Gabriel Segal

Two Theories of Names

Two semantic theories of proper names are explained and assessed. The theories are Burges treatment of proper names as complex demonstratives and Larson and Segals quasi-descriptivist account of names. The two theories are evaluated for empirical plausibility. Data from deficits, processing models, developmental studies and syntax are all discussed. It is concluded that neither theory is fully confirmed or refuted by the data, but that Larson and Segals theory has more empirical plausibility.

Understanding addiction: Donald Davidson and the problem of akrasia*

The aims of this article are threefold: (i) to show how the work of American philosopher, Donald Davidson can throw light on the concept of addiction; (ii) to argue thereby that addiction is not a myth; and (iii) to help understand the addicted persons experience of feeling compelled to behave repeatedly in ways she does not want. Addictive behaviour is obviously intentional and this had led some to argue that addiction is a myth. In contrast, we propose that it is possible to see addictive behaviour as intentional while at the same time constructing a meaningful and useful understanding of addiction. The principal way this can be done is by seeing addiction as a class of akratic action, something that has been a topic of philosophical reflection since the ancient Greeks. By illustration, we summarise Davidsons enquiry into how it is logically possible to say that akratic action exists and show that, in accepting that akratic action is logically possible, it may also be possible to understand how someone can continue to carry out an addictive behaviour despite repeated resolutions that they will refrain from doing it. We compare in passing Davidsons account of akrasia with recent behavioural choice theories of addiction. We finish by focussing on Davidsons conclusion at the end of his essay that the akrates cannot understand her own behaviour and by drawing out the possible significance of this for an understanding of addicts’ reports of feeling compelled to carry out addictive behaviour.

Five Flies in the Ointment: Some Challenges for Traditional Semantic Theory

Truth-conditional semantic theory for natural language appears to be flourishing. The work deploys apparatus from the tradition of Frege, Tarski, Carnap, Davidson and Montague. But is all as well as it seems? Work in this tradition relies, obviously, on notions like truth, reference, satisfaction and extension. It assumes that many sentences of natural language, or utterances of them, are true. It assumes that many words of natural language refer to, extend over, or are true of things in the world. If those assumptions are faulty, then all is not well with semantics for natural language. And these core assumptions do face serious challenges. In this chapter, I will consider a few well-known ones that are particularly interesting, mostly emanating from the work of Noam Chomsky. I will list them first, then look at how they might be met.

Keep making sense

In a number works Jerry Fodor has defended a reductive, causal and referential theory of cognitive content. I argue against this, defending a quasi-Fregean notion of cognitive content, and arguing also that the cognitive content of non-singular concepts is narrow, rather than wide.

Four Arguments for the Indeterminacy of Translation

W.V. Quine’s thesis of the indeterminacy of translation has attracted a great deal of attention in the philosophical literature from both supporters and critics. It is intriguing, deep and important. To my mind it is also a thesis that presents a bleak prospect. If it is correct, then we must jettison mentalistic semantics, eliminating locutions like “understands” and “knows the meaning of” and replace them with talk of behavioural dispositions and the neural states underlying them. At least we should do this so long as we wish our discourse to reflect the true structure of reality, as described by sound science.

Truth and Sense

In Frege’s account of reference we find that the referent of a singular term is the object that it applies to, the referent of a sentence is its truth value and the referent of a predicate is a function that maps referents of singular terms onto truth values. It is attractive and natural to think of a Tarskian truth- theory (“T-theory”) for a particular language as providing a theory of reference for that language (Tarski 1956). A T-theory for a language, L, consists in a finite number of rules assigning semantic values -- referents -- to the simple expressions of L, a finite number of rules for deriving the values of complex expressions from the values of their simpler components and their syntactic configuration, and a finite number of deduction rules for carrying out such derivations.

'A plague on both your houses{''}: A reply to John Davies (and to some of his opponents)

We are grateful to John Davies for his interest in our article (Heather & Segal, 2013) and for his commentary on it (Davies, 2013). Unfortunately, we find the commentary strangely irrelevant to the contents of our article. We nowhere urge readers to accept that ‘‘a subjective feeling of compulsion can be used as a perfect proxy for an actual source of compulsion’’, nor do we ‘‘seek to define addiction as an imaginary compulsion’’. It is difficult to understand how Davies could have arrived at these characterisations of what we wrote. Our discussion of the subjective feeling of compulsion is not a part of our argument that addiction is not a myth; we merely use an insight of Davidson’s to offer a hypothesis about what might explain, if only in part, an addict’s feeling of being compelled to carry out addictive behaviour, a hypothesis we see as falsifiable in principle. Davies seems to have missed, or at any rate chosen not to comment on, the main thrust of our argument. This is that addiction can usefully be seen as a form of akrasia – an objective psychological phenomenon the nature of which, following Davidson, we explain. We argue that akrasia is not reducible to causal attributions made by the subject or by others and that, as a form of akrasia, neither is addiction. Segal (in press) has described two extreme and diametrically opposed pictures of problem drinking that one might come across, pictures that also apply to the wider concept of addiction. One has it that so-called addictive behaviour is simply a matter of ordinary choice and that the subject just makes bad decisions. This is the camp Davies presumably adheres to. The other picture claims that addicts are afflicted by a disease that causes absolutely irresistible and uncontrollable urges to engage in addictive behaviour, the camp to which Davies is clearly opposed. To these opposite views of addiction we say ‘‘a plague on both your houses’’ and we are very far from being alone in saying so. First, there are the specific behavioural choice theories we refer to in our article as offering scientific explanations of weakness of will in general and addictive behaviour in particular (see Vuchinich & Heather, 2003). Second, there is a growing literature that addresses the nature of the constraints on choice with which the addict is confronted while avoiding the absurdities of both the extreme positions mentioned above (e.g. Elster, 1999; Elster & Skog, 1999; Poland & Graham, 2011; Ross, Kincaid, Spurrett, & Collins, 2010). We are convinced that the future of addiction theory and research lies somewhere in this middle ground but this still leaves plenty of room for disagreement. For example, while we both endorse all the contents of our article, one of us (GS) thinks that addiction is a distinctive and pathological variety of akrasia, involving a specific kind of malfunction of decision-making (Segal, in press), while the other (NH) believes that seeing it as a form of akrasia ‘‘normalises’’ addiction, makes it potentially understandable in terms of everyday socio-psychological processes and is therefore precisely what makes the pathological, disease view of addiction unhelpful (Heather, in press). But that is clearly a discussion for another day.

Commentary on Hanna Pickard, “The Purpose in Chronic Addiction”

While it is undoubtedly true that most, or perhaps all, chronic addicts suffering from a comorbid condition use drugs as a way of coping with distress, this point does not provide an adequate account of chronic addiction. I point here to some inadequacies of the account of chronic addiction and offer a proposal that promises to remedy these and that has the virtue of covering ephemeral addiction as well. Not all chronic addicts suffer from a comorbid condition: 80% is a reasonable estimate (see Heyman 2009, 83). Moreover, comorbidity is a two-way street: it is likely that in some cases the addict’s excessive use causes the other condition, rather than the other way around. Some account must be given of those chronic addicts whose addiction is not explained by a comorbid condition. Equally, a significant percentage of those suffering from distress caused by a psychiatric disorder are not addicts. Many of them drink alcohol, and some use drugs, at safe levels. Some explanation must be given of why those who use addictively do so. Pickard (2012) draws on five elements of folk psychology to frame the complete explanation of chronic addiction. Chronic addicts self-medicate to alleviate distress. They have a strong and habitual desire to use. They have weak willpower. They lack motivation to quit, because the alternatives available to them are not appealing. They are unable to make the decision to quit, or lack the resolve to carry such a decision through, perhaps because they are disease theorists who take themselves to be powerless over their addiction. But not all chronic addicts fit this profile. Some are highly functional, with good jobs and family lives and