SEMESTER 3 (30 ECTS)

The guiding idea of this course is that no philosophy is separable from a theory of scientific knowledge, and conversely that philosophy of science is never a simple commentary added to scientific theories, but always an interrogation of the sciences conducted from reflection on a key concept of general philosophy of knowledge (such as principle, law, system, fact, nature, truth, experience, a priori knowledge, etc.).

The course is divided into three groups of sessions: each group will be devoted to a key concept, in connection with either the philosophy of logic and mathematics (first group), or the philosophy of physics (second group), or the philosophy of life sciences (third group).

The first part of the course will focus on the notion of modality. A modality (such as possibility or necessity) designates the way in which a proposition is asserted: the mode according to which the truth of a proposition is posited. One can consider that a modality is extrinsic to the proposition it concerns: in itself, a proposition is true or false, but our relationship to its truth or falsity is external to it. However, one can maintain that there really exist different types of truths, and in particular a distinction to be made between a priori truths and empirical truths. After examining this point, we will consider a number of classical questions about modalities: does a modality qualify the status of a statement or the state of affairs that this statement discusses? Is truth itself a modality? Are modalities iterable? Should they be represented as predicates or as operators?

The second part of the course will focus on the theories of the “Pittsburgh School”—that is, the group of analytic philosophers based at the University of Pittsburgh in the United States, especially Wilfrid Sellars, John McDowell, and Robert Brandom. We will begin with the foundational text in analytic philosophy of mind, The Concept of Mind, by British philosopher Gilbert Ryle, to then see its influence on Pittsburgh philosophers. Next we will study the “critical realism” of Wilfrid Sellars, as well as the empiricist applications he made of Kant’s philosophy. We will then examine texts by John McDowell and Robert Brandom, notably Mind and World and Making It Explicit. We will question their respective theories of meaning and representation, and we will try to understand Brandom’s uses of Hegel’s philosophy.

The third part of the course will examine the question of what a concept is. This interrogation has taken on particular significance with the evolution of exact sciences in the 19th and 20th centuries. Indeed, the theory of the concept inherited from tradition, according to which concepts arise from a process of abstraction that consists in identifying, through comparison, a common factor in a diversity of objects given in experience, appeared incompatible with recent scientific developments. In his work Substance and Function (1910), the neo-Kantian philosopher Ernst Cassirer proposed to substitute for this classical concept, conceived as a representative element, a formal and abstract concept conceived as function, based on the notion of relation. We will seek to understand the meaning of this revision, and analyze how it modifies the relationship between concept and reality as well as the notion of object, and leads to a break with a conception of knowledge as a reflection of an already given reality. We will compare these results with those of other contemporary philosophical currents whose reflection is anchored in the sciences (such as logicism or logical empiricism), and will evoke the relevance of Cassirer’s reflections in philosophy of science today.

Bibliography:

• Kant, I. Critique of Pure Reason (on the categories of modality and the postulates of empirical thought).
• Quine, W. V. O. “Reference and Modality.” From a Logical Point of View, Vrin, 2003.
• Quine, W. V. O. “Three Degrees of Modal Involvement.” The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays, Vrin, 2011.
• Mulligan, K. “The Truth Predicate vs the Truth Connective. On Taking Connectives Seriously.” Dialectica, Vol. 64, 2010.
• Ryle, G. The Concept of Mind. University of Chicago Press, 1949.
• Sellars, W. “The Myth of the Given: Three Lectures on Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind.” In H. Feigl & M. Scriven (Eds.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science Volume I: The Foundations of Science and the Concepts of Psychology and Psychoanalysis. University of Minnesota Press, 1956.
• McDowell, J. Mind and World. Harvard University Press, 1994.
• Brandom, R. Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment. Harvard University Press, 1994.

Assessment Methods:
A take-home assignment at the end of the semester composed of questions covering the different parts of the course.

Course description to be provided.

(Course taught in English)

LCHCY010: Discourse and Dialogue (M2S3)
Taught in English • 2 hours tutorial • 6 ECTS

This course synthesizes various approaches to semantics and pragmatics (including speech act theory, language games, Conversational Analysis, Post-Montagovian formal semantics, Martin-Löf Type Theory) to develop a formal approach to describing dialogical interaction.

The perspective we adopt involves considering interaction as it occurs at early stages of language acquisition, among mature adults, and also a neural perspective that explains why linguistic abilities are fallible.

Topics covered include: Non-verbal social signals (crying, smiling, laughter) and emotion; Reference and pointing; the response space of questions; grammars at initial stages of acquisition; exclamatives; Clarification Interaction; Language games.

Coordinator: Jonathan GINZBURG (yonatan.ginzburg@u-paris.fr)

Bibliography:

• Bastin, C., Besson, G., Simon, J., Delhaye, E., Geurten, M., Willems, S., & Salmon, E. (2019). An integrative memory model of recollection and familiarity to understand memory deficits. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1–66.
• Cooper, R. & Ginzburg, J. (2015). Type theory with records for NL semantics. In C. Fox & S. Lappin (Eds.), Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory (2nd ed., pp. 375–407). Blackwell.
• Ginzburg, J. (2016). The semantics of dialogue. In M. Aloni & P. Dekker (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Formal Semantics (pp. 130–170). Cambridge University Press.
• Ginzburg, J., Mazzocconi, C., & Tian, Y. (2020). Laughter as language. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 5(1).
• Lücking, A. (2018). Witness-loaded and witness-free demonstratives. In M. Coniglio, A. Murphy, E. Schlachter, & T. Veenstra (Eds.), Atypical Demonstratives: Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics (Vol. 568, pp. 255–284). Walter de Gruyter.
• Schegloff, E., Jefferson, G., & Sacks, H. (1977). The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language, 53, 361–382.
• Searle, J. (1969). Speech Acts. Cambridge University Press.
• Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical Investigations. Basil Blackwell. (Citations from second edition, 1988 reprint.)

LCHCY020: Semantics and Pragmatics
2 hours • 6 ECTS

This seminar explores the semantics-pragmatics interface. It focuses on future time reference and modality and assesses the evolution of modal expressions in terms of grammaticalization. Special attention is paid to the transition from the modal to the postmodal domain.

Coordinator: Agnès CELLE (agnes.celle@u-paris.fr)

Bibliography:
• Bybee, J., Perkins, R., & Pagliuca, W. (1994). The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World. University of Chicago Press.
• Cappelle, B. & Depraetere, I. (2016). Short-circuited interpretations of modal verb constructions: Some evidence from The Simpsons. In B. Cappelle & I. Depraetere (Eds.), Modal Meaning in Construction Grammar (pp. 7–39). John Benjamins.
• Celle, A. (2012). Epistemic would: a marker of modal remoteness. Faits de langue, 40, 149-156.
• Celle, A. (2018). Epistemic evaluation in factual contexts in English. In Z. Guentchéva (Ed.), Epistemic Modality and Evidentiality in a Cross-Linguistic Perspective (pp. 22–51). Mouton de Gruyter.
• Celle, A. & Lansari, L. (2009). La référence à l’avenir en anglais contemporain : vers une énonciation médiatisée. Faits de langue, 33, 103-109.
• Celle, A. & Smith, N. (2010). Beyond aspect: will + be-ing and shall + be-ing. English Language and Linguistics, 14(2), 239-269.
• Dahl, Ö. (2001). Grammaticalization and the life cycles of constructions. RASK–Internationalt tidsskrift for sprog og kommunikation, 14, 91–134.
• Goldberg, A. (2006). Constructions at Work: The Nature of Generalization in Language. Oxford University Press.
• Hilpert, M. (2016). Change in modal meanings: Another look at the shifting collocates of may. In B. Cappelle & I. Depraetere (Eds.), Modal Meaning in Construction Grammar (pp. 66–85). John Benjamins.
• Hopper, P. & Traugott, E. (1993). Grammaticalization. Cambridge University Press.