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Reports on Beliefs: default interpretations and default intentions
Abstract
Dans le cadre du debat opposant S. Schiffer et P. Ludlow sur le probleme de la semantique et de la pragmatique du discours rapporte sur les croyances, en general, et sur le probleme des indexicaux caches dans la theorie de la signification des attributions des croyances, en particulier, l'A. s'interesse a la question de l'intention de la signification et propose une interpretation fondee sur les degres d'intention de communication. Examinant les notions de forme logique, mode de presentation et intention referentielle, l'A. conclut a l'interaction des intentions avec les formes logiques pour produire une interpretation unique
... In addition, in my other work (e.g. Jaszczolt 1997Jaszczolt , 1998aJaszczolt , b, c, 1999aJaszczolt , b, 2000 especially forthcoming), I presented arguments against both underspecification and ambiguity positions by demonstrating that within the frameworks that espouse the dynamic approach to meaning construction, such as Discourse Representation Theory In this paper, I shall put the differences between (iii), (iv) and (v) aside and examine how the fact that pragmatic processes contribute to the proposaitional representation affects the definitions of semantic and pragmatic equivalence. ...
... Firstly, there are intensional contexts such as belief contexts ('A believes that B s.') in which the mode of presentation of the referent contributes to the truth conditions (cf. Schiffer 1992, Jaszczolt 1998a (from Bach 1994a: 268). Sentence (6) does not express a complete proposition, although syntactically it is complete, it has a complete logical form (which is the output of grammatical analysis). ...
... But this is how intensions gave rise to possible worlds and to contemporary semantics: there are intensional contexts in which the identity of truth conditions will not guarantee semantic equivalence, such as belief and other propositional attitude contexts. But this is a topic for a different occasion (see Jaszczolt 1997Jaszczolt , 1998aJaszczolt , c, 1999b. ...
... The theory was first proposed bySchiffer 1977. See alsoCrimmins and Perry 1989;Crimmins 1992;Schiffer 2000;Jaszczolt 1998a Jaszczolt , b, 1999Jaszczolt , 2000b See alsoRecanati 1994. ...
... It has to be pointed out that this reading does not result from contextual enrichment on a par with (1) and (2): it is the standard, default meaning of a belief report, resulting from the referential intention with which the report is uttered and from the intentionality (being 'about an object') of the reported mental state of belief. In my previous work (see e.g.Jaszczolt 1997Jaszczolt , 1998aJaszczolt , b, 1999Jaszczolt , 2000b) I presented arguments in support of the thesis that 'by default' this intentionality of belief, and the referential intention of the belief report, come in the strong, 'undispersed' form: the act is about an identifiable individual or object, and, analogously, the utterance refers to an identifiable individual or object. Reports de dicto depart from this status quo in that their intentionality and referential intention are, so to speak, 'defective'. ...
Truth-conditional pragmatics (TCP, Recanati, 2002, Recanati, 2003 and Recanati, 2004) advocates so-called ‘top-down’ pragmatic processes that contribute to the truth-conditionally evaluable representation of meaning while not being grammatically controlled. In this paper I propose an analysis of meaning of utterances expressing propositional attitude reports, starting with the assumptions of TCP and in particular employing the device of a variadic function (Recanati, 2002 and Recanati, 2005a). Propositional attitude reports are notorious for the problem with accounting for their meaning in that, being a sub-species of intensional contexts, they are sensitive to the substitution of coreferential expressions. Such a substitution may change the meaning of the construction. Following my analysis proposed in Jaszczolt (2005a), I employ Recanati's concept of variadic adicity to the description of the attitudinal predicate. In particular, I look at expressions of the form ‘A believes that B φs’ and suggest that in order to account for the contribution of the description of B to the meaning of the report, one has to postulate an argument slot for the belief predicate that is filled in by the relevant aspects of the mode of presentation of B when appropriate, and left unfilled in other cases. In effect, this amounts to the variable adicity of the belief operator, varying between two and three arguments: the holder of the belief, the proposition, and on some occasions the mode of presentation under which the proposition is believed. I also comment on the compatibility of the hidden-indexical theory of belief reports with the device of variadic function: by putting the two together we obtain a much more successful account of these problematic constructions.
Kecskes: Linguistic underspecification of utterance content is widely accepted across different frameworks, including the neo-Gricean approaches (cf. Horn 2005; Levinson 2000) and relevance theory (Carston 2002, 2005; Sperber & Wilson 1986, 1995). There is also an agreement that if linguistic underdeterminacy is given, pragmatic inference is required if a hearer is to recover a speaker's meaning successfully. In your Default Semantics, you reject the idea of underdetermined semantic representation, and offer an alternative approach in which semantic representation is established with the help of intentions in communication. This means that intentions “intrude” into the semantic representation, and the semantic and pragmatic components are interwoven. What are the advantages of this one-level semantics as opposed to the modular view? It can be argued that, in a way, Default Semantics is also a modular approach because intentions can be considered preverbal thoughts generated in the “conceptualizer” and linguistically shaped in the “formulator” using Levelt's terminology (Levelt 1989, 1999). Do you agree with this line of thinking?
Discourse Representation Theory provides an adequate framework for representing sentences that express reports on beliefs. However, all the possible readings of a belief report which discriminate between different ways in which the individual is known to the believer are treated equally. In this paper I demonstrate that some of these readings are more salient than others to the hearer and the systematic gradation of this saliency is parallel to the degrees and types of intentions involved in uttering a belief report. I demonstrate how an account which makes use of referential, informative and communicative intentions supplements DRT and disposes of the need to postulate either ambiguities of reading of belief constructions or the underspecified semantic representation
L'A. montre que la theorie des attitudes propositionnelles et des attributions d'attitude propositionnelle developpee par M. Crimmins et J. Perry n'apporte pas de reponse satisfaisante aux arguments psychologique et semantique de l'opacite. Leur theorie ne s'accorde pas avec les jugements des locuteurs ordinaires concernant les conditions de verite et les conditions d'attribution de l'attitude
It is widely acknowledged in the literature that reports on beliefs of the type ‘A believes that B ϕs’ are systematically ambiguous between the de re reading, when they concern a particular, known individual or object, and de dicto reading, about whoever fits the name or description. It is argued in this paper that, in conversation, the de re interpretation is the more salient or ‘default’ interpretation of belief reports. This claim is derived from the argument that the referential interpretation is the more salient, ‘default’ reading of belief expressions of the form ‘B ϕs’. The paper presents an argument for the priority of the referential/de re interpretation based on the idea of intentionality of acts of consciousness. It puts forward a tripartite distinction for the interpretation of expressions of belief (‘B ϕs’) and reports on beliefs (‘A believes that B ϕs’). It is based on the distinction between referring correctly to a known individual, referring that involves a referential mistake, and talking about an unknown individual. This distinction on the level of belief expressions has been related to the distinction on the level of belief reports. Corresponding reports are called here de re, de dicto1 and de dicto2. Both distinctions are compared to the de relde dicto distinction on the level of belief. It is argued that these three levels of analysis are mutually dependent and indispensable for a pragmatic study of utterances expressing beliefs and belief reports.