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Newsletter Mar. 28, No. 22



                      C S L I   N E W S L E T T E R
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March 28, 1985                  Stanford                       Vol. 2, No. 22
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     A weekly publication of The Center for the Study of Language and
     Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
                              ____________

           CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR *THIS* THURSDAY, March 28, 1985

      There will be no CSLI activities this Thursday, March 28.  Activities
   will resume on April 4.
                               ___________

           CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR *NEXT* THURSDAY, April 4, 1985

   12 noon		TINLunch
     Ventura Hall       ``Types, Translatins, and Prepositions''
     Conference Room    by Mark Gawron, New York University
			Discussion leader to be announced
			
   2:15 p.m.		CSLI Seminar
     Redwood Hall       ``Manipulating Models in Syllogistic Reasoning''
     Room G-19          Marilyn Ford, CSLI
			Discussion leader to be announced

   3:30 p.m.		Tea
     Ventura Hall		

   4:15 p.m.		CSLI Colloquium
     Redwood Hall       ``Two Cheers for Functional Role Semantics''
     Room G-19		Ned Block, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

                               ___________
                     ABSTRACT OF NEXT WEEK'S SEMINAR
            ``Manipulating Models in Syllogistic Reasoning''

      Johnson-Laird has argued that reasoners do not use formed rules of
   inference in solving problems involving syllogistic reasoning, but
   rather that they come to a solution by manipulating mental models.  I
   will show that while this certainly appears to be true, a number of
   details of Johnson-Laird's theory appear to be incorrect.  An
   alternative theory will be presented.		--Marilyn Ford


Page 2                       CSLI Newsletter                March 28, 1985
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                   ABSTRACT OF NEXT WEEK'S COLLOQUIUM
              ``Two Cheers for Functional Role Semantics''

      There are two quite different frameworks for semantics:
   REDUCTIONIST approaches attempt to characterize the semantic in
   non-semantic terms.  NON-REDUCTIONIST approaches are more concerned
   with relations among meaningS than with the nature of meaning itself.
   The non-reductionist approaches are the more familiar ones (eg.,
   Montague, the model-theoretic aspect of situation semantics,
   Davidson, Katz).  The reductionist approaches come in 4 major
   categories:
      1. Theories that reduce meaning to the mental. (This is what is
   common to Grice and Searle.)
      2. Causal semantics--theories that see semantic values as derived
   from causal chains leading from the world to our words.
      3. Indicator semantics--theories that see natural and non-natural
   meaning as importantly similar.  The paradigm of meaning is the way
   the rings on the tree stump represent the age of the tree when cut
   down.  (Dretske/Stampe, and, in my view, though not in Barwise and
   Perry's, Situations and Attitudes)
      4. Functional role semantics--theories that see meaning in terms of
   the functional role of linguistic expressions in thought, reasoning,
   and planning, and in general in the way they mediate between sensory
   inputs and behavioral outputs.
      After sketching the difference between the reductionist and non-
   reductionist approaches, I will focus on functional role semantics, a
   view that has independently arisen in philosophy (where its sources
   are Wittgenstein's idea of meaning as use, and pragmatism) and
   cognitive science (where it is known as procedural semantics).
      I will concentrate on what theories in this framework can DO, e.g.,
   illuminate acquisition of and knowledge of meaning, principles of
   charity, how meaning is relevant to explanation of behavior, the
   intrinsic/observer-relative distinction, the relation between meaning
   and the brain, and the relativity of meaning to representational
   system.  The point is to give a sense of the fertility and power of
   the view, and so to provide a rationale for working on solutions to
   its problems.  Finally, I will sketch some reasons to prefer
   functional role semantics to the other reductionist theories.
      A copy of a paper which the talk draws on will be in the Ventura
   reading room.					--Ned Block
                              ____________

                            AREA P-2 MEETING

      The next P-2 meeting will be on Wednesday, April 3 at 4.30 in the
   Ventura reading room.  Susan Fischer will speak on ``Showing Cause in
   ASL: An Autosegmental Approach to Syntax''.






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