Questions tagged [semantics]
Semantics, in philosophy, often refers to "relation between signs and the things to which they refer and is seen, often, within the school of rhetoric.
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What does "everything" mean?
For starter, I'm not a student in philosophy, but mathematics. I only have a general knowledge in logic and set theory, all in the context of mathematics. My question comes from a doubt I got while ...
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Can I describe a non-existent object in the past tense?
Pegasus doesn't exist, and it has never existed.
Pegasus was a non-existent animal.
Pegasus was a horse.
Pegasus killed the monstrous Chimaera.
Can these statements be true?
I want to ask this ...
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Why do some philosphers including Russell paraphrase this sentence?
To say “Pegasus doesn’t exist” is to say “it is not the case that there is exactly one
x
which is a flying horse of Greek mythology”.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nonexistent-objects/
“Pegasus ...
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Are nonexistent objects not nonexistent objects? [duplicate]
Non-existent objects are not non-existent-objects.
I have trouble with this sentence.
"Non-existent objects" means 'objects that don't exist', but non-existent objects are nothing, so are ...
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Do the referents of false statements exist?
I got to know that if something doesn't exist at all (in reality, mind, fantasy, hypothesis, fiction, dream, whatsoever), we cannot talk about it. And for statements to be false, they must have ...
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Is a non-existent apple not an apple? [duplicate]
If "an apple doesn't exist" means "not only an apple doesn't exist in reality, but also an apple doesn't exist in mind or anywhere",
Is an apple, which doesn't exist, not an apple ...
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Is "that nose is fake" nonsense?
As you know, a fake nose is not a nose.
Why I think "that nose is fake" is nonsense is this:
"That nose" supposes there's a nose, but "that nose which is fake" supposes ...
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Can semantics work independently apart from philosophy?
"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."
It implies grammar can work independently apart from semantics.
So I was thinking: "Can semantics work independently apart from philosophy."...
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Can we describe round square, which doesn't exist?
Definitely, a round square doesn't exist.
Then, can we describe a round square?
E.g. A round square isn't green.
A round square is big.
A round square is round.
Can we meaningfully describe like this? ...
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Is there a couniversal solution to the predicate-theoretic version of Russell's paradox?
In set theory, let us call a solution to the problem of universal-sets-or-proper-classes a couniversal solution when it involves proposing the following:
∃U∀x((x ≠ U) ⟺ (x ∈ U))
This means that U is ...
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Does a large language model show signs of an emergent awareness of semantics?
It is well established that computers have semantics of some sort. After posting the question Is non-deterministic automated reasoning a viable strategy for solving problems in mathematical logic? (...
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How far is this statement likely to be true, "the way what can be measured almost always takes precedence over what cannot"? [closed]
Excerpt from Rebecca Solnit's book 'Men Explain Things to Me':
My friend Chip Ward speaks of “the tyranny of the quantifiable,” of
the way what can be measured almost always takes precedence over ...
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A position that claims meanings can't be abstract (but abstract objects still might exist)?
Is my titular question trivial, vacuous, encompasses every philosopher ever, none ever, or only encompasses a non-empty subset? I think there are different positions on it.
If meanings aren't abstract,...
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Is disjunction pointless in intuitionistic logic?
Sec. 5.3 of the SEP article on constructive and intuitionistic set theories makes note of a property meant for theories that compromise on the LEM:
A theory T has the disjunction property (DP) if ...
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How to understand "type-which-corresponds-to"?
In the comment on How do we define this?, user g s wrote a deleted comment indicating that things could be defined using "type-which-corresponds-to" (exact quote from memory). They followed ...
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What does it mean "to provide semantics" in the context of formal logic?
When reading some SEP articles, this is a phrase I commonly came across, "this provides a semantics for this logic". But what does it mean?
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Where is the line between semantics and ontology?
To be more specific, for a long time, it's seemed to me that a lot of open questions in philosophy, such as "What is consciousness?" or "What is truth?" come down, in large part, ...
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What logical differences are between "if" in conditional clauses and "provided that" in proviso clauses?
In Keller's Learn to Read Latin:
The conjunction dum, sometimes strengthened by the adverb modo, "only", may introduce a subordinate clause stating a provision under which the event of the ...
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Why is "Water is not H2O" False in all possible worlds?
I am reading Chalmers' "Two dimensional semantics" and "Two dimensional argument against materialism" and a point is unclear: As per Kripke (1980), "Water is not H2O" is ...
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Is my objection to naturalism popular or fringe in contemporary philosophy?
I have a line of thought that strict naturalism (in the most extreme case, the belief that only particle physics is an accurate description of reality) is self-defeating. I say this because notions ...
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What is the difference between understanding and interpretation?
What is the difference in the cognitive processes of understanding and interpreting an utterance (especially written discourse like a legal statute)?
What does a judge do when they interpret law; is ...
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Is the statement "They like curry chicken." an objective or subjective statement?
I'm inclined to believe it's objective because isn't them liking curry chicken the case regardless of how anyone else feels about it?
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The limits on formal semantics: compositionality, context and truth values
I am a little bit surprised by the principle of composionality in semantics (I'm very new to all of this), which states that the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the meanings of its ...
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Life and Death as one and the same?
Life-death, heavy–light, hot–cold and slow–fast are some of the most conventionalized pairs along the semantic dimensions of existence, weight, temperature and speed that require contextual motivation ...
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For what theories of meaning are ambiguous referents problematic?
Suppose I am talking to an English friend of mine and I say, "Boston is in Massachusetts." Since I am referring to the American city, I consider this sentence to be true. My friend evaluates ...
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Would a "disagreement operator" break down if iterated too much?
Let D(S) read as, "I disagree that S." It is possible to iterate this, so that DD(S), "I disagree that I disagree that S." Then we can go on to DDD(S), and so on. (For a peer-...
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Is anything known about the physical, neural, mental, and/or logical characteristics or conditions of “wanting”?
I do not mean the word “wanting” itself, since a word can refer to many things, or a spectrum of qualities that may or may not be seen a connected thing or not.
If we try to identify a more clear ...
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Nomenclature for AND-operation on boolean reasoning
I develop a computer program to summarize a boolean decision. This program takes into account operators AND and OR. For the OR-operator, I can call it alternative, since this is how grammar rules call ...
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What is an objective criterion for “specificity”?
I was trying to ask ChatGPT to be more “specific” and it made me wonder what an objective criterion for “specificity” is, given that I found it slightly hard to formulate.
All I can say is that ...
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Do all nouns denote, or only proper nouns?
By 'denote' I mean they are used specifically to denote objects, in almost all times they are used, for example most proper nouns like 'James' or 'Lithuania' or 'Paris'.
Many common nouns are generic ...
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Is the assertion of a moral imperative in complying with a person's self-attested "gender" consistent with broader principles of declared attributes?
The Wikipedia style guide discusses how if a person states that they consider themselves a particular gender, selects a name for themselves in conjunction with a change in gender, and asserts ...
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Is an equal outcome necessary to differentiate between equity and equality?
Based on the answer provided here, it seems to me that when the word "equity" is used in relation to "equality," an equal outcome is necessary in order to differentiate between ...
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Having trouble understanding "not possible without" vs. "necessary for"
At face value for me these don't mean the same thing but I'm struggling to find if they are separate concepts. Are there examples where they differ? Are they or aren't they separate ideas? I can't ...
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What does 'denote' mean in language and mathematics?
My initial idea of 'denote' is that is a verb that describes how an element of well-defined language such as 'cat' or '2' relates to the object/concept they refer to, however in mathematics text books,...
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Why do we equate a mathematical object with what denotes it?
Consider a matrix,
We denote matrices by an uppercase letter of the English alphabet like A, B, C, etc. Let this matrix above be denoted by A.
I can write,
I have often seen an equal to sign ...
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What are the formal semantics of the word "really"?
(This question involves semantics, epistemology, and empirical studies of speaker judgements - wasn't sure if I should post in philosophy or linguistics, hope this is an OK place for it.)
I've been ...
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When are semantically non-hostile expressions equivalent to pragmatically hostile ones?
An example being the phrase "White lives matter" (or even "All lives matter") as a response to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Another example would be: "I'm straight and I'm ...
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Why are undefined references and variables not specifically differentiated?
In my opinion, this topic is more philosophical than mathematical, but if it is not, I will ask it on another forum.
My understanding
I'm talking about non-reserved symbols here. Not about 0, 1 or π.
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Do all questions involve presuppositions, or just, "If X, then Y?" questions?
A sense of "every question involves presuppositions" can be gleaned from a definition like:
Belnap and Steel (1976, 5) define a question as presupposing a statement if and only if the truth ...
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Multiple interpretations of the same syntax in mathematics?
Mathematics are doing a very odd usage of syntax and semantics. Let's take a wikipedia page as an example : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuitionistic_logic
Here we have a syntax which is given, and ...
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Do we cause words to mean things, or do words cause us to mean things?
This question occurred to me while reviewing a skeptical argument from Kripke regarding semantics:
Suppose that I’ve never dealt with numbers larger than 57. (Given our finite nature and the ...
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Devising mathematical or quantitative theories of meaning
Around 1948, the mathematician and electrical engineer Claude E. Shannon presented work that would eventually lead to information theory. A mathematical theory based on uncertainty and probability, ...
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Is "This sentence is written in English" nonsense?
Wittgenstein and many others have said that our language gives the appearance of truth to some nonsense.
Do you think the very simple "This sentence is written in English." is such nonsense ...
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What methods have been proposed to identify sentience in an AI?
It is in the news that google has suspended a software engineer for violating confidentiality policies after sought "outside consultation" over concerns the AI he was working on is sentient. ...
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What's with philosophers and their use of quotation marks?
I'm reading Hofstadter and Quine at the same time and this is deep.
An explanation:
The logician's use of "quotations" in sentences like this one would suggest that a quoted phrase is ...
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Does the principle of explosion contain all analytic knowledge?
“From falsehood or contradiction anything follows”.
Is this the “multiverse” or pluralism in which set theory, all logics, etc are a small portion?
Every finite list of axioms and theorems would have ...
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Intuitively, attributes and properties are similar/the same; what, if anything, differentiates them?
We use words like attributed to and property of, and attribute of, but is there any difference of meaning? Both seem to imply characteristics or qualities of objects but that doesn't feel very ...
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If syntax isn’t semantics, will we abandon syntax one day to tackle the first person perspective? [closed]
Say by building experience machines once we learn how brains better work.
If syntax isn’t semantics, we will never write down a depiction of the first person subjective perspective, where semantics ...
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'there exists...' statements
When using Logic, we often verbalize existentially quantified statements as 'there exists an x such that...' but why do we say 'there exists a number x such that...' (in our domain is the reals) why ...
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Is the statement "Love is found in Love" circular?
I ask the above since I believe I have stumbled across a philosopher who puts forth a circular argument (which can be represented by a similar statement).
Christopher Janaway writes that “Schopenhauer ...
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