tempo que é o Brasil do início do séc. XXI.

¹Compreendemos o texto-moldura “como parte constituinte de um enunciado concreto, no sentido bakhtiniano, o que implica, para a produção de sentidos, tanto o texto principal quanto o conjunto de textos que o apresentam, que o cercam verbal e/ou visualmente” (BRAIT; PISTORI, 2016, s.p).

²Grillo utiliza a tradução para o português nas citações de Saussure (tradução de Antônio Chelini, José Paulo Paes e Izidoro Blikstein, São Paulo: Cultrix).

³Recentemente traduzido para o português: SÉRIOT, P. Vološinov e a filosofia da linguagem. Trad. Marcos Bagno. São Paulo: Parábola Editorial, 2015. Sobre o Prefácio, cf. SOBRAL. A.; Giacomelli, K. MFL em contexto: algumas questões, in: Bakhtiniana. Revista de Estudos do Discurso. São Paulo, 11 (3), p.154-173, Set./Dez. 2016.

⁴SÉRIOT, P. Préface. In: VOLOSINOV (Vološinov) Valentin Nikolaevic. Marxisme et philosophie du langage. Les problèmes fondamentaux de la méthode sociologique dans la science du langage. Édition bilingue traduite du russe par Patrick Sériot et Inna Tylkowkski-Ageeva. Limoges: Lambert-Lucas, 2010.

⁵BAKHTIN, M. Por uma metodologia das ciências humanas. In: Notas sobre literatura, cultura e ciências humanas / Mikhail Bakhtin; organização, tradução, posfácio e notas de Paulo Bezerra; notas da edição russa de Serguei Botcharov. São Paulo Editora 34, 2017.

Referências

BAKHTIN, M. (V. N. Volochínov). Marxismo e filosofia da linguagem. Problemas fundamentais do método sociológico na ciência da linguagem. Prefácio de Roman Jakobson. Apresentação de Marina Yaguello. Trad. Michel Lahud e Yara Frateschi Vieira com a colaboração de Lúcia Teixeira Wisnik e Carlos Henrique D. Chagas Cruz. 2 ed. São Paulo: Hucitec, 1981. [ Links ]

BRAIT, B. Orelha. In: VOLÓCHINOV, Valentin (Círculo de Bakhtin). Marxismo e filosofia da linguagem. Problemas fundamentais do método sociológico na ciência da linguagem. Tradução, notas e glossário de Sheila Grillo e Ekaterina Vólkova Américo. Ensaio introdutório de Sheila Grillo. São Paulo: Editora 34, 2017. [ Links ]

________. A chegada de Voloshinov/Bakhtin ao Brasil na década de 1970. In: ZANDWAIS, A. (Org.). História das ideias. Diálogos entre linguagem, cultura e história. Passo Fundo: Ed. Universidade de Passo Fundo, 2012, p.216-243. [ Links ]

________. Análise e teoria do discurso. In: BRAIT, B. (org.). Bakhtin: outros conceitos-chave. São Paulo: Contexto, 2010, p.9-32. [ Links ]

BRAIT, B. & PISTORI, M. H. C. Recepção de Bakhtin e o Círculo: modos de ler. Comunicação oral em Encontro Anual Nacional GT/ANPOLL/Estudos Bakhtinianos – XI Jornada do Grupo de Pesquisa/PUC-SP/CNPq Linguagem, Identidade e Memória. 29 de junho a 01 de julho de 2016. Universidade de Campinas/UNICAMP. [ Links ]

GRILLO, S. V. Ensaio Introdutório. In: VOLÓCHINOV, Valentin (Círculo de Bakhtin). Marxismo e filosofia da linguagem. Problemas fundamentais do método sociológico na ciência da linguagem. Tradução, notas e glossário de Sheila Grillo e Ekaterina Vólkova Américo. Ensaio introdutório de Sheila Grillo. São Paulo: Editora 34, 2017, p.7-80. [ Links ]

GRILLO, S. V. C.; AMÉRICO, E. V. As traduções brasileiras de Bakhtin, Medviédev e Volóchinov. In: BRAIT, B. MAGALHÃES, A. S. Dialogismo: teoria e(m) prática. São Paulo: Terracota Editora, 2014, p.-89. [ Links ]

JAKOBSON, R. Prefácio. In: BAKHTIN, M. (V. N. Volochínov). Marxismo e filosofia da linguagem. Problemas fundamentais do método sociológico na ciência da linguagem. Prefácio de Roman Jakobson. Apresentação de Marina Yaguello. Trad. Michel Lahud e Yara Frateschi Vieira com a colaboração de Lúcia Teixeira Wisnik e Carlos Henrique D. Chagas Cruz. 2 ed. São Paulo: Hucitec, 1981, p.9-10. [ Links ]

Maria Helena Cruz Pistori – Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo – PUC-SP, São Paulo, São Paulo; Brasil. Editora Associada de Bakhtiniana. Revista de Estudos do Discurso; mhcpist@uol.com.br.

Tags: AMERICO Ekaterina V (Trad), Bakhtiniana (B-RED), Bakhtiniana (Btr), Círculo de Bakhtin, Editora 34, Filosofia da linguagem, GRILLO Sheila (Int), GRILLO Sheila (Trad), Marxismo, Marxismo e Filosofia da linguagem, PISTORI Maria Helena C (Res), VOLÓCHINOV Valentín (Aut)

Proper Names: A Millian Account – PREDELLI (M)

1 de abril de 2018

PREDELLI, S.. Proper Names: A Millian Account. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. ix+165p. Resenha de: LO GUERCIO, Nicolás. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.41 n.2 Apr./June 2018.

On his most recent book, Proper Names: A Millian Account (2017, OUP p. 165), Stefano Predelli pursues a defense of the traditional Millian thesis that proper names are non-indexical, rigid devices of direct reference. As he announces at the introduction, his strategy is not to argue directly in favor of the view but to provide a cogent presentation thereof, delimit its scope, dispel its most common misinterpretations and find its place into a wider picture concerning extra-semantic regularities and language use, especially with regard to the role played by a name’s origin and its articulation. The book focuses mainly in ‘referential’ uses of proper names, that is, bare occurrences of proper names in argument position, although considerable attention is paid to predicative uses in some of the last chapters (negative existentials and indirect reports are left aside). The final chapter, somewhat isolated from the previous ones, discusses several subtleties with regard to the occurrences of proper names within works of fiction and presents a novel theory concerning fictional names.

In the first chapters Predelli lays the ground for the rest of the book. Chapter 1 (Preliminaries) covers familiar ground. The author presents a simple indexical intensional language along kaplanian lines, which allows him to perspicuously distinguish between definite descriptions, indexicals and proper names in terms of their behaviour with respect to contexts and points of evaluation (Kaplan’s circumstances of evaluation). There we find a characterization of names as non-indexical, rigid terms of direct reference. In other words, proper names are characterized as endowed with a constant character (a character which, unlike that of indexicals, outputs the same intension at every context) and a constant intension (an intension which, unlike that of definite descriptions, outputs the same extension at every point of evaluation), together with the idea that sentences containing proper names express singular propositions.

The next two chapters (2 and 3) have two main aims: i) to depict a pre-semantic picture about how to represent uses of expressions, specially proper names and ii) to place the account within a wider view concerning the way in which uses of expressions impart information by virtue of extra-semantic regularities. As for the former, Predelli introduces the idea of an expression, namely a term endowed with a syntactic category, a phonological and/or orthographical articulation, and a character, viz. a certain truth conditional contribution. He characterizes articulations as abstract types which can be exemplified by tokens of them, although tokening an articulation does not suffice for bringing up an expression. In order to legitimately represent a token of an articulation as a use of an expression (represented as an expression-context pair, <e, c>) the former has to take place in an appropriate setting, which includes the choice of language, the intentions of the speaker, the expectations of the audience and so on. Thus, a single token of a given articulation can be represented in different ways, but it is only once you choose to represent it as a use of a specific expression (hence as endowed with specific semantic features -e.g. a given character) that semantic evaluation comes into the picture.

To complete his view on the pre-semantics of proper names Predelli presents the basics of what he denominates launching episodes. In typical cases (‘smooth’ cases) a launching episode involves a launching device (namely an articulation), a launching target and launcher with certain intentions, e.g. the intention to create a new word instead of conforming to prior usage. In addition, certain social facts might be required to hold (although not necessarily), like the launcher being in a position of authority and such. Once a launching has taken place in which a certain articulation is conventionally associated with an individual, there can be replicating episodes, i.e. tokens which defer to the original launching episode involving that very articulation as the source from which they inherit their semantic features. The way a given token of an articulation is represented depends on the launching episode on which it rests. Importantly, when a token is appropriately connected with a certain launching episode, it is not merely a token of an articulation but a token of an expression, endowed with a certain syntactic category and character. The important thing for the Millian is then that ‘the inner mechanisms of a replicating episode play a clearly pre-semantic role, namely that of justifying the representation of a certain episode of speaking in terms of an expression-context pair.’ (Predelli 2017, p. 60) (my emphasis)

With regard to ii) Predelli elaborates on a distinction which will be central for the rest of the book, between the evaluation of an expression at a context and the use of an expression in a context. A semantic theory, he claims, should be able to evaluate a given expression w.r.t contexts in which such expression has not been used, as it should become clear by paying attention to sentences like ‘Nobody is speaking’. In light of this, he claims that we must distinguish between the class of all contexts, which is relevant for drawing conclusions about character, and the restricted class of contexts of use, which is not. To take the previous example, ‘Nobody is speaking’ is false in every context of use but, according to Predelli it would be wrong to draw the conclusion that it is false by virtue of its character since there are contexts in which such sentence is true, namely those in which no expression is used. Once this distinction has been drawn, Predelli puts forth the idea of settlement:

An expression e settles the sentence S iff true_c(S) for all c ∈ CU(e)¹.

which is employed later in the book to account for several phenomena allegedly problematic for Millianism. The general idea is that some contents are neither encoded in the character nor conveyed by means of traditional pragmatic mechanisms (e.g. conversational implicatures) but imparted by virtue of extra-semantic regularities concerning various features of an expressions’ type of use, articulation, origin, etc.

Unsurprisingly, uses of proper names have results of settlement: as with any other expression, on top of encoding a certain truth conditional contribution a use of a proper name imparts some information by virtue of extra-semantic regularities pertaining to its use. By way of illustration: a use of the name ‘Pablo’ (namely the tokening of an articulation as an expression endowed with a certain character, the constant function which outputs Pablo at every context) for example, settles ‘Pablo bears ‘Pablo’’, i.e. for every c ∈ CU(Pablo) it is true at c that Pablo bears ‘Pablo’. Allegedly, by appealing to these kind of considerations one is able to account for traditional problems regarding cognitive value, like the difference between ‘I am Pablo’ and ‘Pablo is Pablo’. On his view, both sentences encode identical truth conditional contents, but uses of the former additionally impart the information that the agent of the context bears ‘Pablo’, while uses of the latter do not. Mutatis Mutandis for ‘Cicero is Cicero’ and ‘Cicero is Tully’: while they both encode the same truth conditional content, uses of the latter impart the information that the bearer of ‘Cicero’ is also a bearer of ‘Tully’, while uses of the former do not. This encourages Predelli to conclude that

…appeals to cognitive value as the starting point for semantic inquiry are, at best, foolhardy. More fundamentally reckless is the attitude according to which cognitive value is primarily a property of expressions, rather than of uses and users-an attitude that makes it almost inevitable to look for character and/or content-based peculiarities behind the intuitive discrepancy between, say, ‘Cicero is Cicero’ and ‘Cicero is Tully’. (Predelli 2017, p. 68)

Now, besides regularities involving the use of expressions, the author highlights several social conventions surrounding the articulations allowed in authorized launching episodes, e.g. the convention that /Alice/ is an articulation reserved for women. Predelli calls the class of these conventions an onomastic, and claims that uses of proper names can be said to impart information w.r.t. a given onomastic in force. In other words, a use of the proper name ‘Alice’ (that we represent <Alice, c>) settles^o ‘Alice is a woman’, that is, for every c ∈ CU (Alice) (the contexts of use consistent with the onomastic o), ‘Alice is a woman’ is true at c. Predelli pushes the strategy even further: in addition to regularities of use, like the fact that whenever a name is used a given articulation is tokened, and regularities pertaining to onomastics, like the fact that a certain name it is typically reserved for women, there is encyclopaedic knowledge concerning the circumstances of some launchings which might become more or less widespread among a community. Thus, phenomena which, some have argued, ought to be explained by resorting to the cognitive import of proper names, like the non-triviality of a sentence like ‘Hesperus is Phosphorus’, can be accounted for within this framework as information imparted by their uses. More specifically, the information that the evening star is the morning star is imparted^e by uses of ‘Hesperus is Phosphorus’ (i.e. ‘the evening star is the morning star’ is true for every c ∈ CU^e(Hesperus is Phosphorus) -the class of contexts of use consistent with the encyclopaedic knowledge surrounding those names which is widespread within a community), but it is not imparted^e by uses of ‘Hesperus is Hesperus’.

This extension of the notion of settlement in order to account for intuitions concerning cognitive value is perhaps one of the most controversial points on Predelli’s account. On the one hand, the author places settlement results within the field of pre-semantics, unlike other non-semantic mechanisms as conversational implicatures, which arguably take place at a pos-semantic level (see Predelli 2017, p. 69). However, settlement^o and settlement^e results seem to be a pos-semantic business. To be sure, results of settlement are unavoidable: once you decide for a representation of a token of /Alice/ as a use of the name ‘Alice’ -<Alice, c>- (e.g. after a use of the sentence ‘Alice prunes in June’) impartation effects like ‘a proper name is being employed’ and ‘Alice bears ‘Alice’’ follow straightforwardly, in consonance with its alleged pre-semantic nature. By contrast, even after you choose to represent a token of /Alice/ in ‘Alice prunes in June’ as a use of the proper name ‘Alice’ you can either infer that ‘Alice is female’ or that the use is not consistent with the onomastic in force in the community. Put differently, ‘Alice bears ‘Alice’’ follows straightforwardly from the fact that the proper name ‘Alice’ was used and from that fact alone, while ‘Alice is female’ seems to be just something you are allowed to infer in virtue of the fact that ‘Alice’ was used plus some of your background beliefs or knowledge, such as the defeasibly justified belief that the launching of the name conformed to a given onomastic. The point is even stronger when it comes to encyclopaedic knowledge. The encyclopaedic information surrounding the launching of ‘Hesperus’ does not seem to be something imparted by the use of the name by virtue of some of its pre-semantic features, but just general knowledge which comes to mind whenever the name is used. Of course one has the right to call all these different ways of conveying information settlement or impartation, but it seems plausible that standard settlement results work quite differently from settlement^o and settlement^e ones: the former are plausibly pre-semantic while the latter are arguably not. If this is correct, despite appearances Predelli does not provides a uniform account for results concerning cognitive value of proper names.

Another aim of the book is to dispel some very common but (according to Predelli) erroneous interpretations of Millianism. One of them is the view that for Millians names are arbitrary and unstructured ‘tags’. On Predelli’s view, this is just a misconception: a Millian should be ready to admit that some names like ‘Goldman’ or ‘Outline of a theory of truth’ are both complex and motivated; as long as their truth conditional idleness is acknowledged, Millianism is perfectly consistent with these facts. Another common view is that according to Millianism co-referential names are synonymous. By contrast, Predelli argues that Millianism is consistent with a name’s meaning reaching beyond its truth conditional import (Chapter 5). To show this the author picks up on previous work (see ^{Meaning Without truth, OUP 2013}) in order to distinguish both impartation and character from a third dimension of meaning, the bias. In a nutshell, the bias is just genuinely non-indexed settlement: a kind of conventional restriction on appropriate contexts of use which is not constrained to this or that type of use (face-to-face conversation, answer machines, etc.) In light of this, the bias of an expression differs from imparted contents in that it is a part of conventional meaning, but it also differs from character in that it is a non truth conditional dimension of meaning.

With regard to this point, one might wonder whether the ‘genuinely non-indexed settlement’ definition offered by Predelli really captures the difference between impartation and bias. After all, some allegedly imparted contents are arguably settled for every context of use, e.g. ‘There exist, existed or will exist intentional agents’. This point is important because it is supposed to mark the distinction between the pre-semantic level (settlement) and the semantic (although non truth conditional) one. How do we differentiate contents presumably imparted in every context of use by virtue of extra-semantic regularities pertaining to their use from contents presumably imparted in every context of use by virtue of conventional meaning?

Be that as it may, once Predelli’s view about bias is assumed it is clear that co-referential names might have different bias, hence fail to be synonymous. For example, one can imagine a name ‘Alice’ and a nickname ‘Ally’ which co-refer, though appropriate uses of the latter are conventionally constrained to informal contexts (or contexts in which the speaker is familiar with the audience) while appropriate uses of the former are not.

In chapters (6 and 7) Predelli discusses the repercussions for Millianism of some hypothesis concerning proper names which have received much discussion in recent literature. Specifically, he examines the determiner hypothesis, according to which proper names in argument position are syntactically flanked by a determiner, and the predicate hypothesis, which maintains in addition that names are predicates (thus they express a non-constant intension). He finds both consistent with the main Millian tenets.

Concerning the former, the author argues that the Millian can afford it just by making some non-problematic assumptions: she just has to understand the proper name as encoding a non-indexical character and a constant intension with a singleton as its value {{Alice}_c = Alice}, while analyzing the determiner as an expletive element. Concerning the latter, Predelli claims that contrary to what supporters of the predicate hypothesis assume, allegedly predicative uses of proper names (e.g. Burge-like examples like ‘Some Alice are crazy, some are sane’) do not contain occurrences of proper names in the sense adopted in the book but tokens of name-like articulations unrelated to any launching episode from which to inherit any semantic feature. Put differently, they ought not be represented as <‘Alice’, c>, hence they do not express full-fledged sentences appropriate for truth conditional conclusions. If this is correct, appeals to uniformity by defenders of the predicate hypothesis are biased against Millianism.

Another typical argument put forward (in this case by nominal descriptivists) against Millianism resorts to the trifling or trivial character of sentences like ‘Socrates is called /Socrates/’. Predelli claims that he is able to provide a non-semantic explanation consistent with millian commitments: a use of ‘Socrates is called /Socrates/’ involves a tokening of the articulation /Socrates/, moreover, it involves a use of that articulation as a specific name (a use representable as <‘Socrates’, c>, where Socrates = <NAME, /Socrates/, {Socrates}>); as a result the sentence is settled, that is, it is true for every c ∈ CU(Socrates is /Socrates/), which is what explains its apparent triviality. An additional consideration reinforces the point: in Predelli’s account the same broad mechanism concerning information imparted by use-regularities explains the trifling character of ‘Socrates is called ‘Socrates’’ and that of ‘Horses are called /Horses/’, while nominal descriptivists need to somehow differentiate the two cases (the explanation for the former is said to be semantic while the explanation for the latter is not).

Predelli’s rendition of the disputed sentence as ‘Socrates is called /Socrates/’ is not uncontroversial, though. Some philosophers have argued that ‘Socrates is called /Socrates/’ and ‘Socrates is called Socrates’ are both grammatical and mean different things (see for example ^{Fara 2011}. See also ^{Matushansky (2008}), who presents syntactic evidence that the some constructions involving ‘called’ include a small-clause in which ‘Socrates’ is not quoted but it enters the syntax as a predicate). The former means that people use /Socrates/ to address Socrates or to refer to him. The latter, however, attributes to Socrates a property, that of having ‘Socrates’ as a name (a property which he might have even though he was never addressed by means of the articulation /Socrates/). It is arguably the latter interpretation the one that triggers the intuition of triviality, not the former: it is perfectly possible that no one ever addressed Socrates by means of /Socrates/. If this were correct, it becomes unclear whether Predelli’s response strategy works: although one could argue that both ‘Socrates is called /Socrates/’ and ‘Socrates is called Socrates’ are true in every context of use, it is not clear whether the latter is true by virtue of its character -it depends on what you think about the character of the predicate Socrates.

The last Chapter is devoted to occurrences of names in works of fiction, myths, literary criticism, etc. Predelli advocates the No Name Hypothesis, according to which occurrences of names within works of fiction are not, properly speaking, occurrences of proper names; they are occurrences of mere name-like articulations in a setting which precludes their being full-fledge expressions apt for semantic representation (a view that applies to the sentences which contain them too, for obvious reasons). In other words, they are merely fictional names. As a consequence, they encode no content, and only fictionally impart some information (which is nevertheless available to us) like the content that a name-like articulation is being tokened.

To Sum up: Proper Names: A Millian Account presents a novel and original defense of Millianism which is very welcomed in light of the recent re-emergence of descriptivism. In addition to developing a coherent and comprehensive presentation of Millianism, the book further motivates the view by framing it into a bigger picture concerning language use, it makes efforts toward clarifying its scope and limits and it provides novel responses to many arguments recently put forward in the literature on proper names. Despite its many controversial claims, it undoubtedly makes a great deal in moving the debate forward. It is a highly recommended read for anyone with an interest in semantics and philosophy of language and a mandatory one for anyone working on proper names.

References

PREDELLI, S. Meaning Without Truth, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. [ Links ]

FARA, D. G. “You can call me ‘stupid’,… just don’t call me stupid”. Analysis, 71(3), 2011: 492-501. [ Links ]

MATUSHANSKY, O. “On the linguistic complexity of proper names.” Linguistics and philosophy 31(5), 2008: 573-627. [ Links ]

^Notas

¹Since every sentence which is true by virtue of character is also settled, Predelli introduces the notion of mere settlement, which applies only to sentences which are not true by virtue of character alone.

Nicolás Lo Guercio –Universidad de Buenos Aires – CONICET, Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas – SADAF, Bulnes 642, CP. C1176ABL, C.A.B.A Argentina. E-mail: nicolasloguercio@gmail.com

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Tags: Discurso direto, Filosofia da linguagem, LO GUERCIO Nicolás (Res), Manuscrito (Ma), Nomes próprios, Oxford University Press (E), PREDELLI Stefano (Aut), Proper Names: A Millian Account (T), Semântica

Reference and Representation in Thought and Language – DE PONTE; KORTA (M)

1 de abril de 2018

DE PONTE, Maria; KORTA, Kepa. Reference and Representation in Thought and Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. 304 pagesp. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.41 n.2 Apr./June 2018.

This book explores many different issues and aspects of the various ways by which we talk, think and represent the world. On the side of language, philosophers and linguists offer new insights on proper names, descriptions, indexicals and anaphora which will interest anyone working on semantics, especially in the direct reference framework. On the side of thought, the book contains chapters on the representation of time, cognitive dynamics, selfhood, and on de se attitudes. Mediating between them is a chapter on salience, a now much discussed notion that concerns both language and thought. In what follows, I present the central elements of each chapter as succinctly as possible, commenting briefly on them when I see fit.

The first two chapters deal with the prototypical referring expressions, i.e., proper names. In “Names, predicates, and the object-property distinction”, Genoveva Martí takes issue with predicativism¹. Roughly, predicativists hold that the semantics of names do not differ essentially from that of common nouns like ‘horse’ or ‘refrigerator’. Just like those nouns, names express a property, namely, the property of bearing the name. For Martí, however, predicativism is wrong at a fundamental level: it fails to capture how language expresses the basic metaphysical distinction between objects and properties. The grammatical subject-predicate distinction is not enough. Descriptions in subject position can single out objects all right, but they do so by appealing to their properties. Only truly referring names can abstract objects from their attributes. As she puts it, names are devices for expressing “the separation of the object from its properties – from all of its properties – that is required to distinguish the object, the substance, from its attributes” (p. 16). Predicativism does not give us that.

Martí’s chapter discusses some of the central aspects of direct reference in an engaging manner, and it offers us plenty to discuss despite its short length. One thing needs clarification, though. She appears to conflate the notion of an object (or substance) with that of a substratum (or bare particular). In the passage quoted above, for example, she seems to think that the notion of an object is that of a thing abstracted from all its properties. But this is not, strictly speaking, the notion of an object, but of a substratum. If this is right, then the underlying metaphysics referential semantics would capture is that of substratum-property distinction. But I doubt this is correct. It is prima facie reasonable to be a referentialist and a bundle theorist or a hylomorphist, and both views eschew substrata. But if an object is not something abstracted from all its properties, it is not obvious why predicativists should feel threatened. Her other objection, that predicativism presupposes that names are referential devices (pp. 18-19), however, is much more compelling.

Eros Corazza, in his rich contribution “Proper names: gender, context-sensitivity, and conversational implicatures”, discusses how names can systematically convey more information than merely their semantic content, and how that information is exploited by anaphoric reference. All this without abandoning Millianism, because this information is non-semantic: it is extrinsic or stereotypical, and hence not part of truth-conditional content. For example, the semantic content of ‘Sue’ is just an individual, but the name also imparts the information that its referent is female. That information, however, is cancellable, as illustrated by Johnny Cash’s song A Boy Named “Sue”: Sue’s dubious father does not violate any grammatical or semantic rules by naming him so. Thus, stereotypical information may be allocated in “the category of [Gricean] generalized conversational implicatures” (p. 28). We often exploit stereotypical information in anaphoric reference, as when we say ‘Sue said she isn’t coming today’, even if we are unsure of Sue’s gender. Stereotypical information, then, provides us with default interpretations in anaphoric reference. Corazza also discusses the context-sensitivity of gender-silent names like ‘Chris’ and ‘Kim’, as well as other relevant issues often neglected in philosophy of language. In sum, the chapter is an example of how rich and resourceful – and not the barren landscape oftentimes depicted by its opponents – Millianism can be.

The next three chapters focus on indexicals. As the editors say, “they offer key insights on self-knowledge, action, consciousness, subjectivity, and so on. Understanding them is essential for understanding both reference and representation” (p. 5). In “Indexicals and undexicals”, John Perry offers a new account of good old indexicals like ‘today’ and ‘tomorrow’. In short, Perry analyzes what he calls undexical uses of these expressions. An undexical use occurs when the input for the arguments of the relevant expression does not come from the Kaplanian context (the 4-tuple of agent, time, location and world), but rather from a different source. Consider:

(1) Whenever we are in Ireland, the local bars miss us.
(2) Wherever one is in Ireland, the local bars are friendly.
(3) I’m going to be in Cushendale next week. The local bar is very friendly.

In (1), the input location for ‘local’ comes from the context of the utterance, and so ‘local’ functions indexically. In (2), the input is provided by the quantifier ‘wherever’, and so ‘local’ functions like a bound variable. In (3), the antecedent sentence provides the relvant location for ‘local’, and so it is used anaphorically. Thus, ‘local’ is used undexically in (2) and (3). Perry argues that the same phenomenon occurs with other indexicals like ‘past’ and ‘tomorrow’: when their inputs are supplied by the context, they function indexically; when not, they function undexically, as in ‘Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today’ (this example is discussed at length). Also, he points out that expressions have a default indexical use when they are normally used indexically rather than undexically (e.g. ‘today’). In the final part of the chapter, Perry discusses the cognitive advantages of undexical uses and how they are based on default indexical uses. He also introduces the concepts of roles and of role linking, and claims that intelligent life is based on them (p. 53). Unfortunately, his discussion is rather brief for too deep an issue; it would definitely benefit from a longer treatment elsewhere.

Kent Bach’s “Reference, intention, and context: Do demonstratives really refer?” defends the unorthodox view that demonstratives (e.g. ‘this’ and ‘that’) do not have semantic reference, and hence are not genuine context-sensitive expressions. For Bach, there is a fundamental difference between demonstratives and automatic indexicals like ‘I’ or ‘today’. Automatic indexicals are genuinely context-sensitive and semantically refer because their meanings suffice to determine reference as a function of context. They refer on their own, so to speak. Demonstratives do not. Their meanings are insufficient to determine reference; at most, they restrict what can be literally referred to. For instance, the meaning of ‘that dog’ restricts reference to dogs, but it cannot determine a particular dog by itself. In Bach’s terms, we refer by an expression when the expression itself is able to refer; we refer with an expression when we use it merely as an aid to reference. Because demonstratives do not have semantic reference, we only refer with them, not by them. The leading alternative to this picture is semantic intentionalism. Basically, semantic intentionalism holds that the meanings of demonstratives are sensitive to speaker intentions, and that these intentions make demonstratives semantically refer². However, Bach argues, speakers only intend to refer with a demonstrative; they do not also intend for the object to be the semantic value of the demonstrative. The first intention has no semantic relevance, and thus cannot help intentionalism; the latter would make it work, but it is simply not part of the mechanics of demonstrative reference.

Bach’s thesis has serious implications for standard truth-conditional semantics, for demonstratives would not make any determinate contribution to semantic content. He suggests that the same problem plagues “other putative context-sensitive expressions and constructions, such as gradable adjectives, epistemic modals, predicates of personal taste, relational nouns, genitive phrases, noun-noun pairs, and quantifier phrases” (p. 59). His argument, then, has far-reaching consequences for the debate on contextualism. I wonder, however, whether it affects the so-called Bare-Bones theory of demonstratives³. Basically, it holds that the context provides objects, not intentions, as inputs for demonstratives. Bare-Bones semantics, then, is intention-free, both in context and in character. Hence, it is not obvious that Bach’s argument applies to it as well.

In “Semantic complexity”, Maite Ezcurdia offers an insightful discussion of what distinguishes referring from quantificational noun phrases. The standard distinguishing criterion is that referring expressions are rigid by their nature, whereas quantificational expressions are not. Stephen Neale adds another criterion: referring expressions must also be semantically unstructured. This is what Ezcurdia calls the “noun phrase thesis” (NPT). For NPT, noun phrases are either semantically unstructured rigidly referring expressions or semantically structured restricted quantifiers. But what about complex demonstratives (e.g. ‘that man in the corner’)? They seem to refer, but their form strongly resembles that of descriptions. Are they referring or quantificational? For Neale, they are referring. Yet, if NPT is true, they must be semantically unstructured, and hence the nominals contained in them are semantically otiose. For Ezcurdia, however, this is implausible. She argues that we have no good reasons to hold NPT, and that complex demonstratives can be both referring and semantically complex. She claims that we must distinguish two kinds of semantic complexity: one, exhibited by quantificational expressions, shows up in the truth-conditions; the other, exhibited by complex demonstratives, stays only at the level of linguistic meaning. These two kinds of complexity are related to the two semantic roles nominals can play in noun phrases: in quantificational phrases, their role is predicative, i.e., they restrict the range of the quantifier; in referring phrases, their role is individuative, i.e., they determine the extension of an expression for further predication. Hence, the nominals contained in complex demonstratives are not semantically otiose; they just have a different semantic function.

Ezcurdia’s chapter is rich, well-argued and generous to Neale’s thesis. The only thing I want to point out is that the difference between predicative and individuate roles for nominals could have been spelled out in a bit more detail. Ezcurdia claims that nominals in complex demonstratives are not predicative because “they are not saying something about an object that an expression […] has previously selected. Rather they aid in the selection of the object itself […]” (p. 81). But the nominals in a description in subject position seem to be doing this as well. In other terms, they too select an object so that the grammatical predicate can ‘say something about’ it; they just do it by a different semantic mechanism. In a sense, then, they are also individuative. Thus, the notion of ‘not saying something about a previously selected object’ seems too general to distinguish the individuative role from the predicative role.

In the chapter “Donnellan’s misdescriptions and loose talk” Carlo Penco argues against “the standard view” of definite misdescriptions. According to this view, we cannot state something true in a referential use of a definite description if the description fails to fit; whatever truth is conveyed is conveyed by implicature. Penco, however, thinks this is mistaken: we can indeed state a truth even if nothing fits the description. He calls this thesis “Donnellan’s intentional strong claim” (DISC), and offers a defense of it. Donnellan’s insight, according to Penco, is that referential uses involve a type of social intention, an “intention to use a descriptive content fit for the context of utterance” (p. 112). This intention cannot be divorced from what speakers should expect their audience to understand in the relevant context. And, crucially, this intention is part of what is said, of what is stated, and not merely of what is implicated. Hence, Penco claims, we can already find in Donnellan a theory of loose talk, as discussed by ^{Sperber and Wilson (1986)}, and a rejection of the Gricean “two-stage” analysis according to which we state a falsity and implicate a truth. As Penco notes, this reading makes Donnellan a precursor of contextualist ideas. Based on Donnellan’s isights, Penco argues that “what is said by a referential description depends on the grade of looseness required by the context” (p. 119), and that “looseness is motivated by the pursuit of relevance” (p. 115). All in all, it does not matter whether Penco’s reading of Donnellan is accurate or not; his proposal is original and interesting in its own right and deserves further discussion.

The linguist Yan Huang is the author of the next contribution, entitled “Pre-semantic pragmatic enrichment: The case of long distance reflexivization”. Consider this sentence:

(4) *John₁said that Bill loved himself1

In English, (4) is ungrammatical: the pronoun cannot be bound by ‘John’. However, in languages such as Japanese, Chinese and modern Greek, for example, this long-distance binding is allowed. That is, reflexives can be systematically bound outside their local syntactic domains. Marshalling evidence from a variety of languages, Huang explains the phenomenon of long-distance reflexivization with his version of the neo-Gricean pragmatic theory of anaphora. In broad strokes, he argues that long-distance binding is “pragmatically enriched for reference pre-semantically” (p. 126), and thus helps determining what is said.

In “The interplay of recipient design and salience in shaping speaker’s utterance”, Istvan Kecskes employs his sociocognitive approach (SCA) to account for the mechanisms of speaker’s utterance production. Very roughly, SCA aims to integrate and explain the relation between the individual traits (prior experience; salience; egocentrism; attention) and the social traits (actual situational experience; relevance; cooperation; intention) that are brought to bear in communication exchanges. More precisely, Kecskes wants to show how the interaction between subconscious salience and recipient design – the model a speaker builds of the hearer’s relevant knowledge in the context – shape speakers’ production, and why “speaker-hearer rationality should include not only cooperation but egocentrism as well” (p. 161). The concept of salience has recently drawn a lot of attention in various debates – including in the debate about indexicals and demonstratives -, and Kecskes makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of it.

In the following chapter, “New thoughts about old facts”, María de Ponte and Kepa Korta point out what they take to be some mistakes in Arthur Prior’s argument against B-theories of time (i.e. theories holding that pastness, presentness and futurity are not objective features of reality). The gist of Prior’s argument – and of many others like it – is that B-theories offer “no grounds for tensed thoughts and tensed emotions” (p. 164). Prior asks us to consider which of the following sentences we would use after a root canal operation:

(5) Thank goodness the root canal is over [now].
(6) Thank goodness the date of the conclusion of the root canal is Friday, June, 1954.
(7) Thank goodness the conclusion of the root canal is contemporaneous with this utterance.

For him, only (5) is adequate. Why? Because only the proposition expressed by (5) involves the property of being over (an A-property). Thus, to make sense of why we say (5), and not (6) or (7), we must count A-properties as objective features of reality. In short, Ponte and Korta read Prior’s argument as being committed to three theses:

i. Utterances (5)-(7) express different propositions.
ii.Utterances (5)-(7) are associated with different thoughts.
iii.The proposition related to utterance (5) and its associated thought require the existence of an A-property of events (p.170).

Ponte and Korta partly agree with (ii), but reject (i) and (iii). First, being referentialists, they claim that sentences (5)-(7) express the same proposition. Nevertheless, the way in which (5)-(7) express this proposition is different. As they put it, these sentences “are associated with different motivating thoughts (some of them A-thoughts, others B-thoughts) and present different cognitive routes for their respective audiences” (p. 172). They have different cognitive significance, but the same referential content. This is why they can express different thoughts. Second, Ponte and Korta argue that the move from the fact that we have tensed thoughts and emotions to the reality of tensed properties is unjustified and superfluous. In sum, their chapter is an attempt to clarify Prior’s argument and undermine its supposed ontological import by showing how the puzzling phenomenon can be explained by a more sophisticated epistemic and semantic theory. In fact, it is hard to see how linguistic and epistemic considerations can reveal something about the nature of time. Ponte and Korta’s thorough effort to untangle these issues is a welcome antidote to this sort of idea.

In “Cognitive dynamics”, François Recanati develops and clarifies several aspects of his influential theory of mental files. In broad strokes, Recanati’s view is that mental files can play some of the roles of Fregean senses: they determine reference, they explain cognitive significance, and they enable coreference de jure. They determine reference relationally, i.e., in virtue of standing in some relation to the file’s reference, and not satisfactionally. This allows them to contain misinformation and still refer to the same thing. The different cognitive significance of ‘Hesperus is Hesperus’ and ‘Hesperus is Phosphorus’ is explained by the deployment of different files: in the first case, the subject deploys the same file twice, while in the second two distinct but coreferring files are deployed. Finally, coreference de jure is enabled when the subject deploys the same file in a chain of reasoning: it explains why the inference from ‘Hesperus is bright’ and ‘Hesperus is a star’ to ‘Hesperus is a bright star’ is warranted and rational. ^{Onofri (2015}) and ^{Ninan (2015}), however, object that mental files cannot explain cognitive significance and enable coreference the jure simultaneously. Recanati stands by his position and thoroughly addresses their worries.

The last two chapters tackle the issue of self-representation. In “The property theory and de se attitudes”, Wayne Davis argues against the so-called property theory of de se thoughts, originally proposed by Lewis and Chisholm, and recently advocated by Neil Feit⁴. The problem this theory attempts to solve is the following. An amnesiac Lingens can have the belief that he himself is lost while not believing that Lingens is lost. We would express this unfortunate situation with these sentences:

(8) Lingens believes that he himself is lost
(9) Lingens believes that Lingens is lost

The problem is that, if attitudes are taken to be dyadic relations between subjects and propositions, and propositions are taken to be singular propositions or sets of possible worlds, then both sentences express the same relation to the same proposition. The special character of the de se attitude is missing. To solve this, the property theory denies that believing is a propositional attitude; rather, believing is seen as self-ascribing a property. Davis, however, thinks this move fails to yield a satisfactory account of attitudes, and offers his own account. First, he puts forth ten objections against the property theory. Second, he argues that we should take attitudes to be relations to conceptual propositions, i.e., entities made up of concepts, and not to objectual propositions, i.e., singular propositions or sets of possible worlds. In addition, he claims that part of what made the problem of de se attitudes “seem insoluble […] was the erroneous Fregean assumption that ‘conceptual’ elements must be descriptive” (p; 214). For Davis, the missing element in the explanation is a non-descriptive indexical self-concept. Thus, de se attitudes differ from other attitudes precisely because they are attitudes towards a conceptual proposition having an indexical self-concept as constituent.

In the last chapter, entitled “Selfhood as self-representation”, Kenneth Taylor proposes a middle ground between Cartesian and eliminativist/fictionalist accounts of the self. Contrary to Cartesians, he rejects the existence of a metaphysical sui generis entity that is supposed to be the self (something akin to a thinking substance); contrary to eliminativists/fictionalists, he believes that “there really and truly are beings organized as selves” (p. 225-6). For Taylor, selves are just beings psychically arranged in such a way that they bear the property of selfhood. And bearing selfhood consists in having the very special capacity to have self-representations. Taylor’s central idea is that self-representations are distinct from other representations not because of what they represent, but because of how they represent it. Thus, for Taylor, to bear selfhood is not to be in possession of some mysterious inner entity or to have a “mental CEO” that constitutes the content of self-representations. It is rather to have “the capacity to deploy […] a de se device of explicit coreference” (p. 224, fn. 1). Taylor frames his position in a broader context, discussing Locke’s, Hume’s and Kant’s views on the matter.

The editors of Reference and Representation in Thought and Language can only be commended for taking the pain to organize this volume. Its major merit is, to me, the great diversity of the themes discussed in the chapters. The selection admirably shows how issues surrounding reference go well beyond traditional topics in semantics, and how they intersect (or fail to intersect) with deep philosophical problems in metaphysics and in the philosophy of mind. And when it comes to traditional problems in semantics, the chapters offer novel solutions and often discuss underexplored aspects of our referential devices in an engaging and sophisticated manner. Anyone working on how language and thought relate to the world will surely enjoy this book.

Referências

CAPLAN, B. 2003. “Putting Things in Contexts.” Philosophical Review 112 (2): 191-214. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-112-2-191. [ Links ]

FARA, D. G. 2015. “Names Are Predicates.” Philosophical Review 124 (1): 59-117. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-2812660. [ Links ]

FEIT, NEIL. 2008. Belief about the Self: A Defense of the Property Theory of Content. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press. [ Links ]

KING, JEFFREY C. 2014. “Speaker Intentions in Context: Speaker Intentions in Context.” Noûs 48 (2): 219-37. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0068.2012.00857.x. [ Links ]

NINAN, DILIP. 2015. “On Recanati’s Mental Files.” Inquiry 58 (4): 368-77. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2014.883751. [ Links ]

ONOFRI, ANDREA. 2015. “Mental Files and Rational Inferences.” Inquiry 58 (4): 378-92. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2014.883748. [ Links ]

PONTE, MARÍA DE, and KEPA KORTA, eds. 2017. Reference and Representation in Thought and Language. First edition. Oxford Linguistics. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. [ Links ]

PREDELLI, STEFANO. 2012. “Bare-Boned Demonstratives.” Journal of Philosophical Logic 41 (3): 547-62. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10992-011-9183-5. [ Links ]

SPERBER, DAN, and DEIRDRE WILSON. 2001. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. 2nd ed. Oxford ; Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. [ Links ]

STOKKE, A. 2010. “Intention-Sensitive Semantics.” Synthese 175 (3): 383-404. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-009-9537-5. [ Links ]

Notas

¹ ^{Fara (2015)} is the most worked out defense of predicativism to date.

²Cf. ^{Stokke (2010)}, ^{King (2014)}.

³Cf. Caplan (2002) and ^{Predelli (2012)}.

⁴E.g.: ^{Feit (2008)}.

⁵Article info CDD: 401

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Tags: DE PONTE Maria (Aut), Discurso direto, Filosofia da linguagem, Filosofia da mente, KORTA Kepa (Aut), Manuscrito (Ma), Oxford University Press (E), Reference and Representation in Thought and Language (T), Referência, Referência direta, Representação

Philosophy of Language – SOAMES (M)

1 de janeiro de 2013

SOAMES, Scott. Philosophy of Language. [?]: Princeton University Press, 2010. 199p. Resenha de PINTO, Silvio Mota. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.36 n.1 Jan./June 2013

Attempts to summarize the achievements of the last one and half century of work and the open problems in the field of the anglo-american philosophy of language there have been various. And yet to my knowledge none have so sharply pointed out the main contributions of both the pioneering work in the field and their follow-up as well as succeeded in diagnosing the most relevant topics of controversy as Scott Soames does in his short recent book titled Philosophy of Language. One may even disagree with certain of his views, while at the same time recognizing his penetrating diagnosis of what the most important theses are and where the deep problems lie.

The book is organized with an introduction and seven chapters, of which the first four belong to the longer first part, while the last three constitute the second part. The first part tells us about the solid ground built by the forefathers and their intellectual heirs. The second rather short part examines such polemical subjects as: a) how to conceive of propositions so that they could play an explanatory role within a theory of meaning for a natural language (NL) together with the notion of a possible state of the world (chapter five); or b) how to understand the interaction between epistemic and metaphysical modalities, particularly in Kripke’s preferred examples where we are supposed to know a priori of certain contingent propositions that they are true (chapter six); or c) how best to view the distinction between the semantics and pragmatics of NL when it comes to their respective contributions to the propositions expressed or asserted by literal uses of NL sentences (chapter seven). The first chapter examines Frege’s and Russell’s contributions to the philosophical study of language. Frege is legitimately considered to be the founder of contemporary philosophy of language by first applying the mathematical notion of a function to the semantic analysis of any scientific language. Frege’s second insight consisted in his carefully distinguishing between the sense and the reference of every relevant constituent part of a meaningful sentence, while insisting that both the sense and reference of complex expressions must be conceived as obeying their respective principles of compositionality. Given that truth-values are preserved for sentences when we apply Leibniz’s principle of substitutivity of co-referential sub-sentential expressions salva veritate, Frege took them to be their referents. The apparent violation of this principle for attributions of propositional attitudes led him to propose that within these oblique contexts expressions refer rather to the sense they normally possess in an extensional context while their new sense would correspond to a mode of presentation or way of determining the thought in question.

The problem with this proposal is well-known: it leads to a potentially infinite class of indirect higher-order senses which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to explain how this semantic hierarchy could be systematically learned. Soames discusses two alternative approaches to Frege’s proposal for accounting for the semantics of attributions of propositional attitudes (the first in terms of acquaintance with senses and the second in terms of a non-extensional that-operator on senses of sentences), only to conclude that Frege’s is more problematic than its alternatives.

Chapter one’s second part is dedicated to Russell’s work. Soames begins with the similarities and differences between Russell’s and Frege’s accounts of propositions and their constituents. Thus, both use the notion of a propositional function to account for the semantic structure of general statements. According to Frege and Russell after The Principles of Mathematics, the existential and universal quantifiers are second-level functions. Soames rightly criticizes this way of explaining the semantics of quantified statements in terms of higher level predication, which will in turn require explanation in terms of quantification, which must be analyzed away in terms of higher level predication, finally generating an explanatory circle. Soames also criticizes Russell for trying to force the semantic analysis of natural language general statements by using only unrestricted universal and existential quantifiers. Treating natural language expressions like ‘all philosophers’ or ‘most students’ as corresponding to genuine semantic constituents of their respective propositions is a more straightforward way of analyzing such English general statements.

Russell’s contention that definite descriptions are covert quantified expressions is recognized by Soames as a real insight. As already expected, he disagrees with Russell with respect to the latter’s analysis of definite descriptions in terms of unrestricted quantifiers. Better would have been to treat them as restricted quantifiers (‘the x: x authored Waverley’) and therefore to conceive them as corresponding to semantic constituents of the propositions associated with their respective sentences. However, the phenomenon of scope of an operator, applied to definite descriptions when it interacts with other operators, is mentioned as proof that Russell was right in his contention that definite descriptions are quantified expressions in disguise.

Soames levels two further criticisms of Russell’s “On denoting” semantic theory. The first is directed against Russell’s famous principle of acquaintance, which requires that the constituents of our worldly thoughts and propositions be cognitively transparent to us. When Russell applies his principle to occurrences of ordinary proper names in sentences, he is forced to hold the weird view that they are no genuine proper names, since we have no direct, infallible epistemic access to their referents. Soames’ second critique of Russell’s semantic theory concerns the latter’s argument to the effect that the expression ‘exist’ cannot play the semantic role of a first level predicate in statements like ‘Aristotle doesn’t exist’, because positive and negative existential statements involving ordinary proper names are really statements involving definite descriptions and these already contain an existential quantifier. But, as Soames correctly argues, there is no problem in conceiving such descriptive expressions as involving restricted quantifiers (‘the x: x authored The Nichomachean Ethics‘) to whose unique satisfier the propositional function x doesn’t exist applies, if the above statement is true.

Chapter two discusses Tarski’s analysis of truth and its importance for the philosophy of language. According to Soames, Tarski was led to focus on the concept of truth because he was interested in the expressive power of mathemathical theories and in the possibility of characterizing metatheoretical semantical notions in them. Truth was a central one although it was known since the Ancient Greeks that our pre-theoretical conception of the predicate ‘true’ leads to paradox. Tarski’s proposal was to abandon the pre-theoretical concept of truth in favor of an explicitly defined truth-predicate for certain well-behaved languages, which he then showed how to explicate in such a way that would avoid paradox. As to the relevance of the Tarskian notion of truth for casting light on our pre-theoretical concept of meaning, Soames remains definitely pessimistic.

In the rest of the chapter, he criticizes two later attempts to philosophically explain linguistic meaning appealing to Tarski’s truth concept: Carnap’s and Davidson’s. The semantics Carnap proposes in the 40’s aims at clarifying notions like meaning, synonymy and analyticity for all the sentences of correctly regimented scientific languages in terms of Tarskian truth and designation as well as the notion of a complete description of a possible state of the world. Among other difficulties, he rightly complains about the very poor notion of proposition that issues from Carnap’s semantics, according to which two logically equivalent sentences express the same proposition. As to Davidson’s proposal to account for meaning in NL in terms of the semantic conception of truth, Soames’ main objection concerns what he calls the problem of justifying the claim that a given Tarski-style theory that yields truth-conditions for all sentences of a certain natural language would qualify as a correct theory of meaning for that language. Since there can always be many truth theories which are both empirically and extensionally equivalent, then the claim that one of them is the correct theory for interpreting the language in question lacks a reasonable justification.

Having shown that truth-conditional semantics of the kind Davidsonians propose as well as intensional semantics of the sort Carnapians suggest are both inadequate as theories of meaning, Soames proceeds in the third chapter to review the prospects of more recent intensional semantics. Concerning the application of Kripkean possible worlds semantics and its deeper theoretical insight into the intuitive distinction between epistemic and metaphysical modalities, Soames maintains that it still would prove inadequate as a theory of meaning for NL. According to him, one illustration of this inadequacy would be the case of two different necessary and a priori sentences which would be true at every epistemically possible situation, and yet whose respective meaning would intuitively differ.

An interesting and successful application of a possible world semantics to give robust truth-conditions of counterfactuals is provided by Stalnaker and Lewis. The idea is that a sentence like “if it were the case that P, then it would be the case that Q” is true at a state of the world w if and only if Q is true at states of the world w* sufficiently similar to w and where P is also true. Here Soames carefully distinguishes between the possible world semantic account of such conditionals and their philosophical analysis in terms of the notion of causation. According to him, a possible circularity in the analysis of counterfactuals in terms of causality and of the latter in terms of counterfactuals is something that doesn’t affect the semantic account of these conditionals’ truth-conditions in terms of possible states of the world.

Soames concludes the third chapter with a discussion of Montague’s proposal of an intensional semantics for NL. Instead of using first-order logic together with more powerful logical systems in order to regiment NL, Montague proposes more direct syntactic and semantic rules for generating complex expressions from their constituents and for interpreting these constituents and their complexes in terms of extensions and intensions. One of the most surprising features of Montagovian semantics is its classifying quantifier phrases and proper names in the same semantic category, that is: both denote sets of sets (for example: ‘John’ denotes the set of all sets which include its bearer as an element; ‘every man’ denotes the set of all sets containing every man). Soames’ argument against Montague’s similar treatment of proper names and quantified phrases maintains that it is more plausible to suppose that ordinary speakers use NL proper names as expressions designating individuals. His most substantial objections to Montagovian semantics, however, are that: a) as an intensional semantics it is incapable of dealing with sentences attributing propositional attitudes to speakers and b) as a sort of truth-conditions semantics it is strictly incapable of playing the role of a theory of meaning for NL.

Chapter four discusses two more specific features of Kripkean intensional semantics, namely: its semantic treatment of ordinary proper names and natural kind terms via the notion of rigid designation and of indexicals as expressions of direct reference. According to Soames, essentialism, rigid designation and the notion of de re necessity come to play a fundamental role in this type of intensional semantics because these are the doctrines and concepts needed in order to apply quantified modal logic for the semantic analysis of a sufficiently rich language like NL. He praises Kripke’s modal argument designed to show that ordinary proper names are rigid designators whereas their associated descriptions are non-rigid. He also endorses Kripke’s argument against the view that each name has a descriptive content, whose semantic role would be that of fixing its referent. He finally agrees with the author of Naming and Necessity‘s rough externalist and communitarian account of how the reference of NL names is determined. Overall he takes the view that the position being attacked by the rigid designation semanticist makes the mistake of conceiving the role of reference determination as an aspect of the meaning of names when this is rather an aspect of their use.

In the second half of chapter four, Soames discusses Kaplan’s direct reference semantics for indexicals. The semantics of pure indexicals is taken up first. According to Kaplan, the meaning rules associated with indexicals of this sort relate contexts of use with their respective semantic content, which together with the semantic contents of the other expressions occurring in a sentence have truth-conditions with respect to a possible circumstance of evaluation. Various other features of direct reference semantics are clarified like, for example, the distinction between rigid designators and expressions of direct reference. Further complications come up when it is a matter of providing a semantic treatment of demonstratives, since the meaning rules attributed to them relate contexts of use plus subjective elements like demonstrations or speaker’s referential intentions with their respective content. Soames overall assessment of Kaplan’s logic of indexicals is mixed: although it brilliantly explains the intuitive a priori character of contingent sentences like “I am here now” and contains also invaluable insights about the meaning of pure indexicals, the logic of indexicals fails, according to him, to provide a plausible semantics for NL demonstratives.

In chapter five, Soames insists on his argument for the semantic indispensability of the notions of proposition and possible world. According to him, an independent theory of propositions is needed, although it is not to be found in Russell or Frege, who took propositions to be intrinsically representational independently of us. Rather, such a theory should be part of a naturalistic account of the representationality of propositions in terms of the intrinsic representational properties of our cognitive states. By conceiving propositions as types of mental cognitive events by means of which agents most basically and atomically predicate properties and relations of n-uples of objects and besides by conceiving these events as objects of first-person acquaintance, Soames hopes to solve the problems related to the old Platonistic account of propositions and in particular the problem of the unity of the proposition, i.e. the problem of predication.

Essentially linked to the concept of proposition is that of a possible state of the world. This is the notion required for explaining the semantic evaluation of propositions with respect to truth. According to Soames, it makes no sense to speak of the truth of a proposition unless it is relative to a possible state of the world w, which is in turn characterized as a maximal consistent set containing either structured true atomic and normally non-modal propositions or their true negations. Of course, this notion of world-state must be enriched in order to account for the semantics of modal and belief propositions; for example, a proposition like possibly there are Higgs bosoms is true at w if and only if it is true at some world-state(s) metaphysically possible from w. It must also be enriched in the sense that it must include singular propositions about objects that do not exist in the actual state of the world. Soames closes the chapter with the rather puzzling remark according to which possible world semantics in the rich sense mentioned above should not be taken as theories of the meaning for NL modal and nonmodal sentences like belief attribution sentences.

The penultimate chapter deals with the epistemic modalities and particularly with Kripke’s controversial examples of a priori contingent propositions. According to him, paradigmatic examples of such propositions are those for which the referent of a rigid designator is fixed by the conceptual complex associated with a non-rigid definite description (for example: the proposition that one meter is the length of the platinum stick kept in Paris’ Institute for weights and measurements). Soames disagrees, by arguing that knowledge of the singular proposition associated with these cases is normally a posteriori, that is: based on his own perceptual experience, the reference fixer knows of this length [one meter] that it is the length of the famous Parisian stick. Better examples of a priori contingent, according to Soames, are propositions of the form p if and only if actually p (for instance: Princeton University has a philosophy department if and only if actually Princeton University has a philosophy department), where the actuality operator applies to propositions and predicates of them the property of being true at the actual state of the world.

Philosophy of Language‘s last chapter deals with the controversial question of how to draw the boundaries between the respective provinces of NL semantics and its pragmatics. Soames discusses, more specifically, the relations between the semantic (meaning) and pragmatic (contextually determined presuppositions, conversational implicatures, etc.) contributions to the propositions literally asserted by the utterances of NL sentences (S) or expressed by uses of S in thought. Two conceptions of such relations are discussed. According to the traditional conception, the semantic content associated with concrete literal uses of S is always a complete proposition, which might be enriched as a result of pragmatic factors operating in the context of communication, whereas Soames conceives such semantic content or meaning as a set of constraints on literal uses of S, which in the case of sentences with demonstrative indexicals or incomplete descriptions doesn’t suffice to determine a proposition but requires pragmatic information shared by language users to do so.

If Soames is right, then the most adequate way to draw the line between NL semantics and pragmatics would proceed by identifying the invariant minimal content common to all literal uses of NL sentences-its semantic contribution to the proposition asserted or expressed by such uses-and the difference between asserted or expressed content and invariant semantic content belongs to the province of pragmatics.

In my opinion, the greatest merit of Soames’s book is that of finding a perfect balance between the lucid and penetrating exposition of the most relevant problems in contemporary philosophy of language with carefully thought-out solutions to them. All those who are really interested in the topic must read it.

Silvio Mota Pinto – Departamento de Filosofia. UAM – Iztapalapa. MÉXICO. pint@xanum.uam.mx

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Tags: Filosofia da linguagem, Manuscrito (Ma), Philosophy of Language (T), PINTO Silvio Mota (Res), Princeton University Press (E), SOAMES Scott (Aut)

Estudios de filosofía contemporânea – NAVIA (FU)

1 de maio de 2011

NAVIA, R. Estudios de filosofía contemporânea. Montevideo: CSIC-Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación, 2010. Resenha: MELOGNO, Pablo. Filosoﬁa Unisinos, São Leopoldo, v.12, n.2, p.187-191, mai./ago., 2011.

Estudios de filosofía contemporánea lleva por título este volumen que reúne varios trabajos del Prof. Ricardo Navia, algunos publicados previamente en revistas especializadas de Brasil y Perú, otros que se editan por primera vez. No obstante tratarse de artículos independientes, la obra presenta continuidad temática en torno a problemas de teoría del conocimiento, filosofía del lenguaje y metafilosofía, especialmente centrados en la filosofía de la segunda mitad del siglo XX.

El libro se abre con “Max Horkheimer: Una forma alternativa de hacer filosofía”, un trabajo que destaca la visión de Horkheimer como una perspectiva novedosa frente a problemas clásicos, como los asociados al relativismo y la falsación de teorías. Parte central de esta forma alternativa de hacer filosofía es el materialismo, que en el marco de la teoría crítica puede entenderse como la asunción de que el conocimiento es el producto dialéctico del condicionamiento que el desarrollo histórico de los grupos sociales ejerce sobre los sujetos que los constituyen.

Una vez que el conocimiento es una parte integrante del devenir histórico, los criterios de verdad resultan dependientes de las realidades sociales que les han dado condiciones de surgimiento, siendo por tanto indisociables de los enfrentamientos de clase específicos de cada configuración histórica. De esta manera, Horkheimer desemboca en un enfoque dialéctico, dentro del cual Navia busca identificar tanto las afinidades como las distancias respecto de la dialéctica hegeliana. En primer término, la verdad es contextual a las teorías, por lo que la dialéctica no conduce a un absoluto identificado con una forma trascendente de verdad última, por lo que, a diferencia de Hegel, Horkheimer no se propone ofrecer algo como una imagen total y acabada de la realidad. Por otro lado, la raíz hegeliana es notoria en cuanto el enfoque dialéctico implica que “la realidad es multifacética, aloja tensiones y contradicciones internas y está en permanente cambio. Todo concepto que se atiene a un solo aspecto encierra un elemento de verdad y uno de falsedad que sólo una concepción superior puede superar” (p. 20).

En otro orden, el cuestionamiento de Horkheimer al irracionalismo muestra por un lado la forma en la que filosofías como la de Bergson surgen una vez que el desarrollo de la técnica y la ciencia capitalistas había dejado de resultar un elemento de emancipación para convertirse en una fuerza opresiva, incluso para sectores de la burguesía, y por otro como en su crítica al racionalismo, la filosofía de la vida termina formulando categorías tan abstractas y atemporales como aquellas contra las que había reaccionado. En este sentido, por más que en el enfrentamiento entre racionalismo e irracionalismo el materialismo aparezca como un tercer elemento de superación dialéctica, Navia señala una definida impronta de Horkheimer a favor del propósito racionalista de fondo, y en correlativa oposición al irracionalismo.

A modo de cierre, el artículo destaca que la forma de hacer filosofía de Horkheimer permite superar algunas antinomias, como ser: todo-parte, colectivoindividuo, impotencia-omnipotencia del pensamiento, y algunos dualismos, como: conocimiento-valores, análisis externo-interno, que una vez inscriptos en la dinámica de la producción social del conocimiento se resignifican a la luz de la consideración de sus condiciones históricas de surgimiento.

Prosigue el volumen con “La historicidad de la comprensión como principio hermenéutico en Hans-George Gadamer”, un análisis del capítulo de Verdad y método que da título al artículo. Navia rastrea el derrotero de la hermenéutica de Gadamer a través de sus explicitadas influencias: Schleiermacher, Dilthey y Heidegger, para desembocar en el concepto de círculo hermenéutico. Este nos muestra por un lado que toda interpretación está sujeta a prejuicios, y por otro que en los procesos interpretativos es necesario mantener vigilancia frente a hábitos de pensamiento arbitrarios o perniciosos para la comprensión. Queda así abierto el problema de cómo delimitar los prejuicios hermenéuticamente fértiles de aquellos que no lo son.

En este marco, el texto se detiene con especial énfasis en la crítica de Gadamer al concepto ilustrado de prejuicio. La hermenéutica propone una reivindicación del valor del prejuicio frente a su depreciación por la Ilustración, en cuanto el carácter intrínsecamente histórico de la razón impide postular un conocimiento racional puro desprovisto de todo prejuicio, conforme al proyecto ilustrado; al tiempo que permite pensar al prejuicio como un elemento positivamente dotado de valor cognoscitivo. Sin embargo, Navia insiste en señalar que “[…] la crítica gadameriana contra tal valoración de la ilustración parece no tener en cuenta el contexto histórico-cultural en que esta se produjo, en el que esa actitud antiprejuiciosa cumplió un papel progresista al menos en determinado momento del desarrollo histórico del pensamiento europeo” (p. 40).

En consonancia con lo anterior, el artículo busca establecer líneas de cuestionamiento definidas a la reivindicación gadameriana del prejuicio, reconociendo sus potencialidades y sus límites. El que un prejuicio sea hermenéuticamente productivo no es de por sí un motivo para legitimarlo, del mismo modo que el valor de una institución dentro de una tradición no conlleva su justificación política, por lo que Gadamer debería proporcionar razones independientes cuando presenta la aceptación de la autoridad y las tradiciones como actos de conocimiento no necesariamente incompatibles con la razón.

Esto resulta más objetable en la medida en que “[l]o transmitido tiene más bien una fuerza y una obviedad que en principio lo sustraen de la razón y de la libre determinación. Es sólo en lo innovador que en general debe haber un respaldo racional (y libre) para poder oponerlo a la fuerza de lo transmitido, lo consagrado por el tiempo y por la autoridad de las generaciones anteriores” (p. 45). Retornado finalmente al problema de la autoconciencia de los prejuicios en el proceso de comprensión, el artículo se cuestiona si es la distancia histórica la que hace concientes los prejuicios, provocando movimientos de reelaboración en los contenidos de la tradición, o si es la propia tradición la que debe generar el desarrollo de la conciencia histórica haciendo concientes los prejuicios.

“Ludwig Wittgenstein: imposibilidad de un lenguaje privado; argumento e implicaciones” es un trabajo en donde se recorre la formulación del argumento del lenguaje privado presentada por Wittgenstein en las Investigaciones filosóficas. El trabajo discute al argumento apoyándose en la interpretación de A. Kenny, y en polémica con las aproximaciones de P. Strawson, G. Pitcher, H.N. Castañeda y J.J. Thomson. La argumentación wittgensteiniana muestra que tanto el empirismo como el racionalismo cartesiano suponen la existencia de un lenguaje privado, al defender una imagen del conocimiento que se asienta en las ideas o experiencias internas, de las que se derivaría el resto de lo que puede conocerse.

A partir de esto, Navia se detiene en los dos errores a los que Wittgenstein atribuye la creencia en un lenguaje privado: la creencia en que la adquisición de significados se produce exclusivamente por ostensión y la creencia en el carácter privado de la experiencia. En cuanto al primero revisa las vinculaciones entre aprendizaje por ostensión y lenguaje público. En cuanto al segundo, analiza la distinción wittgensteiniana entre privacidad del conocimiento y privacidad de la posesión de una sensación, que desemboca en la negación de que las sensaciones sean privadas en ambos sentidos. Como corolario, el artículo hace foco en la no-independencia de las proferencias sobre sensaciones y estados internos respecto de los referentes, punto definitorio de la argumentación de Wittgenstein, y que Navia destaca como un fuerte elemento de crítica al paradigma cartesiano de los contenidos de conciencia dotados de infalibilidad.

“Karl-Otto Apel: Sobre la posibilidad de una fundamentación filosófica última” presenta un análisis de “El problema de la fundamentación última filosófica a la luz de una pragmática trascendental del lenguaje”, texto donde Apel desarrolla su postura en debate con las expresiones del racionalismo crítico de W.N. Bartley y H. Albert. Frente al principio falibilista propuesto por Albert, Apel propone una pragmática trascendental del lenguaje, que se nutre tanto del pragmatismo de Peirce como del método trascendental de Kant. El artículo resalta que el enfoque pragmáticotrascendental permite concebir el proceso de derivación de proposiciones a partir de proposiciones no como un decurso al infinito, en el que cada nueva proposición necesita ser fundamentada por otra, sino como un proceso de fundamentación que se interrumpe en los enunciados que proporcionan la evidencia a priori intersubjetiva necesaria para dar cuenta de las condiciones de conocimiento de los sujetos en el plano discursivo-argumentativo.

Esto se complementa con un ataque directo de Apel al principio del falibilismo, mostrando la imposibilidad de poner en duda toda proposición de conocimiento, en cuanto una duda razonable requiere inevitablemente la aceptación de parámetros -no puestos en duda- desde los que se formulan las dudas y se evalúan las eventuales respuestas. El balance de Navia en función de este derrotero conduce a que “Apel descarta tanto la tesis del racionalismo pancrítico de la asimilación de la fundamentación por recurso a la evidencia con la apelación a un dogma como la idea de la prioridad del principio del falibilismo sobre la idea de la fundamentación” (p. 75).

Ahondando en el sentido trascendental de la filosofía del Apel, Navia destaca igualmente que su propuesta, a diferencia de la crítica kantiana, no pretende establecer de modo definitivo los contenidos del sistema trascendental del conocimiento. Más bien presenta un marco de condiciones pragmáticas desde las cuáles someter a revisión lo que se considera conocimiento, sin que esto implique renunciar a la posibilidad de una fundamentación última. En suma, Navia destaca en Apel una socialización del sujeto trascendental, tramitada a través de la introducción de la hipótesis -al modo de una idea regulativa kantiana- de la comunidad ideal, en la que Navia ve un enfoque que logra flexibilizar las tesis universalistas de la crítica kantiana sin desembocar en el relativismo.

Le sigue “Analiticidad: impugnación y defensa”. El texto parte de la crítica de Quine a la distinción analítico-sintético, habilitando un frente de controversia desde la postura de H. Grice y P. Strawson. En “Dos dogmas del empirismo”, Quine critica tanto la distinción analítico-sintético como el reductivismo de los términos referidos a la experiencia. La revisión quineana del concepto de sinonimia -fuertemente ligado al de analiticidad- muestra por un lado que el uso de la sinonimia está subordinado a criterios de utilidad, y por otro que no existe un orden de sinonimias ontológicamente estable, sino varias interconexiones resultantes de los interjuegos lingüísticos. De aquí que al contrario de lo que pensaba Carnap, no es posible para lenguajes artificiales precisar el concepto de analiticidad sin presuponerlo en alguna medida, ya que la analiticidad resulta irreductible a una serie de reglas semánticas especificadas para lenguajes artificiales.

En este marco, el artículo destaca la forma en que el holismo de Quine funciona como base de su crítica al reductivismo, en cuanto pone de manifiesto que si bien el empirismo ha abandonado las pretensiones reductivistas defendidas por Carnap en La construcción lógica del mundo, en distintas variantes de la filosofía empirista se sigue insistiendo de modo solapado en la posibilidad de confirmación individual de los enunciados. Es por esto que “[l]a estrategia de explicar la analiticidad a partir de la teoría verificacionista del significado fracasa en cuanto supone una concepción atomista de la verificación, que está siendo sustituida por una teoría holista” (p. 96). En función de esta nueva concepción, Quine proyecta una imagen del conocimiento en general y del sistema de la ciencia en particular, en función de la que no puede hablarse del contenido empírico de un enunciado, en cuanto no es posible ligar de forma directa las experiencias relevantes para un sistema con cada uno de los enunciados contenidos en él. Así, la eficacia y la economía predictiva devienen criterios rectores de evaluación de enunciados, por lo que no hay enunciados analíticos irrevocables más allá de estos criterios.

Luego de repasar algunas respuestas de J. Harris, M. Dummett y H. Putnam, el texto concluye revisando las críticas efectuadas a Quine en “In Defense of a Dogma”, de Grice y Strawson. Se destaca cómo el análisis de la noción de “clarificación adecuada” muestra que Quine impone a una eventual explicación de nociones como analiticidad, definición y sinonimia, requisitos que difícilmente pueda cumplir explicación alguna, como el de evadir toda circularidad. Asimismo, y a diferencia de lo sostenido por Quine, la concepción holista de la verificación llevaría a reformular la noción de sinonimia, y no a abandonarla. Por último, la tesis del carácter revisable de todos los enunciados de un sistema también sería compatible con la distinción analítico-sintético, siempre que se distinga cuando estamos abandonando un enunciado por razones de orden fáctico y cuando lo estamos haciendo porque los términos que los componen han cambiado de significado.

Continúa el libro con cuatro artículos dedicados a Putnam: “Por qué es importante la obra de Hilary Putnam”, “Concepción de la racionalidad en Hilary Putnam”, “Hilary Putnam: Posibilidad de fundamentación racional de los juicios éticos” y “Immanuel Kant e Hilary Putnam: rumo à construção de um realismo crítico”. Versan especialmente sobre la concepción putnamiana de la racionalidad y de las relaciones entre hechos y valores, así como de su defensa del realismo y su concepción de la verdad como aceptabilidad racional.

Los trabajos pasan revista a la crítica de Putnam al realismo metafísico, en el marco de su abandono de las teorías clásicas de la referencia y de las concepciones correspondentistas de la verdad. “Según Putnam, el externalismo vive acosado por el problema de la referencia que no consigue resolver. En cambio, para el internalista el problema se resuelve dado que los objetos no existen independientemente de los esquemas conceptuales” (p. 114). También se destaca el carácter innovador de la concepción putnamiana de la racionalidad informal, que tiene como antesala la crítica tanto a las concepciones criteriales representadas por el Neopositivismo como a las concepciones relativistas e inconmensurabilistas.

En cuanto a la idea de verdad, una vez que ésta sólo se especifica en base a criterios de aceptabilidad racional, los procesos cognitivos aparecen estrechamente ligados a componentes valorativos, quedando así puesta en tela de juicio la clásica distinción entre juicios fácticos y juicios de valor, y en este sentido “Putnam establece una fuerte relación entre racionalidad y moralidad. La racionalidad aparece condicionada por valores, dado que los esquemas cognitivos reflejan propósitos e intereses; y la moralidad está vinculada a una determinada forma de ver el mundo y de manejarse con él” (p. 145). Navia insiste en que todos estos conceptos de la obra de Putnam no debilitan ni diluyen el concepto de racionalidad, sino que lo flexibilizan para volverlo más resistente en el contexto del debate con el relativismo: “La idea de una racionalidad informal, como una capacidad o modalidad -aún no reglada- de resolver problemas por la inteligencia y el sentido común, permite flexibilizar productivamente el concepto de racionalidad. Permite explicar […] su permeabilidad a criterios culturales de relevancia” (p. 129).

Cierra el volumen “El argumento antiescéptico de Davidson como punto de convergencia de innovaciones radicales”, donde se analiza el impacto de la filosofía de Davidson en la crítica tanto al escepticismo epistemológico como a la tradición de matriz cartesiana asentada en la noción de lo subjetivo como instancia nuclear del conocimiento. Una vez que Davidson abandona la pretensión de justificar las creencias en intermediarios epistémicos no proposicionales, como las sensaciones o los inputs, el escenario en el cual tomaban forma los cuestionamientos escépticos comienza a desmontarse, en cuanto el escepticismo sólo tiene pleno alcance como combate a una concepción de la verdad que pretenda fundamentar nuestras afirmaciones acerca del mundo en algo que se encuentra más allá de ellas mismas.

En este marco, la interpretación radical aparece como dispositivo metodológico destinado a mostrar que, dado un conjunto de creencias coherentes defendidas por un hablante, la comprensión del conjunto por parte de un intérprete exige presumir que la mayoría de las creencias del hablante son verdaderas; como condición de la comunicación y a la vez como característica constitutiva de la naturaleza de la creencia. Navia enfatiza la impronta kantiana de la argumentación de Davidson -en método, ya que no en contenido- en cuanto busca cancelar el escepticismo y asentar el carácter verídico de la creencia en base a las condiciones de posibilidad de la formación y tenencia de creencias. En estos términos, puede verse la relación entre la teoría de la verdad y la concepción externalista del significado: “La interpretación radical nos muestra que la creencia es intrínsecamente verdadera -esto es, la mayor parte de las creencias sobre el entorno deben ser verdaderas- porque el significado no es nada natural, sino solo el resultado de la triangulación entre interlocutores y cosas, que en sus formas básicas solo puede funcionar comunicativamente si mayoritariamente responde a una relación causal entre los interlocutores y su entorno” (p. 178).

A modo de balance, y ampliando en algunos aspectos el cuadro trazado a lo largo del trabajo, Navia señala algunas de las principales implicaciones de la filosofía de Davidson, organizadas en los siguientes apartados: (a) abandono del “mito de lo subjetivo; (b) lenguaje como fenómeno esencialmente social; (c) carácter esencialmente intersubjetivo del pensamiento; (d) rescate de una normatividad no metafísica; (e) irreductibilidad e interdependencia: subjetivo, objetivo, intersubjetivo; y (f) abandono del fundacionismo metafísico (p. 183-186).

En una obra que recorre tradiciones y filósofos de diverso origen y estilo, algunos de los cuales no pocas veces han sido tenidos por antagónicos, puede decirse a modo de balance general que el autor parece cumplir con su “no desmentido interés simultáneo por la filosofía analítica, por la filosofía trascendental y por los componentes sociohistóricos del conocimiento”.

Pablo Melogno – Universidad de la Republica. Escuela Universitaria de Bibliotecología y Ciencias Afines Emilio Frugoni. Montevideo, Uruguay. E-mail: pmelogno@gmail.com

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Tags: CSIC-Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación (E), Estudios de filosofía contemporânea (T), Filosofia Contemporânea, Filosofia da linguagem, Filosoﬁa Unisinos (FU), MELOGNO Pablo (Res), Metafilosofia, NAVIA R (Aut), Teoria do Conhecimento

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