Between Logic and the World: An Integrated Theory of Generics
Bernhard Nickel
Abstract
Between Logic and the World presents a theory of generic sentences and the kind–directed modes of thought they express. Generics are generalizations we use in the everyday and the higher-level sciences to encode much of our knowledge: Ravens are black, lions have manes, sea-turtles are long-lived, and bishops in chess move along diagonals. The theory closely integrates compositional semantics with metaphysics to solve the central problem that generics pose: what do generics mean? The book argues that generics are the top of a fundamentally explanatory iceberg. By focusing on blackness in raven ... More
Keywords: generics, genericity, semantics, explanation, linguistics, philosophy of language, special science, gradability, kinds, plurality, quantification
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2016 | Print ISBN-13: 9780199640003 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2016 | DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199640003.001.0001 |
