Stefan Rinner
Biographic Data
| ID | 1233942 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stefan Rinner |
| GIVEN NAMES | Stefan |
| FAMILY NAME | Rinner |
| SIGNATURE | RINNER S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0008-3884 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
The Relational Analysis of Belief Ascriptions and Schiffer’s Puzzle
Using a variant of Schiffer’s puzzle regarding de re belief, I recently presented a new argument against the so-called Naive Russellian theory, consisting of the following theses: ( $$NR_{1}$$ N R 1 ) The propositions we say and believe are Russellian propositions, i.e., structured propositions consisting of the objects, properties, and relations our thoughts and speech acts are about; ( $$NR_{2}$$ N R 2 ) Names (and other singular terms) are dir…
Brains in vats and semantic externalism
It has been argued that since we cannot rule out that we are eternal brains in vats ( BIV s) whose sensory impressions are generated by a supercomputer and who can thus be assumed to exist in a world where (almost) nothing is as it seems, most (or almost all) of our empirical beliefs are such that we cannot rule out that they are false. Since fallible knowledge seems to be a contradiction in terms, it has been concluded that we have much less emp…
Conversational Scorekeeping
Recent philosophy of language has seen a growing interest in what is often called the dynamics of conversation or conversational scorekeeping, that is, the ways in which speech and context mutually interact in the course of a conversation. This paper provides an introduction to the scorekeeping approach to linguistic interaction and its different developments and applications. Starting from the seminal work of Stalnaker and Lewis in the 1970s, it…
Scorekeeping in a Therapeutic Language Game
In ‘Scorekeeping in a Language Game’, David Lewis famously compares conversations to playing baseball. Just like baseball, conversations have a score which, together with rules for correct play, determines which utterances are acceptable or even true in the course of a conversation. For all similarities, however, there is a crucial difference between conversations and baseball games. Unlike the score of a baseball game, conversational score adjus…
False friends in political dogwhistles
Philosophers have studied various ways in which things can be said implicitly, and how this can be exploited in both derogatory and political speech. The present paper follows this tradition by focussing on a linguistic phenomenon which has so far received little attention from philosophers, i.e. (linguistic) false friends. In linguistics, false friends are understood as bilingual homographs or homophones which differ (significantly) in some kind…
Direct reference and the Goldbach puzzle
So‐called Neo‐Russellians, such as Salmon, Braun, Crimmins, and Perry, hold that the semantic content of ‘ is ’ in a context is the singular proposition o, P, where is the referent of the name in , and is the property expressed by the predicate in . This is also known as the Neo‐Russellian theory. Using truth ascriptions with names designating propositions, such as ‘Goldbach's conjecture’, in this paper, I will argue that, together with highly pl…
Attitude ascriptions
In order to explain that sentences containing empty definite descriptions are nevertheless true or false, Russell famously analyzes sentences of the form ‘The F is G’ as ‘There is exactly one F and it is G’. Against this it has been objected that Russell’s analysis provides the wrong truth-conditions when it comes to non-doxastic attitude ascriptions. For example, according to Heim, Kripke, and Elbourne ( HKE ), there are circumstances in which (…
Slurs and Freedom of Speech
A very common argument against restrictions on hate speech says that since such restrictions curtail freedom of speech, they cause more harm than they prevent. A no less common reply has it that the harms caused by hate speech are sufficiently great to justify legal restrictions on free speech. In ‘Freedom of Expression and Derogatory Words’, West questions a common assumption of both arguments concerning the use of slurs, i.e. that restricting t…
Naive Russellians and Schiffer’s Puzzle
Neo-Russellians like Salmon and Braun hold that: ( A ) the semantic contents of sentences are structured propositions whose basic components are objects and properties, ( B ) names are directly referential terms, and ( C ) a sentence of the form ‘ n believes that S ’ is true in a context c iff the referent of the name n in c believes the proposition expressed by S in c . This is sometimes referred to as ‘the Naive Russellian theory’. In this talk…
Slurs under quotation
Against content theories of slurs, according to which slurs have some kind of derogatory content, Anderson and Lepore have objected that they cannot explain that even slurs under quotation can cause offense. If slurs had some kind of derogatory content, the argument goes, quotation would render this content inert and, thus, quoted slurs should not be offensive. Following this, Anderson and Lepore propose that slurs are offensive because they are …
Oswald revisited
In this paper, we will present an analysis of the Oswald example (‘If Oswald did not shot Kennedy, then somebody else did’/‘If Oswald had not shot Kennedy, then somebody else would have’) that takes a closer look at the antecedents of the Oswald minimal pair. We will argue that diverging foci in the antecedents of the Oswald example result in different truth conditions of the conditionals, explaining the difference in truth values between the two…
The multiple relation theory and Schiffer’s puzzle
Following Russell, philosophers like Moltmann, Jubien, Boër, and Newman analyse ‘John believes that Mary is French’ as ‘ R (John, the property of being French, Mary)’, instead of analysing it as ‘ R (John, that Mary is French)’. Thus, for these philosophers, instead of relations holding between agents and truth-bearing entities (propositions), propositional attitude verbs, like ‘belief’, express relations holding between agents and the properties…
No prominent works on this page.
The multiple relation theory and Schiffer’s puzzle
Following Russell, philosophers like Moltmann, Jubien, Boër, and Newman analyse ‘John believes that Mary is French’ as ‘ R (John, the property of being French, Mary)’, instead of analysing it as ‘ R (John, that Mary is French)’. Thus, for these philosophers, instead of relations holding between agents and truth-bearing entities (propositions), propositional attitude verbs, like ‘belief’, express relations holding between agents and the properties…
Naive Russellians and Schiffer’s Puzzle
Neo-Russellians like Salmon and Braun hold that: ( A ) the semantic contents of sentences are structured propositions whose basic components are objects and properties, ( B ) names are directly referential terms, and ( C ) a sentence of the form ‘ n believes that S ’ is true in a context c iff the referent of the name n in c believes the proposition expressed by S in c . This is sometimes referred to as ‘the Naive Russellian theory’. In this talk…
Slurs under quotation
Against content theories of slurs, according to which slurs have some kind of derogatory content, Anderson and Lepore have objected that they cannot explain that even slurs under quotation can cause offense. If slurs had some kind of derogatory content, the argument goes, quotation would render this content inert and, thus, quoted slurs should not be offensive. Following this, Anderson and Lepore propose that slurs are offensive because they are …
Oswald revisited
In this paper, we will present an analysis of the Oswald example (‘If Oswald did not shot Kennedy, then somebody else did’/‘If Oswald had not shot Kennedy, then somebody else would have’) that takes a closer look at the antecedents of the Oswald minimal pair. We will argue that diverging foci in the antecedents of the Oswald example result in different truth conditions of the conditionals, explaining the difference in truth values between the two…
Slurs and Freedom of Speech
A very common argument against restrictions on hate speech says that since such restrictions curtail freedom of speech, they cause more harm than they prevent. A no less common reply has it that the harms caused by hate speech are sufficiently great to justify legal restrictions on free speech. In ‘Freedom of Expression and Derogatory Words’, West questions a common assumption of both arguments concerning the use of slurs, i.e. that restricting t…
Scorekeeping in a Therapeutic Language Game
In ‘Scorekeeping in a Language Game’, David Lewis famously compares conversations to playing baseball. Just like baseball, conversations have a score which, together with rules for correct play, determines which utterances are acceptable or even true in the course of a conversation. For all similarities, however, there is a crucial difference between conversations and baseball games. Unlike the score of a baseball game, conversational score adjus…
False friends in political dogwhistles
Philosophers have studied various ways in which things can be said implicitly, and how this can be exploited in both derogatory and political speech. The present paper follows this tradition by focussing on a linguistic phenomenon which has so far received little attention from philosophers, i.e. (linguistic) false friends. In linguistics, false friends are understood as bilingual homographs or homophones which differ (significantly) in some kind…
Direct reference and the Goldbach puzzle
So‐called Neo‐Russellians, such as Salmon, Braun, Crimmins, and Perry, hold that the semantic content of ‘ is ’ in a context is the singular proposition o, P, where is the referent of the name in , and is the property expressed by the predicate in . This is also known as the Neo‐Russellian theory. Using truth ascriptions with names designating propositions, such as ‘Goldbach's conjecture’, in this paper, I will argue that, together with highly pl…
Attitude ascriptions
In order to explain that sentences containing empty definite descriptions are nevertheless true or false, Russell famously analyzes sentences of the form ‘The F is G’ as ‘There is exactly one F and it is G’. Against this it has been objected that Russell’s analysis provides the wrong truth-conditions when it comes to non-doxastic attitude ascriptions. For example, according to Heim, Kripke, and Elbourne ( HKE ), there are circumstances in which (…
The Relational Analysis of Belief Ascriptions and Schiffer’s Puzzle
Using a variant of Schiffer’s puzzle regarding de re belief, I recently presented a new argument against the so-called Naive Russellian theory, consisting of the following theses: ( $$NR_{1}$$ N R 1 ) The propositions we say and believe are Russellian propositions, i.e., structured propositions consisting of the objects, properties, and relations our thoughts and speech acts are about; ( $$NR_{2}$$ N R 2 ) Names (and other singular terms) are dir…
Brains in vats and semantic externalism
It has been argued that since we cannot rule out that we are eternal brains in vats ( BIV s) whose sensory impressions are generated by a supercomputer and who can thus be assumed to exist in a world where (almost) nothing is as it seems, most (or almost all) of our empirical beliefs are such that we cannot rule out that they are false. Since fallible knowledge seems to be a contradiction in terms, it has been concluded that we have much less emp…
Conversational Scorekeeping
Recent philosophy of language has seen a growing interest in what is often called the dynamics of conversation or conversational scorekeeping, that is, the ways in which speech and context mutually interact in the course of a conversation. This paper provides an introduction to the scorekeeping approach to linguistic interaction and its different developments and applications. Starting from the seminal work of Stalnaker and Lewis in the 1970s, it…
Philosophy (10 works) · Epistemology (9 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (6 works) · Philosophy and Theoretical Science (6 works) · Linguistics (5 works) · Metaphysics (5 works) · Philosophy of language (5 works) · Logic, Reasoning, and Knowledge (4 works) · Philosophy of science (4 works) · Psychology (4 works)