On The Autonomy of Linguistic Meaning
Frege and many following him, such as Dummett, Geach, Stenius and
Hare, have envisaged a role for illocutionary force indicators in
a logically perspicuous notation. Davidson has denied that such
expressions are even possible on the ground that any putative force
indicator would be used by actors and jokers to heighten the drama
of their performances. Davidson infers from this objection a Thesis
of the Autonomy of Linguistic Meaning: symbolic representation
necessarily breaks any close tie with extra-linguistic purpose. A
modified version of Frege's ideal is here propounded according to
which an expression is a force indicator just in case it indicates
force in any speech act in which it occurs. It is shown that
attainment of such an ideal would not have deprived Frege of what
he desired of a perspicuous notation. In elaborating this ideal we
also espouse an illocutionary conception of validity and argue that
the ideal is one to which English conforms: parenthetical speech
act verbs in the first person present indicative active are force
indicators in the modified sense. But the mere possibility of force
indicators in the modified sense is enough to show to be at best a
half-truth Davidson's Autonomy Thesis.
Direct Reference and Implicature
On some formulations of Direct Reference the semantic value,
relative to a context of utterance, of a rigid singular term is
just its referent. In response to the apparent possibility of a
difference in truth value of two sentences just alike save for
containing distinct but coreferential rigid singular terms, some
proponents of Direct Reference have held that any two such
sentences differ only pragmatically. Some have also held, more
specifically, that two such sentences differ by conveying distinct
conversational implicata, and that a conflation of implicatum with
semantic content leads speakers to judge such sentences capable of
differing in truth value. It is argued here that this latter
defense of Direct Reference employs false explanans, on the
ground that speakers conflate semantic content with implicatum only
in quite special cases, and we have independent grounds for
thinking that sentences reporting speech acts and attitudes are not
cases of this sort.
Quantity, Volubility, and Some Varieties of Discourse
Abstract: Grice's Quantity maxims have been widely misinterpreted
as enjoining a speaker to make the strongest claim that she can,
while respecting the other conversational maxims. Although many
writers on the topic of conversational implicature interpret the
Quantity maxims as enjoining such volubility, so construed the
Quantity maxims are unreasonable norms for conversation.
Appreciating this calls for attending more closely to the notion of
what a conversation requires. When we do so, we see that eschewing
an injunction to maximal informativeness need not deprive us of any
ability to predict or explain genuine cases of implicature.
Crucial to this explanation is an appreciation of how what a
conversation, or a given stage of a conversation, requires, depends
upon what kind of conversation is taking place. I close with an
outline of this dependence relation that distinguishes among three
importantly distinct types of conversation.
Illocutions, Implicata, and What a Conversation Requires
An approach is offered to the prediction and explanation of quantity
implicata (implicata whose calculation depends upon adversion to Grice's
maxim of Quantity) that, unlike the majority of approaches available,
does not construe Quantity as requiring speakers to make the strongest
claim that their evidence permits. Central to the treatment offered
is an elaboration of the notion of what a conversation requires as
appealed to in the Cooperative Principle and in the Quantity maxim.
What conversations require is construed as depending, at any given
point, upon (i) the aim(s) of the conversation taking place, (ii) the
conversational record, which includes such features as common ground and
salience relations among objects, and (iii) any proffered illocution
calling for a reply. In accounting for this third dimension a partial
characterization is provided of the speech acts of assertion and
interrogation in terms of their role in constraining the progress of the
conversation in which they occur.
Indeterminism and the Thin Red Line
(with Nuel Belnap, University of Pittsburgh)
Abstract: Central to the idea of indeterminism is this: At a
given moment in the history of the world there are a variety of
ways in which affairs might carry on. In considering indeterminism
we concentrate on a generalization of McTaggart's "B-series," which
describes the before/after relations that moments bear to one
another, with no reference to whether any of those moments are
past, present or future. One common way of conjoining the aspect
of indeterminism formulated above with an understanding of our
world deriving from a construal of the B-order as a series, is to
hold that at a given moment in the history of our world from which
there are a variety of ways in which affairs might carry on, one of
those ways is asymmetrically privileged over against all others as
being what is actually going to happen. It used to be said of the
British Empire that it was maintained by a thin red line of
soldiers in service to the Queen. We express the view just
sketched by saying that from among the lines along which history
might go, subsequent to an indeterministic moment, one of those
lines is the course along which history will go, and it is both
thin and red. We argue that in spite of its stalwartness the Thin
Red Line cannot be maintained.
Symmetry Arguments for Cooperation in the Prisoners' Dilemma
(with Cristina Bicchieri, Carnegie-Mellon University)
Abstract: A variety of philosophers, decision theorists, and game
theorists have advanced arguments according to which rational
agents who play a one-shot Prisoners' Dilemma (PD) should choose to
cooperate if they know either that they are in identical
circumstances, or are in some sense identical twins. The reasoning
in favor of the cooperative solution raises the question whether
the PD with the appropriate "Identicality" assumption is
inconsistent, since there is a separate argument employing
dominance reasoning that favors non-cooperation. We argue here
that the question can only be answered relative to a clarification
of the Identicality assumption. There turns out to be only one
interpretation of the Identicality assumption that justifies
cooperation, but this interpretation may be controversial. On
another interpretation of this assumption the description of the PD
game is indeed inconsistent, while on the remaining interpretations
of that assumption the argument for the cooperative solution is
fallacious. Seeing the inconsistency teaches us a lesson
concerning the kinds of postulates that can be added to the
description of a game. Seeing the fallacy will motivate a more
careful treatment of the relation of modal concepts to the notion
of rational choice, and will help us to illuminate the relevance to
game theory of technical tools developed by logicians.
Reflections on Reflection: van Fraassen on Belief
(with Christopher Hitchcock, Rice University)
Abstract:
In 'Belief and the Will' van Frasssen employed a diachronic Dutch
Book argument to support a counterintuitive principle called
Reflection. There and subsequently van Fraassen has put forth
Reflection as a linchpin for his views in epistemology and
philosophy of science, and for the Voluntarism (first person
reports of subjective probability are undertakings of commitments)
that he espouses as an alternative to Descriptivism (first person
reports of subjective probability are merely self-descriptions).
Christensen and others have attacked Reflection, taking it to have
unpalatable consequences. We prescind from the question of the
cogency of diachronic Dutch Book arguments, and focus on
Reflection's proper interpretation. We argue that Reflection is
not as counterintuitive as it appears--that once interpreted
properly the status of the counterexamples given by Christensen and
others is left open. We show also that Descriptivism can make
sense of Reflection, while Voluntarism is not especially well
suited to do so.
Moore's Many Paradoxes
Over the last two decades J.N. Williams has developed an account of the
absurdity of such utterances as "It's raining but I don't believe it"
that is both intuitively plausible and applicable to a wide variety of
forms that this so-called Moorean absurdity can take. His approach is
also noteworthy for making only minimal appeal to principles of
epistemic or doxastic logic in its account of such absurdity. We first
show that Williams places undue emphasis upon assertion and belief:
It is similarly absurd for a person to accept a proposition P as a
supposition for the sake of argument while denying that her state
of mind is one of supposing P, yet Williams has no account of this.
Williams' approach is then modified to account for such a case. That
modification employs a principle of doxastic logic that is at least
plausible as the one on which Williams relies, while being unlike his
principle in applying to cases other than belief.
Illocutionary Force and Semantic Content
Illocutionary force and semantic content are widely held to occupy
utterly different categories in at least two ways: (1) Any expression
serving as an indicator of illocutionary force must be without semantic
content, and (2) no such expression can embed. A refined account of
the force/content distinction is offered here that (a) does the
explanatory work that the standard distinction does, while, in accounting
for the behavior of a range of parenthetical expressions, (b) shows
neither (1) nor (2) to be compulsory. The refined account also motivates
a development of the "scorekeeping model" of conversation, helps to
isolate a distinction between illocutionary force and illocutionary
commitment, and reveals one precise respect in which meaning is only
explicable in terms of use.
Attitude Ascription's Affinity to Measurement
The relation between two systems of attitude ascription that capture all
the empirically significant aspects of an agent's thought and speech may
be analogous to that between two systems of magnitude ascription that are
equivalent relative to a transformation of scale. If so, just as an
object's weighing eight pounds doesn't relate that object to the number
eight (for a different but equally good scale would use a different number),
similarly an agent's believing that P needn't relate her to P (for a
different but equally adequate interpretive scheme could use a different
proposition). In either case the only reality picked out by any system of
ascription is what is common to all equivalent rivals. By emphasizing some
contrasts between decision theory and belief-desire psychology, it is
argued that if attitude ascription is appropriately analogous to
measurement then not only is being related to a proposition an artifact
of the system of representation chosen, so are belief and desire.