Malte Willer
Biographic Data
| ID | 5911028 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Malte Willer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Malte |
| FAMILY NAME | Willer |
| SIGNATURE | WILLER M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Chicago |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5627-2406 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 29 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Dynamic semantics versus dynamic propositionalism
Una Stojnić's Context and Coherence: The Logic and Grammar of Prominence offers a series of interesting criticisms of the classical dynamic paradigm in natural language semantics and offers a sophisticated alternative outlook, one that does recognize a dynamic, context change inducing dimension of meaning but at the same preserves the idea that (declarative) utterances express propositions in context. The purpose of this note is to set the record…
Quantifiers for a Modal Future
Future auxiliaries present a challenge to the classical analysis of modal expressions as existential or universal quantifiers over a contextually provided set of possible worlds: these expressions come with a distinct modal flavor, but their interaction with negation and the fact that future judgments come in degrees of confidence is unexpected if the classical analysis were correct. I show how a uniform quantifier analysis of modal expressions c…
Credences for strict conditionals
Less‐than‐certain conditional judgments pose notorious problems for strict analyses of conditionals: across their various incarnations, these analyses have trouble making sense of how conditionals could have non‐trivial probabilities in the first place; minimal constraints on how such probabilities are to be assigned, moreover, lead to results that seem at odds with a strict outlook on the semantics of conditionals, most notably the validity of C…
Familiarity inferences, subjective attitudes and counterstance contingency: Towards a pragmatic theory of subjective meaning
Assertion, expression, experience
It has been frequently observed in the literature that assertions of plain sentences containing predicates like fun and frightening give rise to an acquaintance inference: they imply that the speaker has first-hand knowledge of the item under consideration. The goal of this paper is to develop and defend a broadly expressivist explanation of this phenomenon: acquaintance inferences arise because plain sentences containing subjective predicates ar…
Two puzzles about ability can
Lessons from Sobel sequences
Folklore has it that Sobel sequences favor a variably strict analysis of conditionals over its plainly strict alternative. While recent discussions for or against the lore have focussed on Sobel sequences involving counterfactuals, this paper draws attention to the fact that indicative Sobel sequences are just as felicitous as are their counterfactual cousins. The fact, or so I shall argue here, disrupts the folklore: given minimal assumptions ab…
Epistemic Modality
This is a long-anticipated collection of ten essays on epistemic modality by leading thinkers of the field, edited and introduced by Andy Egan and Brian Weatherson. Most of the papers published here give detailed accounts of the semantics and pragmatics of plain epistemically modalized sentences such as(1)Mary might be in Chicago.and so I will focus on this aspect of the volume, summarizing the remaining papers in my concluding remarks.The classi…
Dynamics of Epistemic Modality
A dynamic semantics for epistemically modalized sentences is an attractive alternative to the orthodox view that our best theory of meaning ascribes to such sentences truth-conditions relative to what is known. This essay demonstrates that a dynamic theory about might and must offers elegant explanations of a range of puzzling observations about epistemic modals. The first part of the story offers a unifying treatment of disputes about epistemic …
New surprises for the Ramsey Test
Dynamics of Epistemic Modality
A dynamic semantics for epistemically modalized sentences is an attractive alternative to the orthodox view that our best theory of meaning ascribes to such sentences truth-conditions relative to what is known. This essay demonstrates that a dynamic theory about might and must offers elegant explanations of a range of puzzling observations about epistemic modals. The first part of the story offers a unifying treatment of disputes about epistemic …
New surprises for the Ramsey Test
Credences for strict conditionals
Less‐than‐certain conditional judgments pose notorious problems for strict analyses of conditionals: across their various incarnations, these analyses have trouble making sense of how conditionals could have non‐trivial probabilities in the first place; minimal constraints on how such probabilities are to be assigned, moreover, lead to results that seem at odds with a strict outlook on the semantics of conditionals, most notably the validity of C…
New surprises for the Ramsey Test
Epistemic Modality
This is a long-anticipated collection of ten essays on epistemic modality by leading thinkers of the field, edited and introduced by Andy Egan and Brian Weatherson. Most of the papers published here give detailed accounts of the semantics and pragmatics of plain epistemically modalized sentences such as(1)Mary might be in Chicago.and so I will focus on this aspect of the volume, summarizing the remaining papers in my concluding remarks.The classi…
Dynamics of Epistemic Modality
A dynamic semantics for epistemically modalized sentences is an attractive alternative to the orthodox view that our best theory of meaning ascribes to such sentences truth-conditions relative to what is known. This essay demonstrates that a dynamic theory about might and must offers elegant explanations of a range of puzzling observations about epistemic modals. The first part of the story offers a unifying treatment of disputes about epistemic …
Lessons from Sobel sequences
Folklore has it that Sobel sequences favor a variably strict analysis of conditionals over its plainly strict alternative. While recent discussions for or against the lore have focussed on Sobel sequences involving counterfactuals, this paper draws attention to the fact that indicative Sobel sequences are just as felicitous as are their counterfactual cousins. The fact, or so I shall argue here, disrupts the folklore: given minimal assumptions ab…
Two puzzles about ability can
Familiarity inferences, subjective attitudes and counterstance contingency: Towards a pragmatic theory of subjective meaning
Assertion, expression, experience
It has been frequently observed in the literature that assertions of plain sentences containing predicates like fun and frightening give rise to an acquaintance inference: they imply that the speaker has first-hand knowledge of the item under consideration. The goal of this paper is to develop and defend a broadly expressivist explanation of this phenomenon: acquaintance inferences arise because plain sentences containing subjective predicates ar…
Credences for strict conditionals
Less‐than‐certain conditional judgments pose notorious problems for strict analyses of conditionals: across their various incarnations, these analyses have trouble making sense of how conditionals could have non‐trivial probabilities in the first place; minimal constraints on how such probabilities are to be assigned, moreover, lead to results that seem at odds with a strict outlook on the semantics of conditionals, most notably the validity of C…
Quantifiers for a Modal Future
Future auxiliaries present a challenge to the classical analysis of modal expressions as existential or universal quantifiers over a contextually provided set of possible worlds: these expressions come with a distinct modal flavor, but their interaction with negation and the fact that future judgments come in degrees of confidence is unexpected if the classical analysis were correct. I show how a uniform quantifier analysis of modal expressions c…
Dynamic semantics versus dynamic propositionalism
Una Stojnić's Context and Coherence: The Logic and Grammar of Prominence offers a series of interesting criticisms of the classical dynamic paradigm in natural language semantics and offers a sophisticated alternative outlook, one that does recognize a dynamic, context change inducing dimension of meaning but at the same preserves the idea that (declarative) utterances express propositions in context. The purpose of this note is to set the record…
Computer Science (10 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Epistemology (9 works) · Artificial Intelligence (7 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (7 works) · Logic, Reasoning, and Knowledge (7 works) · Linguistics (6 works) · Artificial Intelligence (4 works) · Mathematics (4 works) · Programming language (4 works)