LINGUIST List 23.960 Sat Feb 25 2012 Confs: Philosophy of Language/France Editor for this issue: Amy Brunett <brunettlinguistlist.org> LINGUIST is pleased to announce the launch of an exciting new feature: Easy Abstracts! Easy Abs is a free abstract submission and review facility designed to help conference organizers and reviewers accept and process abstracts online. Just go to: http://www.linguistlist.org/confcustom, and begin your conference customization process today! With Easy Abstracts, submission and review will be as easy as 1-2-3! Directory         1.     Michael Murez , Propositions as Types -- Lectures by Peter Hanks Message 1: Propositions as Types -- Lectures by Peter Hanks Date: 24-Feb-2012 From: Michael Murez <michael.murezgmail.com> Subject: Propositions as Types -- Lectures by Peter Hanks E-mail this message to a friend Propositions as Types -- Lectures by Peter Hanks Date: 06-Mar-2012 - 06-Apr-2012 Location: Paris, France Contact: Michael Murez Contact Email: < click here to access email > Meeting URL: http://cpr.nicod.free.fr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=106 Linguistic Field(s): Philosophy of Language Meeting Description: In this series of talks at Institut Jean Nicod (29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris), Peter Hanks will develop an account of propositional content according to which propositions are certain types of spoken and mental actions. According to this account, the proposition that Obama is eloquent is a type of action a subject performs when she predicates the property of eloquence of Obama. All lectures will take place Salle de réunion, Pavillon Jardin, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France Detailed Schedule First lecture, March 6, 16.30-18.30: Propositions as Types I. Predication and the Content-Force Distinction Abstract: Here I focus on the act of predication. Predication, as I understand it, is a type of action a subject performs when she attributes a property to an object, where this commits the subject to the object's having the property. Conceiving of predication in this way, and including it in propositions, amounts to a rejection of Frege's content-force distinction and a rejection of Frege's conception of judgment and assertion. My aim in this talk is to motivate my approach over Frege's. I also contrast my account of propositions with the one given by Scott Soames in his recent book What is Meaning?. Second lecture, March 13, 16.30-18.30: Propositions as Types II. Proper Names Abstract: Here I apply my theory of propositions to give a new account of the semantic contents of proper names. I argue that the semantic contents of names are certain types of reference acts. I call these types ''semantic reference types''. This is neither a Millian nor a Fregean approach to names. Distinct co-referential names are assigned distinct semantic contents, but not because these names are associated with different modes of presentation. I show how this account offers an intuitive solution to Frege's puzzle about identity statements without sacrificing the rigidity of names. The account extends easily to empty names and offers a new solution to the problem of negative existentials. In addition, I show how the account handles co-referential names in different languages, e.g. 'London' and 'Londres'. Third Lecture, March 20, 16.30-18.30: Propositions as Types III. Propositional Attitude Reports Abstract: In this talk I apply my theory of propositions to give an account of the semantics of propositional attitude reports. My aim is to explain the complicated, contextually sensitive facts about substitutions in that-clauses. The view that propositions are types of actions offers a rich and systematic way of understanding these facts. The approach is consistent with semantic innocence and does not treat that-clauses as names of propositions. It also solves Kripke's puzzles about belief, both the London-Londres and Paderewski puzzles. In addition, I relate this approach to what John Perry has called the ''classificatory conception'' of content, which is based on analogies between attitude reports and sentences about weights and lengths. Fourth lecture, April 6 (as part of the workshop Propositions and Propositional Attitudes): First-Person Propositions Abstract: A first-person proposition is a proposition that is accessible to only a single subject, in the sense that only that subject can judge or assert that proposition. Many philosophers are skeptical about first- person propositions, despite the fact that they would solve problems about de se belief. Here I show how to make sense of first-person propositions without relying on first-person Fregean senses or anything else in the vicinity, such as individual essences or haecceities. The view is a development of the more general idea that propositions are types of spoken and mental actions. On this account, first-person propositions are certain types of actions we perform when we make utterances using the first-person pronoun 'I'. 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