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Article Dans Une Revue Cognition Année : 2003

Semantics, Cross-Cultural Style

Edouard Machery
  • Fonction : Auteur
Ron Mallon
  • Fonction : Auteur
Shaun Nichols
  • Fonction : Auteur
Stephen Stich
  • Fonction : Auteur

Résumé

Theories of reference have been central to analytic philosophy, and two views, the descriptivist view of reference and the causal-historical view of reference, have dominated the field. In this research tradition, theories of reference are assessed by consulting one's intuitions about the reference of terms in hypothetical situations. However, recent work in cultural psychology (e.g., Nisbett et al. 2001) has shown systematic differences between East Asians and Westerners, and some work indicates that this extends to intuitions about philosophical cases (Weinberg et al. 2001). In light of these findings on cultural differences, two experiments were conducted which explored intuitions about reference in Westerners and East Asians. Both experiments indicate that, for certain central cases, Westerners are more likely than East Asians to report intuitions that are consistent with the causal-historical view. These results constitute prima facie evidence that semantic intuitions vary from culture to culture, and that paper argues that this fact raises questions about the nature of the philosophical enterprise of developing a theory of reference.
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ijn_00000399 , version 1 (24-09-2003)

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  • HAL Id : ijn_00000399 , version 1

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Edouard Machery, Ron Mallon, Shaun Nichols, Stephen Stich. Semantics, Cross-Cultural Style. Cognition, 2003. ⟨ijn_00000399⟩

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