LEMMings@Northwestern

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Events

Date: May 12, 2008
Time: 4:00
Location: Tech M345
Title: Gregory Ward, Northwestern
Description: "Brave New Would"
In this talk (representing collaborative work), I analyze and compare two
copular constructions of English, both with a demonstrative pronoun in
subject position: epistemic would equatives and that-equatives, as illustrated in (1)-(2), respectively:

  1. THE YOUNGEST JET FLEET? THAT WOULD BE US.
    [Continental Airlines ad, Chicago Tribune 1/10/2005]
  2. G: Who'’s that up there at the podium? C: That'’s our guest speaker.
    [G.W. and C.L. in conversation, 1/5/2008]

Drawing upon a large corpus of naturally-occurring data, I show that the
modal in an epistemic would equative serves to mark the FOCUS of the
utterance, thus requiring that an OPEN PROPOSITION (in the sense of Prince 1986) be contextually salient (i.e., evoked or inferrable) at the time of
utterance. The post-copular constituent serves as the instantiation of the
variable of that open proposition (OP). The information structure of the
epistemic would construction accounts for the humorous and/or ironic tone
often associated with its use. The that-equative construction is more
constrained. It may also be used to instantiate an OP; however, for
that-equatives, unlike epistemic would equatives, such a possibility is
determined contextually rather than morpho-syntactically.
Sponsor: Annual Linguistics Lecture

Date: March 14, 2008
Time: 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Location: Philosophy Seminar Room,Kresge Hall 2-345
Title: Lance Rips, Northwestern University
Description:  "Nets and Hooks: Bayes Net Theories of Counterfactual Conditionals"
Sponsor: Philosophy & Linguistics Workgroup

Date: February 11, 2008
Time: 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Location: University Hall 101
Title: J. Adam Carter, University of Edinburgh
Description:  "Helping Meno out of the Swamp: A New Look at the Value Problem"
It is widely assumed that the value of knowledge is greater than the value of mere true belief. Jonathan Kvanvig and others argue that a theory of knowledge that fails to preserve this assumption is subject to what is calledthe 'swamping problem.' The objective of this essay will be to demonstrate that 'value swamping' is a myth, and that we should reject that the 'swamping problem' as a legitimate philosophical task to which a theory of knowledge should be held accountable. Finally, I offer reasons for thinking that a theory of knowledge can be required to preserve the same value assumptions about knowledge that motivate the swamping problem, even if swamping is rejected as metaphysically untenable; the value problem, thus, is not reducible to the swamping problem.
Sponsor: Philosophy Department Edinburgh Exchange

Date: December 7, 2007
Time: 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Location: Philosophy Seminar Room,Kresge Hall 2-345
Title: Mitchell S. Green, University of Virginia
Description:  "How Speech Acts Express Psychological States"
One oft-cited feature of speech acts is their expressive character: Assertion expresses belief, apology regret, promise intention. Yet expression, or at least sincere expression, is as I argue a form of showing: A sincere expression shows whatever is the state that is the sincerity condition of the expressive act. How, then, can a speech act show a speaker’s state of thought or feeling? To answer this question I consider three varieties of showing, and argue that only one of them is suited to help us answer our question. I also argue that concepts from the evolutionary biology of communication provide one source of insight into how speech acts enable one to show, and thereby express, a psychological state. The reading will be circulated to those on the mailing list two weeks prior to our meeting.
Sponsor: Philosophy & Linguistics Workgroup

Date: November 16, 2007
Time: 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Location: Philosophy Seminar Room,Kresge Hall 2-345
Title: Louis deRosset, University of Vermont
Description:  "Reference and Response"
A standard view of reference holds that a speaker's use of a name refers to a certain thing in virtue of the speaker's associating some condition with that use that singles the referent out. This view has been roundly criticized by Saul Kripke. Recently, however, it has been argued that a version of the standard view, a response-based theory of reference, survives the criticisms. This paper argues that the standard view is incorrect, and in particular that response-based theories of reference are empirically inadequate. A speaker's use of a proper name does not typically refer by way of associated conditions. Instead, it typically refers in virtue of the speaker's causal and historical position, and quite independently of whatever conditions she associates with her use of the name.
Sponsor: Philosophy Department Colloquium Speaker Series

Date: October 22, 2007
Time: 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Location: Frances Searle 1-421
Title: Sanford Goldberg, Northwestern University
Description: "Knowledge, Language, and Knowledge of Language"
One of the uses to which language can be put -- perhaps the most important one -- is that of communicating knowledge. In this talk I will use a standard theory of knowledge to identify what conditions would have to be satisfied if hearers are to acquire knowledge through their acceptance of others' speech. The aim of so doing is to see whether (and if so how) the theory of knowledge provides any constraints on accounts of our knowledge of language.
Sponsor: Cognitive Science Program & Language and Cognition Colloquium