Contexts, non-specificity, and minimalism

Contexts, Non-specificity, and Minimalism

Atlas (2007) argues that semantic minimalism (as defended by Cappelen & Lepore 2005) fails because it cannot deal with semantic non-specificity. I argue that there is a plausible version of minimalism—viz., situated minimalism—which doesn’t succumb to the non-specificity charge insofar as non-specificity can be dealt with at a postsemantic level. Thus, pragmatics plays no role when it comes to ...

Minimalism and Bilingualism:

We begin with the hypothesis that all people are “bilingual” because every language contains ingredients from several grammars, just as English exhibits both an Anglo-Saxon and a Latinate vocabulary system. We argue that the dominant grammar is defined by productivity and recursion in particular. Although current evidence is sparse, in principle, for a child who shows SLI in a bilingual environ...

Minimalism and Paradoxes

This paper argues against minimalism about truth. It does so by way of a comparison of the theory of truth with the theory of sets, and consideration of where paradoxes may arise in each. The paper proceeds by asking two seemingly unrelated questions. First, what is the theory of truth about? Answering this question shows that minimalism bears important similarities to naive set theory. Second,...

Minimalism and Explanation

Minimalism, Deflationism, and Paradoxes∗

This paper argues against a broad category of deflationist theories of truth. It does so by asking two seemingly unrelated questions. The first is about the well-known logical and semantic paradoxes: Why is there no strengthened version of Russell’s paradox, as there is a strengthened version of the Liar paradox? Oddly, this question is rarely asked. It does have a fairly standard answer, which...