Reflexive Content and the Presuppositional Account of Referential Failure in Situations of Scarcity of Information and Fiction

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Reflexive Content and the Presuppositional Account of Referential Failure in Situations of Scarcity of Information and Fiction UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE MINAS GERAIS FACULDADE DE FILOSOFIA E CIÊNCIAS HUMANAS - FAFICH DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOSOFIA PROGRAMA DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM FILOSOFIA EDUARDA CALADO BARBOSA REFLEXIVE CONTENT AND THE PRESUPPOSITIONAL ACCOUNT OF REFERENTIAL FAILURE IN SITUATIONS OF SCARCITY OF INFORMATION AND FICTION Belo Horizonte 2018 0 EDUARDA CALADO BARBOSA REFLEXIVE CONTENT AND THE PRESUPPOSITIONAL ACCOUNT OF REFERENTIAL FAILURE IN SITUATIONS OF SCARCITY OF INFORMATION AND FICTION Tese apresentada ao Programa de Pós- graduação em Filosofia da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais com o propósito de obtenção de título de Doutor em Filosofia. Orientador: Ernesto Perini Frizzera da Mota Santos Belo Horizonte 201 1 100 B238r 2018 Barbosa, Eduarda Calado Reflexive content and the presuppositional account of referential failure in situations of scarcity of information and fiction [manuscrito] / Eduarda Calado Barbosa. - 2018. 137 f. Orientador: Ernesto Perini Frizzera da Mota Santos. Coorientador: Kenneth Allen Taylor. Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas. Inclui bibliografia 1.Filosofia – Teses. 2.Verdade - Teses. 3.Ficção - Teses. I. Perini-Santos, E. (Ernesto). II. Taylor, Kenneth Allen, 1954-. III. Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas. IV. Título. 2 UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE MINAS GERAIS PROGRAMA DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM FILOSOFIA EDUARDA CALADO BARBOSA Reflexive content and the presuppositional account of referential failure in situations of scarcity of information and fiction Tese apresentada ao Programa de PósGraduação em Filosofia da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais para obtenção de título de Doutor em Filosofia. Data de Aprovação: 27/04/2018. Banca Examinadora Professor Dr. Ernesto Perini Frizzera da Mota Santos (presidente), Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais/Programa de Pós-graduação em Filosofia ________________________________________________________________ Professora Doutora Eleonora Orlando, Universidade de Buenos Aires/SADAF _______________________________________________________________ Professor Doutor André Leclerc, Universidade de Brasília. ________________________________________________________________ Professor Doutor Eros Corazza, Ikerbasque Foundation for Science, UPV/EHU ________________________________________________________________ Professor Doutor Marco Ruffino, Universidade Estadual de Campinas/CLE _________________________________________________________________ 3 Ao professor Giovanni da Silva de Queiroz, in memoriam. 4 AGRADECIMENTOS/ACKNOWLEGMENTS Firslyt, I would like to express my special gratitude to my advisers, André Leclerc, who I worked with from 2005 to 2011, and Ernesto Perini, who directed my PhD research. Leclerc accompanied me throughout my early years and introduced me to philosophical investigation, always offering his care, friendship and humbling academic respect. Ernesto, thanks for your tireless efforts in improving this work, your constant attention, kindness and excellence as a philosopher. This dissertation is undoubtedly the result of a joint, collaborative and rich interaction. My gratitude also to the other members of the evaluative commitee, prof. Dr. Eleonora Orlando, from the University of Buenos Aires, Prof. Dr. Eros Corazza, from the Ikerbasque Foundation for Science and Prof. Dr. Marco Ruffino, from UNICAMP, for their valuable comments and kind disposition in discussing my work. Special thanks also to Prof. Dr. Roberta Pires de Oliveira, from UFSC, for her contributions for my qualification exam. Agradeço pelo fomento concedido a esta pesquisa pelo governo do Estado de Minas Gerais, com a bolsa concedida pela FAPEMIG, através do Programa de Pós-graduação em Filosofia da UFMG. Agradeço também pela bolsa de Sandiche de Doutoramento no Exterior, que me foi concedida pela CAPES, através do nosso programa de pós-graduação, e me permitiu realizar uma importante parte desta investigação na Universidade de Stanford, Califórnia, sob orientação do Prof. Dr. Kenneth Allen Taylor, a quem agradeço enormemente as contribuições. Estendo também meus agradecimentos às filósofas do grupo GEMF, Grupo de Escrita de Mulheres na Filosofia, Larissa Gondim, Raquel Krempel, Nara Figueiredo e à amiga, Beatriz Marques, que colaboraram muitíssimo com a redação do presente trabalho. Meus agradecimentos pela motivação dada pelos demais amigos e famíliares e, em especial, ao prof. Dr. André Abath, pela inspiradora ajuda de anos. 5 RESUMO Este trabalho apresenta uma solução em termos de pressuposições para o problema da vacuidade da referência de demonstrativos e nomes. As denominações ‘vacuidade da referência’, ‘problema da não-referência’, referem- se ao problema filosófico de explicar o conteúdo de termos singulares que sistematicamente ou ocasionalmente falham em referir. Para defensores do referencialismo, a falha referencial traz duas consequências indesejáveis: 1) os referencialistas são forçados a aceitar que termos singulares que falham em referir não contribuem para o conteúdo das frases das quais são constituintes; 2) como resultado, enunciações dessas frases não são nem verdadeiras nem falsas. O presente trabalho é uma tentativa de evitar a consequência 1) e explicar a consequência 2), ao argumentar que enunciações com demonstrativos e nomes com falha referencial expressam conteúdo reflexivo. Tal conteúdo é sobre a própria enunciação e as convenções linguísticas que ela carrega. No que concerne ao problema da atribuição de valor de verdade, a solução aqui proposta é pressuposicional. Nos casos analisados, a falta de valor de verdade é explicada pela falsidade de uma condição de sucesso referencial: a pressuposição existencial, para nomes, e a pressuposição de saliência, para demonstrativos. No que diz respeito a nomes ficcionais, eu ofereço uma solução em termos do conceito de faz-de-conta (pretense) para explicar as variadas intuições de valor de verdade na ficção e no discurso sobre a ficção. Palavras-chave: referência; reflexividade; conteúdo; pressuposição, informação; ficção. 6 ABSTRACT This work presents a presuppositional solution to the problem of vacuity of reference for demonstratives and names. The denominations ‘vacuity of reference’ and ‘no-reference problem’ refer to the same philosophical concern: explaining the content of utterances with singular terms that systematically or occasionally fail to refer. For referentialists, such problem entails two unwanted consequences: 1) they are forced to accept that singular terms that fail to refer have no content; and 2) as a result, there is a gap in the truth-evaluation of utterances that contain them. The present work is an attempt to avoid consequence 1) and explain consequence 2), on the one hand, by arguing that utterances with demonstratives and proper names that fail to refer express reflexive content. Such content is about the utterance itself and the linguistic conventions it carries. In what concerns the problem of truth-value gaps, on the other hand, the proposed solution is presuppositional. Truth-value gaps occur for a pragmatic reason: if presupposed conditions on referential success – namely, the truth of the existential presupposition, for names, and the truth of the presupposition of salience, for demonstratives – are not satisfied. In what concern fictional names, specifically, I offer a pretense account that explains mixed intuitions of truth-value for statements about fiction and in fiction. Keywords: reference; reflexivity; content; presupposition; information; fiction. 7 LISTA DE TABELAS Tabela 1. (Table 1.) …………………………………………………………………41 8 SUMÁRIO INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 10 CHAPTER 1 .............................................................................................................................. 16 Applying Perry's reflexive/referential distinction to a presuppositional account of referential failure 16 1. Presenting the no-reference problem .......................................................................... 16 1.1. Modes of designation .................................................................................................. 20 1.2. Conventional meaning and token-reflexivity ................................................................ 22 1.2.1. The role of context in interpretation ............................................................................ 25 1.3. Perry's reflexive/referential distinction ........................................................................ 31 1.3.1. Perry’s classificatory concept of content ...................................................................... 31 1.3.2. Characterizing Perry’s reflexive content ....................................................................... 36 1.4. Presupposition ............................................................................................................ 41 1.5 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 51 CHAPTER 2 .............................................................................................................................. 53 Part 1 54 2.1. Demonstrative content in non-paradigmatic communication: two examples ............... 57 2.2. Convention and information in the interpretation of demonstratives .......................... 62 Part 2 67 2.3. Joint attention ............................................................................................................
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