Workshop 2

Workshop on
Semantic Content and Conversational Dynamics

6–8 November 2014 in Barcelona

Invited Speakers

Frank Veltman (University of Amsterdam):
“Tastes Differ”

Karen Lewis (Columbia University/Barnard College):
“Anaphora and Negation: Trouble for Dynamic Semantics”

Selected Speakers:

• Alex Silk (Birmingham): Discourse Contextualism. Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love an Ordinary, Boring Static Contextualist Semantics
• Amaia García Odon (University of the Basque Country): Counterfactuals and ‘Counteractuals’
• Andy Yu (Oxford): Epistemic Modal Sentences under Disjunction
• Dirk Kindermann (Graz): Structured vs Unstructured Content
• Malte Willer (Chicago): Advice for Noncognitivists
• Michael Glanzberg (Northwestern): Compositionality and Content CANCELLED
  
• Tadeusz Ciecierski (Warsaw): Indexical Beliefs without Non-Classical Contents

Recent debates about semantic content have called into question traditional accounts and have renewed interest in unorthodox approaches, in particular approaches that operate with semantic contents that do not have absolute truth-values (de se contents, centered propositions, relativized/incomplete propositions etc). These novel approaches to semantic content challenge the simple models of communication and information transfer that have traditionally been assumed. They also raise independently interesting questions about linguistic communication.

The project on “Semantic Content and Conversational Dynamics” invited contributions on topics relevant to these issues. For example, contributions on any of the following issues:

• What are semantic contents, what do they need to be, given their job description?
• What is the job description of semantic contents?
• Do we need de se or centered contents?
• How do de se or centered contents figure in conversation or the transmission of information?
• Are there reasons to depart from “static” semantics, i.e. from a semantics that (principally) assigns semantic contents to sentences or to sentence-context pairs?

After an anonymous reviewing process, a panel of evaluators selected 6 papers.

Attendance is free, but requires previous registration. Please email Paco Murcia at logos.barcelona@gmail.com to register.

Programme:
(For short abstracts, click here, for longer abstracts click on the titles below.)

6th November 2014
(Venue: Residència d’Investigadors, c/Hospital 64, 08001 Barcelona)

16.00–17.30 Frank Veltman (Amsterdam):
“Tastes Differ”
(Chair: Max Kölbel)

17.45–19.15 Karen Lewis (Columbia/Barnard):
“Anaphora and Negation: Trouble for Dynamic Semantics”
(Chair: Moritz Schulz)

7th November 2014
(Venue: Seminari de Filosofía, 4th floor, Facultat de Filosofía, c/Montalegre 4, 08001 Barcelona)

10.15–11.45 Alex Silk (Birmingham):
“Discourse Contextualism. Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love an Oridinary, Boring Static Contextualist Semantics”
(Chair: Rebecca Kukla)

12.00–13.30 Andy Yu (Oxford):
“Epistemic Modal Sentences under Disjunction”
(Chair: Johan Gebo)

Lunch

15.00–16.30 Tadeusz Ciecierski (Warsaw):
“Indexical beliefs without non classical contents”
(Chair: Isidora Stojanovic)

16.45–18.15 Amaia García Odon (University of the Basque Country):
“Counterfactuals and ‘Counteractuals’‘”
(Chair: Dan Zeman)

Conference Dinner

8th November 2014
(Venue: Residència d’Investigadors, c/Hospital 64, 08001 Barcelona)

10.15–11.45 Dirk Kindermann (Graz):
“Structured vs Unstructured Content”
(Chair: David Rey)

12.00–13.30 Malte Willer (Chicago):
“Advice for Noncognitivists”
(Chair: Bryan Pickel)

 

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