Dr. Lukas Lewerentz

Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter

About

I'm a postdoc (wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter) at the Department of Philosophy at JLU Giessen, at the Chair of Philosophy of the Life Sciences. I'm also a postdoc in the project "Norms and Nature of Acceptance", funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), at the Department of Philosophy at FU Berlin.

My main research focus is on topics in the philosophy of language and communication, and I also have research interests in epistemology.

I received a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) from the University of Oxford, under the supervision of Paul Elbourne and Ofra Magidor. Before that, I studied at the University of Edinburgh and at Humboldt University of Berlin.

Publications / Veröffentlichungen

1. Two kinds of conversational implicatures. Forthcoming in: Erkenntnis.
   abstract

   This paper discusses the underexplored distinction between additive and substitutional conversational implicatures. The focus of the paper is on the question of how to define the distinction. The paper argues that existing characterizations of the distinction classify some implicatures as substitutional that are in an intuitive sense additive. It provides a new definition that captures this sense, and it explores how the new definition differs from previous characterizations. The paper also takes a look at the debate on lying and misleading, in which the distinction between additive and substitutional implicatures has recently attracted some attention as a heuristic for which implicatures constitute lies. It argues that the new definition of the additive-substitutional distinction is useful for this purpose, since it provides a better heuristic than previous characterizations.
   one-sentence summary

   This paper proposes and motivates a new definition of the distinction between so-called additive implicatures (e.g. when "I met Marc yesterday and he was fine" is used to implicate that Marc is still fine today) and so-called substitutional implicatures (e.g. when "I've got tomatoes coming out of my ears" is used to implicate that the speaker has too many tomatoes).
2. On what is said and asked. In: Synthese, Vol. 206 (2025).
   abstract

   What is said by a sentence seems to vary systematically with the question the sentence is used to answer. To explain this, Schoubye and Stokke have developed an account according to which what is said by a sentence is always an answer to the question under discussion, namely, the weakest answer that entails or is entailed by the sentence’s minimal content. This paper presents a new challenge for their account; the challenge consists in avoiding implausibly weak predictions. The paper also explores different approaches to solving the challenge. It argues that the challenge should be solved by modifying Schoubye and Stokke’s account, and it proposes and defends a new, modified view that solves the challenge. According to the proposed modification, what is said by a sentence is an answer to the question under discussion that is in a certain sense as close to the minimal content as possible. The paper also discusses whether the key to solving the challenge lies in adopting a specific view of what propositions count as answers to a question under discussion; that way, the paper also sheds light on which conception of answerhood is best suited for the purposes of the theory.
   one-sentence summary

   This paper defends the view that what is said by a declarative sentence (e.g. "Tipper is ready") in response to a question (e.g. "Is Tipper ready for the football?") is the answer to the question that is in a certain sense closest to the compositional semantic content of the sentence.
3. Objectual Quantifier Theory. In: Journal of Philosophical Logic 54 (2025), pp. 793–855. (co-authored with James R. Kirkpatrick)
   
   abstract

   This paper is a study of Objectual Quantifier Theory, the view that quantificational noun phrases, such as "every woman" and "some pig", denote generic individuals, such as the arbitrary woman and the indefinite pig. We explore the motivations for this view and various ways of developing it, taking inspiration from and expanding upon Kit Fine’s work on arbitrary objects. Our discussion centres around the task of delivering a compositional treatment of quantifier phrases in natural language. In the first part of the paper, we explore the potential for applying and extending Fine’s framework in the interpretation of quantifier expressions, developing desiderata for a successful theory. In the second part of the paper, we develop our positive theory, which we call Objectual Quantifier Theory, as a theory of quantification in natural language. We argue that Objectual Quantifier Theory is at least as empirically powerful as Generalized Quantifier Theory.
   one-sentence summary

   The paper explores the view that natural language quantifier phrases (e.g. "every table" or "some chair") are referential expressions that refer to abstract, generic individuals (e.g. the arbitrary table or the indefinite chair).
4. Truth and directness in pictorial assertion. In: Linguistics and Philosophy 46 (2023), pp. 1441–1465. (co-authored with Emanuel Viebahn)
   
   abstract

   This paper develops an account of accuracy and truth in pictorial assertion. It argues that there are two ways in which pictorial assertions can be indirect: with respect to their content and with respect to their target. This twofold indirectness explains how accurate, unedited pictures can be used to make false pictorial assertions. It captures the fishiness of true pictorial assertions involving target-indirectness, such as true pictorial assertions involving outdated pictures. And it raises the question whether target-indirectness may also arise in linguistic assertion.
   one-sentence summary

   This paper discusses how we use pictures to make assertions, and it explains how accurate, unedited pictures can be used to make false assertions.
5. Metasemantics, intentions and circularity. In: Synthese 195, 4 (2018), pp. 1667-1679. (co-authored with Benjamin Marschall)
   
   abstract

   According to intentionalism, a demonstrative d refers to an object o only if the speaker intends d to refer to o. Intentionalism is a popular view in metasemantics, but Gauker has recently argued that it is circular. We defend intentionalism against this objection, by showing that Gauker’s argument rests on a misconstrual of the aim of metasemantics. We then introduce two related, but distinct circularity objections: the worry that intentionalism is uninformative, and the problem of intentional bootstrapping, according to which it is impossible to have referential intentions. We also show how intentionalists could respond to these new objections.
   one-sentence summary

   This paper discusses the view that a demonstrative (e.g. "this", "that") refers to an object only if the speaker intends to refer to that object with the demonstrative, and it argues that this view is not viciously circular.