Attitude ascriptions and speech reports were at the center of attention when philosophers and logicians began to see natural languages as formal systems. My chapter looks at the history of formal semantics, not for its own sake, but for lessons about how to approach attitude ascriptions and speech reports today. I think we may have taken a few wrong forks in the road. To solve the problem of logical equivalents, we should have listened to Rudolf Carnap, who made it clear (...) that the fact that the truth of an attitude ascription or speech report may depend on the intensional structure of the embedded clause in no way forces the conclusion that propositions can’t be mere intensions. For de re ascriptions, we should have listened to David Kaplan, who replaced names in the scope of attitude verbs with descriptions, rather than associating the individuals those names stand for with modes of presentation. What held us back in both cases was Fregean compositionality. Shedding that legacy, I present prototypes for analyses of attitude verbs and verbs of speech within an intensional semantics where propositions are mere sets of possible worlds and de re ascriptions require no special technologies created just for them. (shrink)

Lewis’s property theory of the attitudes hinges on a notion of self-ascription that some philosophers allege is a primitive of the theory, and is suspect on those grounds. The present paper unpacks this complaint and the objections that flow from it. I argue that two sorts of objections can be made on the basis of the primitiveness complaint—what I call the evasion and the arbitrariness objections. Recent defenses of Lewis (e.g., Jackson and Stoljar 2020, Openshaw 2020) aim to rebut (...) the primitiveness complaint by offering (differing) accounts of what self-ascription amounts to. In response, I examine how these different accounts fit together, and evaluate how they fare against the two types of objections. The upshot of the discussion is as follows. On the whole, the primitiveness complaint itself is inapt, but the two objections have some bite. The accounts of self-ascription given by Jackson & Stoljar and Openshaw provide persuasive answers to objections, but the arbitrariness objection proves recalcitrant. The fact that it couldn’t be dispatched decisively allows the evasion objection to resurface, albeit in a modified form. (shrink)

Knowledge ascriptions are a central topic of research in both philosophy and science. In this collection of new essays on knowledge ascriptions, world class philosophers offer novel approaches to this long standing topic.

This article discusses the extension of ViewGen, an algorithm derived for belief ascription, to the areas of intensional object identification and metaphor. ViewGen represents the beliefs of agents as explicit, partitioned proposition sets known as environments. Environments are convenient, even essential, for addressing important pragmatic issues of reasoning. The article concentrates on showing that the transformation of information in metaphors, intensional object identification, and ordinary, nonmetaphorical belief ascription can all be seen as different manifestations of a single environment-amalgamation (...) process. The article also briefly discusses the extension of ViewGen to speech-act processing and the addition of a heuristic-based relevance-determination procedure, and justifies the partitioning approach to belief ascription. (shrink)

Why do our intuitive knowledge ascriptions shift when a subject's practical interests are mentioned? Many efforts to answer this question have focused on empirical linguistic evidence for context sensitivity in knowledge claims, but the empirical psychology of belief formation and attribution also merits attention. The present paper examines a major psychological factor (called ?need-for-closure?) relevant to ascriptions involving practical interests. Need-for-closure plays an important role in determining whether one has a settled belief; it also influences the accuracy of one's cognition. (...) Given these effects, it is a mistake to assume that high- and low-stakes subjects provided with the same initial evidence are perceived to enjoy belief formation that is the same as far as truth-conducive factors are concerned. This mistaken assumption has underpinned contextualist and interest-relative invariantist treatments of cases in which contrasting knowledge ascriptions are elicited by descriptions of subjects with the same initial information and different stakes. The paper argues that intellectualist invariantism can easily accommodate such cases. (shrink)

Epistemologists generally agree that the stringency of intuitive ascriptions of knowledge is increased when unrealized possibilities ofenor are mentioned. Non-sceptical invanantists (Williamson, Hawthorne) think it a mistake to yield in such cases to the temptation to be more stringent, but they do not deny that we feel it. They contend that the temptation is best explained as the product of a psychological bias known as the availability heuristic. I argue against the availability explanation, and sketch a rival account of what (...) happens to us psychologically when possibilities of error are raised. (shrink)

This paper focuses on value as ascribed to what can be desired, enjoyed, cherished, admired, loved, and so on: value that putatively serves as ground for evaluating such attitudes and for justifying conduct. The main question of the paper is whether such value ascriptions are property ascriptions as traditional cognitivism claims. The paper makes the case that although the linguistic evidence favors traditional cognitivism over non-cognitivism about evaluative language, the main tenet of cognitivism is best restated as the thesis that (...) evaluative terms are linguistically encoded classificatory devices. This opens up the theoretical possibility, for even inflationists about properties, to embrace cognitivism without inviting any metaphysical worries about the properties ascribed in evaluative language. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyse a finding by Riggs and colleagues that there is a close connection between people’s ability to reason with counterfactual conditionals and their capacity to attribute false beliefs to others. The result indicates that both processes may be governed by one cognitive mechanism, though false belief attribution seems to be slightly more cognitively demanding. Given that the common denominator for both processes is suggested to be a form of the Ramsey test, I investigate whether Stalnaker’s semantic (...) theory of conditionals, which was inspired by the Ramsey test, may provide the basis for a psychologically plausible model of belief ascription. The analysis I propose will shed some new light on the developmental discrepancy between counterfactual reasoning and false belief ascription. (shrink)

Knowledge ascriptions of the form ‘S knows that p’ are a central area of research in philosophy. But why do humans think and talk about knowledge? What are knowledge ascriptions for? This article surveys a variety of proposals about the role of knowledge ascriptions and attempts to provide a unified account of these seemingly distinct views.

What are the truth conditions of want ascriptions? According to an influential approach, they are intimately connected to the agent’s beliefs: ⌜S wants p⌝ is true iff, within S’s belief set, S prefers the p worlds to the not-p worlds. This approach faces a well-known problem, however: it makes the wrong predictions for what we call (counter)factual want ascriptions, wherein the agent either believes p or believes not-p—for example, ‘I want it to rain tomorrow and that is exactly what is (...) going to happen’ or ‘I want this weekend to last forever, but of course it will end in a few hours’. We solve this problem. The truth conditions for want ascriptions are, we propose, connected to the agent’s conditional beliefs. We substantiate this connection by pursuing a striking parallel between (counter)factual and non-(counter)factual want ascriptions on the one hand and counterfactual and indicative conditionals on the other. (shrink)

In the late preschool years children acquire a "theory of mind", the ability to ascribe intentional states, including beliefs, desires and intentions, to themselves and others. In this paper I trace how children's ability to ascribe intentions is derived from parental attempts to hold them responsible for their talk and action, that is, the attempt to have their behavior meet a normative standard or rule. Self-control is children's developing ability to take on or accept responsibility, that is, the ability to (...) ascribe intentions to themselves. This is achieved, I argue, when they possess the ability to hold an utterance or rule in mind in the form of a quoted expression, and second, when they grasp the causal relation between the rule and their action. The account of how children learn to ascribe intention to themselves and others will then be used to explore the larger question of the relations amongst language, intentional states and the ascription and avowal of those states. (shrink)

There exists a considerable body of work on epistemic logics for resource-bounded reasoners. In this paper, we concentrate on a less studied aspect of resource-bounded reasoning, namely, on the ascription of beliefs and inference rules by the agents to each other. We present a formal model of a system of bounded reasoners which reason about each other’s beliefs, and investigate the problem of belief ascription in a resource-bounded setting. We show that for agents whose computational resources and memory (...) are bounded, correct ascription of beliefs cannot be guaranteed, even in the limit. We propose a solution to the problem of correct belief ascription for feasible agents which involves ascribing reasoning strategies, or preferences on formulas, to other agents, and show that if a resource-bounded agent knows the reasoning strategy of another agent, then its ascription of beliefs to the other agent is correct in the limit. (shrink)

Having briefly sketched the aims of our paper, namely, to logically analyse the ascription of propositional attitudes to somebody else in terms, not of Fregean senses or of intensions-with-s, but of the intentional object of the person spoken about, say, the believer or intender (Section 1), we try to introduce the concept of an intentional object as simply as possible, to wit, as coming into view whenever two (or more) subjective belief-worlds strikingly diverge (Section 2). Then, we assess the (...) pros and cons of Frege’s view that the indirect reference of an expression is nothing but its customary sense (Sections 3–4), and call the reader’s attention to the fact that in belief ascriptions de re we take it for granted that the believer’s intentional object is at the same time a ‘citizen’ of the belief ascriber’s subjective world (or, for that matter, the real word), and that the idea of such a ‘dual citizenship’ is even more obviously presupposed in the cases of true belief and propositional knowledge (Section 5). Then, we try to argue that it is more fertile to take the belief ascriber’s intentional object to be, not the whole state of affairs the believer has in mind and thinks to exist, but the latter’s intentional object as such, that is, as being his intentional object (Section 6). Finally, we discuss the intricate and mostly neglected question of whether an intentional object’s inhabiting two or more subjective belief-worlds should be considered to be sort of a ‘transmundane identity’ in the numerical sense or rather in some deviant sense of the term, which can be specified as a momentous subcase of a ‘categorial difference’ (Section 7). (shrink)

I outline Brandom’s theory of de re and de dicto belief ascriptions, which plays a central role in Brandom’s overall theory of linguistic communication, and show that this theory offers a surprising, new response to Burge’s (Midwest Stud 6:73–121, 1979) argument for social externalism. However, while this response is in principle available from the perspective of Brandom’s theory of belief ascription in abstraction from his wider theoretical enterprise, it ceases to be available from this perspective in the wider context (...) of his inferential role semantics and his doctrines of scorekeeping and of the expressive role of belief ascriptions in discourse. In this wider context, Brandom’s theory of belief ascriptions implies that Burge’s argument trivially fails to have the disquieting implications for psychological explanations that it is widely taken to have. Yet since this is not trivially so, Brandom’s theory apparently provides a false picture of our practice of interpreting belief ascriptions. I then argue that Brandom might as well accept the alternative picture of interpreting belief ascriptions that Burge’s argument presupposes: even in the context of his overall project, Brandom’s take on our practice of interpreting them does not afford belief ascriptions with the discursive significance Brandom claims they have. (shrink)

I argue that disposition ascriptions—claims like ‘the glass is fragile’—are semantically equivalent to possibility claims: they are true when the given object manifests the disposition in at least one of the relevant possible worlds.

In order to explain that sentences containing empty definite descriptions are nevertheless true or false, Russell famously analyzes sentences of the form ‘The F is G’ as ‘There is exactly one F and it is G’. Against this it has been objected that Russell’s analysis provides the wrong truth-conditions when it comes to non-doxastic attitude ascriptions. For example, according to Heim, Kripke, and Elbourne (HKE), there are circumstances in which (1) is true and (2) is false. Hans wants the ghost (...) in his attic to be quiet tonight.Hans wants there to be exactly one ghost in his attic and for it to be quiet tonight. After all, the argument goes, unlike (2), (1) can be true without Hans wanting there to be exactly one ghost in his attic. Kaplan and Neale famously reply that the HKE objection presupposes that non-doxastic attitudes are closed under entailment, which they are not. For Rostworowski, on the other hand, the problematic principle used by the HKE objection is a substitutivity principle for non-doxastic attitude ascriptions. This is further supported by the fact that, as Elbourne points out, Russell’s analysis already leads to a problem similar to the HKE objection together with substitutivity alone. By questioning substitutivity for non-doxastic attitude ascriptions, Rostworowski tries to block both the HKE objection and Elbourne’s variant of the HKE objection. In this paper, I will argue that Russell’s analysis of definite descriptions leads to a variant of the HKE objection even in the context of doxastic attitude ascriptions. Since, as we will see, doxastic attitude ascriptions do not seem to suffer from the substitutivity problems discussed by Rostworowski in the context of non-doxastic attitude ascriptions, this will further exacerbate the problem for Russell’s analysis. I will then discuss the possibility to reject substitutivity for doxastic attitude ascriptions using a contextualist analysis of attitude ascriptions. However, we will see that, independent of whether we accept substitutivity for doxastic attitude ascriptions, a complete solution of the doxastic problem has to reject Russell’s analysis of the truth-conditions of sentences of the form ‘The F is G’. Concluding, I will show that, unlike Russell’s analysis, the Frege–Strawson analysis of definite descriptions, according to which a sentence of the form ‘The F is G’ presupposes that there is exactly one F, rather than asserting it, provides an explanation of the HKE objection, Elbourne’s variant of the HKE objection, and the doxastic problem presented in this paper. This will speak not only in favor of a Fregean analysis of definite descriptions, but also of a Fregean conception of propositions. (shrink)

A recent proposal by Quill Kukla and Mark Lance holds that surface appearances notwithstanding, gender ascriptions are closer to normative performatives than descriptions. As speech acts, they share more in common with pronouncing a marriage than a neutral description of a person, albeit this is not commonly recognized. This paper argues that the proposal faces a consistency problem. In order to affect social reality qua their illocutionary force, gender ascriptions must on average succeed. However, according to the authors most actual (...) second- and third person gender ascriptions in fact violate the success conditions of the speech act type, which include respect for the individual’s first-person gender ascriptions. Their main claim thus becomes that gender roles can be instituted as a series of misfires, though it is left open how this is possible. (shrink)

is tendentious. (Throughout this paper I shall refer to this claim as.

Current philosophical theorizing about technical functions is mainly focused on specifying conditions under which agents are justified in ascribing functions to technical artifacts. Yet, assessing the precise explanatory relevance of such function ascriptions is, by and large, a neglected topic in the philosophy of technical artifacts and technical functions. We assess the explanatory utility of ascriptions of technical functions in the following three explanation-seeking contexts: why was artifact x produced?, why does artifact x not have the expected capacity to ϕ?, (...) how does artifact x realize its capacity to ϕ? We argue that while function ascriptions serve a mere heuristic role in the first context, they have substantial explanatory leverage in the second and third context. In addition, we assess the relevance of function ascriptions in the context of engineering redesign. Here, function ascriptions also play a relevant role: they enable normative statements of the sort that component b functions better than component a. We unpack these claims by considering philosophical theories of technical functions, in particular the ICE theory, and engineering work on function ascription and explanation. We close the paper by relating our analysis to current debates on the explanatory power of mechanistic vis-à-vis functional explanations. (shrink)

In this article, the logic and functions of character-trait ascriptions in ethics and epistemology is compared, and two major problems, the "generality problem" for virtue epistemologies and the "global trait problem" for virtue ethics, are shown to be far more similar in structure than is commonly acknowledged. I suggest a way to put the generality problem to work by making full and explicit use of a sliding scale--a "narrow-broad spectrum of trait ascription"-- and by accounting for the various uses (...) of it in an inquiry-pragmatist account. In virtue theories informed by inquiry pragmatism, the agential habits and abilities deemed salient in explanations/evaluations of agents in particular cases, and the determination of what relevant domains and conditions an agent's habit or ability is reliably efficacious in, is determined by pragmatic concerns related to our evaluative epistemic practices. (shrink)

This paper is a sequel to “Subject Unicity and Self-Ascription: A Paraconsistent Formalization with σ-Lag” (hereafter “Subject Theory”, PhilPapers record CSUADU.). Preserving the value layer and rules of the previous work (X–σ, No3, SU-bridge), we extend the observational/representational layer into a topological–operational model. Specifically, we introduce a state space X, a decidable region O_+++ = { f_I>0, f_S>0, f_R>0 }, and a local orientation indicator R_sig = sign det[∇f_I, ∇f_S, ∇f_R], thereby relocating the judgment of the jouissance effect into (...) a topological space. Clinically, this means one reports only triggers/evidence, while the equality sign (=) is an event-type fixation permitted once only within a licensing window. The key indicators are: (i) a continuous quantity a_eff := Res_σ(Φ) ∈ ℝ_{≥0} representing the amount of σ-trace, (ii) R_sig ∈ {−1, 0, +1}, and (iii) the optional reinforcement by μ̄_123. Here, observational equivalence ≈_obs is evidenced by a_eff(x) > 0 and is kept strictly distinct from ontological equivalence ≡_onto. As a result, the structure remains discrete, while phenomenology is smoothly tracked via continuous quantities such as a_eff and κ. Lacan’s “phallus = imaginary” is re-formalized not as rhetoric but as an anti-scalarization rule: φ acts only as an inner rotation operator carried by the imaginary axis of quaternions (including slice invariance), forbidding any fall into the value layer. Fixation of fantasy is judged by the topological loop with R_sig = −1, and the promotion ‘≈ → =’ is permitted exactly once only within the AUG_eq subcategory. The subject–object a relation is read as a Möbius isomorph: ontologically equivalent yet phase-inverted on the observational layer, so ‘=’ is allowed only as an event after passing Gate(Δτ), thereby blocking explosion routes. Furthermore, consistency with the University discourse is exhibited by ∂(a_eff)/∂(s*) > 0 when x ∈ O_+++ and R_sig = −1, capturing the right-hand sensitivity (S2 → a) on the top line. Safety is secured by No3, SU, and the Reflexive Guards: global ‘=’ is prohibited; no direct updates to the value layer; and R_sig, μ̄_123, amp are used purely as trigger/evidence indicators. This design supplies a checklist-style clinical heuristic (Obs/σ/AUG logs, the condition R_sig = −1 ∧ a_eff > 0, and exactly one ‘=’ after gate approval) without compromising structural stability. In short, symptoms are not erased but operated—fixed as events precisely at the point where the same strip meets again, now inverted. 이 글은 「주체의 자기귀속과 단일성: σ-시차와 파라일관 논리의 형식화」(이하 「주체론」, PhilPapers record CSUADU.)의 후속이다. 전작 「주체론」의 값층·규칙(X–σ, No3, SU-브리지)을 그대로 유지한 채, 관측·표상 레이어를 위상-연산 모델로 확장한다. 구체적으로, 상태공간 X와 판정가능 영역 O_+++ = { f_I>0, f_S>0, f_R>0 } 및 국소 방향 판정자 R_sig = sign det[∇f_I, ∇f_S, ∇f_R]를 도입해, 주이상스 효과의 판정을 위상공간으로 이관한다. 이렇게 하면 임상에서는 증거·트리거만 보고하고, 등호(=)는 면허 윈도우에서만 1회 허가되는 사건형 고정으로 제한된다. 핵심 지표로는 (i) σ-흔적의 양을 나타내는 연속량 a_eff := Res_σ(Φ) ∈ ℝ_{≥0}, (ii) R_sig ∈ {−1, 0, +1}, (iii) 필요 시 보강되는 μ̄_123 등을 사용한다. 이때 관측-동치 ≈_obs는 a_eff(x) > 0에 의해 증거화되며, 존재론-동치 ≡_onto와 엄격히 구분된다. 덕분에 구조는 이산이되, 양상은 a_eff와 κ 같은 연속값으로 매끈하게 추적된다. 라캉의 "남근=허수"는 수사가 아니라 반(反)스칼라화 규칙으로 재정식화된다: φ는 사원수 허수 캐리어의 내적 회전 연산자(슬라이스 불변성 포함)로만 작동하며, 값층으로의 낙하를 금지한다. 환상의 교착은 R_sig = −1인 위상 고리로 판정되고, '≈ → =' 승격은 AUG_eq 하위 범주에서만 1회 허가된다. 또한 주체–대상 a 관계는 뫼비우스 동형으로 읽힌다: 존재론적으로는 동치이나 관측층에서는 위상이 반전되어, 등호는 오직 Gate(Δτ) 통과 시 사건형으로만 잠깐 가능하다(폭발 경로 차단). 더 나아가, 대학 담론과의 정합성은 x ∈ O_+++ · R_sig = −1일 때 ∂(a_eff)/∂(s*) > 0가 성립함을 통해 보인다(상단 S2 → a 채널의 우항 감도). 안전성은 No3·SU·Reflexive Guards로 고정된다: 전역 '=' 금지, 값층 직접 갱신 금지, 트리거/증거 전용 지표(R_sig, μ̄_123, amp). 이 설계는 임상에서 체크리스트형 휴리스틱(Obs/σ/AUG 로그, R_sig = −1 ∧ a_eff > 0 조건, 게이트 승인을 거친 단 1회의 '=')을 제공하면서도 구조적 안정성을 해치지 않는다. 요컨대, 증상은 지워지는 게 아니라 운용되며, 같은 띠지만 뒤집혀 만나는 그 지점에서 사건으로 고정된다. (shrink)

In most contemporary analyses of responsibility, attention has been directed exclusively to the specific conditions that must be met by the presumed responsible agent in order to be able to account for her actions. More attention needs to be paid, however, to the dynamics between the presumed responsible party and those who judge her responsible. Specifically, the standard approach pays little attention to the status of the party positioned to hold another responsible relative to that of the party from whom (...) an account is expected. This oversight is problematic, because, depending on the practices associated with holding a person responsible, individuals may be sanctioned in ways that are quite harsh. This chapter expands an analysis of moral responsibility as a form of accountability to attend to these dynamics of power. While ascriptions of responsibility remain expectations that an account be forthcoming from the actor, this is too myopic a picture. (shrink)

This article explores whether perspective taking has an impact on the ascription of epistemic states. To do so, a new method is introduced which incites participants to imagine themselves in the position of the protagonist of a short vignette and to judge from her perspective. In a series of experiments, perspective proves to have a significant impact on belief ascriptions, but not on knowledge ascriptions. For belief, perspective is further found to moderate the epistemic side-effect effect significantly. It is (...) hypothesized that the surprising findings are driven by the special epistemic authority we enjoy in assessing our own belief states, which does not extend to the assessment of our own knowledge states. (shrink)

Delia Graff Fara maintains that many desire ascriptions underspecify the content of the relevant agent’s desire. She argues that this is inconsistent with certain initially plausible claims about desiring, desires, and desire ascriptions. This paper defends those initially plausible claims. Part of the defense hinges on metaphysical claims about the relations among desiring, desires, and contents.

The main aim of this paper is to clarify the relation between epistemic feel- ings, mental action, and self-ascription. Acting mentally and/or thinking about one’s mental states are two possible outcomes of epistemic or metacognitive feelings. Our men- tal actions are often guided by our E-feelings, such as when we check what we just saw based on a feeling of visual uncertainty; but thought about our own perceptual states and capacities can also be triggered by the same E-feelings. The (...) first section of the pa- per presents Dokic’s argument for the insufficiency of the “ascent routine” to account for non-transparent cases of self-ascription, as well as his account of E-feelings. The second section then presents a two-level model of metacognition that builds on Dokic’s account and my own view of the issue. The two-level model links E-feelings to a min- dreading capacity in order to account for non-transparent self-ascriptions. Finally, the third section develops a deeper characterization of the relation among E-feelings, mental action, and self-ascription of mental states based on epistemic rules. In the context of self-knowledge, these remarks suggest the existence of means of forming self-ascriptions other than the ascent routine. (shrink)

Self-ascriptions of one’s current mental states often enjoy a distinctively strong presumption of truth. Some philosophers claim that this ascriptive authority is _non-transferable_ in the sense that it cannot be matched or surpassed by anyone else. In this paper I examine this non-transferability claim in the light of potential extended mentality cases. These cases threaten to show that popular accounts of ascriptive authority do not vindicate its alleged non-transferability. However, I also argue that a less popular account of ascriptive authority (...) can do so. (shrink)

The relation between two systems of attitude ascription that capture all the empirically significant aspects of an agents thought and speech may be analogous to that between two systems of magnitude ascription that are equivalent relative to a transformation of scale. If so, just as an objects weighing eight pounds doesnt relate that object to the number eight (for a different but equally good scale would use a different number), similarly an agents believing that P need not relate (...) her to P (for a different but equally adequate interpretive scheme could use a different proposition). In either case the only reality picked out by any system of ascription is what is common to all equivalent rivals. By emphasizing some contrasts between decision theory and belief-desire psychology, it is argued that if attitude ascription is appropriately analogous to measurement then not only is being related to a proposition an artifact of the system of representation chosen, so are belief and desire. (shrink)

Wrongful life is an action brought by a defective child who sues to recover for pecuniary or emotional damages suffered as a result of being conceived or born with deformities. In such cases, plaintiff alleges that the negligence of a responsible third party,1 such as physician, hospital, or medical laboratory, is the proximate cause of plaintiff's being born or conceived and thus being compelled to suffer the debilitating effects of a deformity. The child does not sue to recover for the (...) deformity, but rather it is claimed in such cases that the child's life is itself a wrong to the child; hence, the name wrongful life.The present essay explores how the language of rights enters into wrongful life suits and critically evaluates rights appeals in these cases. Philosophical analysis yields the result that the ascription of rights to plaintiffs in wrongful life suits entails consequences we are unwilling to accept. (shrink)

We present a formal account of subjectivity without external foundations. Over an extended LP/FDE truth alphabet, we axiomatize a self-ascriptive relation R(x,x) and a Subject Unicity (SU) scheme. We separate the linguistic lag operator X from the intra-perspectival successor σ, redefine same-place equivalence (≈), and license the identity sign (=) only via explicit upgrade anchors at the fix layer (Augenblick). Under a no-third-channel guard that blocks explosion while preserving the contradiction value B, we prove that within each connected cover the (...) set of subject candidates A/≈ collapses to a single class. This distinction between coordinate identity and event identity prevents premature global identification while yielding a constructive criterion of identity at stabilization. Conceptually, the system couples Hegelian dialectics with Lacanian failure of subsumption: contradiction is treated not as error but as structural motor. Aligning Tarskian/Gödelian limits with a Lacanian “delegated deficit,” we accordingly read R(x,x). The σ-translation captures how contradiction (B) is conserved and truth (T) emerges post hoc, offering a logic-driven reconstruction of dialectical temporality and the singular emergence of the subject. 본 논문은 외부 준거 없이 닫히는 형식 체계 위에서 주체의 자기귀속 R(x,x)과 주체 단일성(SU)을 공리화한다. 언어적 시차 연산자 X와 관점 내부 후속자 σ를 분리하고, 동일장소 동치 ‘≈’와 등호 승격(앵커) 규칙을 도입해 동일성의 작동 조건을 제시한다. 확장 LP/FDE 값층에서 모순값 B를 보존하고 제3채널 금지(No3) 가드를 둘 때, 연결 성분/커버 내부에서 주체-후보 집합 A/≈가 단일 동치류로 붕괴함을 증명한다. 이는 좌표 동일화와 사건 동일화를 구분하여 과도한 전역 동일시를 차단하고, Augenblick(고정층)에서만 ‘=’이 면허됨을 보인다. 결과적으로 주체는 속성의 총합이 아니라 사후적 표지에 의해 고정되는 규칙적 자기지시로 나타난다. 본문은 헤겔적 변증법(모순의 내재적 운동)과 라캉적 포섭 실패를 접합해 모순을 결함이 아니라 구조적 동력으로 제시하고, 타르스키/괴델류 한계를 라캉의 ‘대리-결손’과 접속해 R(x,x)를 해석한다. σ-번역은 모순(B)의 보존과 진리(T)의 사후적 출현을 기술하며, 이를 통해 변증법적 시간성과 주체의 단독성이 파라일관 논리 장치로 재구성될 수 있음을 보인다. (shrink)

Quantification into a belief ascription has often been taken to indicate that the believer knows who (or what) their belief is about. Here it is shown, by means of some iterated ascriptions, that this cannot be the correct interpretation of such quantification. In conclusion it is suggested that it should rather be interpreted as indicating that the belief has its source in the object denoted by the quantifier.

David Lewis tends to use the notion of knowledge in an intuitive way, and it is the burden of his contextualist relevant alternatives theory to fit this intuitive usage. The chapter begins with a review of Lewis's contribution to the theory of knowledge. This involves presenting both his elegant version of relevant alternatives theory, and his detailed version of contextualism, and then displaying the combined account and its claimed virtues. The relevance of a possibility at a context is determined by (...) all and only the rules of Actuality, Belief, Resemblance, Reliability, Method, Conservatism, and Attention. The main virtue which Lewis claims for Lewisian knowledge ascription is that of reconciling infallibilism with anti‐skepticism. It should be stressed that the intensional framework, as developed by Lewis and others, represents the best developed semantic framework to date. The relevant alternatives theory can extend very smoothly to at least some potential successor frameworks. (shrink)

We investigate how people ascribe responsibility to an agent who caused a bad outcome but did not know he would. The psychological processes for making such judgments, we argue, involve finding a counterfactual in which some minimally benevolent intention initiates a course of events that leads to a better outcome than the actual one. We hypothesize that such counterfactuals can include, when relevant, epistemic intentions. With four vignette studies, we show that people consider epistemic intentions when ascribing responsibility for a (...) bad outcome. We further investigate which epistemic intentions people are likely to consider when building counterfactuals for responsibility ascription. We find that, when an agent did not predict a bad outcome, people ascribe responsibility depending on the reasons behind the agents’ lack of knowledge. People judge agents responsible for the bad outcome they caused when they could have easily predicted the consequences of their actions but did not care to acquire the relevant information. However, when this information was hard to acquire, people are less likely to judge them responsible. -/- . (shrink)

There are two parts to Lewis's account of the de se. First there is the idea that the objects of de se thought (and, by extension of de dicto thought too) are properties, not propositions. This is the idea that is center-stage in Lewis's discussion. Second there is the idea that the relation that thinkers bear to these properties is that of self-ascription. It is crucial to LewisÕs account that this is understood as a fundamental, unanalyzable, notion: self-ascription (...) of a property is not ascription of a property to the self, on a par with ascription to someone else. This has been overlooked in much recent discussion, especially when Lewis's account is understood in terms of centered worlds. When it is back in focus it brings problems. An almost Cartesian starting point is required; and first-person plural ascriptions, and those with first person pronouns other than in subject position, become unmanageably complex. (shrink)

This paper defends Lewis’ influential treatment of de se attitudes from recent criticism to the effect that a key explanatory notion—self-ascription—goes unexplained. It is shown that Lewis’ treatment can be reconstructed in a way which provides clear responses. This sheds light on the explanatory ambitions of those engaged in Lewis’ project.

David Lewis argues that believing something is self‐ascribing a property rather than holding true a proposition. But what is self‐ascription? Is it some new mysterious primitive? Is Lewis saying that every belief you have is about you? Several recent authors have suggested that, in the light of these questions, Lewis's theory should be rejected, despite its enormous influence. But this neglects the fact that Lewis makes two relevant proposals about belief: one about belief de se , another about belief (...) de re . It is the second that prompts these questions but the first that is central to his theory. (shrink)

A belief ascription such as “Oedipus believes that his mother is the queen of Thebes” can be understood in two ways, one in which it seems true, and another in which it seems false. It can seem true because the woman who was, in fact, Oedipus’ mother was believed by him to be the queen of Thebes. It can seem false because Oedipus himself would have sincerely denied that Jocasta could be correctly characterized as “Oedipus’s mother.” Belief ascriptions thus (...) seem to admit of two interpretations, and this has suggested to many that belief predicates such as “________ believes that his mother is the queen of Thebes” are ambiguous between a de dicto and a de re reading.1 However, the impression of ambiguity is a function of the narrow ranges of examples that philosophers focus on. When we consider our ascriptional practices as a whole, the suggestion that belief predicates are ambiguous is neither plausible nor needed to explain the de dicto/de re distinction. The following will argue that understanding paradigmatic de dicto and de re ascriptions in terms of disavowals from a more basic sort of ascription is preferable to positing a simple ambiguity in which each of the two sorts of ascription are conceptually primitive. (shrink)

This article explores the roots of action in behavior. Departing from the standard understanding of action as ‘intentional behavior’, we argue that this view is often based on the underestimation of the intentional structures that are already operative within behavior. Distinguishing between a broader and a narrower meaning of intentionality, we then elaborate on the processes that lead from the diffuse and operative intentionality of behavior to the focused intentionality of action. In order to properly appreciate these processes, we show (...) that a reassessment of the phenomenon of attention – which takes into consideration its double (passive and active) nature as well as its social embedment – is required. Finally, we discuss the interplay between the obtained reframing of the genesis of intentional actions with the phenomenon of social ascription. (shrink)

Critical notice of Mark Richard's 'Context and the Attitudes: Meaning in Context, Volume 1'.

This paper argues that the obvious validity of certain inferences involving indirect speech reports as premises and truth or falsity ascriptions as conclusions is incompatible with Davidson's so-called "paratactic" analysis of the logical form of indirect discourse. Besides disqualifying that analysis, this problem is also claimed to indicate that the analysis is doubly in tension with Davidson's metasemantic views. Specifically, it can be reconciled neither with one of Davidson's key assumptions regarding the adequacy of the kind of semantic theory he (...) recommends nor with one of his key assumptions regarding the inadequacy of a kind of semantic theory he rejects. (shrink)

One question that arises in connection with Ockhamism, and that perhaps has not yet received the attention it deserves, is how a coherent formal account of truth ascriptions can be provided by using a suitable truth predicate in the object language. We address this question and show its implications for some semantic issues that have been discussed in the literature on future contingents. Arguably, understanding how truth ascriptions work at the formal level helps to gain a deeper insight into Ockhamism (...) itself. (shrink)

This paper provides a semantics for propositional attitude ascriptions. (In this respect, the title of the paper is quite well chosen.).

A recent proposal by Quill Kukla and Mark Lance holds that surface appearances notwithstanding, gender ascriptions are closer to normative performatives than descriptions. As speech acts, they share more in common with pronouncing a marriage than a neutral description of a person, albeit this is not commonly recognized. This paper argues that the proposal faces a consistency problem. In order to affect social reality qua their illocutionary force, gender ascriptions must on average succeed. However, according to the authors most actual (...) second- and third person gender ascriptions in fact violate the success conditions of the speech act type, which include respect for the individual’s first-person gender ascriptions. Their main claim thus becomes that gender roles can be instituted as a series of misfires, though it is left open how this is possible. (shrink)

This article considers the question whether belief ascriptions exhibit context dependence. I first distinguish two potential forms of context dependence in belief ascription. Propositional context dependence concerns what the subject believes, whereas attitudinal context dependence concerns what it is to believe a proposition. I then discuss three potential sources of PCD and two potential sources of ACD. Given the nature of this article, my discussion will provide only an overview of these various forms and sources of context dependence. Along (...) the way I will identify areas where continued research is needed. (shrink)

This essay starts from the observation that the issue of talent, in relation to the problem of distributive justice, can be approached from two different angles. First, it is common to discuss the justificatory function of talent, that is, its role in the justification of educational or social inequalities. In addition, however, this essay proposes to look at practices of talent ascription and their causal role in the distribution of educational prospects. These practices tend to exacerbate educational inequalities due (...) to social background, especially when they are tied to selective educational settings. There is reason to avoid talent-based selection in education, in order to contain the negative effects of practices of talent ascription. (shrink)

Truth is not one of a kind. Philosophers have widely assumed that truth is mysterious, intractable, troublesome, or else, trivial and redundant. I argue here that none of these alternatives is true. The only sense in which truth is unique is in the treatment that philosophers give to it. On the basis of the same corpus of evidence, we make assumptions and draw conclusions about truth that we do not draw about any other notion of a similar kind. Truth ascriptions (...) work in natural languages as propositional variables. They are prosentences. To them applies all the knowledge that linguists and philosophers of language have gathered about the general class of proforms and the specific class of indexicals. The philosophy of language has the tools to explain the meaning of truth in all its depth. The air of mystery that has surrounded this notion is due in part to the Liar paradox, and in part to a lack of understanding of the variety and plurality of ways in which expressions can be meaningful. The Liar paradox is easy to explain. And a pluralistic approach to meaning that distinguishes between linguistic meaning and the content expressed can offer a correct account of this notion that answers philosophers’ doubts. At the end of this chapter, I deal with the allegedly puzzling connection between truth and assertion. I argue that truth is a reliable mark of assertive actions, and that the apparent counterexamples that come from special contexts, such as fiction or conditionals, can be explained by the appropriate theory of meaning. I also give reasons to doubt that Frege detached truth from assertion in those contexts. Truth, like logical constants, needs for its analysis a background shaped by (PA), (PPP), (PGS), and (PII). It needs an approach that pays attention to the role of agents in the use of expressions and the difference in semantics between first-level and higher-level predicables and concepts. To understand truth, we need to adopt a theoretical approach like the one I have defended in this book, or another one with similar resources. Otherwise, truth cannot be released from the confusing playground that still makes it refractory to analysis. (shrink)