Reconsidering Carnap vs Quine on Individuating Languages

Natural language understanding is a principal segment of natural language processing in semantic analysis to the use of pragmatics to originate meaning from context. Information retrieval (IR) is one of the emerging areas to deal with enormous amounts of data, which are in the form of natural language. Content of the query posed will affect both volume of data and design of IR applications. This paper presents a cognition-applied methodology termed as High-Performance Linguistics (HPL), which is a question-answering system for interpreting a natural language sentence/query. It constitutes three phases of computations: parsing, triplet generation and triplet mapping/matching. The generation of the triplets for the knowledge base is to create new data and compare them with that of stored triplets in the database. Thus, the generation of the cognitive question-answering system can make easy using this machine learning techniques on the generated triplet database.

The research in this paper attempts to outline the connection between Hegel’s concept of action and the contemporary philosophy of action. Hegel’s concept of action has some features in common with the ideas of analytical philosophers, and might open unexpected integration of these different philosophical traditions, which would contribute to the development of both of them. A brief overview of ways to comprehend Hegel’s concept of action (from Taylor to Brandom) shows that the cause of ambiguous understandings of this concept lies in the complexity of Hegel’s approach. The following article highlights the tension between “deflationary” interpretations and the complexity of Hegel´s original approach. Further, by revisiting the Section “Teleology” in Hegel’s Science of Logic, the article illustrates how deflationary interpretations of human action can be improved, so that they are topical for both contemporary practical philosophy and the philosophy of action, beyond the unnecessary split between analytical vs. continental philosophy. Such concepts as “purpose” and “mediation” become crucial, as they have sociological and normative extensions in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, as discussed in the last Section of this article.

Author's Introduction Once a standard tool in the epistemologist's kit, the analytic/synthetic distinction was challenged by Quine and others in the mid‐twentieth century and remains controversial today. But although the work of a lot contemporary philosophers touches on this distinction – in the sense that it either has consequences for it, or it assumes results about it – few have really focussed on it recently. This has the consequence that a lot has happened that should affect our view of the analytic/synthetic distinction, while little has been done to work out exactly what the effects are. All these features together make the topic ideal for either a survey or research seminar at the graduate level: it can provide an organising theme which justifies a spectrum of classic readings from Locke to Williamson, passing though Kant, Frege, Carnap, Quine and Kripke on the way, but it could also provide an excuse for a much more narrowly construed research seminar which studies the consequences of really contemporary philosophy of language and linguistics for the distinction. Author Recommends 1. Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason [A7‐10/B11‐14] trans. P. Guyer and A. Wood (Cambridge: (Cambridge University Press, 1999). Kant defined analyticity in three different ways (see the Jäshe Logic and Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics for the other two) but here in the First Critique , as he sets up the task of explaining how synthetic a priori judgements are possible, we find the famous definition of analyticity in terms of the predicate‐concept belonging to the subject‐concept, as well as his account of the modal and epistemic status of analytic judgements in terms of the principle of non‐contradiction. 2. Gottlob Frege, The Foundations of Arithmetic , trans. J. L. Austin, 2nd ed (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1980), especially sections 3, 87–91. Frege's hedged criticisms of Kant's definition of analyticity and his revision of that definition to appeal to proofs and definitions. 3. Rudolf Carnap, ‘Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology’, reprinted in Meaning and Necessity , 2nd ed (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 205–21. Carnap has much technical work on analyticity, especially in The Logical Syntax of Language and Meaning and Necessity , but in this short paper he presents his philosophical views on the matter in an accessible style. 4. Willard van Orman Quine, ‘Truth by Convention’, reprinted in The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays , (New York, NY: Random House, 1965), 77–106. A long, difficult paper presenting some of Quine's views on definitions as conventions of notational abbreviation and the infamous Regress Argument against the idea that the basic logical symbols are introduced by implicit definition. This is essential reading for anyone serious about engaging with Quine's views on the analytic/synthetic distinction. 5. Willard van Orman Quine, ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’, Philosophical Review , 60 (1951): 20–43. Quine's two‐fold attack on the positivist's views on analyticity. 6. Paul Grice and Peter Strawson, ‘In Defence of a Dogma’, The Philosophical Review , 65 (1956): 144–58. Grice and Strawson's popular response to the arguments from ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’. 7. David Kaplan, ‘Demonstratives: An Essay on the Semantics, Logic, Metaphysics and Epistemology of Demonstratives’, Themes from Kaplan , eds. J. Almog, J. Perry and H. Wettstein (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1989), 481–614. A longish monograph which includes a good introduction to direct reference and the contingent analytic. 8. Paul Boghossian, ‘Analyticity Reconsidered?’, Nous , 30.3 (1996): 360–91. In this paper Boghossian distinguishes two different kinds of analyticity – metaphysical and epistemic – and argues that only the metaphysical notion falls to Quine's critique. 9. Gilbert Harman, Reasoning, Meaning and Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), chs 5, 7. Harman's extremely helpful presentation of Quine's arguments on the topics of meaning and analyticity with responses to popular objections, including those from Grice, Strawson and Boghossian. 10. Timothy Williamson, The Philosophy of Philosophy (Blackwell, forthcoming), chs 3, 4. Not‐so Quinean scepticism about the role of analyticity in philosophy. Online Resources The Analytic/Synthetic Distinction in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/analytic‐synthetic/ The Arche Research Centre at The University of St Andrews has a useful online bibliography in that focuses on neo‐logicism: http://arche‐wiki.st‐and.ac.uk/%7Eahwiki/bin/view/Arche/MathsBibliographies Sample Syllabus for a Graduate Survey Seminar Week I: Historical Introduction & Overview John Locke, ‘On Trifling Propositions’, [IV.8] An Essay Concerning Human Understanding , ed. P. Nidditch, Clarendon Edition of the Works of John Locke (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1979), 292–302. Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason [A7‐10/B11‐14], trans. P. Guyer and A. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Gottlob Frege, The Foundations of Arithmetic , trans. J. L. Austin, 2nd ed (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1980), section 3, 87–91. Week II: Logical Positivisim I Rudolf Carnap, ‘Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology’, reprinted in Meaning and Necessity , 2nd ed (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 205–21.

Once upon a time there was a thesis, an antithesis, and a synthesis. The dialectic of this particular Hegelian story is the relation of natural language to logical theory. The thesis was provided by that early stage in analytic philosophy wherein when logical theory clashed with natural language, it was natural language that suffered. An epidemic of charges of meaninglessness occured. Among those charged as linguistic deviants were such purported perversions of use as singular existentials, strings with vacuous singular terms, and the improper mating of objects or expressions of the wrong type. The title of Ryle’s famous essay “Systematically Misleading Expressions” captures the ethos of that period. That essay documented purported cases of natural language, usage which were perceived to be at odds with certain logical forms provided at the time, and predictably for that period, the fault was located in natural language, not in the logical forms suggested by Principia Mathematica. The antithesis in this dialectic was supplied by ordinary-language philosophy, where such clashes lead to downplaying the role of logical theory and upgrading natural-language considerations. A favored practice of the period consisted of dissolving philosophical problems by illustrating that they had their roots in the misuse of ordinary language. The problem would disappear upon abandoning some theoretical infringement on natural language and by carefully sticking to ordinary language. The synthesis (the hero in Hegelian fictions) is the present period, and especially the position taken by the author of the fiction. Here natural language considerations and those of logic go hand in hand. This is due to a number of factors: a growth in logical theory, a more flexible attitude towards logical forms (competing theories of logical form are tolerated) and the growth of linguistics as a theoretical and somewhat formal theory of natural languages.

Differences that Make No Difference and Ambiguities that Do

In this paper we will explain the Principle of Tolerance in Rudolf Car-nap and its relation with some values and pragmatism that are sup-posed in this principle. The intention is to do a introductory summary to understand the bases of the Principle of Tolerance. This bases will end in pragmatic premises that include Ilustrated values in the exer-cise of science. This values will help us to choose between scientific systems (like mathematics in Newton or Einstein theories, or euclid-ean or non-euclidean geometrics) that are logical but they are choose because of their pragmatic use. This hipothesys will be ac-cording with the interpretation of A. W. Carus, and represents some now perspective of Rudolf Carnap.

In this paper we will explain the Principle of Tolerance in Rudolf Car-nap and its relation with some values and pragmatism that are sup-posed in this principle. The intention is to do a introductory summary to understand the bases of the Principle of Tolerance. This bases will end in pragmatic premises that include Ilustrated values in the exer-cise of science. This values will help us to choose between scientific systems (like mathematics in Newton or Einstein theories, or euclid-ean or non-euclidean geometrics) that are logical but they are choose because of their pragmatic use. This hipothesys will be ac-cording with the interpretation of A. W. Carus, and represents some now perspective of Rudolf Carnap.

With respect to the ontology knowledge representation of refrigerator, a question answering system was designed based on ontology triple structure query. The ontology knowledge representation of refrigerator is built with representing the refrigerators' instance, attributes and values with the subject-predicate-object triples format. We analyze the natural language question, extract key words, analyze the dependencies between keywords, and build the query for ontology triples. The question answering system is implemented based on the Jena API and supports natural language querying OWL ontology. The results showed that, compared with Yang Tianqi's method, this method improve recall ratio and precision by 4.96% and 3.81% respectively. Ontology can clearly express the relationship between things and their relationship, plays an important role in the semantic analysis of the automatic question answering system. Ontology in question answering system is mainly used to calculate the distance of concepts, methods WordNet meaning analysis of keyword similarity calculation(1), to extend keywords. This approach extends the semantic information of a single keyword, but ignored the relationship between keywords, resulting in omission user statement semantic information. In recent years, with the rapid development of Linked Open Data, more and more companies will put these data in the Semantic Web with URI and RDF format, building the association with other data sources. The standard approach to query RDF is using structured queries in triple-pattern-based language like SPARQL, but only professional programmers are able to precisely build a structured query triples. as for ordinary users, the only choice to query knowledge base is by keywords or natural language sentences. Integrated the above two points, we design and implementation a method of querying RDF format data by natural language, thus implement the question answering system. We design ontology to express formula information, using Stanford Dependency analyzing the user's natural language question, build a triple query, returned to the user a precise answer. II. PREVIOUS WORK At home and abroad in recent years, many natural language query ontology question answering system were designed. Pythia(2) and ORAKEL(3) based on formal grammar, assign each lexical unit a syntactic and semantic expression, the expression of vocabulary has been consistent with the ontology of vocabulary, through calculation of the grammar portion of combination of semantic questions the semantic information of the whole. Aqualog and PowerAqua(4) system map the language structure to a compatible with ontology semantic structure, the subject of natural language matches the knowledge base of the elements in question and the predicate object. FREyA(5) name after feedback, refinement and Extended vocabulary Aggregation. FREyA and Querix(6) both interact with the user to further confirm the user's query information, carries on the deep syntactic analysis, in order to eliminate ambiguity. Yahya etal.(7) based on an integer linear program, mapping the phrase of natural language question to the class, individual, and properties of the knowledge base , constructs the SPARQL structured query, in this process to achieve entity disambiguation and predicate disambiguation jointly. In the domestic, Zhang Zongren and Yang Tianqi(8) proposed a method to translate natural language into SPARQL query, using the Stanford parser do the syntactic analysis of user's natural language question, construct three tuple SPARQL query. Xu Kun and Feng Yansong(9) put forward the concept of semantic query graph, transform the natural language into SPARQL queries.

In everyday life it is often important to have a mental model of the knowledge, beliefs, desires, and intentions of other people. Sometimes it is even useful to to have a correct model of their model of our own mental states: a second-order Theory of Mind. In order to investigate to what extent adults use and acquire complex skills and strategies in the domains of Theory of Mind and the related skill of natural language use, we conducted an experiment. It was based on a strategic game of imperfect information, in which it was beneficial for participants to have a good mental model of their opponent, and more specifically, to use second-order Theory of Mind. It was also beneficial for them to be aware of pragmatic inferences and of the possibility to choose between logical and pragmatic language use. We found that most participants did not seem to acquire these complex skills during the experiment when being exposed to the game for a number of different trials. Nevertheless, some participants did make use of advanced cognitive skills such as second-order Theory of Mind and appropriate choices between logical and pragmatic language use from the beginning. Thus, the results differ markedly from previous research.

In pragmatics-focused instruction, teachers need to identify language samples for learners’ input. This chapter will discuss several recommended means of obtaining or identifying language data reflecting pragmatic language use: a) written and oral DCTs, b) role-plays, c) recording natural interaction through field observation or identifying relevant samples in language corpora or online materials, and d) identifying natural(istic) language in the media. We will also consider who would best provide these models and how we might balance language authenticity and pedagogy. Finally, we will discuss pros and cons of different types of data by studying actual language samples.

This study examines the impact of tourism-based role-play activities on students’ oral fluency in English, using a mixed-methods approach to understand both performance outcomes and learner perceptions. The research was conducted with secondary and early tertiary-level EFL students who participated in simulations of real tourism scenarios, including hotel check-ins, travel inquiries, guided tours, and restaurant interactions. Quantitative data were collected through pre- and post-tests assessing speech rate, accuracy, and lexical variety, while qualitative insights were obtained from student reflections and semi-structured interviews. Results indicate a significant improvement in oral fluency, particularly in spontaneity, confidence, and pragmatic language use. Students reported feeling more motivated and less anxious when practicing English within meaningful and context-rich tourism situations. The integration of authentic tasks also fostered collaborative learning and enhanced cultural awareness. Overall, the findings support the use of tourism-based role-play as an effective pedagogical strategy to strengthen communicative competence in EFL settings. The study highlights the need to incorporate experiential and context-embedded activities within English curricula to promote more natural and purposeful language production.

Advancements in the realm of artificial intelligence (AI) have been nothing short of extraordinary, and the fields of machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) have been at the forefront, driving transformative changes in various sectors such as computer vision, natural language processing, healthcare, finance, and autonomous systems. This research paper presents a comprehensive survey of the most current applications of ML and DL techniques, engages in a discourse regarding the difficulties tied to their execution, and explores the future trajectories within this domain. It encompasses a detailed examination of essential ML and DL algorithms, architectures, and methodologies, underscoring their pragmatic utility and societal ramifications. By conducting an exhaustive review of pertinent literature and research endeavors, the core objective of this scholarly endeavor is to elucidate the progress, obstacles, and untapped potential of ML and DL in catalyzing innovation and addressing complex challenges.

¿Qué tendencias pueden identificarse en un análisis evolutivo sobre la agenda china en la guerra comercial con los Estados Unidos? La investigación analiza los dos documentos oficiales en la materia del gobierno de la República Popular China (de septiembre de 2018 y de junio de 2019), desde un marco teórico centrado en la racionalidad política china y en los estudios de agenda, y con herramientas propias del análisis autómatico de textos. Se obtiene como conclusión que el discurso político chino sostiene —como eje central— la intención de expandir el debate comercial a otros significados económicos, mantiene la crítica al proteccionismo y defiende su posición sobre la propiedad intelectual en China. Sin embargo, en el año 2019 en el discurso político chino adquieren una mayor centralidad los valores y principios cooperativos típicos de la retórica política china. Esto se destaca por sobre la estategia china de deconstrucción del discurso occidental sobre el conflicto comercial, lo cual es predominante, con abundante particularización discursiva, en el año 2018.

couldn’t be true. Oversimplifying: there is strong metasemantic pressure to charitably interpret natural language—correct interpretations must, unless all else is highly unequal, count a sentence (especially a perceptual sentence) as true if ordinary speakers regard it as being obviously true. Ordinary speakers regard sentences like “There is at least one building in New York City ” and “Nothing is composed of Mayor Bloomberg’s nose and the Chrysler Building ” as being obviously true; these are perceptual sentences (in the relevant sense); and there is no countervailing metasemantic pressure; so correct interpretations count them as true; so they are true. So non-commonsensical ontological views that say otherwise can be seen to be wrong—simply by attending to metasemantics.1 One source of countervailing metasemantic pressure might be Lewisian reference magnetism. David Lewis (1983, 1984) has argued on independent grounds that metasemantics cannot be based solely on charity, and that another source of metasemantic pressure is “eligibility”: good interpretations must, as much as possible, assign meanings that “carve at the joints”. So one reply to Hirsch, which I offered in my paper “Ontological Realism ” and elsewhere, is that i) there are joint-carving meanings that are suitable to be meant by quanti ers; ii) Lewisian reference magnetism is true; and iii) charity is trumped by the eligibility of an interpretation that assigns the joint-carving meanings to the quantiers.2 I also proposed a backup reply (to which I’m increasingly partial). Suppose that i) is true but either ii) or iii) is false. Suppose, that is, that although there are indeed joint-carving quantier meanings, either Lewis is wrong that eligibility counts in metasemantics or else eligibility does count but not enough or in the right way to outweigh charity in this case. Then Hirsch would be right about ontological claims in natural language; but ontology could instead be conducted in “Ontologese”, a language in which quantiers are stipulated to stand for the joint-carving meanings. (Indeed, ontological questions in Ontologese would be better questions than ontological questions in natural language, since they would concern reality’s fundamental structure.)

This paper gives a brief account of the main ideas of our book on “Lexical inferences and net-interpretation of predicates”. In their applications of modern formal logic in their work, linguists naturally adopt two typical options: sententialism (sentences as the primary units in the analysis of inferences), and the clear-cut distinction between “logical” and “extra-logical” vocabulary. The paper tries to show first that this is only a choice, not a necessary theoretical or technical attitude. Secondly, that this kind of choice will considerably weaken both logical and linguistic analysis of inferences based on lexical connections, which are common in natural language. In the constructive part, new technical tools of formal analysis of inferences are introduced, such as categories of thought, modes of predicative connections and nets. All these instruments serve also to provide definitions of some of the main traditional semantic notions, such as sense, synonymy, analytic, synthetic, etc. In the theoretical part, the authors take a position concerning other approaches to lexical connections in the classical literature (Carnap, Wittgenstein, Grice, Speech Acts theory and Jerrold Katz). Key words: Inference, lexical, net, logic.