5th March '08 (17-18.30) : Ophelia Deroy, THE LOWER SENSES: RECONCILING PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION WITH TASTE AND OLFACTION

13th February 17-18.30 NEFTALI VILLANUEVA

"HIT the road, Superman. Semantic innocence reassessed."

Abstract : several theories have explicitly defended Semantic Innocence, while acknowledging at the same time the relevance of contextual factors in determining the truth-conditions of our utterances in natural language. In this talk, I deal with an extension of the Hidden Indexical Theory (HIT) as presentend in F. Récanati (2000) and reconstructed in K.M. Jaszczolt (2007). I analyze some aspects of Semantic Innocence, and present two basic motivations for using the notion : a general one, based on the intuitive appeal of content preservation through different occurrences, and a more specific one, concerning the use of anaphoric expressions whose heads are embedded under attitudes operators. I offer an argument against the unrestricted use by HIT of the principle of Semantic Innocence for all sort of expressions in natural language and explore the logical space for the theoretical use of content-preservation through different occurrences.