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This article refers to one of the most intense debates in contemporary philosophy of language, namely the dispute over the scope and nature of context sensitivity of linguistic meaning. In fact, this is a dispute about the autonomy of semantics The two opposing positions in this debate are contextualism and semantic minimalism. The proposed approach recognizes speech acts as intentional and rational acts of communication in which the linguistic expression and context are both distinct as separate different sources of information that finally define a content of utterance. This attitude makes it possible to identify more precisely the role of linguistic meaning on the one hand and the influence of context on the other hand in pragmatic interpretation of utterance. From this perspective, the utterance of the sentence John is tall was analyzed in three different contexts of usage to examine the main theses of the positions in question. Considerations were made as an attempt to defend the semantic minimalism, which claims that the only context sensitive expressions are the completely obvious ones such as “I,” “here,” “now,” “that.” The context influence on the expressions outside this group is limited to a pragmatic level. Pragmatic processes do not modulate the semantic content of expressions but contribute to the interpretation of the expression. Linguistic sentences, after fixing the semantic value of these obviously context sensitive expressions, express propositions (minimal propositions) without additional contextual information. It definitely rejects the contextualist position that that almost all expressions are context sensitive and that the pragmatics changes semantic content in a substantial way. It argued against the contextualist claims that sentences such as John is tall have no propositional content – only utterances can have propositional (truth-conditional) content. The analysis of the sentence in question used in different contexts provides arguments in favor of semantic minimalism. They show that both the word tall itself has some content common to all contexts and references, as well as the sentence, John is tall formulates a (minimal) proposition with truth-conditional content.
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This article focuses on some issues in the contemporary debate about the normativity of meaning initiated by Kripke’s famous book. The core of this debate concerns the relationship between the normativity of meaning and the correctness conditions of language use, but fails to deal with the concept of normativity itself. This article aims to discuss this neglected problem, and considers issues such as: What does it mean that rules are normative? How are we to understand the concept of a “norm”, and what distinguishes norms from other types of rules? What is the justification of the normative character of the rules governing the use of linguistic expressions? To begin, Kripke’s thesis of meaning normativity is briefly presented together with its main line of criticism and a defence of this idea. Then various proposals for understanding the concepts of “rules” and “norms” are considered, and the basic features of these two concepts are identified. Next, the idea that the rules for the use of linguistic expressions are socially determined is examined, and the social dimension of language is considered as a possible justification for the normativity of meaning. The last issue considered concerns the relationship between the socially established rules for the use of linguistic expressions and their meaning, which has a referential component. Meaning is connected with content and as such it is not only conventional, but also constituted by a representative function of language. Finally, it is suggested that there are two dimensions of the normativity of meaning: a social dimension, which is granted on normative conventions, and a non-social dimension related to the representative function of language.
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Ce numéro de Studia est consacré à la pratique de la philosophie pour enfants en tant qu’action éducative. Les contributeurs sont des praticiens et chercheurs engagés dans la pratique de philosophie avec les enfants. Nous leur avons demandé de présenter leur réflexion que ce soit à partir de travaux de recherche ou de situations de discussions philosophiques avec les enfants. Les éclairages apportés sont variés : depuis des réflexions théorico-pratiques fondées sur des travaux de recherche jusqu’à la présentation de dispositifs, d’outils et de démarches empiriques envisagées de manière accompagnée d’une approche réflexive. Ainsi, ce qui est offert aux lecteurs est plus ou moins directement utilisable, mais toujours assorti d’une analyse critique, car faire de la philosophie avec des enfants ne s’improvise pas. C’est une vision naïve de croire qu’il suffit de donner la parole aux enfants sur un sujet « grave » pour en faire de petits philosophes. Le but de ces pratiques n’est pas de s’émerveiller que l’un d’entre eux pense « comme » tel ou tel philosophe. L’animateur doit apprendre à écouter (et comprendre) ce que disent les enfants, à solliciter les habiletés mentales, à encourager la liberté de penser, mais aussi à guider la recherche. L’ambition de cette publication est de proposer aux praticiens des repères pour ce type d’activités.
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The Intervenient Must be a Problem for the Children! This article attempts to find a theoretically and philosophically consistant foundation for the role of the facilitator of philosophy with children and draws conclusions about the type of activity that this facilitator must do. This requires a thetic implication on what makes us philosophize. We defend then that it is by the concept of "problem" that the philosophy appears, and that thus the facilitator must act by being an instantiation of this very concept.
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“Philosophy in Action” in the Texts and Practices of Peter Worley. If philosophy for children (P4C) aims to become a “reconstruction of philosophy” itself (Lipman, 1997:13), the PhiE (Philosophical Enquiry), an approach proposed by Peter Worley, represents a thorough reconstruction of the classical P4C. In my article, I intend to emphasize the differences between Peter Worley’s approach and the classical version offered by Matthew Lipman and his followers. My thesis is that Worley’s approach manages both to stimulate to a greater extent children abilities of critical thinking, and to constitute a genuine representation of “doing philosophy” from early ages. In other words, Peter Worley’s distinct version of P4C represents both literally and metaphorically “philosophy in action”.
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Gestures’ Contribution to Collective Metaphorical Thinking in a Community of Philosophical Inquiry (CPI). This paper explores an idea expressed by a student discussing where our thoughts come from: “to think we have to move our hands”. Such sentence echoes the literature on the role of gesture for thinking. This study also focuses on the collective advancement of reasoning in a CPI. The instructor chooses to conclude by asking each student to suggest an analogy of thinking. This closing sequence reveals how the instructor, through metaphorical gestures, fosters collective awareness of new propositions, and their further elaboration. After characterizing the cognitive models so produced, video analysis is used to follow their collective, verbal and gestural construction along the discussion.
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Philosophy in Action with Dysfunctional Adolescents: Strengthening Resistance, Preparing Resilience Using Michel Tozzi’s Teaching Matrix. Our contribution is based on research conducted with dysfunctional teenagers, prevented from thinking, in a praxis of resilience assisted by philosophical discussion according to the method of Michel Tozzi. A good distance from a process of modelling thought, it’s question of articulating the process of accompaniment the young person’s by Michel Tozzi didactic model. Based on anthropologically situated discussions in the interrogations of adolescents put into play by means of written materials according to Mathew Lipman’s recommendations, the philosophical discussions method’s that we submit is intended to guide educator to explore the process that hinder the activity of thinking and to engage teenagers in a process of rebounding from their own arguments. We present our method which equipping teenagers with tools of resistance to adversity and resiliency in face of harmful experiences.
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Have Students Write with a Philosophical Aim: Educational Scenario and Psychologist’s. Perspective With the international swarming of the oral and collective P4C (Philosophy FOR Children) practice, its benefits for children’s development have been demonstrated in various and transversal fields. Are these beneficial effects transferable and quantifiable in individual writings of students aged 13 to 14 years? We will outline some directions to answer this question by presenting an original educational P4C tool, Philo & Carto, which is based on artworks as anchors to initiate the dialogical community of inquiry. The results from a first experiment will be presented and discussed, and pedagogical directions will be proposed.
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A Healthier Relationship with Technology Starting from Children’s Opinion on it. A Case Study from the Philosophy for Children Workshops in the Local Library. One of the most discussed problems in parenting is children’s relationship with technology. The article analyses a few of parents’ fears that drives their attitude and some of the skills developed while using technology, mirrored by the skills of the future work. Also includes a study case from our philosophy for children workshops on technology held in the local libraries in 2019. Children are prepared to understand the arguments of a parent in a real dialogue. In order to create one, parents should consider the opposite of the truth they know as well as children’s opinion. Due to the attractiveness of technology, every child needs help from adults in order to create a strategy for a healthy relationship with technology.
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“Little Aristotle”, Ethical Virtues Workshop. Inspired by “Nicomachean Ethics”, the project aims to seed virtuous consistent attitudes in children, as part of their moral enculturation process, understood as a coherent set of knowledge, criteria, and capacities of moral judgment. Character’s dispositions like courage, generosity, friendship, correctness or gentleness were aimed to be cultivated by activating non-formal educational methods, anchored in real life and adapted to children’s stage of development. The activities and conclusions of this workshop are presented in this article, which the main purpose is to find a place for Aristotelian ethics in nowadays moral education for children, to highlight the need for an appropriate moral pedagogy, that takes into account children’s capacities of understanding and to inspire ethicists and moral trainers in their work.
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Philosophy Workshops in a REP College: Questioning and the Community of Inquiry as a Pedagogical Common Thread. We describe in this paper the philosophy workshops implemented in a secundary school in Grenoble. We present some of the materials we use. We describe the effects of this project on the children and especially on the teachers.The teachers taking part in the project have entered into a process of questioning more generally their own teaching pratices: which activities in other academic subjects could be based on the community of philosophical enquiry’s dynamic of questioning, exploring, researching? Which other models of community of enquiry might we imagine (litterary, grammatical, scientific, historical)?
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One basic idea of the causal theory of reference is reference grounding. The name is introduced ostensively at a formal or informal dubbing. The question is: By virtue of what is the grounding term grounded in the object qua-horse and not in the other natural kind whose member it is? In virtue of what does it refer to all horses and only horses? The problem is usually called the qua problem. What the qua problem suggests is that the causal historical theory in the final analysis depends on some kind of unexplained intentionality. This is a great problem since the whole project is an attempt to explain intentionality naturalistically. In this paper, I have two aims: (i) to discuss the most important attempts at solving the qua problem; and (ii) to evaluate the solutions. (i) I focus on the following attempts for the solution of the qua problem: Sterelny (1983), Richard Miller’s (1992), mentioning briefly more recent attempts by Ori Simchen (2012) and Paul Douglas (2018). I also concentrate on the attempts in mind and brain sciences as presented by Penelope Maddy (1983) and more recently by Dan Ryder (2004). (ii) In evaluating the solutions, I argue that when a metaphysical question “what is to name” is replaced/or identified with the question about the mechanism of reference, namely “in virtues of what does a word attach to a particular object”, then the final answer will/should be given by neurosemantics. The most promising attempt is Neander’s (2017), based on the teleological causal explanation of preconceptual content to which the conceptual can be developed, as Devitt and Sterelny suggested in their work (1999).
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In recent work Sperber and Wilson expand on ideas initially presented in Relevance (1986) and flesh out continuua between showing and meaning, and determinate and indeterminate content. Drawing on Sperber and Wilson’s work, and at points defending it from what I see as potential objections, I present a Schema of Communicative Acts (SCA) that includes an additional third continuum between linguistic and non-linguistic content. The SCA clears the way for consideration of what exactly is meant by showing, the motivations of speakers, how affect impacts expression, and metaphor. The SCA allows us to consider not only how but why we engage in certain forms of communicative behavior, and captures the incredible nuance of human interactions: said and meant, linguistic and non-linguistic, determinate and indeterminate.
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In this paper we present some of the major theories dealing with the emergence of language faculty and the relationship between language and thought. Our goal is to provide clear and concise review of the features of theories which represent Noam Chomsky, Roger Brown, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. Noam Chomsky had, with his major work Syntactic structures, a powerful influence on psycholinguistics, which can be considered a real revolution in its further development. Although his theory did not give an answer to many questions, it startled dormant linguistic and psycholinguistic thought from lethargy. Current issue came down to the acceptance or denial of a nativist theory of language.
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This paper aims to introduce the translation of Saul Kripke’s influential text to Russian-speaking readers. It shows that the work of American philosopher should be of interest and be useful among the phenomenologists especially. Kripke criticizes the reference theory of Russell and Frege and Hintikka’s logical analysis of the “cogito ergo sum” statement. In both cases he defends his own views on the predicate of existence and shows the change of its status depending on the kind of entity in every particular proposition. The mode of quantifier depends on a given situation which is described in the statement and in some cases the quantifier determines the conditions of the statement’s truth-value. Kripke shows that classical reference theories have no universal meaning; without a set of special stipulations they can only be applicable under limited conditions. He appeals to fiction and myth and writes about fictional characters as a special kind of abstract entities which exist in virtue of the activities of human beings and their interrelations. Kripke scrutinizes the possible relations between a fictional character and his historical prototype. The battery of his examples, his own reference theory including an entity as its core, his ontology of fictional reality and sophisticated philosophical technics are extremely useful materials to explain basic problems of classical phenomenology such as reduction, modification of a phenomenon in imagination, and regional ontologies. All of this provides tools helpful for the practical work of a phenomenologist. In particular, Kripke’s investigations and especially his examples about higher level fictions (fictions within fictions) could be used in the framework of the phenomenology of language when one needs to describe the interlocations of an author, a reader, and a fictional reality before undertaking noetic and noematic analysis.
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Human being is a thinking and talking creature. Human being differentiates itself from other creatures by being a talking and thinking creature. Human being exports his emotion, thought, experience, knowledge and skill through language. People can use the language to communicate among themselves as long as they exist. It is important to use the language correctly, properly and consistently while communication takes place. Therefore, people should use language cor-rectly and consistently while sharing their thoughts among themselves. In addition, logic is needed for shared thinking to be consistent. Human being needs language and logic to make sound thinking, to make accurate and precise judgments and to use valid and consistent arguments. Language, which is the most important sign and means of human and civilization, allows people to express their feelings, thoughts and desires, as well as maintain their lives. Language, which is the carrier of thought or meaning, is indispensable for the transmission of thought. When the logic, which plays an important role in the thought being correct and consistent, is known, we can say that the truth can be distinguis-hed from the wrong and invalid, as well as the comprehension of the meaning from the wrong one. The subject of logic is logical thinking. Therefore, logic is defined as “knowledge of correct thinking rules”. The common denominator of logic and language is 'thinking'. Because both logic and language are closely related to ‘thinking’. Considering the relationship of language with thought and the relationship of thought with logic, logic is also closely related to language.Logic is the means of thinking right. Language is the dress of thought. It is essentially thought that shapes the language or shapes the language. Thoughts must be expressed in language, because if we do not express our thoughts in language, we will not be able to analyze them logi-cally. Reasoning is a form of thinking. Reasoning needs to be expressed in language and take the form of an argument. Arguments also form the subject of logic. It can be said that logic is actually an outward process that continues with thought and has the opportunity to express itself thro-ugh language. When logic is said, it is thought to express the language with thought. For this reason, language, thought and logic have a strict and tight relationship among themselves.Thanks to logic, the act of thinking is healthy, sound (in terms of knowledge), consistent and accurate. The correct thought regulated by the rules of logic goes wrong when there are no logic rules. Hence, if sound thought has occurred thanks to logic, the possibility of a sound language has increased.One of the reasons why we can easily talk about the existence of a close relationship between language and logic is: Grammar gives the rules of speaking correctly and logic thinking correctly. What language relates to words is the relationship between logic and concepts. However, logic refers to the laws of the thought of all mankind, while it contains rules about the language of a grammatical nation. Logic, which protects our minds from falling into error, finds a space for expression through language. Thoughts and concepts that qualify as right or wrong occur thro-ugh language. Therefore, in order to determine the logical validity of any reasoning, it must be expressed through language and gained an argument form. So logic deals with arguments that are the linguistic expression of reasoning. Therefore, the logic that deals with arguments has a bond and relationship that does not break with language. Logic means internal speech and external speech. The inner speech is the mind-setting of the minded meanings. The logic renders the outer speech error-free after solidifying the inner speech phase. Foreign speech takes place in language. It is possible for language to change from very meaningful to single meaning with the rules of logic. In short, we can say that internal speech is logic and external speech is language designed with logic rules. For this reason, language and logic belong to a whole.A person who seeks to think logically, to make the right judgments and to use valid arguments first needs reason, logic and language. Therefore, logic and language play an important role in conducting a healthy communication. For this reason, logic and language are needed for com-munication. Consequently, language and logic must be together. In this case, it shows us that the relationship between language and logic must always continue strongly.In short, people who use language in all areas of life must also use logic. Because if the human does not act in accordance with the rules of logic, it is inevitable for the human mind to fall into error. For this reason, logic is important together with language in the lives of people who are often in communication. Because logic without language and language without logic is insigni-ficant. Therefore, it is not possible to think of “language” without “logic” and “logic” without “language”.
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1. ʻŠTA je istina?ʼ – reče podrugljivo Pilat i ne htjede da sačeka odgovor. Pilat je bio ispred svog vremena. Jer, sama ʻistinaʼ je apstraktna imenica, deva [kamila], to jest, logička konstrukcija, koja ne može proći pored oka čak i gramatičara. Prilazimo joj sa kapom i kategorijama u ruci: pitamo se da li je Istina neka supstancija (Istina, Tijelo Znanja), ili neki kvalitet (nešto poput crvene boje, što je inherentno istinama), ili neka relacija (ʻkorespondencijaʼ). Ali filozofi trebaju uzeti nešto što je bliže njihovoj vlastitoj veličini čime će se opteretiti. Ono o čemu treba raspravljati je upotreba, ili određene vrste upotrebe riječi ʻistinitoʼ. In vino, vjerovatno, ʻveritasʼ, ali u trijeznom simpoziju ʻverumʼ.
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The topic of this paper is Augustine’s theory of signification. Analysis will show that Augustine’s theory of signification is different from the traditional theories in view of its domain and its focus on the problem of meaning. Augustine’s theory of signification is orientated on verbal, and non-verbal signs, as well as the language of the Holy Scripture. Also, he claims that meaning has to be immaterial, and therefore the problem of signs cannot be resolved in the domain of created beings. The results of this paper are inferred through comparative analysis of key Augustine’s texts about this topic, and by taking into account that his theory of signification had a religious background.
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