Papers on propositional attitudes
- A modal analysis of presupposition and modal subordination (Journal of Semantics, 2005, 281-306. pdf file )
In this paper I give a
modal two-dimensional analysis of presupposition and
modal subordination. I will think of presupposition as a non-veridical propositional attitude. This allows me to evaluate what is presupposed and what is asserted at different dimensions without getting into the binding problem. What is presupposed will be represented by an accessibility relation between possible worlds. The major part of the paper consists of a proposal to account for the
dependence of the interpretation of modal expressions, i.e. modal subordination, in
terms of an accessibility relation as well. Moreover, I
show how such an analysis can be extended from the
propositional to the predicate logical level.
- Presupposition: An (un)common attitude? ; (In Bauerle et al. (eds.), Presupposition and Discourse, Elsevier, Amsterdam)
pdf
file
In this paper I argue that
presupposition should be thought of as a propositional
attitude. I will separate questions on truth from
questions of presupposition satisfaction by making use
of a two-dimensional analysis. The update of what is
presupposed will be accounted for by eliminating arrows,
which also makes possible an appealing analysis of modal
subordination. (The paper `A modal analysis of modal subordination' is an extension of this paper)
- Asserting to Resolve Decision problems ; (Journal of Pragmatics, 2003, 35, 1161-1179, although the paper dates back to 2000)
In this paper I use our notion of relevance to resolve the potentially underspecified meaning of attitude
attributions. Assuming that belief attributions
are made to explain unexpected actions, and that
assertions have to be relevant, it is shown that
potentially ambiguous, or underspecified, {\it de re}
belief attributions can be disambiguated by taking the assertion to be informative with respect to the decision problem under discussion.
- Permission to Change (Journal of Semantics, 2000, 17, pp. 119-145) pdf
file
In this paper I discuss how to account for the
performative effects of imperatives, and concentrate
mainly on permission sentences. In the first part of the
paper I argue that the performative effects of
permission sentences should be accounted for in terms of
a context change theory by making use of {\it
contraction} defined in terms of an ordering relation,
and show also how this ordering relation evolves from
permission to permission. In the second part a problem
for this analysis is discussed, i.e. the problem of
conjunctive permission sentences. I develop two ways to
solve this problem. First, I suggest that this problem
is due to the wrong way of accounting for contraction,
and propose an alternative way in which contraction can
be defined that accounts for the performative effects of
conjunctive permissions in a more satisfactory way.
Although the analysis is appealing, I will argue that we
should account for the problem by means of a type-shift
analysis.
- Some analyses of pro-attitudes. In: H. de Swart (ed.) Logic, Game Theory, and Social Choice, Tilburg University Press, Tilburg, 1999; pdf
file dvi
file
E-mail: |
R.A.M.VanRooijATuva.nl |