|
Semantic Processing and Semantic Paradox| old_uid | 2847 |
|---|
| title | Semantic Processing and Semantic Paradox |
|---|
| start_date | 2007/05/18 |
|---|
| schedule | 11h-13h |
|---|
| online | no |
|---|
| location_info | RdC, salle D040 |
|---|
| summary | An instance of the T-schema for a language is a sentence of the form "s is true in L iff p", where what is substituted for 'p' translates s. Accepting such sentences would seem to be necessary for full understanding of a language. For instance, someone who didn't know that "'La neige est blanche" is true in French iff snow is white would seem to be shown thereby deficient in his or her understanding of French, and likewise, one might think, for the other sentences of French or another natural language.
The semantic paradoxes, however, are commonly taken to show that something must be wrong with this picture, since they appear to show that some T-sentences are logically false. Since what speakers know cannot be false, it appears that either we were wrong to think that speakers need to accept all of the T-sentences for a language like French, or wrong in accepting a logic in which such sentences imply anything unacceptable. So, it is usually concluded, either not all of the T-sentences for a language like French are part of what speakers need to know, or logic isn't what we thought it was (or, commonly, both).
I propose an alternative. What the paradoxes actually show is that competent speakers of natural languages understand them by accepting false semantic theories. Understanding a language like English or French, on my view, is not a matter of knowing what other speakers know, but rather of being disposed falsely to believe what other speakers believe. I explain how coordinated false belief about meaning facilitates communication as effectively as would knowledge of meaning. The result is an approach to the semantic paradoxes that requires no revisions in logic and no innovations in semantics: we solve the paradoxes, rather, by accepting that there is a family of false folk theories, the semantic theories for natural languages that speakers of them are inclined to accept. |
|---|
| oncancel | changt de lieu à partir du 27/04/2007 |
|---|
| responsibles | Stojanovic |
|---|
| |
|