SENSE AND REFERENCE: Reference - just the act of pointing at something and referring to it (e.g.

“george washington” refers to george washington, “first president”

also does). Frege doesn’t say much about the nature of reference but assumes we all have some typa grasp on what it is. Still, there are questions about its nature that merit
a lot of questions. Sense - Also intuitive grasp (e.g. we are aware Joe Biden and 46th president have different senses even though they refer to same person. It follows that
there is a dimension of meaning that isn’t reducible to reference. Frege’s three arguments about how sense exists: 1. The informativeness /cognitive significance sentence
appeals to senses; “A is identical with A” is quite different from “A is identical with B” (“Benjamin Franklin = the inventor of bifocals” can be informative while
sentences“Benjamin Franklin = Benjamin Franklin” isn’t). Sentences of the first form can be seen to be true a priori, but sentences of the second form “often contain very
valuable extensions of our knowledge and cannot always be justified in an a priori manner.” 2. Truth of sentences that ascribe propositional attitudes. In the context of a
sentence ascribing a propositional attitude to someone, a word W does not have its normal reference. Instead W refers to the sense that it has in normal contexts. Thus
instead of referring to the person Benjamin Franklin in the first sentence about Ethel, “the first Postmaster General of the US” refers to the sense it has in normal contexts.
And a similar point applies to “the inventor of bifocals” in the second sentence about Ethel. Since “the first Postmaster General of the US” clearly has a different sense
than “the inventor of bifocals,” there is no reason to think that the second sentence would have the same truth value as the first. 3. Negative existentials – sentences of the
form “Zeus does not exist.” Such sentences can be true, but they could not be true if one of their constituent terms was without meaning. Now “Zeus” lacks reference. So it
must have a kind of meaning (so, sense) that is independent of reference.

SEMANTIC EXTERNALISM: Semantic externalism maintains that the reference of our words and concepts is determined by external factors, and in particular, by
causal and/or informational relations linking our words and concepts to external objects. Thus, for example, an externalist might claim that the reference of the term
“Barack Obama” depends, at least in part, on the fact that we use this name to encode information about the person Barack Obama. Three arguments: 1. Kripke maintains
that in some cases we are able to refer to objects by names even though we do not have enough descriptive information about them to formulate descriptions that succeed
in singling them out. In any such case, it can hardly be true that names are synonymous with descriptions. We can use a name to refer to object x without having any
descriptional knowledge of x. E.g.. Prophet Jonah prolly was real but the Book of Jonah is entirely legendary. 2. Argument from Error: It is possible to use a proper name
to refer to an object even though the descriptions one associates with the name are all erroneous, in the sense that they refer to someone other than the person who actually
bears the name. (e.g. people think Billy bob invented math, but it was in joey. Despite this error, people can still refer to Joey) 3. Necessity: Accordingly, we can test for
whether N is synonymous with D by considering whether the sentence really is necessary. The second step consists in arguing that in most cases, sentences of the given
form are not necessary. This is true, in particular, in the cases that are relevant to standard versions of the descriptional theory (e.g. aristotle). ADDED: Twin Theory: The
point of the twin argument is that it’s possible to refer to an individual even though one doesn’t know enough about the individual to distinguish her from a twin. Equally,
it is possible to refer to a natural kind, such as water, even though one doesn’t know enough about the kind to be able to distinguish it from a kind that is superficially
similar but differs from it in point of deeper explanatory properties, such as molecular structure (“that’s Water!” is false”)

NATURE OF REFERENCE What problems have they encountered in trying to understand it? Explain how the theories of Kripke and Putnam chip away at
those problems, and then say something about the shortcomings of Kripke’s theory | Kripke’s Positive Theory of Reference: We pass on reference through chains of
communication, by intending to refer to the same thing as the person who you heard it from. “If I hear the name ‘Napoleon’ and decide it would be a nice name for my pet
aardvark, I do not satisfy this condition.” 1. If I can use the proper name N to refer to historical individual X, then N is linked to a past ostensive definition involving N and
X by a Kripke series. [Necessary condition] 2 If my use of the name N is linked to a past ostensive definition involve in and X by a Kripke series, then I can use the name
N to refer to the past individual X. [Sufficient condition] BUT: Doesn’t define what an ostensive definition is; 1 has issues — there are situations when a child can learn a
name term without meaning to actually refer to the real object Putnam: Twin Argument, Division of linguistic labor — we use words to refer to objects even when we
don’t have the expertise to determine whether that reference is correct. We rely on certain groups within society to determine that.

CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE| Grice’s theory looks at how we use words and sentences in everyday conversations — there are shortcuts that make
communication more efficient. All the shortcuts we use are based off of the Cooperative Principle, in which we make our contributions to a conversation according to the
accepted purpose or direction of the ongoing conversation. Quantity: whatever you say should be informative as required, not more or less (The utterance Nigel has 14
children commonly implicates ‘Nigel has only 14 children’, even though it would be compatible with Nigel’s having 20 children). Quality: don’t say something that you
believe to be false or for which you don’t have enough evidence (A: Tehran’s in Turkey, isn’t it, teacher? B: And London’s in Armenia, I suppose). Relation: be relevant
(letter of rec). Manner: avoid obscurity, ambiguity, be brief and orderly. A lot of conversational implicatures happen through the flouting of maxims deliberately, like
through metaphors and irony. But then what is trying to be communicated must be relevant to something about being a friend. Thus it is implicated that Bob is not a fine
friend. Metaphor example: “You are the cream in my coffee” is technically false, but it still gets the message across. Recommendation Letter example: Grice supposes that
the recipient of the letter will reason as follows: The author of the letter, Grice, has just flouted the maxim requiring him to be informative, for what use is it to the recipient
of the letter to be told that Mr. X has attended Grice’s tutorials? What the recipient wants to know is whether X is good at philosophy. But despite this evidence that Grice
has flouted a maxim, he must on some level intend to be guided by them, for otherwise he would not have written a letter at all. Moreover, he cannot be ignorant of Mr.
X’s ability in philosophy, because he is Mr. X’s teacher. So he must be in possession of information that he is reluctant to write down. This can only be the information that
X is no good at philosophy. Hence, Grice must be trying to convey the information that X is no good at philosophy without actually saying that he is no good. Moreover,
Grice would naturally suppose that I am capable of arriving at this conclusion. So he has implied that X is no good.

SEMANTIC PRESUPPOSITION: and How it differs from pragmatic presupposition : words that have built in presuppositions that they carry with them in all contexts,
or sentences that have an assertion that is already foregrounded. “A did not stop doing X”, “Even A did not solve X”. “It wasn’t A who stole B’s car” → someone stole B’s
car. Pragmatic presupposition — not something that is built in to the sentences exchanged, but a condition that the speaker would normally expect to hold in the common
ground. “Ben is a good guy” → presupposes you know who Ben is. Difference between pragmatic presupposition and entailment: a presupposition cannot be negated by
the negation of the original sentence. “Ben is not a good guy” → still presupposes you know who Ben is. “Today is Thursday” entails that tomorrow is Friday, but if you
negate the original statement, the entailment is also negated. Presuppositions can be very dangerous because they’re harder to notice, so you can start to agree with things,
things you wouldn’t normally agree with if they were stated explicitly, when they are just presupposed. They can also help sneak information into the common ground that
people might not want there.

LYING: C&D’s Refutations: Lying hard to define, supposed features of lying (malice or deception) all generate counterexamples. “Misleading” is impossible to
distinguish from lying- there’s undefined gray area between. “It's a fault of the traditional definition that it doesn't acknowledge these gray areas. It seems to imply that
lying is a simple binary, yes/no concept.” // Bald Face Lies: C&D: BFLs don’t involve an intention to deceive: it’s obv to everyone that a speaker is lying, so
deception/intention to deceive aren’t relevant. (E.g. “A student cheats, she knows that the Dean will know she is not speaking the truth. to avoid punishment she says: I
didn't cheat.”). // We could say bfls aren’t lies bcuz they’re “akin to lies but lack an essential of genuine lies”. Or we say bfls are lies and ∴ the definition of lying is
incorrect (this is C&D’s position). We could say the intention of regular lying is v diff from the intention of bfl that they’re 2 distinct things that must be sharply
distinguished. If we accept this, the def. of lying may be correct bc the intention to deceive is a necessary and sufficient condition of lying. // Whether BFLs are
counterexamples to traditional definition depends on what bfls are: they either should be classified as lies and ∴ count as counterexamples, or they could be smth closely
related to, but distinct from lying. // Misleading Statements: MS similar to lying but also significantly different. C&D definition: “A statement is misleading if it isn’t itself
false, or believed by the speaker to be false, but the speaker intends in speaking to communicate a false proposition, often by using Gricean conversational implicature”.
Hard to classify between lie and MS. Their point is : lying has vague boundaries, if that’s true, then there’s another problem with the traditional definition that gives “fairly
specific necessary and sufficient conditions for lying.” // Bullshit : A bullshitter does not care about the facts. Harry Frankfurt: bullshitting is making assertions with a total
disregard for whether one’s statements are true or false. He thinks bullshitting worse than lying. HF: “Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on
opposite sides… in the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them.. although… one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the… other defies that
authority… The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether…”
SLURS: Theories C & D Discuss (descriptivist, expressivist, presuppositionalism, prohibitionist): Descriptivist View (semantic) - A descriptive theory of slurs holds
that the meaning of a slur is some (offensive) “elaboration” of its neutral counterpart. Benefits: 1. Can capture the slurring specificity of different terms”. 2. Explains why
bigot is straightforwardly wrong in their use of language. Problems: 1. “elaboration” is hard to pinpoint, 2. allows bigots too much linguistic truth in using a slur:
Wrongdoing becomes how bigot jumps to conclusions too quickly instead of how using slur is wrong. 3. Some slurs don’t have a neutral counterpart. I.e. slut → you can’t
say anything about the type of women who are sluts without making a moral judgment about the group. 4. Embedded usage: “Billy is a chink” should imply smth like
“Billy is chinese and therefore is deserving of oppressive / negative treatment”, so “billy ain’t a chink” should be good but it isn’t. Normative descriptivism- “deserving of
bad treatment and negative evaluation simply by virtue of being in the group” // Expressivist (semantic): Words have the ability to describe and express but hard to
describe what expression is (Like metaphors). This isn’t informational but expresses something about how the speaker feels - what slurs express rather than describe.
Benefits: Works for negation, embedding, and presuppositional problems. Problems: “innocent” usage. Someone learns “chink” from parents, and use slur relatively
neutrally. E.g. “I’m glad Chinks at our school bcuz good food” → Don’t seem to express immediate negative attitude, and if slurs have expressive dimension of displaying
some hostile/derogatory/or otherwise negative attitude, then these speakers somehow misuse the slurs and are linguistically wrong. Pressupositionist (semantic) - Claims
slur says one thing and presupposes another. E.g. “Dago” may say “Southern European” but presupposes that all/most Southern Europeans are violent; A non-bigot would
choose not to use a slur bcuz they would fail to accept the false presupposition. Benefits: Explain a slur’s derogatory meaning thru negation, antecedent, and in question.
Problems 1. The terms of get blurry in some instances (“Bob asks if billy is still a chink” → who exactly is doing the slurring). 2. Presuppositions can be screened off by
adding an antecedent. E.g. “If Bob is a chink, I don’t want him in my house” shouldn’t presuppose but somehow still does smth derogatory. In summary, the
derogatory/slurring effects of slurs more persistent than the presuppositional effects of presupposition triggers, so the view isn’t entirely right. // Prohibitionist (non
semantic) - slurs are pieces of language that are prohibited ; there is a rule against using them. Slurs are in violation of the preferences of group you’re slurring . Their
prohibition comes from the prohibiting work of the targets of the slurs. A disregard for the rule in turn signals a disregard for the rule creators - the people who prohibit the
use. Benefits: Prohibitionist theory naturally accounts for embedding because the rule against saying the slur whether or not the derogatory content is embedded or not
.Problems: doesn’t comment on the truth-value of the slur itself. E.g. it might give reason to think that a “chink” is indeed an untrustworthy chinese person, and that is why
chinese people can make rules against saying “chink” // NUNBERG’S THEORY : Nunberg’s view is that the negative effects of slurs are pragmatic and not semantic.
There is nothing embedded in meaning over its descriptive context. Instead, the deliberate choice of words indicates an attitude towards the group. the user only chooses to
use it because of a specific attitude they indicate behind the group. “Using a slur is using the language of a group who habitually uses that language to express a negative
attitude towards another group”

SPEECH ACT: Loc. - Uttering words with fixed meaning in an organized grammatical structure. Illo. - Consequent act that the speaker wishes to perform by the
utterance. In performing a locutionary act, we perform an illo. act with a certain force (ordering, assuring, expressing an intention). Perlo. - The further impact of the
intended illocutionary act // LINGUISTIC OPPRESSION: PORNOGRAPHIC OPPRESSION & RAPE: Writers maintain that porn is oppressive because 1. it often
promotes the idea of women being treated as sexual objects. 2. Women often mean “yes” when they say “no”, And 3. Rape is permissible because women find it
enjoyable. C&D explain a few reasons: 1. Presuppositionss: Porn presuppsoes it’s permissible to treat women as sex objects - “that as a viewer one can’t understand what
is going on in porn without making that assumption, and so one does make it”. USe lord of rings analogy about planes. Problem: accepting this view means accepting that
the pretense is within the story - we would have to accept that rape is okay in fictional writing/screening of porn. 2. Dual illocutionary forces: Authors have multiple
illocutionary acts sometimes to glorify certain character type, actions, and may recommend imitation. E.g Homer tells a story in the Iliad but also glorifies Hector or
Achilles. Porn may glorify certain actions or suggest certain things as imitations 3. Fantasies: Fiction can give rise to fantasies. There seems to be a “causal mechanism”
that makes one imagine replicating what they’ve enjoyed viewing / consuming and can lead to real actions // LINGUISTIC SILENCING: Silencing involves preventing
someone from saying something they would otherwise have said. One way is by introducing propositions into the common group that either contradicts, or contradicts a
presupposition of something that would otherwise have been said (E.g. if Bob says “pigs have low IQs”, Billy now would hesitate to assert that “Pigs are smart” ). This is
different from being ignored as C&D wish to clarify. (i.e. “Billy is tripping right now on acid” and we would kinda ignore what Billy says next. Linguistic silencing
functions differently bc it’s actually impacting whether or not Billy says anything at all

GENERICS: WHAT: As Samia Hesni puts it, generics are statements that are linguistic generalizations about groups/kinds. Things to write: they are general statements
but not “all” /“some” statements, and sometimes not “most” statements, No specific form of generics, and they encompass a wide class of types of linguistic
communication. 3 examples: 1. “Prime numbers have exactly two factors” 2. “Crows ate the apples from my tree” → not every possible crow ate the apples from the tree,
so the claim doesn't seem to be expressing any sort of generalization. 3. “Philosophers are interested in questions about epistemology and metaphysics”. This exhibits
qualities from 1 and 2. It does describe something about the nature of philosophers but not every philosopher is interested in epistemology and metaphysics. GENERICS
CAN BE DANGEROUS: People seem to accept generics on a limited base of evidence. You don’t need a huge number of positive instances to accept generic, but once
you accept it, you start to make inferences about a large number of cases. An instance to a generic and from a generic can be very fallacious. Generic claims elicit
cognitive error that’s damaging to the linguistic community. Morseths example. Generic claims woven in our everyday uses of language → important role in perpetuating
social bias. 3 THEORIES: Theory 1: inferentialist rule: Inference rules that govern accepting and drawing from the generics. C&D’s Definition: “The meaning of
generics could be given directly in terms of the inferences that they license”. The problem: Generics are defective by elimination and introduction tools. Reasoning with
generics inevitably makes us vulnerable to overly strong and bad conclusions. The Solution: The problem is not on us but on our language– the language we use simply
has defective rules, and by following the rules of the language, we have defective beliefs. Maybe try to stop thinking in generic terms or train ourselves to be cautious in
reasoning with generics and reluctant to make generic conclusions) // Theory 2: Generics might have tacit special “generic quantifiers”. So saying “birds fly” means
something like “generically many birds fly” which is close to words like “some”/“every”/ “Most”. “To be faithful to the complexity of the data regarding generics, the
generic quantifier needs to be some combination of vague, underspecified, and highly context-sensitive” (E.g.”’Generically, Birds fly’ means something rather imprecise
and mere constrains the frequency of flying birds within some vaguely bounded large region”). The Problem: We’re bad with vagueness and highly context sensitive
language. Vagueness allows us to sharpen vague boundaries as we go (E.g. If we say “Manchester is a big city” and “Manchester isn’t a big city” → epistemically risky to
combine our beliefs on “big cities” generally because the beliefs we came to could’ve been founded on different boundaries). Due to the context-sensitive nature of
generics, if we lose track of what context we’re in, we also make epistemic mistakes. The conclusion: The problem is shared between us and our language. We need to
realize that when we come to the conclusion “morsels” have hair, it is in a different context than when we come to that conclusion in scenario 2. The language isn’t
defective, but it’s way too complicated for us which allows for our semantic errors that lead into cognitive ones. // Theory 3: This theory places blame all on us and not
language. What Generics themselves mean is unproblematic, but we then make problematic usages of generics. // Theory 4: People are stupid and bad at stats

CONSENT: C&D: They consider many definitions of consensual sex. One big question: is tacit consent so vague that it’s easily exploited by people who don’t care about
consent. If there isn’t consent, it’s easy to take advantage of. Another big question: Is deception undermining consent? Consent doesn’t have any common nature. It’s
situation relevant, and you have to settle on what consent is in the given situation. You can negotiate the act of consent but not what consent is → They confuse the
question of what an act of consent is and what consent is. They essentially just give up on giving a definition. They considered the models of what consent is, and none of
them seem to work, so they settle on the fact that consent is just what you negotiate at the moment. Criticism: if you’re negotiating consent, you have to already have some
idea of what consent is, therefore consent can’t just be abstract. // Kukla: Consent doesn’t involve reflective choice, just a free expression of your values. Reflective choice
can mean weighing alternatives → Doing something impulsive can mean you didn’t weigh alternatives (buying something without thinking deeply about how that
financial consequence impacts your life). Agency: acting in ways that express your values, desires, and purposes. Consent doesn’t require someone to actively or
consciously choose their actions in independent will, so she allowed impulsive or habitual activity to be an act of consent → it doesn’t have to involve a reflective choice.
Notes: C&D talk a lot about how deception undermines consent. Kukla doesn’t explicitly respond, but she says on page 273: “actions that haven’t been hijacked by
somebody else’s goals or desires.”