The problem of determining intended meaning is a key topic in the study of linguistic processes (... more The problem of determining intended meaning is a key topic in the study of linguistic processes (Grice, 1989). My research attempts to answer the question: how do agents involved in a linguistic controversy determine and select the intended meaning of a sentence? The main thesis of the research is that the determination of meaning is driven by agents ’ situational interests. The thesis is respectively declined in two hypotheses with respect to individual dimension and contractual dimension. I believe that these two dimensions are relevant because, as Clark puts it, “we cannot hope to understand language use without viewing it as joint action built on individual actions. The challenge is to explain how all these actions work ” (Clark 1996, p. 4). Of course, Clark refers to communication, but I believe that this view is also valid for meaning negotiation. The first hypothesis is that an agent’s situational interest drives the individual choice of meaning for ambiguous sentences. It is...
This eBook is a collection of articles from a Frontiers Research Topic. Frontiers Research Topics... more This eBook is a collection of articles from a Frontiers Research Topic. Frontiers Research Topics are very popular trademarks of the Frontiers Journals Series: they are collections of at least ten articles, all centered on a particular subject. With their unique mix of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Frontiers Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area! Find out more on how to host your own Frontiers Research Topic or contribute to one as an author by contacting the Frontiers Editorial Office: frontiersin.org/about/contac
International Journal of Semiotics and Visual Rhetoric
In this article, the authors try to answer the following questions: How can an object/instance se... more In this article, the authors try to answer the following questions: How can an object/instance seen for the first time extend a category or update a concept? How is it possible to determine the reference of a concept that represents a behaviour? In the first case, the authors discuss the learning of inferential linguistic competence used to update a concept through an approach based on prototype theory. In the second case, the authors discuss the learning of referential linguistic competence used to determine the reference of a concept (i.e., determination of an actual behaviour) through an approach based on embodied cognition. The authors show how combining prototype-based and embodied categorization in Wittgenstein's rule-following praxis (the individual and community dimension), linguistic learning of a concept (inferential competence), and determination of its reference (referential competence) can be traced back to the same model.
Spatial structures determine the ways we perceive our environment and the ways we act in it in im... more Spatial structures determine the ways we perceive our environment and the ways we act in it in important ways. Spatial structures also determine the ways we think about our environment and how we solve spatial problems abstractly. When we use graphics to visualize certain aspects of spatial and non-spatial entities, we exploit the power of spatial structures to better understand important relationships. We also are able to imagine spatial structures and to apply mental operations to them. Similarly, the structure of time determines the course of events in cognitive processing. In my talk I will present knowledge representation research in spatial cognition. I will demonstrate the power of spatial structures in comparison to formal descriptions that are conventionally used for spatial problem solving in computer science. I suggest that spatial and temporal structures can be exploited for the design of powerful spatial computers. I will show that spatial computers can be particularly ...
Inferential Processes Based on Goals in Explicit Communication a Theoretical Approach Marco Cruci... more Inferential Processes Based on Goals in Explicit Communication a Theoretical Approach Marco Cruciani University of Trento Abstract: The paper shows how the explicit content of communication, that is ”what is said” by a speaker, is obtained via inferential processes based on speaker’s goals. The proposal of the paper is based on the hypothesis that meaning in use depends on extra-semantic interests of speakers with regard to a specific situation. Elsewhere it is argued how interests affect on sentences of natural language when semantic context, semantic conventions and standard pragmatic context are not able to determine a unique meaning (Cruciani 2010a, 2009a). This paper specif- ically faces the question of determination of meaning via inferential processes in which the conditions of possibility of goals (interests) of speaker are premises of communicative inferences. In this approach is central the notion of interest viewed as (preference for) a state of affairs which implies cond...
Situational Interests and Meaning Marco Cruciani ([email protected]) Department of Cognitive... more Situational Interests and Meaning Marco Cruciani ([email protected]) Department of Cognitive Science and Education, 5 via Matteo Del Ben Rovereto, 38060 Italy Keywords: determining of meaning; interest; decision; cognitive context; social network; conflicting linguistic interaction; semantic agreement. The Problem In different situations of life, both common and institutional, it happens that some people negotiate the meaning of terms and sentences. This negotiation occurs both in situations where it is necessary to resolve controversy (e.g. in law courts) and also when there is no strong reason or apparent motivation present (e.g. in pub). But if the meaning is conventional, then why do we negotiate it? Is it not enough to refer to the conventions? Domain of Research The research investigates the meaning negotiation processes. In particular, negotiation processes produced by agents who are collaborative (contract), but then they become conflicting (controversy). The interdisci...
The paper outlines an inferential model of explicit communication. The first section presents the... more The paper outlines an inferential model of explicit communication. The first section presents the main notions involved in the model, that is, the speaker’s intended meaning and addressee’s intended meaning. The first notion is centred on the speaker’s interest in situation: a speaker intends the meaning of an utterance on the basis of a partial order of preferences with respect to a set of contextually plausible meanings. The second notion is centred on the addressee’s communicative inference, which is based on the addressee’s belief about the speaker’s interest and on the linguistic form of a sentence. In the following sections, the paper presents the phenomenon of semantic underdeterminacy, introduces the preferences partial order, and the communicative inferences. The paper takes the notion of interest from cognitive social theory, the notion of meaning from semantics, the notion of explicit meaning from pragmatics, and uses the notion of communicative inference for explicit mea...
Il convegno "Le Scienze Cognitive: applicazioni e valore socio-economico" vedra come te... more Il convegno "Le Scienze Cognitive: applicazioni e valore socio-economico" vedra come tema l’utilita e il valore delle Scienze Cognitive nell’economia, nella societa civile e nello sviluppo di “tecnologie intelligenti” volte all’apprendimento e alla formazione, alla distribuzione e reperimento dell’informazione, alla terapia e alla diagnosi, all’intrattenimento, ecc.; ovvero a quelle attivita che direttamente o indirettamente mirano ad aumentare il benessere generale della popolazione.
The paper presents an inferential model of explicit communication based on the speaker's interest... more The paper presents an inferential model of explicit communication based on the speaker's interests and the addressee's beliefs. After the introduction, the paper sets out some notions concerning explicit communication within the frameworks of truth-conditional pragmatics and relevance theory. The third section describes the phenomenon of semantic underdeterminacy, and the fourth section introduces non-demonstrative inferences in communication. The fifth section presents the model. The main notions involved are the speaker's intended meaning and the addressee's intended meaning. The former notion is centered on the speaker's interest in situation: a speaker intends the meaning of an utterance on the basis of a partial order of preference with respect to a set of contextually plausible meanings. The latter notion is centered on the addressee's communicative inference, which is based on the addressee's belief about the speaker's interest. The paper takes the notion of interest from cognitive social theory, the notion of meaning from semantics, and the notion of explicit meaning from pragmatics; and it uses the notion of communicative inference for explicit meaning in partial accordance with relevance theory. In the sixth section, the paper argues in favor of the inferential approach compared with the associative approach in determination of "what is said." The paper's method is conceptual analysis of declarative utterances used in communicative situations. The main finding of the paper has been to show that, in contextual underdeterminacy cases, speaker's interest is a determining factor in communicative processes.
Indice La Robotica nel trattamento della disabilità mentale, p. 9 Daniela Conti Un algoritmo evol... more Indice La Robotica nel trattamento della disabilità mentale, p. 9 Daniela Conti Un algoritmo evolutivo per il posizionamento di agenti su spazi geometrici di forme arbitrarie, p.
The issue of intended meaning is an open problem in the study of linguistic processes. The paper ... more The issue of intended meaning is an open problem in the study of linguistic processes. The paper presents a notion of intended meaning based on the idea of speaker's preference for a state of affairs to which a sentence refers. Its argument has two components. The first is the conception of meaning developed by analytic philosophy of language; that is, the meaning of a sentence depends on the truth conditions of the sentence, and the meaning of an expression depends on contribution of that expression to the truth value of the sentence in which it appears. The second is the notion of agent's interest, as a state of affairs which implies a goal of agent, as developed by cognitive social theory. The paper maintains that a speaker's intended meaning establishes when the truth conditions of a sentence and the possibility conditions of the state of affairs preferred by the agent match. The last part of the paper illustrates three linguistic disputes to support its theoretical intuitions. The first dispute concerns syntactic ambiguity, while the other two disputes concern semantic ambiguity. The paper deals with the general problem of the semantic underdeterminacy of the conventional meaning of natural language sentences. Its specific contribution relates to the problem of intended meaning in communicative processes and to meaning negotiation processes in conflicting interactions.
The problem of determining intended meaning is a key topic in the study of linguistic processes (... more The problem of determining intended meaning is a key topic in the study of linguistic processes (Grice, 1989). My research attempts to answer the question: how do agents involved in a linguistic controversy determine and select the intended meaning of a sentence? The main thesis of the research is that the determination of meaning is driven by agents ’ situational interests. The thesis is respectively declined in two hypotheses with respect to individual dimension and contractual dimension. I believe that these two dimensions are relevant because, as Clark puts it, “we cannot hope to understand language use without viewing it as joint action built on individual actions. The challenge is to explain how all these actions work ” (Clark 1996, p. 4). Of course, Clark refers to communication, but I believe that this view is also valid for meaning negotiation. The first hypothesis is that an agent’s situational interest drives the individual choice of meaning for ambiguous sentences. It is...
This eBook is a collection of articles from a Frontiers Research Topic. Frontiers Research Topics... more This eBook is a collection of articles from a Frontiers Research Topic. Frontiers Research Topics are very popular trademarks of the Frontiers Journals Series: they are collections of at least ten articles, all centered on a particular subject. With their unique mix of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Frontiers Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area! Find out more on how to host your own Frontiers Research Topic or contribute to one as an author by contacting the Frontiers Editorial Office: frontiersin.org/about/contac
International Journal of Semiotics and Visual Rhetoric
In this article, the authors try to answer the following questions: How can an object/instance se... more In this article, the authors try to answer the following questions: How can an object/instance seen for the first time extend a category or update a concept? How is it possible to determine the reference of a concept that represents a behaviour? In the first case, the authors discuss the learning of inferential linguistic competence used to update a concept through an approach based on prototype theory. In the second case, the authors discuss the learning of referential linguistic competence used to determine the reference of a concept (i.e., determination of an actual behaviour) through an approach based on embodied cognition. The authors show how combining prototype-based and embodied categorization in Wittgenstein's rule-following praxis (the individual and community dimension), linguistic learning of a concept (inferential competence), and determination of its reference (referential competence) can be traced back to the same model.
Spatial structures determine the ways we perceive our environment and the ways we act in it in im... more Spatial structures determine the ways we perceive our environment and the ways we act in it in important ways. Spatial structures also determine the ways we think about our environment and how we solve spatial problems abstractly. When we use graphics to visualize certain aspects of spatial and non-spatial entities, we exploit the power of spatial structures to better understand important relationships. We also are able to imagine spatial structures and to apply mental operations to them. Similarly, the structure of time determines the course of events in cognitive processing. In my talk I will present knowledge representation research in spatial cognition. I will demonstrate the power of spatial structures in comparison to formal descriptions that are conventionally used for spatial problem solving in computer science. I suggest that spatial and temporal structures can be exploited for the design of powerful spatial computers. I will show that spatial computers can be particularly ...
Inferential Processes Based on Goals in Explicit Communication a Theoretical Approach Marco Cruci... more Inferential Processes Based on Goals in Explicit Communication a Theoretical Approach Marco Cruciani University of Trento Abstract: The paper shows how the explicit content of communication, that is ”what is said” by a speaker, is obtained via inferential processes based on speaker’s goals. The proposal of the paper is based on the hypothesis that meaning in use depends on extra-semantic interests of speakers with regard to a specific situation. Elsewhere it is argued how interests affect on sentences of natural language when semantic context, semantic conventions and standard pragmatic context are not able to determine a unique meaning (Cruciani 2010a, 2009a). This paper specif- ically faces the question of determination of meaning via inferential processes in which the conditions of possibility of goals (interests) of speaker are premises of communicative inferences. In this approach is central the notion of interest viewed as (preference for) a state of affairs which implies cond...
Situational Interests and Meaning Marco Cruciani ([email protected]) Department of Cognitive... more Situational Interests and Meaning Marco Cruciani ([email protected]) Department of Cognitive Science and Education, 5 via Matteo Del Ben Rovereto, 38060 Italy Keywords: determining of meaning; interest; decision; cognitive context; social network; conflicting linguistic interaction; semantic agreement. The Problem In different situations of life, both common and institutional, it happens that some people negotiate the meaning of terms and sentences. This negotiation occurs both in situations where it is necessary to resolve controversy (e.g. in law courts) and also when there is no strong reason or apparent motivation present (e.g. in pub). But if the meaning is conventional, then why do we negotiate it? Is it not enough to refer to the conventions? Domain of Research The research investigates the meaning negotiation processes. In particular, negotiation processes produced by agents who are collaborative (contract), but then they become conflicting (controversy). The interdisci...
The paper outlines an inferential model of explicit communication. The first section presents the... more The paper outlines an inferential model of explicit communication. The first section presents the main notions involved in the model, that is, the speaker’s intended meaning and addressee’s intended meaning. The first notion is centred on the speaker’s interest in situation: a speaker intends the meaning of an utterance on the basis of a partial order of preferences with respect to a set of contextually plausible meanings. The second notion is centred on the addressee’s communicative inference, which is based on the addressee’s belief about the speaker’s interest and on the linguistic form of a sentence. In the following sections, the paper presents the phenomenon of semantic underdeterminacy, introduces the preferences partial order, and the communicative inferences. The paper takes the notion of interest from cognitive social theory, the notion of meaning from semantics, the notion of explicit meaning from pragmatics, and uses the notion of communicative inference for explicit mea...
Il convegno "Le Scienze Cognitive: applicazioni e valore socio-economico" vedra come te... more Il convegno "Le Scienze Cognitive: applicazioni e valore socio-economico" vedra come tema l’utilita e il valore delle Scienze Cognitive nell’economia, nella societa civile e nello sviluppo di “tecnologie intelligenti” volte all’apprendimento e alla formazione, alla distribuzione e reperimento dell’informazione, alla terapia e alla diagnosi, all’intrattenimento, ecc.; ovvero a quelle attivita che direttamente o indirettamente mirano ad aumentare il benessere generale della popolazione.
The paper presents an inferential model of explicit communication based on the speaker's interest... more The paper presents an inferential model of explicit communication based on the speaker's interests and the addressee's beliefs. After the introduction, the paper sets out some notions concerning explicit communication within the frameworks of truth-conditional pragmatics and relevance theory. The third section describes the phenomenon of semantic underdeterminacy, and the fourth section introduces non-demonstrative inferences in communication. The fifth section presents the model. The main notions involved are the speaker's intended meaning and the addressee's intended meaning. The former notion is centered on the speaker's interest in situation: a speaker intends the meaning of an utterance on the basis of a partial order of preference with respect to a set of contextually plausible meanings. The latter notion is centered on the addressee's communicative inference, which is based on the addressee's belief about the speaker's interest. The paper takes the notion of interest from cognitive social theory, the notion of meaning from semantics, and the notion of explicit meaning from pragmatics; and it uses the notion of communicative inference for explicit meaning in partial accordance with relevance theory. In the sixth section, the paper argues in favor of the inferential approach compared with the associative approach in determination of "what is said." The paper's method is conceptual analysis of declarative utterances used in communicative situations. The main finding of the paper has been to show that, in contextual underdeterminacy cases, speaker's interest is a determining factor in communicative processes.
Indice La Robotica nel trattamento della disabilità mentale, p. 9 Daniela Conti Un algoritmo evol... more Indice La Robotica nel trattamento della disabilità mentale, p. 9 Daniela Conti Un algoritmo evolutivo per il posizionamento di agenti su spazi geometrici di forme arbitrarie, p.
The issue of intended meaning is an open problem in the study of linguistic processes. The paper ... more The issue of intended meaning is an open problem in the study of linguistic processes. The paper presents a notion of intended meaning based on the idea of speaker's preference for a state of affairs to which a sentence refers. Its argument has two components. The first is the conception of meaning developed by analytic philosophy of language; that is, the meaning of a sentence depends on the truth conditions of the sentence, and the meaning of an expression depends on contribution of that expression to the truth value of the sentence in which it appears. The second is the notion of agent's interest, as a state of affairs which implies a goal of agent, as developed by cognitive social theory. The paper maintains that a speaker's intended meaning establishes when the truth conditions of a sentence and the possibility conditions of the state of affairs preferred by the agent match. The last part of the paper illustrates three linguistic disputes to support its theoretical intuitions. The first dispute concerns syntactic ambiguity, while the other two disputes concern semantic ambiguity. The paper deals with the general problem of the semantic underdeterminacy of the conventional meaning of natural language sentences. Its specific contribution relates to the problem of intended meaning in communicative processes and to meaning negotiation processes in conflicting interactions.
Il professor Cristiano Castelfranchi è tra i massimi esponenti a livello internazionale di scienz... more Il professor Cristiano Castelfranchi è tra i massimi esponenti a livello internazionale di scienza cognitiva. Già direttore dell'Istituto di Tecnologia e Scienze della Cognizione del CNR e docente presso l'Università di Siena, ha pubblicato numerosi lavori di ampio respiro che hanno contribuito alla formazione di una vasta rappresentanza di scienziati cognitivi di seconda generazione. Marco Cruciani vi intrattiene una piacevole conversazione esplorando temi fra i più pregnanti della scienza cognitiva, come la natura della mente, il rapporto con la coscienza, il ruolo delle emozioni nella vita mentale e nella condotta, le neuroscienze e lo studio del cervello, la mente e l'artificiale, la computazione, le rappresentazioni mentali, l'intelligenza, il metodo della scienza cognitiva e l'interdisciplinarietà, il ruolo del sociale nei processi mentali e il ruolo dei processi mentali nel sociale, la mente collettiva, la complessità e i fenomeni emergenti, il riduzionismo e il riconduzionismo, le funzioni manipolatorie del mind reading, la soggettività, il valore sociale della scienza cognitiva e altro.
Il significato delle frasi e delle parole dipende esclusivamente dalle regole della grammatica e ... more Il significato delle frasi e delle parole dipende esclusivamente dalle regole della grammatica e dalle definizioni del dizionario? Come è possibile comprendere il significato inteso da un parlante per una parola polisemica? In genere la risposta più comune è che il significato dipende dal contesto. Ma quando neppure il contesto è sufficiente per dirimere un’ambiguità, come facciamo a capirci? Ancora, quando ci troviamo in disaccordo con l’interlocutore circa il significato di una parola o di una frase che stiamo usando, come facciamo a giungere a un significato condiviso? Come procede la comunicazione in casi del genere? Il libro propone le risposte a queste e ad altre domande relative ai processi di comunicazione. L’autore, dopo aver presentato le teorie più accreditate per la spiegazione del linguaggio e della comunicazione, espone la sua tesi per cui nei processi di comunicazione reali ciò che risulta essere determinante ai fini della comprensione sono gli scopi e gli interessi dei parlanti. Il libro è corredato da innumerevoli esempi con i quali vengono spiegati i termini in gioco e le problematiche affrontate nel dibattito contemporaneo. Inoltre, esso presenta vari studi di caso relativi ad alcune controversie linguistiche sorte intorno a clausole contrattuali ambigue, mettendo in luce come nelle dinamiche negoziali del significato in realtà entrano in gioco elementi pertinenti agli interessi e scopi degli interlocutori e alla conoscenza condivisa di alcuni fatti del mondo.
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Il libro propone le risposte a queste e ad altre domande relative ai processi di comunicazione. L’autore, dopo aver presentato le teorie più accreditate per la spiegazione del linguaggio e della comunicazione, espone la sua tesi per cui nei processi di comunicazione reali ciò che risulta essere determinante ai fini della comprensione sono gli scopi e gli interessi dei parlanti. Il libro è corredato da innumerevoli esempi con i quali vengono spiegati i termini in gioco e le problematiche affrontate nel dibattito contemporaneo. Inoltre, esso presenta vari studi di caso relativi ad alcune controversie linguistiche sorte intorno a clausole contrattuali ambigue, mettendo in luce come nelle dinamiche negoziali del significato in realtà entrano in gioco elementi pertinenti agli interessi e scopi degli interlocutori e alla conoscenza condivisa di alcuni fatti del mondo.