Second Glossary

A priori vs. a posteriori knowledge

Epistemologists distinguish between two kinds of knowledge.

A priori knowledge describes propositions that are knowable independently of experience (ie. knowledge
that is non-empirical, knowable on the basis of reason alone). A priori truths are true as a function of
logical necessity. No matter what the world turns out to be like, a priori truths must hold. Paradigm
examples of a priori truths include mathematical claims and logical tautologies. For example, we know
that the proposition “all bachelors are unmarried men” is true without having empirically verified the
marital status of any bachelors because the proposition is true by definition: the property of being
unmarried is part of what it means to be a bachelor.

A posteriori knowledge describes propositions that are knowable on the basis of experience (ie. knowledge
that is empirical and must be verified via observation). Scientific claims are a posteriori. Their truths are
contingent on facts about the world. For example, we know that the proposition “the sky is blue” is true
not as a matter of logical necessity – there is no contradiction in claiming that the sky is pink – but on the
basis of our experiences looking up at the sky and perceiving blue.

Physical, mental, abstract

Metaphysicians distinguish between three kinds of objects.

Physical: physical objects have mass and take up space. Examples include rocks, planets, and my
neighbour’s dog. These sorts of entities exist in clearly definable locations within a world external to our
minds and are described by properties like size, shape, colour, etc. We arrive at knowledge of physical
objects via the senses: they are the kinds of things we can see, hear, taste, smell, and/or touch. Knowledge
of physical objects is available intersubjectively – that is, everyone is capable of perceiving their nature.

Mental: mental objects inhabit an internal realm within the confines of our minds. These are things like
beliefs and emotions. Mental objects fall into two broad categories: they are either simple sensations like
pleasure and pain or more complex structures like the belief that the sky is blue. Unlike physical objects,
mental objects do not possess sensory properties. Although the sensation of taste is mental, the sensation
itself cannot be seen or heard or tasted. We arrive at knowledge of mental objects via a process of
introspection. Knowledge of mental objects is not publicly available: we are aware of our own mental
states in a way we are not of others. Instead, we resort to inference on the basis of behaviour to determine
the mental states of other people.

Abstract: abstract objects exist outside of space and time. These are things like numbers and shapes.
Abstract objects do not possess physical properties like location and mass or sensory properties like colour
and taste, and so cannot be said to reside in the physical realm. Although instances of triangular objects
exist all over the world, the concept of a triangle does not exist in any definite location and cannot be
described as having any particular shape, size, colour, etc. Neither do they reside within any one mind:
although one particular notion of a triangle exists in my mind, and another in yours, the general concept
of a triangle is thought to exist outside of all minds. We arrive at knowledge of abstract objects via logico-
mathematical intuition or proofs as when we intuitively recognize that a triangle is a closed figure with
three (straight) sides.
With respect to our discussion of linguistic types and tokens, we say that types are abstract while tokens
are physical. The word type “cat” exists beyond space and time and outside of all minds as a shapeless,
colourless, dimensionless concept (in the sense that it does not maintain any one shape, colour, etc). And
yet two separate instances of the word token “cat” exist on this page, each with distinct properties (size 12
Avenir font) and a unique spatial location. Knowledge of a particular linguistic system (and the
phonological, morpho-syntactic, and semantic structures it entails) is considered a mental construct. Many
linguists believe that mental representations of the rules of a language unconsciously guide our usage of
the language.

Eliminativism
Eliminativism describes a form of response to questions concerning the nature of a given entity. To
illustrate: an eliminativist might respond to the question “what are witches like?” by exposing it as a
pseudo-problem. There are no such things as witches and so, no point to discussing what hypothetical-
witches would be like. In general, eliminativists posit that the entity in question does not exist and
conclude that the question being asked is a non-issue.

Some linguists are eliminativists about knowledge of language. They propose that knowledge of language
does not exist – that there is no mental representation of the system of rules that constitutes a human
language which then guides behaviour. All that exists is the observed behaviour and its neurological
underpinnings: there is no intermediary step between the initial and end states. The system does not cause
behaviour, it merely describes it. Just as a rock need not understand the laws of physics for its motion to be
properly described by them, human beings need not have knowledge of the system for it to describe our
usage.

Deductive, inductive, abductive arguments

Deductive: deductive arguments involve reasoning from general principles to specific conclusions. For
example:
P1: Socrates was a man.
P2: All men are mortal.
C: Socrates was mortal.
The truth of the conclusion is guaranteed by the truth of the premises – if the premises are true, the
conclusion must follow.

Inductive: inductive arguments involve reasoning from specific observations to general principles. For
example:
P1: All the swans we have seen are white.
C: All swans are white.
The truth of the conclusion is not guaranteed by the truth of the premises. The conclusion is merely
probable on the basis of the evidence supplied by the premises. The strength of an induction – the
probability of a conclusion being true – increases with the number of confirming observations made.
However, as is the case in the example given above, one disconfirming observation is enough to falsify the
conclusion. There are in fact black swans as well as white, despite the fact that all the swans observed
before the 17th century had been white.

Abductive: abductive arguments involve an inference to the best explanation – hypothesizing that the
likeliest explanation for a given set of (often incomplete) observations is X. For example:
P1: I have a fever, a runny nose, and a bad cough.
C: I have a cold.
As with inductive arguments, the truth of the premises do not guarantee the truth of the conclusion.
There may be a number of possible explanations for the symptoms i’ve observed in P1. Perhaps I am
having an allergic reaction. Or maybe i’m exhibiting symptoms for some other disease. But given my past
experiences, I conclude that the most likely explanation for the symptoms i’m experiencing is a case of the
flu.

Poverty of stimulus argument

The poverty of stimulus argument, first proposed by Noam Chomsky, is an example of an abductive
argument. It says the following:
P1: The data available at the present moment indicates that the amount of linguistic stimulus children
receive during the process of language acquisition is insufficient to achieve the level of mastery we observe
in mature speakers.
P2: The best explanation for the data is a substantial innate component to our knowledge of language.
C: There is a substantial innate component to our knowledge of language.

Essentially, the argument boils down to the observation that the end state of language mastery is highly
complex and that the linguistic stimulus we receive during the formative years of language development is
not enough to get us there. In other words, there is a gap between where we are and where research
predicts we should be on the basis of linguistic stimulus alone. Chomsky proposes that the best
explanation for the perceived gap is a substantial innate linguistic endowment to start with.

As with abductive arguments in general, the conclusion to this argument is not guaranteed by its premises.
It could turn out to be the case that new data becomes available demonstrating that the amount of
linguistic stimulus children receive is in fact sufficient. Or that data we once thought was reliable, turned
out to be less so, thus weakening the strength of our argument. Alternatively, someone might come up
with a rival hypothesis that better explains the available data in which case the current conclusion will no
longer be supported via abduction.

Knowledge-that vs. knowledge-how

Knowledge-that refers to propositional knowledge, knowledge of specific facts. This form of knowledge is
generally expressed in declarative sentences – for example, “I know that the sky is blue” – and is commonly
conceived as justified true belief. Under this model, S knows that P if and only if a) S believes that P, b) P
is true, and c) S is justified in believing that P.

Knowledge-how refers to procedural knowledge, knowledge of how to carry out a given operation. This
form of knowledge is generally conceived as a skill or ability – for example, “I know how to ride a bike” –
and is acquired through training and repetition.

Knowledge-how is usually understood to involve more than mere facts about how an operation works. I
might know that pressing down on the pedals will cause the wheel to turn but this does not mean I know
how to ride a bike. However, some philosophers believe that know-how is ultimately reducible to a rich set
of (often instinctively or unconsciously held) propositional knowledge statements acquired through
experience. Under this view, having access to the complete set of propositional knowledge statements
governing the various circumstances that might arise on a cycling expedition is equivalent to knowing how
to ride a bike. Some linguists believe that knowledge of language is knowledge-how – that linguistic
behaviour is not caused by knowledge of a particular set of rules but is more like a skill we’ve developed
over time.

Knowledge-that vs. knowledge-of

As before, knowledge-that refers to knowledge that a particular proposition is true. Knowledge-of on the
other hand, refers to the kind of knowledge attained through direct awareness of an object or entity. For
example, “I know Mary” because I am consciously aware of her existence. Knowing of an object often
entails knowing that certain propositions about the object hold true. Knowing of Mary likely involves
knowing that Mary is a girl, that Mary has a pet lamb, and so on.

The concept of knowledge-of comes to bear on the various senses in which we understand the word
“perception”. Perception in the weakest sense refers to the way in which we “see” the world, both in terms
of our perception of objects and our perception that certain truths about objects hold. Perception in the
moderate sense refers specifically to our perception of objects (eg. that the coffee tastes burnt, that the
flowers smell nostalgic). Perception in the strongest sense refers specifically to the perception of objects on
the level of sense data attributed to a particular sensory organ (eg. that the coffee tastes bitter, that the
flowers smell fragrant).

Fallacy of equivocation
The fallacy of equivocation occurs when the meaning of an ambiguous term or phrase changes partway
through an argument such that the conclusion seems to follow (when in fact it does not). The fallacy takes
the following form:
P1: X is Y (where Y takes on meaning 1)
P2: Y is Z (where Y takes on meaning 2)
C: X is Z

The phrase “death is the end of life so death is the goal of life” serves as an example of the fallacy in
action. Here, the tacit premise is that “end” means “goal.” And yet, it is clear that by “death is the end of
life” we mean end in another sense: as a termination point of life. Thus, the argument takes advantage of
the fact that the word “end” has a multiplicity of meanings, and equates both meanings in order to lead us
to a false conclusion. Arguments for and against the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis – the idea that language
shapes perception – are particularly susceptible to the fallacy of equivocation given that each of
“language”, “shapes”, and “perception” can be understood in a number of different senses. As a result,
discussions of the relationship between language and perception often involve linguists and philosophers
talking past each other.

Code model of communication

The code model of communication is designed to capture the way in which human beings communicate
with one another. It paints the following picture of a conversation between a speaker, Mary, and a listener,
Sam. Mary has a specific precise message she wishes to communicate to Sam. She selects an appropriate
code for the situation – perhaps they are both English speakers in which case it would be appropriate to
select English. Mary then converts the specific precise message she has in mind – let’s say, the idea of a
squirrel climbing a tree – into a line of English code. She then externalizes the line of code – says it out
loud in the case of oral communication or writes it down in the case of written. Finally, Sam hears or
reads the encoded message, decrypts it by applying the English code in reverse, and receives the specific
precise message Mary had in mind. In this way, language enables us to transmit a thought from one mind
to another via a public medium. According to the code model, this method is foolproof so long as the
speaker and the listener are using the same code.
Most linguists consider the code model to be a rudimentary and ultimately inadequate depiction of
human communication in that it does not account for all the ways in which context plays a role in the
transmission of ideas. While the code model is able to capture the dynamics of disambiguation – context
informs us of the symbols that appear in the encoded message (eg. does the symbol “bank” refer to the
financial institution or the side of a river?) and tells us which code we ought to apply (eg. English? French?
Metaphorical? Literal?) – but it does not fare well with context-sensitive terms or speaker meaning.

Context-sensitive terms
Context-sensitive terms represent one of three varieties of context-sensitivity. These are words whose
conventional meanings do not change but take on different referents in different contexts. Context-
sensitive terms call out for a referent. For example, the sentence “they live in Shanghai” naturally raises
the question: who does “they” refer to? Depending on the conversational context, “they” might be filled in
by “Mary’s parents” or “my neighbour’s friends” or any other group of people relevant to a given
conversation. Context-sensitive terms exist on a spectrum, with pure indexicals on one end and
demonstratives on the other. Pure indexicals are words whose referents are self-evident and do not vary
with the speaker’s intentions. For example, whenever the word “I” is used, we understand the referent to
be the speaker herself. Whenever the word “today” is used, we understand the referent to be the current
calendar date. Demonstratives on the other hand, are words whose referents are fixed almost entirely on
the basis of the speaker’s intentions. When Mary points to a mug and says “that is blue,” we understand
her to be indicating that the mug is blue. When Sam expresses his love of Paris and says “I’d love to live
there,” we understand him to be communicating his desire to live in Paris. Words like this, that, and there
can take on any number of meanings depending on what the speaker is trying to get across.

Broad context, narrow context, linguistic context

We distinguish between three senses of the word ‘context’.

Broad context describes the complete picture – every bit of background information relevant to
understanding what the speaker is trying to get across. This might include general facts about the world,
specific facts about the situational context in which the conversation is taking place, general facts about
people, and specific facts about the person with whom we are conversing. For instance, suppose that in a
recommendation letter for graduate school, Prof. Stainton writes “Mary has neat handwriting and usually
arrives on time for class.” In order to understand what is being implied here – that Mary is not a good
student and should not be admitted to grad school – we need to recognize facts about professors and the
relationship they have with their students, we need to know about graduate schools and what they’re
looking for in phd candidates, we need to understand the purpose of recommendation letters and what a
good recommendation letter typically looks like, and so on and so forth. All this comes out of broad
context.

Narrow context describes a subset of broad context containing information relevant to identifying the
referents of context-sensitive terms. Recall that context-sensitive terms call out for a referent. In this sense,
we say that the information supplied by narrow context is required by the terms in question, particularly
in the case of pure indexicals. Moreover, the information required is highly specific (eg. who is “they”?)
and limited in that it does not provide more detail than strictly necessary for the sake of identifying the
referent. Finally, information from narrow context is comparatively objective; it is available
intersubjectively and does not depend on the speaker’s intentions. Thus, demonstratives fall beyond the
scope of narrow context and must be illuminated via information from broad and linguistic contexts.
Linguistic context describes the words and phrases that came before. Information from linguistic context
also aids us in identifying the referents of context-sensitive terms on the basis of what was said in previous
passages. For instance, in the passage “Mary is hungry. She wants a snack.”, we know that the word “she”
refers to “Mary” because of information given in the first sentence, ie. the linguistic context.