Descriptions and non-doxastic attitude ascriptions

Rostworowski, Wojciech

doi:10.1007/s11098-017-0912-7

Philos Stud

2017

DOI: 10.1007/s11098-017-0912-7

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Descriptions and non-doxastic attitude ascriptions

Wojciech Rostworowski

Abstract: This paper addresses a certain objection to the quantificational theory of definite descriptions. According to this objection, the quantificational account cannot provide correct interpretations of definite descriptions embedded in the nondoxastic attitude ascriptions and therefore ought to be rejected. In brief, the objection says that the quantificational theory is committed to the view that a sentence of the form ''The F is G'' is equivalent to the claim that there is a unique F and it is G, while the ascri… Show more

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“…However, some further examples of non-doxastic attitude ascriptions (see Blumberg 2017, Rostworowski 2018) provide evidence for the hypothesis that hyperintensionality does not manifest itself only in the cases of presuppositional differences between the complement clauses in the ascriptions. Consider the following examples:…”

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“…Brad wonders whether the dictator is dead and has been assassinated. (Rostworowski 2018) Arguably, (a)-ascriptions express somewhat different attitudes than (b)-ascriptions; in particular, we may imagine a context in which (a)-ascriptions are intuitively correct and (b)-ascriptions are not. At the same time we can observe that the first conjunct of the complement clause in the above (b)-ascriptions should not be regarded as a presupposition of the corresponding complement clause in (a)-ascriptionjust like it is in the earlier examples (2)-(4).…”

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“…Arguably, Russell's theory is committed to the claim that (2a) (on the de dicto interpretation) has the reading exactly equivalent to (2b). (For criticisms of this claim, seeKaplan 2005, Neale 2005, Pupa 2013, Rostworowski 2018.Proceedings of ELM 2: 241-251, 2023 Wojciech Rostworowski, Katarzyna Kuś and Bartosz Maćkiewicz: Semantics of Non-Doxastic Attitude Ascriptions from Experimental Perspective.…”

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Semantics of Non-Doxastic Attitude Ascriptions from Experimental Perspective

Rostworowski

Kuś²,

Maćkiewicz³

2023

ELM

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The paper presents novel experimental data regarding reports of non-doxastic attitudes (expressed by verbs such as “wants”, “fear”, “is glad”, and etc.) As observed by some theorists, non-doxastic attitude ascriptions differ from the ascriptions of doxastic attitudes (e.g., “believes”) in that they do not support simple entailments or presuppositions of their complement clause. In particular, an ascription may intuitively change its truth-value if we alter the informational structure of the embedded clause without modifying its truth conditions. We present two experiments whose results support this observation. Experiment 1 shows that the truth-value and acceptability judgements of non-doxastic attitude ascriptions in a context generally depend on the informational structure of the embedded clause. Experiment 2 reveals that the truth-value judgements vary if we manipulate not only the “presupposition-assertion” structure of embedded clause, but also the components related to non-presuppositional entailments of the clause. This conclusion suggests that the contents on which attitude verbs operate should be represented as structured entities.

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Semantics of Non-Doxastic Attitude Ascriptions from Experimental Perspective

Rostworowski

Kuś²,

Maćkiewicz³

2023

ELM

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Attitude ascriptions: a new old problem for Russell’s theory of descriptions

Rinner

2024

Synthese

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In order to explain that sentences containing empty definite descriptions are nevertheless true or false, Russell famously analyzes sentences of the form ‘The F is G’ as ‘There is exactly one F and it is G’. Against this it has been objected that Russell’s analysis provides the wrong truth-conditions when it comes to non-doxastic attitude ascriptions. For example, according to Heim, Kripke, and Elbourne (HKE), there are circumstances in which (1) is true and (2) is false. Hans wants the ghost in his attic to be quiet tonight. Hans wants there to be exactly one ghost in his attic and for it to be quiet tonight. After all, the argument goes, unlike (2), (1) can be true without Hans wanting there to be exactly one ghost in his attic. Kaplan and Neale famously reply that the HKE objection presupposes that non-doxastic attitudes are closed under entailment, which they are not. For Rostworowski, on the other hand, the problematic principle used by the HKE objection is a substitutivity principle for non-doxastic attitude ascriptions. This is further supported by the fact that, as Elbourne points out, Russell’s analysis already leads to a problem similar to the HKE objection together with substitutivity alone. By questioning substitutivity for non-doxastic attitude ascriptions, Rostworowski tries to block both the HKE objection and Elbourne’s variant of the HKE objection. In this paper, I will argue that Russell’s analysis of definite descriptions leads to a variant of the HKE objection even in the context of doxastic attitude ascriptions. Since, as we will see, doxastic attitude ascriptions do not seem to suffer from the substitutivity problems discussed by Rostworowski in the context of non-doxastic attitude ascriptions, this will further exacerbate the problem for Russell’s analysis. I will then discuss the possibility to reject substitutivity for doxastic attitude ascriptions using a contextualist analysis of attitude ascriptions. However, we will see that, independent of whether we accept substitutivity for doxastic attitude ascriptions, a complete solution of the doxastic problem has to reject Russell’s analysis of the truth-conditions of sentences of the form ‘The F is G’. Concluding, I will show that, unlike Russell’s analysis, the Frege–Strawson analysis of definite descriptions, according to which a sentence of the form ‘The F is G’ presupposes that there is exactly one F, rather than asserting it, provides an explanation of the HKE objection, Elbourne’s variant of the HKE objection, and the doxastic problem presented in this paper. This will speak not only in favor of a Fregean analysis of definite descriptions, but also of a Fregean conception of propositions.

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Non-doxastic Attitude Reports, Information Structure, and Semantic-Pragmatic Interface

Rostworowski,

Kuś,

Maćkiewicz

2024

Rev.Phil.Psych.

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Truth conditions of sentences ascribing non-doxastic propositional attitudes seem to depend on the information structure of the embedded clause. In this paper, we argue that this kind of sensitivity is a semantic phenomenon rather than a pragmatic one. We report four questionnaire studies which explore the impact of the information structure on the truth conditions of non-doxastic attitude ascriptions from different perspectives. The results of the first two studies show that the acceptability of those ascriptions can be affected by some structural modifications of the embedded clause, in particular, when we replace a simple form by an equivalent complex conjunctional form (‘p and q’). However, it is possible that different evaluations of such ascriptions have a pragmatic source, namely, the ascriptions with embedded conjunction imply that the agent’s attitude transfers to both conjuncts. In the second pair of studies, we further investigate the nature of this implication which can be classified as ‘Conjunction Elimination’ (CE) in the scope of an attitude verb. The results show that CE-inferences in the context of non-factive non-doxastic attitude ascriptions are not easily cancellable and hence of a semantic rather than pragmatic nature. The results are not conclusive when it comes to the factive non-doxastic attitudes. We conclude our findings by some considerations about a potential source of the observed difference between non-factive and factive attitude verbs and the significance of our general findings to the semantic theory of non-doxastic attitude ascriptions.

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Descriptions and non-doxastic attitude ascriptions

Cited by 3 publications

References 19 publications

Semantics of Non-Doxastic Attitude Ascriptions from Experimental Perspective

Semantics of Non-Doxastic Attitude Ascriptions from Experimental Perspective

Attitude ascriptions: a new old problem for Russell’s theory of descriptions

Non-doxastic Attitude Reports, Information Structure, and Semantic-Pragmatic Interface

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