Vivid attitudes: Centered situations in the semantics of 'remember' and 'imagine'

Authors

  • Tamina Stephenson Yale

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3765/salt.v20i0.2582

Keywords:

'imagine', 'remember', propositional attitudes, direct perception reports, centered worlds, situation semantics

Abstract

This paper deals with a subset of uses of propositional attitude predicates such as 'remember' and 'imagine.' I argue that these have a distinct "vivid" reading, which requires direct witnessing or sensory perception similar to that required in direct perception reports. To account for this use, I introduce a notion of centered situations, combining situations in the sense of Kratzer (1989) with centered worlds in the sense of Lewis (1979) and others. I propose that, on their vivid uses, these predicates make reference to a (real or possible) centered situation. This makes it possible in particular to account for attitude reports that are simultaneously vivid and obligatorily 'de se.'

Author Biography

  • Tamina Stephenson, Yale
    Postdoctoral Associate in Semantics (joint in Linguistics and Philosophy departments)

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Published

2010-08-14

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Section

Articles