Insensitive Semantics: A Defense of Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism

PRAISE FOR INSENSITIVE SEMANTICS “This book is an ingenious defense of two positions not widely thought to be compatible: truth-conditional semantics, on the one hand, and semantic minimalism (the view that extra-linguistic context has only a minimal effect on semantic content) on the other. Cappelen and Lepore’s highly controversial views are already, and will continue to be, at the center of inquiry into the nature of linguistic communication.” JASON STANLEY, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN “To what extent should a theory of human semantic competence incorporate an account of context-dependence? Cappelen and Lepore offer an interesting answer; namely, only to the extent that, by virtue of the meanings of certain linguistic forms, it absolutely has to. Particular examples will be debated, and we may hope clarified, as the scope and limits of semantic investigation are drawn more tightly. In the meantime, Cappelen and Lepore have performed a singular service in bringing together the threads of the contextualist debate, and in formulating a minimalist alternative to some current trends.” JAMES HIGGINBOTHAM, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA “This is a pleasingly spare yet instructively sophisticated account of how Davidsonians can accommodate the massive context sensitivity of language use. And the authors offer powerful arguments that suggest limits, rarely respected, on attempts to diagnose this sensitivity in terms of indexicality. Good stuff.” PAUL PIETROSKI, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

Insensitive Semantics A Defense of Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore

© 2005 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd BLACKWELL PUBLISHING

350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK 550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia The right of Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore to be identified as the Authors of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. First published 2005 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cappelen, Herman. Insensitive semantics : a defense of semantic minimalism and speech act pluralism / Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-4051-2674-4 (hardback : alk. paper) – ISBN 1-4051-2675-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Semantics. 2. Semantics (Philosophy) 3. Context (Linguistics) 4. Minimalist theory (Linguistics) 5. Speech acts (Linguistics) I. LePore, Ernest, 1950– II. Title. P325.C285 2005 401¢.43–dc22 2004015918 A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. Set in 10/12pt Legacy by SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd, Hong Kong Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall The publisher’s policy is to use permanent paper from mills that operate a sustainable forestry policy, and which has been manufactured from pulp processed using acid-free and elementary chlorine-free practices. Furthermore, the publisher ensures that the text paper and cover board used have met acceptable environmental accreditation standards. For further information on Blackwell Publishing, visit our website: www.blackwellpublishing.com

Herman Cappelen dedicates this volume to Kat Ernie Lepore dedicates it to two old friends – Brian McLaughlin, who taught him life, and Barry Loewer, who retaught him philosophy

Contents

Preface Acknowledgments 1 Overview

ix xi 1

Part I: From Moderate to Radical Contextualism 2 3 4 5 6

Exegesis: The Methodology of Contextualism The Instability of Context Shifting Arguments Diagnosis: Why Context Shifting Arguments are Misused The Instability of Incompleteness Arguments Digressions: Binding and Hidden Indexicals

17 39 53 59 69

Part II: Refutation of Radical Contextualism 7 Objections to Radical Contextualism (I): Fails Context Sensitivity Tests 8 Objections to Radical Contextualism (II): Makes Communication Impossible 9 Objections to Radical Contextualism (III): Internal Inconsistency

87 123 128

Part III: Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism 10 Semantic Minimalism 11 Semantics and Metaphysics

143 155 vii

Contents 12 Semantics and Psychology 13 Speech Act Pluralism

176 190

References Index

209 215

viii

Preface

From the end of the nineteenth century right up until today, Philosophy of Language has been plagued by an extensive, and notoriously confusing, literature on how to draw the distinction between semantic content and nonsemantic content, or, in a terminology we prefer not to use, on how to draw the distinction between semantic and pragmatic content. This debate, at its deepest level, is about how to accommodate context sensitivity within a theory of human communication. It is concerned with the way in which contexts of utterance influence communicative interactions (and, as a corollary, what a context of utterance is and what it is to be in one). It is impossible to take a stand on any issue in the philosophy of language without being clear on these issues because what you consider as evidence for a semantic theory depends on how these distinctions are ultimately drawn. And it doesn’t stop there. Epistemologists, metaphysicians, philosophers of mind, ethicists, aestheticians, philosophical logicians, psychologists, linguists, anthropologists, literary critics, cognitive scientists, and perhaps, everyone else, live by claims about whether this or that expression is context sensitive or not. More often than not, theorists conclude that a lot more context sensitivity abounds than one might have thought. All such claims presuppose a general theory of the role of context in human communication. Our ambitious goal in this book is to defend a simple and naive view about context sensitivity, the kind of view you might come up with after just a few moments’ reflection. Our view goes something like this: There are just a few easily identifiable context sensitive expressions in natural language. In English, they are familiar words like ‘I,’ ‘you,’ ‘that,’ ‘now,’ etc. In essence, our view is that there are no deep secrets or hidden surprises behind that ‘etc.’ To this end, we defend a combination of two views, both of which we have given fancy names: Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism. If ix

Preface these views are right (and they are), then numerous philosophers and linguists are guilty of some very profound mistakes. Not only that, but if we are right, then the chief theses of a significant number of published articles and books are based on an internally inconsistent view. In this sense, our view is deeply critical of the last century of the literature on these issues. Since we are making these rather bold claims about colleagues’ views, we try to be very careful in our presentations of the views we criticize. We have included extensive exegetical sections. As a result, our readers will, we hope, end up not only with a presentation of the correct view, but also with a clear understanding of the structure of the last one hundred years of debate about these issues. The central opponents in this book are philosophers and linguists who inflate the role of context in semantics. We call such philosophers Contextualists. The common thread that runs throughout our criticism of contextualism is that it fails to account for how we communicate across contexts. People with different background beliefs, goals, audiences, perceptual inputs, etc. can understand each other. They can agree or disagree. They can say, assert, claim, state, investigate, or make fun of the very same claim. No theory of communication is adequate unless it explains how this is possible. Contextualists cannot provide such an explanation. The solution proposed in this book is a context insensitive semantics (i.e. the view we call Semantic Minimalism), combined with Speech Act Pluralism.

x

Acknowledgments

Eight years ago we wrote ‘On an Alleged Connection between Semantic Theory and Indirect Speech.’ Since then we have written a series of related papers on speech act content, semantic content, and various versions of contextualism in the philosophy of language. This book supersedes several of those papers which are yet to reach print – even though they were written well in advance of this book. Apparently some authors can’t make deadlines no matter how long editors are prepared to extend them. However, this book refines and unifies these published papers and we hope soon to be published earlier papers. Before our collaboration, Lepore had written a series of papers on Davidson with Barry Loewer in the 1980s, a forthcoming two-volume book with Kirk Ludwig on Davidson’s philosophy of language, and a book and numerous articles with Jerry Fodor on the nature of content and compositionality. These all played crucial roles in forging his commitment to Semantic Minimalism. Cappelen’s initial encounter with Radical Contextualism came in an exceptionally thought provoking seminar given by François Recanati at the University of California at Berkeley in 1994 (these lectures provided the basis for Recanati’s Literal Meaning). Discussions with Recanati and other seminar participants (including Stephen Neale and John Searle) started Cappelen down the road towards Semantic Minimalism. Our largest joint influence has been Jason Stanley. He together with Zoltán Szabó wrote a paper defending contextualism for quantifier domain specification. Working through their paper combined with an almost continuous all-out-all-systems-go conversation with Jason jumpstarted this book. We owe each and every one (read unrestrictedly) of these philosophers a debt for help and inspiration. There have been many others. Drafts of these chapters have been presented on five continents and to literally dozens of institutions and conxi

Acknowledgments ferences. We have each taught the volume several times at the undergraduate and graduate levels. We thank the participants of all of these events; in particular, in no order of significance (and with apologies in advance to anyone we may have forgotten), we thank: Kent Bach, Mark Baker, Anne Bezuidenhout, Dan Blair, Emma Borg, Manuel García-Carpintiero, Robyn Carston, David Chalmers, Jennifer Church, Lenny Clapp, Eros Corraza, Sam Cumming, Martin Davies, Ray Elugardo, Chris Gaulker, Michael Glanzberg, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Delia Graff, Gill Harman, John Hawthorne, Jessica Hughes, Kent Johnson, David Kaplan, Chris Kennedy, Jeff King, Karson Kovakovich, Richard Larson, Sarah Jane Leslie, Peter Ludlow, Kirk Ludwig, Brian McLaughlin, Europa Malynicz, Robert May, Michael Nelson, Terry Parsons, Jeff Pellitier, Paul Pietroski, Stefano Predelli, Marga Reimer, Mark Richard, Stephen Schiffer, Roger Schwartzchild, Adam Sennett, Elka Shortsleeve, Ted Sider, Rob Stainton, Dan Stoljar, Matthew Stone, Zoltan Szabó, Ken Taylor, Charles Travis, Brian Weatherson, Sam Wheeler, Tim Williamson, Douglas Winblad, and of course the late Donald Davidson. We would also like to thank Laurien Berkeley and Sarah Dancy for their help in editing the book, Elka Shortsleeve for indexing it, as well as Jeff Dean for helping us to get the book to press.

xii

CHAPTER 1

Overview

Try this on some pure, uncontaminated, students: List a few incontrovertibly context sensitive expressions like ‘I,’ ‘you,’ ‘now,’ and ‘that.’ Then ask them to pick other expressions just like these. They are very good at it. They consistently choose expressions like ‘yesterday,’ ‘those,’ ‘we,’ and they never choose expressions like ‘penguin,’ ‘red,’ ‘know,’ or ‘dance.’ And if you ask them directly whether they think that ‘penguin’ is like the first person personal pronoun ‘I,’ they think you must be joking; when they understand that you’re serious, they invariably answer ‘no.’ Of course, they might be wrong. It might be that the more refined intuitions of seasoned linguists and semanticists reveal that our natural inclinations in these respects are mistaken. But we don’t think so. We think these strong and clear initial classifications are correct and that semanticists who ignore them are led astray. On the first page of Kaplan’s classic ‘Demonstratives,’ there is a list of expressions he calls indexicals. Slightly elaborated, his list goes like this: The personal pronouns ‘I,’ ‘you,’ ‘he,’ ‘she,’ ‘it’ in their various cases and number (e.g., singular, plural, nominative, accusative, genitive forms), the demonstrative pronouns ‘that’ and ‘this’ in their various cases and number, the adverbs ‘here,’ ‘there,’ ‘now,’ ‘today,’ ‘yesterday,’ ‘tomorrow,’ ‘ago’ (as in ‘He left two days ago’), ‘hence(forth)’ (as in ‘There will be no talking henceforth’), and the adjectives ‘actual’ and ‘present’ (Kaplan 1989a, p. 489). Words and aspects of words that indicate tense also have their reference so determined. And there are also the contextuals, which include common nouns like ‘enemy,’ ‘outsider,’ ‘foreigner,’ ‘alien,’ ‘immigrant,’ ‘friend,’ and ‘native’ as well as common adjectives like ‘foreign,’ ‘local,’ ‘domestic,’ ‘national,’ ‘imported,’ and ‘exported’ (cf., Vallée 2003; Nunberg 1992; Condoravdi and Gawron 1995; Partee 1989).1 1 To be honest, we have our doubts about so-called contextuals; and it’s probably no accident that they did not occur on Kaplan’s (1989) original list. We will let you decide for yourself after you have read our book.

1

Overview In what follows, we shall refer to this set of expressions both as the Basic Set of Context Sensitive Expressions (the Basic Set, for short) and as the set of genuinely context sensitive expressions. Why choose those expressions? Why didn’t he put, say, ‘red,’ ‘know,’ ‘duck,’ ‘every,’ ‘good,’ or ‘happy’ in this set? Here’s an interesting fact about Kaplan’s classic paper: He doesn’t give a reason. He never sees the need to elaborate on, or defend, his choice of examples. In the end, he develops a sophisticated theory of the semantics of demonstratives and other context sensitive expressions. But his account presupposes that the domain he is theorizing about is obvious and already identified. One central goal in this book is to defend the uncontaminated intuitions that underlie Kaplan’s methodology from a wide range of popular objections. In so doing, we also defend a certain view of the role of context sensitivity in the semantics for natural language. It’s simultaneously a defense of a certain conception of semantics and of a conception of semantic content. This first chapter is intended just as an overview of what’s to come. We don’t really engage in any serious argumentation here; we just quickly present the views we advertised in our subtitle, i.e., Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism; we describe our central opponents (Radical and Moderate Contextualists), the kind of arguments used by our adversaries; and at the end of the chapter we outline the book’s argumentative strategy.

Introduction to Semantic Minimalism At this introductory stage, we’ll just list three particularly important features of Semantic Minimalism, all of which will be elaborated on, and defended, later in the book (see in particular Chapter 10): 1 The most salient feature of Semantic Minimalism is that it recognizes few context sensitive expressions, and, hence, acknowledges a very limited effect of the context of utterance on the semantic content of an utterance. The only context sensitive expressions are the very obvious ones listed above plus or minus a bit. These are not only obvious, but they pass certain tests for context sensitivity that we spell out in Chapter 7. 2 It follows that all semantic context sensitivity is grammatically (i.e., syntactically or morphemically) triggered. 3 Beyond fixing the semantic value of these obviously context sensitive expressions, the context of utterance has no effect on the proposition semantically expressed. In this sense, the semantic 2

Overview content of a sentence S is the proposition that all utterances of S express (when we adjust for or keep stable the semantic values of the obvious context sensitive expressions in S). Some illustrations: If we keep tense fixed,2 any utterance of (1) (1) Rudolf is a reindeer is true just in case Rudolf is a reindeer, and expresses the proposition that Rudolf is a reindeer.3 Any utterance of (2) (2) Rudolf has a red nose is true just in case Rudolf has a red nose, and expresses the proposition that Rudolf has a red nose. Any utterance of (3) (3) Rudolf is happy is true just in case Rudolf is happy, and expresses the proposition that Rudolf is happy. Any utterance of (4) (4) Rudolf has had breakfast is true just in case Rudolf has had breakfast, and expresses the proposition that Rudolf has had breakfast. Any utterance of (5) (5) Rudolf doesn’t know that penguins eat fish is true just in case Rudolf doesn’t know that penguins eat fish, and expresses the proposition that Rudolf doesn’t know that penguins eat fish. If you find it surprising that someone would write a book defending conclusions so obvious, we have a great deal of sympathy. The problem is that a wide range of our contemporary colleagues rejects these views (see below). (It’s probably no exaggeration to say that our views about (1)–(5) are 2 As we will do throughout this book. 3 Semantic Minimalism, as understood in this book, need not take a stand on whether semantic content is a proposition, or truth conditions, or what have you. Throughout the book we try to remain neutral by couching the issues both in terms of truth conditions and in terms of propositions.

3

Overview currently held only by a small minority of philosophers and linguists, at least among those who have thought about the surrounding issues.) This book is our attempt to rebut these influential objections. A great deal of that defense focuses on the relationship between speech act content and semantic content, and in that respect Speech Act Pluralism plays a central role.

Introduction to Speech Act Pluralism Here’s one way to summarize Speech Act Pluralism (for fuller presentation see Chapter 13): No one thing is said (or asserted, or claimed, or . . .) by any utterance: rather, indefinitely many propositions are said, asserted, claimed, stated. What is said (asserted, claimed, etc.) depends on a wide range of facts other than the proposition semantically expressed. It depends on a potentially indefinite number of features of the context of utterance and of the context of those who report on (or think about) what was said by the utterance. It follows from Speech Act Pluralism that an utterance can assert propositions that are not even logical implications of the proposition semantically expressed. Nothing even prevents an utterance from asserting (saying, claiming, etc.) propositions incompatible with the proposition semantically expressed by that utterance. From this, it further follows that if you want to exploit intuitions about speech act content to fix semantic content, then you have to be extremely careful in so doing. It can be done, and we’ll show you how, but it’s a subtle and easily corrupted process. These points are connected to our defense of Semantic Minimalism because one underlying assumption in many anti-minimalist arguments (in particular, what we shall call the Context Shifting Arguments) is the idea that semantic content has to be closely connected to speech act content. If Speech Act Pluralism is correct, then there is no such tight connection, and so, this requirement is revealed to be a philosophical prejudice. Another way to see the connection is this: If there really were (or had to be) a close connection between speech act content and semantic content, then all the data we think support Speech Act Pluralism would also serve to undermine Semantic Minimalism. That’s how some of the most clearheaded contextualists argue. Our strategy is to endorse the data they invoke, but undermine their assumption that this data has semantic implications. At this initial stage it’s worth highlighting one more aspect of Speech Act Pluralism that both has wide ranging implications and sets our view apart from (all?) other contemporary accounts of context sensitivity. We 4

Overview don’t think that everything a speaker says by uttering a sentence in a context C is determined by features of C. The speaker’s intentions, facts about the audience, the place and time of utterance, background knowledge that’s salient in C, the previous conversations salient in C, etc., are insufficient to fix what the speaker said. According to Speech Act Pluralism, a theory of speech act content has to take into account the context of those who say or think about what the speaker said, i.e., the context of those who report what’s said by the utterance can, in part, determine what was said by that utterance. (As far as we can tell, we are on our own in defending this view; we published a paper defending it in 1997 and don’t know of anyone else who has endorsed it yet.)

Opponents of Semantic Minimalism As we have already mentioned, a wide range of semantic theorists can advocate Semantic Minimalism. Indeed, those who practice semantics accepting these kinds of constraints tend to fight fierce internal battles. This book is not a contribution to such rivalries. It’s about a range of arguments (below we call them Context Shifting Arguments and Incompleteness Arguments) which, if sound, would undermine the possibility of semantic theorizing. Not all of those who employ these arguments realize the logical implications of doing so. Indeed, one of the points we’ll emphasize below is that most proponents of these arguments operate under the illusion they can be a part of ‘business as usual’ semantics. They don’t recognize the dangers lurking right around the corner as soon as they start down this path. The two central opponents of Semantic Minimalism we’ll be concerned with we will call Radical and Moderate Contextualists. What they have in common is that their positions are based on similar kinds of arguments. We now outline these positions, and then, the kinds of arguments used by their proponents.

Central Opponent 1: Radical Contextualism (RC) We want to engage two traditions according to which Semantic Minimalism is fundamentally mistaken. One of these goes back to the Wittgenstein of the Philosophical Investigations, on through Austin, and is today represented by a wide range of philosophers, some of whom call themselves Relevance Theorists,4 some neo-Wittgensteinians, some Sellarsians. We call them all Radical Contextualists. These theorists all hold some version or other of the 4 Cf., e.g., Sperber and Wilson (1986); Carston (1988, 2002), Recanati (1989, 1993, 2004).

5

Overview view that every single expression is context sensitive,5 and that the peculiarities of members of the Basic Set are of no deep theoretical significance. Slightly more precisely, they adhere to some version of (RC1)–(RC3): (RC1) No English sentence S ever semantically expresses a proposition. Any semantic value that Semantic Minimalists assign to S can be no more than a propositional fragment (or radical), where the hallmark of a propositional fragment (or radical) is that it does not determine a set of truth conditions, and hence, cannot take a truth value. (RC2) Context sensitivity is ubiquitous in this sense: No expansion of what we are calling the Basic Set of context sensitive expressions can salvage Semantic Minimalism, i.e., however the Basic Set is expanded, the output will never be more than a propositional fragment; something, therefore, not even truth evaluable. (RC3) Only an utterance can semantically express a complete proposition, have a truth condition, and so, take a truth value. Though they are not alone, John Searle and Charles Travis – without acknowledging each other often (if at all) – are and have been for over thirty years the chief spokespersons for RC. . . . the notion of literal meaning of a sentence only has application relative to a set of background assumptions, and furthermore, these background assumptions are not and could not all be realized in the semantic structure of the sentence in the way that presuppositions and indexically dependent elements of the sentence’s truth conditions are realized in the semantic structure of the sentence. (Searle 1978, p. 210) What words mean plays a role in fixing when they would be true; but not an exhaustive one. Meaning leaves room for variation in truth conditions from one speaking to another. (Travis 1996, p. 451) . . . in general the meaning of a sentence only has application (it only, for example, determines a set of truth conditions) against a background of assumptions and practices that are not representable as a part of meaning. (Searle 1980, p. 221) Both of these philosophers allude to Wittgenstein and Austin as their chief influences (Travis 1985, p. 187; 1996, p. 451; Searle 1980, p. 229). 5 There are different ways of characterizing their views: For example, Every sentence is context sensitive. Or, if the only context sensitivity you take into account is that due to the expressions in the Basic Set, you won’t get a proposition or anything truth evaluable.

6

Overview There is a sense in which we have a great deal of respect for RC. RC, we’ll argue, is the logical consequence of denying Semantic Minimalism. As far as we can tell, philosophers and linguists who try to modify Semantic Minimalism only along the edges, by adding a bit of context sensitivity here and there, fail to see that by so doing they lead themselves directly into the clutches of RC.

Central Opponent 2: Moderate Contextualism (MC) The other opponents of Semantic Minimalism we are calling Moderate Contextualists. Moderate Contextualists try to steer a middle course between Semantic Minimalism and Radical Contextualism by minimally expanding the Basic Set of context sensitive expressions. Slightly more precisely, Moderate Contextualists endorse some version of (MC1)–(MC3): (MC1) The expressions in the Basic Set do not exhaust all the sources of semantic context sensitivity. (MC2) Many sentences that Semantic Minimalism assigns truth conditions to, and treats as semantically expressing a proposition, fail to have truth conditions or to semantically express a proposition; they express only fragmentary propositions. Such linguistic expressions are described as providing ‘incomplete logical forms,’ ‘semantic skeletons,’ ‘semantic scaffolding,’ ‘semantic templates,’ ‘propositional schemas’ (see, e.g., Carston 2002; Sperber and Wilson 1986; Recanati 1993, 2004; Bach 1994a; Taylor 2001). All of these locutions entail that the expression is not fully propositional; it is incomplete qua semantic entity; it is not truth evaluable. (MC3) For the cases in question, only their utterances semantically express a proposition, and have (interpretive) truth conditions, and so, take a truth value. Moderate Contextualists don’t typically see themselves as belonging to a tradition or a group and they wouldn’t classify themselves as Moderate Contextualists. There are two kinds of Moderate Contextualists: Misguided Semanticists and Semantic Opportunists. The Misguided Semanticists come to MC by noticing some data or evidence they think has to be accounted for by a semantic theory (we will describe data of this kind below). They don’t see how to account for it except by expanding the Basic Set. The Semantic Opportunists are sneakier. They are philosophers who come to semantics with a nonsemantic agenda. They might be concerned with defending a view in epistemology, ethics, philosophical logic, philos7

Overview ophy of mind, metaphysics, etc. They have no interest in, or understanding of, the overall semantic project. They postulate that various expressions are context sensitive because doing so lends support to a view, usually radical, they endorse in their respective area. Paradigm examples are ethicists who claim that ethical terms are context sensitive; epistemologists who claim that certain epistemic terms are context sensitive; metaphysicians who claim that vague terms are context sensitive; philosophical logicians who claim that quantifiers or certain semantic terms are context sensitive, and so on. For our purposes, what motivates Moderate Contextualists doesn’t really matter. What does matter is how MC is implemented. Here’s what we have in mind: Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that Moderate Contextualists hold that some expression e, not in the Basic Set, is context sensitive. Remember, they do not think, as Radical Contextualists do, that semantics is impossible. They therefore face a range of additional questions about how a semantic theory should accommodate this additional context sensitivity. If you have evidence that e is context sensitive and you want that incorporated into a semantic theory, primarily three basic strategies are available to you: the Surprise Indexical Strategy, the Hidden Indexical Strategy, and the Unarticulated Constituent Strategy. Here, in very brief outline, is each option. The Surprise Indexical Strategy The Surprise Indexical Strategy is the most straightforward of the three. If you opine that an expression e is context sensitive, then add e to the Basic Set, thereby treating it as an indexical, in the exact same way that ‘I’ and ‘that’ are indexicals. So, some epistemologists, e.g., Lewis, DeRose, or Cohen, think that knowledge attributions exhibit context sensitivity. This leads them to treat the verb ‘to know’ as context sensitive. One way to incorporate this contextualist view into semantics is to treat ‘know’ as an indexical expression in a straightforward manner: The semantic value of ‘know’ changes from one context of utterance to another. As a result, what’s required for satisfying, say, ‘Lewis knows that penguins eat fish’ varies from one context of utterance to another, contingent, say, on rising or falling epistemic standards. Commitment to epistemological contextualism in this manner thereby commits one to extending the Basic Set to include ‘know’ in addition to ‘I,’ ‘here,’ etc. The Hidden Indexical Strategy The Hidden Indexical Strategy postulates a phonetically unrealized component (a covert indexical) at some level of linguistic representation, say, in 8

Overview Logical Form. Rather than treating a surface (overt) expression e itself as an indexical (as the Surprise Indexical Strategy does), the Hidden Indexical Strategy accounts for alleged context sensitivity by finding (or postulating) a ‘hidden’ (i.e., unpronounced or covert) indexical associated with the expression(s) we hear pronounced. For example, most philosophers and linguists think that sentences with comparative adjectives are context sensitive. They hold that when someone utters, for example, ‘Bill is short,’ there’s an unpronounced indexical associated with ‘short’ that makes reference to a comparison class. For any utterance of this sentence, you don’t hear ‘for an F’ or anything like it; rather, what you hear is just ‘short.’ But in the underlying logical–syntactic form of the sentence, there’s alleged to be a (covert) lexical item that refers in context to a comparison class. Again, there are many ways to achieve this end formally, but the basic idea is to take the logical form of ‘Bill is short’ to be something along the lines of ‘Bill is short for an F,’ where ‘F’ can vary from one context of utterance to another. The Unarticulated Constituent Strategy The Unarticulated Constituent Strategy finds context sensitivity in certain sentences, but does not recommend treating any pronounced or unpronounced component of that sentence as the source of this context sensitivity. According to this view, a propositional component gets added without being triggered by a syntactic component (pronounced or unpronounced) in the uttered sentence.6 For example, consider the sentence ‘It’s raining.’ Perry (1986) claims that unless the proposition semantically expressed by an utterance of this sentence included a location, it would not be ‘complete,’ and so, would not be truth evaluable. However, there’s no expression in the logical–syntactic form of this sentence that makes reference to a location. Instead, the location is somehow or other added to the proposition semantically expressed by an utterance of the sentence without its being required by any lexical item in the sentence. Methodological observation: MC and RC are supported by only two kinds of arguments Here’s a methodological observation that underlies the entire rest of this book: 6 ‘An indexical is like a free variable needing to be assigned a value. . . . the conceptual gaps in utterances of semantically underdeterminate sentences do not correspond to anything in the sentences themselves . . . Not being sentence constituents, they enter in not at the linguistic level but at the conceptual level . . .’ (Bach 1994a, p. 133).

9

Overview Methodological observation. There are two basic kinds of argument adduced in favor of all versions of RC and MC: Context Shifting Arguments and Incompleteness Arguments. These two kinds of argument are the central motivation behind all departures from Semantic Minimalism. This observation about the literature on (semantic) context sensitivity is meant to be substantial and controversial. If we are right, then a wide range of apparently diverse philosophical positions rely solely upon two kinds of argument. Chapter 2 is devoted to presenting textual evidence in support of this claim. Here we give a rather brief introduction to what we mean by Context Shifting Arguments (CSA) and Incompleteness Arguments.

Context Shifting Arguments (and a preview of how they are misused) Someone in the business of investigating context sensitivity contemplates and imagines language as used in contexts other than the one she happens to find herself in. She is, after all, interested in the way in which content is influenced by variation in the context of utterance; in particular, she tries to elicit intuitions about whether what is said, or expressed by, or the truth conditions of, an utterance varies in some systematic way with contexts of utterance. To do so, she imagines a range of utterances, u1–un, of a sentence S. The resulting data consists of her reports of, and the audience’s own, intuitions about the content of u1–un. Arguments that appeal to this kind of evidence we call Context Shifting Arguments. Here’s a preview of what we’ll argue later: The literature on context sensitivity is plagued by a blatant misuse of this kind of argument. The mistake is not simply of the kind Grice pointed out, i.e., that theorists have to distinguish between intuitions about what utterances say and what they implicate. The way we see it, that mistake is superficial and relatively easy to avoid. Rather, the fundamental mistake in the entire contextualist literature is this: To properly engage in this sort of thought experiment a theorist has to locate herself in a particular context. To not make the context of the thought experiment an essential variable of the experiment is like trying to measure the speed of objects around you while ignoring your own speed. You can’t do it. This mistake, we argue, is exactly the one that both Radical and Moderate Contextualists are guilty of. If our metaphorical presentation of the problem seems obscure, bear with us until Chapters 7–9, where full details and clarification will be provided.

10

Overview

Incompleteness Arguments (and a preview of how they are misused) The second kind of argument in the literature on context sensitivity we call Incompleteness Arguments. These also require an appeal to intuition, but an appeal to a kind of metaphysical intuition rather than to a linguistic one. The goal of an Incompleteness Argument is to establish that the proposition Semantic Minimalists claim is semantically expressed by some sentence S is no more than a propositional fragment. Incompleteness Arguments are always simple (so simple that they might not deserve the moniker ‘argument’). Typically, all they amount to is a claim like the following: Consider the alleged proposition that P that some sentence S semantically expresses. Intuitively, the world can’t just be P simpliciter. The world is neither P nor not P. There’s no such thing as P’s being the case simpliciter. And so, there is no such proposition. So, for example, consider ‘Al is ready.’ Some authors contend that it is just plain obvious that there isn’t any such thing as Al’s being ready simpliciter. Likewise, Perry (1986) and Crimmins (1992) argue, for example, that with a range of weather or temporal reports (containing pleonastic ‘it’s’), as in ‘It’s raining’ and ‘It is 3 p.m.,’ there’s no such thing as raining simpliciter or as being 3 p.m. simpliciter. Again, a preview of our central contentions about Incompleteness Arguments: First, Moderate and Radical Contextualists who use such arguments are typically deeply confused about the relationship between semantics and metaphysics. These arguments are not about language; they are about various nonlinguistic aspects of the world. Even if they were good arguments, nothing would follow about the sentences in question, more generally, no semantic conclusions follow from these arguments even if they were sound. Second, considered, as they ought to be, as metaphysical arguments, they are unsound.

Comparison with Other Ways of Structuring the Debate The way we have presented the debates about context sensitivity (as a debate between Semantic Minimalism, MC, and RC) is controversial. It is, for example, not how all of the participants of these debates think of them. More specifically:

11

Overview














Moderate and Radical Contextualists do not see themselves as aligned with each other, differing only with respect to where they are located on a continuum (the former wanting more of something that the latter wants not as much of). The Radical Contextualists see the Moderate Contextualists as fierce opponents, and vice versa. The three different versions of MC (Surprise Indexicalists, Hidden Indexicalists, and proponents of Unarticulated Constituents) do not think of each other as holding different versions of the same view. Advocates of each of these views spend a great deal of time arguing against the other two. Within each version of MC, there is disagreement about which expressions should be added to the Basic Set. Even those proponents of MC that agree on some version of MC and about which expressions should be added to the Basic Set disagree about how the versions should be implemented. For example, Moderate Contextualists who are Hidden Indexicalists about quantified noun phrases disagree about each of the following:  The nature of the semantic value of the hidden indexical (a class or a property or something else).  The larger semantic frameworks that this view should be embedded in.  Various issues concerning how semantic values of the hidden indexicals are fixed (‘wide’ or ‘narrow’ context).  Where to place the hidden indexical: attach it to the quantifier, to the noun phrase, as separate lexical entry or as ‘co-habitating’ with some other expression. There’s a lively debate among Radical Contextualists, and many of those we so classify do not think of themselves as holding versions of the same view. They spend huge chunks of time arguing with each other about the differences between ‘enrichment,’ ‘saturation,’ ‘free enrichment,’ ‘concept construction,’ and a wide range of other issues.

Not only does our structuring of the debate lump together philosophers and linguists who would rather not be lumped together, but it might also (in part, as a result of this (apparently) crude classification) seem to miss what some think of as the deep and underlying issues. In particular, we have heard the following suggestions for what these debates are really about: 1 Deep down it is all about compositionality. Roughly, the central issue in all these debates is whether it is possible to develop a compositional semantics for natural language. The interesting question is not about context sensitivity as such, but about how it affects compositionality. 12

Overview 2 Deep down it is all about whether we need to take speaker’s intentions into account to fix semantic values. In a terminology often used, it is all about whether semantics needs to take into account ‘wide’ context in addition to ‘narrow’ context (of the kind Kaplan seemed to focus on in his paper ‘Demonstratives’). In sum, we have encountered various charges to the effect that we have failed to see what these debates are really all about deep down and that our structure leaves out important distinctions. That, unsurprisingly, is not now how we see things. We do, of course, agree that there are many interesting, deep, and subtle issues about context sensitivity not addressed in this book. In no way do we mean our discussion to be exhaustive. But to leave it at that would be to understate our case. We organize the various positions as we do because we think so doing elicits (renders explicit) the fundamental assumptions shared by positions that conceive of themselves as fundamentally opposed. Four substantive and controversial views underlie our organization of the debate: 1 All opponents of Semantic Minimalism (be they some version of MC or some version of RC) share certain important assumptions. 2 These assumptions seem so obvious to opponents of Semantic Minimalism that they are almost never made explicit and when they are made explicit they are never convincingly defended. 3 We argue that all of these underlying, shared assumptions should be rejected. 4 If these shared assumptions are rejected, then: (a) Most (maybe all) of the arguments against Semantic Minimalism collapse. (b) The distinction between various versions of MC and RC will seem unimportant (since these questions don’t even arise unless one makes certain false assumptions). (c) The label ‘the Deep/Fundamental Issues’ should be awarded to a range of issues independent of any debates internal to MC or RC. One underlying assumption (the simplest version of which we call the Mistaken Assumption – MA, for short) is spelled out in Chapter 4. In brief, it is the view that the semantic content of a sentence S is constrained in certain ways (spelled out in Chapter 4) by what speakers can use S to say (assert, claim, state, etc.) and that intuitions about what speakers say (assert, claim, state, etc.) with a sentence S provide evidence for the semantic content of S. This can also be described as the mistake of conflating semantic content and speech act content. (This, we further argue in Chapter 4, 13

Overview is what underlies the constant misuse of Context Shifting Arguments in the philosophy of language, and elsewhere.)

Outline of Argumentative Strategy In Chapter 2 we document that in a wide range of cases, indeed, in all of the cases we are aware of, arguments to the effect that an expression e exhibits semantic context sensitivity are based either on some version of a Context Shifting Argument or on some version of an Incompleteness Argument. (Other arguments occasionally presented as arguments for context sensitivity are shown to be parasitic on these two kinds of argument.) In Chapters 3–6 we show that any attempt to exploit these two kinds of argument to expand the Basic Set of context sensitive expressions to one any larger is susceptible to an instability charge. The charge takes this form: We consider a range of data, D, presented in favor of expanding the Basic Set of context sensitive expressions, and show that if this evidence supports an expansion of the Basic Set, then all expressions are context sensitive, i.e., RC is true. In other words, we will establish that any argument for MC inevitably slips into an argument for RC. In Chapters 7–9 we show that RC is, first, empirically flawed, and worse, ultimately incoherent. Since MC collapses into RC, it follows that MC also is both empirically flawed and ultimately incoherent. In Chapters 10–12 we present and defend Semantic Minimalism. In Chapter 13 we present and defend Speech Act Pluralism.

14

PART I

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism

CHAPTER 2

Exegesis: The Methodology of Contextualism

Much of this book consists of discussions, criticisms, and refinements of what we call Context Shifting and Incompleteness Arguments. We focus on these because they are at the center of all arguments that attempt to establish that expressions or sentences exhibit semantically relevant context sensitivity. While presenting this material in seminars and at conferences we sometimes encounter the following reply: Your objections to these arguments might be good, but so what? Those aren’t the kinds of arguments contextualists invoke. What’s really going on is . . . This chapter is meant in part as a response to this sort of reply and in part as an introduction to the topic for those not already immersed in the literature.

Context Shifting Arguments Our view is that sentences are context sensitive just in case they contain an expression from what we call the Basic Set of Context Sensitive Expressions. Suppose someone suspects that an expression e, not in that set, is context sensitive. How could he go about establishing this? One way that philosophers of language do so is to think about (or imagine) various utterances of sentences containing e. If they have intuitions that a semantically relevant feature of those utterances varies from context to context, then that, it is assumed, is evidence e is context sensitive. For this strategy to work it is of course important that the features one has intuitions about are semantically relevant. The kinds of features that contextualists claim to have intuitions about include: 17

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism






What is said or asserted or claimed or stated by utterances of sentences containing e. The truth conditions of utterances of sentences containing e. The proposition expressed by utterances of sentences containing e.

In Chapters 7–9 we argue that intuitions about variability in these features do not, even prima facie, provide evidence of semantic context sensitivity. In this chapter we simply document extensive appeal to such intuitions in the philosophical and linguistics literature. We’ll begin by discussing a few of the specific cases and then turn to the more general case.

Quantifiers We start with quantifier sentences; these are sentences which include quantifier expressions like ‘every bottle,’ ‘no man,’ ‘the table,’ etc. Stanley and Williamson, for example, appeal to intuitions about context shifting in defending their claim that quantifier sentences are context sensitive when they write: Since there are clearly true utterances of (1) Every bottle has been put on the shelf. in ordinary contexts, it follows that utterances of sentences containing quantified expressions are evaluated with respect to contextually restricted domains. (Stanley and Williamson 1995, p. 291) Their intuition is that the truth values of utterances of (1) can shift from one context to another even though the locations of all extant bottles change not at all. This is so, they claim, because the domain of the quantifier ‘every bottle’ itself shifts from context to context of utterance. So, in this case, it is intuitions about shifting truth values that underlie an inference to context sensitivity. Recanati concurs. In discussing an utterance of the quantifier sentence ‘They took everything,’ he writes that he has ‘a feeling that “everything” ranges over the domain of valuable objects in the house – not everything in the world’ (Recanati 1996, p. 445). Recanati’s feelings (or intuitions) are about what quantifiers range over; in effect, what their application conditions are, and so, what the truth conditions are for utterances of sentences in which these expressions occur. If Recanati’s intuitions are correct, it follows that quantifier sentences admit of context sensitivity.

18

Exegesis: The Methodology of Contextualism Lewis, on the other hand, has intuitions about what utterances of quantifier sentences say; he writes: ‘If I say that every glass is empty, so it’s time for another round, doubtless I and my audience are ignoring most of all the glasses there are in the whole wide world throughout all of time. They are outside the domain. They are irrelevant to the truth of what was said’ (Lewis 1996, p. 225). In these cases, Lewis’s intuitions are that utterances of quantifier sentences can change in what their utterances say, and so, in their truth conditions – contingent upon what the restricted domain of the quantifier is. Schiffer focuses neither on domains of discourse nor on truth values shifting from context to context, but rather on what is stated by distinct utterances of quantifier sentences, in particular, by utterances of sentences with definite descriptions in them: ‘it is clear that in uttering “The dog is chewing your hat” the literal speaker is not stating something that entails that there is exactly one dog in the universe’ (Schiffer 1998, p. 375–6). Neale likewise draws contextualist conclusions based on his intuitions about changes in what speakers are asserting with utterances of the same sentence as context shifts from occasion to occasion. Suppose I had a dinner party last night. In response to a question as to how it went, I say to you: (2) Everyone was sick. Clearly I do not mean to be asserting that everyone in existence was sick, just that everyone at the dinner party I had last night was. (Neale 1990, p. 95) Stanley and Szabó have the intuition that which propositions are semantically expressed can shift from context to context, so that distinct utterances of the same unambiguous quantifier sentence can convey different propositions: Consider the sentence: (1) Every bottle is empty. Suppose someone utters (1) in a conversation. It is unlikely that what she intends to convey is that every bottle in the universe is empty; she most likely intends to convey that every one of a restricted class of bottles (say, the bottles in the room where she is, the bottles purchased recently, etc.) is empty. And if the context is right, she can succeed in communicating such a proposition. Permanent linguistic features of (1) – its phonological and morphological constituents, its syntactic structure, the meanings of the lexical items it contains – do not determine the proposition thereby communicated. They cannot

19

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism do so, for these features are the same on every occasion when the sentence is used, but on most of those occasions the speaker would communicate a different proposition by the sentence. (Stanley and Szabó 2000a, pp. 219–20) Though Stanley and Szabó’s claim is also one about context shifting, their intuitions are about context shifts in the proposition semantically expressed by distinct utterances of (2). (This of course may elicit a change in truth value as well.) We find a similar idea in Gaulker: Imagine a goatherd in the Peruvian Andes whose community has long been isolated from the rest of the world. One evening all the people of the village are gathered for a traditional celebration and there appears in the sky a remarkable bright falling star. Everyone looks up into the sky and sees it. As a result our goatherd forms a belief that he attempts to convey in the words that translate thus: ‘Everyone saw the falling star’. Call this the goatherd’s first utterance. Sometime later, our goatherd is out in the hills accompanying a philosophical friend. Bored with tending goats, the philosopher asks the goatherd, ‘Do you think there might be people like us on the other side of these distant mountain tops?’ For the first time our goatherd contemplates the question and forms the opinion that, yes, very probably, there are other people over there . . . To convey this thought, he chooses the words that translate thus: ‘Not everyone in the universe is a member of our community’. Call this the goatherd’s second utterance. A charitable interpretation would say that by means of his first utterance the goatherd intended to convey the proposition that everyone in the goatherd’s community saw the falling star, and that by means of his second utterance the goatherd intended to convey the proposition that not everyone in the universe is a member of the goatherd’s community. (Gaulker 1997, pp. 17–19) In sum, each author invokes an intuition or feeling about quantifier sentences in use; each employs intuitions or feelings about distinct utterances of quantifier sentences; namely, that there is a shift in evaluations of these utterances across distinct contexts. What shifts is either


20

the application condition of the quantifiers and so the truth conditions of the utterances of sentences in which they occur, and so, possibly the truth values of these utterances, or

Exegesis: The Methodology of Contextualism





which propositions speakers semantically expressed with their utterances, or what they are asserting (stating, affirming, conveying) with these utterances.

It may turn out that these different sets of intuitions all co-vary and have a common cause – namely, the context sensitivity of quantifier expressions. But that would need to be argued for. Still, each is some version of a Context Shifting Argument.

Comparative Adjectives Although commitment to contextualism about quantifier expressions is relatively commonplace, with appeals to intuitions about context shifting being the chief defense, commitment to contextualism about comparative adjectives is virtually universal. Once again appeal to intuitions about context shifting is the chief contextualist defense. Some authors assume it is truth conditions that vary: Consider the class of gradable adjectives, those which take the comparative and superlative; ‘rich’, ‘urgent’, ‘dangerous’, ‘tall’, and ‘square’ are examples. Almost everyone agrees that these are contextually sensitive, in the sense that context provides the adjective a parameter necessary for it to determine (even) a (vague) extension. . . . It is, I think, beyond serious dispute that the truth conditions of ‘Mary is rich’ vary across contexts, as vary the interests, focus, and so on of participants in a conversation. (Richard 2004, pp. 218–19; cf., also, Higginbotham 1985, pp. 563–5; Parsons 1990, pp. 42–4) Other authors hold that it is what’s said that varies: Consider predicative uses of a comparative adjective, such as: (26) That building is small. (27) That basketball player is short. (28) That flea is small. On one natural reading of (26), the building in question is not being said to be small for an object in general (whatever that may mean). Rather, the building is being said to be small for a building. Similarly, on a natural reading of (27), the basketball player in question is not being said to be short for a person, but only for a basketball player. (Stanley 2002b, p. 377) 21

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism According to Richard, what shifts from context to context is truth conditions; according to Stanley, what shifts from context to context is what speakers say when they use sentences with comparative adjectives, even though the heights and sizes of the individual in question remain constant. Clapp’s intuitions about context shifting for comparative adjectives concern their truth values: An utterance of (4) (‘Bradley is tall’) that occurred in a discussion concerning the physical characteristics of presidential candidates would be true iff Bradley is tall for a presidential candidate, while an utterance of (4) that occurred in a discourse concerning great centers in the NBA would be true iff Bradley is tall for a great center in the NBA. Thus, the truth conditions of (4) depend upon what contrast class is invoked by the sentence. (Clapp 2002, p. 237)

Propositional Attitude Ascriptions Another fragment for which context shifting intuitions are presented in defense of contextualism concerns propositional attitude ascriptions. For example, Crimmins and Perry present an influential theory about belief reports according to which such reports are context sensitive. Belief reports have ‘notions’ as unarticulated constituents and these unarticulated constituents vary based on what is contextually salient. Three claims are at the center of their theory: 1 That the notions vary across conversational contexts. 2 That this variation corresponds to differences in communicated content because notions are unarticulated constituents of belief reports. 3 That these variations in communicated content can help solve classical puzzles involving belief reports. Here’s a summary of their view: We take a belief report to be an utterance u of a belief sentence, of the form: A believes that S where A is a singular term and S is a sentence. . . . The claim made by the belief report is that the agent a has a belief with the content p, involving notions n1 . . . nk (in a certain way). . . . We shall say in such 22

Exegesis: The Methodology of Contextualism cases that the notions that the belief report is about are provided by the utterance and its context. (Crimmins and Perry 1989, pp. 263–4) According to Crimmins and Perry there is no expression in the logical form of the sentence corresponding to these contextually provided notions: On our account, the complex relation invoked in belief reports is a four-place relation: an agent believes a proposition at a time relative to a sequence of notions. But there is no argument place in the ‘believes’ predicate for the sequence of notions. The notions are unarticulated constituents of the content of the report. (Crimmins and Perry 1989, pp. 264–5) Belief reports, according to this view, ‘call for a propositional constituent that meets, say, certain conditions of relevance and salience’ (Crimmins and Perry 1989, p. 266; emphasis our own). Our interest is in the role of CSAs in their argument. Here’s a way to think about the way they defend their view: They take a range of puzzles involving belief reports and show that those puzzles can be solved on the assumption that the relevant notions vary from one context of utterance to another. Here’s an illustration involving Kripke’s puzzling Pierre case: In the Pierre case, the sentence (3) [‘Pierre believes that London is pretty’] gets used in two reports, first in a discussion of Pierre’s initial acquaintance with London through stories, then in a discussion about Pierre’s thoughts about his adopted home. Call these reports U3 and U¢3. Pierre actually has two notions of London, one relevant to each discussion; call the first n and the second n¢. The notion n meets the condition C of being a notion germane to the discussion of Pierre’s reaction to these stories; the notion n¢ meets the condition C¢ of being a notion germane to the discussion of Pierre’s new home. (Crimmins and Perry 1989, p. 273) Here is one way in which this variation in contextually relevant notions can contribute to the analysis of the problematic belief reports:1 The speaker of the former report is claiming that Pierre has a belief involving some notion germane to the current conversation about the stories, with the content that London is pretty. The speaker of the latter report requires that the belief involve some notion relevant to the conversation about Pierre’s new home. (Crimmins and Perry 1989, p. 273) 1 For elaboration of this point, see Crimmins and Perry (1989, pp. 272–3).

23

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism At the center of this argument one finds an appeal to the intuition that the claim made by a belief report is determined by the contextually salient or ‘germane’ notion, and hence, varies depending on which notions are salient or germane. The rest of Crimmins and Perry (1989) and Crimmins (1992) provides a plethora of further illustrations of appeals to context shifting intuitions. Here’s another variation on this kind of argument, this one from Clapp: We are observing Jerry who is tasting the cookies from a plate with a tag that reads ‘Ms. O’Connor’ . . . suppose that we know that Jerry does not realize that the baker of the cookies, Ms O’Connor, just is his acquaintance Marie . . . I thus say, ‘Ha! Poor Jerry does not know that “O’Connor” is Marie’s last name, so he doesn’t know that those are Marie’s cookies!’ If you were to utter (5) [Jerry believes that Marie baked the cookies] immediately following my statement, your utterance would be false . . . But . . . suppose that we are at a cookie baking contest, and suppose that Jerry, whom we know to have no prior acquaintance with Ms. Marie O’Connor, observes her at a distance placing her cookies on a plate. Seeing Jerry observe Marie putting her cookies on a plate, I utter (5) to you. In this context my utterance of (5) is (probably) true. . . . So (5) is clearly context sensitive . . . (Clapp 2002, p. 238) Clapp’s intuition or feeling is that distinct utterances of the same attitude ascription can disagree in truth value. The natural way for him to explain his intuitions is to infer that psychological attitude ascriptions are context sensitive.

Counterfactual Conditionals The general view about counterfactual conditionals is that they are not categorically true or false but only relative to a set of implicit background assumptions. Utterances of both of the following could be true if different background assumptions are held fixed. (15) If Lincoln hadn’t gone to the theatre, he wouldn’t have been assassinated. (16) If Lincoln hadn’t gone to the theatre, he would have been assassinated anyway. This suggests that these conditionals do not express complete propositions as they stand. (Bach 1994a, pp. 128–9) 24

Exegesis: The Methodology of Contextualism An influential version of this view is developed by Lewis. According to Lewis, the truth conditions for counterfactuals vary from one context of utterance to another and they do so because they appeal to the similarity relation between worlds. Whether two worlds are relevantly similar depends on the context of utterance. As a result counterfactuals are context sensitive. Here’s a passage in which Lewis describes the alleged variability of the similarity relation (and, by implication, the variability of truth conditions for counterfactuals): All this is not special to the comparative similarity of worlds that appears in my analysis of counterfactuals. It is the same sort of vagueness that arises if I say that Seattle resembles San Francisco more closely than it resembles Los Angeles. Does it? That depends on whether we attach more importance to the surrounding landscape, the architecture, the dominant industries, the political temper, the state of the arts, the climate, the public transportation system, the form of the city government, or what. Possible worlds are bigger than cities (sometimes) and are capable of differing in a greater variety of respects. . . . Still, any problems posed by my use of comparative similarity differ only in degree, not in kind, from problems about similarity that we would be stuck with no matter what we did about counterfactuals. (Lewis 1973, p. 92) The respects of similarity we attach importance to vary between contexts, but counterfactuals don’t allow just any kind of variability: There is a rough consensus about the importance of respects of comparison, and hence about comparative similarity. Our standards of importance and similarity do vary; but mostly within a certain range, narrow by comparison with the range of variation permitted by the formal constraints in my definition of a system of spheres. (Lewis 1973, pp. 93–4) Here is how this applies to a specific example. Lewis writes about Quine’s pair of counterfactual conditionals If Caesar had been in command [in Korea] he would have used the atom bomb If Caesar had been in command he would have used catapults as follows: In dealing with Quine’s opposed counterfactuals about Caesar, context must of course be consulted somehow . . . I could . . . call on 25

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism context . . . to resolve part of the vagueness of comparative similarity in a way favourable to the truth of one counterfactual or the other. In one context, we may attach great importance to similarities and differences in respect of Caesar’s character and in respect of regularities concerning the knowledge of weapons common to commanders in Korea. In another context we may attach less importance to these similarities and differences, and more importance to similarities and differences in respect of Caesar’s own knowledge of weapons. The first context resolves the vagueness of comparative similarity in such a way that some worlds with a modernized Caesar in command come out closer to our world than any with an unmodernized Caesar. It thereby makes the first counterfactual true. The second context resolves the vagueness in the opposite direction, making the second counterfactual true. (Lewis 1973, p. 67) Two kinds of context shifting intuitions are at the center of Lewis’s argument: 1 The intuition that the truth conditions for counterfactuals depend on the topic of conversation, the assumed background knowledge, and more generally, salient features of the context of utterance. 2 The intuition that this variability can be captured by, and is reflected in, the variability in similarity judgments. That variability is, again, justified by appeals to intuitions about how the truth conditions of a sentence of the form ‘A is similar to B’ vary between contexts.2

Knowledge Attributions An area of philosophy where contextualism has really taken hold is in epistemology. Epistemic contextualism is often invoked to solve traditional epistemic puzzles/paradoxes, e.g., the Lottery Paradox, and Gettier and Skeptical problems. These contextualists all appeal to intuitions that speakers have about context shifts about knowledge attributions. Here’s an example from DeRose:

2 A related kind of argument is used to show that conditionals are context sensitive. The basic idea goes back to Ramsey and is expressed in the following passage: ‘In general we can say with Mill that “If P then Q” means that Q is inferable from P, that is of course, from P together with certain facts and laws not stated but in some way indicated by the context’ (Ramsey 1978, p. 247; emphasis our own).

26

Exegesis: The Methodology of Contextualism Bank Case A: My wife and I are driving home on a Friday afternoon. We plan to stop at the bank on the way home to deposit our paychecks. But as we drive past the bank, we notice that the lines are very long, as they often are on Friday afternoons. Although we generally like to deposit our paychecks as soon as possible, it is not especially important in this case that they be deposited right away, so I suggest that we drive straight home and deposit our paychecks on Saturday morning. My wife says, ‘Maybe the bank won’t be open tomorrow. Lots of banks are closed on Saturdays.’ I reply, ‘No, I know it’ll be open. I was just there two weeks ago on Saturday. It’s open until noon.’ Bank Case B: My wife and I drive past the bank on a Friday afternoon, as in Case A, and notice the long lines. I again suggest that we deposit our paychecks on Saturday morning, explaining that I was at the bank on Saturday morning only two weeks ago and discovered that it was open until noon. But in this case, we have just written a very large and important check. If our paychecks are not deposited into our checking account before Monday morning, the important check we wrote will bounce, leaving us in a very bad situation. And, of course, the bank is not open on Sunday. My wife reminds me of these facts. She then says, ‘Banks do change their hours. Do you know the bank will be open tomorrow?’ Remaining as confident as I was before that the bank will be open then, still, I reply, ‘Well, no. I’d better go in and make sure.’ (DeRose 1992, pp. 920–1) DeRose comments that the ‘contexts of my utterance in the two cases make it easier for a knowledge attribution to be true in Case A than in Case B’ (DeRose 1992, p. 920). He writes about contextualism in general that: Once the standards have been so raised, we correctly sense that we only could falsely claim to know such things as that we have hands . . . [and] as soon as we find ourselves in more ordinary conversational contexts, it will not only be true for us to claim to know the very things that the skeptic now denies we know, but it will also be wrong for us to deny that we know these things (DeRose 1995, p. 185; emphasis our own). In these cases DeRose is appealing to intuitions about the truth values of claims we are making with distinct utterances of the same unambiguous knowledge attribution in distinct contexts of utterances, even though all of the nonepistemological facts remain constant. Along the same lines, he concludes, ‘the truth conditions of sentences of the form “S knows that p” or “S does not know that p” vary in certain ways according to the context

27

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism in which they are uttered’ (DeRose 1992, p. 914; cf., also, 1995, sect. 8; Casteneda 1980).3 Other authors, e.g., Cohen, argue that what shifts is the threshold required for justification, where for any given subject his belief that p is assigned some absolute degree d of justification for p and what shifts is whether d suffices for justification. Cohen writes, in consequence, that: Contextualism is the view that . . . the truth-values of sentences containing ‘know’, and its cognates depend on contextually determined standards. Because of this, sentences of the form ‘S knows P’ can, at one time, have different truth-values in different contexts. Now when I say ‘contexts’, I mean ‘contexts of ascription’. So the truth-value of a sentence containing the knowledge predicate can vary depending on things like purposes, intentions, expectations, presuppositions, etc., of the speakers who utter these sentences. (Cohen 1999, p. 57) Suppose one speaker says about a subject S and a proposition P, ‘S knows that P.’ At the very same time, another speaker says of the very same subject and proposition, ‘S does not know P.’ Must one of the two be speaking falsely? According to the view I will call ‘contextualism’, both speakers can be speaking the truth. (Cohen 1999, p. 57) Mary and John are at the L.A. airport contemplating taking a certain flight to New York. They want to know whether the flight has a layover in Chicago. They overhear someone ask a passenger Smith if he knows whether the flight stops in Chicago. Smith looks at the flight itinerary he got from the travel agent and responds, ‘Yes I know – it does stop in Chicago.’ It turns out that Mary and John have a very important business contact to make at the Chicago airport. Mary says, ‘How reliable is that itinerary? It could contain a misprint. They could have changed the schedule at the last minute.’ Mary and John agree that Smith doesn’t really know that the plane will stop in Chicago. They decide to check with the airline agent. . . . neither standard is simply correct or simply incorrect. Rather, context determines which stan-

3 Not all the contributors to the epistemic contextualism debate agree about what they are claiming when they say that knowledge attributions are context sensitive. Some suggest that ‘know’ is a kind of indexical (Cohen 1988); others that the expression is vague and that context effects different precisifications (Heller 1999); others are even less committal and rest with claims about what counts as true knowledge attributions depends on context (DeRose 1995), or on what possibilities get ignored (Lewis 1996). We intend our objections to epistemic contextualism in this book to apply to all such views, and so, will not focus on the details of any particular account.

28

Exegesis: The Methodology of Contextualism dard is correct. Since the standards for knowledge ascriptions can vary across context, each claim, Smith’s as well as Mary and John’s, can be correct in the context in which it was made. When Smith says ‘I know . . . ’, what he says is true given the weaker standard operating in that context. When Mary and John say ‘Smith does not know . . . ’, what they say is true given the stricter standard operating in their context. And there is no context independent correct standard. (Cohen 1999, pp. 58–9) Again we see that it’s the truth values (or truth conditions; Cohen 1991, p. 23) of utterances of knowledge ascriptions that are alleged to shift from one context of use to another; or what’s said by these utterances (Cohen 1999, p. 57).

Moral Attributions Context shifting also is invoked in ethics, for example, in talking about ‘good.’ Unger speaks about contextual variability in judgments about whether something is permissible: In many cases, the truth value (or the acceptability) of a judgment about whether a person’s behavior is morally permissible depends on the context in which the judgment is made. (Unger 1995, p. 2) According to Unger’s intuitions, the truth values of moral judgments can shift from context to context. Dreier agrees with him when he writes: For one thing, the content of a moral claim or belief is, on my view, relative to a context. For another (and this is really just a consequence of the first) two people in different contexts may utter ‘x is good’ and ‘x is not good’ and both speak truly. (Dreier 1990, p. 7) And more of the same, he writes: speaker relativism is the theory that the content of (what is expressed by) a sentence containing a moral term varies with (is a function of) the context in which it is used. (Dreier 1990, p. 6) In this latter quotation, Dreier is talking about what’s expressed varying from context to context. 29

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism

Weather Reports According to numerous authors, distinct utterances of weather reports vary, e.g., in what they say, as in: Fred hears Mary say [‘It’s raining’]; he doesn’t know whether she is talking about the location where they are; or some other location – perhaps the location of the person to whom she is talking on the phone. So, in a sense, he doesn’t know what she has said. (Perry 1998, p. 7) [‘It’s raining’] is used to say different things on different occasions of utterance. A speaker S who utters [‘It’s raining’] says that it is raining where S is (or at some other contextually salient location) at the time of utterance (or at some other contextually salient time). (Pagin forthcoming, p. 3; emphasis our own)

Other Sorts of Expressions In addition to his contextualist commitment about quantifier expressions and counterfactual conditionals, Lewis advocates contextualism for a rather wide range of expressions. For example, for words about geometrical shape, he writes: An adequate grammar must tell us that truth-in-English depends not only on what words are said and on the facts, but also on features of the situation in which the words are said. . . . If the words are ‘France is hexagonal’ of course the shape of France matters but so do the aspects of previous discourse that raise or lower the standards of precision. Truth in English has been achieved if the last thing said before was ‘Italy is sort of boot shaped’ but not if the last thing said before was ‘Shapes in geometry are ever so much simpler than shapes in geography.’ (Lewis 1998, p. 24; see also Austin 1962, p. 143) Here Lewis is appealing to intuitions about context shifting with regard to shifts in the truth values of distinct utterances of ‘France is hexagonal.’ It’s his intuition that an utterance of this sentence can shift in truth value from true to false (with no physical facts changing) simply because of what other sentences were uttered before it. Along the same lines, Bezuidenhout writes: Suppose that George has a paper route, which he covers every day on his bicycle. As he rides past a customer’s house, he tosses their paper 30

Exegesis: The Methodology of Contextualism towards their house, aiming for their porch. Sometimes he is successful but often he is not. In such a context, when a speaker utters (11) [(11) ‘George managed to porch the newspaper yesterday’] she will be understood to have said that George was successful yesterday in tossing the newspaper onto the porch. On the other hand, suppose that it is George’s job to bundle up each week’s newspapers and put the bundle out on the porch, where someone from the recycling company will pick it up. George isn’t very reliable, and some weeks he forgets to do his job. In this context when a speaker utters (11) she will be understood to have said that George managed to remember to put the newspaper bundle out on the porch for recycling yesterday. (Bezuidenhout 2002, p. 115; emphasis our own) It is Bezuidenhout’s intuition that what gets said by distinct utterances of (11) can shift from context to context. Based on this intuition she infers the contextualist thesis that (11) is itself context sensitive. Travis also infers contextualism based on intuitions about what’s being said varying with distinct utterances of the same unambiguous sentence. Consider the English ‘Ice floats’ . . . Now suppose, as may be, that ice sinks in certain substances – glycerine, perhaps, or mineral oil or ethanol. . . . Many typical speakings of ‘Ice floats’ rightly understood, are not shown false by such things, since so understood, they do not say things to be any way things are not if ice so behaves. For some speakings, though, some or all of the above does matter. Sam and Pia, e.g., may be wondering what will happen if they drop an ice cube in the bowl of glycerine before them. ‘Oh, it will just bob around’ Sam assures Pia, ‘After all, ice floats’. If the cube sinks, then what Sam said in ‘Ice floats’ is false. . . . So there is more than one thing to be said in saying ‘Ice floats’ where those words mean what they do mean in English; more than one thing, that is, each of which is what sometimes would be said in so speaking . . . (Travis 1994, p. 172; emphasis our own)

Radical Contextualism So far we have been assuming that contextualism in its various forms is limited to a small class of words that provoke contextualist intuitions of various sorts, e.g., about the uses of quantifiers, counterfactual conditionals, comparative adjectives, psychological, epistemic, and moral attributions. Some authors, however, set no such limits on intuitions about context shifting. These authors believe that every single expression in every single sentence in the language is subject to context shifting (all read unre31

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism strictedly!). And they invoke the exact same range of intuitions to defend their widespread contextualism. This generalization of the argument was central to much ordinary language philosophy in the twentieth century. It is succinctly summarized by Austin as follows: If you just take a bunch of sentences . . . impeccably formulated in some language or other, there can be no question of sorting them out into those that are true and those that are false; for . . . the question of truth and falsehood does not turn only on what a sentence is, nor yet on what it means, but on, speaking very broadly, the circumstances in which it is uttered. Sentences are not as such either true or false. (Austin 1962, pp. 110–11) Versions of the same view are found in Travis and Searle (repeated here from Chapter 1): What words mean plays a role in fixing when they would be true; but not an exhaustive one. Meaning leaves room for variation in truth conditions from one speaking to another. (Travis 1996, p. 451) The literal meaning of a sentence only determines a set of truth conditions given a set of background practices and assumptions. Relative to one set of practices and assumptions, a sentence may determine one set of truth conditions; relative to another set of practices and assumptions, another set; and if some sets of assumptions and practices are given, the literal meaning of a sentence may not determine a definite set of truth conditions at all. (Searle 1980, p. 227) . . . in general the meaning of a sentence only has application (it only, for example, determines a set of truth conditions) against a background of assumptions and practices that are not representable as a part of meaning. (Searle 1980, p. 221) Other prominent supporters of this view include Relevance theorists (such as Dan Sperber, Deirdre Wilson, and Robyn Carston) and François Recanati. Recanati, for example, says: Contrary to what formal semanticists tend to assume, the (intuitive) truth-conditions of our utterances are not compositionally determined by the meanings of words and their syntactic arrangement, in a strict bottom-up manner. They are shaped by contextual expectations and world-knowledge to a very large extent. That is true of all

32

Exegesis: The Methodology of Contextualism utterances, however ‘literal’ they are (in the ordinary sense). (Recanati 2004, p. 92) It is not surprising, of course, that these kinds of appeals to intuitions about contextual variability should be at the center of discussion of context sensitivity. Context sensitivity is, after all, variability between contexts. In order to establish such variability one has to think about and compare what happens to the same sentence in different contexts of utterance. What is not equally obvious is: (a) What the relevant variability is (what is said, claimed, expressed, or what have you). (b) What kinds of comparisons constitute solid semantic evidence. (a) and (b) are discussed further in Chapters 7–9. We now turn to the second, closely related form of argument for contextualism – Incompleteness.

Incompleteness Arguments Context Shifting Arguments and what we are calling Incompleteness Arguments are not unrelated. If a sentence really is context sensitive, not only may it shift in what is said or expressed by an utterance of it, it also makes no sense to ask what it says, or expresses, independent of context. For example, it makes no sense to ask of the bona fide context sensitive sentence ‘I am American’ whether it is true or false, nor does it make any sense to ask of it whether it says or expresses anything independent of a (felicitous) use. In the case of incompleteness (unlike that of context shifting) the intuitions invoked are ones in which a speaker is called upon to ask whether she thinks a sentence says or semantically expresses anything, or has conditions of truth, and so, a truth value, independent of any context. For example, Taylor writes about sentence (3) (3) It’s raining that it is missing no syntactically mandatory sentential constituent, nonetheless, it is semantically incomplete. The semantic incompleteness is manifest to us as a felt inability to evaluate the truth value of an

33

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism utterance of (3) in the absence of a contextually provided location (or range of locations). This felt need for a contextually provided location has its source, I claim, in our tacit cognition of the syntactically unexpressed argument place of the verb ‘to rain’. (Taylor 2001, p. 53) So in this case, (3) is claimed to be context sensitive because unless context provides a location the sentence is felt to lack a truth value. Perry concurs when he writes that: in order to assign a truth value to my son’s statement [3] . . . I needed a place. (Perry 1993, p. 206) These claims about incompleteness, or as it is sometimes called ‘semantic underdetermination,’ have been advocated for a range of sentences. Bach writes about sentence (1): (1) Steel isn’t strong enough that (1), though syntactically well formed, [is] semantically or conceptually incomplete, in the sense that something must be added to the sentence for it to express a complete and determinate proposition. With (1) we need to know strong enough for what (it does not express the weak proposition that steel is strong enough for something or other) . . . (Bach 1994b, p. 269) The idea is that (1) is (semantically) incomplete – as Bach says, it does not express a complete and determinate proposition. His ‘argument’ for the conclusion is that only after it is specified ‘strong enough for what’ can a determinate proposition be expressed. A sentence like (1), even after disambiguation and reference fixing, does not by virtue of linguistic meaning express a complete proposition. When a sentence is in this way semantically underdeterminate, understanding its utterance requires a process of completion to produce a full proposition. (Bach 1994a, p. 125) Context is supposed to supply this information. The speaker ‘intends the hearer to read something into the utterance, to regard it as if it contained certain conceptual materials that are not in fact there’ (Bach 1994a, p. 126). Sperber and Wilson, much like Bach, proclaim about sentence (20), 34

Exegesis: The Methodology of Contextualism (20) Peter’s bat is gray, that ‘Peter’s bat’ might refer to the bat owned by Peter, the bat chosen by Peter, the bat killed by Peter . . . and so on indefinitely. . . . It seems . . . that the semantic interpretation of a sentence with a genitive from which ambiguities and referential indeterminacies have been eliminated is still something less than fully propositional. Contextual information is needed to resolve what should be seen as the semantic incompleteness, rather than the ambiguity, of the genitive. (Sperber and Wilson 1986, p. 188) According to Sperber and Wilson, it ‘seems’ that sentences with genitive (possessive) constructions fail to express any proposition whatsoever unless context provides the required information. Bezuidenhout concurs: Let us take an example of a sentence that most would agree does involve some incompleteness. Suppose for instance I utter the sentence ‘There is no beer left.’ The quantifier phrase ‘no beer’ is incomplete and in context it must be completed, either by restricting the domain or by adding ellipsed material (depending on your favorite view of the matter). Suppose that in context I am talking about what beer is left in my refrigerator. Even so my utterance is open to multiple possible understandings depending on what else is assumed in the context. For instance, if I am having a party at my house, I might utter the sentence in question trying to convey that there is no beer left in the refrigerator for my guests to drink . . . But the context could be rather different. Several bottles of beer have exploded in my refrigerator, spraying the inside of the refrigerator with beer. I have been mopping up puddles of beer. When my husband asks me how things are going I reply ‘There is no beer left.’ He understands me to say that there are no more puddles of beer inside the refrigerator. (Bezuidenhout 2002, pp. 112–13) Her argument is that ‘most would agree’ that the sentence ‘There is no beer left’ does not express a proposition, or has truth conditions, out of context. We’re supposed to see that, note, because we recognize that in different contexts we recognize different propositions being expressed by the same sentence. In this regard we see how context shifting and incompleteness go hand in hand. 35

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism Bach extends the incompleteness charge to propositional attitude ascriptions. He writes: sentences used to make the belief reports, though semantically equivalent, are also semantically incomplete. That is, they do not express complete propositions, and to that extent they are like such sentences as (5) Fred is ready. and (6) Jerry has finished. Though syntactically well-formed (compare (6) with the virtually synonymous but ungrammatical ‘Jerry has completed’), these sentences are semantically incomplete because of a missing argument . . . Like words such as ‘big’ and ‘short,’ a belief-predicate does not have a context-independent condition of satisfaction, so that a sentence containing it does not have a context-independent truth condition. A belief-predicate does not express, independently of context, a unique belief-property. So, for example, there is no unique property of believing that Batman is a wimp. (Bach 1997, p. 228) Why, for example, are sentences (5) and (6) supposed to be (semantically) incomplete? According to Bach, ‘these sentences are semantically incomplete because of a missing argument.’ What’s the argument that they lack an argument? Bach clearly thinks that the Incompleteness Argument can be extended indefinitely for belief reports. He writes: Consider the following variation on the original version of the Paderewski case. Suppose that Peter hears a recording of Paderewski playing Rachmaninov in Carnegie Hall. Peter likes what he hears. Then Peter hears a recording of Paderewski playing with a jazz combo at the Apollo Theatre. This time he hates what he hears. It is clear to us that Peter does not realize he has heard the same pianist twice. But here it won’t do any good to say that Peter disbelieves that Paderewski the pianist had musical talent, because we could also have truly said that he believes that Paderewski the pianist had musical talent. We could say that Peter disbelieves that Paderewski the jazz pianist had musical talent and say too that he believes that Paderewski the classical pianist had musical talent. But this ploy won’t ultimately work either. Suppose Peter hears a recording of an atrocious performance of Paderewski playing Mozart. It is clear to us that Peter does not realize that he has heard the same pianist a second time. We could say that Peter disbelieves that Paderewski the classical pianist had musical talent, but this would not distinguish what he disbelieves from what 36

Exegesis: The Methodology of Contextualism he believes. We would need to say that Peter disbelieves that Paderewski the classical pianist playing Mozart had musical talent, and that Peter believes that Paderewski the classical pianist playing Rachmaninov had musical talent. Well, you get the idea. (Bach 1997, pp. 230–1) What Bach is intending to establish here is that the context sensitivity of belief reports cannot be eliminated by inserting additional material into the ‘that’-clause. The problem is not one of insufficient detail.4 Bach is claiming that you can add all the detail you want but the problem doesn’t go away. No matter how much material is inserted into it, a ‘that’-clause does not determine belief content but merely narrows it down. So, it seems that no belief report is inherently capable of specifying a belief fully. Here’s an example of an author who runs CSA and Incompleteness together in the same example: Typically, the proposition that a sentence expresses depends not only on the meaning of the constituent words and their grammatical composition but also on the context in which the sentence is uttered. . . . Domain of discourse: ‘Everyone is present.’ If the domain of discourse is students still enrolled in the course, then the proposition expressed will be the proposition that every student still enrolled in the course is present. If the domain of discourse is students who have been attending recently, then the proposition expressed will be the proposition that every student who has been attending recently is present . . . Suppose that a teacher enters a classroom, looks around and declares, ‘Everyone is present.’ Taken out of context, this sentence does not express any particular proposition, because, taken out of context, there is no particular domain of discourse relative to which we may interpret ‘everyone’ . . . Nonetheless, the sentence, as a sentence of English, carries a certain potential for expressing propositions and this potential is, in one sense, its meaning. . . . So sentences may fail to express a proposition all by themselves, but may nonetheless express a proposition in a context. When a speaker utters a sentence in some context, we may describe the proposition that the sentence expresses in that context as what is said, or what the speaker says. (Gaulker 2002, pp. 11–13) 4 Bach (and other Moderate Contextualists) doesn’t feel this way about all cases of incompleteness. About the sentence ‘Steel isn’t strong enough’ he writes: ‘the speaker could have made the additional conceptual material explicit by including the corresponding lexical material in his utterance’ (Bach 1994a, p. 127). This will be important to us when we turn to criticism of Incompleteness Arguments.

37

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism Carston (2002) is in large part a defense of the most general version of this kind of incompleteness claim. She summarizes her views on this issue as follows: Underdeterminacy is an essential feature of the relation between linguistic expression and the propositions (thoughts) they are used to express; generally, for any given proposition/thought, there is no sentence which fully encodes it . . . Underdeterminacy is universal and no sentence ever fully encodes the thought or proposition it is used to express. (Carston 2002, p. 29) Only limitations of space and time prevent us from pursuing and elaborating further examples. We hope, though, that the above is more than sufficient to justify our claim that Context Shifting Arguments and Incompleteness Arguments are at the center of the contemporary debate about contextualism in philosophy and linguistics.

38

CHAPTER 3

The Instability of Context Shifting Arguments

Moderate Contextualism (MC) is not a stable position. A consistent (and sufficiently imaginative) Moderate Contextualist must endorse Radical Contextualism (RC). The kind of evidence that supports MC leads directly to RC. The kinds of arguments used to support MC lead directly to RC. Someone who starts down the path of contextualism, but wants to stop short of RC, can do so only arbitrarily. This arbitrariness, we will argue, is a form of inconsistency. We aim to establish this in the next three chapters. Here’s the central claim of this chapter: If Context Shifting Arguments of the kind described in Chapter 21 suffice to show that MC is true (i.e., if they suffice to show that there is a context sensitive expression or locution e not in the Basic Set of context sensitive expressions), then RC follows. We cannot emphasize enough the conditional nature of this claim. Don’t forget, we do not think the arguments for MC are any good. Indeed, we’re going to argue MC is false. However, for the sake of argument, we will for the time being place our convictions to one side and run an entirely internal argument against MC. We will show that, given the standards of evidence implicit in the arguments adduced by Moderate Contextualists, RC follows. This is significant, since most Moderate Contextualists do not endorse RC. We pointed out in the last two chapters that a CSA involves a complex imaginative activity. It requires conjuring up interesting scenarios, making these scenarios vivid (to yourself and to your audience), and then in some way empathizing in the most literal fashion with the participants in these 1 See Chapter 7 for a very special kind of CSA we like.

39

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism imagined scenarios: it requires, so to speak, placing yourself imaginatively into the shoes of a participant in these alternative scenarios. In that light, here’s another way to articulate the central claim of this part: Moderate Contextualists are unimaginative Radical Contextualists.

Context Shifting In the last chapter we documented how Moderate Contextualists argue for the context sensitivity of some expression e (not in the Basic Set) by soliciting intuitions that what is said, stated, asserted, or claimed by an utterance u of an (unambiguous) sentence S containing e need not be the same as what is said, etc., by another utterance u¢ of S (and that this difference is not due to any other context sensitive expression in S). These intuitions and feelings about the context shiftiness of various kinds of content (what’s said, asserted, and expressed) are triggered by imaginatively varying the context of utterance for S, i.e., the sentence which contains the alleged context sensitive e. The claim we will establish first is: (GEN) With sufficient ingenuity, a CSA can be provided for any sentence whatsoever, and consequently, for any expression. After presenting evidence in favor of GEN and discussing various possible Moderate Contextualist responses, in Chapter 4 we will offer a diagnosis of what’s gone wrong with MC. We will suggest that the widespread abuse of CSAs in current philosophical debates is based on a mistaken (or illadvised) assumption about the relationship between semantic content and speech act content. In short: Diagnosis. The ubiquitous abuse of Context Shifting Arguments in current philosophical debates (not just in semantics, but in all areas of philosophy) is based on a confused assumption about the relationship between semantic content and speech act content. If this assumption were true, then the kinds of CSAs appealed to by Moderate Contextualists would be sound. That leaves proponents of such arguments with a choice: either give up the assumption about the relationship between semantic content and speech act content, or endorse RC.

Preliminaries Since the arguments we are running in this chapter and Chapter 5 are internal, namely, arguments of the form: ‘If this MC argument is any good, then 40

Instability of Context Shifting Arguments RC follows,’ we need a paradigmatic MC argument to compare our new CSAs against. We will use a CSA involving quantifier domain restriction. Such CSAs, as even a casual glance at the literature will confirm, are paradigmatic of the CSAs that entice Moderate Contextualists. Consider sentence (1): (1) There are no French girls. The Moderate Contextualist’s argument for the context sensitivity of (1) can, for heuristic purposes, be presented in three stages: S1. The Moderate Contextualist asks us to imagine a particular utterance u of (1), say, one in which someone is searching a particular classroom, Room 401, where it is shared knowledge that his aim is to find a French girl. Properly elaborated, it is not difficult to trigger the following two kinds of connected intuitions. First, the intuition that the speaker said something true as long as there are no French girls in Room 401. What that allegedly shows is that the truth conditions for u do not require that the universe be devoid of French girls. That intuition can be bolstered by noticing how natural it would be to respond to u by ‘Right,’ or ‘That’s true,’ or ‘You’re right,’ if you think there are no French girls in Room 401. In other words, what u expresses could be true even though the universe as a whole includes many French girls. The proposition expressed by u has a restricted domain of quantification. More specifically, u is true just in case there are no French girls in Room 401. By uttering u, the speaker only said, asserted, claimed, and stated that there are no French girls to be found in Room 401. S2. By going on to describe another context of utterance, the Moderate Contextualist can trigger another intuition about a distinct utterance u¢ of (1) which has a domain restriction for its quantifier other than that determined by u. If u¢ is uttered by the same speaker, but one who is now scurrying about in New York City desperately seeking French girls, the Moderate Contextualist predicts that the general intuition will be that the speaker asserted, claimed, etc. that there are no French girls in New York City, and that u is true if there were no French girls in New York City (even though Room 401 situated in New Jersey may be crowded with French girls). Again, there are several ways to see this. Notice for example that if you believe there are no French girls in New York City, it’s very natural to respond to u¢ by uttering ‘Right,’ or ‘That’s true,’ or ‘You’re right.’ S3. According to the Moderate Contextualist, these two intuitions provide strong evidence that the quantifier in (1) is context sensitive. More generally, that sentences containing quantifiers exhibit context sensitivity with respect to domain restrictions. 41

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism Our immediate aim is to convince you that if the argument sketched in S1–S3 impresses you, then you ought to be equally impressed by analogous arguments that involve exacting the same sort of intuitions for utterances of any English sentence whatsoever. Our claim is an empirical one. It’s a claim about what kinds of intuitions can be triggered by thinking about language use under various circumstances. The only way to establish it (or its negation, for that matter) is through an empirical investigation of the kinds of intuitions (or feelings) that can be triggered by telling the kinds of imaginative stories that Moderate Contextualists are so fond of. As far as we can tell, the only way to conduct such an investigation is to pick a large sample of sentences; try to construct CSA for them; and see what intuitions these stories trigger. We need to make sure that the sample is representative and that the sentences in the sample do not lend themselves to ‘local’ contextualist solutions. This component about local contextualist solutions is important. For any case that a Radical Contextualist might devise, a Moderate Contextualist might try to accommodate it by adding a new expression to the Basic Set of context sensitive expressions. The strategy for the Radical Contextualist, therefore, is to choose a wide enough and sufficiently disparate range of cases so that localized solutions will seem increasingly artificial and desperate. One final but crucial preliminary: We have to ensure that the relevant features of the selected samples cannot be explained away by appeal to factors such as:






ambiguity syntactic ellipsis polysemy nonliterality vagueness.

Since our goal is to show that certain kinds of intuitions can be triggered for an arbitrary English sentence, for these intuitions to have the relevant significance (i.e., to provide evidence of semantic context sensitivity), it is crucial that they are not triggered by irrelevant factors. If, for example, the intuition that sentences containing e change truth conditions across contexts of utterance can be explained by e’s being ambiguous, polysemous, used metaphorically (in one case but not the other), etc., then our examples would be irrelevant. They could be dismissed by Moderate Contextualists as disanalogous to their own favorite cases. The range of cases we’ve chosen to present, we hope, is obviously not explicable by any of these irrelevant factors. As far as we know, no one has suggested that the examples we will now utilize can be so explained. 42

Instability of Context Shifting Arguments

In Defense of GEN Our arguments for GEN are not particularly original. Radical Contextualists such as Searle, Sperber, Wilson, Travis, Moravcsik, Recanati, Carston, and Bezuidenhout have done excellent jobs of showing how the sorts of intuition Moderate Contextualists invoke can be generated for arbitrary English sentences. First, we’ll rehearse some of their efforts. Then we will mimic their arguments with respect to novel cases. Some of our favorite examples from Radical Contextualists Imagine two scenarios in which (2) is uttered, with its meaning fixed. (The example is adapted from both Travis and Searle.) (2) Smith weighs 80 kg. In one scenario the intuition is supposed to be that an utterance of (2) is true, while in the other the equally powerful intuition is supposed to be that its utterance is false: Scenario One. Smith has been dieting for the last eight weeks. He steps on the scale one morning, naked, before breakfast (but after having gone to the bathroom), and it registers 80 kg. A friend at work who wants to let Smith’s co-workers in on his achievement can use (2) to say something true. Notice it doesn’t matter at all that Smith is, at that time, dressed, wearing a heavy overcoat, and has just consumed an enormous lunch. Scenario Two. Smith is exactly as in Scenario One. However, the speaker’s circumstances (and purposes) have changed. At the time of this utterance of (2) (suppose the same time as in Scenario One), Smith is about to enter an elevator with a capacity of no more than an extra 80 kg. An utterance of (2) in these circumstances could be both fatal and false. Note that what the scale registers when Smith is naked in the morning is in this context irrelevant. Our question is whether the kind of intuitive evidence that allegedly showed (1) to be context sensitive can be triggered with respect to (2). Ask yourself: Did the speaker in Scenario One succeed in saying something true? Clearly, says the Radical Contextualist, the answer is ‘yes.’ Did the speaker in Scenario Two succeed in saying something true? ‘No,’ says the Radical Contextualist. So, we have two imagined contexts in which two (simultaneous) utterances of the same sentence type with the same 43

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism meaning, whose referring terms are assigned the same referents, are alleged to differ intuitively in their truth conditions due to ‘nonsemantic’ differences surrounding their respective contexts of utterance. If it follows from like intuitions that distinct utterances of (1) disagree in truth value, why doesn’t it also follow from the intuitions surrounding Scenarios One and Two that the truth conditions of utterances of (2) are generated in individual contexts of utterance? Here’s an example from Bezuidenhout: We’re at a county fair picking through a barrel of assorted apples. My son says ‘Here’s a red one,’ and what he says is true if the apple is indeed red. But what counts as being red in this context? For apples, being red generally means having a red skin, which is different from what we normally mean by calling a watermelon, or a leaf, or a star, or hair, red. But even when it is an apple that is in question, other understandings of what it is to call it ‘red’ are possible, given suitable circumstances. For instance, suppose now that we’re sorting through a barrel of apples to find those that have been afflicted with a horrible fungal disease. This fungus grows out from the core and stains the flesh of the apple red. My son slices each apple open and puts the good ones in a cooking pot. The bad one he hands to me. Cutting open an apple he remarks: ‘Here’s a red one.’ What he says is true if the apple has red flesh, even if it also happens to be a Granny Smith apple. (Bezuidenhout 2002, p. 107) Again, distinct utterances of a single sentence ‘Here’s a red one’ are alleged to disagree in truth value (ignoring the contribution of ‘here’). What could possibly render this CSA for RC unsound while leaving perfectly intact analogous cases of CSA for MC? By now, you’ve probably picked up sufficiently well on the methodology to be able almost effortlessly to manufacture your own CSAs for any expression whatsoever; here are some of our own modest efforts.

Analogous cases Take an arbitrary sentence, say, (3) (if you think it’s not arbitrary, choose your own; try to stump GEN). (3) John went to the gym. We will now devise three distinct contexts of utterance for (3). Each, we claim, triggers a distinct intuition about what that utterance of (3) says or expresses, or its truth conditions. We’ll let you be the judge. 44

Instability of Context Shifting Arguments Context of Utterance 1. We are engaged in a conversation about where John takes his nightly walk. It’s common knowledge in our crowd that his only form of exercise is walking, and that he does it only late at night when the streets are empty and everything, including the gym, is closed. Your utterance of (3) in this context expresses the claim that John walked to the vicinity of the gym. If John did go to the vicinity of the gym, then your utterance of (3) is true; if not, it’s false. Context of Utterance 2. You are participating in a discussion about John’s dieting and exercise routines. His trainer asks you to account for John’s exercise today. It would be a lie for you to reply with an utterance of (3) in this context if all John had done was walk to the vicinity of the gym. That is to say, even if the exact same circumstances obtained vis-à-vis John as in the Context of Utterance 1, your utterance of (3) in this context is false. The truth of this utterance of (3) requires John to be engaged in certain kinds of activities inside the gym. Context of Utterance 3. You are at a meeting of a construction company planning on putting down a new hardwood floor at a local gym. The boss asks who went over to the gym to supervise the construction of a bathroom in its basement. You reply with (3). Clearly, again, what you said is not true if John simply walked to the vicinity of the gym. What you intend to say is that John has gone over to the gym to supervise the work on the bathroom. The sort of activity he engaged in while at the gym is again intuitively part of the truth conditions of your utterance. For our next example, consider (4) and two attending contexts of utterance. (4) Jill didn’t have fish for dinner. Context of Utterance 1. Jill went to a restaurant, ordered salmon as her main course, but never touched the salmon; she just ate the vegetables on her plate surrounding the fish. Suppose further that Jill came down with food poisoning later that night after returning home. A doctor, in an effort to ascertain the cause of her illness, enquires as to what Jill ate at the restaurant earlier that night. He wants to know what she consumed for dinner. In this context, an utterance u of (4) would be true. In uttering u, the speaker has said something true. Intuitively, he said, asserted, claimed, and stated that Jill didn’t consume fish for dinner. Even more specifically, that she didn’t put any fish into her mouth and ingest it. Context of Utterance 2. Jill, as before, went to the same restaurant, ordered the salmon, and again didn’t eat it, but did eat the vegetables. 45

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism In this case a debate arises over the bill. Again, someone utters (4). In this case, the utterance of (4) is intuitively false. It makes no difference whatsoever what Jill ingested. What matters is what she ordered and there is no doubt about her having had the fish for dinner. (We don’t deny that a Moderate Contextualist doesn’t have all sorts of room to stabilize his position, e.g., positing ambiguities; more on this below.) For another example, consider sentence (5): (5) Justine destroyed those shoes. Context of Utterance 1. Suppose that in this context of utterance, the conversational focus is on the aesthetic features of a pair of Marie’s shoes. Justine has just spray painted Marie’s shoes bright yellow, and poured oil on top of them. Getting dressed for a dinner Marie utters (5). Did she say something true? Yes. Notice that an utterance of (5) would express something true even though the shoes are perfectly functional qua footwear. What was said in this case is that the aesthetic features of her shoes have been destroyed. Context of Utterance 2. In this context, the conversational focus is on the solidity and warmth of footwear, and its aesthetic features are of no importance. We’re on an expedition in the jungle in Kenya, and some of our fellow travelers’ shoes have fallen apart. Justine has spray painted Marie’s shoes bright yellow so that they’ll be easier to identify from a distance, and poured oil all over them to protect them from the elements. Would an utterance of (5) in this context be true? No. In fact, Justine has improved the shoes. She has made them more functional. What would be said, in this context, by an utterance of (5) is that Marie’s footwear has fallen apart, that they are no longer functional. For a fourth example consider sentence (6) and its ensuing contexts of utterance: (6) That’s a dangerous dog. Context of Utterance 1. Suppose an utterance u of (6) in this context is used to say that the demonstrated dog bites people: u is true only if the dog is aggressive and initiates acts that put people in danger. Notice that u would not be true if the dog is, for example, kind and loving, but unhealthy. Context of Utterance 2. Suppose (6) is used in a different context to say that the dog has a viral disease that can spread to humans: an utterance u of (6) in this context doesn’t require the dog to exhibit any 46

Instability of Context Shifting Arguments aggressive behavior whatsoever. u can be true even though the dog never bit anyone; u can be true even though the dog is kind. What’s said by u in this context is that being in the proximity of the dog can have detrimental consequences. Context of Utterance 3. Suppose a group of people carry on in the most peculiar fashion. One of their strange practices is to toss dead dogs at each other: some of these dogs are small and cause no harm upon impact, but some are rather hefty, and being hit by one can cause severe damage. An utterance u of (6) in this context could be true even though the demonstrated dog is neither sick nor aggressive. u would be true, just by virtue of the dead dog being very heavy and stiff, and hence, potentially harmful should it land on anyone. Our next example is a variant of an example of Travis’s. (7) Justine is a philosopher. Context of Utterance 1. We find ourselves in a conversation about Justine’s character. Some of us think Justine a rather unreflective person with virtually no commitments to any position one way or the other. In this context, an utterance u of (7) might be deemed false even though Justine, as a matter of fact, let us suppose, is working as a professional philosopher at some university or other. Context of Utterance 2. A group of us are sitting around late at night at an American Philosophical Association meeting gossiping about the professions of our friends (and enemies). Here an utterance u of (7) is a way of signaling that Justine is indeed a professional philosopher. u could be true even though she lacks any philosophical character whatsoever. So far we have been appealing to examples involving relatively simple sentences and the various contexts of utterance have differed in goals, motivations, purposes, and shared assumptions. To a certain extent these kinds of examples are artificial. There’s a kind of neatness about them not often found in ordinary conversations. That’s an advantage because it makes it easier to ensure that the desired intuitive effects aren’t triggered by irrelevant factors (such as ellipsis, polysemy, etc.). We’ll end, however, with a more complex case.

Imminent Threats and the ‘Bush Doctrine’ In an interview with Tim Russert on MSNBC’s Meet the Press, President George Bush said the following: 47

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism I don’t think America can stand by and hope for the best from a madman, and I believe it is essential – I believe it is essential – that when we see a threat, we deal with those threats before they become imminent. It’s too late if they become imminent. These remarks were, at the time, interpreted in the light of the known background facts that Bush was the president of the United States, that he had started a war in Iraq, and that one of the reasons he did was because he thought preventive wars were justified if the United States faced an imminent threat. In that context, the utterance was interpreted as having significant foreign policy implications. In particular, it was interpreted to mean that Bush no longer thought that a state being an ‘imminent threat’ was a necessary condition for a pre-emptive war. He seems to be saying that all that’s needed to justify a pre-emptive war is evidence that a country might become an imminent threat. Of course, these background facts are not encoded in the sentences uttered. Indeed, it is easy to imagine these sentences uttered in a completely different context without the same implications or interpretations. Imagine Bush uttering these sentences while working as a nurse in an asylum. The conversation topic concerns how to treat aggressive patients. Some of the nurses think they should be locked up, and some think they should be sent out medicated. If Bush uttered these sentences in such a context, it should be obvious that his utterance wouldn’t be interpreted as having far-reaching implications for US foreign policy. We hope these various cases suffice to convince you that the intuitions surrounding the MC cases are on no surer ground than those we have just provoked. And so we hope we have convinced you of GEN. Our conclusion from all of this data is that if you start down the slope of MC, there’s no stopping short of RC. There’s nothing about the context shiftiness of quantifiers, for example, that distinguishes them from any other sort of expression. If you think the CSAs presented in favor of context sensitivity are convincing, then you have no reason not to become a Radical Contextualist.

Attempts to Stabilize MC We’re expecting Moderate Contextualists to respond to our defense of GEN in at least one of the following ways.

48

Instability of Context Shifting Arguments

First attempt to stabilize CSAs: Introspection Moderate Contextualists might claim that the intuitions we triggered with our various cases are different in feel and introspective quality from those triggered, e.g., for domain restrictions on quantifiers. For example, a philosopher might respond with the following introspective report: When she imagines an utterance of ‘There are no French girls’ the feeling that something true is said (even though there are lots of French girls in the universe) is qualitatively different from the feeling that something true is said by an utterance of ‘John went to the gym’ (even though the person in question just walked in the vicinity of the gym). There might be a qualitative difference in the introspective qualities or a difference in strength. If you think this response sounds silly, we assure you that we have encountered distinguished and intelligent philosophers (and linguists) who have made exactly this response to our defense of GEN. Our reply. This reply, we suppose, signifies one of those points where philosophical argumentation simply comes to a halt. We can only report that intense introspection does not register any principled difference in feel between the intuition that some utterance of ‘There are no French girls’ expresses the proposition that there are no French girls in Room 401 and the intuition that an utterance of ‘John went to the gym’ expresses the proposition that he walked to the vicinity of the gym. If you insist that when you introspect, these two intuitions feel quite different to you, we have two replies: (a) Consider the possibility that your feeling is biased, that it’s generated by your conviction that MC is true: the intuitions that are alleged to establish your theory have ended up being shaped by your commitment to MC itself. (b) You at least owe us an explanation for why we, and every nonbiased person we have tried these cases on, fail to register any significant difference. If a Moderate Contextualist is serious about basing her theory on this kind of data, then she at least owes us an explanation for why these intuitions aren’t widely shared.

Second attempt to stabilize CSAs: Optimistic–energetic search for localized solutions An optimistic and energetic Moderate Contextualist will see these various cases as providing a challenge, an opportunity to generate new publications 49

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism and exhibit formal ingenuity. They’ll try to find what we called above ‘local fixes.’ Their hope is this: Moderate Contextualists can accommodate all of our cases and any other case we might throw at them simply by adding a tad of indexicality here and a tad there, using any one of three strategies available to Moderate Contextualists: surprising indexicals, hidden indexicals, and unarticulated constituents. Our reply. We chose these cases because, as far as we know, there are no local fixes for them. As it stands, no MC account of these cases is currently available. That, of course, makes the suggested solution highly speculative. We don’t in fact see any point in even considering this sort of rejoinder until a suggested local fix, and a strategy for generating them for all of the cases, are forthcoming. For any one such fix we can imagine, we suspect a range of objections we present in Chapter 6 to apply. But absent a specific suggestion we cannot go into details.

Third attempt to stabilize CSAs: Strongly dismissive reaction: These reports are false The intuitions we are triggering are intuitions about what speakers say (or assert, or claim . . . ). Our examples therefore assume that the indirect reports in which we report on these intuitions (i.e., reports of the form ‘She said that . . . ’) are true. We take our practice of indirect reporting at face value and assume that the speakers have said what we have the reporters saying that they have said. One might deny this. One way to do so would be to treat these reports as merely appropriate or reasonable in the contexts described, but not as true. Instead, some pragmatic story can be invoked to account for why we occasionally find false reports still reasonable or appropriate. Our reply. This reply, however, is not open to any of our opponents. Our primary opponents use CSAs, i.e., they are philosophers who take it to be significant that what’s said by an utterance, say, for example, of ‘There are no French girls,’ is, in some particular context, that there are no French girls in Room 401. They assume that this is a true indirect report. It is this assumption, we claim, that ultimately leads to MC (and RC). If it’s obvious to them that the quantifier case is an example of a true indirect report, by what standard do they determine that our cases are false? How do they distinguish their favorite cases from our cases? It seems that the only way to draw this distinction is not by appeal to intuitions about what people say, but through some sort of theoretical processing for these intuitions. We, however, know of no nonquestion-begging theoretical assumptions that 50

Instability of Context Shifting Arguments would distinguish their favorite cases from our own. Hence, our opponents are in no position to make this reply against us.

Fourth attempt to stabilize CSAs: These reports would be false if modified by ‘strictly speaking,’ ‘literally,’ or ‘really’ Sometimes we encounter the response that the problematic reports, though true, would be false if ‘said’ were modified by ‘literally’ or ‘strictly speaking’ (e.g., Bach 1994b). On this view, a special class of indirect reports of the form ‘A literally (strictly) speaking said that p’ creates a connection between indirect speech and semantic theory relevantly similar to the connection we’ve been denying. Our reply. As a claim about how the expressions ‘literally’ and/or ‘strictly speaking’ function in our language, this reaction fails. Consider Jill’s utterance of ‘I had fish’ in response to a waiter’s question during a discussion of a restaurant bill. Our intuition is that she said that she ordered fish, and that it makes no difference to the truth value of what she said what she actually put in her mouth. But suppose someone asks ‘Did she really say that?’ or ‘Is that literally what she said?’ or ‘Is that strictly speaking what she said?’ There’s a perfectly natural sense in which the answer to all these questions is a simple ‘yes.’ She really did say that. That’s literally what she said. She said that, strictly speaking. As far as we can determine, the only way to take this question so that its answer is ‘no’ is as a question about direct quotation. So understood, the only correct answer is ‘She said “I had fish.” ’ Of course, so understood this question is irrelevant to our concerns. We think this response generalizes, but we will leave the generalization as an exercise for the reader. In short, actual usage of the modifiers ‘literally,’ ‘really,’ and ‘strictly speaking’ does not stabilize MC. If anything, they can be used to ask whether an indirect quote is also a direct one. But that of course is irrelevant to our concerns here.

Fifth attempt to stabilize CSAs: CSAs are necessary, but not sufficient Some Moderate Contextualists might be inclined to respond by saying that the presence of intuitions of the kind triggered by CSAs is just a necessary condition for saying that an expression (or sentence) exhibits semantic context sensitivity. (Heal (1997) makes something like this response.) In addition to this evidence something else is needed. What that something 51

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism else might be will vary among different Moderate Contextualists. The two options we think most likely to be defended are, first, that in addition to a CSA for S, it should be possible to present an Incompleteness Argument for S. We respond to this in Chapter 5. The second most likely candidate is that there should be some kind of syntactic evidence added to the CSA. In Chapter 5 we’ll argue that Incompleteness Arguments are as unstable as CSAs are, so that additional constraints will not prevent the Moderate Contextualist from slipping into RC. In Chapter 6 we’ll argue that the kind of syntactic evidence typically appealed to in defense of MC is irrelevant with respect to whether a sentence is or is not semantically context sensitive.

52

CHAPTER 4

Diagnosis: Why Context Shifting Arguments are Misused

Here’s an interesting fact: Many sensible philosophers reject any association with RC. They would consider any set of premises from which RC follows to be a reductio of those premises. These are perfectly modest philosophers, without radical revolutionary aspirations, i.e., with no sympathies for RC. Nonetheless, they freely make use of CSA locally (e.g., for quantifier domain restrictions, comparative adjectives, possessives, the pleonastic ‘it’ of weather and temporal reports; and so on). It’s no exaggeration to say they are hooked on Context Shifting Arguments. They wouldn’t know how to underwrite an inference to semantic context sensitivity without them. But CSAs, taken seriously, lead to RC. This raises an interesting question: How did a collection of perfectly pleasant and sensible philosophers end up addicted to a form of argumentation that, when thought through carefully, leads to a crazy view like RC? (Of course, we have not yet established that RC is crazy, but we will in Chapters 7–9. So, for now, just take our word for it.)

Assumption Underlying the Appeal to CSAs There’s an assumption underlying the use of CSAs that in its vaguest and weakest form can be formulated as what we have labeled without prejudice the Mistaken Assumption (MA, for short): (MA) A theory of semantic content is adequate just in case it accounts for all or most of the intuitions speakers have about speech act content, i.e., intuitions about what speakers say, assert, claim, and state by uttering sentences. 53

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism Several variations on MA can be identified in the literature. We’ll focus on MA*: (MA*) If CSAs of the kind presented so far trigger the intuition that proposition p is said, claimed, stated, or asserted by an utterance u of sentence S in language L, then an adequate semantic theory for L should assign p as the semantic content of u. Why think that MA* is made (often tacitly) by those who freely use CSAs, and more generally, by all Moderate (and Radical) Contextualists? The most obvious answer is: It’s the only way we can make sense of their extensive (mis)use of CSAs. If you did not believe in some version of MA, why would you care about the intuitions that speakers have that an utterance of ‘There are no French girls’ can be used to say (assert, claim, state) that there are no French girls in Room 401? Why would a semanticist hold that piece of information relevant? Why, more generally, would a semanticist think any of the intuitions appealed to in CSAs are relevant? But there is no need for us to extrapolate only from the use of CSAs to find a commitment to MA; it’s found explicitly in a surprisingly diverse group of philosophers. As an illustration, we will show how central MA is in the works of three philosophers as different in philosophical outlook and commitments as Donald Davidson, David Kaplan, and Charles Travis.

Kaplan and MA According to Kaplan, a semantic theory must be anchored in speaker intuitions about ‘what-was-said.’ Here are two representative passages from his justly famous ‘Demonstratives’: What is said in using a given indexical in different contexts may be different. Thus if I say, today, I was insulted yesterday and you utter the same words tomorrow, what is said is different . . . Let’s call this first kind of meaning – what is said – content. (1989a, p. 500) If I may wax metaphysical in order to fix an image, let us think of the vehicles of evaluation – the what-was-said in a given context – as propositions. (1989a, p. 494) In his ‘Afterthoughts,’ Kaplan writes: The idea of content – the what-is-said on a particular occasion – is central to my account. (1989b, p. 568) 54

Why Context Shifting Arguments are Misused An appeal to what is said by an utterance of a sentence is not unimportant. Kaplan, and in fact all contemporary intensionalists, develop elaborate technical frameworks within which they attempt to capture the notion of what is said. Were this notion entirely theoretical, it would be unclear exactly which phenomenon the technical apparatus was attempting to explicate or clarify or even describe.

Davidson and MA Davidson’s commitment to MA is found not so much in what he says about the aims of semantics, but in what he says about indirect speech. According to Davidson, truth conditions for (1) are provided by (2) (Davidson 1968): (1) Galileo said that the earth moves. (2) ($u)(Ugu & SSu,that): [The earth moves.] The quantifier ranges over utterances; ‘Ugu’ holds just in case Galileo uttered u; ‘SS(u,that)’ holds when u and the utterance demonstrated by the occurrence of ‘that’ samesay each other, where the demonstratum of ‘that’ is an ensuing utterance of the bracketed sentence. What few remarks Davidson makes about samesaying can be (and usually are) read as endorsing MA. Passages like the following encourage commentators to infer Davidson imposes MA as an adequacy condition on semantic theory. The ‘that’ refers to the second and the first utterance is true iff an utterance of Galileo’s was the same in content (‘translates’) the utterance to which that ‘that’ refers. (1976, p. 177; our own emphasis) Platts, taking his cue from these passages, writes, ‘indirect discourse requires that the reporter reproduce the meaning of the original utterance: the content-sentence employed by the reporter should be a correct translation of the original speaker’s utterance’ (Platts 1979, p. 126). Likewise, Burge writes, ‘the point of indirect discourse might be fairly taken to be to introduce and produce an utterance that gives the content of the original speaker’s utterance’ (Burge 1986, p. 196). More explicitly, Larson and Ludlow maintain ‘it is arguable that one of the main charges of any semantic theory is to give . . . an account of the content of a given utterance: semantic theories should characterize what is said in uttering a given sentence S . . . In a truth conditional theory . . . content is ostensibly captured through the truth-conditions that are assigned’ (Larson and Ludlow 1993, p. 334). And, lastly, McDowell writes: 55

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism The basis of the truth-conditional conception of meaning, as I see it, is the following thought: to specify what would be asserted [i.e., said], in the assertoric utterance of a sentence apt for such use, is to specify a condition under which the sentence (as thus uttered) would be true. (McDowell 1987, p. 60)

Travis and MA Travis is a sort of hero to us. His view is completely wrong, but of all those who are wrong due to an acceptance of MA, Travis at least sees the implications clearly and is not afraid of what he sees. He never blinks. He is explicit in his endorsement of MA. If there is nothing which is said in a sentence, in particular, nothing which is said to be so, then, one would think, the sentence as such, even under the best of circumstances, could not be true. That not being its business, one would also expect that there could not be a (substantive) condition for its truth. . . . Given that a variety of distinct things might be said to be so in some speaking of the sentence (at a fixed time), no one of these, and so it seems, nothing, is what we could sensibly require to be so if the sentence, as such is to be true. (Travis 1985, p. 188) Underlying this argument is the assumption that a sentence cannot have truth conditions unless these are reflected in what is said by the sentence. It assumes that a sentence’s truth conditions must be reflected in the truth conditions of what Travis calls sayings.

Solution: Give Up Blind Adherence to MA So far we have shown: 1 A wide range of philosophers explicitly endorse some version of MA. 2 The truth of these versions of MA would support the use of CSAs of the kind presented and discussed in Chapters 1–3. MA would give us some reason to think that the intuitions triggered by these examples have semantic significance. 3 If you accept these versions of MA, and thereby, the relevance and evidential import of those examples, then you are led directly into the clutches of RC.

56

Why Context Shifting Arguments are Misused From here on in, you have a choice of moving in either of two directions: either endorse RC or reject every version of MA that renders the intuitions triggered by the CSAs semantically relevant. Put succinctly: liberate semantics from MA or endorse RC. A central goal in this book is to present an argument for the first option. If we are right, then the choice is bogus. It is not genuine because, as we will argue in Chapters 7–9, RC is not only empirically inadequate; it is also incoherent. So, the only option remaining is to sacrifice suspect versions of MA. This, we should mention, is a twist on strategies we have used when discussing MA in earlier work. In Cappelen and Lepore (1997, 1998) we argued as follows. We assumed that if we could show that RC followed from some version of MA, then that would constitute a reductio of that version of MA. We just took it to be plain obvious that we addressed a group of philosophers who would agree with us that such an argument constituted a reductio, i.e., who agreed that RC is an entirely unacceptable position. In this book we suspect that assumption. We go one step further and show why RC should be rejected.

Are There Any Connections Between Semantic Content and Speech Act Content? We are not claiming there are no interesting or informative connections between intuitions about speech act content and semantic content. In fact, in Chapter 7 we will present tests for context sensitivity and those tests rely on such intuitions. However, they are very fine grained. The intuitions about speech act content we think semanticists should rely on are subtle and exclude all of those intuitions appealed to by MC and RC in their arguments against Semantic Minimalism. The fine-grainedness we have in mind is not related to the Gricean strategy of sharply distinguishing what is said from what is implicated. We’ll argue later that that distinction is superficial and of no significance in trying to find semantic content. Since our views will get spelled out in great detail in Chapter 7 we will only give a rough outline of the main idea here. We present two strategies. One way to exploit intuitions about what speakers say by uttering S to locate the semantic content of S is to identify tests that help the theorist focus on the speech act content that a wide range of utterances of S have in common. A second strategy we use is to see whether the expression in question behaves like a classical context sensitive expression (such as ‘here’ and ‘now’) in certain respects.

57

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism

Semantics, Speech Act Content, and MA If we succeed in convincing you that there’s no close and immediate connection between semantic content and speech act content, the picture that emerges, in the end, is this: There are languages. Languages have words. Words combine into complex expressions and sentences. The semantic values of words contribute to the semantic values of the complex expressions and sentences of which they are a part. Semantics is about how best to specify the semantic value of the lexical items and their contribution to the semantic values of complex expressions and sentences in which they occur. On the other hand, when we think about and describe what people say, i.e., when our aim is to represent or articulate what’s said by an utterance, we aim to characterize a speaker’s act (that utterance), and in so doing our aim is to determine something about a particular act in a particular context C in order to pass it along on to a particular audience situated in a (perhaps a very) different (sort of) context C*. If you share this general idea of what semantics is about, and if you agree with our data about what speakers say by uttering sentences, then there is no motivation for imposing MA* or some related version of MA as an a priori constraint on a semantic theory. Semanticists disagree on what the central semantic features are (truth conditions, intensions, extensions, propositions, functions from worlds to truth values, prototypes, stereotypes, situations, or whatever), but they do tend to agree that semantics is a discipline that aims to characterize systematically certain features of linguistic expressions and to do so in a way that captures general truths about languages, and not just truths about particular speakers in specific contexts. Characterizations of what speakers say (claim, state, assert, etc.), on the other hand, are devices used for characterizing acts (utterances) performed by other speakers. In so doing, reporters are interested neither in systematicity nor in generality; they aim to convey something about a particular act in a particular context C to a particular audience situated in a different context C*. Reporters draw on information about the specific intentions of, knowledge about, and the history of, a reported speaker in C and (maybe) similar features of an audience in C*. These are features one does not want to solicit when the aim is systematic and general. If this is so, then it would be bizarre and unmotivated to impose as a requirement on a semantic theory that it be connected to speech act content in a manner as described by MA*.

58

CHAPTER 5

The Instability of Incompleteness Arguments

This chapter mimics Chapter 3 inasmuch as its chief aim is to establish a conditional claim, namely: If Incompleteness Arguments of the kind described in Chapters 1–2 suffice to show that MC is true (i.e., if they suffice to show that an expression e not in the Basic Set is still context sensitive), it follows that RC is true. Again, it is important to keep in mind the conditional nature of this claim. We do not think Incompleteness Arguments are any good. We will, however, for the sake of argument, assume that these arguments suffice to establish MC. And then we will show that if this is so, then RC follows.

The Structure of Incompleteness Arguments A typical Incompleteness Argument, as we think of it, comes in two stages. Stage 1. A solicitation of an intuition to the effect that the proposition semantically expressed by an utterance of a sentence S (according to Semantic Minimalism) is incomplete, i.e., it is not the kind of thing that can take a truth value. Stage 2. A solicitation of an intuition to the effect that utterances of S have a truth value, i.e., that they can express propositions, and hence, do have truth conditions, and so, can take a truth value. Conclusion. Something unaccounted for by Semantic Minimalism must be added in the context of the utterance in order for a complete proposition to be semantically expressed. 59

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism On its own, this kind of argument doesn’t establish that whatever is added changes between contexts of utterance. But if the kind of intuitions appealed to in this argument is supplemented with various context shifting intuitions of the kind we discussed in Chapter 3, then, our opponents claim, you have good evidence of context sensitivity. The argument, in summary form, is this: There’s no proposition expressed if you don’t add something; there clearly is a proposition there, and moreover, a different one in different contexts of utterance. This is a reason for thinking the sentences in question are context sensitive. One way to think of this is as a version of the fifth attempt in Chapter 3 to reply to the instability objection to CSAs, namely, that CSAs, though necessary, are not sufficient to establish context sensitivity. The Moderate Contextualist might say: ‘You’re right. CSAs alone don’t establish context sensitivity, but when combined with the initial intuition that there’s no proposition there, nothing truth evaluable, without adding something, then you have sufficient evidence to conclude that the sentences in question are context sensitive.’ For the remainder of this chapter we will focus on the first stage of these arguments, i.e., on the solicitation of the intuitions of incompleteness. Our argumentative strategy is to show that whatever arguments a Moderate Contextualist might proffer for the view that a certain sentence S is incomplete, generalize; i.e., if those are sufficient reasons for holding that S expresses an incomplete proposition, then all sentences do. Then, in Chapter 10, we will argue that none of the Moderate Contextualist’s favorite cases are incomplete. So, keep in mind, we do not endorse the premise from which we are arguing in this chapter. We are using it simply to present additional evidence for one of our central theses: MC is an unstable position.

Some Typical Instances of the First Stage of Incompleteness Arguments Kent Bach, a very sensible philosopher, has, as far as we know, no revolutionary tendencies. He surely does not sympathize with RC. Nonetheless, he provides a paradigmatic instance of a Moderate Contextualist who makes extensive use of Incompleteness Arguments (1994a,b). He asks us to consider sentences like (1): (1) Tipper is ready. 60

Instability of Incompleteness Arguments His intuition is that if (1) is not completed by adding a propositional component that specifies what she is ready for, then all we have is a propositional fragment; something that does not express a complete proposition; something that does not have truth conditions; something that cannot have a truth value. The proposition that Tipper is ready is not, as such, a complete proposition. For some further typical illustrations along these lines, consider sentences (2)–(4) and their alleged (minimalistic) semantic contents (2*)–(4*): (2) Steel isn’t strong enough. (3) Peter’s book is gray. (4) It’s raining. (2*) ‘Steel isn’t strong enough’ expresses the proposition that steel isn’t strong enough and is true iff steel isn’t strong enough. (3*) ‘Peter’s book is gray’ expresses the proposition that Peter’s book is gray and is true iff Peter’s book is gray. (4*) ‘It’s raining’ expresses the proposition that it is raining and is true iff it’s raining. These alleged truth conditions are deemed deficient. According to Bach, (2*) doesn’t express genuine truth conditions. There’s no proposition of the sort that steel isn’t strong enough. The italicized expression in the previous sentence just doesn’t refer to something truth evaluable. There’s no such thing as steel not being strong enough simpliciter. And so on for all of the other examples.

Criteria for In/completeness We are going to argue that if this is true, then it is true about any English sentence. For us to be able to run this kind of argument we need to know why Bach and other Moderate Contextualists think there’s no such thing as these minimal propositions. What makes them incomplete? What are the criteria by which one proposition is deemed incomplete and another complete? The only answer we have been able to discern, beyond just appeal to brute intuitions, is this: (2*) fails to ascribe truth conditions to (2) because it doesn’t answer questions such as, Strong enough for what? (3*) fails to ascribe truth conditions to (3) because it doesn’t tell us what the relevant relationship is between Peter and the book; and (4*) fails to ascribe truth conditions to (4) because it doesn’t tell us where it’s raining. Had these sentences truth conditions, there would be answers to these questions forth61

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism coming and these answers would supply part of these sentences’ truth conditions.1

The Instability of Incompleteness We’ll run our argument using three sets of examples. First we will focus on the completions Moderate Contextualists propose for (1)–(4) and show that those completions are equally susceptible to Incompleteness Arguments. Then we will look at some examples from Travis, an ally in this context since he, as a Radical Contextualist, is also in the business of showing that there’s nothing special about (1)–(4). Finally, we will appeal to some of the examples we presented earlier. First set of instability illustrations Suppose we propose, as in fact Moderate Contextualists do, completions of (1)–(4) along the lines of (1b)–(4b) (see, e.g., Bach 1994b, pp. 128ff.; Carston 1988, p. 167; Sperber and Wilson 1986, p. 188; Recanati 1993, p. 235; Perry 1986, p. 206; Crimmins 1992, p. 17). (1b) (2b) (3b) (4b)

Tipper is ready for the exam. Steel isn’t strong enough to support the roof. The book owned by Peter is gray. It’s raining in Palo Alto.

Our central question is: What exactly distinguishes (1)–(4) from these suggested completions (1b)–(4b)? For, why should we suppose that (1b)–(4b) are complete, while (1)–(4) are not? What’s the principled difference? None, as far as we can tell. One can trigger exactly the same kind of incompleteness intuitions for (1b)–(4b) as one can for (1)–(4). Consider (1b*)–(4b*): (1b*) ‘Tipper is ready for the exam’ is true iff Tipper is ready for the exam. (2b*) ‘Steel isn’t strong enough to support the roof’ is true iff steel isn’t strong enough to support the roof. 1 If you find this alleged criterion for incompleteness vague and unsatisfactory, we sympathize. We have simply not been able to find any sharp definition of ‘in/complete’ in this entire literature. These arguments are essential to many contextualists, but are universally presented simply by appeal to intuitions, without any formal criterion for in/completeness. Our strategy in what follows is to run an internal objection appealing to (what seems to us to be) the same kind of intuitions.

62

Instability of Incompleteness Arguments (3b*) ‘The book owned by Peter is gray’ is true iff the book owned by Peter is gray. (4b*) ‘It’s raining in Palo Alto’ is true iff it’s raining in Palo Alto. One can argue (as we did in the case of (1*)–(4*)) that (2b*) fails to specify truth conditions for (2b) (we leave the others as an exercise) because it doesn’t settle for how long the support must last. Do a few seconds suffice? More than three days? Many years? Why mustn’t (2b*) also settle whether (2b) is false if steel fails to support the roof when placed in temperatures over 390°? Then there is the question of why the amount of steel needed to support the roof mustn’t be decided in order to settle whether (2b) is true. Would (2b) be true if one tenth of a square inch of steel wouldn’t suffice to support the roof? Nothing in the meanings of the words in (2b) (or their composition) answers these questions; certainly, nothing in (2b*). If the sort of reasons that led Moderate Contextualists to conclude that (2*) is incomplete are any good, why don’t they extend to (2b*) as well? MC has provided us with no reason to believe that (2b*) gets it just right. If (2*) is incomplete because it doesn’t answer the question ‘Isn’t strong enough for what?’, then why isn’t (2b*) also incomplete because it doesn’t answer, inter alia, the question ‘Isn’t strong enough to support the roof for how long?’ So, if the reason why (1*)–(4*) are incomplete is because they fail to answer these kinds of ‘would it be true if . . .’ -questions, why should we hold that this alleged incompleteness is limited to some (more or less) circumscribed subset of English sentences? What Radical Contextualists see clearly, and are prepared to bravely pursue to the bitter end, is that the same sort of incompleteness is to be found in every English sentence.

Second set of instability illustrations Travis uses the same kind of argument as Bach, but he doesn’t think it applies only to a subset of English sentences. He thinks this kind of argument can be used to establish that no English sentence has truth conditions or expresses a complete proposition (even when you fix the semantic values of expressions in the Basic Set, disambiguate, etc.) without large scale contextual additions. Consider (5) and (6) and their semantic content specified in (5*) and (6*): (5) This kettle is black. (6) Smith weighs 80 kg. (5*) ‘That kettle is black’ expresses the proposition that [that kettle] is black and is true iff the demonstrated kettle is black. 63

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism (6*) ‘Smith weighs 80 kg’ expresses the proposition that Smith weighs 80 kg and is true iff Smith weighs 80 kg. According to the incompleteness charge, (5*) fails to specify truth conditions for (5) because it fails to answer any of the following sorts of questions. (What follows are essentially quotations from Travis (1985, p. 197); similar ones can be found in Searle (1978, pp. 208, 215; 1980, p. 224).) Would (5) be true of some demonstrated kettle if it is (5a) (5b) (5c) (5d) (5e)

made of normal aluminum but soot covered? made of normal aluminum but painted? made of cast iron but glowing from heat? enameled white on the outside but saturated in black light? made of cast iron with a lot of brown grease stains on the outside?

Since (5*) doesn’t tell us whether (5) is true when the demonstrated kettle is washed, black on its inside, black all the way through, painted, illuminated or not, etc., RC concludes that it fails to specify (‘settle,’ ‘decide,’ ‘determine’) conditions under which (5) is true. Likewise, (6*) doesn’t tell us whether (6) would be true were Smith to weigh (6a) (6b) (6c) (6d) (6e)

80 kg when stripped in the morning 80 kg when dressed normally after lunch 80 kg after being force fed 4 liters of water 80 kg four hours after having ingested a powerful diuretic 80 kg after lunch adorned in heavy outer clothing.

Since (6*) is mute on these (and endless related) questions, RC concludes that it fails to specify truth conditions for (6). Third set of instability illustrations The examples of CSAs illustrate our point in the same way as Travis examples do. Consider sentences (7)–(10) from Chapter 3 (renumbered here): (7) (8) (9) (10) (11)

John went to the gym. Jill didn’t have fish for dinner. Justine destroyed those shoes. That’s a dangerous dog. Justine is a philosopher.

For each of these we can ask questions of exactly the kind that’s alleged to bring out the incompleteness of (1)–(4). For (7) we can ask: Went to the gym 64

Instability of Incompleteness Arguments how? Walked to the vicinity? Did something in the gym? Did what in the gym? For how long? What if he went into the gym but was sleepwalking? Etc. We don’t know how to evaluate (7) without settling these questions, but nothing in (7)’s disquotational truth conditions would answer these questions. We hope it is obvious how to generalize this point.

Two Attempts to Block the Instability Argument The challenge to the Moderate Contextualist is to show how their favorite cases of incompleteness are fundamentally different from any arbitrary English sentence. We will now look at two attempts to block the slippery slide into RC from MC based on incompleteness. (We should mention that both of these imagined replies seem extraordinarily weak to us, and we discuss them simply because they are the only ones we have encountered (the first in conversation, the second in a published paper) and we’ve been unable to think of any better alternatives.) The psychological reply A number of commentators have suggested that they can cite a principled reason both for blocking the slide from MC to RC (i.e., an argument against our slippery slope argument), and for why we can stop just at expansions (1b)–(4b). One attempt to block the slide invokes the intentions that accompany utterances (or, at least those intentions that typically accompany utterances). These contextualists say something like this: If a kind of completion, C, is not something usually intended by and communicated by utterances of S, then it’s no argument against S’s completeness that it fails to explicitly specify (or determine a value for) C. Utterances of (1) are usually accompanied by the intention to communicate what Tipper is ready for and that’s why this is a required completion. It is only when utterances of S are typically accompanied by the intention to communicate a completion, C, that C is required for completeness. Our reply is simply to point out that an incompleteness claim, as we have construed it, is a metaphysical claim. It is not a psychological claim and it is not a claim about what speakers usually do. It is a claim about what propositions exist. It is, for example, the claim that there is no such thing as the proposition that Jane has had enough. The thing picked out by the italicized part of the previous sentence is not a complete, genuine, real, etc. proposition, according to those who invoke Incompleteness Arguments. 65

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism The reply we are now considering has to do with what propositions are usually or regularly expressed by the utterance of various sentences. Such claims, even if true, would not suffice to bolster the relevant metaphysical claim. It simply doesn’t follow from the fact that we do not usually use ‘It’s raining’ to express the proposition that it is raining that there is no such proposition. It is perfectly compatible to hold both that a sentence S isn’t usually used to express an (alleged) proposition that p, and that p is a real (complete) proposition.

Taylor’s Reply to the Instability Argument Ken Taylor tries to respond to our challenge. He thinks ‘It’s raining’ is incomplete, because it doesn’t specify a location for the rain. But he does not think that ‘She is dancing’ is incomplete, even though that sentence also fails to specify a location, the location where the dancing takes place. Why the difference? Why does a sentence about raining require a location to be specified in order to semantically express a proposition, while a statement about dancing does not? Taylor writes: The answer, I think, has to do with how ‘to dance’ and ‘to rain’ relate to the places where raining and dancings happen. ‘To dance’ does not mark the place where a dance happens as the undergoer of the dance. The theme or undergoer of dancing is the dancer herself. The place where a dancing ‘takes place’ is merely the place where the dancer dances. When Laura is dancing in a place, it is not the place that undergoes the dancing. This, I think, is what explains why despite the fact that one cannot dance without dancing somewhere or other, a sentence containing ‘to dance’ can be semantically complete, even if the place where dancing happens is not contextually provided. That a dancing must take place somewhere or other is a (mutually known) metaphysical fact about the universe – a fact that supervenes on the nature of dancing and the structure of space-time. But that metaphysical fact is not explicitly reflected in the subsyntactic structure of the lexicon. . . . Things are quite otherwise with the verb ‘to rain’. I take the verb itself, and its subsyntactic lexical structure, to be the source of the felt need for the contextual provision of a place or range of places where a raining happens. Facts about the subsyntactic lexical structure of the verb directly entail that nothing fully propositionally determinate has been expressed by an utterance of a sentence like [4] unless a place is contextually provided. (Taylor 2001, p. 60) Question: How do we find out when a verb has a subject as its ‘theme’ in the ‘subsyntactic structure’? Taylor responds: 66

Instability of Incompleteness Arguments Though subconstituents need not be expressed as sentence-level constituents, they make their presence felt by demanding to be assigned a contextually supplied value. Thus, though [4] It’s raining is missing no syntactic mandatory sentential constituent, nonetheless, it is semantically incomplete. The semantic incompleteness is manifest to us as a felt inability to evaluate the truth value of an utterance of [4] in the absence of a contextually provided location (or range of locations). This felt need for a contextually provided location has its source, I claim, in our tacit cognition of the syntactically unexpressed argument place of the verb ‘to rain’. (Taylor 2001, p. 61; our own emphasis) Our reply. There are two central locutions in this passage from Taylor: he talks about subconstituents ‘demanding to be assigned a contextually supplied value’ and a ‘felt inability to evaluate the truth value’ of an incomplete proposition. We imagine his reply to the instability argument to go like this: In (1)–(4) there’s a demand made, and a felt inability to truth evaluate unless a contextually supplied value is added. In (1*)–(4*) there’s no such demand made and no such felt inability. The underlying assumption, if this is to be a reply to the slippery slope argument, must be this: It’s only when the demand is made and you feel the inability that you’re faced with an incomplete proposition. That’s how the instability argument is blocked. If we have understood this right, Taylor’s reply is in effect a version of the psychological reply. The first question we have is this: Why should psychological facts about how people feel have any bearing whatsoever on the metaphysical question of whether a proposition exists (or is complete)? If it’s just about the presence or absence of the relevant feelings, this is irrelevant. Taylor apparently thinks these feelings reflect metaphysical facts, but we don’t know why he thinks that. But even if we put that issue aside, the reply misses the mark because it is possible to trigger these feelings with respect to any sentence whatsoever, at least if we are allowed to talk to people about the relevant feelings. We’re not really devoted to the idea of being philosophical therapists, but here is our meager effort: Take one of Travis’s examples, e.g., ‘Smith weighs 80 kg.’ You might not initially feel that this sentence requires contextual supplementation, not in the same way as ‘She’s ready’ and ‘It’s raining’ do. However, here’s a prediction: If you read a few of Travis’s little stories, you will eventually have that feeling. You’ll feel something like this: Smith weighing 80 kg when? Under what conditions are the weighings done? Do we undress Smith? 67

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism We don’t know how to determine that he weighs 80 kg unless the answers to those questions are (somehow) added to the truth conditions and the proposition expressed. Or take ‘That’s a red apple.’ On the face of it, you might, again, not feel strongly that it’s in need of supplementation. But think about Bezuidenhout’s example and you might end up thinking ‘Red where? In what light? Scrubbed? Brushed? Painted?’ etc. In other words, even if we grant Taylor that these feelings are relevant, there’s no reason to think they are triggered with respect to just a limited subset of English sentences. What the generalized CSAs show is that the kinds of considerations that generate these intuitions are not limited to a specific subset of sentences.

Conclusion Here’s a brief summary of the last three chapters. In Chapter 3 we tried to show that if Context Shifting Arguments suffice to show that MC is true, then RC follows immediately. In this chapter we tried to establish that if Incompleteness Arguments suffice to show that MC is true, it also follows that RC is true. In Chapter 4 we offered a brief diagnosis for why philosophers and linguists have been led to exploit Context Shifting Arguments in drawing conclusions about semantic context sensitivity. Before moving on to a direct attack on RC in Part II, we discuss one more attempt to bolster various versions of MC without slipping into RC.

68

CHAPTER 6

Digressions: Binding and Hidden Indexicals

In this chapter we respond to someone who reacts to Chapters 2–5 as follows: ‘Hold it, guys! No one should hold that the kind of intuition mongering described in Chapter 2 is sufficient to establish semantic context sensitivity. You are perfectly right about that. However, when that kind of evidence is combined with certain kinds of syntactic evidence, you then have a strong case for semantic context sensitivity. More specifically: if you have syntactic evidence that there’s a hidden argument at some level of linguistic representation, e.g., in LF, and you also have strong attending context shifting intuitions, then you have made your case for this hidden argument being context sensitive; you are in effect forced by the confluence of the semantic and syntactic evidence to postulate a hidden indexical.’ The idea that syntactic evidence is required for the postulation of a hidden linguistic expression is reasonable. But the idea that syntactic evidence can show that what’s hidden is an indexical is, we think, mistaken. Our discussion of these issues is structured as follows: 1 We first present arguments that have come to be known as ‘Binding Arguments.’ 2 We then show that these arguments alone fail to establish semantic context sensitivity. They are relevant to issues of semantic context sensitivity only when combined with either Context Shifting Arguments or Incompleteness Arguments. These syntactic arguments are relevant only to the question of where to locate context sensitivity in a sentence that is already established to be context sensitive. Since Context Shifting and Incompleteness Arguments fail to establish the controversial cases (or so we will argue), Binding Arguments are largely irrelevant to our concerns. 69

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism Though there is much more to be said about Binding Arguments, that’s really all we need to say about them for the overall purposes of this book. However, as a service to those with an independent interest in these issues, or those not entirely convinced by our objections against CSAs and Incompleteness Arguments, we will add two afterthoughts: 3 First afterthought. Binding Arguments overgenerate: You can construct Binding Arguments to the effect that there are hidden argument places everywhere (for example, Binding Arguments can be exploited to establish that there are lots of hidden argument places in mathematical statements like ‘2 + 2 = 4’). We take this to be a reductio of Binding Arguments. 4 Second afterthought. Postulating these hidden argument places has deeply counterintuitive consequences even for those convinced that there’s semantic context sensitivity in the relevant cases.

Syntactic Evidence for Hidden Arguments: Binding We begin with alleged syntactic evidence for hidden argument places. Normal utterances of (1) are taken to be about a restricted class of failures, perhaps, e.g., students in a specific class. (1) Many students failed. One explanation for how this restriction is effected is that quantifier expressions harbor an unpronounced indexical item whose semantic function is to index a quantifier domain restriction in a context of use. Stanley and Szabó advocate hidden indexicals; they insist that syntactic evidence must be adduced for any posited domain variable; and they cite as evidence the fact that these posited domain variables interact in binding relations with other quantifier expressions. In sentences like (1), they claim, one can bind its hidden constituent, enabling its domain to vary according to the values introduced by a variable-binding operator (Stanley and Szabó 2000a, p. 243; cf. also Stanley 2000). They infer this constituent must be present in (1). So, for example, in (2) (2) In every class, many students failed, the domain associated with ‘many students’ varies as a function of the values introduced by ‘every class.’ (2) means (on one of its readings), according to Stanley and Szabó, (2*): 70

Digressions: Binding and Hidden Indexicals (2*) [Every (x): class (x)][many ( y): student in x ( y)](failed y). Assuming binding to be a syntactic phenomenon,1 such examples would seem to provide evidence for a variable somewhere in the syntactic structure of quantified noun phrases.2 (Stanley and Szabó go as far as to suggest that without positing a hidden domain variable, it is not clear that sentences like (2) express ‘coherent propositions at all’ (Stanley and Szabó 2000a, p. 243).) Stanley and Szabó generalize their idea by associating with each nominal an indexical, which when unbound behaves like a free variable to which a semantic value must be contextually assigned. So construed, (1) is interpreted along the lines of (1*), (1*) Many students (i) failed, where ‘i’ is a hidden indexical (in (1)) that, in a context of use, picks out a set (or property) which functions to restrict the extension of ‘student,’ and thereby restricts the domain of ‘many’ further than ‘student’ does by itself. (Their actual account is more complex, but nothing we say requires us to go into the extra detail here.) The Binding Argument is alleged to generalize. To see how, consider sentence (3): (3) It’s sunny. Notice that [3] can be embedded in a larger sentence: [4] Everywhere Sally goes, it is sunny. Intuitively, what [4] says, or at least a natural reading of [4], is that for every place that Sally goes, it is sunny at that place. So we should represent the logical form [4] something along the following lines: [4*] For all places, x, if Sally goes to x, then it is sunny at x. The quantifier phrase ‘Everywhere Sally goes’ is binding a place variable in the logical form of ‘It is sunny’ – otherwise there would be nothing for the quantifier phrase to bind. (Nelson 2001, pp. 27–8; see also Stanley 2000, pp. 415–17)

1 We think they might be best accounted for pragmatically, but that’s a topic for another occasion (see Cappelen and Lepore (1997, 2002a,b); see also Farkas (1997), who denies that the data require a syntactic treatment but are instead best accounted for semantically). 2 For the fuller development of this theory, see Stanley and Szabó (2000a).

71

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism Stanley, in fact, is optimistic that he can establish that all nominal expressions harbor context sensitive indices: Extra-linguistic context appears to have a profound effect on the determination of what is expressed by the use of linguistic expressions. For a bewildering range of very different linguistic constructions, adhering to relatively straightforward linguistic intuition about what is expressed leads us to the conclusion that facts about the nonlinguistic context play many different roles in determining what is said. Furthermore, that so many different constructions betray this sort of sensitivity to extra-linguistic context understandably leads to pessimism about rescuing the straightforward intuitions while preserving any sort of systematicity in the theory of meaning. A presumption motivating the pessimistic inclination is that, if we accept the ordinary intuitions, what appear to be very different ways in which context affects semantic content in fact are different ways in which context affects linguistic content. Pessimism is a natural reaction to those who adopt this presumption, because if appearance is a good guide to the facts in this domain, then there are just too many ways in which context affects semantic content to preserve systematicity. One common and natural reaction to these facts is, therefore, to deny the semantic significance of the ordinary intuitions, thereby relegating the project of explaining the apparent effects of extra-linguistic context on semantic content to a domain of inquiry outside the theory of meaning proper. So doing removes the threat context poses to the systematicity of semantic explanation, but at the cost of reducing the interest of the semantic project. In this paper, I explore a different reaction to the situation. My purpose is to undermine the presumption that what appear to be very different effects of context on semantic content are very different effects. My challenge is of necessity rather limited, since it is too implausible to trace all effects of extra-linguistic context on semantic content to the very same source. Rather, I will take, as a case study, three superficially very different effects of context on semantic content, and show that they are due to the very same mechanism, what I call Nominal Restriction. I thereby hope to provide convincing evidence of the promise of the project of reducing all apparent effects of context on semantic content to a small number of sources. (Stanley 2002b, p. 364)

The Irrelevance of the Binding Argument Our first reaction to this argument is exceedingly simple. Let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, that the Binding Argument is sound. What does it 72

Digressions: Binding and Hidden Indexicals show? Well, it shows that the logical–syntactic form of ‘Every penguin has a tail’ is something like ‘Every penguin(d) has a tail.’ That argument alone doesn’t show that the hidden argument place d is semantically context sensitive. It doesn’t show that different utterances of ‘Every penguin has a tail’ have different truth conditions, and so, can disagree in truth value. All it would show is that there is a hidden argument place there. Notice, the following two claims are logically compatible: Hidden domain variable. Every noun phrase in a quantified noun phrase cohabits with a domain variable in LF. Contextual insensitivity of quantifier domain restrictions. Sentences containing quantified noun phrases are semantically stable (with respect to their domains). Even if you have shown that there’s a hidden argument place in a sentence, you still need an additional argument to establish that that sentence exhibits semantic context sensitivity (or any other sort of context sensitivity for that matter). There’s a significant logical gap between the claim that there’s a hidden syntactic unit in S and the claim that S is semantically context sensitive. You get from hidden syntactic entities to semantic context sensitivity using the kind of arguments we presented in Chapter 2. We should point out that this is not a view that’s a surprise to proponents of Binding Arguments. Recall, we quoted one major proponent of the Binding Argument, namely, Stanley, extensively in Chapter 2. He’s certainly aware of the fact that he needs additional arguments. Some readers might opt now to skip the rest of this chapter. For this chapter, as we mentioned earlier, should be of interest only to those who, for some reason or other, are unconvinced by our objections to the supplementary arguments (i.e., those arguments that are supposed to combine with the Binding Arguments, in particular, the CSAs and Incompleteness Arguments), or to those researchers with a special interest in binding per se. In the remainder of this chapter we present four ‘internal’ objections to the Binding Argument. We show that if you think the ‘classical’ versions of this argument are sound, then there are innumerable ‘hidden’ argument places in, e.g., the arithmetical sentence ‘2 + 2 = 4.’ We take establishing that this sentence has indefinitely many ‘hidden’ argument places to be a reductio of the Binding Argument. We also show that postulating these hidden argument places has deeply counterintuitive implications: it predicts that there should be anaphoric relations where there are none; and it predicts that certain sentences, indeed, some of them false, express a priori and/or necessary truths and falsehoods. 73

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism

First Afterthought: Reductio of Binding Argument A confused mathematical anthropologist (call her Sally) trying to find out if mathematical truths are universal utters (5) as a summary of her findings: (5) Everywhere I go, 2 + 2 = 4. Here’s the Binding Argument applied to (5): Intuitively, (5) says that for every place Sally goes, 2 + 2 = 4 at that place. So we should present the logical form of (5) along the following lines: (5*) For all places, x, if Sally goes to x, then 2 + 2 = 4 at x. The quantifier phrase ‘Everywhere Sally goes’ is binding a place variable in the logical form of ‘2 + 2 = 4’ – otherwise, there would be nothing for the quantifier phrase to bind. This establishes that the logical form of the sentence ‘2 + 2 = 4’ has a freely occurring place variable. Since there is obviously no variable ranging over locations in ‘2 + 2 = 4,’ this is a reductio of the Binding Argument. We would like to leave the argument here; it is close to indisputable that arithmetical statements lack hidden indexicals referring to places. However, since no bullet is unbiteable, two brief remarks are in order. First, since both speakers and audiences are blissfully unaware of any reference to a location in utterances of ‘2 + 2 = 4,’ the referent of a hidden indexical would have to be fixed in a manner entirely unconnected with speaker intentions. Such a reference fixing mechanism would be unique. We are owed a substantive story about how it is achieved. Second, those who recognize a place index in ‘2 + 2 = 4’ are vulnerable to a most slippery slope, for consider (5**): (5**) No matter where Sally goes, no matter when she goes there, 2 + 2 = 4. Based on the Binding Argument should the logical form of (5**) be (5+)? (5+) For all places x, for all times y, if Sally goes to x at time y, then 2 + 2 = 4 at x at y. No one should want to conclude that the complex quantifier expression ‘No matter where I go, no matter when I go there’ binds two hidden vari74

Digressions: Binding and Hidden Indexicals ables in ‘2 + 2 = 4.’ Such examples illustrate that a blind endorsement of the Binding Argument might ultimately require positing indefinitely many dedicated variables in every single sentence. Other examples that might help you see the point, if, for reasons beyond us, you haven’t already, are: Wherever I kiss her, she smiles [hidden argument place for location in ‘kiss’]. Whenever I kiss her with my socks on, she smiles [hidden argument place for what we wear]. Notice that our unboundedness charge has an analog in an earlier debate about event verbs and adverbial modification. Recall, according to one early proposal, ascribing (6*) as (6)’s logical form was supposed to explain why (7) entails (6). (6) Mary kissed John. (6*) Mary kissed John in some place. (7) Mary kissed John in the park. We increase the adicity of an event verb like ‘kiss’ in order to accommodate an inferential relation. However, following this strategy consistently would require each event verb to harbor indefinitely many ‘hidden’ places in order to accommodate inferential data among (6)–(10), etc. (see Davidson 1967). (8) Mary kissed John in the park after midnight. (9) Mary kissed John in the park after midnight behind his left ear. (10) Mary kissed John in the park after midnight behind his left ear on August 24, 1999. So, for example, in order to explain how (10) logically implies (6), should we treat (6)’s logical form as (11)? (11) Mary kissed John in some place at some time behind some place on some date. Following this strategy would render the adicity of an ordinary verb like ‘kiss’ indefinitely large. How would anyone ever learn his language (Larson and Segal 1995, p. 468)? Likewise, the seeming unboundedness of the Binding Argument requires too many indexicals. So, the Binding Argument fails to be decisive for the 75

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism existence of hidden indexicals.3 We turn now to further constraints on indexicality.

Second Afterthought: Three Additional Objections to the Postulation of Hidden Indexicals Positing hidden linguistic expressions incurs certain obligations. With indexicals there are at least two:4 on the syntactic side, a posited indexical should enter into anaphoric relationships; on the semantic– epistemological side, it should generate certain kinds of a priori truths and falsehoods; and it should not generate certain necessary truths and falsehoods. We discuss these in turn.

Anaphora Overt indexicals can participate in anaphoric relationships. In (12) and (13) the antecedents of ‘it’ and ‘himself’ are the indexicals ‘that’ and ‘he.’ (12) That’s a table but it is not a book. (13) He’s a senator who likes himself. Since hidden indexicals are just the same indexicals, they too should be capable of entering into anaphoric relationships. So, if (1) harbors a hidden reference to a restricted domain, (14) should be intelligible, with ‘it’ anaphoric. ?(14) Many students failed, and it is a big domain. That (14) makes no sense (even though (14*) below does) is evidence against a hidden indexical in (1).

3 What does the Binding Argument show? The data it invokes are interesting, and require explanation. The facts are these: Sentences like (1), (3), and ‘2 + 2 = 4’ lack a place variable (or any other hidden variable of the sort Stanley and Szabó posit). However, these sentences are still grammatical, and so their initial quantifiers are nonvacuous. Without positing hidden indexicals of the sort Stanley and Szabó favor, how can we explain their grammaticality? It goes beyond the scope of this book to provide an answer to this grammatical question; we refer the interested reader to Cappelen and Lepore (2002b), where we sketch a possible answer. 4 Hidden indexicals fail other tests, e.g., so-called weak cross-violations, but we’ll not pursue this criticism. Cf., Blair (2004) and Hawthorne (2003).

76

Digressions: Binding and Hidden Indexicals (14*) Many students in this (domain) failed, and it is a big domain. For another illustration, consider Stanley and Szabó’s view that (15), roughly, has the form (15*), (15) Tigers are mammals (15*) Tigers (i) are mammals, where ‘i’ indexes, in a context of use, a domain. But, then, (15**) should make as much sense as (15+) does, where ‘it’ is alleged to be anaphoric on ‘i.’ (15**) Tigers are mammals, and it is a big domain. (15+) Tigers in this (domain) are mammals, and it is a big domain. The impossibility of reading ‘it’ anaphorically on the alleged indexical is evidence against a hidden indexical in (15). We are not committed to the view that every alleged covert element goes our way in this respect. For example, it is not easy to make reference to the covert subject of ‘please’ in ‘John is easy to please.’ But even if it’s hard or impossible to get anaphora on controlled ‘PRO’ because the potential constructions have their own ‘PRO’ controlled by a matrix subject, that in itself might be good reason to treat controlled ‘PRO’ as a special case. Our point is that either you do get anaphora, or there is an independent explanation for why not; minimally proponents of unpronounced indexicals owe us an independent explanation.5

5 Stanley (2002b) claims (p. 368) that the reason for the unavailability of anaphoric link is due to the fact that the domain variable cohabits the node with the noun. This case is alleged to be similar to that of incorporation, as the contrast between (a) and (b) illustrates: (a) John owns a bicycle. He rides it daily. (b) John is a bicycle-owner. He rides it daily. Of course, one needs to motivate claims about incorporation, if the latter notion is taken in its technical sense. So, we need to hear Stanley’s argument that the index ‘cohabits’ a node with the noun, as opposed to merely being a sister of the noun. This can’t be stipulated, since one can’t stipulate that there is syntax that behaves as though it isn’t there. Also, incorporation typically involves some kind of movement, driven for some independent reason. We know that compounding of the ‘bicycle-owner’ variety blocks modification of various sorts; and even if we don’t know why this is the case, we have independent grounds for treating ‘bicycle-owner’ as a compound. But while we see that appeal to incorporation blunts the worry Stanley faces, we don’t see the independent reason for thinking that the (alleged) syntax of indices is relevantly like the familiar cases. Thanks to Paul Pietroski for walking us through this subtle debate.

77

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism

A Priori Truths According to Kaplan, it is an essential feature of an indexical that its linguistic meaning can be used to generate certain kinds of a priori truths. Intuitively, (6) [‘I’m here now’] is deeply, and in some sense, which we will shortly make precise, universally true. One need only understand the meaning of (6) to know that it cannot be uttered false. No such guarantees apply to (7) [‘D.K. is in Portland on 3/26/1977’]. A Logic of Indexicals which does not reflect this intuitive difference between (6) and (7) has bypassed something essential to the logic of indexicals. (Kaplan 1989a, p. 509; our own emphasis) These ‘universal’ truths are generated as follows: Kaplan identifies the linguistic meaning of an expression with its character, which is a function that delivers the expression’s content at each context. So, the character of the first person indexical ‘I’ is a function on contexts whose value at any context is the agent of that context. Suppose the character of an indexical D specifies that its referent in a context, U, is whatever object satisfies conditions C in U. Then an a priori truth will be expressed by an utterance of D satisfies conditions C. This kind of sentence cannot be uttered falsely. For instance, no utterance of (16) or (17) is false; and anyone who understands ‘I’ and ‘you’ will recognize this, that is, it constitutes a priori knowledge. (16) I am the person who utters this sentence. (17) You are the person addressed by this utterance. However, no utterance of (16) or (17) is necessarily true; whatever proposition an utterance of (16) expresses is false in any context, say, where the utterer does not exist. Since any speaker could fail to exist, this proposition is contingent. Kaplan infers that his semantics for indexical expressions provides examples of the contingent a priori. We are now positioned to state our worry about hidden indexicals. In all of these cases none of these essential features is manifested. According to Stanley and Szabó (2000a), (1) properly construed means the same as (1*). Since ‘i’ is an expression it has a character, i.e., a linguistic meaning. Given what Stanley and Szabó (2000a) say we assume they intend the character of ‘i’ to be something like ‘the contextually salient domain.’ We (or they) might be wrong about this. But this indexical, accord78

Digressions: Binding and Hidden Indexicals ing to Kaplan, must have some character or other; call whatever it is F. Then (18) (or (18*)) ought to be such that their every utterance is true and this is knowable a priori. (18) Everyone is in the contextually salient domain. (18*) Everyone is in F. Likewise, speakers should know a priori that every utterance of (19)–(20) is false. (19) Some ducks are only in nonsalient domains. (20) At least one little duck is not in a salient domain. However, not every utterance of (18) is true, and not every utterance of (19) or (20) is false. (We doubt any utterance of (19) or (20) is false.) Hence, no one has any such a priori knowledge. If we are right, the analogy between hidden indexicals referring to contextually salient domains and ordinary overt indexicals breaks down. But if Kaplan is right about the semantics and epistemology of indexicals, it follows that Stanley and Szabó (2000a) must be wrong. Minimally, they need to defend their departure. Our goal is not to conclusively establish that all hidden indexicals fail these two above constraints, but it is, however, fairly simple to construct similar arguments for every example mentioned in the introduction. As a brief illustration, consider comparative adjectives. Suppose, as is commonly supposed (Ludlow 1989; Stanley 2002b), sentences with comparative adjectives contain a hidden reference to a comparison class and that for each context of utterance it is a contextually salient comparison class that’s referenced. It should then, first, be possible to refer anaphorically to these classes, as in (21) and, second, to generate certain kinds of a priori truths or falsehoods, as in (22). (21) She’s tall, and it has many 5-year-old members. (22) She’s tall, but not compared to a salient class. However, we can’t get ‘it’ in (21) to refer to a comparison class, and (22) doesn’t seem a priori false to us.

Nonexistent Interpretations? On the hidden indexical proposal, an utterance of (23) can be used to express a truth, because its context of utterance can effect a domain restric79

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism tion on an underspecified quantifier: context restricts the range of its quantifier ‘every.’ (23) Every table is covered with books. Suppose that in using (23) a speaker succeeds in restricting the domain of the quantifier ‘every’ to tables in domain D, and thereby expresses what she would have had she instead uttered (23¢). (23¢) Every table in domain D is covered with books. What, then, shall we conclude about (24)? (24) Every table is in domain D. (24) is as likely to be used to express a truth as (23). Since (23) can express what (23¢) can in the same context, why can’t we infer that (24) can express in a context what (24¢) would? (24¢) Every table in domain D is in domain D. The hidden indexical account is a semantic one about what can be said (or expressed) by sentences with underspecified quantifiers and so complaining that (24¢) looks less informative than (24) needn’t be a problem. After all, a present utterance of ‘I am here now’ by Lepore and ‘Lepore is at Rutgers University on November 21, 2003’ aren’t equally informative, but on at least one respectable semantic story, these sentences can be used to say (or express) the same proposition. If the same proposition can be expressed by nonsynonymous sentences, where one, in some sense, is analytic and the other is not, then perhaps that sort of explanation extends to (24) and (24¢). A genuine challenge to the hidden indexical account must establish that, once appropriately contextually relativized, (24) and (24¢) do indeed express distinct propositions. Here are considerations intended to support this challenge. (24) does not have a true necessary reading, yet (24¢) does. Minimally, it’s worth pointing out that embracing the hidden indexical account requires accommodating such necessary interpretations. Much along the same lines, but worse, consider the sentence ‘Every table isn’t in domain D.’ It doesn’t seem to have a reading under which it expresses a necessarily false proposition, but the hidden indexical account predicts that it should, since, assigning its negation narrow scope, any utterance of ‘Every table in domain D isn’t in domain D’ expresses a necessarily 80

Digressions: Binding and Hidden Indexicals false proposition. Represented as ‘[Every x: table in D(x)]NOT(x is in D),’ to be true, it would have to be true of every table in D that it is false that it is in D. Though not knockout punches, the accretion of these counterintuitions succeeds in clarifying commitments inherited from adopting the hidden indexical account.6 Each of these various cases appeals to speaker intuitions, but these intuitions seem no less firm than whatever other intuitions were supposed to have motivated the hidden indexical account in the first place.

Screening Off A hidden indexicalist might protest that these alleged troublesome interpretations are never available. Perhaps a policy of screening off is in place, thereby excluding any contextually determined domain that is explicitly referenced in a predicate (or elsewhere). So, for example, take domain D – if explicitly referenced by an utterance of (24), it is screened off as a candidate domain restriction. (24) Every table is in domain D. This constraint is supposed to preempt contextual domain restrictions that would render some seemingly contingent sentences as expressing necessarily true or false propositions. Any domain referenced, or expressed, explicitly is thereby rendered contextually irrelevant, at least for the purposes of restricting an underspecified quantifier. If this ploy can be made to work, then what’s expressed with (24) cannot be what would be expressed with (24¢), but, perhaps, instead what would be expressed with (25). (24¢) Every table in domain D is in domain D. (25) Every table in domain E is in domain D. Contextually supplementing a token of ‘every table’ by indexing, say, a domain E secures uniqueness without rendering an utterance of (24), relative to the same assumptions, as expressing a necessity.

6 Of course, our intuition is also that we cannot express with an utterance of ‘Every table is in domain D’ a necessarily false proposition. But what prevents, on semantic grounds alone, a restriction from issuing in a proposition that expresses what ‘Every table in domain E is in domain D’ would, with nonintersecting domains indexed? That is to say, what prevents the restricted domain of the utterance from being the most contextually salient domain?

81

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism Whatever can be said in favor of screening off surely reflects nothing more than handy wisdom about the pragmatics of sound interpretation, and nothing about semantics. For how can semantics prohibit an explicitly referenced domain from also being the most contextually salient domain restriction?7 With uses of quantifier expressions, as ‘Every table in domain D,’ an explicitly referenced domain is typically also contextually salient. Indeed, why can’t a speaker stipulate beforehand that she wants a certain domain (and that domain alone) to be the most contextually salient domain of our conversation, and then proceed with (24)? Even in such circumstances, we presume, what she expresses is not, in any sense, rendered necessary. Furthermore, even if some sort of screening off strategy could be made to work in the simple cases we have been discussing – though we don’t see how – it wouldn’t help to avoid counterintuitive consequences for more complicated cases. Contexts may or may not be accurately representable as sequences of items which context sensitive expressions can take as semantic values (·speaker, addressee, time, place, topic of discourse, perceptually salient objects, etc.Ò),8 but we presume it’s not controversial that in any given context at most finitely many domains are salient. Let C be an ordering ·a1, a2, . . . , anÒ of every salient domain, and then try to denote a table with a use of a sentence of form (26), (26) Every table j(i), where ‘i’ indexes a domain of C, and ‘j’ specifies the predicate of which ‘i’ is a constituent. ‘j(i),’ for example, might be ‘is domain D,’ etc. None of these envisaged instances of (26) seems to express a necessary truth (or falsehood) in C, yet counterparts of form (27) can: (27) Every table (i1) j1(i2) (as would ‘Every table in domain D is in domain D,’ ‘Every table in domain E is in domain D,’ and so on). Suppose, because ‘i2’ occurs in the predicate in (26), it follows that distinct contextually salient domains must be indexed by ‘i1’ and ‘i2’ in (27). But consider a new sentence with enough disjoined predicates such that each item in C can be picked out by a distinct index, as in (28). 7 Or worse, hearkening back to the last footnote, the screening off strategy would somehow have to be made to work so as to prohibit internal incoherence, as with ‘Every table in E is in D’ (where E and D are nonintersecting domains). 8 Montague (1974); Kaplan (1989); and Lewis (1970).

82

Digressions: Binding and Hidden Indexicals (28) Every table j1(i2) or j2(i3) or . . . jm(in). According to the hidden indexical proposals, an utterance of (28) expresses in C what (28¢) would. (28¢) Every table (i1) is j1(i2) or j2(i3) or . . . jm(in). But then (28), which expresses a seemingly contingent claim about the contextually salient setting of what, if anything, ‘the table’ denotes, has been transformed into a sentence which in that same contextual setting has a (nearly) necessary reading, without a possibility of further screening off. That we can devise such sentences might convince you something is fundamentally wrong with the hidden indexical account.

Conclusion As we noted at the beginning of this chapter, whether the Binding Argument is sound or not (in any given case) in no way can establish the presence of semantic context sensitivity. Just the same, the argument has attracted enough attention that we thought it worthwhile to refute. Having done so, we return to the chief topics of this book, the adequacy of Radical Contextualism. After having established in Chapters 3–5 that Moderate Contextualism is unstable, a view that inevitably slips into Radical Contextualism, in the next few chapters we will discuss and argue for, first, its empirical inadequacy and then its internal incoherence.

83

PART II

Refutation of Radical Contextualism

CHAPTER 7

Objections to Radical Contextualism (I): Fails Context Sensitivity Tests

Intuitions are the contextualist’s bread and butter. The literature is chock full of tales about various people who for various reasons under diverse circumstances utter the same sentence with different imagined audiences but shared environments. We, as readers, are invited to tap into our intuitions about these stories; and reflection on our intuitions is supposed to convince us of the truth of RC. There’s a sense, therefore, in which RC is an empirical thesis, based as it is on a variety of contingent features about human psychology, in particular, based on the contingent fact that we happen to have certain intuitions.1 The central objection that Radical Contextualists run against Semantic Minimalism is that it disrespects these intuitions. Our response is that Semantic Minimalism is both sufficiently attentive and adequately respectful of our actual linguistic practices. RC, on the contrary, we’ll argue, is the true culprit; it is radically empirically inadequate. The Radical Contextualist’s seduction works only on someone whose focus is on an astonishingly limited range of communicative acts. As soon as one tries to accommodate a wider range of data, RC runs into insurmountable empirical obstacles. To establish our critical point, we will focus on three obvious (but overlooked – at least overlooked by Radical Contextualists) tests of context sensitivity. These three tests all have the form: An expression e is context sensitive only if competent speakers have certain intuitions about uses of certain sorts of sen-

1 We don’t mean anything particularly loaded by our use of ‘empirical.’ We mean only that it is a contingent fact that we have the said intuitions. We need to check that we have them. In this manner the push for RC is a form of experimentation. For those who want to call intuition mongering nonempirical, feel free to do so; we have no attachment to the word ‘empirical’ or any more general philosophical assumptions about empiricality. Our critical points stick regardless of whether they are categorized as empirical or not.

87

Refutation of Radical Contextualism tences containing e. These tests appeal to fundamental features of linguistic communication, each incompatible with RC. One more preliminary: MC is a view with much greater currency than RC. Hardly any contemporary philosopher rejects MC. Therefore, it is crucial for us to register that we could just as well have run our objections in this chapter directly against MC. We opted not to do so, because, as already established in Chapters 3 and 5, MC collapses into RC. If, however, for some reason you think we failed, simply apply the objections in this chapter directly to MC itself. One final preliminary: At the end of this chapter we have included two important appendices. In the first, ‘Contextual Salience Absorption,’ we respond to a reply we speculate contextualists might make to the entire line of reasoning in this chapter (we’ve put in an appendix since we’ve never actually seen this response in print). In the second, ‘Diagnosis: Monsters and Use–Mention Fallacies,’ we present an equally speculative account of why contextualists tend to ignore, overlook, dismiss, etc. the kinds of tests we appeal to in this chapter. The rest of this chapter has three parts structured around the three tests. We present each test, show why we think RC doesn’t pass it, and respond to some potential replies.

Test 1: An Expression is Context Sensitive Only if it Typically Blocks Inter-Contextual Disquotational Indirect Reports ‘Inter-Contextual Disquotational Indirect Reports’ is just an ugly term for the following fairly obvious phenomenon: Take an utterance u of a sentence S by speaker A in context C. An Inter-Contextual Disquotational Indirect Report of u is an utterance u¢ in a context C¢ (where C¢ π C) of ‘A said that S.’2 Put intuitively, we suggest using such reports to test for context sensitivity as follows: If the occurrence of an expression e in a sentence tends to block disquotational indirect reports (i.e., render such reports false), then you have evidence that e is context sensitive. Take the first person pronoun ‘I.’ Sentences containing ‘I’ cannot be disquotationally indirectly reported (except by self-reporters); utterances of ‘now’ cannot be disquotationally

2 Of course, uttered as a report of u (if you want to make that explicit in the report just add ‘by uttering u’ after ‘S’).

88

Objections to Radical Contextualism (I) reported (except by simultaneous reporters); utterances containing the demonstrative expression ‘that’ cannot be disquotationally reported (except by co-demonstrating reporters), and so on for the other members of the Basic Set. This provides the basis for the following test. Suppose you suspect, or at least want to ascertain whether, e is context sensitive. Take an utterance u of a sentence S containing e in context C. Let C¢ be a context relevantly different from C (i.e., different according to the standards significant according to contextualists about e). If there’s a true disquotational* indirect report of u in C¢, then that’s evidence S is context insensitive. (To be ‘disquotational*’ just means you can adjust the semantic values of components of S that are generally recognized as context sensitive, i.e., we just test for the controversial components.) If this exercise sounds confusing, it shouldn’t. Take an obviously context sensitive expression, e.g., take ‘tomorrow.’ Consider an utterance by Rupert on Tuesday of ‘John will go to Paris tomorrow.’ If someone tries to report on Wednesday what Rupert said with his utterance on Tuesday with an utterance of ‘Rupert said that John will go to Paris tomorrow,’ his report is false because the expression ‘tomorrow’ fails to pick out what it picked out in Rupert’s original utterance. The presence of ‘tomorrow’ in the disquotational report figures prominently in an explanation of why the report is false. Real context sensitive expressions block Inter-Contextual Disquotational* Indirect Reports. By definition, for e to be context sensitive is for e to shift its semantic value from one context of utterance to another. So, if e is context sensitive and Rupert uses e in context C, and Lepore uses it in context C¢, and the relevant contextual features change, then it will be just an accident if their uses of e end up with the same semantic value. In particular, if Lepore finds himself in a context other than Rupert’s and wants to utter a sentence that matches the semantic content of Rupert’s utterance of a sentence with e, he can’t use e, i.e., he can’t report Rupert’s utterance disquotationally. All the expressions in the Basic Set block Inter-Contextual Disquotational Indirect Reports. This can easily be verified; a couple of additional illustrations should suffice: Illustration 1 Utterance made by George Bush, June 3, 2003: ‘I wasn’t ready yesterday.’ Indirect report by Lepore, June 5, 2003: ‘Bush said that I wasn’t ready yesterday.’ Lepore’s report is false because his use of ‘I’ and ‘yesterday’ fail to pick out the person and the day Bush picked out using those same words. These 89

Refutation of Radical Contextualism words are such that they don’t support Inter-Contextual Disquotational* Indirect Reports. Illustration 2 Utterance made by Lepore: ‘You should wear that’ (where Justine is the contextually salient audience and a blue hat is being demonstrated). Indirect report by Cappelen: ‘Lepore said that you should wear that’ in a context where Ludlow is the contextually salient audience and a pair of sandals are being demonstrated. Again, this report fails because Cappelen’s use of the words ‘you’ and ‘that’ pick out something other than what those same words picked out in Lepore’s utterance. These words are such that they don’t support InterContextual Disquotational* Indirect Reports. More generally, none of the expressions in the Basic Set supports InterContextual Disquotational* Indirect Reports. Objection 1 to RC: RC postulates context sensitivity for expressions that do not pass the Inter-Contextual Disquotational Indirect Report Test We’re in a particular context now; we’re in a café on 5th Street in New York City between Avenues A and B; it’s one of those hot and muggy New York summer evenings, the lights are out, and we’re drinking iced tea (look, we’re not the ones who think any of this is relevant; we’re just trying to humor Radical Contextualists by providing ‘relevant’ data). Call our context 5stC. In 5stC we’re engaging in one of the Radical Contextualist’s favorite pastimes: we’re cooking up thought experiments involving distinct utterances of a single sentence under diverse circumstances. We’re thinking about different utterances of ‘John is ready.’3 We’re imagining the following two contexts of utterance of (1): (1) John is ready. Context of Utterance C1. In a conversation about exam preparation, someone raises the question of whether John is well prepared. Nina utters (1). Context of Utterance C2. Three people are about to leave an apartment; they are getting dressed for heavy rain. Nina utters (1). 3 We’re using this example because it provides the best case possible for contextualism. If they can’t even show that ‘John is ready’ is context sensitive, we doubt that they have a better chance with any other sentence.

90

Objections to Radical Contextualism (I) Here’s a pretty obvious fact: whichever of these contexts of utterance we consider, no matter how dissimilar you think they are from each other, each of your utterances can still be reported disquotationally. To ensure this is utterly obvious, we’ll right now engage in actual speech acts; the indented sentences below represent actual utterances by us in 5stC. These are acts in which we are describing the two utterances of (1) by Nina; in (1.1) we report on her utterance in C1, in (1.2) her utterance in C2: (1.1) Nina said that John is ready. (1.2) Nina said that John is ready. (1.3) In both C1 and C2, Nina said that John is ready. Two features of our exercise are particularly significant. First, it’s our intuition that all three of these reports are true. Second, we can say that all three reports are true in this context, i.e., in 5stC. Sitting here in a café on 5th Street between Avenues A and B in New York City, sipping on our ice tea, we can accurately disquotationally report what Nina said in contexts C1–C2. Note that these contexts are not only different from each other, they are also each radically different from 5stC. And this isn’t some weird fact we have pulled out of our hats to refute RC. It’s completely trivial, obvious, and ubiquitous. Here’s a bold conjecture: For any utterance of (1), we can utter ‘The speaker said that John is ready’ and utter something true. (1.1)–(1.3) illustrate two fundamental problems for contextualism: 1 According to RC, the two utterances of (1) assert (say, claim) radically different propositions. What each says depends on features specific to their contexts of utterance. How, then, is it that we are now able to use in 5stC an utterance of ‘She said that John was ready’ to describe accurately and literally what she said in those different contexts? That shouldn’t be possible if RC is right. For, if RC is right, the proposition expressed by an utterance of (1) (as it occurs in the complement clauses of (1.1)–(1.3)) in 5stC should be shaped by features specific to 5stC, and we have no reason to think that these features match the contextual features relevant in the original utterance. More specifically, we have no reason to think those change between uttering (1.1) and (1.2) so that the content changes appropriately. In other words, contextualism cannot account for this most fundamental feature of linguistic communication. 2 According to RC, the two utterances of (1) that we report on express radically different propositions. If so, (1.3) should be impossible. The complement clause of (1.3) cannot express more than a single proposition. If (1.3) is true, then both the imagined utterances of (1) said (or expressed) the proposition expressed by (1) as it occurs in the complement clause of that report. 91

Refutation of Radical Contextualism It is worth pointing out here that this data indicates that a single proposition is expressed by all these utterances. We’ll later suggest that this might be the proposition which, according to Semantic Minimalism, is semantically expressed. More on that possibility in Part III of this book. We hope it’s obvious that our point has nothing to do specifically with features peculiar to the examples involving utterances of (1). Just to clinch this point, we’ll provide an additional example. (Feel free to skip it if it’s obvious to you how to generalize from (1).) Bezuidenhout’s writings on RC provide an excellent source of data; one of her many examples, one we used in Chapter 3, involves her and her son discussing red apples. (By the way, just reread the previous sentence and you’ve got the point we’re about to make.) Here’s a slightly revised version of her example: Context of Utterance C1. We’re at a county fair sorting through a barrel of apples. The apples are sorted into different bags according to the color of their skin. Some have green skin; others have red skin. Anne utters: (2) The apple is red. Context of Utterance C2. We’re sorting through a barrel of apples to identify and discard those afflicted with a horrible fungal disease. This fungus grows out from the core and stains the flesh of the apple red. One of us is slicing apples open, placing the good ones into a cooking pot. The bad ones are tossed. Cutting open an apple Anne again utters (2). We are still on 5th Street. We’re thinking about what Anne said in C1 and in C2. Here’s what we think about C1: (2.1) Anne said that the apple was red. This is what we think about C2: (2.2) Anne said that the apple was red. Come to think about it: (2.3) Both in C1 and in C2, Anne said that the apple was red. Elaboration on the kinds of contexts that support Inter-Contextual Disquotational Indirect Reports The examples of true indirect reports discussed in the previous section constitute an objection to contextualism in part because the context that the 92

Objections to Radical Contextualism (I) report is made in is relevantly different from the context of the reported utterance. We want to draw your attention to four important kinds of differences between the reporting context and the reported context: Basic differences between contexts. The point of our short description of 5stC was just to point out that the context we found ourselves in when reporting on (1) and (2) was different from the original context of utterance in a whole range of potentially important respects. Compare 5stC and the context Anne found herself in when talking to her son about red apples. Those contexts differ at least in the following respects: perceptual inputs, accompanying activities, previous conversational context, purpose of conversation, nature of audience, and assumptions shared by conversational participants. Reports under ignorance. Sometimes the person reporting on an utterance might be ignorant of the relevant contextual features of the original context of utterance; that is, someone uttering (2.1) might not know what Anne had in mind in the original context of utterance. The reporter might not know whether Anne cared about the inside or the outside of the apple, whether she looked at the apple through sunglasses or under water. That ignorance, however, needn’t influence the truth value of the indirect report. Reports under indifference. This is a variation on reports under ignorance, but deserves separate mention. Someone can utter ‘A said that Rudolf is red’ in a context where no kind of redness is salient. It’s what we’ll call an indifferent context. Such contexts differ from some ignorant contexts, since in some ‘ignorant’ contexts, the speakers care about what the relevant features are; they just don’t know what they are. Indifference need not influence the truth value of disquotational indirect reports. Reports based on mistaken assumptions. Sometimes the reporter has false beliefs about the original context of utterance. The speaker of (2.1) might believe that in the original context of utterance redness on the inside when seen through sunglasses was salient. Suppose he’s wrong. What was salient was redness on the inside when seen without sunglasses. Such false beliefs need not influence the truth value of the disquotational indirect report. It might be useful to pause here for a moment and compare the effects on indirect reports of the controversial cases of context sensitivity (i.e., those discussed above and in more detail below) to the effects of real context sensitive expressions (i.e., members of the Basic Set, e.g., ‘I,’ ‘that,’ ‘now,’ etc.). Consider, for example, an utterance of ‘That’s a nice one.’ If someone overheard this utterance, but did not know what was demonstrated, one of four things would typically happen: 93

Refutation of Radical Contextualism











The potential reporter might say, I don’t know what he said, since I don’t know what was demonstrated. She might do some investigation, i.e., try to find out what was demonstrated and, if the investigation was successful, then indirectly report. She might provide a direct quote, i.e., say: ‘She said “That’s a nice one.” ’ She might say something like ‘She said some demonstrated object was nice.’

This contrasts radically with what we would do if we overheard, e.g., ‘A is red’ uttered in a context where we didn’t know what ‘kind’ of redness was in question (i.e., whether the speaker intended to describe A as red when washed, scrubbed, painted, red on the inside or outside, etc.). As pointed out above, in such cases we do not (typically) find it problematic to report the utterance with: She said that A is red. (Same point applies to the other expressions discussed above.) Notice, for example, you never hear people say things like: ‘She said that A is red for some contextually salient way of being red.’

More illustrations of allegedly context sensitive expressions that fail the Inter-Contextual Disquotational Indirect Report Test We venture the following daring hypothesis: Every instance of an allegedly context sensitive expression that is not a member of the Basic Set fails this test. What we will now do is simply report on our own intuitions involving disquotational indirect reports. Consider the claims below, in part, as reports of our own intuitions, and in part, as hypotheses susceptible to falsification. These are test cases for the various contextualist claims that have been made (and documented in Chapter 2) about knowledge, moral and psychological attributions, about the context sensitivity of ordinary nominals, attributive and comparative adjectives, about weather and temporal reports, about possessive constructions, about quantifier expressions, about ‘ready’ and ‘enough,’ geometrical expressions, and various modal constructions. We are keeping an open mind on all these cases, and it is certainly possible that someone can devise a scenario in which these predictions fail (and we can’t explain why they fail), but here is how we see things for the time being. (In all these cases assume that the indirect report takes place in a context that’s relevantly different from the original utterance.4) 4 i.e., they differ with respect to whatever features the contextualist thinks determine content.

94

Objections to Radical Contextualism (I) (Know) Any utterance of ‘A knows that he has a hand’ can be reported by ‘She said that A knows that he has a hand’ and any two such utterances can be reported by ‘They both said that A knows that he has a hand.’ (Believes) Any utterance of ‘A believes that B is shady’ can be reported by ‘She said that A believes that B is shady’ and any two such utterances can be reported by ‘They both said that A believes that B is shady.’ (Nominals (i.e., Stanley’s (2002b) view), e.g., penguin) Any utterance of ‘Penguins have soft beaks’ can be reported by ‘She said that penguins have soft beaks’ and any two such utterances can be reported by ‘They both said that penguins have soft beaks.’ (Adjectives in general, e.g., blue) Any utterance of ‘Jackie has blue eyes’ can be reported by ‘She said that Jackie has blue eyes’ and any two such utterances can be reported by ‘They both said that Jackie has blue eyes.’ (Quantifiers, e.g., There is at least one) Any utterance of ‘There is at least one duck in Norway’ can be reported by ‘She said that there is at least one duck in Norway’ and any two such utterances can be reported by ‘They both said that there is at least one duck in Norway.’ (Enough) Any utterance of ‘Steel isn’t strong enough’ can be reported by ‘She said that steel isn’t strong enough’ and any two such utterances can be reported by ‘They both said that steel isn’t strong enough.’ (Possessives) Any utterance of ‘Rudolf’s penguin is happy’ can be reported by ‘She said that Rudolf’s penguin is happy’ and any two such utterances can be reported by ‘They both said that Rudolf’s penguin is happy.’ (Comparative adjectives, e.g., tall) Any utterance of ‘A is tall’ can be reported by ‘She said that A is tall’ and any two such utterances can be reported by ‘They both said that A is tall.’ (Moral terms, e.g., bad) Any utterance of ‘Killing penguins is bad’ can be reported by ‘She said that killing penguins is bad’ and any two such utterances can be reported by ‘They both said that killing penguins is bad.’ 95

Refutation of Radical Contextualism (Geometrical terms, e.g., hexagonal) Any utterance of ‘France is hexagonal’ can be reported by ‘She said that France is hexagonal’ and any two such utterances can be reported by ‘They both said that France is hexagonal.’ (Modals, e.g., could have, would have) Any utterance of ‘If Oswald hadn’t shot Kennedy, someone else would have’ can be reported by ‘She said that if Oswald hadn’t shot Kennedy, someone else would have’ and any two such utterances can be reported by ‘They both said that if Oswald hadn’t shot Kennedy, someone else would have.’ (Weather reports, e.g., It’s raining) Any utterance of ‘It’s raining’ can be reported by ‘She said that it’s raining’ and any two such utterances can be reported by ‘They both said that it’s raining.’ (Temporal reports, e.g., It’s three p.m.) Any utterance of ‘It’s three p.m.’ can be reported by ‘She said that it’s three p.m.’ and any two such utterances can be reported by ‘They both said that it’s three p.m.’ The main point of these illustrations is that if you agree with the data, then you are endorsing our objection against any contextualist about the expressions just discussed: Inter-Contextual Disquotational Indirect Reports, though perfectly natural and ubiquitous, are inexplicable on the assumption that RC (or some version of MC that extends to any of these above cases) is true. The challenge is to explain away or challenge this data (or show that the test is no good). (Keep in mind, though, that in order to do that a single counterexample is not enough. We present these claims as generalizations about all utterances of various sentences because that’s what we believe, but this generalization is not essential to our objection. If a Radical (or Moderate) Contextualist agrees that there are some true reports of these kinds, then she has a problem. There should be no such readings according to RC or MC.5) Here are several responses we imagine a contextualist might tender.

5 Here’s a guess: whatever technical apparatus is introduced to account for the cases you can hear will be powerful enough to account for the cases you allegedly can’t hear. That is to say, in order for a theory to account for the disquotational reports you agree with us on, you’ll end up introducing apparatus that’s powerful enough to account for the readings you disagree with us about. If that is so, then it’ll turn out to be surprising if we couldn’t get all the readings we can get. You’ll in effect be committed to the semantic possibility of even the ‘strange’ ones, and what’ll end up being strange is that you can’t hear them.

96

Objections to Radical Contextualism (I)

Reply 1: The indirect reports are false The first reply goes like this: ‘It’s just not true that these utterances can be so reported. The indirect reports are all false. She didn’t say that John was ready and they didn’t both say that John was ready. (Anne didn’t say that both apples were red.)’ Our reply. The objection should be made more fine grained. With respect to (1.1), (1.2), (2.1), and (2.2), we’re quite confident that nonbiased introspection supports our estimation of the facts. We’re equally sure that the collective reports, those in (1.3) and (2.3), have overwhelming foundation in our practice of indirect reporting. There might be contexts in which they are less natural, but all we need for our point to stick is that there are contexts in which they seem perfectly natural. That is what we wholeheartedly believe. It is an empirical claim and it seems to us to be almost obviously true. As we see it, this is a cornerstone of our communicative practices, namely, the idea that two or more people said the same thing. Reply 2: There’s an abstract content that they all have in common We can imagine two versions of this reply. According to the first, all utterances of ‘John is ready’ express a very abstract proposition, namely, the proposition that John is ready for something or other. That’s why they can all be reported in 5stC. That’s also why it makes sense to collectively report them by ‘They all said that John is ready.’ So, the idea is to just find something very abstract that they all have in common, and that abstract property is what’s attributed to John by all these utterances. It should be obvious that this is not a view available to a Radical Contextualist. It is, in effect, the denial of RC. RC is the view that what’s said is a richer content, to wit, a content specific to the context of utterance. To endorse the view that the said-content is this abstract proposition is in effect to relinquish RC. It’s to endorse Semantic Minimalism (except that our view is not that all utterances of ‘John is ready’ express the proposition that John is ready for something or other, but rather that they all express the proposition that John is ready, and we don’t want to characterize this proposition as abstract – see Part III). A revised version might be this: Well, one of the propositions expressed by any utterance of ‘John is ready’ is the abstract proposition. Then other propositions are expressed too. These other propositions are specific to the context of utterance. We would be more than happy if the Radical Contextualist proffered this reply. We say: Welcome to Semantic Minimalism and (a version of) Speech 97

Refutation of Radical Contextualism Act Pluralism, i.e., to endorse this view is to accept (a version of) our view, so we strongly encourage this move.

Reply 3: ‘What’s said’ doesn’t track content/propositions expressed The Radical Contextualist might respond: ‘Look, all this evidence is based on intuitions we have about indirect reports and those intuitions are notoriously unreliable. Even if we can do weird stuff in indirect reports, that’s no evidence of the content expressed by the utterance reported. There’s a sharp distinction between how we think about what utterances say, and what the real content of those utterances is. Evidence based on what’s said doesn’t support conclusions about which propositions were expressed in the original contexts of utterance.’ It will become clear below (Chapter 13) that we endorse a version of this view. It is, however, not a reply available to the Radical Contextualist. Without appeals to intuitions about what’s said by utterances, there’s no basis for RC and no basis for their alleged evidence against Semantic Minimalism. Radical Contextualists are the ones who base their arguments on intuitions about what speakers say and about what’s said by utterances. They are the ones who think intuitions about what speakers say should be captured. They are the ones who think Semantic Minimalism fails precisely because it fails to account accurately for what speakers say. (See Chapter 2 for textual evidence.) If they give up such appeals, we have no idea how anyone could argue for RC and against Semantic Minimalism. (It is sometimes suggested to us that Radical Contextualists do not need to rely on intuitions about what utterances say, and instead rely on direct intuitions about the truth value (or truth conditions) of utterances. Our brief response is threefold: First, as a matter of exegesis this is not true. See Chapter 2. All the arguments that we have encountered for RC are based on intuitions about what speakers say. Second, we don’t know what it is to have intuitions about the truth value of utterances as such. If we are asked to have intuitions not about what an utterance says, asserts, claims, etc. but just about its truth value, we are at a loss. Third, if someone claims to have such intuitions, we would like to know why they are not supportive of Semantic Minimalism, i.e., if we were to encounter someone who claims to have intuitions just about the truth conditions of an utterance of ‘John is ready’ or ‘The apple is red’ (and not the truth conditions of what is said by such an utterance), he would have to explain to us why those truth conditions are not just that John is ready or that the apple is red.

98

Objections to Radical Contextualism (I)

Reply 4: ‘Said that’ is context sensitive The Radical Contextualist might say: ‘Whether or not such indirect reports are true depends on the context of the report. In some contexts, a disquotational report of an utterance u might be acceptable, but in other contexts not. It all depends on the context of utterance for the report.’ This might be true (we argued for a view like this (1997) and discuss it further in Chapter 13), but even if it is, it has no bearing on the present issue. All we are claiming is that Anne said that the apple was red. If what we said by the previous sentence is true, and it is, then that settles the matter. Suppose there are contexts in which ‘Anne said that the apple was red’ is false (we are not saying there are such contexts, but suppose). All we need is that it is true that Anne said that the apple was red. That’s it. We turn now to our second test for context sensitivity.

Test 2: Context Sensitive Expressions Block Collective Descriptions If a verb phrase v is context sensitive (i.e., if it changes its semantic value from one context of use to another), then on the basis of merely knowing that there are two contexts of utterance in which ‘A v-s’ and ‘B v-s’ are true respectively, we cannot automatically infer that there is a context in which ‘v’ can be used to describe what A and B have both done. In short, from there being contexts of utterance in which ‘A v-s’ and ‘B v-s’ are true it doesn’t follow that there is a true utterance of ‘A and B both v.’ This is because the semantic value of ‘v’ in the previous sentence is determined in one context, and we have no guarantee that that semantic value, whatever it is, ‘captures’ (whatever that means) the semantic values of ‘v’ in those contexts of utterance where they were used solo. On the other hand, if for a range of true utterances of the form ‘A v-s’ and ‘B v-s’ we obviously can describe what they all have in common by using ‘v’ (i.e., by using ‘A and B v’), then that’s evidence in favor of the view that ‘v’ in these different utterances has the same semantic content, and hence, is not context sensitive.6 A parallel point extends to singular terms. 6 The argument can be summarized as follows: If ‘v’ is a context sensitive term, then its semantic value can change from one utterance to another. So, ‘A v-s’ and ‘B v-s’ might attribute different properties to A and B. But it doesn’t follow that ‘v’ can be used to describe what A and B share. Maybe by chance someone might be able to use ‘v’ in some context to refer to a property they both share, but that would be a coincidence. In other words: e is context sensitive only if there’s no guarantee of collective usage. Suppose there were a guarantee of collective usage, then a use of ‘v’ in one context would ‘denote’ (have as its semantic value) what all other utterances of ‘v’ denote and we would be guaranteed collective descriptions.

99

Refutation of Radical Contextualism If a singular term N is context insensitive and there’s a range of true utterances of the form ‘N is F’ and ‘N is G,’ then we, for example, in this context, can truly utter ‘N is F and G.’ If, however, N is context sensitive, we shouldn’t be able to do this. As an illustration consider the context sensitive ‘yesterday’: Suppose we know there are two contexts in which ‘Yesterday John left’ and ‘Yesterday Bill left’ are true respectively (though we don’t know the times of these contexts). It doesn’t follow that there is a context in which ‘Yesterday John and Bill left’ is true. Again, all of the expressions we list as members of the Basic Set pass this test of collectivity. We won’t bore the reader with more illustrations, so we leave these thought experiments as homework.

Objection 2 to RC: RC postulates context sensitivity that fails the Collective Descriptions Test We first present you with two circumstances involving Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones. We then ask you to think about how Smith and Jones are to be properly (i.e., truly) described. Circumstance 1. Smith, who is an astronaut, steps out of his spacecraft onto a new and unexplored planet. As usual, he has brought his extremely accurate scale with him (he does that since he’s curious about gravitation). The first thing he does is step onto it, in full astronaut outfit, and it registers ‘80 kg.’ His fellow astronauts look at him, and utter: ‘Smith weighs 80 kg.’ Circumstance 2. Jones is at home on earth, it’s morning, he’s naked, he hasn’t had breakfast, but he did go to the bathroom, and now he steps onto an extremely accurate scale. It shows ‘80 kg.’ His friends gleefully exclaim ‘Jones weighs 80 kg.’ Consider the following facts about how we, and, we assume, every other competent English speaker, would describe these circumstances. (Note: The objection we are running focuses on how we would describe Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones in these two circumstances; not how we would describe what people say in these contexts, and not what we would have and could have said in these circumstances.) We’re interested in how we (i.e., C&L) can actually now, in this one context, describe the facts. Here’s the description that we find natural of Circumstance 1: (C1) Smith weighs 80 kg. Here’s a description of Circumstance 2 that we also find natural: 100

Objections to Radical Contextualism (I) (C2) Jones weighs 80 kg. It is also true that: (C3) Both Smith and Jones weigh 80 kg. Our objection should by now be obvious: RC postulates context sensitivity in cases where collective descriptions are perfectly natural, contrary to what’s demanded by the Collective Descriptions Test. In particular, RC cannot explain how the utterance (C3) above follows from the truth of the two stories we told about Smith and Jones. RC proponents claim that the truth conditions for utterances of ‘Smith weighs 80 kg’ and ‘Jones weighs 80 kg’ vary between contexts of utterance, that they semantically express different propositions contingent upon the peculiarities of the context of utterance. But if all of the circumstances of evaluation that make these distinct utterances true (that make the propositions semantically expressed true) are ones in which Smith and Jones weigh 80 kg, then the RC claim is false. The truth of (C3) provides evidence that all utterances, e.g., of ‘Smith weighs 80 kg,’ are true just in case Smith weighs 80 kg; and that all such utterances semantically express the same proposition, namely, that Smith weighs 80 kg. Ditto for ‘Jones weighs 80 kg.’7

More illustrations of expressions that fail the Collective Descriptions Test Again, our intuitions involving collective descriptions are inconsistent with RC (and MC) across the board. The collectivity test as formulated above

7 A related test for context sensitivity concerns the fact that context sensitive expressions have fixed interpretations in Verb Phrase ellipsis (or VP-ellipsis). In the following sentences Frank likes my mother, and Bob does too. George lives near you, and so does Bill. Frank bought this, and Martha did too. there are no available interpretations where Frank and Bob like different people, or George and Bill live near different people, or Frank and Martha bought different things. Obviously, noncontext sensitive expressions do not exhibit this feature, as in John bought a car, and so did Bill. Nothing in the meaning of this sentence requires that it be the same car that John and Bill bought. With this understanding of context sensitivity we can see that we get the same results as with the collective readings for the troublesome cases. In the circumstances described above we can infer (C4) Smith weighs 80 kg and Jones does too.

101

Refutation of Radical Contextualism applies to verb phrases and noun phrases, and, to our ears, none of the verb or noun phrases alleged to be nonobviously context sensitive by RC (and MC) pass the Collective Descriptions Test for context sensitivity (again, we simply report on our intuitions here, and encourage readers to come up with counterexamples to change our minds): (Know) If there is a true utterance of ‘A knows that he has a hand’ in context of utterance C, and another true utterance of ‘B knows that he has a hand’ in relevantly different context C¢, the following collective description is perfectly natural: ‘Both A and B know that they have hands’ and, as the VP-ellipsis Test (see note 7) suggests, so is ‘A knows that she has hands, and B does too.’ (Believes) If there is a true utterance of ‘A believes that B is shady’ in context of utterance C, and relevantly different true utterance of ‘C believes that B is shady’ in relevantly different context C¢, the following collective description is perfectly natural: ‘Both A and C believe that B is shady,’ and, as the VP-ellipsis Test suggests, so is ‘A believes that C is shady, and B does too.’ (Nominals (i.e., Stanley’s (2002b) view), e.g., penguin) If there is a true utterance of ‘Penguins are happy’ in context of utterance C, and another true utterance of ‘Penguins are lazy’ in a relevantly different context C¢, then the following collective description is perfectly natural: ‘Penguins are both lazy and happy,’ and, as the VP-ellipsis Test suggests, so is ‘Penguins are happy, and lazy too.’8 It’s fairly obvious how to extend the test so it applies to adjectives and adverbs: 8 Interestingly enough, Stanley (2003a) invokes the VP-ellipsis Test himself in arguing against contextualists about vague predicates, e.g., Soames (1999), Kamp (1981), and Raffman (1994, 1996). What’s especially interesting is that it looks to us as if the VP-ellipsis Test does not go the way Stanley should want it to go given his comments on domain specification. Recall that according to Stanley and Szabó (2000a) quantifier expressions like ‘a store’ should index different domain restrictions in different contexts of utterance, i.e., they are supposed to be context sensitive. Yet under VP-ellipsis their interpretation does not seem fixed. So, for example, in the sentence John went to a store, and so did Bill we feel no compulsion to restrict the domain of quantification of ‘a store’ elliptic in the second conjunct to the same one as the one that occurs (explicitly) in the first conjunct. The first might be restricted to stores in New Jersey, or car stores, or whatever; and the second may be restricted to anything whatsoever.

102

Objections to Radical Contextualism (I) (Adjectives in general, e.g., blue) If there is a true utterance of ‘Jackie has blue shoes’ in context of utterance C, and another true utterance of ‘Jackie has blue sunglasses’ in a relevantly different context C¢, then the following collective description is perfectly natural: ‘Jackie has blue shoes and sunglasses.’ (Geometrical terms, e.g., hexagonal) If there is a true utterance of ‘France is hexagonal’ in context of utterance C, and another true utterance of ‘Berlin is hexagonal’ in a relevantly different context C¢, then the following collective descriptions are perfectly natural: ‘France and Berlin are both hexagonal’ and, as the VP-ellipsis Test suggests, so is ‘France is hexagonal and so is Berlin.’ (Comparative adjectives, e.g., tall) If there is a true utterance of ‘Mount Everest is tall’ in a context of utterance C, and another true utterance of ‘The Empire State Building is tall’ in a relevantly different context C¢, then the following collective description is perfectly natural: ‘Mount Everest and the Empire State Building are both tall,’ and, as the VP-ellipsis Test suggests, so is ‘Mount Everest is tall, and the Empire State Building is too.’ (Enough) If there is a true utterance of ‘Jackie has had enough’ in a context of utterance C, and another true utterance of ‘Jill has had enough’ in a relevantly different context C¢, then the following collective description is perfectly natural: ‘Both Jill and Jackie have had enough’ and, as the VP-ellipsis Test suggests, so is ‘Jackie has had enough, and Jill too.’ (Possessives) If there is a true utterance of ‘Jill’s daughter is happy’ in a context of utterance C, and another true utterance of ‘Jill’s dog is happy’ in a relevantly different context C¢, then the following collective description is perfectly natural: ‘Jill’s dog and daughter are happy.’ It is considerably more difficult to extend these tests to quantifier expressions, in part because there’s a great deal of dispute about where exactly to locate the allegedly context sensitive component of a quantifier expression. Some posit a context sensitive argument place attached to the nominal (Stanley and Szabó 2000a), some claim it is in the quantifier itself (Westerståhl 1989). The former option has been tested for above (we have shown that nominals don’t pass the test); the latter is difficult to test for since some collective readings are blocked for simple logical reasons. But here is an intuitive instance of the test extended to a quantifier expression. 103

Refutation of Radical Contextualism Consider the view that ‘at least two’ is context sensitive. It follows from this view that the following collective description should be blocked, even though (at least to our ears) it is obviously not (we should report that we have come across a few stragglers who do not share our intuitions):9 (Quantifiers) If there are true utterances of ‘Jill bought at least two penguins’ and ‘Jill bought at least two ducks’ in two relevantly different contexts, then the following collective description is perfectly natural: ‘Jill bought at least two penguins and ducks.’ The challenge is the same as in connection with the Inter-Contextual Disquotational Indirect Report Test: If RC (or MC) is true, none of these collective sentences should be true. If you have the intuition that the collective sentences are true in at least some of these cases, then you need either to find a way to explain away those intuitions or to find a way to accommodate them. Our hypothesis: These intuitions can’t be explained away and they can’t be accommodated within the framework of RC or MC.

Test 3: Context Sensitive Expressions Pass an InterContextual Disquotational Test and Admit of Real Context Shifting Arguments We now present two closely related tests (so closely related that they in effect are the same test described in different ways) that a theorist can perform to determine whether an expression e is context sensitive. These (just as the previous two) tests are ‘live’ in this sense: they require the theorist to actually use e while performing the test. They require the theorist to confront intuitions about her own language in use, and not just about other people’s use of language (or her use of e in other contexts). To introduce the first such test, note, once again, that it is a constitutive mark of a context sensitive expression e that it can be used with different extensions (semantic values) in different contexts of utterance. This is surely a big part of what it means to say of any expression that it is context sensitive. It follows from this constitutive fact alone that for any context sensitive expression e our use of e in this context (i.e., in the context of this chapter) with whatever extension it takes on in this context need not be the same as whatever extension it takes on in another context. There can be no denying that this is so. 9 Notice that we are not here presenting a general collectivity test for quantifiers. We remain neutral about that possibility.

104

Objections to Radical Contextualism (I) Based on this constitutive fact about context sensitivity, the following test recommends itself for judging whether an expression e is context sensitive or not: Simply look and see whether e behaves as it should by actually using e in a context of utterance (and thereby fixing its semantic value in that context) and simultaneously describe another use of e with a distinct semantic value in another context. Since e is not context sensitive unless its semantic values can shift from context to context, and since the semantic value e takes in, say, this context of utterance (i.e., the context of this book) can be distinct from the semantic value it takes in some other context, to test whether e is context sensitive or not, simply use e; in order to use e, put it in a sentence S and then use S. e is context sensitive only if there is a true utterance of an instance of the following schema for Inter-Contextual Disquotation (ICD, for short; where S contains e): (ICD) There are (or can10 be) false utterances of ÈS˘ even though S. (Alternatively, run the test in reverse.11) Unless e passes this ICD Test, it is not context sensitive. Here’s a concrete example that should help to concretize the discussion, if you are not yet getting it. Suppose we (i.e., C&L) are trying to determine whether ‘she’ is context sensitive. To do so, according to the ICD Test, we choose a sentence S containing ‘she,’ e.g., (1):12 (1) She is French. We then proceed to assert an instance of ICD with respect to (1), namely, (2a): (2a) There is (or can be) a false utterance of ‘She is French’ even though she is French. 10 In our formulation of ICD we appeal to possible utterances. We do that because it is something our opponents, i.e., Radical (and Moderate) Contextualists, do all the time. However, if you’re worried about quantification over possible utterances (or worried it will be difficult to specify the relevant domain of possible utterances), run the test on actual (past, present, or future) utterances. 11 That is, it can take the form of an utterance of ‘There is at least one true utterance of ÈS˘ even though it is not the case that S.’ 12 Of course, care must be practiced in choosing S; e.g., S mustn’t contain any context sensitive expressions other than possibly e, or, if it does, then restrict the domain of ‘There are utterances’ so that additional context sensitive expressions take the same semantic values in the imagined contexts as in the context of use.

105

Refutation of Radical Contextualism Since, as a matter of fact, we are now actually pointing at a French woman, (2a) is true, that is, in the context of this chapter, i.e., in 5stC; and so, ‘she’ is context sensitive. If you need convincing, ask yourself whether intuitively you think this utterance of (2a) (taking into account the relevant intentions, demonstrations, etc.) is true. Since the answer is obviously ‘yes’ – consider someone else’s utterance of (1) who is pointing at a non-French woman – (1), and so ‘she,’ are established to be context sensitive. Here are additional illustrations involving further expressions from the Basic Set: (2b) There is a false utterance of ‘That’s nice’ even though that’s nice [said pointing at Al’s car]. Suppose Al’s car is nice. Then, obviously, any utterance where someone points at anything other than Al’s car that isn’t nice suffices to establish there are true utterances of (2b). (2c) There is a false utterance of ‘I’m hungry’ even though I am hungry. Suppose I’m hungry. Then, obviously, any utterance of ‘I’m hungry’ by a speaker who is not me and who is not hungry suffices to establish that the test utterance of (2c) expresses a truth. (2d) There is a false utterance of ‘Tom is leaving now’ even though Tom is leaving now. Suppose Tom is leaving now. Then, obviously, any utterance of ‘Tom is leaving now’ made at times other than now, say, a few days into the future when Tom isn’t leaving, suffices to establish that the test utterance of (2d) expresses a truth. These stories decisively illustrate that expressions from the Basic Set pass ICD with flying colors. That there are intuitively true utterances of (2a)–(2d) in perfectly ordinary circumstances suffices to establish that not all utterances of the following biconditionals are true. ‘She is French’ is true just in case she is French. ‘That’s nice’ is true just in case that’s nice. ‘I’m hungry’ is true just in case I’m hungry. ‘Tom is leaving now’ is true just in case Tom is leaving now. Real Context Shifting Arguments A reasonable question to ask is how do we elicit intuitions in others that an expression e does, as a matter of fact, pass ICD? We believe the best 106

Objections to Radical Contextualism (I) manner in which to proceed is by providing a Real Context Shifting Argument. Indeed, an expression e passes the ICD Test just in case it is possible to construct a Real Context Shifting Argument involving e.13 The context in which a Context Shifting Argument (CSA) is told we are calling the Storytelling Context; and the context about which a CSA is told we are calling the Target Context. In trying to elicit intuitions about context shifting either of two sorts of stories can be devised from within the Storytelling Context: with one sort, the alleged context sensitive expression e doesn’t get used (in the Storytelling Context), but is instead only mentioned in describing its uses in Target Contexts; with the other sort, the alleged context sensitive expression e is both used (in the Storytelling Context) and also mentioned in describing its uses in Target Contexts. We’ll call the first sort of Context Shifting Argument Impoverished (ICSA, for short) and the latter sort of Context Shifting Argument Real (RCSA, for short). Both Radical and Moderate Contextualists invariably rely on ICSAs (and not on RCSAs) in order to convince us that the relevant expressions are context sensitive. For examples consult Chapter 2. Here, though, are a few illustrations of ICSAs well known from the literature. When a contextualist about ‘know’ tries to convince us that knowledge attributions are context sensitive, he appeals to intuitions we have about ICSAs involving ‘know’ to provide evidence of context sensitivity; so, e.g., consider two Target Contexts, one in which the topic of conversation is philosophical skepticism and one in which it is various issues about the habits of birds (nothing philosophical).14 Imagine an utterance of (3) in each Target Context. (3) Lewis knows that penguins eat fish. Intuition is supposed to support the conclusion that the utterance of (3) in the first Target Context is false (because Lewis doesn’t, for example, know how to rule out the possibility that he is a brain in a vat), while the utterance in the second Target Context is true (since he’s fairly knowledge-

13 Note that this is where we finally tell you how we think Context Shifting Arguments can be successfully put to use. 14 As Keith DeRose pointed out to us (personal communication), he prefers to use examples in which the high standard context is nonphilosophical, e.g., a context in which the participants care very much about the evidence for the knowledge claim. The exact points we are making here can be made about such examples by just changing the descriptions of the contexts appropriately. As far as we can tell, nothing at all hinges on what kinds of high or low standard examples are chosen. We let the ‘high’ standard cases be philosophical just because that’s the way Lewis (1996) proceeded.

107

Refutation of Radical Contextualism able about flightless water birds and their eating habits). So described this story is an ICSA since in the Storytelling Context we are not told whether or not ‘knows that penguins eat fish’ as used in that context applies to Lewis. Or, consider a Storytelling Context in which two Target Contexts are described, one in which the topic is the heights of NBA basketball players and the other in which the topic is the heights of Saudi Arabians. We’re asked, again from within the Storytelling Context, to consider two distinct utterances of (4) in these two Target Contexts. (4) Osama bin Laden is tall. Intuition leans towards concluding that the utterance of (4) in the first Target Context is false (because Osama is not tall for an NBA player), while the utterance of (4) in the second Target Context is true (because he is tall for a Saudi Arabian). So described this story is also an ICSA, since (4) is never used in its Storytelling Context; it is only mentioned in describing its uses in the two Target Contexts. Note that these ICSAs (and others documented in Chapters 1–3) differ from the stories we have been telling above about context shifting with regards to members of the Basic Set, e.g., the stories surrounding our discussion of (2a)–(2d). Reexamine those stories and you’ll note for yourself that each constitutes an RCSA for its mentioned sentence. (2a), e.g., tells a story in which (1) is used in an assertion in the Storytelling Context. We used the word ‘she’ in the Storytelling Context (i.e., in this chapter) to pick out some woman and say of her that she is French and simultaneously we described a Target Context where the word ‘she’ got used to pick out someone else, rendering that utterance of (1) in that Target Context false. In sum, for a story to be a legitimate RCSA for an expression e, it can’t be just about utterances of a sentence S containing e; it must also be about what S semantically expresses in the Storytelling Context. If an expression e is genuinely context sensitive, we should be able to construct an RCSA for e, i.e., we should be able, in a Storytelling Context, to use e in a sentence S that semantically expresses a true proposition and simultaneously describes a Target Context in which S is used falsely (or vice versa); thus, establishing bona fide context shifting. It is only through such stories that we should be convinced that an expression e passes the ICD Test, and only such expressions, as we have emphasized, are context sensitive. All the expressions in the Basic Set pass the ICD Test and can be used to construct legitimate and convincing RCSAs. The various contextualist candidates do not. 108

Objections to Radical Contextualism (I)

Objection 3 to RC: RC postulates context sensitivity that does not support ICD and RCSA As with (3) and (4), the mentioned sentences in (5a)–(5b) are context sensitive only if there are true utterances of (5a)–(5b).15 (5a) There are true utterances of ‘George knows that he has hands’ even though George doesn’t know he has hands. (5b) There are true utterances of ‘Fire engines are red’ even though fire engines aren’t red. We deny, however, there are any such utterances. We believe that, even at this early stage of our argument, anyone who doesn’t already have theoretical prejudices will find it very hard to resist denying there are true utterances of (5a)–(5b). If any utterance of ‘George knows he has hands’ is true, George had better know he has hands; and if any utterance of ‘Fire engines are red’ is true, fire engines had better be red. These intuitions tell us that ‘know,’ ‘red,’ etc. fail the ICD Test. Compounded with the intuitive obviousness of the ICD Test for context sensitivity, this constitutes strong prima facie evidence that these expressions are not context sensitive. Of course, it would be boring were the entire debate reduced to a collision of intuitions: we say all utterances of (5a)–(5b) are intuitively false; our opponents insist that they can hear some as true. How do we press forward? Well, since it’s supposed to be news that these expressions are context sensitive, anyone who thinks there can be true utterances of (5a)–(5b) needs to bolster her case: she could try to do so by bringing us to recognize some of these utterances as true, perhaps by getting us to reflect further upon the sorts of data presented in CSAs. Thinking about the cases presented by Cohen, DeRose, Lewis, and others might enable us to recognize there are true utterances of ‘George knows that he has hands’ even though George doesn’t know he has hands. Thinking about Travis’s and Searle’s examples involving ‘weighs 80 kg’ might enable us to recognize there are true utterances of ‘Smith weighs 80 kg’ even though Smith doesn’t weigh 80 kg. Etc.

15 To repeat why: Suppose ‘George knows he has hands’ is context sensitive, i.e., that the proposition expressed by (and the truth conditions of) ‘George knows that he has hands’ varies across contexts of utterance. If so, this sentence in this context (i.e., the context of this chapter) expresses a certain proposition, and has certain truth conditions. This proposition and these truth conditions needn’t be the same as those of its other utterances. In other words, it’s a trivial implication of the assumption that ‘George knows that he has hands’ is context sensitive that it has (at least potential) utterances that are not true just in case George knows he has hands. At least one of these is true even though George doesn’t know he has hands, i.e., some utterance of (5a) (in the context of this chapter) is true.

109

Refutation of Radical Contextualism It’s extremely telling, in this regard, that the stories presented in defense of contextualism never take the form of an RCSA; instead, we are given an ICSA. In what follows we will try to elicit just how hard it is, if possible at all, to devise RCSAs for ‘know,’ ‘red,’ ‘weighs 80 kg,’ etc., that is, a story in which these words are both used (in the appropriate way) and mentioned. It’s crucial to keep in mind that our stories are contextualized, i.e., understood as uttered, if you like. That’s important because if contextualism is true, then these RCSAs will contain a context sensitive expression. We call the first alleged RCSA Known Rupert: Known Rupert. Right now, I’m doing philosophy and thinking about Rupert. Rupert, however, is not now doing philosophy. Instead, he’s home making tea. Rupert doesn’t know he is 30 years old. For Rupert to know he is 30 years old, he has to rule out the possibility that he is a brain in a vat. Rupert, however, is unaware of (or not thinking about) this possibility.16 And so he’s ignoring a possibility that must be ruled out in order for anyone to know anything at all. Still, when Rupert utters in the comfort of his home, ‘I know I am 30 years old’ what he says is true, because he’s ignoring this possibility, even though this possibility has got to be considered in order for Rupert to know anything at all. To see the point of the Known Rupert scenario remember that according to contextualism ‘know’ is context sensitive, and so, its semantic value is fixed in a context of utterance. When we use ‘know’ in the Storytelling Context (i.e., this context) to describe a Target Context, it takes on the semantic value it has in the Storytelling Context, and not the semantic value it would have had had it been used in the Target Context. After all, we are not in the Target Context; we’re in the Storytelling Context using ‘know’ to describe the Target Context. More generally, when we use ‘A knows that p’ in this context to describe a possible world, it is the standards of this context that determine whether an object in that possible world is correctly described by that utterance, i.e., whether A knows that p. That, by the way, is why Known Rupert contains the modal claim that Rupert is ‘ignoring a possibility that must be ruled out in order for anyone to know anything at all.’ Remember: All of this follows directly from contextualism itself. If ‘know’ is context sensitive, 16 We’ve been assured by our contextualist friends that no contextualist would require Rupert to occurrently rule out the possibility of being a brain in a vat, or to actively check it off in any manner. All that would be required is that Rupert be disposed to handle the possibility properly, perhaps by being capable of eliminating it on the basis of his evidence. We assume nothing in our thought experiment turns on this distinction.

110

Objections to Radical Contextualism (I) then Known Rupert should be true; we should have the intuition that it is true. Our intuition is that Known Rupert is blatantly false.17 Here’s the same point applied to ‘red.’ Red Rupert. In order to be red, an apple has to have red skin. That’s a necessary condition for being a red apple. It is irrelevant, for instance, whether an apple is red on its inside. Here’s an apple, call it Rupert; Rupert is red. On the inside, Rupert is white. Nonetheless, there are utterances of ‘Rupert is red’ that are false, not because Rupert’s color changes, but because the speaker cares about what’s inside Rupert rather than whether it is red or not. This affects the truth value of the utterance even though the color of the inside of the apple is completely irrelevant to whether Rupert is red.18 We assume you’ll agree with us that these Rupert stories do not provide clear and convincing intuitive support for contextualism. However, compare them with the following Now scenario (again, reading this passage as contextualized). Now. Right now, Stephen is not wearing a hat. Yesterday he was wearing a hat. And when he then uttered ‘I’m wearing a hat now’ what he said then was true, even though he’s clearly not wearing a hat now. 17 The point can be strengthened: Suppose someone reads Known Rupert and says: ‘Yeah, I can still hear that as true.’ So far we have nothing but an incredulous stare to reply with. But we could catch our breath and go further. We can ask this person: ‘Why do you think Rupert’s utterance of “I know that I am 30 years old” is not true in this context?’ The reply, we suppose, is going to be something like: ‘Because Rupert doesn’t know he’s not a brain in a vat.’ But now ask: ‘What is the meaning of “know” in that reply?’ Is it what it means in this context or in the context of utterance? It can’t be either, so our opponent is in a bind. What this shows is that in order for a CSA to be effective, it must be motivated by descriptions that are context insensitive. (We’ll see this point again when we discuss color words and their alleged context sensitivity below: color terms cannot be used to describe the Target Context in a CSA that aims to establish that such words are context sensitive, because if they are, those words would take on the meaning they have in the Storytelling Context.) 18 Skinny Rupert. Rupert has been dieting for the last eight weeks. Rupert now weighs 80 kg! In order to weigh 80 kg a person must weigh 80 kg on an accurate scale, naked, before breakfast, in the morning. What he weighs with his clothes on at lunch is irrelevant. It has no bearing on whether or not Rupert weighs 80 kg. Nonetheless, there are utterances of ‘Rupert weighs 80 kg’ that are false, not because Rupert weighs more naked before breakfast in the morning, but because the speaker cares about what a scale would show when he steps on fully clothed after lunch. Suppose, for example, Rupert is about to get on an elevator with a capacity of no more than an extra 80 kg. If someone were to utter ‘Rupert weighs 80 kg’ her utterance would be false, even though he weighs 80 kg. The utterance would be false, not because Rupert’s weight has changed, but because the speaker is concerned with something other than what Rupert weighs, for example, with what a scale registers were he to step on it fully clothed.

111

Refutation of Radical Contextualism The Rupert scenarios are unconvincing to us, and compare quite unfavorably to the Now scenario. Unlike the Rupert scenarios, we take Now to be an RCSA that provides evidence for the view that ‘now’ is context sensitive. Yet there is nothing cagey about the Rupert stories; they parallel exactly the Now one. If you don’t like them, or think that they are prejudicially slanted, try devising one of your own. A point worth reemphasizing is that anyone who wants to defend the context sensitivity of an expression e while conceding that RCSA cannot be devised for it has placed himself in an unfortunate position. Anyone who is in this position is asking us to take it as an article of faith that the expression in question is context sensitive. Though faith has its place, we don’t believe that place is in the philosophy of language.

Penultimate Point: It would be Surprising if there were Surprising Context Sensitivity This penultimate point is a bit vague, but it’s important. If expression e is context sensitive, then it’s obviously context sensitive. Speakers should not have to theorize about it in order to realize that it is context sensitive. We remind you of some basic facts about communication: Conversations happen fast. Someone speaks; sounds hit the audience’s eardrums; they must be processed; often a reply is expected immediately. There’s little time for reflection and exploration. It is because our linguistic devices are so effective for communication that conversation is able to be as fluid as it is. They are easy to use and it is not surprising that they are easy to use. To use the dubious metaphor of language as a tool for a moment: if words are tools, then they had better be pretty easy to use because they don’t come to us with instruction manuals and even if they did, there would be no time for us to consult these instruction manuals when we’re steeped in the middle of a fast and furious conversation. We’re highlighting these obvious features of communication in order to register a very simple point: If an expression e has its semantic value fixed in a context of utterance, that had better be obvious to all of us. Context sensitivity can’t be some obscure phenomenon that you need to read scholarly books and articles about in order to recognize and master. Context sensitivity is a surface phenomenon. Every speaker knows it when he’s confronted with it; and he knows that every other competent speaker of his language knows it as well, and all speakers know how to exploit context sensitivity in the heat of a conversation. None of this should come as a surprise. If you ask a speaker of some particular expression whether or not it’s context sensitive, she should be able to tell you right away that it is, and how it is, context sensitive. 112

Objections to Radical Contextualism (I) Every expression in the Basic Set is obviously context sensitive. No one needs a theory to figure this out. You can gift wrap it in fancy language and appeal to all of the philosophical tests, as we did above, but you don’t have to do that to convince yourself of the context sensitivity of any single member of the Basic Set. We all know that the referent of an utterance of ‘yesterday’ depends on the day it’s uttered on. We all know that the referent of ‘I’ is always its user; and so on for each member of the Basic Set. But compare that to the idea that ‘blue’ is context sensitive; that not every single thing it applies to is blue! Any nonphilosopher apprised of this philosophical ‘discovery’ would, and should, scoff at it. That reaction itself is philosophically significant and presents more than just a prima facie case against the alleged discovery.

Final Point: Caution We end this chapter with a cautionary note to be elaborated upon in Part III of the book: The tests in this chapter obviously have to focus on what’s communicated; we are after all communicating with the reader, and so the tests are tests that go via communicated content. Our view, as presented in Part III, is that there is a sharp distinction between communicated content and semantic content. Nonetheless, we use communicated content (the content we succeed in communicating to our readers) to ‘get at’ semantic content (semantic context sensitivity in particular). There is of course no other way to proceed. The purpose of the tests is to generate contexts in which semantic content is salient. Think of the tests like this: They are ways to get the audience to notice semantic features of sentences uttered. They create contexts in which our attention is drawn to features of the semantic content expressed by the utterances in question. These issues are addressed further in Chapter 13.

APPENDIX 1. CONTEXTUAL SALIENCE ABSORPTION Here is a reply that we guess some Radical Contextualists might devise in response to the ICD/RCSA Tests and objection in this chapter.19 Since we’ve never seen it in print, we’re not sure exactly how to put it, but we imagine

19 Participants at a Rutgers Graduate Seminar (fall, 2003) unanimously claimed that no sensible Radical Contextualist would appeal to Contextual Salience Absorption. Hence, the appendix status of this reply.

113

Refutation of Radical Contextualism it going something like this: Schematically, the situation we theorists find ourselves in is this: We’re in context 5stC. Call this the Storytelling Context. In this context, we are imagining two Target Contexts, C1 and C2, in which someone utters ‘John is ready.’ We ask ourselves what these two utterances say. In order to determine an answer to this question, we vividly imagine these Target Contexts C1 and C2 from within our Storytelling Context 5stC. We imaginatively place ourselves first in Target Context C1 and then in C2. To imaginatively place ourselves in C1 and C2 automatically triggers what we shall call Contextual Salience Absorption. While in 5stC, we are to imagine ourselves in C1; doing so, however, requires that whatever is salient in C1 becomes salient to us in 5stC. But then when we try to imagine ourselves in the other Target Context C2, what’s salient there becomes salient to us in 5stC. So, what’s contextually salient in 5stC varies contingent on what we happen to be thinking about in 5stC. So far so good. But why is Contextual Salience Absorption relevant to the ICD/RCSA Test? It is because it provides the Radical Contextualist with an RCcompatible explanation for why native speakers intuitively find the relevant RCSAs problematic (e.g., why they find the Known Rupert story counterintuitive). In these cases, the theorist is asked to vividly imagine a Target Context from a Storytelling Context. If imagining a context, say, C1, from the perspective of another context, say, 5stC, renders what is salient in C1 salient in 5stC, then that undermines the idea that separate contextual standards are in play. The test for context sensitivity assumes that the contextually salient standards are clearly distinct. To say that there’s Contextual Salience Absorption is to say that the standards are blurred. That would make the test unreliable. To put it pointedly: As soon as you think about a context C, the standards of C affect the standards of the context you’re in (the context in which you do your thinking). Just thinking about C changes the context you are in so that there is no longer a clear distinction in contextual standards between the Storytelling Context and the Target Context. If this is so, our test is faulty: it presupposes that there is a rather sharp distinction between the Storytelling and Target Contexts standards. We have left this reply rather vague in part because we’ve never seen it worked out in detail and there are many ways to do that. But, we think, no matter how it’s elaborated, this response on behalf of RC fails miserably for (at least) two reasons: 1 The reply gets the dialectic deeply wrong and leaves the Radical Contextualist without an argument against Semantic Minimalism. 2 An appeal to Contextual Salience Absorption triggers what we believe ultimately leads to an internal inconsistency in RC. 114

Objections to Radical Contextualism (I)

1. Appeal to Contextual Salience Absorption leaves RC dialectically impotent Let’s review the dialectical situation: A Semantic Minimalist about an expression e denies there is contextual variation in the semantic content of utterances of sentences containing e (other than whatever is contributed by expressions other than e). The contribution of e to the proposition semantically expressed by utterances of sentences containing e is invariant across all contexts of utterance. One way to capture this idea (not the only way, but it captures a common core of many versions of Semantic Minimalism) is this: If S is a sentence containing e (and no other indexical components), then every utterance of an instance of schemas (I) and (II) should be true: (I) ‘S’ is true just in case S. (II) ‘S’ expresses the proposition that S. Context Shifting Arguments are supposed to convince Semantic Minimalists that their position is flawed. The evidence takes the form of a counterexample: intuitive evidence that there is at least one utterance u of S that semantically expresses a different proposition or has different truth conditions (maybe even a different truth value with respect to the same circumstance of evaluation) than another utterance of S in the Storytelling Context. But to endorse Contextual Salience Absorption is in effect to grant that no such intuitive counterexample is forthcoming. Whenever in a Storytelling Context we think about or describe a Target Context, our intuitions about the e-standards of the two contexts become unified or get blurred. To get a clear counterexample of this kind the Radical Contextualist presupposes clearly distinct standards. In sum: Appeal to Contextual Salience Absorption is not a defense of contextualism; rather, it’s a concession of defeat. For the argument in defense of RC was based entirely on intuitions about context shifting; Contextual Salience Absorption, however, is invoked to explain why such intuitions are not forthcoming.

2. Contextual Salience Absorption renders contextualism internally inconsistent According to RC, every expression is context sensitive. So, if RC is true, then distinct uses of ‘ready’ should induce intuitions about context sensitivity. 115

Refutation of Radical Contextualism Here’s a corollary of point (A): If we assume for the sake of argument that a sentence S is context sensitive, and if the context sensitive components of S absorb, then there’s overwhelming evidence in favor of the truth of (D1) and (D2): (D1) Every utterance of ‘A is ready’ is true iff A is ready. (D2) Every utterance of ‘A is ready’ expresses the proposition that A is ready. Remember, if ‘A is ready’ is absorbent, it follows that every utterance u of ‘A is ready’ can be characterized truly by an utterance of (D1.1) and (D2.1). (D1.1) u is true iff A is ready. (D2.1) u expresses the proposition that A is ready. This follows because if there is Contextual Salience Absorption, then every utterance of (D1.1) and (D2.1) is true. This is because if ‘A is ready’ is absorbent, then the truth conditions for ‘A is ready’ are the same in the Storytelling Context as they are in the Target Context, where ‘A is ready’ is supposed to be imagined to be true. The truth of (D1.1) and (D2.1) provides overwhelming evidence in favor of the generalizations (D1) and (D2). But they are the denial of RC. In other words, a Radical Contextualist who claims that sentence S is absorbent has an incoherent view.

APPENDIX 2. DIAGNOSIS: MONSTERS AND USE–MENTION FALLACIES If we are right, then ‘know’ and ‘red’ fail obvious tests for context sensitivity. We think the same applies to every other example mentioned in Chapter 2. So what’s going on? How do philosophers convince themselves that obviously noncontext sensitive expressions are context sensitive? These positions are typically justified by an appeal to Impoverished Context Sensitive Arguments. That raises the question: If you have an Impoverished Context Shifting Argument for an expression e, but e does not pass other tests for context sensitivity (including the tests discussed here), then what’s going on? First of all, you have strong evidence that whatever intuitions were triggered by the ICSAs concern nonsemantic content. They are intuitions that reveal what the utterance might succeed in communicating, but not its semantic content. But there’s more than that going on. We have two tentative diagnoses of why contextualists are so easily seduced by their ICSAs.

116

Objections to Radical Contextualism (I)

First diagnosis: Treating ‘in context C’ as a monster Contextualists talk quite freely about knowing that p in context C and not knowing that p in context C¢, or being rich in C but not being rich in C¢, etc., as if the semantic role of ‘in context C’ were to map S (the sentence to which it attaches) from a context of utterance onto a distinct context of utterance. Unwittingly, we presume, in this regard they are treating ‘in context C’ as what David Kaplan has called a monster. A monster is an operator ‘which when prefixed to a sentence yields a truth if and only if in some contexts the contained sentence (not the content expressed by it) expresses a content that is true in the circumstance of that context’ (Kaplan 1989a, p. 510). If ‘in context C’ were a monster, it could transport us from our current context of utterance to imagined ones. It would allow us to use an expression in this context, within the scope of the monster, to say what that expression would say if it were uttered in another context. This, so it seems to us, is what often transpires when contextualists try to devise (fake) RCSA. And, of course, if English had monsters and ‘in context C’ were one of them, then most of our objections would be undermined. For example, you would be able to use ‘know’ or ‘red’ in a Storytelling Context C when describing a Target Context, but they would not take on the semantic values they have in C. If there were monsters and contextualists could use them, the effect would be this: the theorist could keep a sharp distinction between the standards of the Storytelling Context and the Target Context, and could describe what goes on in the Target Context by using, say, ‘know,’ either outside a monster or inside a monster. With this device in hand, she could say one thing within the monster and another outside it. Playing on this discrepancy she gets herself to believe she has something like an RCSA rather than the obviously unsatisfying ICSA. Contextualists certainly write as if they can use ‘know’ or ‘red’ in this way. But you could succeed with these uses only if there were monsters, and, as Kaplan has pointed out, ‘in context C’ is not a monster in English. He writes: Let us try it: (8) In some contexts it is true that I am not tired now. For (8) to be true in the present context it suffices that some agent of some context not be tired at the time of that context. (8), so interpreted, has nothing to do with me or the present moment. But this violates principle 2!20 Principle 2 can also be expressed in a more 20 i.e., the thesis that indexicals pick out their referents directly from the context of utterance, without mediation. This means that the value of an indexical is fixed by the context of its utterance, and cannot be changed by the logical operators in whose scope it may occur.

117

Refutation of Radical Contextualism theory-laden way by saying that indexicals always take primary scope. If this is true – and it is – then no operator can control the character of the indexical within its scope, because they will simply leap out of its scope to the front of the operator. I am not saying we could not construct a language with such operators, just that English is not one. And such operators could not be added to it. (Kaplan 1989a, p. 510; emphasis our own)21 Indirectly, we have been championing Kaplan’s view. Our first diagnosis of what’s gone wrong with contextualism is that in convincing themselves that the expressions in question are context sensitive, the locution ‘in context C’ winds up being treated as a monster. A case in point is Graff’s discussion of color words: Suppose I want you to hand me a certain book. If the book in question is colored a very light grayish-blue, and it’s sitting amongst a bunch of other books all of which are colored a very light grayish-red, I may say, ‘Hand me the blue one.’ If, on the other hand, the book I want is sitting with a bunch of richly-colored cobalt blue books, I may say, ‘Hand me the gray one.’ I take it that it would be true to say in the first case that the book I wanted was blue, and in the second case that the book I wanted was gray. (Graff 2000, p. 56) Focus carefully on the last sentence of her story: ‘I take it that it would be true to say in the first case that the book I wanted was blue, and in the second case that the book I wanted was gray.’ Call its tokening u and the context of u the Storytelling Context. The color words ‘blue’ and ‘gray’ are used there in an indirect quote that occurs in the Storytelling Context. Context sensitive expressions in indirect quotes receive the semantic value of the context of the indirect quote itself. If we say, in the context of this chapter, that Jason said our view is crazy, ‘our’ refers to Cappelen and Lepore, not to Jason and company. Indirect quotation is no monster. In other words, Graff’s use of ‘blue’ and ‘gray’ get their semantic values from the Storytelling Context, and not from Target Contexts. But then u makes no sense. Graff’s point is that the semantic values of ‘blue’ and ‘gray’ shift between what she calls the first and the second case (we call these the first and second Target Contexts). That wouldn’t work were both given their

21 Lewis, though he doesn’t use the terminology, is acknowledging the same point when he writes: ‘To be sure, we could speak a language in which “As for you, I am hungry” is true iff “I am hungry” is true when the role of speaker is shifted from me to you – in other words, iff you are hungry. We could but we don’t. For English, the speaker is not a shiftable feature of context’ (Lewis 1980, pp. 27–8; cf. also Evans 1985, pp. 357–8).

118

Objections to Radical Contextualism (I) interpretations in the Storytelling Context. She wants ‘in the first case’ to create a context such that what occurs after it is interpreted as uttered in the first Target Context. She wants what occurs after ‘in the second case’ to be interpreted as uttered in the second Target Context. On this interpretation, she is treating ‘in the first (second, etc.) case’ as monsters.22 But again, there are no monsters in English. When someone says to you, ‘In case one, I’m not happy,’ there is no context in which his use of ‘I’ picks out you – which it should be able to do were ‘in case one’ a monster. For a second illustration, consider a passage from Soames (1999), where he’s endorsing the view that ‘looks green’ is context sensitive. Here’s how he describes the context sensitivity: In this model the rule governing contextual adjustment of the predicate looks green should be roughly as follows: If in a context C something x is explicitly judged to look green, then the extension of looks green in C includes everything perceptually indistinguishable in color from x, as well as everything that looks greener than x. If in C something y is judged not to look green, then the anti-extension of looks green in C includes everything perceptually indistinguishable in color from y, as well as everything that looks less green than y. (Soames 1999, pp. 211–12) This entire statement is uttered in the context of Soames’s book. Call it the SB-Context (for Soames’s Book Context). Focus on the first conditional and the first use of ‘to look green’ in that conditional. Call this utterance of ‘to look green’ u (so u is preceded by an utterance of ‘If in a context C something x is explicitly judged . . .’). Now ask yourself: What’s the semantic value of u? The expression ‘to look green’ is, according to Soames, context sensitive, so its semantic value is determined by its context of utterance. The context of utterance in this case is the SB-Context. So, u should get its semantic value from SB. But that’s clearly not what Soames intends. For then he would end up talking only about contexts in which someone uttered (or made a judgment) about things that fall under ‘looks green’ according to the standards of the SB-Context. What Soames wants is for u

22 Alternatively, she treats ‘what was said’ as a monster. The same point about monsters extends to DeRose, when he writes: ‘In Bank Case B . . . when, in the face of my wife’s doubt, I admit that I don’t know that the bank will be open on Saturday, I don’t contradict an earlier claim to know that I might have made before the doubt was raised and before the issue was so important because, in an important sense, I don’t mean the same thing by “know” as I meant in the earlier claim’ (DeRose 1992, p. 921).

119

Refutation of Radical Contextualism to take its semantic value from the imagined context C. He wants u to have the semantic value it would have had if it had been uttered in this imagined context. That’s why he puts ‘If in a context C something x is explicitly judged . . .’ in front of u. In other words, he is treating ‘in a context C’ as a monster.23 But, again, there are no monsters in English; and surely, it should be obvious that ‘in a context C’ is not one.24 For a third illustration, consider this story from Cohen: Mary and John are at the LA airport contemplating taking a certain flight to New York. They want to know whether the flight has a layover in Chicago. They overhear someone ask if anyone knows whether the flight makes any stops. A passenger Smith replies ‘I do. I just looked at my flight itinerary and there is a stop in Chicago.’ It turns out that Mary and John have a very important business contact that they have to make at the Chicago airport. Mary says: ‘How reliable is that itinerary, anyway? It could contain a misprint. They could have changed the schedule since it was printed, etc.’ Mary and John agree that Smith doesn’t really know that the plane will stop in Chicago on the basis of the itinerary . . . (Cohen 1999, pp. 58–9) Cohen presents his thought experiment in the Storytelling Context. Consider the utterance u of ‘They overhear someone ask if anyone knows whether the flight makes any stops.’ Since u is uttered in the Storytelling Context, if contextualism is true, ‘know’ in u takes on a semantic value in that context. Suppose the proposition expressed by u in the Storytelling Context is p. Now consider the direct quote of Smith that directly follows u (where Smith is quoted as saying ‘I do’). Call the utterance of this direct quote u¢. Cohen clearly thinks u¢ indicates that Smith agrees with the semantic content of u. But it’s a mystery how it could. u is uttered in the Storytelling Context, the context of a philosophy paper, and, again assum23 Note also the following passage from Soames: ‘What, then, is going on? The answer, in our analysis, is that there is no contradiction here at all. According to the analysis, when xi is initially characterized as looking green, this is done with respect to a certain set of standards, S. Later, when it is characterized as not looking green, this is done with respect to a new set of standards, S*. But there is no contradiction in the observation that something may look green with respect to one set of standards and not look green with respect to a different set of standards’ (Soames 1999, p. 313). Note the occurrence of ‘looking green’ in ‘when x is characterized as looking green.’ Here ‘characterized as’ is being used as a monster. 24 ‘In context C, I am speaking’ picks out me no matter who is speaking in context C. Why should it be any different for ‘looks green’? Schlenker (2003) argues that Kaplan is wrong: English does contain monsters. We choose not to engage in a full discussion of that issue here because even if the examples Schlenker presents are genuine examples of monsters (something we doubt), they are not the kinds of monsters that would help contextualists.

120

Objections to Radical Contextualism (I) ing contextualism, the fact that p is expressed by u is due to peculiar features of that context. Smith’s utterance u¢, however, is made in the Target Context, a context with low epistemic standards. The epistemic standards for ‘know’ are fixed by the kind of considerations Cohen and other philosophers are concerned with. Since Smith is not in that sort of context, how could he end up agreeing with p? It’s all very peculiar. What’s going on? One possibility is that Cohen wants us to read u as if it was uttered in the Target Context. To do so would be to treat the act of storytelling as tacitly introducing a monster.25 Our own view about ‘in a context C’ is that it has no impact on the semantic value of the controversial cases. If an object is round in Room 300, it’s round. If someone knows in context C what penguins eat, then he knows what penguins eat.

Second diagnosis: How to avoid monsters: direct quotation Aren’t we just being pedantic? Couldn’t a contextualist easily avoid these troubles just by being more careful? In particular, couldn’t they avoid monsters simply by using direct quotation instead? That’s probably what they think and it’s probably why they allow themselves to be so sloppy. Here’s David Kaplan on the connection between monsters and direct quotation: There is a way to control an indexical, to keep it from taking primary scope, and even to refer it to another context. Use quotation marks. If we mention the indexical rather than use it, we can, of course, operate directly on it. Carnap once pointed out to me how important the difference between direct and indirect quotation is in Otto said ‘I am a fool’. Otto said that I am a fool. (Kaplan 1989a, p. 511) Does direct quotation provide an easy way out for the monstrous contextualist? No. If in order to avoid monsters a contextualist resorts to direct quotation, then she would be left with nothing more than intuitions about an ICSA to bolster her case. But as we have been arguing, those intuitions alone are insufficient to establish contextualism unless a corresponding 25 The continuation is equally puzzling. At the end of Cohen’s story he says, ‘Mary and John agree that Smith doesn’t really know that the plane will stop in Chicago on the basis of the itinerary.’ The ‘know’ in that utterance should take on its semantic value in the Storytelling Context, and it’s peculiar how Mary and John end up agreeing with an utterance in the Storytelling Context.

121

Refutation of Radical Contextualism intuitive RCSA can be devised. But an RCSA requires using the disputed expression in an assertion (or a denial). It is tempting to do that in a monstrous way (in which case the contextualist would have her RCSA), but there are no monsters! The way to avoid monsters is to resort to direct quotation, but then the contextualist is back to an ICSA. Cautionary note to be elaborated upon in Part III of the book. The tests in this chapter obviously have to focus on what’s communicated; we are after all communicating with the reader, and so the tests are tests that go via communicated content. That’s not a problem if we ensure that the context is one where semantic content is being focused on. Think of the tests like this: They are ways to get the audience to notice semantic features of sentences uttered. They create contexts in which our attention is drawn to features of the semantic content expressed by the utterances in question.

122

CHAPTER 8

Objections to Radical Contextualism (II): Makes Communication Impossible

The objection we raise in this chapter is certainly not original with us; its variations go back at least to Frege. The simple idea is this: If RC were true, it would be miraculous if people ever succeeded in communicating across diverse contexts of utterance. But there are no miracles; people do succeed in communicating across diverse contexts of utterance with boring regularity. So, RC isn’t true. Only slightly more elaborated, it goes like this: If RC were true, then what’s said by an utterance by a speaker A in context of utterance C depends, at least in part, on very specific features of C. Here’s a helpful list from Bezuidenhout (all Radical (and Moderate) Contextualists hold similar views) summarizing various contextual features that can determine what is said: (i) knowledge that has already been activated from the prior discourse context (if any) (ii) knowledge that is available based on who one’s conversational partner is and on what community memberships one shares with that person (iii) knowledge that is available through observation of the mutual perceptual environment (iv) any stereotypical knowledge or scripts or frames that are associatively triggered by accessing the semantic potential of any of the expressions currently being used (v) knowledge of the purposes and abilities of one’s conversational partner (e.g., whether the person is being deceitful or sincere, whether the person tends to verbosity or is a person of few words, etc.) 123

Refutation of Radical Contextualism (vi) knowledge one has of the general principles governing conversational exchanges (perhaps including Grice’s conversational maxims, culturally specific norms of politeness, etc.). (Bezuidenhout 2002, p. 117) Focusing on (i)–(iii) from above, notice that: (a) If RC were true, then for us to understand what you said by an utterance of ‘Philosophy is fun’ we would have to know what knowledge has been triggered by previous conversations you have been engaged in, we have to know whom you are talking to, what you know about them, what knowledge you can assume is shared between you and your audience, the nature of your mutually shared perceptual environment, and so on and so on. That’s a lot of requirements just to figure out what you said. When the full RC story is told, it will turn out to be a miracle every time anyone manages to figure out what someone had said. But there are no miracles. People do not need to access all of this knowledge in order to figure out what has been said. So, RC is false. (b) The situation, as hard as it may be to believe though, is even worse. Not only would we have to gather all this information in order to figure out what you said with your utterance. According to RC, the content communicated, the proposition semantically expressed, the explicature (in Relevance Theory terminology), is generated through a complex and interesting psychological process. The speaker and audience fix on a common proposition by virtue of the fact that they have the knowledge listed in (i)–(vi). So, suppose we know that a speaker A and his audience share a range of beliefs, B1 . . . Bn. Of course, we might not believe B1 . . . Bn even if we believe they (i.e., A and his audience) have them. We might think they’re wrong. But then, if RC is right, it would again be miraculous if we managed to fix in our minds the same proposition that they centered on. In sum: If RC were true, it would be a miracle if speakers in different contexts were ever able to agree, disagree, or more generally, share contents. Reply: Bezuidenhout on miracles. As far as we know, Bezuidenhout is the only Radical Contextualist who addresses this (or at least a related) worry. She discusses Recanati’s view according to which words are not primitively associated with conditions of application, but with a certain semantic potential. Sense or content must be constructed in context out of such a semantic potential. Semantic potential is defined in terms of a set of source-situations. A source-situation is a situation that a speaker has learned to associate with a term 124

Objections to Radical Contextualism (II) because during learning the speaker has seen the term legitimately applied to that situation. (Bezuidenhout 2002, p. 116) She’s sympathetic to this view, but worries that it seems to relativize semantic knowledge to a speaker. Sourcesituations are relativized to the learning histories of particular speakers. This entails that the semantic potential of a term will differ from speaker to speaker. One might think that communication between speakers is thus jeopardized, as speakers will not be using terms with the same meanings. (Bezuidenhout 2002, p. 118) Here’s her response to the worry: But of course the whole idea of this new picture is that terms don’t have fixed meanings, but only semantic potentials, and that sense/ content must be constructed in context. If one thinks of this sense creation as a joint action of the conversational partners, one might be able to avoid both the relativism and the apparent consequence that communication is jeopardized. Even though the semantic potential of ‘playing baseball’ differs for you and for me, we may in a particular conversational setting be able to converge on the same contextual understanding for that term as it is used in that setting. This needn’t be too much of a miracle if we assume that human beings, in virtue of their common species heritage, are apt to perceive and reason about the world in ways similar to one another. (Bezuidenhout 2002, p. 118) We applaud her for acknowledging the dangers lurking here, but she fails to see the full reach of the problem this and related views face; her reply to this more restricted worry serves to highlight the remaining problem. The way she construes it, the problem is how people who find themselves in a shared context can communicate. She thinks (hopes) that this problem dissolves if we ‘assume that human beings, in virtue of their common species heritage, are apt to perceive and reason about the world in ways similar to one another.’ But where does that leave those of us not in that context; those unfamiliar with the reasoning the participants have undergone; those unfamiliar with what they perceive? Reply 1. Similarity of content is sufficient for successful communication Suppose the reply is: ‘Of course, we’ll never be able to say exactly what someone else said; we’re never able to match the content exactly. But who 125

Refutation of Radical Contextualism cares? That’s not needed for communication to proceed smoothly. All we need is sufficiently similar content. If what A says in context C is sufficiently similar to what B says in context C¢, then that’s enough.’ Our reply 1 Enough for what? Not enough to account for the intuition that we have said the very same thing. We can say what you said. You can say what we say; not just something similar to what we said. It is a fact about ordinary speakers that they deeply believe this. It is reflected in practically every aspect of our linguistic practice. Of course, we might discover that our conception of communication is thoroughly mistaken, some sort of bad folktheory of language. The Radical Contextualist has discovered that we have been confused all of these years. 2 Similarity of content is undermined at least in this sense: We can’t say what it is for two utterances to be sufficiently similar in content; that the propositions they express are close enough; that their truth conditions are virtually alike. We doubt any such notion will stand up to scrutiny (cf., Fodor and Lepore 1992, 1999). But even if it did, speakers surely don’t behave as if they are getting by with nothing more than similarity. We often, indeed, want to know exactly what someone said; what he literally said; what he really said. Is RC committed to the view that such aspirations must be dashed?

Reply 2. Biting the bullet A Radical Contextualist might, of course, just bite the bullet and say something like: ‘Look: There’s no way to secure successful communication across contexts. When people find themselves with different background assumptions, different audiences, different perceptual conditions, it is difficult, very difficult indeed, to latch on to the exact same propositions. Is that such a big deal?’ Our response is not particularly original. First of all, it’s not a bullet we would like to bite. Second, and more importantly, if we were to take this view seriously, we don’t even know which bullet we are being asked to bite, and our opponents don’t even know which bullet we are asking them to bite, and vice versa. We know that much about RC is written in places other than New York and New Jersey, lots of it is being written and discussed all over in Europe, some of it in the Midwest, some in California; most of it by people whose background assumptions, lifestyles, audiences, and perceptual inputs are radically different from our own and from each other. So, if we have understood their bullet biting correctly (which, of course, it would be on their own account a miracle if we did), it would also be miraculous 126

Objections to Radical Contextualism (II) if we’ve understood any of all these RC writings we’ve been reading lately (and it would be a miracle if they understood anything of what we’re saying in response). Of course, what we really think is this: There are no miracles and we do understand all these papers and books we’ve been reading about RC (well, most of them). So, we conclude that RC is wrong. Perhaps another illustration will help you to see our point if you haven’t already: Suppose right now, Cappelen is about to say something; he’s about to do it sitting with Lepore in the café on 5th Street between Avenues A and B in Manhattan (i.e., you are about to witness another live test, not a quote, but a real utterance, made in 5stC): Napoleon was an interesting character. Call this the Napoleon Speech Act. We think the following is obviously true: Other people in other contexts have said, could have said, and will say exactly what Cappelen said with the Napoleon Speech Act. This would be miraculous if RC were true. Those features which supposedly are constitutive of the content of (the what is said by) the Napoleon-Utterance are not shared by other contexts of utterance. The only way for it to be true that others have said what was said by the Napoleon-Utterance is if the specifics of the context of utterance are irrelevant to content determination. (We have much more to say about contextualism and communication in our (2004).)

127

CHAPTER 9

Objections to Radical Contextualism (III): Internal Inconsistency

Some biographical background: whenever we read a presentation of, and arguments for, RC we wind up screaming at each other: ‘They can’t even say what they believe! They break their own rules in the very formulations of their views.’ Initially, we thought the offending formulations were just the result of insignificant sloppiness or a legitimate simplifying device. But we no longer think that. In this chapter we show it’s intrinsic to RC that its presentations be internally inconsistent. To interpret the sentences that express RC you have to assume RC is not true.

First Inconsistency Charge: RC Implies there are True Utterances of ‘RC is False’ RC is the view that all sentences are context sensitive. If so, then the propositions expressed by utterances of an arbitrary sentence S change depending on its contexts of utterance. The truth conditions for an utterance of an arbitrary sentence S vary between contexts of utterance. Let’s apply this view to sentences used to express and defend RC, i.e., consider a sentence such as: (1) RC is true. If RC is true, then (1) expresses different propositions depending on its contexts of utterance. Let’s consider a context in which an utterance of (1) doesn’t express a proposition Radical Contextualists can accept, i.e., consider contexts relative to which an utterance of (1) expresses a proposition that’s false 128

Objections to Radical Contextualism (III) according to RC. (If you think there’s no such context, see the imagined replies below; for now we’ll assume there’s such a context.) It is not entirely easy to engage in the thought experiment we’re proposing. The central complication is this: For this thought experiment to work, you have to assume that the context we (i.e., C&L) are writing in is one in which ‘true’ expresses the property that Radical Contextualists think applies to RC. That is, we have to assume that ‘true’ in this context expresses a property that Radical Contextualists think applies to RC.1 (We have to admit we have no idea what it even means to make that assumption, but it seems to follow from RC that we can make it, and since this is an internal objection we’re entitled to it.) From this context we are imagining a distinct context C in which an utterance u of ‘RC is false’ is true. Keep in mind what this last sentence means according to Radical Contextualism: it means that u has the property that ‘true’ picks out as used in this context. Of course, for that to be so we have to assume ‘false’ as used in C doesn’t pick out what ‘false’ expresses in this context. We’ll make use of the following simplifying device (ultimately not an acceptable simplifying device, but put that aside for now): Let’s name the semantic value of ‘true’ in this context true and the semantic value of ‘true’ in C true* (and correspondingly for ‘false’ we introduce false and false*). We expect the Radical Contextualist to agree that there might be an utterance u of ‘RC is false’ that’s true, but not worry about it. After all, u doesn’t deny RC is true. It denies RC has some other property, namely, being true*. That is, all they have granted is that RC is false* and that’s not the same as being false. Here is where our objection kicks in. Why doesn’t the Radical Contextualist worry about being false*? What’s so special about being true? Why is that more important than being true*? Why just be concerned about avoiding falsehood and not falsehood*? Why privilege the property that ‘true’ picks out in this context? It is as if the Radical Contextualist has arbitrarily chosen to care intensely about what ‘true’ picks out in this context, and not care about what it picks out in other contexts. We’re seeking a justification for that. Think of our objection as a challenge. We don’t really know what Radical Contextualists think about ‘true’ and other words such as ‘content,’ ‘express,’ ‘context,’ etc., that are central to the articulation of RC. Consider an analogy with ‘red.’ According to Radical Contextualists, there are many, many ways to be red. Let’s suppose something analogous is true about ‘true’: there are many ways to be true. Of course, the Radical Contextualist doesn’t think one of 1 We also have to assume that ‘RC’ expresses (cross-contextually) the view they would like to defend, but we’ll leave that complication aside for the moment.

129

Refutation of Radical Contextualism these ways of being red captures redness any more than the others (that’s the whole point). Why should it be any different for ‘true’? The Radical Contextualist might make any one of three replies: 1 She might argue that ‘true’ and other central semantic terms are stable, that they don’t exhibit the kind of context sensitivity that all other expressions do. They have the same semantic value in all contexts of utterance. Of course, for this strategy to be workable, the Radical Contextualist has to present us with convincing arguments to the effect that these terms are different from all other terms. We know of no such argument, but we’re all ears. 2 She might argue that ‘true’ picks out different properties in different contexts of utterance, but that whichever property is picked out, it applies to RC. Whichever property is picked out by ‘true,’ it is true to utter ‘RC is true.’ To show that this is so would be a rather extraordinary feat. We just don’t have any idea how the Radical Contextualist would go about it. In particular, since the problem recurs at the meta-level: Take utterances of ‘ “RC is true” expresses a truth when uttered in any context of utterance.’ The Radical Contextualist would have to show that this sentence also expresses a truth in all contexts of utterance. As far as we can tell, the only way to do this is to opt for (1). We might be wrong, so again, we’ll just point out that no Radical Contextualist has ever shown that this strategy can be implemented. We’re all ears. 3 Finally, she might argue that what ‘true’ picks out in this context is more important than what ‘true’ picks out in other contexts. There’s something special about true and false, and this allows them to ignore (or not worry about) the true utterances of ‘RC is false.’ On this view, a Radical Contextualist has no reason to worry about RC being false*, or any of the other properties picked out by ‘false.’ Of course, if this is correct, it’s extraordinarily important to place yourself in the right kind of context in order to do semantics. If you’re unfortunate enough to find yourself in a context in which ‘true’ picks out a property you don’t care about, one that’s not significant, then any kind of discourse (in that context) about what in those contexts are called ‘truth values’ is pointless. Again, we ultimately do not know how to evaluate this suggestion before we see it worked out in detail. And again, we’re all ears.

Preliminaries for Second and Third Inconsistency Objections Some preliminaries for the next two objections. 130

Objections to Radical Contextualism (III)

Negative vs. positive characterizations of RC Most of the RC literature consists of a series of claims about what’s not the case about communication in general. Here are some sample illustrations of the kind of formulations we have in mind: What is expressed by the utterance of a sentence in a context goes beyond what is encoded in the sentence itself. Truth-conditional content depends on an indefinite number of unstated background assumptions, not all of which can be made explicit. A change in background assumptions can change truth-conditions, even bracketing disambiguation and reference assignment. That is, even after disambiguating any ambiguous words in a sentence and assigning semantic values to any indexical expressions in the sentence, truth-conditions may vary with variations in the background. (Bezuidenhout 2002, p. 105) There is no sentence that we can produce that can settle all questions about how some original sentence is to be understood, since language doesn’t function that way. It is not self-interpreting. Any sentence that is produced itself has its content only against a background of assumptions. (Bezuidenhout 2002, p. 113) According to contextualism, the sort of content which utterances have (in virtue of the speech acts they serve to perform) can never be fully encoded into a sentence; hence it will never be the case that the sentence itself expresses that content in virtue solely of the conventions of the language. Sentences, by themselves, do not have determinate contents. What gives them the determinate contents they have (in context) is the fact that they are used in performing meaningful actions. In brief, contextualism says that the gap between sentence meaning and speaker’s meaning can never be closed. (Recanati 2003, p. 194) What words mean plays a role in fixing when they would be true; but not an exhaustive one. Meaning leaves room for variation in truth conditions from one speaking to another. (Travis 1996, p. 451) . . . in general the meaning of a sentence only has application (it only, for example, determines a set of truth conditions) against a background of assumptions and practices that are not representable as a part of meaning. (Searle 1980, p. 221) These kinds of remarks say nothing about how what is asserted is determined. They provide purely negative characterizations of RC. We take it 131

Refutation of Radical Contextualism that you are not finished formulating your view if all you have done is present a range of negations, i.e., a set of sentences of the form ‘It’s not the case that A, B, C . . .’ It’s bad for theology and it’s no better for semantics. We’re introducing the notion of a negative characterization of RC just so we can easier locate our attack. Our objections take this form: As soon as Radical Contextualists go from presenting purely negative claims to making positive claims, these two aspects of RC conflict. The positive claims directly contradict the negative ones. We have in mind two such conflicts: (1) RC descriptions of conditions under which utterances of a sentence S are true provide the basis for generalized truth conditions, i.e., for a completely general description of the conditions under which an arbitrary utterance of a sentence S is true. Exactly what they deny is possible. (2) RC descriptions of what speakers say by uttering sentences in various contexts are incompatible with the Radical Contextualist claim that there’s no common core, no one proposition expressed in all these contexts, i.e., incompatible with the claim that there’s no semantically minimal proposition expressed.

Second Inconsistency Charge: RC Generalizations are Inconsistent with Negative RC-Claims Semantic Minimalists have a response to the question What does it take for an utterance of ‘Smith weighs 80 kg’ to be true? Such utterances are true just in case Smith weighs 80 kg. Such utterances all express the proposition that Smith weighs 80 kg. What’s the Radical Contextualist’s reply to this question? She denies our view, so she obviously thinks utterances of ‘Smith weighs 80 kg’ can be true even though Smith doesn’t weigh 80 kg. But, if it’s not Smith’s weighing 80 kg that renders the utterances true, what does? Travis has responded to a related concern: What could make the given words ‘The leaves are green’ true, other than the presumed ‘fact that the leaves are green,’ is the fact that the leaves counted as green on the occasion of that speaking. Since what sometimes counts as green may sometimes not be, there may still be something to make other words ‘The leaves are green’ false, namely that on the occasion of their speaking, those leaves (at that time) did not count as green. (Travis 1997a, pp. 101–2; see also Travis 1996, p. 457) This passage suggests the following response to our question (of course, we’re applying what he says here to ‘Smith weighs 80 kg,’ so just change 132

Objections to Radical Contextualism (III) from ‘leaves’ to ‘Smith’ and from ‘green’ to ‘weighs 80 kg’): an utterance of ‘Smith weighs 80 kg’ can be true when Smith doesn’t in fact weigh 80 kg because he might count as weighing 80 kg. Apparently, as Travis sees things, Smith can count as weighing 80 kg even if he doesn’t weigh 80 kg.2 So, in response to the question ‘What, other than Smith weighing 80 kg, can suffice for the truth of an utterance of “Smith weighs 80 kg”?’ Travis has a positive proposal: It suffices that Smith counts as weighing 80 kg (in a situation) and Smith can count as weighing 80 kg in some situation even though he doesn’t weigh 80 kg. Notice that as soon as Travis provides this answer (more generally, any answer to our question) he has, in effect, specified (generalized) truth conditions for ‘Smith weighs 80 kg.’ His positive position now seems to be that this sentence is true in a context C just in case Smith counts in C as weighing 80 kg. Travis has provided no argument for thinking that this doesn’t follow from the meaning of ‘Smith weighs 80 kg’ alone. So, the correct T-sentence for this sentence, according to Travis, as determined by its meaning, is something like (A): (A) ‘Smith weighs 80 kg’ is true in a context C iff Smith counts in C as weighing 80 kg. Notice that some version of (A) is available for whatever answer Travis, or any other Radical Contextualist, gives to the question ‘What can make an utterance of “Smith weighs 80 kg” true except Smith weighing 80 kg?’ Travis’s position is internally inconsistent. For, as soon as he tells us what would suffice for the truth of ‘Smith weighs 80 kg’ in a context C other than Smith weighing 80 kg, and he has to tell us that in order to provide a positive proposal to answer our claim that nothing else would suffice, he has provided a (generalized) T-sentence. Think of it like this: There’s a predicate ‘counts as weighing 80 kg’ which is such that it can be used, in the context Travis finds himself while writing this passage, to pick out the correct truth conditions for ‘Smith weighs 80 kg’ in any context of utterance. Now, we don’t think this is the correct way to describe these truth conditions, but they are an attempt to do so. At this point, we’re not debating whether ‘Smith weighs 80 kg’ has generalized truth conditions or not; we are simply debating the correct form of these truth conditions. Should it be something along the lines of

2 A natural extension would be that he thinks that an utterance of ‘Smith weighs 80 kg’ can be false in a context C, when Smith does weigh 80 kg, as long as he doesn’t count in C as weighing 80 kg.

133

Refutation of Radical Contextualism For any utterance u of ‘Smith weighs 80 kg’ in a context C, u is true just in case Smith weighs 80 kg. or For any utterance u of ‘Smith weighs 80 kg’ in a context C, u is true just in case Smith counts as weighing 80 kg in C. We imagine three possible replies:3 (1) According to the first, the Radical Contextualists should just give up the claim that sentences lack truth conditions. The Radical Contextualist says something like: ‘OK, if that’s enough for it to be the case that sentences have truth conditions, then have it your way. Call them truth conditions.’ (2) According to the second reply, these ‘counts as’ truth conditions do not depend on the meaning of the words, and that’s the central discrepancy between the two possibilities. (3) According to the third reply, Radical Contextualists should not say the sorts of things Travis here says. Our response to the first reply. This is not a reply available to a Radical Contextualist since it is, in effect, to give up RC. See the representative quotes in the section ‘Preliminaries for the Second and Third Inconsistency Objections’ above. Our response to the second reply. We have an objection to RC only if what fills in the right hand side (RHS) of (A) is determined by the meaning of the words (and their mode of combination). We don’t see how a Radical Contextualist could deny that the RHS of (A) is so determined. We are supposed to be able to figure out what the truth conditions of an utterance are from what sentence is uttered and the context in which it is uttered. We don’t go on nothing presumably, and different people figure out pretty much the same thing. (How else can Travis rely on our reaction to his examples?) But if that’s true, then there must be some sort of tacit rule guiding our interpretations. Something like: Look for the relevant information (where this presumably has something to do with intentions and social practices) that actually determines the truth conditions. If RC were right about the practice, then this is a routine feature of interpretation of sentences, and everyone recognizes 3 A fourth reply is indirectly considered in the subsection of Chapter 10 entitled ‘PoC 3.’ We there consider the view that it cannot be ‘real semantic truth conditions’ if it appeals to speaker’s intentions.

134

Objections to Radical Contextualism (III) that everyone else follows this general rule when we use sentences. Thus, that we follow these rules in looking for the relevant information looks like a convention associated with our use of sentences, and if we always (or almost always) use it, then there’s no reason to deny that it attaches to the use of the words as a matter of convention, and hence, to their conventional meaning. Our response to the third reply. In direct response to our argument, Bezuidenhout says the following: this objection arises simply because of the way Travis happened to frame the idea of occasion-sensitivity. When I introduced Travis’s ideas . . . this is what I said: ‘If there were no occasion-sensitivity . . . we might say that the English words “is blue” correctly describe an item just in case it is blue. But there is occasion-sensitivity, which means that there are different possible understandings of “is blue”, depending on the circumstances. Thus at best we could have a rule for English which says that “is blue” correctly describes an item in a certain context just in case it is then correct to apply “is blue” to it.’ I think it is clear that when phrased in this way, Travis’s notion of occasion-sensitivity cannot be exploited to give rise to a rule of the sort [A], and hence the idea of occasion-sensitivity does not give rise to an inconsistency. (Bezuidenhout 2002, pp. 128–9; emphasis our own) In effect, Bezuidenhout recommends that Radical Contextualists should refuse to answer the question What, other than Smith weighing 80 kg, could make an utterance of ‘Smith weighs 80 kg’ true? This is just a variation on the question What does it take for an object to satisfy ‘is blue’? It’s no response to that question to say, as Bezuidenhout does, that ‘is blue’ correctly describes an item in a certain context just in case it is then correct to apply ‘is blue’ to it. She claims that ‘is blue’ can be satisfied by things other than things which are blue. When we ask her what, other than being blue, can suffice for satisfying ‘is blue,’ her reply is simply ‘Whatever it takes to satisfy “blue.” ’ This is no answer to our question. Why isn’t it acceptable for her to refuse to generalize about what it takes to satisfy ‘is blue’? Why wouldn’t it be acceptable for a Radical Contextualist to remain mute? We’re tempted to say: Because, if she opts for this rejoinder, then she doesn’t have a theory. You don’t have a theory if all you say, in general, about the satisfaction conditions for ‘blue’ is that something satisfies ‘blue’ just in case it is correct to apply ‘blue’ to it. We’re very tempted to give this reply, but we will resist this temptation since we’re not in the mood for a protracted discussion or debate about the nature of theories, whether one is needed, etc. 135

Refutation of Radical Contextualism Here’s a more direct and useful response to the suggestion that Radical Contextualists can refuse to answer our question: It makes no difference to us which questions Radical Contextualists opt to answer. It makes no difference to us what they choose to say in response to our questions. What does matter to us is only what they are committed to, i.e., what follows from their positive claims and from their methodology. So, for us, the interesting question is not what they actually say (or which questions they choose to answer), but rather whether it would be true (given other claims they make and given their methodology) to say what Travis says. Does Bezuidenhout really want to deny Travis’s claim? Let’s break it down. The first claim made in the Travis quote above simply says that ‘What sometimes counts as green may sometimes not be,’ i.e., a thing can satisfy ‘is green’ even though it is not green. No Radical Contextualist can deny this, because to do so is, in effect, to endorse Semantic Minimalism. It is constitutive of Semantic Minimalism that only something green can satisfy ‘green,’ and so anyone who endorses this claim endorses Semantic Minimalism. The second central claim in the Travis quote is this: ‘If an utterance of “The leaves are green” isn’t true, it is because on the occasion of their speaking, those leaves (at that time) did not count as green.’ Does Bezuidenhout really want to deny this claim, i.e., does she really want to claim that an utterance of ‘The leaves are green’ can be true even though in that context of utterance those leaves didn’t count as green? If so, she’s committed to presenting us with a context of utterance in which an object both isn’t green and doesn’t count as green, but still satisfies ‘is green.’ We don’t think she, or any other Radical Contextualist, can (or even wants to) come up with any such a scenario.

Third Inconsistency Charge: RC Descriptions of what Speakers say are Inconsistent with Negative RC-Claims Our second inconsistency charge against RC arises from the way a Radical Contextualist describes truth conditions, and, more generally, the circumstances that allegedly make the propositions expressed by various utterances true. We now look at passages in which Radical Contextualists describe specific circumstances of evaluation that are alleged to make the propositions expressed by various utterances true. Here is a passage in which Bezuidenhout talks about utterances of the word ‘blue.’ Pay close attention to the way she uses ‘blue’ (in particular, the uses we have put in boldface): 136

Objections to Radical Contextualism (III) Consider again the example of Pia and her ink. When Pia asks the stationer for blue ink, and he hands her an opaque box with a bottle inside, saying ‘It’s blue,’ how is he to be understood? First, the meaning of ‘is blue’ in English imposes some constraints. This predicate is part of a system for describing the colors of objects, which includes categories such as blue, green, red, black, etc. This system is governed by certain principles, such as that an object’s color is a matter of its looking a certain way in normal conditions. But what constitutes normal conditions will vary depending on the particular application that is being made of the color system. On one possible way of applying the color system to ink, the color of ink is seen by writing with it. On another way of applying the system, ink’s color can be seen in the bottle. Let us assume that Pia wants to write with this ink. Then being given the information that the ink in the box is blue in the sense that it writes blue would be of value to her. On the other hand, being given the information that the ink in the box is blue in the sense that it looks blue in the bottle is of less value. Pia attributes a certain level of worldliness and reasonableness to the stationer. He presumably knows that most customers come into his store to buy ink for the purpose of writing with it, since this is the stereotypical use for ink. Hence he is to be understood as saying that the ink is blue in the sense that it will write blue (on normal paper). (Bezuidenhout 2002, p. 120) Call the context in which Bezuidenhout writes, the B-context. In this objection we focus on four sentences uttered in the B-context. (It’s (4) that’s particularly important right now, but to put it in the proper context we list all of (1)–(4).) (1) Then being given the information that the ink in the box is blue in the sense that it writes blue would be of value to her. (2) On the other hand, being given the information that the ink in the box is blue in the sense that it looks blue in the bottle is of less value. (3) Hence, he is to be understood as saying that the ink is blue in the sense that it will write blue (on normal paper). (4) When Pia asks the stationer for blue ink, and he hands her an opaque box with a bottle inside, saying ‘It’s blue,’ how is he to be understood? First, put aside the confusing ‘is blue in the sense . . .’ This construction is ungrammatical, and we’re not sure how to interpret it; we’re not even sure 137

Refutation of Radical Contextualism it can be rendered intelligible, but we will resist the temptation to base any of our argument on these worries. The best we can do is to suggest a paraphrase of it as a sort of metalinguistic claim, for instance, as ‘Can be described by the word “blue” when that word is used to mean . . .’ The third objection against Bezuidenhout is elicited by focusing on (4). Notice that its first occurrence of ‘blue’ is used, and not quoted; i.e., it is not mentioned. Bezuidenhout uses ‘blue’ when she describes what Pia asked for. She does that for a very good reason. She does it because it is true that what Pia asked for is blue ink. But if that is true, and it is, then the implications are devastating for RC. What it implies is that Bezuidenhout can use ‘blue’ in the B-context to pick out the same property as Pia did when she used ‘blue’ in her context. Finally, and this is a crucial step in our argument, there’s nothing special about Pia’s utterance of ‘blue’ that renders this indirect report acceptable. It is not as if Bezuidenhout sat down and thought hard about the details of Pia’s context of utterance and concluded that it was OK to utter (4). No. (4) would be true no matter what was going on in a context where Pia came into a store and uttered ‘Can I have some blue ink please?’; more generally, any context in which she asked ‘Can I have some blue ink please?’ is one in which Pia asked for blue ink. What follows is that Bezuidenhout in the B-context can use ‘blue’ to pick out the property (or to mean the same as, whichever is your favorite terminology) that an utterance of ‘blue’ is used to pick out in an arbitrary context of utterance. More generally, Bezuidenhout can use ‘Pia asked for some blue ink’ to describe what Pia asked for by any utterance of ‘Can I have some blue ink please?’ Remember, RC is committed to the negative claim that there’s no one property picked out by various utterances of ‘blue’ and no one proposition expressed by various utterances of ‘Can I have some blue ink please?’ That’s not compatible with Bezuidenhout being able to use an utterance of ‘blue’ in the B-context to pick out that which ‘blue’ picks out in an arbitrary context. Nor is it compatible with Bezuidenhout being able to use ‘She asked for blue ink’ to describe the request made by an arbitrary utterance of ‘Can I have some blue ink please?’ Of course, Bezuidenhout could deny that all these different people who utter ‘Can I have some blue ink please?’ ask for blue ink. But there’s a reason why she doesn’t deny it. Pia did ask for blue ink. To deny this would be, if not absurd, at least a move that would place RC deeply out of joint with our intuitions about what speakers say. That would be a peculiar consequence since a central goal of RC is to present a theory that’s faithful to our intuitions about what is said by utterances.

138

Objections to Radical Contextualism (III)

Corollary of the third inconsistency charge Here’s a corollary of the above point. Consider sentences (1)–(3) from the passage quoted above. (1) Then being given the information that the ink in the box is blue in the sense that it writes blue would be of value to her. (2) On the other hand, being given the information that the ink in the box is blue in the sense that it looks blue in the bottle is of less value. (3) Hence, he is to be understood as saying that the ink is blue in the sense that it will write blue (on normal paper). Focus on the second occurrence of ‘blue’ in each of (1)–(3). What do they mean? It certainly looks as if Bezuidenhout is using ‘blue’ (in her B-context) to refer to something that the two phenomena she describes have in common, i.e., it certainly seems that she is using ‘blue’ to refer to something that blue writing ink and blue looking ink have in common. But what exactly do they have in common? Well, the one looks blue, and the other writes blue. What can ‘blue’ refer to that describes both these things? Another way of asking this question is this: If something writes and looks blue, what do the writing and the looking have in common? We’re not metaphysicians, so we’re not going to provide an elaborate answer: Let’s just call whatever they have in common blueblue (i.e., we’re going to use ‘blueblue’ to refer to whatever it is that all these uses have in common). We can leave it to the metaphysicians to determine what exactly blueblue is since the answer to that metaphysical question is irrelevant to our concerns. (If the answer is, and we suspect it is, no more than blueblue = blue, that’s fine with us.) Our critical point is linguistic: To make sense of Bezuidenhout’s passage, you have to assume that her ‘blue’ refers to something that all these different ways of being blue have in common. So ‘blue’ as used in (1)–(3) refers to blueblue. But now go back to the use of ‘blue’ in (4). Bezuidenhout uses ‘blue’ when she describes what Pia asked for. As we pointed out above, she does that for a very good reason. She does it because it is true that what Pia asked for is blue ink. So, she uses ‘blue’ in the B-context to characterize the content of Pia’s utterance. So, the semantic value ‘blue’ takes when it is used in the B-context can capture what Pia said by using ‘blue’ in Pia’s context. If what she is asking for is the ink of that color which the writing and the looking have in common, i.e. blueblue, then in the imagined context of utterance, Pia uses ‘blue’ to refer to blueblue (or uses it with blueblue as its semantic value). 139

Refutation of Radical Contextualism We conclude: The ways Bezuidenhout uses ‘blue’ to describe truth conditions for utterances of ‘blue’ other than her own, and to describe what is said by these other utterances involving the word ‘blue,’ are incompatible with RC. They assume that her own utterances of ‘blue’ refer to blueblue and that this is what Pia also referred to. Even if you followed what we had to say above and even if you happened to agree with it, you might still think we’re just exploiting some accidental features of a particular discussion of a particular example by a particular Radical Contextualist. How are we to establish that our critical points generalize? Well, all we can say is this: They all do. We can only respond to what they say and write. If there’s some other way to do it, then show it to us. More importantly, for someone not to present the cases as Bezuidenhout does would be bizarre. It would involve denying that Pia asked for blue ink, denying that ink that writes blue and looks blue have something in common, i.e., that the one looks the same color as the other one writes. There might be positions that incorporate such views, but we haven’t seen them made explicit.

140

PART III

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism

CHAPTER 10

Semantic Minimalism

So far we’ve tried to convince our readers that certain views about semantic content and context sensitivity are wrong. In this third and last part of the book we’ll present the view we think is correct. The correct view is the combination of two views: Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism. In this and the next two chapters we present and defend Semantic Minimalism and in the final chapter, Chapter 13, we defend Speech Act Pluralism. Since the two views go together, we will assume Speech Act Pluralism in this and the next two chapters.

Semantic Minimalism: Basic Idea The idea motivating Semantic Minimalism is simple and obvious: The semantic content of a sentence S is the content that all utterances of S share. It is the content that all utterances of S express no matter how different their contexts of utterance are. It is also the content that can be grasped and reported by someone who is ignorant about the relevant characteristics of the context in which an utterance of S took place. The minimal proposition cannot be characterized completely independently of the context of utterance. Semantic Minimalism recognizes a small subset of expressions that interact with contexts of utterance in privileged ways; we call these the genuinely context sensitive expressions. When such an expression occurs in a sentence S, all competent speakers know that they need to know something about the context of utterance in order to grasp the proposition semantically expressed by that utterance of S, and to recognize the truth conditions of its utterance. These context sensitive expressions exhaust the extent of contextual influence on semantic content. 143

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism

Semantic Minimalism: Elaboration Semantic Minimalism can be presented in a more elaborated form as the conjunction of the following seven theses: (1) One of the propositions expressed by a genuine utterance of an English sentence is the proposition semantically expressed. (2) That there is a proposition semantically expressed is presupposed by any coherent account of linguistic communication, i.e., accounts which fail to recognize a semantically expressed proposition (more or less as characterized in this book) are incoherent. (3) All semantic context sensitivity (i.e., context sensitivity that affects the proposition semantically expressed) is grammatically triggered, i.e., it is triggered by a grammatically (i.e., syntactically or morphemically) articulated sentential component. (4) There are only a handful of context sensitive expressions in natural language and they all pass the tests presented in Chapter 7. Here is a simple effort to provide a list of the semantically context sensitive expressions in English: The personal pronouns ‘I,’ ‘you,’ ‘he,’ ‘she,’ ‘it’ in their various cases and number (e.g., singular, plural, nominative, accusative, genitive forms), the demonstrative pronouns ‘that’ and ‘this’ in their various cases and number, the adverbs ‘here,’ ‘there,’ ‘now,’ ‘today,’ ‘yesterday,’ ‘tomorrow,’ ‘ago’ (as in ‘He left two days ago’), ‘hence(forth)’ (as in ‘There will be no talking henceforth’), and the adjectives ‘actual’ and ‘present.’ Words and aspects of words that indicate tense also have their reference so determined (cf., Kaplan 1989a, p. 489).1 (5) In order to fix or determine the proposition semantically expressed by an utterance of a sentence S, follow steps (a)–(e): (a) Specify the meaning (or semantic value) of every expression in S (doing so in accordance with your favorite semantic theory, i.e., we want Semantic Minimalism to be neutral between the different accounts of how best to assign semantic values to linguistic expressions; e.g., objects, sets, properties, functions, conceptual roles, stereotypes, or whatever). (b) Specify all the relevant compositional meaning rules for English (doing so also in accordance with your favorite semantic theory; again, we insist upon Semantic Minimalism 1 We don’t mean to rule out the possibility that there are other context sensitive expressions. There might also be unclear (potential borderline) cases.

144

Semantic Minimalism being neutral between different accounts of how best to respect compositionality). (c) Disambiguate every ambiguous/polysemous expression in S. (d) Precisify every vague expression in S. (e) Fix the semantic value of every context sensitive expression in S. (6) The proposition semantically expressed by an utterance u of a (declarative) sentence S does not exhaust the speech act content of u. An utterance of a sentence S typically says, asserts, claims, etc. a wide range of propositions in addition to the proposition semantically expressed. (7) An epistemic corollary of thesis 6, one that cannot be emphasized enough, is that intuitions about, and other evidence for, speech act content are not direct evidence for semantic content: an intuition to the effect that an utterance u said that p is not even prima facie evidence that p is the proposition semantically expressed by u. This is so no matter how refined, reflected, or ‘equilibriumized’ the intuition in question might be.

Semantic Minimalism: Illustration As a simple illustration of our position on Semantic Minimalism, consider an utterance of sentence (1): (1) She’s happy. (1) includes (at least) two indexical elements: ‘she’ and a tense indicator indicating simple present tense. To locate the proposition semantically expressed by an utterance of (1), first make sure there’s no ambiguity present (there isn’t). Precisify every vague expression (for the sake of argument, assume there are none). Fix the propositional components that correspond to the two indexical components. That gives you the contextually salient female2 b and the time of utterance t. The proposition semantically expressed can, for heuristic purposes, be represented as an ordered triple along the lines of ·b, t, happyÒ, (where ‘happy’ corresponds to the semantic value of ‘happy,’ whatever that might be). This proposition is not the only proposition that the speaker said or asserted in uttering (1). The speaker might, for example, be saying that b is no longer angry, or that her medication is working, or that she’s ready to meet her sister. If the speaker’s utterance of (1) is ironic, it can be used effectively to say that b is in a bad 2 As mentioned above, we take no stand on the exact nature of the reference fixing rule for ‘she.’

145

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism mood. There cannot be a systematic theory that predicts in advance what someone can use a particular utterance of (1) to say. We suspect that it just isn’t the sort of subject matter that lends itself to any kind of serious, or rigorous, theorizing.

Semantic Minimalism: Points of Clarification Obviously, much more needs to be said about theses (1)–(7), but seven points of clarification are of immediate significance. PoC 1. As already indicated, throughout this book we have tried to remain neutral between competing semantic frameworks. In particular, we have presented all our arguments in a manner that remains neutral about whether a semantic theory must appeal to something like a proposition semantically expressed in addition to assigning interpretive truth conditions, or whether a semantic theory that specifies interpretive truth conditions alone suffices. PoC 2. In line with this neutrality, there are two ways to render more precise what we mean by saying of an expression e that it is context sensitive. (a) To say that e is context sensitive is to say that its contribution to the propositions expressed by utterances of sentences containing e varies from context to context. For example, if a sentence S contains the word ‘I,’ the contribution of that word to the propositions semantically expressed by utterances u of S is the utterer (or the speaker) of u himself. (b) To say that e is context sensitive is to say that its contribution to the truth conditions of utterances u of a sentence S containing e (in some way or other) references various aspects of the context of u. For example, the truth conditions for an utterance u of a sentence S containing ‘I’ will, on the right hand side of a biconditional specifying the interpretive truth conditions for u, make reference to the speaker (e.g., if u is an utterance of ‘I am hungry’ by a speaker A, then u is true just in case A is hungry at the time of u). PoC 3. A huge chunk of the current debate about these issues is distorted by a peculiar obsession with how to use the words ‘semantic’ and ‘pragmatic.’ We emphatically don’t care about these terminological issues. We do, however, think the debate about these issues has reached such an elevated stage of confusion that it is advisable not to frame it in terms of the ‘semantic–pragmatic’ distinction. There are just too many such distinctions 146

Semantic Minimalism and hence any debate framed in those terms is too easily led astray. For this reason, we distinguish between semantic content and speech act content. We stay clear of the term ‘pragmatic.’ If someone would like to use the word ‘semantic’ for something other than what we use it for, we’re OK with that. PoC 4. A closely related point has to do with a distinction sometimes drawn between wide and narrow context. This distinction plays an important role in the work of, for example, Recanati, Bach, and Carston. Recanati, in particular, seems to think the distinction plays an important role in an objection he raises to what he calls Semantic Minimalism. As far as we can tell, his objection is purely terminological, and that’s why we address it here. The argument can be found in Recanati (2004). He first introduces the distinction with a quote from Bach: There are two quite different sorts of context, and each plays quite a different role. Wide context concerns any contextual information relevant to determining the speaker’s intention and to the successful and felicitous performance of the speech act . . . Narrow context concerns information specifically relevant to determining the semantic values of [indexicals] . . . Narrow context is semantic, wide context pragmatic. (Recanati 2004, p. 66) It’s not entirely clear from this passage (or the rest of the text) exactly how to define the wide–narrow distinction, but for the purposes of Recanati’s argument the only important point is that wide context takes speaker’s intentions into account, whereas narrow context does not. He then goes on to argue that some of the expressions Semantic Minimalists (such as us) treat as semantically context sensitive depend on wide context. He says about demonstratives: It is generally assumed that there is such a rule, namely, the rule that the demonstrative refers to the object which happens to be demonstrated or which happens to be the most salient, in the context at hand. But the notions of ‘demonstration’ and ‘salience’ are pragmatic notions in disguise. They cannot be cashed out in terms merely of the narrow context. Ultimately, a demonstrative refers to what the speaker who uses it refers to by using it. (Recanati 2004, p. 67) About ‘here’ and ‘now’ he says: We encounter the same sort of problem even with expressions like ‘here’ and ‘now’ which are traditionally considered as pure indexicals 147

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism (rather than demonstratives). Their semantic value is the time or place of the context respectively. But what counts as the time and place of the context? How inclusive must the time or place in question be? It depends on what the speaker means, hence, again, on the wide context. (Recanati 2004, p. 68) These are insights that we might agree with, i.e., we might agree that the semantic value of semantically context sensitive expressions might be fixed by the intentions of the speaker. We don’t (need to) assume that the semantic value is fixed by purely ‘objective’ features of the context of utterance. Our view need not take a stand on the question of the exact nature of these reference fixing mechanisms, but as far as we can tell, Recanati is probably right: wide context is involved. (At least we would be willing to concede that for the sake of argument.) Recanati, however, thinks this reliance on wide context is incompatible with Semantic Minimalism. He says: It follows that semantic interpretation by itself cannot determine what is said by a sentence containing such an expression: for the semantic value of the expression – its own contribution to what is said – is a matter of speaker’s meaning, and can only be determined by pragmatic interpretation. (Recanati 2004, pp. 67–8) Recanati seems to hold the view that whenever the semantic content relies on wide context (i.e., on speaker’s intentions) to fix semantic values, that semantic content isn’t pure semantic content, but is in part pragmatic. Hence, it shouldn’t be called semantic content. It’s somehow cheating to call it semantic content. He says: To be sure, one can make that into a semantic rule. One can say that the character of a demonstrative is the rule that it refers to what the speaker intends to refer to. As a result, one will add to the narrow context a sequence of ‘speaker’s intended referents,’ in such a way that the nth demonstrative in the sentence will refer to the nth member of the sequence. Formally that is fine, but philosophically it is clear that one is cheating. We pretend that we can manage with a limited, narrow notion of context of the sort we need for handling indexicals, while in fact we can only determine the speaker’s intended referent (hence the semantic referent, which depends upon the speaker’s intended referent) by resorting to pragmatic interpretation and relying on the wide context. (Recanati 2004, pp. 67–8; emphasis our own) 148

Semantic Minimalism We find this remark about ‘cheating’ baffling.3 Why is it cheating? Of course, if someone claimed that the semantic content didn’t depend in any way on speaker’s intentions, it would be cheating, but we don’t know of anyone who makes that claim. It is telling in this respect that Recanati doesn’t quote a single person who does. We certainly don’t. Maybe he thinks it’s cheating because he thinks the word ‘semantic’ should be used to describe only those features of communicated content that do not depend on speaker’s intentions. If that’s how Recanati wants to use the term ‘semantics,’ that’s OK with us. It’s just not how we use it. PoC 5. Another related point concerns a distinction made early in Kaplan’s classic paper ‘Demonstratives.’ Kaplan distinguishes between pure indexicals and true demonstratives. Utterances of sentences containing the latter must be accompanied by a demonstration in order to be complete:4 The linguistic rules which govern the use of the true demonstratives ‘that,’ ‘he,’ etc. are not sufficient to determine their referent in all contexts of use. Something else – an associated demonstration – must be provided. The linguistic rules assume that such a demonstration accompanies each (demonstrative) use of a demonstrative. (Kaplan 1989a, p. 490) Indexicals, on the other hand, need not be accompanied by a demonstration: ‘The linguistic rules which govern their use fully determine the referent for each context’ (Kaplan 1989a, p. 491). We turn your attention to this distinction merely to emphasize that it is one we will intentionally ignore. There have been extensive (and interesting) debates about the nature, and the correct representation, of the rules that fix the semantic values of various context sensitive terms, about the role of demonstrations, about the importance of speaker’s intentions, and about the nature of contextual

3 The ‘cheating’ remark is endorsed by Carston in the following passage: ‘We can, of course, stipulate that it (or this or that) encodes a rule to the effect that it refers to what the speaker intends to refer to, and we can add to the set of contextual parameters a sequence of “speaker’s intended referents”, arranged in such a way that each demonstrative maps onto a referent as required. But, as Recanati (2002) says, while that may be fine from a formal point of view, “philosophically it is clear that one is cheating”. To proceed in this formal way is to avoid dealing with an undeniable cognitive reality, which is that the assignment of referents to the vast range of linguistic referring expressions relies on a wide notion of context and requires the intervention of pragmatic principles or strategies that are geared to the recovery of the speaker’s intended meaning’ (Carston 2004, p. 7). 4 Where being complete is different from being nonvacuous (Kaplan 1989, p. 491).

149

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism salience. These are interesting and important issues but have no bearing whatsoever on the arguments presented here. PoC 6. We should point out that even though much about our view is Gricean in perspective, our way of classifying contents (i.e., to contrast the proposition semantically expressed by an utterance u of a sentence S with the speech act content of u) distinguishes us (at least terminologically) from Grice. For Grice, there’s an important distinction between what a speaker says with an utterance and what she conversationally implicates with that utterance. He thinks of the former more or less along the lines of what we have been calling the proposition semantically expressed. It is important for us (a) not to identify the proposition semantically expressed with the proposition asserted (or said), and (b) for that reason not to reserve the label ‘what is said’ for the proposition semantically expressed. (See Chapters 12 and 13 for further discussion.) PoC 7. It should be clear that Semantic Minimalism, as we understand it, is not in the business of conceptual analysis. Semantic Minimalists are happy to use the words and sentences they theorize about to characterize the semantic content of those words and sentences. They need not be in the business of analyzing the meanings of words. For example, it’s perfectly acceptable, according to Semantic Minimalism, to say that ‘red’ is a word that applies to red things, and that ‘Ducks have soft beaks’ expresses the proposition that ducks have soft beaks, and is true just in case ducks have soft beaks. The goal is not to analyze the basic expressions of the language being studied. It is to reveal the structure of that language. In the words of Bertrand Russell: It is no more necessary to be able to say what a word means than it is for a cricketer to know the mathematical theory of impact and of projectiles. Indeed, in the case of many object-words, it must be strictly impossible to say what they mean, except by a tautology, for it is with them that language begins. (Russell 1940, p. 26)

Semantic Minimalism: Arguments The central components of the arguments in favor of Semantic Minimalism have already been presented in earlier chapters and what remains will be presented in the next two. Here we simply outline the two main argumentative strategies that support Semantic Minimalism (when combined with Speech Act Pluralism). The first is an Argument by Elimination. The second is an Argument from Explanatory Force. 150

Semantic Minimalism

Argument by elimination There are two alternatives to Semantic Minimalism: Moderate Contextualism (endorsed by lots of contemporary philosophers, be they semantic opportunists or just confused semanticists) and Radical Contextualism (often thought of as a rather extreme view and less popular than Moderate Contextualism). In Part I of this book we showed that MC is an unstable position. A consistent Moderate Contextualist should become a Radical Contextualist. In Part II we showed that Radical Contextualism is internally inconsistent and fails to account for some of the basic features of our linguistic practices. It is radically empirically inadequate in so far as it fails to account for a wide range of intuitions that by the standards of Radical Contextualism should be accounted for. If we’re right, Semantic Minimalism is the only game in town at the end of the day. As a reminder for those who, for reasons we can’t comprehend, are not convinced that MC is an unstable position: MC on its own has all the defects of RC (except for the internal inconsistency) and the most popular (and most plausible) version of MC has a wide range of additional problems presented in Chapter 6 (i.e., overgenerates necessary truths, predicts anaphoric relations where there are none, overgenerates a priori truths). So, even if you’re unconvinced that MC is unstable, Semantic Minimalism is still preferable to MC. Argument from explanatory force: The seven virtues of Semantic Minimalism Of course, the primary reason we think Semantic Minimalism is a good theory is that it can explain all the data that a semantic theory should explain. It accounts for all the evidence a semantic theory should account for. In particular, it can account for the ways in which the content that an utterance communicates is shaped by the context of that utterance. Here, in summary, are what we take to be the seven primary virtues of Semantic Minimalism as defended in this book: First virtue. The most characteristic feature of Semantic Minimalism is that it recognizes only a very limited set of semantically context sensitive expressions. In Chapter 7 we argued that the members of this set are the only expressions that pass our various tests for context sensitivity: the InterContextual Disquotational Indirect Report Test, the Collective Descriptions Test (and the VP-ellipsis Test), and the ICD/RCSA Test. No semantic theory should classify as context sensitive any expression that does not pass these tests. Semantic Minimalism doesn’t. All other theories do. 151

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism Second virtue (a corollary of the first virtue). Semantic Minimalism, and no other view, can account for how Inter-Contextual Disquotational Indirect Reports can be true where the reporter and the reportee find themselves in radically different contexts. In such cases, the reported content is the semantic content. As an illustration, when A knows that B has uttered ‘Peter’s book was red,’ but knows nothing else about the context in which that utterance took place, A can still say truly that B said that Peter’s book was red (as we can do, in this very context). The content attributed to B’s saying is the minimal content.5 Theories that increase the magnitude of contextual influence on content cannot explain the ease with which we make such Inter-Contextual Disquotational Indirect Reports. Third virtue. Semantic Minimalism, and no other view, can account for how the same content can be expressed, claimed, asserted, questioned, investigated, etc. in radically different contexts. It is the semantic content that enables audiences who find themselves in radically different contexts to understand each other, to agree or disagree, to question and debate with each other. It can serve this function simply because it is the sort of content that is largely immune to contextual variations. We should point out something entirely obvious in connection with the second and third virtues: The underlying idea, namely, that it is essential for a philosophy of language to explain how content can be shared across contexts, does not originate with us. It is one of the fundamental strands in twentieth century philosophy of language. A version of the underlying idea is found, for example, in Frege’s objections to psychologism. Here’s a pertinent passage from his paper ‘The Thought’: If every thought requires an owner and belongs to the contents of his consciousness, then the thought has this owner alone; and there is no science common to many on which many could work, but perhaps I have my science, a totality of thoughts whose owner I am, and another person has his. Each of us is concerned with contents of his own consciousness. No contradiction between the two sciences would then be possible, and it would really be idle to dispute about truth; as idle, indeed almost as ludicrous, as for two people to dispute whether a hundred mark note were genuine, where each means the one he himself had in his pocket and understood the word ‘genuine’ in his own particular sense. (Frege 1977, p. 17)

5 See comments in Chapter 13 about the speech act content of indirect reports for some further qualifications.

152

Semantic Minimalism In this passage Frege takes it to be self-evident that we can share thoughts, that we can have a common science, and that we can agree and disagree. His opinions are, in some vague form, a version of the (self-evidently true) presumption that communication (as we understand it) is possible despite radical differences. At the risk of offending Frege scholars everywhere, we ask you to consider this (no doubt deeply anachronistic and, at some deep level of exegesis, inaccurate) analogy. Frege in this passage is, at least in part, trying to show that if thoughts were psychological states, then it would be hard to see how individuals could communicate. The analogy is this: If communicated contents are restricted to (or, essentially tied to) specific contexts of utterance, then it is hard to envision how speakers who find themselves in different contexts can communicate, i.e., under such circumstances communication between contexts is thrown into doubt. To flesh out the analogy further, consider the following rewrite of Frege’s remarks in ‘The Thought’: If every thought requires a context and belongs to that context (i.e., is essentially tied to that context, could only be expressed in that context), then the thought belongs to that context alone; and there is no science common to many on which many could work, but perhaps one context has one science, a totality of thoughts that belong to it; and another context has its. Each context is concerned with its own contents. No contradiction between the two sciences would then be possible, and it would really be idle to dispute about truth; as idle, indeed almost as ludicrous, as for two people to dispute whether a hundred mark note were genuine, where each means the one he himself had in his pocket and understood the word ‘genuine’ in his own particular sense. Semantic content, as characterized by Semantic Minimalism, is, we claim, the only way to avoid the kind of contextual isolationism or semantic solipsism our (modified) Frege here mocks. The final four virtues we will defend in later chapters, but we mention them briefly here. Fourth virtue. Semantic Minimalism, and no other theory, is based on a correct understanding of the relationship between speech act content and semantic content: any view according to which it is a requirement on a semantic theory that it accounts for (or explains) our basic (most refined) intuitions about what speakers can use sentences to say, assert, state, etc. fails. Semantic Minimalism rejects all such requirements on semantics. The resulting separation of semantic content from speech act content is necessary both in order to do semantics properly and in order to do speech act 153

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism theory properly. This point was elaborated on in Chapter 4 and will be pursued further in Chapter 13. Fifth virtue. Semantic Minimalism, and no other view, can account for how what speakers say can be determined, in part, by the context of those who report on what those speakers say even though the semantic content is not so determined. No theory that ties semantic content and speech act content closely together can do this (see Chapter 13). Using terminology introduced in Chapter 13, the point can be put like this: Only Semantic Minimalism (when combined with Speech Act Pluralism) can avoid Original Utterance Centrism. Sixth virtue. In Chapter 11 we show that Semantic Minimalism gets the connection between semantics and metaphysics right. The anti-minimalists end up requiring that semanticists do metaphysics. They are in effect, on this interpretation, requiring that semantics provides answers to questions such as ‘What is redness?’, ‘What is dancing?’, ‘What is tallness?’, ‘What is it to be a fast giraffe?’, and so on. To require of semantics that it provide answers to such questions is not only to misunderstand the division of labor between the philosophy of language and metaphysics, but it is also to make both disciplines impossibly difficult. Seventh virtue. Semantic Minimalism, and no other view, has a notion of semantic content that is psychologically realistic. We argue for this in Chapter 12.

Looking ahead The previous section contains many promissory notes. In the next three chapters we will try to deliver on those. In Chapter 11 we further clarify the nature of the propositions that are semantically expressed according to our view. We do that by responding to an objection. In so doing we also present how our version of Semantic Minimalism construes the relation between semantics and metaphysics. In Chapter 12 we discuss the psychological–cognitive role of semantic content. Again, we do that by responding to an objection, one that Carston, Recanati, and King and Stanley raise against Semantic Minimalism. Then in the final chapter, Chapter 13, we present our reasons for Speech Act Pluralism.

154

CHAPTER 11

Semantics and Metaphysics

You’ve just read ten short chapters about semantic context sensitivity. We’ve presented what seems to us a pretty obvious view (i.e., Semantic Minimalism) and refuted both of its apparent alternatives (i.e., Radical and Moderate Contextualism). In this chapter we turn to a discussion of the relationship between semantics (minimalism, in particular) and metaphysics. Why, you might ask, would we want to do that? That’s a good question, and to be honest, we don’t really want to, but objections that can be (and have been) raised against us, properly understood, we will argue, are metaphysical. The goal of this chapter is to respond to those objections and clarify how minimalists should think of the division of labor between philosophy of language and metaphysics. Semantic Minimalism, as should be clear by now, is committed to each of the following, some of which are ostensibly surprising: (S1) An utterance of ‘A is red’ expresses the proposition that A is red and it is true just in case A is red. (S2) An utterance of ‘A dances’ expresses the proposition that A dances and it is true just in case A dances. (S3) An utterance of ‘A has had enough’ expresses the proposition that A has had enough and it is true just in case A has had enough. (S4) An utterance of ‘A is ready’ expresses the proposition that A is ready and it is true just in case A is ready. (S5) An utterance of ‘It’s raining’ expresses the proposition that it is raining and it is true just in case it is raining. (S6) An utterance of ‘A is tall’ expresses the proposition that A is tall and it is true just in case A is tall. One objection we’re imagining to our position is this: 155

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism I acknowledge that your arguments against Radical and Moderate Contextualism are seemingly sound, but when a positive view ends up endorsing claims like these, in particular, claims like S3–S6, isn’t that a reductio of the view? How, for example, can there be any such thing as being ready simpliciter? How can there be any such state of affairs? What is it? Even worse: How can there be such a thing as being tall simpliciter? What is that?1 Unless you provide a positive account of these, I don’t even understand Semantic Minimalism. To put it even more pointedly: If you don’t offer more of an elaboration on your positive theory, you don’t yet even have a theory on offer – just a set of objections to other views. If you’re right that the views you criticize exhaust the realm of possibilities, then given your ‘positive’ view it follows that there must be an error in your reasoning against its alternatives. At this point it is both extraordinarily important, and somewhat difficult (we’ve found), to keep the dialectic straight. In particular, it is important to keep two issues distinct: The metaphysics of minimal propositions. What are minimal propositions? The cognitive–psychological and communicative role of minimal propositions. Given that we have an understanding of what minimal propositions are, we can ask: What role do they play in communication? This chapter is about the first issue. We’re imagining someone saying: The minimal propositions aren’t real propositions. You might think that’s a borderline silly objection when it comes to ‘A is red,’ you might think it’s slightly less silly when it comes to ‘A is ready,’ but most philosophers think it is a reasonable objection when it comes to ‘A is tall.’ So, the goal of this chapter is to gradually move you over on our side by starting with ‘A is red’ and moving to ‘A is tall’ via ‘A is ready.’ The second set of issues, not discussed in this chapter, concerns the role of minimal propositions in communication. Suppose we have convinced you that there are propositions such as that A is red and that A is ready and that A is tall. It doesn’t follow we ever express them; it doesn’t follow they are the propositions semantically expressed. It doesn’t follow they have a role to play in communication. That set of issues is discussed in the next chapter. It makes sense, we think, to tell you about what we 1 In particular, we expect those who have strong incompleteness intuitions (see the second half of Chapter 2) to raise this objection. This entire chapter, in effect, can be thought of as a response to those moved by Incompleteness Arguments of the kind described in the second half of Chapter 2.

156

Semantics and Metaphysics think minimal propositions are before we say more about their role in communication.

Overview of our Strategy Our strategy for responding to the metaphysical objection is simple (at least in the abstract). It consists of three parts: Part One. We discuss what we call the Metaphysical Objection to S1 and S2, and show that:





If there’s a metaphysical puzzle about S1 or S2, then it is not about S1 and S2 specifically, but about any claim to the effect that two objects can share the same property or engage in the same activity. There’s no special problem or puzzle about the properties of redness or dancing per se. But there is no such general metaphysical worry; and hence, there is no worry about ‘red’ and ‘dance.’

Part Two. We discuss a version of the Metaphysical Objection directed at claims S3–S5, and show that:





If there’s a metaphysical problem or puzzle with respect to S3–S5, then there’s one with respect to S1 and S2 as well. Since there’s no metaphysical problem or puzzle with respect to S1 and S2, there is none with respect to S3–S5 either.

Part Three. At the end of the chapter we discuss the Metaphysical Objection directed at claim S6, and show that:


If there’s no metaphysical problem or puzzle with respect to S1–S5, then there’s none with respect to S6 either.

Metaphysical Objection Version 1: Redness and Dancing Here’s the kind of worry or objection we are imagining being raised against Semantic Minimalism: The Semantic Minimalist says that an utterance of ‘A is red’ semantically expresses the proposition that A is red. He also says that this proposition is not the same proposition as the proposition that A is red on the inside, or as that A is red on the outside, or as that A is red when 157

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism looked at through red sunglasses, or as that A is red in normal light. It’s just the proposition that A is red. But which proposition is that? What, for example, is it to be just red? What is it that all these things (those that are red when seen through red sunglasses, red on the inside, red in the dark, red on the outside, red when washed, etc.) have in common? What is the state of affairs that the proposition that A is red picks out? First of all, note that this worry has nothing specifically to do with redness. It generalizes. What, for example, do all dancers have in common? Some fly in the air; some underwater; some with music; some without; some stand on their feet; some crawl; some touch other people; some don’t. What is the state of affairs that the proposition that A dances picks out? Answer (the short and accurate one). The proposition that A is red is true just in case A is red. That’s it. That’s the whole semantic story. End of discussion. The proposition that A dances is true just in case A dances. That’s the most informative true answer anyone can provide. If you try to push the issue any further, you’ll regret it because it’ll just turn into a rather large metaphysical mess (not a mess of our making, just the regular mess metaphysicians inevitably like to throw themselves into). Metaphysical worry (again): Seriously, what is it to be red? You might be unsatisfied with this reply, and push the issue further as follows: You’re not going to get off the hook that easily: Seriously, what is it for A to be red? It sounds like you’re claiming that the proposition that A is red is true just in case A is red in some way, or under some conditions, or if it looks red under some conditions. Is that your view? If so, then even the White House turns out to be red. Uma Thurman has red eyes. (She also has blue eyes and green eyes.) But that’s absurd. It’s a reductio of Semantic Minimalism. Answer (more elaborate, but ultimately, not more informative). OK, here we go. First some general comments about the relationship between semantics and metaphysics, and then a bit of metaphysics. A preliminary point: We’re most certainly not claiming that something is red just in case it is red in some way (or in some respect or under some conditions). Our view is that to be red is just to be red. We’re adamant about this short answer for two reasons. First, we refuse to mix metaphysics and semantics (for more on that see below). Second, to stick the quantifier in there would make it seem as if we think either that there’s an argument 158

Semantics and Metaphysics place linguistically represented, say, in LF, that refers to a way of being red and that that place can be bound by a quantifier, or that the quantifier magically occurs (as with Perry’s unarticulated constituents). We hold neither of these views. Our response to this first part of the Metaphysical Objection comes in three stages. First, we explain why we think these objections are metaphysical, and not semantic. Second, we show that whatever worries there are with respect to redness and dancing generalize to every property and activity. Third, we explain why we don’t think these metaphysical worries should be taken very seriously anyway. First stage of reply to Metaphysical Objection Version 1: The division of labor between semantics and metaphysics To respond to the Metaphysical Objection we first have to outline how we see the division of labor in philosophy, in particular, how we see the relationship between metaphysics and philosophy of language. The Metaphysical Objection is exactly that: it’s metaphysical. It is a ‘worry’ that remains no matter how we opt to do semantics. If it is a worry, it is not one that arises because of Semantic Minimalism, and it is not one that can be solved by doing semantics in any particular manner. Think about what metaphysicians do. For at least the last two millennia, metaphysicians have been asking What-Do-They-Have-in-Common Questions (CQ, for short). Suppose you’re curious about what it is to be G. Then you ask (this is at least one of the questions you ask): (CQ) What do all G things have in common? Suppose, for example, you’re interested in what consciousness is. Then you ask a question like ‘What do all conscious things have in common?’ If you’re interested in what causation is, you ask ‘What do all events A and B have in common in which A causes B?’ If you’re interested in what personal identity over time is, then you ask ‘What do all processes through which a person undergoes change have in common?’ If you need more illustrations, take an introductory course in metaphysics. Notice that none of these questions are about language. They are not about the expressions ‘conscious,’ ‘cause,’ or ‘identity.’ They are not about how people use those expressions. They are nonlinguistic questions. Not only is there no reason to think these worries can be solved by doing semantics, there is no reason to think they have anything at all to do with semantics. In particular, these problems (or questions, or whatever you want to call them) arise no matter what views you hold about linguistic context sensitivity. Here are two illustrations of these points. 159

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism First illustration: Red. Some red things are red on the inside, some are red on the outside, some are red when scrubbed, some are red in the dark, some are red when peeled, some are red when seen through red sunglasses, etc. You might ask the age-old metaphysical query: What do they all have in common? What is this property of being red that they all share? We ourselves have not given much thought to this question, so what we have to say won’t be of much help. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the metaphysician of color concludes that one thing they all have in common is that they look red on some surface or other under some conditions (we are not endorsing this reply; we’re simply using it to illustrate a general point). Inasmuch as this account still uses ‘red,’ presumably there remains metaphysical work to be done unless, of course, as we suspect, no ‘reductive’ response is forthcoming, and so, all you end up with is that red things are all red. But let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, that this answer constitutes at least part of the reply to the CQ question. Imagine someone registering this objection: Doesn’t that make it very easy, indeed, too easy, to be red? Doesn’t it render both the White House and Uma Thurman’s eyes red? Both things, after all, are red on some surface under some conditions? Reply: Maybe, yes. When you think hard about what it is to be red, maybe that’s all it takes. If so, then it turns out that it’s not that hard to be red. But regardless of whether this is so, or whether it is problematic, it is most certainly not a problem that arises because of views one might hold about the context sensitivity of ‘red.’ On the face of it that should be fairly obvious. Notice: the claim that many things can be red (a) is not a claim about language; in particular, it is not a claim about the word ‘red’; and (b) does not involve thinking about or referring to contexts of utterance for any linguistic item; the claim takes place in a context of utterance (in particular, in this chapter), but it itself is not about a context of utterance. (c) All that the claim that many things are red could demand of you is to think about the properties of certain things in the world, and whether those things are all red. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that you think ‘red’ is a context sensitive expression, i.e., imagine you’re a contextualist about ‘red.’ Then ask yourself, on that assumption, What do things that are red on the inside, red on the outside, red when seen through red sunglasses, etc. have in common? The assumption that ‘red’ is context sensitive does not make asking the question any easier or more difficult, nor does it make the task of answering it any less pressing or any less interesting. It certainly doesn’t follow from the view that ‘red’ is context sensitive that these questions do not make sense. Hence, 160

Semantics and Metaphysics the puzzle (if there is one) doesn’t arise or disappear depending on what view one might hold about contextualism with respect to ‘red.’2 Second illustration: Dancing. Now some remarks on dancing and ‘dance.’ Some people dance by stepping, some crawl around the floor (like Martha Graham), some have music, some don’t have music, some jump in the air, some wave their arms, some hold on to other people, some are alone, some slide on ice, some fly in the air, etc. What do all these activities have in common in virtue of which they are all dancing? Again, this is not our area of expertise, but suppose the dance metaphysician informs us that: To dance is to move in some way W. Again, we’ll remain officially neutral on the question of whether ‘W’ will turn out to be a reductive analysis or not.3 Imagine the following objection: But doesn’t that make it way too easy to dance? If that’s all it takes, aren’t we all dancing all the time? Suppose the answer is: Maybe, yes. When you think real hard about what it is to dance, perhaps that’s all it does take. If so, then it’s not that hard to dance. But, again, regardless of whether this is so, or whether it is something you find problematic, it’s not a semantic problem. It is not a problem that arises because of any view one might have about the semantics for ‘dance.’ Most importantly for this book: It is not a problem that has anything to do with the semantics of context sensitivity. Again, suppose for the sake of argument that ‘dance’ is a context sensitive expression, i.e., imagine that you’re a contextualist about ‘dance.’ Then ask yourself: What do people who dance by creeping around on the floor, or flying in the air, or shaking their hands, etc. all have in common? What makes all of these movements instances of dancing? As in the case of ‘red,’ the assumption that ‘dance’ is context sensitive neither prevents this question from arising nor provides an answer to it. As far as we can tell, it is once again irrelevant to the metaphysical question. In sum, the first stage of our response is this: The issues raised here are the staple of metaphysics. We poor semanticists don’t have much to contribute on these issues. Whatever problems might arise here are not solved, dissolved, or illuminated by any view one might hold about semantic context sensitivity. If contextualism about ‘red’ were true, it would still be possible to ask the relevant CQs, i.e., ‘What do things red on the inside, red under water, etc. have in common?’ The answer to this question doesn’t follow from

2 Suppose, for reasons we can’t fathom, a contextualist were to respond: If ‘red’ is context sensitive, then the question ‘What do things that are red on the inside, red on the outside, red in the dark, etc. have in common?’ makes no sense. If so, this contextualist claims that what we call below Metaphysical Nihilism follows from contextualism. For reasons that will become clear below, that should be considered a reductio of contextualism. 3 But we can’t resist the temptation to register our suspicion that ‘dance’ will occur in ‘W.’

161

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism contextualism, but whatever the answer might be, that’s the answer to the puzzle that started this chapter, i.e., what is it to be red simpliciter?

Second stage of reply to Metaphysical Objection Version 1: Generalization Suppose our reader is unconvinced so far. Suppose you have a residual sense that there’s something deeply fishy about claiming that there is such a thing as being red simpliciter. And that there’s something fishy about expressing propositions that attribute redness (simpliciter) to objects. We now want to show this skeptic that if it’s puzzling what it is to be red simpliciter, then it’s equally puzzling what it is to be red on the inside, or red under water, or red when washed on the left side. More generally: if it’s puzzling what it is to be red simpliciter, then what you’re really puzzled about is the idea that a range of disparate things can share a single property; that they can all be F, whatever F is. The problem with being red simpliciter is that it is hard, for our opponent at least, to understand what all red things have in common. Remember, she’s not satisfied with the answer that they are all red. But if that’s puzzling, it’s equally puzzling what it is for a range of things to be red on the inside, or red under water, or red when washed on the left side. If you don’t see this, consider the following examples of things each of which is red on the inside:








a human that’s red on the inside an apple that’s red on the inside a gas that’s red on the inside a liquid that’s red on the inside a bottle that’s red on the inside a car that’s red on the inside a planet that’s red on the inside.

Here’s the analogous metaphysical puzzle: ‘What is this thing you are calling being red on the inside? What do all these things have in common? You say that they’re all red on the inside, but what exactly is that? Just as there are indefinitely many ways to be red, there are indefinitely many ways to be red on the inside.’ Now this skeptic, remember, is one who was not satisfied with the response that all red things have one thing in common, namely, that they are red. Why, then, should she be satisfied by our response: What all things that are red on the inside have in common is that they are red on the inside? There’s an exact analogy here between the alleged problems that arise for things that are red simpliciter, and things that are red on the inside. If she’s unhappy 162

Semantics and Metaphysics with (or puzzled by) the response in connection with red, there’s no reason why she should be happy with the analogous response in connection with red on the inside. (If she is happy, we want to hear why and be convinced that the reasons for her satisfaction don’t apply to the original case.) What this reveals, we think, is that our opponents, i.e., those who claim there is no such thing as being red simpliciter, should, in order to be consistent, say that there’s a puzzle about the very idea of two or more things sharing properties or engaging in the same activities. The puzzle they raise has nothing specifically to do with redness or dancing. To raise objections against S1 and S2 is to be committed, in effect, to a form of Metaphysical Nihilism.4

Third stage of reply to Metaphysical Objection Version 1: Don’t worry about Metaphysical Nihilism If the choice is between Semantic Minimalism, on the one hand, and Metaphysical Nihilism, on the other, should we still worry? Is Metaphysical Nihilism preferable to S1 and S2? We think not. We don’t have much to say about Metaphysical Nihilism; it is such an extreme view that it hardly merits a refutation. We’ll settle with several brief critical comments: 1. We know of no good arguments for Metaphysical Nihilism. It’s a bizarre view and for us to take it seriously, we would have to see some pretty good arguments in its defense. Absent such arguments it’s a view we don’t even know how properly to evaluate. 2. Metaphysical Nihilism, if taken seriously, undermines all of natural science. So, clearly it’s a view everyone should avoid. We don’t see it as an attractive opponent. Any neutral observer who had the choice between Semantic Minimalism and Metaphysical Nihilism should choose the former over the latter. 3. Metaphysical Nihilism, if taken seriously, doesn’t just undermine our semantics of context sensitivity; it makes all of the philosophy of language impossible. After all, philosophers of language talk about language, and about utterances of sentences. We assume that the same expression can be uttered in different contexts. If Metaphysical Nihilism were true, there would be no such thing as the same sentence uttered in different contexts. Again, this is just to highlight a particularly nasty implication of this view;

4 Where by ‘Metaphysical Nihilism’ we mean nothing more than, for example, whatever worries there about red and dancing generalize to everything; i.e., where the entire idea that two things can have the same properties or engage in the same activities is doubtful.

163

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism it’s just another reason for not going down this road, i.e., not to endorse the objections to S1 and S2.

Final comments about the reply to Metaphysical Objection Version 1 We’re trying to push all these worries onto the metaphysicians. Whatever story in the end they settle on about what makes something red, that’s what it takes to satisfy the semantic truth conditions of ‘A is red.’ Whatever in the end they tell us about dancing, that’s what it takes to satisfy the semantic truth conditions for ‘x dances.’ Semanticists can (and should) just tell you that the proposition semantically expressed by ‘A is red’ is the proposition that A is red; and that the proposition semantically expressed by ‘A dances’ is the proposition that A dances. Metaphysicians, however, should they so choose, can tell you as much as they like about what it is for A to be red and to dance. We can imagine three attempts to force us to engage the metaphysical issues more seriously. First attempt to force metaphysics on us. Our opponent complains: ‘You’re claiming that when someone utters a simple sentence like “A is red,” it has truth conditions that require metaphysical assistance in order to grasp? You’re saying that speakers don’t know the semantic truth conditions of their own utterances? Instead, they have to study thousands of years of metaphysics in order to get a clue about which propositions they express when they speak, and even then they’ll most likely end up dazed and confused. Isn’t that a peculiar view of what it is to express semantic content?’ Our reply. You don’t need metaphysical assistance in order to know which proposition you semantically express. It’s the proposition that A is red. You don’t need metaphysical assistance in order to know the semantic truth conditions: An utterance of ‘A is red’ is true just in case A is red. That’s the entire story. You now know all that you need to know. Notice, even if you’re some kind of verificationist who thinks he only knows what it is for A to have red eyes if he knows how to figure out that A has red eyes, we have a response to you: First, don’t be a verificationist; it’s a false view. Second, if you can’t resist being one, we’ll tell you how to verify the proposition that A has red eyes: go find out whether she has red eyes. Second attempt to force metaphysics on us. Our opponent complains: ‘This move you make by appealing to disquotational truth conditions is a cheap trick, and the way to call your bluff is to ask: Is the proposition semantically expressed by “Uma Thurman has red eyes” true? Are the interpretive 164

Semantics and Metaphysics truth conditions of an utterance of “Uma Thurman has red eyes” satisfied? To answer these questions you must resort to what you are calling metaphysics. So, you can’t avoid doing metaphysics.’ Our reply. This objection is even more deeply confused than the first. No one, we hope, expects a semanticist to tell you the color of Uma Thurman’s eyes. We’re not in the business of telling you what the world is like. Who ever thought otherwise? We take it to be trivial that a proposition with a truth value is expressed by a felicitous utterance of ‘100,000 years ago an insect moved over this spot.’ We have no idea whether it’s true or not. We have no idea how to find out whether it is true or not. Third attempt to force metaphysics on us. Our opponent complains: ‘OK, let’s try this: How are we able to communicate by semantically expressing a proposition we don’t know the truth value of? You say speech act content is, typically, different from semantic content, but there has to be a process that gets us from the proposition semantically expressed to the proposition(s) communicated by a speech act. How does that work when we can’t actually settle the truth value of the semantic content? A corollary of this conclusion: How can speakers go around making assertions by uttering sentences that semantically express propositions they don’t even believe (since they certainly can’t believe the semantic content unless they have beliefs about the actual truth values)?’ Our reply. These are interesting questions and we address them in the next chapter on semantics and psychology. Summary of reply to first part of Metaphysical Objection If you’re a bit confused by our strategy here, we don’t entirely blame you. Here’s what we tried to do: We first imagined someone objecting to Semantic Minimalism by saying there’s no such proposition as that A is red. We tried to provide reasons to believe there is such a proposition and that whatever is puzzling about such a proposition is not puzzling because of views you might hold about semantic context sensitivity. The puzzles, if there are any, are familiar metaphysical ones and the fact that they arise should not be held against Semantic Minimalism. You might still be confused by all of this: Why, you might wonder, would we imagine someone objecting that there’s no such proposition as that A is red? That’s a silly objection, you might think, not worth all of the pages we have spent on it. We hope you have this reaction. There’s a sense in which we agree. Only when seen in the context of what follows can we justify these spent pages. 165

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism Our hope is that this discussion will prepare you for the idea that there are propositions such as that A is ready and that A is tall.

Metaphysical Objection Version 2: What about Readiness (and Enoughness)? Reminder: We believe S3–S5: (S3) An utterance of ‘A has had enough’ expresses the proposition that A has had enough and it is true just in case A has had enough. (S4) An utterance of ‘A is ready’ expresses the proposition that A is ready and it is true just in case A is ready. (S5) An utterance of ‘It’s raining’ expresses the proposition that it is raining and is true just in case it is raining. The uninitiated might respond to our commitments to S3–S5 with an incredulous stare, expressed, maybe, with something like this: ‘Huh? I know what it is to be ready for an exam, but to be ready simpliciter? What’s that? I know what it is to have had enough oysters, but what is it to have had enough simpliciter? I don’t get it.’ How can there even be such a proposition?5 What claim does it make about the world? The observant reader will not be surprised that our response has the following structure:





The alleged metaphysical worry about ‘ready’ and ‘enough’ is no different from the alleged metaphysical worry about ‘red’ and ‘dances.’ S3–S5 introduce no new additional worries. Furthermore, as a corollary to the previous point, if there are puzzles in connection with S3–S5, then they have nothing whatsoever to do with Semantic Minimalism, and in particular, they have nothing to do with what we have to say about the semantics for context sensitivity. They would arise on any account of context sensitivity. First stage of reply to Metaphysical Objection Version 2: The metaphysics of readiness and enoughness

Think about what people who are ready have in common. To make this vivid, imagine A’s being ready to commit a bank robbery, B’s being ready to eat dinner, and C’s being ready to take an exam. 5 For an extensive selection of objections along these lines, see the references under ‘Incompleteness Arguments’ in Chapter 2.

166

Semantics and Metaphysics Thinking about A, B, and C, you’ve got two options: (a) You might think, as we do: Well, they have a common relation they stand in to their respective projects: There’s something in common between A’s relation to the bank robbery, B’s relation to the dinner, and C’s relation to the exam. What they have in common is that they are all ready. (b) Alternatively, you might think that there’s nothing these people have in common. The fact that we would describe them as all being ready for their various projects doesn’t mean that they have anything whatsoever in common. There’s no state of readiness that they share with respect to their respective tasks. We find (a) overwhelmingly plausible. It’s not just a pun that we feel comfortable describing them all as being ready. They really are all ready. That’s different from their all being done with the tasks, or excited about them, or prepared for them, or good at them, etc. We don’t have a proof that (b) is wrong. But if it were correct, it would be some kind of interesting metaphysical discovery that is in need of an argument. In no way will we give this away as a primitive datum. If there is an issue or puzzle here, it is surely not a consequence of Semantic Minimalism. It will arise for anyone who thinks that these people are all ready, i.e., for anyone who thinks that these people all have something in common. Suppose you’re a contextualist about ‘ready.’ You certainly could agree with us that they all are ready for their respective tasks. There’s nothing in contextualism as such that blocks this question from arising. If so, the contextualist too would have to say something about what exactly it is to stand in that relation (the relation of readiness) to a task or project. This is not an issue that magically evaporates at the moment you become a contextualist about ‘ready.’ As far as we can tell, the metaphysical and the semantic issues are orthogonal to one another.6

6 We hope it’s obvious how this argument goes with respect to ‘enough’: Again, we’re no experts, but you do something like this: Consider a bunch of people who all have had enough. For example, one person who has had enough wine, one has had enough turkey, and one has had enough cocaine. All these people have something in common: They have all had enough. It is true that they all have had enough of different things, but what they have in common is that they all have had enough. The metaphysical worry, then, is to determine in virtue of what is it the case that they all have had enough. That, in a nutshell, is the problem of the metaphysics of enoughness. This problem, again, is most certainly not one about which we claim any special expertise, but here’s a possible start of a solution: Every person who has had enough has had enough of something that’s contextually salient to him. What all people who have had enough have in common is that for each there’s something contextually salient that he has had enough of.

167

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism

Second stage of reply to Metaphysical Objection Version 2: What can people be ready for? We have tried to convince you that the problem, worry, or puzzle that arises in connection with readiness or enoughness, if there is one, is metaphysical, and not semantic; and that it is independent of any view one might hold about semantic context sensitivity. Suppose, despite our best efforts, you remain unconvinced. Suppose you still think there’s something special about readiness and enoughness. We don’t know what it might be, but suppose there’s something that continues to prevent you from being convinced. In this second stage of our discussion, we will attempt to convince you, just as we did in connection with redness, that the alleged persistent problem occurs in connection not just with readiness (or enoughness; see note 6), but just as clearly (if not clearer) in connection with is ready for an exam (and has had enough pasta). That is, we will attempt to convince you that there is nothing special about readiness and enoughness simpliciter. This will bolster our claim that this worry is entirely general, and not a specific one that occurs because of some peculiar view we hold about the semantics of ‘enough’ and ‘ready.’ Suppose our opponent denies that a bunch of people can all be ready (by being ready for different (kinds of) things (or projects)). To be honest, we can’t even imagine what her reasons might be for holding this view, but let that pass. Focus on this question: If a range of people can’t all be ready, can they at least all be ready for an exam? Is that something a range of people can have in common? We suppose the answer must be ‘yes.’ Clearly, a bunch of people can all be ready for an exam. Even a contextualist doesn’t want to deny that (or if she does, she’s out of the game already). But, look, what

The following concern might now be raised: Doesn’t that make it very easy to have had enough? If that’s all it takes, haven’t we all had enough all of the time? Suppose the answer is ‘yes’ (though we have no idea whether this is correct or not; presumably, it all depends on doing more serious metaphysics, but suppose it’s correct). When you think real hard about enoughness, maybe that’s all it takes. If so, then it’s not that hard to have had enough. But if this is something you find problematic, please remind yourself that this is not a problem of semantics. It is not a problem that arises because of any view one might take about the semantics for ‘enough.’ If this problem troubles you, take it up with your local metaphysician, and not with a semanticist. This issue arises for anyone who thinks these folks have all had enough, i.e., that these people all have something in common. If you’re a contextualist about ‘enough’ and you agree with us that they all have had enough, you too have this problem. So, it’s not one that has anything to do with the semantics for ‘enough,’ in particular, it is independent of whether or not ‘A has had enough’ is context sensitive or not.

168

Semantics and Metaphysics was thought problematic and puzzling with respect to readiness simpliciter, namely, that it seems impossible to get a grip on what these people all have in common, i.e., readiness, can now quite easily be regenerated with respect to the property of being ready for an exam. There are indefinitely many ways of being ready for an exam. If you were puzzled by the claim that a bunch of people could all be ready, you should, as far as we can tell, be equally puzzled by the claim that they can all be ready for an exam. Here are some examples to get your imagination running. Someone can be ready:











to give an exam to write an exam to grade an exam to take an exam to fail an exam to proctor an exam for a driving exam for a karate exam for an oral exam for a sailing exam.

All these people have something in common. They are all ready for an exam. The point of this is embarrassingly simple: Even if you were to deny that several people can all be ready simpliciter, the worry (if we understand it right) recurs as soon as you tell us what each person is ready for. So, again, this bolsters our claim that the alleged worry has nothing at all to do with the semantics for ‘ready.’7 The conclusion is the same as before: Even if you were to deny that several people can all have had enough simpliciter, the alleged metaphysical worry recurs as soon as you tell us what it is that they can have in common. This bolsters our claim that the alleged worry has nothing to do with the semantics for ‘ready’ or ‘enough.’ 7 With respect to enoughness, imagine our opponent is a contextualist who denies there is a general property of having had enough. We can’t imagine what her reasons might be for her denial, but, again, let that pass. We ask her: If a range of people can’t all have had enough, can they at least all have had enough pasta? Is that something a range of people can have in common? We suppose the answer must be ‘yes.’ Clearly, a bunch of people can all have had enough pasta. But what is supposed to be problematic and puzzling about enough simpliciter can now be regenerated with respect to having had enough pasta. There are indefinitely many ways of having had enough pasta. Here are some rough examples to get your imagination going: a supermarket has enough pasta; a chef making a complicated meal in a restaurant has enough pasta; a child carrying groceries home has enough pasta; a freight boat has enough pasta; a car that runs on pasta (new invention, by the way) has enough pasta; and so on.

169

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism

Third stage of reply to Metaphysical Objection Version 2: Don’t worry Our opponent could say, as in connection with ‘red’ and ‘dance’: ‘Yes. You’re right. My worry is completely general. I’m worried about how two things can be ready, or be ready for an exam, or be ready for an oral exam on Wednesday, or be ready to proctor a written exam on Friday. It’s all puzzling to me.’ Once again Metaphysical Nihilism rears its worrisome head. For reasons we provided earlier, we don’t have much to say about this view other than that it is deeply unattractive and that we know of no arguments for it and that it undermines all of natural science and all of philosophy of language.

Metaphysical Objection Version 3: Tall Giraffes In some sense, we hope you think all the previous pages of this chapter were borderline superfluous. Your main worry isn’t that there are no such propositions as those described in S1–S5. Your main worry, maybe, is that it’s hard to see what role it plays in communication. Something like that. Fine. We address that in the next chapter. However, virtually everyone with whom we have discussed Semantic Minimalism draws a line in the sand when the topic is comparative adjectives. Philosophers and linguists alike have deeply entrenched intuitions about comparative adjectives being context sensitive. Therefore, it is not surprising that we regularly encounter this sort of response to our claim that an utterance of ‘A is tall’ expresses the proposition that A is tall and that it is true just in case A is tall: ‘Propositions like that A is red, that A has had enough, and that A is ready are odd enough, but the proposition that A is tall is a deal breaker. If Semantic Minimalism implies that there is such a proposition or, even worse, that we sometimes express it, then that is an unimpeachable reductio of your view.’ Our reply, in sum, is that this is just but one more version of the same old metaphysical worry we raised above. First stage of reply to Metaphysical Objection Version 3: Metaphysics of tallness As with redness, readiness, etc., this worry is metaphysical, and not semantic. To show that this is so, we’ll engage in a little bit of tallness-metaphysics. Consider, for example, the Empire State Building, Mount Everest, and Osama bin Laden. Ask yourself, what, if anything, do they all have in 170

Semantics and Metaphysics common? Naturally, one answer is that they are all tall. If that’s so, and it is, then it triggers the following metaphysical question: What is it in virtue of which it is the case that they are all tall? Or, what do they all have in common? Tallness? But what’s that? What does it take for something to instantiate tallness? Because, as in all matters metaphysical, we are rank amateurs, we don’t have much to say, but here are four preliminary options (there are obviously others): 1. For something to instantiate tallness there must be some comparison class or other with respect to which it’s tall. If that’s all it takes to instantiate tallness, it’s very easy to do so. We take this to be an exceedingly unpromising account of tallness. 2. It might be that to instantiate tallness it’s insufficient to be tall with respect to some comparison class. For each object there might be one such class that’s privileged, say, for natural kinds, the natural kind they belong to, for artifacts the artifact they instantiate. Since objects belong to many kinds, work would have to be done to show one of these is privileged. 3. A third option is that the circumstances the object is in at a time t singles out a comparison class that’s the one the object has to be tall with respect to in order to be tall at t. Again, work would have to be done to figure out how this comparison class is picked out. 4. The property of being tall corresponds to being taller than the average height for all objects that have height. Since we have no idea how many objects have heights we have no idea exactly what has this property.8 If you agree that there’s a property of tallness – how could you not? – but have a better account of what it is to instantiate it, that’s fine with us. The only serious objection we can think of is someone who actually denies there’s any such thing as tallness. Such cynicism would be to endorse Metaphysical Nihilism about tallness: i.e., the view that there’s nothing A and B have in common if A is tall for a G and B is tall for an F. That view is, as far as we can tell, a rather bizarre view to hold because no one, as far as we know, denies that there is any such a thing as being tall with respect to some comparison class. No one can deny there’s such a thing as being tall with respect to a privileged comparison class or a contextually salient comparison class. If so, everyone agrees with us that at least for these three accounts of what tallness is, each picks out something that exists. 8 A more elaborate discussion of these options would, in some ways, mirror contemporary debates about knowledge attributions. Both Stanley and Hawthorne propose theories according to which knowledge is some kind of interest relative property, but where this does not necessarily make ‘know’ a context sensitive expression (see Stanley 2003b and Hawthorne 2003). We imagine analogous arguments being made in connection with comparative adjectives. For some suggestions along these lines, see Graff (2000), and a reply by Stanley (2003a).

171

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism Imagine someone who thinks ‘tall’ is context sensitive (i.e., imagine being anyone except us). Presumably, such a philosopher still thinks that many things can all be tall. A contextualist about ‘tall’ won’t deny that Osama bin Laden and Mount Everest are both tall. She won’t deny that all tall things have something in common, i.e. they are all tall. What that shows is that the alleged metaphysical problem, the problem that’s supposed to show that it’s absurd to claim that there is a proposition such as that A is tall, isn’t solved or dissolved by accepting the view that ‘tall’ is semantically context sensitive. Second stage of reply to Metaphysical Objection Version 3: Tall for a giraffe As with redness, readiness, and enoughness, we have tried to convince you that the alleged puzzle concerning tallness is metaphysical, not semantic. Still, you may remain unconvinced. Suppose, for reasons we can’t imagine, you think there’s a special problem for tallness and that this special problem is indeed semantic, and not purely metaphysical. In this second stage of our reply, we will again try to establish that if a problem exists here, it is not specific to tallness. If there’s an issue here, it occurs just as much in connection with the property of being tall for an F. Our rejoinder is dialectically significant because our opponents tend to hold that this alleged problem occurs on account of our commitment to Semantic Minimalism for ‘tall.’ The fix, according to our contextualist opponents, is supposed to reside with relativizing comparative adjectives to comparison classes, i.e., with a commitment to contextualism for ‘tall’ and other comparative adjectives. Adjectives like ‘tall’ are to be treated as relational with an unpronounced place for a comparison class that gets indexed in a context of use. So, in effect, ‘A is tall’ has in its linguistic representation as it were at LF ‘A is tall for an F,’ where ‘F’ is an indexical that receives its semantic value in context. For a sentence like ‘Osama bin Laden is tall,’ in one context of utterance the indexed comparison class (or property, or whatever) might be NBA players; and in another the indexed comparison class (or property, or whatever) might be Saudi Arabians. We think there are no sound arguments for this position, and we think introducing indexed comparison classes or properties or norms into the semantics for comparative adjectives adds more problems than it allegedly solves, but let’s leave that aside for the moment. What we want to show right now is just this: If the kind of metaphysical problems we have imagined arise for tallness/‘tall,’ then exactly the same problem arises for tall for an F/ ‘tall for an F.’ 172

Semantics and Metaphysics Recall, the alleged problem for tallness is that it’s mysterious what it is to be tall simpliciter: ‘There can be no such thing as tallness simpliciter. To claim Osama bin Laden, Mount Everest, and the Empire State Building all have something in common – namely, tallness – is a mistake, and any semantics that presupposes there could be such a thing must be mistaken. Since Semantic Minimalism, as you have characterized it, is committed to this possibility, it should be rejected.’ If this objection issues from anyone who is content with there being such a thing as being tall for an F, then it is terribly misplaced. Take tall for a giraffe as an example, i.e., we’re imagining an opponent who thinks that a bunch of things can all be tall for giraffes. Before proceeding, consider the following basic giraffe facts: Giraffes have hairy ears. The fleshy part of the ear stops before the hairs on the ears stop. Not every giraffe can stretch his neck all the way up; some are old and arthritic. (With help they might be able to stretch their necks further than without help.) Giraffes can stand on their back legs and lift their front legs into the air, and thereby push themselves further up into the air. That makes them longer. They have hoofs, and these hoofs wear down with usage. Holding these simple giraffe facts in mind, consider two giraffes, say, A and B. What would it be for A and B to be tall for giraffes? The problem is this: There are many ways to be tall for giraffes. For starters, there are indefinitely many ways to measure the tallness of giraffes. Consider these few illustrations. A giraffe’s height can be measured














from the bottom of a hoof to the fleshy tip of his ear with a selfstretched neck; from the bottom of a hoof to the tip of his nose with a self-stretched neck; from the bottom of a hoof to the hairy tip of an ear with a selfstretched neck; from the bottom of a hoof to the tip of his nose when standing on his back legs with his front legs lifted into the air; all of the above, with an artificially stretched neck, i.e., by a machine or something else that can stretch the neck out further than the giraffe can by herself. (Remember, some giraffes are arthritic, and have very stiff necks.)

Then, of course, there’s the question of which group of giraffes we are to compare any given giraffe to. Here are but a few options:




all living giraffes a stereotypical giraffe French giraffes 173

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism




all giraffes that have ever lived, are alive, and will ever live all possible giraffes all giraffes in the vicinity of a certain giraffe.

Then, of course, there’s the question of the (optimum) conditions under which to measure a particular giraffe (holding the method of measurement and the comparison class fixed). Here are but a few of indefinitely many options:






right after a bath (giraffes shrink a bit after having taken a bath) right after a long walk (their hoofs wear down) when dead (again, death shrinks us all) when hungry (they tend to stretch their necks further) when pregnant (their necks are rendered less flexible).

Now ask yourself: What is it to be tall for a giraffe? What is giraffe-tallness? It all depends on which giraffes you compare any given giraffe to, how you measure it, the conditions of the giraffe when being measured, and so on. The ‘and so on’ is vital. There are, we conjecture, no limits on the different variations on giraffe-tallness. Fast giraffes. The objection: There’s no such thing as fastness simpliciter. At this stage, we don’t need to repeat what we hope is now a familiar point and counter-point. Our critics claim a comparison class is required. But were we to introduce one, say, the class of all giraffes, would that really help us figure out what it is to be fast for a giraffe? Is it any easier to understand fast for a giraffe than it is to understand fast simpliciter? Consider the proposition that A is fast for a giraffe. Ask yourself, as we did for the proposition that A is fast, what it is for A to be fast for a giraffe, or, to be a fast giraffe? Is that any less puzzling than being just fast? It seems to us the answer is obviously ‘no.’ Is it to be a












174

fast runner? fast walker? fast eater? fast in the morning? fast when tired? fast when sick? fast when hungry? fast when scared? fast when sleeping? fast after snorting cocaine? fast when pursuing a female giraffe?

Semantics and Metaphysics Telling us what the comparison class is doesn’t tell us what kind of fastness we are supposed to be comparing, and it doesn’t tell us what the conditions are under which we are to check for that fastness. Suppose the comparison class for tall giraffes is all living giraffes with normal health while eating. But eating what? When they like the food or don’t like it? Etc. No matter how you limit the comparison class, it will be insufficient. More importantly: The objection here is supposed to be that Semantic Minimalism is absurd for a certain reason. We have shown that this reason applies quite generally. That it does is important because it makes it obvious that there is no reductio here. There’s, maybe, a substantive metaphysical disagreement, but not one that should carry any implications for how we do semantics. The alleged metaphysical worry was about what all tall things have in common. Our opponent claims there is nothing they have in common, since it all depends on the relevant comparison class. What we have shown is that this worry is not solved by introducing a comparison class. The ‘What do they have in common?’ question can be raised in exactly the same way when asking what it is that all things that are tall for a giraffe have in common. We conclude that the alleged problem has nothing specifically to do with Semantic Minimalism about ‘tall.’

Third stage of reply to Metaphysical Objection Version 3: Don’t worry As with the previous two parts of the Metaphysical Objection, we might, of course, be facing an opponent who’s a Metaphysical Nihilist. Again, for reasons provided earlier, we don’t take Metaphysical Nihilism all that seriously. What we have to say about it in this case is no different than what we had to say about it in connection with redness, readiness, and enoughness. We conclude that the issues that motivate the objections discussed in this chapter cannot be resolved by doing semantics, in particular they cannot be resolved by adding context sensitivity to sentences containing words like ‘red,’ ‘ready,’ and ‘tall.’ The real worry, we suggest, is either a metaphysical one (one that different semantic theories are neutral with respect to) or a worry about how semantic content functions in communication (an issue we address in the next chapter).

175

CHAPTER 12

Semantics and Psychology

According to our view (Semantic Minimalism combined with Speech Act Pluralism), speakers use sentences to make claims, assertions, suggestions, requests, claims, statements, or raise hypotheses, inquiries, etc., the contents of which can be (and typically are) radically different from the semantic contents of (the propositions semantically expressed by) these utterances. The speech act content (i.e., what was said, asserted, claimed, asked, etc.) depends on a potentially indefinite range of facts about the speaker, his audience, their shared context, the reporter (i.e., the person recounting what was said), the reporter’s audience, and their shared context. These facts have no bearing on the semantic content of the utterance. In this and the next chapter we outline the relationship between semantic content and speech act content. In this chapter we discuss two versions of what we will call the Psychological Objection to Semantic Minimalism. Variations on this objection have been raised by, among others, the so-called Relevance Theorists. We focus on two versions of their argument, both found in the writings of Carston (1988, 2002, 2004), but closely related to arguments found in Recanati (2002, 2004), Sperber and Wilson (1986), and in King and Stanley (forthcoming). We first respond to these arguments and then at the end of the chapter we reverse the charge: It is contextualists who have a psychologically unrealistic notion of content, and not Semantic Minimalists. In Chapter 13 we elaborate on, and defend, Speech Act Pluralism (a view we so far have just briefly sketched, but constantly referred to).

The Psychological Objection Version 1 Here’s a potential worry about Semantic Minimalism: What communicators actually care about in a discourse exchange is the speech act content 176

Semantics and Psychology and only the speech act content. What they care about is what the speaker said, asserted, claimed, stated, suggested, asked, etc. If the semantic content is, so to speak, always hidden, if it never surfaces, then what purpose does it serve? Isn’t it just an idle wheel? This objection might seem particularly worrisome given what we ourselves said about the propositions semantically expressed in Chapter 11: they are peculiar, to say the least. What we are calling Carston’s Psychological Objection is a version of exactly this sort of worry. The conclusion of this argument is expressed in the following passage: So there simply does not seem to be any wholly semantic notion of ‘what is said’ . . . Of course, various minimalist notions of ‘what is said’ can be defined; they are ‘minimalist’ in that they keep pragmatic contributions to a minimum, for instance, allowing just reference assignment and disambiguation, or just saturation, or just whatever it takes to achieve truth-evaluability. But none of the results of these subtractions from the full range of pragmatic processes involved in explicature derivation has been shown to have any cognitive reality. Given decoded linguistic type meaning and a pragmatic processor which takes this as its input in deriving what is communicated (explicatures and implicatures), it is difficult to see a role for a further notion of ‘what is said,’ whether subpropositional or minimally propositional, which articulates a meaning that lies somewhere between linguistic meaning and explicature. (Carston 2004, pp. 28–9) Recanati (2001) makes the same point: That minimal notion of what is said is an abstraction with no psychological reality, because of the holistic nature of speaker’s meaning. From a psychological point of view, we cannot separate those aspects of speaker’s meaning which fill gaps in the representation associated with the sentence as a result of purely semantic interpretation, and those aspects of speaker’s meaning which are optional and enrich or otherwise modify the representation in question. They are indissociable, mutually dependent aspects of a single process of pragmatic interpretation. (Recanati 2001, p. 88) We focus on the version of this argument presented in Carston (1988). It’s helpful, we think, to present two versions of her argument. At first we present the objection exactly as she does. She directs her objection at what she calls the ‘Gricean view.’ Since what’s called the ‘Gricean view’ in the literature is often also called ‘Minimalism,’ it’s important we clarify exactly how Semantic Minimalism differs considerably from this view and why the 177

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism objections Carston raises against the Gricean view would be off target were they directed at us. Elucidating why they would be serves two purposes: first, it affords us an opportunity to explain exactly how Semantic Minimalism differs from the Gricean view, and secondly, it responds to Carston’s objection. However, once we deflate this version of her objection, we will take up an obvious variation on it directed squarely at us.

Carston’s Psychological Objection Version 1 Carston’s argument against the view that she calls Gricean Minimalism can be presented in five steps, C1–C5. (C1) If the what-was-said is cognitively redundant, then it is not ‘plausible’ (Carston 1988, p. 39; see also p. 40) that the whatwas-said plays a role in the mental life of communicators. (C2) If an implicature can play all the roles in reasoning that the what-was-said can play, then ‘the explicature has no function in the mental life that cannot be played by the implicature’ (1988, p. 38), and hence, is cognitively redundant. (C3) On Grice’s construal of the distinction between what-was-said and implicatures, the latter can often play all the roles in reasoning that the what-was-said can play. (C4) So: The Gricean what-was-said will often be cognitively redundant. (C5) So: It is in many cases implausible that the Gricean what-wassaid plays a role in the mental life of communicators. A framework that gives you a what-was-said that plays no role in the mental life of communicators should, Carston claims, be rejected. To endorse such a framework is ‘to ignore the nature of communication and of cognition in general in the interest of a formal principle which has absolutely no bearing on human psychology’ (1988, p. 40). Carston’s discussion of sentence (1) illustrates her argumentative strategy. (1) The park is some distance from where I live. According to Carston, the Gricean what-was-said expressed by an utterance of (1) is the proposition that there is some distance or other between the speaker’s home and the park. In most contexts, this claim would obviously not be worth making; it would be entirely superfluous and trivial. What the speaker wants to communicate, for instance, could be that the distance between the speaker’s home and the park is longer than what the hearer expects it to be. 178

Semantics and Psychology This more pragmatically enriched proposition would in Grice’s framework have to be classified as an implicature, derived from the minimalistic Gricean what-was-said using the maxims of conversation. To elicit the cognitive redundancy of the Gricean notion of what-was-said, Carston asks: But what function then does the explicature [i.e., the Gricean whatwas-said] have in the mental life of the hearer? It is entailed by the implicature: if the park is further away from my house than the hearer had been assuming, it follows that it is some distance or other from my house. When this entailment relation holds between putative implicature and explicature the probability of functionally independent propositional forms is very low. (Carston 1988, p. 40)1 Cognitively redundant Gricean what-was-saids, according to Carston, are ubiquitous. Other cases she discusses include (2)–(6), where (a) is a sentence, (b) an approximation of the Gricean what-was-said expressed by a certain utterance of (a), and (c) a proposition that Grice, according to Carston, would classify as an implicature of that utterance. (2) (a) I went to the exhibition and ran into John. (b) I went to the exhibition and I ran into John (somewhere or other). (c) I went to the exhibition and ran into John at the exhibition. (3) (a) She took the gun, walked into the garden, and killed her mother. (b) She took the gun and she walked into the garden and she killed her mother (with no indication of a temporal ordering, no indication of where the killing took place, or how the killing was done). (c) She took the gun and then walked into the garden and then killed her mother with the gun in the garden. (4) (a) Mr. Smith has been insulted and he is going to resign. (b) Mr. Smith has been insulted and Mr. Smith is going to resign (with no indication of the reason why he will resign). (c) Mr. Smith has been insulted and he is therefore going to resign. (5) (a) Mr. Jones has three children. (b) Mr. Jones has at least three children. (c) Mr. Jones has no more than three children.2 1 She continues, ‘What the hearer is going to remember from this utterance is some estimate of the distance involved, not the fact that there is a distance, and any inferences he draws on the basis of the utterance will involve the proposition concerning this amount of distance, rather than the basic proposition concerning the existence of a distance’ (Carston 1988, p. 40). 2 Note: (5c) does not entail (5b).

179

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism (6) (a) I’ve had breakfast. (b) I’ve had breakfast at some point or other. (c) I’ve had breakfast recently.3 In all of these cases, the Gricean implicature (tentatively characterized by (c)) entails the Gricean what-was-said (i.e., (b)). When this is so, there is, according to Carston, nothing the what-was-said can do that the implicature cannot do as well; so, there is no function for the Gricean what-wassaid to serve: whatever role the explicated assumption [her expression for the Gricean what-was-said] might play in chains of reasoning the implicated assumption could also play. . . . in other words, whatever the explicature can do, so can the implicature plus more. (Carston 1988, p. 38) She concludes that minimalism should be rejected: It is difficult to see any justification for a principle along the lines of ‘Use the maxims just in order to get a minimal truth-bearing vehicle’. This is to ignore the nature of communication and of cognition in general in the interest of a formal principle which has absolutely no bearing on human psychology. (Carston 1988, p. 40)

Why this version of Carston’s objection does not apply to our version of Semantic Minimalism As formulated, Carston’s objection to Gricean Minimalism is completely off target as an objection to our version of Semantic Minimalism. Recall:


We agree with her that you need a contextually shaped content to generate implicatures in all of the cases she discusses. That is, we agree that the (b) part of her examples would be insufficient to generate implicatures. What’s needed in order to derive the implicature in these cases is a contextually shaped content, i.e., a contextually shaped what-is-said.

3 Further examples, from her book (Carston 2002), include: (7) It will take some time to understand relevance theory. (8) Something has happened. (9) There’s nothing on telly tonight.

180

Semantics and Psychology





Our semantic content (the proposition semantically expressed) is not identical to what the speaker said. It cannot, and is not meant to, play the roles that what the speaker said can play. It is not meant to serve functions (cognitive or otherwise) that the speech act content can serve. More generally: We are happy to agree with Carston that an appropriate notion of what the speaker said must allow for contextual influences that go far beyond what the speaker said.

We are sometimes asked: Aren’t you just disguised Radical Contextualists/ Relevance Theorists? The answer is resoundingly ‘no’ for at least five reasons: (a) We think, and the Relevance Theorists deny, that there is a minimal semantic content or proposition that is semantically expressed by (almost) every utterance of a well-formed English sentence. This proposition is not a ‘skeleton’; it is not fragmentary; it’s a full-blooded proposition with truth conditions and a truth value. (For elaboration, see Chapter 11.) This is a substantive disagreement about the metaphysics of content. (b) We think, and the Relevance Theorists deny,4 that this minimal semantic content is an essential part of all communicative interactions. The minimal semantic content has a function in the cognitive life of communicators that no other content can serve. (This is what we argue later in this chapter.) (c) We think, and the Relevance Theorists deny, that minimal semantic content has a psychological role that no other ‘level of content’ can fill. (Again, we argue for this later in this chapter.) (d) We think, and the Relevance Theorists deny, that theories that do not recognize minimal semantic content are empirically inadequate and internally inconsistent. (See Chapters 7–9 for elaboration.) (e) Finally, we should mention here, though we only discuss it in the next chapter, that we emphatically reject theories that are ‘Original Utterance Centrist.’ All Relevance Theorists are Original Utterance Centrists. (For elaboration, see SPAP4 in Chapter 13.)

Carston’s Psychological Objection Version 2 In the light of all that, here’s a second version of Carston’s objection: 4 See, for example, the quotes from Recanati and Carston above.

181

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism (C1¢) If the minimal semantic content is cognitively redundant, then it is not ‘plausible’ that it plays a role in the mental life of communicators. (C2¢) If the speech act content (what-is-said and what is implicated) can play all the roles in reasoning that the minimal semantic content can play, then the semantic content has no function in the mental life of communicators that cannot be played by the speech act content, and hence, is cognitively redundant. (C3¢) The speech act content can often play all the roles in reasoning that the minimal semantic content can play. (C4¢) So: The minimal semantic content will often be cognitively redundant. (C5¢) So: It is in many cases not plausible that the minimal semantic content plays a role in the mental life of communicators. As with the first version, this objection also concludes: A framework that gives you a semantic content that plays no role whatsoever in the mental life of communicators should be rejected. To endorse such a framework is ‘to ignore the nature of communication and of cognition in general in the interest of a formal principle which has absolutely no bearing on human psychology’ (Carston 1988, p. 40).

Why the Psychological Objection Version 2 fails What we’re about to say in the next few paragraphs might seem very simple (we hope it is) and obvious (we hope it is), but we can’t overemphasize its importance, so please pay close attention. First, we remind you of some basic facts about communication. Then we respond directly to this second version of the Psychological Objection. 1. Basic facts about speakers and audiences who share a context. We know the following about speakers and audiences who share a context:5


Speakers are sometimes wrong (or have incomplete information) about their audience. They can be wrong (or have incomplete information) about many things concerning their audience, including each of the following:

5 This entire section is based on there being a clear notion of a shared context. We doubt there is one, but we’ll place our reservations to the side for the sake of argument. If there’s no such thing as a shared context, it makes things even harder for our opponents.

182

Semantics and Psychology what the audience believes and knows; what the audience remembers about previous conversations;  how the audience has interpreted previous conversations;  how the audience perceives their shared environment; and  what the audience believes about the speaker. Audiences are sometimes wrong (or have incomplete information) about speakers. They can be wrong (or have incomplete information) about each of the following:  what the speaker believes and knows;  what the speaker remembers about previous conversations;  how the speaker has interpreted previous conversations;  how the speaker perceives their shared environment; and  what the speaker believes about the audience. Audiences and speakers are both often wrong (or have incomplete information) about the following facts about the context that they find themselves in:  what their perceptual environment is; and  what the contents of preceding conversations were. These mistakes can transpire for a variety of reasons, the most normal of which is boredom. Boring conversations distract both the audience and speaker. Distracted people don’t pay close attention to what’s going on around them. Speakers and audiences know that they can be wrong and have incomplete information about each other in the ways specified above. They know that there are, literally, innumerable sources of confusion and misunderstanding. They know that failed communicative efforts are ubiquitous. They know that communicative success is a precarious ideal.  










2. Basic facts about speakers and audiences who do not share a context. Sometimes the audience of an utterance doesn’t share a context with the speaker. This can happen in any of several ways, the most salient of which is the reproduction of a speech act. Printed books, for example, often have this effect. Take you, our reader: We have no idea who you are; we know next to nothing about your beliefs; we don’t know anything about your perceptual environment; all we know is that it is not shared with us (you’re not here in 5stC with us). We are aware of no known shared previous conversations with you. Yet, nonetheless, we have an audience for this book and you’re it. Another typical device through which a speech act can reach an audience in another context is through indirect quotation. This is the device through which a speaker S says in a context C to an audience A what another speaker S¢ said in another context C¢ to another audience A¢. 183

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism In these cases the sources of confusion mentioned in section (a) above are multiplied. The added complications should be obvious, so we won’t go into them in any detail. Suffice it to say, however, that there is not even the illusion of a shared context in such cases. 3. Basic facts about inter-contextual content sharing. Finally, three facts about how the same contents can be expressed in different contexts: (1) People can and often do say the same thing in different contexts. For example, people in different contexts can say that Napoleon was short. (2) No two contexts are the same with respect to the parameters that fix content according to contextualists, e.g., the intentions are not the same; the background knowledge is not the same; previous conversations are not the same; what’s normal is not the same; and so on. (3) It is possible to say in a context C that people in a range of contexts C1–Cn said the same thing, e.g., there are true reports of the form ‘They all said that Napoleon was short’ made in a context C about different speakers’ utterances in contexts C1–Cn. Remember from Chapter 8: if someone denies (1)–(3), we don’t want to talk to her or about her (because she doesn’t think she can say what we say, so she can’t deny what we say, and (according to her) we can’t say what she said, and so we can’t say that we disagree with what she said). The cognitive role of minimal semantic content What’s the cognitive role of minimal semantic content? The answer should be (almost) self-evident by now: (F1) Speakers know that their audience can be (and often are) mistaken (or have incomplete information) about the communication-relevant facts about the context of utterance (i.e., the facts listed in Bezuidenhout’s (i)–(vi) discussed in Chapter 8). The proposition semantically expressed is that content the speaker can expect the audience to grasp (and expect the audience to expect the speaker to expect them to grasp) even if they have mistaken or incomplete communication-relevant information. (F2) Audiences know that the speaker can be (and often is) mistaken (or has incomplete information) about the communicationrelevant facts about the context of utterance (i.e., the facts listed in Bezuidenhout’s (i)–(vi)). The proposition semantically expressed is that content the audience can expect the speaker to 184

Semantics and Psychology grasp (and expect the speaker to expect the audience to grasp, etc.) even if she has such mistaken or incomplete information. (F3) The proposition semantically expressed is that content which can be grasped and expressed by someone who isn’t even a participant in the context of utterance. (F4) The proposition semantically expressed is that content which speakers and audiences know can be transmitted through indirect quotation or reproduction (in the form of tapes, video recordings, etc.) to those who find themselves in contexts radically different from the original context of utterance. In short: the proposition semantically expressed is our minimal defense against confusion, misunderstanding, mistakes and it is that which guarantees communication across contexts of utterance. Possible counter-reply. We expect this sort of reply from Carston (and other Relevance Theorists): ‘Hold it: You’re saying that the minimal semantic content is a “shared fallback content” and that this content serves to guard against confusion and misunderstandings. But given what you’ve told us about minimal propositions, how could they serve that purpose? Consider, for example, an utterance of “A is red.” Suppose a speaker utters this sentence in order to communicate that A is red when peeled, washed, and observed under normal daylight conditions (or something like that). That’s what the speaker is trying to say. That’s what the speaker is asserting. Let’s assume, as you (almost) granted in Chapter 11, that the proposition that A is red is true as long as A is red on some surface, under some conditions. Everything is red on some surface under some conditions. So, that proposition is trivially true. How does it help an audience to know that this minimal proposition was expressed? It’s not what the speaker asserted. It’s trivially true. What help could it be to know that this proposition was expressed?’ Our response is simple: It is a starting point. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the proposition that A is red is trivially true (not something we have endorsed, simply something we speculated about in Chapter 11). The audience knows that the speaker is talking about A and its redness, not, for example, about oysters, France, or Relevance Theory. There’s a lot of stuff to talk about in the universe. The proposition semantically expressed pares it down considerably. Knowledge that this proposition was semantically expressed provides the audience with the best possible access to the speaker’s mind, given the restricted knowledge they have of that speaker. It is trivial that A is red on some surface or other under some condition or other. The audience can assume that the speaker knew that this was trivial and was not interested in conveying such trivialities with his utterance and 185

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism can, therefore, infer that there’s work to be done in order to figure out exactly what the speaker was trying to communicate. In general, audiences know what to look for in such situations; they know what kind of information would help narrow down more closely what the speaker wanted to communicate. To sum up this reply to the Psychological Objection, here is how we are responding to the following charge from Recanati. He writes of minimal propositions: Let the semanticist use it if he or she wants to, provided he or she agrees that . . . the minimal proposition has no psychological reality. It does not correspond to any stage in the process of understanding the utterance, and need not be entertained or represented at any point in that process. (Recanati 2001, p. 89) If there’s a difference between having a cognitive function and corresponding to a stage in processing or having psychological reality, we don’t know what that difference consists in. If F1–F4 aren’t sufficient to ‘correspond to any stage in the process of understanding the utterance, and need not be entertained or represented at any point in that process,’ then we don’t know what is. In some sense, what we’ve said here is a bit of a stab in the dark since we’re not at all sure what the contextualists have in mind by their requirement that the explicature be psychologically real. We think what we have said is sufficient to render the propositions semantically expressed, according to Semantic Minimalism, psychologically real, but we’re genuinely confused by the requirement, since we have no idea how contextualists themselves can satisfy their own requirement. The rest of this chapter is devoted to an elaboration of that point.

The Psychological Objection Reversed (or, Why Recanati’s Account of What-is-Said doesn’t Satisfy his Own Availability Principle) Suppose we focus, as contextualists tend to, on the context of the speaker and her audience. The factors that figure into fixing the contextualist’s what-was-said (i.e., the explicature) include, inter alia, (i)–(iv): (i) information triggered in the speaker and the audience by prior discourse contents; 186

Semantics and Psychology (ii) information conversational partners share about each other; (iii) information the conversational partners have acquired through observation of their mutual perceptual environment; (iv) information conversational partners have about each other’s purposes and abilities (e.g., whether the person is being deceitful or sincere, whether the person tends to verbosity or is a person of few words, etc.). This in no way exhausts the facts that, according to contextualists, are content determinants, but what we have to say about (i)–(iv) generalizes. Here’s the problem: Suppose (i)–(iv) are factors that fix the explicature of an utterance u of some sentence S. Now (i)–(iv) involve the mental states of several people (i.e., the speaker and her audience). None of the participants knows all the relevant facts about all the other participants. For example, Cappelen doesn’t know all the information triggered in Lepore by our many previous discussions; Lepore doesn’t know what information Cappelen has about him (Cappelen undoubtedly knows things about Lepore that Lepore doesn’t even know he knows); Cappelen doesn’t always know what Lepore pays attention to in their shared perceptual environment; etc. Our point here is rather obvious: If the explicature is fixed by these sorts of facts, then no one of the participants has direct access to the explicature. It is fixed intra-personally, and so, there’s no reason to think the resulting content is ‘represented’ at any stage of that person’s processing of the relevant utterance. There is no reason to think that the resulting proposition is psychologically real. One way (the only way?) to avoid this troubling problem is to let the content determining facts about the context of utterance be the speaker’s beliefs about (i)–(iv), i.e., the speaker’s beliefs about what is shared information, shared perceptual input, etc.6 This is something the speaker has access to, and if those beliefs shape the context, then our objection doesn’t apply. But, of course, this is a deeply unattractive view since it, for all practical purposes, makes what was said inaccessible to any audience. And so this is not a view contextualists would want to endorse. (If you let it be the audience’s beliefs about (i)–(iv) that determine the content, then the speaker doesn’t know what she has said. This view is obviously equally unattractive.) Recanati discusses a version of this objection and his reply illustrates just how hard it is for contextualists to satisfy their own psychological reality requirement. In particular, it illustrates why Recanati can’t satisfy his own Availability Principle (his version of the Psychological Requirement). 6 Alternatively: the audience’s beliefs about (i)–(iv); the point we make in what follows still applies.

187

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism Hence my ‘Availability Principle’ (Recanati 1993, p. 248), according to which ‘what is said’ must be analysed in conformity to the intuitions shared by those who fully understand the utterance – typically the speaker and the hearer, in a normal conversational setting. I take the conversational participants’ intuitions concerning what is said to be revealed by their views concerning the utterance’s truth-conditions. I assume that whoever fully understands a declarative utterance knows which state of affairs would possibly constitute a truth-maker for that utterance, i.e., knows in what sort of circumstance it would be true. (Recanati 2004, p. 14) Recanati’s theory, based on his Availability Principle, is supposed to be an alternative to theories according to which the explicature (i.e., content, what-is-said) is not psychologically accessible. Recanati’s idea is that, since his what-is-said corresponds to the speaker’s and audience’s intuitions about what is said, it will figure in the process of understanding (an utterance of) the sentence. But he then raises the following worry: Have we not equated what is said with their [i.e., the speaker’s and audience’s] understanding of what is said? We have not. We have equated what is said with what a normal interpreter would understand as being said, in the context at hand. A normal interpreter knows which sentence was uttered, knows the meaning of that sentence, knows the relevant contextual facts (who is being pointed to, etc.). Ordinary users of the language are normal interpreters, in most situations. They know the relevant facts and have the relevant abilities. But there are situations. . . . where the actual users make mistakes and are not normal interpreters. In such situations their interpretations do not fix what is said. To determine what is said, we need to look at the interpretation that a normal interpreter would give. This is objective enough, yet remains within the confines of the pragmatic construal. (Recanati 2004, pp. 19–20) But wait! What’s normal is not something that speakers have psychological access to.7 What’s normal need not ‘be in the speaker’s mind when the sentence is understood’; it certainly needn’t figure in any psychological processes that the speaker goes through when understanding (an utterance of) a sentence. This is so for several obvious reasons, (a)–(d) being perhaps the most obvious ones:

7 Not consciously and certainly not unconsciously.

188

Semantics and Psychology (a) A speaker can be abnormal, but think that she is normal. (b) A speaker might know that she is not normal, but not know what normal is. (c) A speaker might think that she is not normal, but be normal. (d) More generally: Even for speakers who are normal and know that they are normal, they might not know what counts as a normal understanding of some specific feature of a context that they happen to find themselves in. A lot of situations have no ‘normal’ set of expectations associated with them. Suppose Lepore meets someone in the 5th Street café on a hot New York City summer day. What ‘normality’ are we looking for? Normal for Lepore when he’s talking to strangers in a café on 5th Street in New York City on a hot summer day? There’s no such thing! In other words: If what’s normal, in part, determines what-is-said, and if what’s normal is not represented at any stage in the processing of the utterance (and it can’t be if any one of (a)–(d) is true), then the resulting whatis-said cannot be so represented. Then, we suppose (though, as we have admitted, we’re not sure we entirely understand the contextualists here), Recanati’s what-is-said is not psychologically real. In sum: the Semantic Minimalist has a response to the Psychological Objection. It is the contextualist who surprisingly does not.

189

CHAPTER 13

Speech Act Pluralism

So far we have (a) outlined what we think are the sources of semantic context sensitivity; (b) refuted the alternative accounts – MC and RC; (c) told you what we can (admittedly, not much) about the nature of propositions semantically expressed; and (d) responded to objections to Semantic Minimalism, in particular, to the view that we express minimal propositions. Throughout, we have said that what an utterance says, states, claims, etc. differs from the proposition it semantically expresses. In this chapter we elaborate on that claim. We call the view we defend Speech Act Pluralism (SPAP, for short). SPAP is not really a theory; it’s a collection of observations, one of which is that there can be no systematic theory of speech act content. Since we’re inclined to insist that a theory has to be systematic, we refuse to call SPAP a theory. Our presentation and defense of SPAP has four parts: (1) First, we register some methodological observations: since SPAP is a collection of observations about the nature of speech acts, we start by outlining, in general terms, how we think speech acts should be investigated. (2) We present what we call the Central Observation. This provides the basis for our nontheory theory of speech act content. (3) We then present observations about speech act content. These eight observations constitute SPAP. (4) We distinguish SPAP from four related views (some of which we ourselves once held) and explain why we don’t endorse these views. 190

Speech Act Pluralism

Methodology: Nothing is Hidden We are naive about speech act content; we take our nontheoretic beliefs and intuitions about what speakers say, assert, claim, etc. at face value (unless given overwhelming reason to do otherwise). We’re naive for a reason: Speech act content isn’t deeply hidden somewhere, where only a theorist can excavate it. That would undermine its purpose. What speakers say, claim, assert, etc. is what we hear when we listen to them. It is what we respond to, question, laugh at, take seriously, ignore, agree or disagree with. It is not concealed; it is not something requiring an investigation to uncover.1 Intuitions and nontheoretic assumptions about speech act content can, of course, be overridden should important theoretical considerations lead us to reject specific intuitions or general considerations. We are, however, unaware of any such intuitions or considerations relevant to the cases we discuss here. How, then, do we identify the clear cases we take at face value? Well, we just sit here at the café on 5th Street and think about what people say, and what people say about what people say. Then we check with others sitting at adjoining tables to ensure our reactions aren’t idiosyncratic. And finally we check whether there are any overwhelming reasons for rejecting these observations.

The Central Observation Consider this verbatim transcript of an utterance, the so-called ‘Smoking Gun’ utterance (‘. . .’ indicates pauses): When you get in these people, when you get these people in, say: ‘Look, the problem is that this will open the whole, the whole Bay of Pigs thing, and the president just feels that,’ ah, without going into the details . . . don’t, don’t lie to them to the extent to say there is no involvement, but just say this is sort of a comedy of errors, bizarre, without getting into it, ‘the president believes that it is going to open the whole Bay of Pigs thing up again, and ah because these people are plugging for, for keeps and that they should call the FBI in and say that we wish for the country, don’t go any further into this case.’ Period. That’s the way to put it, do it straight. 1 All of this is not to deny that confusion, obscurity, misunderstanding, and related phenomena are not ubiquitous. They are. But those cases illustrate our point even more clearly.

191

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism Let’s reflect on what is said by this utterance. We want a naive description of what it says, the sort of description you would give if you weren’t encountering it with a philosophical axe to grind. Notice first the following: (a) This quote is typical in that almost none of it includes a fully grammatical sentence. Indeed, very few well-formed English sentences ever get uttered. (b) As a result, to ascertain what’s said, you first have to reconstruct utterances to a point where they express thoughts. There are many ways to achieve this end, as illustrated by this quote. No one way is uniquely correct. (c) To report on this utterance (and see how others would report on it), it obviously helps to know some basic facts about it, such as who the speaker and audience are and where the utterance took place. It helps, for example, to know that the speaker was President Richard Milhous Nixon, the thirty-seventh President of the United States; that the audience was R. H. Haldeman (Nixon’s Chief of Staff); that the locution ‘these people’ refers to one or all of CIA Director Richard Helms and his deputy, General Vernon Walters (a longtime associate of the President’s), and FBI Acting Director Pat Gray; that the conversation takes place in the Oval Office, June 23, 1972, from 10:04 to 11:39 a.m. (It’s from a transcript of the so-called Smoking Gun Tape.) 2 Observation: Such factors influence how we describe what Nixon said, asserted, claimed, ordered, etc. Our hypothesis, formulated as SPAP1 below, is that there’s no single way to put all of this together in order to come up with a unique description of what Nixon said. There are many different ways to do it, no one of which is more correct than all others. So, what did Nixon say? Well, the current standard reports on this tape go something like this (found in many history books, innumerable contemporaneous newspaper articles and investigative reports, etc.): Nixon told Haldeman to tell the CIA to tell the FBI not to pursue their investigation into the Watergate burglary. Nixon is clearly heard telling his Chief of Staff, Bob Haldeman, to implement John Dean’s idea that the CIA be used to pressure the FBI to limit the Watergate investigation. 2 It’s not clear whether ‘those people’ refers to (CIA Director) Richard Helms, (Deputy CIA Director) Vernon Walters, (FBI Director) Pat Gray, or to all of them. Reports actually vary, and if you read the transcript carefully, no unique answer emerges and there’s no reason to think there would be one even if you were able to go back in time and look into Nixon’s head.

192

Speech Act Pluralism Nixon wanted the CIA Director, Richard Helms, to thwart the FBI’s probe of the Watergate burglary by saying it was a CIA operation. Nixon told Haldeman to tell Helms that Nixon wanted him to stop the Watergate investigation. Nixon told Haldeman to break the law. These reports all attribute different sayings to the utterance; and they constitute but just a modest start. Nixon’s utterance clearly said lots of other things, e.g.: He told Haldeman to tell someone at the CIA to tell the FBI that there was a connection between the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Watergate burglary. He said that Haldeman should give the FBI few details about the connection between the Bay of Pigs and the Watergate burglary. And so on and so on. What’s crucial to notice here (and in general) is that our intuitions about what speakers say with their utterances are influenced by, at least, the following sorts of considerations: (1) Facts about the speaker’s intentions and beliefs. These reports make assumptions about what Nixon believes, for example, that he thinks ‘those people’ hold certain positions and that they have certain kinds of power; he has certain beliefs about the CIA and the FBI, the legal system, etc. (2) Facts about the conversational context of this particular utterance. The reports of what Nixon said are influenced by information we have about whom Nixon and Haldeman have been talking about, the topic of their conversation, etc. (3) Other facts about the world. What’s illegal (i.e., that it would be a crime for the President of the United States to ask the CIA to ask the FBI to stop an investigation), that getting the CIA to talk to the FBI in certain ways constitutes undue influence, etc. (4) Logical relations. The most obvious examples are conjuncts of conjunctions or trivial logical implications. For example, if Nixon said that he wanted the CIA Director, Richard Helms, to thwart the FBI’s probe of the Watergate burglary by saying it was a CIA operation, then it follows he also said that he wanted the CIA Director, Richard Helms, to thwart the FBI’s probe of the Watergate burglary – where the latter follows logically–semantically from the former. 193

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism (5) In light of (1)–(4), we can easily substitute coextensive predicates and referring expressions. Take, for example, Haldeman. Since he was Nixon’s Chief of Staff, one true report would be: ‘Nixon told his Chief of Staff to break the law.’ (6) There’s no reason to think (1)–(5) exhaust all the factors that influence our intuitions about what speakers say. The general point illustrated by (1)–(6) is that our intuitions about what speakers say depend on a wide range of considerations not all of which are encoded solely in the meanings of the words uttered. It is only when these considerations are combined with the meanings of the words used that it makes sense for us to ask what an individual said with his utterance. Thought experiment To see the effect of a wide range of background beliefs on our intuitions about what Nixon said, imagine encountering his utterance with these peculiar beliefs: That Nixon is a French construction worker, an illegal immigrant working as a carpenter on a housing project in Washington DC (but knowing enough about Nixon, for example, being able to recognize him etc., to refer to him); that Haldeman is a clerk in a video store; and that Gray and Helms run a laundromat together; that Nixon is obsessed with US foreign politics and that he’s trying to influence what the guy in the video store says to the guys who run the laundromat; that in his own confused way, he’s trying to defend the President. There’s nothing in the words of Nixon’s utterance (their meaning) that prevents these beliefs from being true. Now imagine hearing Nixon’s Smoking Gun utterance with these beliefs as your background. When you get in Gray and Helms [the guys the audience believes run the laundromat], when you get these people in, say: ‘Look, the problem is that this will open the whole, the whole Bay of Pigs thing, and the president just feels that,’ ah, without going into the details . . . don’t, don’t lie to them to the extent to say there is no involvement, but just say this is sort of a comedy of errors, bizarre, without getting into it, ‘the president believes that it is going to open the whole Bay of Pigs thing up again, and ah because these people are plugging for, for keeps and that they should call the FBI in and say that we wish for the country, don’t go any further into this case.’ Period. That’s the way to put it, do it straight. 194

Speech Act Pluralism If you plug these beliefs into the equation, aren’t you going to miss a lot of what was said? You’re clearly not going to have the intuition that Nixon told Haldeman to tell the CIA to tell the FBI not to pursue their investigation into the Watergate burglary. Nixon is clearly heard telling his Chief of Staff, Bob Haldeman, to implement John Dean’s idea that the CIA be used to pressure the FBI to limit the Watergate investigation. Wouldn’t you miss a lot of what was said? Additional illustrations The above example is typical. Take any speech act, and you can use it to illustrate the same point. We love these cases, but we worry that if we do too much of it we’ll lose you, but the temptation is too great for us not to provide just a few additional illustrations. ‘Liddy an Asshole?’ This next case also is from the Smoking Gun transcript of the conversation between Nixon and Haldeman. Nixon is trying to find out who arranged the payment to those who broke into the hotel room in the Watergate Hotel. The conversation goes as follows: PRESIDENT NIXON: He [Hunt] didn’t know how it was going to be handled though, with Dahlberg and the Texans and so forth? Well who is the asshole that did? Is it Liddy? Is that the fellow? He must be a little nuts. HALDEMAN: He is. PRESIDENT NIXON: I mean, he isn’t well screwed on is he? Isn’t that the problem?

Here are some questions for you to think about. Does Nixon say:









Liddy is clinically insane? Liddy is an asshole? Liddy has a low IQ? Liddy handled the situation in an irresponsible way? Liddy mishandled the situation because he’s stupid? He (Nixon) has no confidence in Liddy? Does he blame Liddy? Does he ask Haldeman whether Liddy is an asshole? 195

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism ‘O.J. Dressing.’ Here is the kind of crucial information we were constantly being assailed with during O.J.’s infamous trial. O.J. uttered: At 11:05 p.m. I put on a white shirt, a blue Yohji Yamamoto suit, dark socks, and my brown Bruno Magli shoes. It is easy to imagine these as reports of what O.J. said: He said that he dressed up in some really fancy clothes late in the evening. He said that he changed his clothes right after 11 p.m. (said in a context where it is shared knowledge that he was wearing a different set of clothes before 11 p.m.). He said that he stopped exposing himself to the neighbors right after 11 p.m. (said in a context where it is common knowledge that he was standing naked in front of the window before 11 p.m.). He said that he gave the sign at 11:05 (said in a context where it is common knowledge that putting on the brown Bruno Magli shoes is a sign of some significance or other). ‘The moronic clown.’ Suppose A is a philosopher we tend to describe as a moronic clown even though we both know A is neither really a clown nor really moronic. It’s just how we tend affectionately to describe A. Suppose Cappelen hears B utter ‘A just wrote a book.’ Cappelen could naturally report B’s utterance to Lepore with: B said that the moronic clown just wrote a book. What’s distinctive about this example is that the subject term in the indirect report not only does not refer to A, it doesn’t even describe A, and the speaker and the audience know this is so.3 Two objections Here are a couple of objections we have encountered to the Central Observation.4 Did Nixon really say what we attributed to him? Did he, strictly speaking, say it? Did he literally say it? Let’s see: We know this particular utter3 For further discussion and many more examples, see Cappelen and Lepore (1997; 1998). 4 See also Richard (1998) and Reimer (1998). Both raise objections to our view. We respond in Cappelen and Lepore (1998).

196

Speech Act Pluralism ance was the cornerstone of the impeachment case against Nixon. It was, in effect, one of the central causes of Nixon’s resignation. Imagine the absurdity of a defense of Nixon that he didn’t, strictly speaking, ask the CIA to block the FBI investigation. Or that he didn’t really ask it. Or that he didn’t literally order it. Any such defense would have been just plain silly. As we mentioned earlier, we are terribly naive in that we take the practice of talking about, and thinking about, what people say at face value. We think the best way to find out about what speakers say is to listen to them, and then think about what they have said, and ask other people what they have said. Recanati objects to our modest procedure, and suggests an alternative:

. . . I strongly disagree with Cappelen and Lepore’s surprising statement: We ourselves don’t see how to elicit intuitions about what-is-said by an utterance of a sentence without appealing to intuitions about the accuracy of indirect reports of the form ‘He said that . . .’ or ‘What he said is that . . .’ or even ‘What was said is that . . .’ (Cappelen and Lepore 1997, p. 280) I find this statement surprising, because there obviously is another way of eliciting truth-conditional intuitions. One has simply to provide subjects with scenarios describing situations, or, even better, with – possibly animated – pictures of situations, and to ask them to evaluate the target utterance as true or false with respect to the situations in question . . . . this procedure presupposes that normal interpreters have intuitions concerning the truth-conditional content of utterances. On my view, those intuitions correspond to a certain ‘level’ in the comprehension process – a level that a proper theory of language understanding must capture. That is the level of ‘what is said’ (as opposed to, e.g., what is implied). (Recanati 2004, pp. 92–3)

Let’s see. Recanati’s idea is that there’s a level of content, a level he calls ‘what is said,’ that this level corresponds to a level ‘in the comprehension’ process, and that’s revealed, not by intuitions about what a speaker said, not by asking people what they think was said, but rather by looking at animated pictures. (We’re not sure exactly what ‘animated’ comes to here, but we’ll let that pass.) Try to apply Recanati’s proposal to Nixon’s Smoking Gun utterance. The suggestion, if we understand it correctly, is that we should look at a little picture, like this: 197

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism

Don't investigate Watergate!

Haldeman

Nixon

Or, even better, we should watch a movie, maybe Oliver Stone’s Nixon, with Anthony Hopkins playing the role of Nixon, in which there is a scene very close to this one. We have three brief comments on/objections to Recanati’s alternative methodology: 1. Our main objection, and it has nothing in particular to do with the specific features of the Smoking Gun utterance, is this: We’re not sure what we’re supposed to compare to the picture or animation because we are not sure what Recanati is referring to by ‘utterance.’ If the utterance is just the sounds made, then we don’t know how to evaluate it with respect to a picture. If by ‘utterance’ he doesn’t have in mind the sounds uttered, then he must be referring to a proposition expressed. If this is what he has in mind, then we need to choose which expressed proposition, i.e., we have to decide what is said by the utterance before we can do the comparison. Hence, the comparison can’t be what gets us what is said. No matter what you do you must rely on assumptions about what was said, asserted, etc. in order to evaluate ‘the utterance’ with respect to the animated picture. 2. We’re not even sure how to understand Recanati’s animated pictures. We take it to be plain obvious that pictures don’t have intrinsic represen198

Speech Act Pluralism tative properties. There’s nothing in a particular drawing that requires that drawing to be a representation of Nixon. So, the comparison presupposes extensive interpretation of the picture by the audience. In effect, the audience has to decide the content of the picture before a comparison. Again, this shows that the idea that a naive, nontheoretic intuition can be elicited in this way is deeply confused. 3. Here’s a point that has more specifically to do with the Smoking Gun utterance: The utterance is a piece of advice. Nixon is telling Haldeman what he should do; he’s not describing what Haldeman did or will do. But how do you ‘animate’ an order, or a suggestion, or a recommendation? More generally, how do you animate modality? There are other interesting issues we could pursue here, but limitations of space and time force us to push forward.

Observations about Speech Act Content The Central Observation and the sort of data we have been discussing lead us to the first thesis of Radical Speech Act Pluralism, which we call SPAP1.

SPAP1: Pluralism No one thing is said (or asserted, or claimed, or . . . ) by any utterance: rather, indefinitely many propositions are said, asserted, claimed, stated, etc. Corollary. When you report what is said, many things are said by your report, i.e., indirect reports are, of course, no exception to SPAP1. In other words, Pluralism about speech act content applies just as much to sentences that report something about what speakers’ utterances say as it does to the reported speakers’ utterances. As a result: Not only is there no one correct answer to what was said by an utterance, there’s no one correct answer to what was said by a report of what was said by an utterance either. There’s no meta-language in which the speech act content is fixed and determinate. Pluralism applies all the way through. Comparison to related views we don’t endorse. It is important to distinguish Pluralism from two other views, neither of which we mean to endorse by virtue of endorsing Pluralism (nor do we mean to be rejecting either of these views as well; we don’t have to take any stand whatsoever on these views here). 199

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism 1. Pluralism π semantic context sensitivity of ‘said that.’ Pluralism is not the view that the English locution ‘said that’ is semantically context sensitive. That would involve the claim that ‘said that’ passes our three tests for context sensitivity (cf., Chapter 7). That’s not the claim we are making here (though we’re not rejecting it either5). We’re simply making the claim that any one utterance asserts many distinct propositions. 2. Pluralism π relativization to context. Nor are we rejecting nor endorsing the view that at least one of the propositions said (or asserted, or claimed, or . . . ) by an utterance of ‘A said that p’ includes a reference to the context of utterance of that indirect report, i.e., it is consistent with Pluralism that there is some sort of relativization to the context of utterance of the indirect report at the level of what is said by a report of what is said. In that sense, what a speaker said might depend on the context of utterance of the report of what that speaker said. Here’s what we have in mind: Return to our old friend A, whom, recall, we regrettably tend to call a moronic clown; we both know A isn’t really a clown and we’re exaggerating wildly when we describe him as a moron. Nonetheless, if we hear B utter ‘A just wrote a book,’ Cappelen might report that utterance to Lepore by saying ‘B said that the moronic clown just wrote a book.’ It is compatible with SPAP that one of the things Cappelen said by reporting what B said about A is that B said that the guy we (in such and such contexts) tend to describe as a moronic clown wrote a book.

SPAP2: What’s said and what’s semantically expressed One of the many propositions asserted by an utterance is the semantic content of that utterance (the proposition semantically expressed). We argued for this in Chapters 7–10.

SPAP3: The nontheory theory of speech act content We have been unable to figure out how to devise an algorithm that takes the proposition semantically expressed and delivers all the propositions said, asserted, etc. There might not be any systematic theory from which one can derive all of which is said by an utterance. In this respect, what was said by u might be similar to what u can be used for, or what’s interesting about u, or what u is similar to, or what is strange about u. In all of these

5 Remember, we’re not really doing semantics in this book, so we’ll not make any substantial claims about the semantics for specific expressions. We intend to remain neutral here.

200

Speech Act Pluralism cases, there is no one unique answer. There are many things u is similar to; there are many things that are interesting about u; and so on. We don’t have a proof that there is no such theory, so we’re open-minded about the prospect that someone might devise one, but we strongly suspect that no such theory is ever forthcoming.

SPAP4: Contextual Two-Dimensionalism (against Original Utterance Centrism) Our theory is opposed to theories that are speaker (or audience) centrist, and more generally, to Original Utterance Centrism. These are theories according to which the speech act content is fixed by facts about the speaker, his audience, and their common context. On our view, that’s definitely not the case. We think facts not known or available to the speaker (or his audience) can make a difference. Assumptions made by people who have nothing at all to do with the original context of utterance can fix what the speaker said. To take a simple illustration, suppose you uttered (1) several weeks ago: (1) The table is covered with books. Suppose that whatever table is under discussion currently sits comfortably in your father’s office (though it did not sit there when you uttered (1)). Haven’t you said with your utterance of (1) that the table in your father’s office is covered with books? Note that no other account we are aware of can factor being in your father’s office into what was said by your utterance of (1), since you yourself were ignorant or misinformed about what would or wouldn’t be in your father’s office at the time of your utterance – maybe the table got moved there right after you spoke. Suppose Frank utters (1) in a context where only one table is present. Later, after another table is brought in, a question arises about what Frank said with his earlier utterance of (1). Suppose that on the sole table present when Frank spoke now sits a vase, and on the added table sits nothing. Anyone who reports Frank’s utterance of (1) in this context as having said that the table is covered with books might grossly misrepresent what he said, but anyone who reports him as having said that the table with a vase on it is covered with books has gotten him just right. If you disagree, how would you in the context described usefully and correctly answer the question ‘What did Frank say?’ Should you conclude you cannot correctly report his utterance? For additional examples, consider the moronic clown utterance again. The speaker doesn’t believe that A is a moronic clown; indeed, he isn’t. Even 201

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism if you go back to the Smoking Gun utterance, it’s clear that Nixon asked Haldeman to put undue pressure on the CIA even if Nixon didn’t think he was.

SPAP5: Speakers don’t have privileged access to the content of their speech acts It is a corollary of SPAP4 that speakers don’t have privileged access to all the propositions they assert or say in uttering a sentence. In the above example, the speaker didn’t know that she said that the table with a vase on it is covered with books. Such examples need not involve coextensive referring expressions. If someone points at our friend the moronic clown (who is neither a clown nor moronic) and utters ‘That man is shady,’ she has said that that moronic clown is shady. If Justine bought the picture, and if Justine is French, and Jack utters the sentence ‘Justine bought the picture,’ there are contexts in which one would say something true by saying that Jack said that a French woman bought the picture, even though Jack doesn’t know that Justine is French. The semantic content of an uttered sentence provides an additional, but more complex, illustration of the same point. In Chapter 11 we argued that all a semanticist has to say about the semantic content of an utterance of ‘A is red’ is that it expresses the proposition that A is red, and is true just in case A is red. We semanticists are not in the business of telling you what it is to be red. It is possible that at the end of the day, color-metaphysicians will conclude that being red is to be red under conditions C, and this might come as a bit of a surprise, both to the semanticist and to ordinary speakers. It might, for example, turn out that it is much easier to satisfy this condition than one would pretheoretically expect (and harder not to satisfy it). A speaker who is not a color-metaphysician might utter the sentence ‘A is red’ primarily intending to communicate that A is red on the outside when washed. In so doing she need not be aware of the fact that she also expressed a content that’s metaphysically equivalent to the claim that A is red under conditions C (of course, she does know that she expressed the proposition that A is red; what she doesn’t know is that this is metaphysically equivalent to the proposition that A is red under conditions C).

SPAP6: Speakers need not believe everything they sincerely say A corollary of SPAP4 and SPAP5 is that speakers need not believe everything they say even when their saying it is sincere. At least there’s no reason for saying the person who uttered ‘Justine bought the picture,’ and thereby said that a French woman bought the picture, believes that a French woman 202

Speech Act Pluralism bought the picture. There’s no reason to think that the person who uttered ‘That man is shady,’ and thereby said that the moronic clown is shady, believes that the moronic clown is shady. There’s no reason to think that someone who utters ‘The table is covered in books,’ and thereby said that the table in your father’s office is covered in books, believes that the table in your father’s office is covered in books. We don’t have to think that when Nixon uttered the sentences heard on the Smoking Gun tape, and thereby asked Haldeman to break the law, he believed he was asking Haldeman to break the law (he might have, we don’t know, but he might not have). SPAP7: Expressed belief need not be equivalent to semantic content A further corollary is that the principle Hawthorne calls the True Belief Principle is false (Hawthorne 2003, p. 99): The True Belief Principle (TBP). If a speaker sincerely accepts an utterance u and u has semantic value p, then the belief manifested by his sincerely accepting u is true iff p is true. TBP is mistaken for at least two reasons. First, as formulated, it presupposes that there’s a single belief manifested by a speaker’s sincere acceptance of an utterance u. That’s not so. Just as an utterance expresses a wide range of distinct contents, the speaker’s sincere acceptance of u might manifest a range of distinct beliefs. Second, it is not the case that all of the propositions a speaker might manifest a belief in when sincerely accepting an utterance u are true just in case the semantic content of u is true. SPAP provides an indefinite range of counterexamples here, but to make it vivid we’ll stick with two. Imagine a context in which several children are arranged by their nationality. Suppose this is some kind of competition in which nationalities are of utmost significance. All the participants are wrapped in their national flags. They are there as representatives of their nation, not as individuals. Suppose, in this context, Cappelen points at a child wrapped in a French flag and utters, ‘He’s suspicious.’ In so doing he has exhibited a belief in the proposition that a French child is suspicious and the proposition that the French participant is suspicious. That proposition is not equivalent to the semantic content of the uttered sentence. Or, consider an utterance of ‘The moronic clown is shady.’ The speaker in uttering this sentence might manifest a belief in the proposition that Professor Smyth is shady, but that proposition is not true just in case the semantic content of u is true. More generally: We have no idea why anyone should accept TBP. If it is some kind of a priori philosophical principle that’s supposed to be self203

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism evident, then all we can say is that it’s not self-evident for us. Indeed, we think it’s pretty obviously false if considered as an empirical observation about the relationship between utterances, beliefs, and semantic content.

SPAP8: Against Grice: For those engaged in ‘semantic vs. pragmatics’ talk: sayings and implicatures are both on the pragmatic side of the divide Finally, we want to reemphasize a point made in earlier chapters. The very same contextual features that determine the implicatures of an utterance influence what speakers say and assert by that utterance. There is no fundamental theoretical divide between sayings and implicatures. They are both on the side of speech act content. Whatever mechanisms might generate implicatures are also all used to generate what speakers say.

Pluralism: Summary SPAP1–SPAP8 and their corollaries are some of the most salient implications of the Central Observation with which we began this chapter. They are by no means the only relevant such observations, and we think there’s rich material here for understanding subtle distinctions between various kinds of speech acts and about the relationship between reports of what people say and the context of those reports. We’ll not engage in a detailed investigation here, since the overall goals of this book are simply to defend Semantic Minimalism and to show how, in broad outlines, it fits hand in glove with Speech Act Pluralism.

Objection 1: How is communication nonmiraculous? At several crucial points in this book we have argued that contextualism makes it impossible to understand the varieties of ways in which speakers share content across diverse contexts. Test 1 in Chapter 7 appeals to facts about how speakers report on what others say by using disquotational indirect reports. Chapter 8 accuses contextualists of not being in a position to account for how speakers could communicate across diverse contexts. The second and third inconsistency charges in Chapter 9 rely on assumptions about what Radical Contextualists have to say about what speakers say in various thought experiments. In Chapter 10 we claim that two central virtues of Semantic Minimalism are related to its ability to avoid what we called ‘contextual isolationism.’ 204

Speech Act Pluralism In the light of this last chapter, the following might be a natural question to us: Isn’t communication across contexts miraculous on our view too? On our account, a bunch of propositions get expressed, some of which the speaker doesn’t even know about. Communication concerns that which is said, that which the speaker understands. Doesn’t this view undermine the possibility of communication just as much as Radical Contextualism? Our response is fourfold: 1. How does our theory account for the ease with which we disquotationally report each other across contexts; i.e., how do we explain that any utterance of, for example, (1) Peter’s duck is brown can be reported disquotationally, i.e., by (2) The speaker said that Peter’s duck is brown, even when the report takes place in a context radically different from the context of the reported utterance of (1)? On our view, this is possible because every utterance of ‘Peter’s duck is brown’ semantically expresses the proposition that Peter’s duck is brown. This minimal semantic content is one of the many propositions said by any utterance of (1). Hence, an utterance of (2) will succeed as an indirect report, even in those cases where the context of utterance for (2) is radically different from the context of the reported utterance of (1). Of course, in most cases, this minimal content is not the only, or even the most important, proposition the speaker intended to communicate to her audience. She typically would intend to communicate something more specific about the relationship between Peter and the duck (ownership, possession, proximity, or what have you), something more specific about the brownness (located on the feathers, the beak, or what have you), and no doubt much more. But despite all this, the speaker can’t help but say that Peter’s duck is brown by uttering (1). That’s why we can indirectly report each other disquotationally across contexts. 2. How is it that we can understand what was said by an utterance of (1) when that utterance took place in a context radically different from ours (and we know little or nothing about that context)? The answer should be obvious by now: We can always understand part of what the speaker said, namely, that Peter’s duck is brown. That part is easy to understand and it doesn’t require knowing much about the original context of utterance. You might even have mistaken beliefs about that context and still understand that the speaker said that Peter’s duck is brown. 205

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism 3. This third aspect of our account of inter-contextual communication is a bit tricky to understand (in part, because it is based on such an unusual view, i.e., SPAP4). Remember two features of our view: (i) Any utterance u succeeds in saying indefinitely many propositions (see SPAP1). (ii) Our view is not Original Utterance Centrist (see SPAP4), i.e., we think what was said by an utterance u of (1) in a context C can be determined by features of the context in which we describe what was said by u. So when we say what was said by u, we can draw on features of the context we are in now, say, 5stC. These features of 5stC can be constitutive of what was said by u. Given (i) and (ii) it isn’t surprising that we can have easy access to some of what was said by u. In some cases, we might even have access to parts of what the speaker said that the speaker herself doesn’t have access to (see SPAP4 and SPAP5–7). You might think that is a strange kind of communication, but not so if to communicate is to understand each other and if understanding someone involves understanding what she said and if we are right about SPAP4, i.e., if we are right in our rejection of Original Utterance Centrism. 4. An adequate account of inter-contextual communication should not only explain how it is possible for speakers in diverse contexts to understand each other. It should also explain why it sometimes seems so mindbogglingly hard to understand what other people have said. Someone with a strong sense of failing to understand what someone else said would not, typically, be particularly relieved by being told that she can fall back on an inter-contextual disquotational indirect report. A theory that makes communicative interaction seem ridiculously easy is no better than one that makes communication impossible. We don’t think successful communication is easy. On our view, any utterance succeeds in expressing an indefinite number of propositions. One of these, the proposition semantically expressed, is easy to grasp. Others are extremely hard to access and there is no reason to think that any one person can ever grasp all that was said by an utterance, not even the speaker. This is how Semantic Minimalism combined with Speech Act Pluralism can account for both the sense in which communication is easy and the sense in which it is impossibly difficult.6

6 In ‘Shared Content’ (2004 MS), we pursue the connection between these ideas and various nonlinguistic practices.

206

Speech Act Pluralism

Objection 2: How to talk about and test for semantic content In this book we have talked repeatedly about the semantic content of utterances (the proposition semantically expressed). We have presented tests for how to find the semantic content of utterances. We have done that by uttering sentences, by making claims, and assertions. But in so doing we assert an indefinite number of propositions, only one of which is the proposition semantically expressed. Doesn’t that undermine our tests? Doesn’t it make the very project of this book impossible? Again, the answer should be fairly obvious. It takes stage setting to get readers to ‘see’ or ‘notice’ the semantic content of an utterance. In most regular-life contexts, the semantic content is not what is focused upon. We’re interested in all the extra stuff; that’s typically where the juice is. However, in certain peculiar contexts, such as articles on semantics, the goal is to draw the audience’s attention to the semantic content of an utterance, and the audience recognizes that this is the goal. With a little stage setting from us, and some receptiveness from the audience, we almost always succeed. When you read our tests in Chapter 7, for example, you obviously have to focus on what’s communicated; we are after all communicating with you, the reader, so the tests are tests that go via the communicated content. But that’s not a problem if we ensure that the context is such that it is the semantic content that’s being focused on. Think of the tests like this: They are ways to get the audience to notice the semantic features of (utterances of) sentences. They create contexts in which our attention is drawn to features of the semantic content. Can we be sure that we will succeed? Can we be sure we have succeeded in constructing the right kind of context for this? No. But we are fairly confident.

Conclusion: The Diagram of Communication We noticed that other authors who write books on the topics of this book tend to employ many interesting and complicated diagrams. They have elaborate pictures of how various levels of content are interrelated, what kinds of content can be expressed by an utterance, and so on and so on. We’ve always been impressed by (and to be honest a little bit jealous of) these diagrams, and so it seems appropriate to end our book with what we call the Diagram of Communication.

207

Diagram of Communication

Etc. . . .

Indefinitely many contexts of interpretation for utterances of interpretation of U

Indefinitely many contexts of interpretation for U

Context of Utterance

S

Special r elati ons hip

Utterance of S

Fixes (no theory, not systematic?) Speech Act Content: Indefinitely many propositions

Proposition Semantically Expressed (minimal context sensitivity)

208

References

Austin, J. L. (1961), How to Do Things with Words (Oxford: Clarendon Press). —— (1962), Sense and Sensibilia, ed. Geoffrey J. Warnock (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Bach, K. (1999), ‘The Myth of Conventional Implicature,’ Linguistics and Philosophy, 22/4: 327–66. —— (1987), Thought and Reference (Oxford: Oxford University Press). —— (1994a), ‘Conversational Implicature,’ Mind and Language, 9/2: 124–62. —— (1994b), ‘Semantic Slack: What is Said and More,’ in S. Tsohatzidis (ed.), Foundations of Speech Act Theory (London: Routledge), pp. 267–91. —— (1997), ‘Do Belief Reports Report Beliefs?’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 78: 215–41. —— (1999), ‘The Semantics Pragmatics Distinction: What it Is and Why it Matters,’ in K. Turner (ed.), The Semantics–Pragmatics Interface from Different Points of View (Oxford: Elsevier), pp. 65–84. —— (2000), ‘Quantification, Qualification, and Context: A Reply to Stanley and Szabó,’ Mind and Language, 15: 262–83. —— (2001), ‘You Don’t Say?’, Synthese, 128: 15–44. —— (2002a), ‘Seemingly Semantic Intuitions,’ in J. Campbell, M. O’Rourke, and D. Shier (eds.), Meaning and Truth: Investigations in Philosophical Semantics (New York: Seven Bridges Press), pp. 21–33. —— (2002b), ‘Semantic, Pragmatics,’ in J. Campbell, M. O’Rourke, and D. Shier (eds.), Meaning and Truth: Investigations in Philosophical Semantics (New York: Seven Bridges Press), pp. 284–92. Bezuidenhout, A. (1996), ‘Pragmatics and Singular Reference,’ Mind and Language, 11: 133–59. —— (1997), ‘Pragmatics, Semantic Underdetermination and the Referential/Attributive Distinction,’ Mind, 106/423: 375–409. —— (2002), ‘Truth-Conditional Pragmatics,’ Philosophical Perspectives, 16: 105–34. Blair, Don (2004), ‘Domain Restrictions, Relational Nouns, and Weak Crossover,’ MS. Burge, T. (1986), ‘On Davidson’s “Saying That,” ’ in E. Lepore (ed.), Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Blackwell), pp. 190–208.

209

References Cappelen, H., and E. Lepore (1997), ‘On an Alleged Connection between Indirect Quotation and Semantic Theory,’ Mind and Language, 12: 278–96. —— —— (1998), ‘Reply to Richard and Reimer,’ Mind and Language, 13: 117–621. —— —— (2002a), ‘Indexicality, Binding, Anaphora and A Priori Truth,’ Analysis (Oct.), 271–81. —— —— (2002b), ‘Insensitive Quantifiers,’ in J. Campbell, M. O’Rourke, and D. Shier (eds.), Meaning and Truth: Investigating Philosophical Semantics (New York: Seven Bridges Press), pp. 197–213. —— (2004), ‘Shared Content,’ MS. Carston, R. (1988), ‘Implicature, Explicature, and Truth-Theoretic Semantics,’ in R. Kempson (ed.), Mental Representations: The Interface between Language and Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 155–81. —— (1993), ‘Conjunction, Explanation, and Relevance,’ Lingua, 90: 27–48. —— (2002), Thoughts and Utterances: The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication (Oxford: Blackwell). —— (2004), ‘Relevance Theory and the Saying/Implicating Distinction,’ in L. Horn and G. Ward (eds.), Handbook of Pragmatics (Oxford: Blackwell), pp. 633–56. Casteneda, Hector-Neri (1980), ‘The Theory of Questions, Epistemic Powers, and the Indexical Theory of Knowledge,’ Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 5: 193–238. Clapp, Lenny (2002), ‘What Unarticulated Constituents Could Not Be,’ in J. Campbell, M. O’Rourke, and D. Shier (eds.), Meaning and Truth: Investigating Philosophical Semantics (New York: Seven Bridges Press), pp. 231–56. Cohen, Stewart (1988), ‘How to be a Fallibilist,’ Philosophical Perspectives, 2: 91–123. —— (1991), ‘Skepticism, Relevance, and Relativity,’ in B. McLaughlin (ed.), Dretske and His Critics (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell), pp. 17–37. —— (1999), ‘Contextualism, Skepticism, and the Structure of Reasons,’ Philosophical Perspectives, 13: 57–89. Condoravdi, C., and J. M. Gawron (1995), ‘The Context Dependency of Implicit Arguments,’ in M. Kanazawa, C. Pinon, and H. de Swart (eds.), Quantifiers, Deduction and Context (Stanford, Calif.: CSLI), pp. 1–32. Crimmins, M. (1992), Talk about Belief (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press). —— and J. Perry (1989), ‘The Prince and the Phone Booth: Reporting Puzzling Beliefs,’ Journal of Philosophy, 86: 685–711. Davidson, D. (1967), ‘The Logical Form of Action Sentences,’ in Davidson, The Logic of Decision and Action (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press); repr. in Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 105–21. —— (1968), ‘On Saying That,’ repr. in Davidson, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 93–108. —— (1976), ‘Reply to Foster,’ repr. in Davidson, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 171–80. —— (1984), Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press). DeRose, Keith (1992), ‘Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions,’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 52/4: 913–29. —— (1995), ‘Solving the Skeptical Problem,’ Philosophical Review, 104: 1–52. —— (1999), ‘Contextualism: An Explanation and Defense,’ in John Greco and Ernie Sosa (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology (Oxford: Blackwell), pp. 187–205.

210

References —— (2004), ‘Single Scoreboard Semantics,’ Philosophical Studies, 119: 1–21. Dreier, James (1990), ‘Internalism and Speaker Relativism,’ Ethics, 101: 6–26. Evans, G. (1985), ‘Does Tense Logic Rest on a Mistake?’ in Evans, Collected Papers (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp. 343–63. Farkas, Donka (1997), ‘Evaluation Indices and Scope,’ in A. Szabolcsi (ed.), Ways of Scope Taking (Dordrecht: Kluwer), pp. 183–215. Fodor, J., and E. Lepore (1992), Holism: A Shopper’s Guide (Oxford: Blackwell). —— —— (1999), ‘All at Sea in Semantic Space: Churchland on Meaning Similarity,’ Journal of Philosophy, 46/8: 381–403. Frege, G. (1977), ‘The Thought,’ trans. as ‘Thoughts,’ in Frege, Logical Investigations, ed. and trans. P. T. Geach (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 1–30. Gaulker, Christopher (1997), ‘Domain of Discourse,’ Mind, 106: 1–32. —— (2002), Words without Meaning (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press). Gibbs, Raymond, and Jessica Moise (1997), ‘Pragmatics in Understanding what is Said,’ Cognition, 62: 51–74. Graff, Delia (2000), ‘Shifting Sands: An Interest Relative Theory of Vagueness,’ Philosophical Topics, 28/1: 45–81. Grice, P. (1989), Studies in the Ways of Words (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press). Hawthorne, J. (2003), Knowledge and Lotteries (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Heal, Jane (1997), ‘Indexical Predicates and Their Uses,’ Mind, 106: 619–40. Heller, Mark (1999), ‘Contextualism and Anti-Luck Epistemology,’ Philosophical Perspectives, 13: 115–29. Higginbotham, J. (1985), ‘On Semantics,’ Linguistic Inquiry, 16/4: 547–93. Kamp, Hans (1975), ‘Two Theories of Adjectives,’ in E. Keenan (ed.), Formal Semantics of Natural Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 23–55. —— (1981), ‘The Paradox of the Heap,’ in U. Monnich (ed.), Aspects of Philosophical Logic (Dordrecht: Reidel), pp. 225–77. Kaplan, David (1989a), ‘Demonstratives,’ in J. Almog, J. Perry, and H. Wettstein (eds.), Themes from Kaplan (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 481–563. —— (1989b), ‘Afterthoughts’, in J. Almog, J. Perry, and H. Wettstein (eds.), Themes from Kaplan (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 565–614. King, Jeffrey C., and Jason Stanley (forthcoming), ‘Semantics, Pragmatics, and the Role of Semantic Content,’ in Zoltán Gendler Szabó (ed.), Semantics vs. Pragmatics (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Kripke, S. (1977), ‘Speaker Reference and Semantic Reference,’ Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 2: 6–27. —— (1980), Naming and Necessity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press). Larson, R., and P. Ludlow (1993), ‘Interpreted Logical Forms,’ Synthese, 95: 305–56. —— and G. Segal (1995), Knowledge and Meaning (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press). Lepore, Ernie (2004), ‘An Abuse of Context in Semantics: The Care of Incomplete Definite Descriptions,’ in M. Reimer and A. Bezuidenhout (eds.), Descriptions and Beyond (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 42–68. Lewis, D. (1970), ‘General Semantics,’ Synthese, 22: 18–67. —— (1973), Counterfactuals (Oxford: Blackwell). —— (1980), ‘Index, Context and Content,’ in S. Kanger and S. Ohman (eds.), Philosophy and Grammar (Dordrecht: Reidel), pp. 79–100.

211

References Lewis, D. (1996), ‘Elusive Knowledge,’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 74: Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology, 549–67. —— (1998), ‘Index, Context and Content,’ in Lewis, Papers in Philosophical Logic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 21–44. Ludlow, Peter (1989), ‘Implicit Comparison Classes,’ Linguistics and Philosophy, 12: 519–33. —— (1995), ‘The Logic of Determiners,’ Journal of Philosophical Logic, 24: 47–69. McDowell, J. (1987), ‘In Defence of Modesty,’ in B. M. Taylor (ed.), Michael Dummett (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff), pp. 59–80. Montague, R. (1974), ‘Pragmatics,’ in Montague, Formal Philosophy (New Haven: Yale University Press), pp. 95–118. Moravcsik, J. M. (1990), Thought and Language (London: Routledge). —— (1998), Meaning, Creativity, and the Partial Inscrutability of the Human Mind (Stanford, Calif.: CSLI). Neale, Stephen (1990), Descriptions (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press). —— (1992), ‘Paul Grice and the Philosophy of Language,’ Linguistics and Philosophy, 15: 509–59. —— (2000), ‘On Being Explicit: Comments on Stanley and Szabó,’ Mind and Language, 15: 284–94. Nelson, Michael (2001), MS. Nunberg, G. (1992), ‘Two Kinds of Indexicality,’ in C. Barker and D. Dowty (eds.), Proceedings of the Second Conference on Semantics and Linguistic Theory (Columbus: Ohio State University), pp. 283–301. —— (1993), ‘Indexicality and Deixis,’ Linguistics and Philosophy, 16: 1–43. Pagin, Peter (forthcoming), ‘Compositionality and Context,’ in G. Preyer (ed.), Contextualism (Oxford: Oxford University Press); page references are to the MS. Parsons, T. (1972), ‘Some Problems Concerning the Logic of Grammatical Modifiers,’ in G. Harman and D. Davidson (eds.), Semantics of Natural Language (Dordrecht: Reidel), pp. 127–41. —— (1990), Events and the Semantics of English (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press). Partee, Barbara (1973), ‘Some Structural Analogies between Tenses and Pronouns in English,’ Journal of Philosophy, 70/18: 601–9. —— (1984), ‘Nominal and Temporal Anaphora,’ Linguistics and Philosophy, 7: 243–86. —— (1989), ‘Binding Implicit Variables in Quantified Contexts,’ in C. Wiltshire, B. Music, and R. Graczyk (eds.), Papers from CLS 25 (Chicago: Chicago Linguistics Society), pp. 342–65. Perry, John (1986), ‘Thought without Representation,’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. vol. 60: 263–83; repr. in Perry, The Problem of the Essential Indexical and Other Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 205–25. —— (1993), The Problem of the Essential Indexical and Other Essays (New York: Oxford University Press). —— (1998), ‘Indexicals, Contexts, and Unarticulated Constituents,’ in D. Westerståhl et al. (eds.), Computing Natural Language (Stanford, Calif.: CSLI), pp. 1–11. Platts, M. (1979), Ways of Meaning (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul). Raffman, Diana (1994), ‘Vagueness without Paradox,’ Philosophical Review, 103/1: 41–74. —— (1996), ‘Vagueness and Context-Sensitivity,’ Philosophical Studies, 81: 175–92.

212

References Ramsey, F. (1978), Foundations of Mathematics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul). Recanati, F. (1989), ‘The Pragmatics of What is Said,’ Mind and Language, 4: 295– 329. —— (1993), Direct Reference: From Language to Thought (Oxford: Blackwell). —— (1996), ‘Domains of Discourse,’ Linguistics and Philosophy, 19: 445–75. —— (2001), ‘What is Said,’ Synthese, 128: 75–91. —— (2002), ‘Unarticulated Constituents,’ Linguistics and Philosophy, 25: 299–345. —— (2003), ‘The Limits of Expressibility,’ in B. Smith (ed.), John Searle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 189–213. —— (2004), Literal Meaning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Reimer, M. (1992), ‘Incomplete Descriptions,’ Erkenntnis, 37: 347–63. —— (1998), ‘What is Meant by “What is Said”? A Reply to Cappelen and Lepore,’ Mind and Language, 13/4: 598–604. Richard, Mark (1990), Propositional Attitudes: An Essay on Thoughts and How We Ascribe Them (New York: Cambridge University Press). —— (1998), ‘Semantic Theory and Indirect Speech,’ Mind and Language, 13/4: 605–16. —— (2004), ‘Contextualism and Relativism,’ Philosophical Studies, 119/1–2: 215–42. Rumfitt, I. (1993), ‘Content and Context: The Paratactic Theory Revisited and Revised,’ Mind, 102: 429–53. Russell, B. (1905), ‘On Denoting,’ Mind, 14: 479–93. —— (1919), Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (London: Allen & Unwin). —— (1940), An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (London: Allen & Unwin; New York: W. W. Norton). —— (1959), ‘Mr. Strawson on Referring,’ in Russell, My Philosophical Development (London: Allen & Unwin), pp. 238–45. Rysiew, Patrick (2001), ‘The Context-Sensitivity of Knowledge Attributions,’ Noûs, 35/4: 477–514. Schiffer, Stephen (1998), ‘Descriptions, Indexicals and Belief Reports: Some Dilemmas,’ Mind, 104 (1995), 107–31; repr. in Gary Ostertag (ed.), Definite Descriptions: A Reader (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998), pp. 369–95. —— (1996), ‘Contextualist Solutions to Scepticism,’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 96: 317–33. Schlenker, Philippe (2003), ‘A Plea for Monsters,’ Linguistics and Philosophy, 26: 29–120. Searle, John (1978), ‘Literal Meaning,’ Erkenntnis, 13: 207–24. —— (1980), ‘The Background of Meaning,’ in J. Searle, F. Kiefer, and M. Bierwisch (eds.), Speech Act Theory and Pragmatics (Dordrecht: Reidel), pp. 221–32. —— (1983), Intentionality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Sellars, W. (1954), ‘Presupposing,’ Philosophical Review, 63: 197–215. Soames, Scott (1986), ‘Incomplete Definite Descriptions,’ Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 27: 349–75. —— (1989), ‘Direct Reference, Propositional Attitudes, and Semantic Content,’ Philosophical Topics, 15: 47–87. —— (1999), Understanding Truth (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Sperber, D., and D. Wilson (1986), Relevance (Oxford: Blackwell). Stanley, J. (2000), ‘Context and Logical Form,’ Linguistics and Philosophy, 23: 391–424. —— (2002a), ‘Making it Articulated,’ Mind and Language, 17: 149–68.

213

References Stanley, J. (2002b), ‘Nominal Restriction,’ in G. Preyer and G. Peter (eds.), Logical Form and Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 365–88. —— (2003a), ‘Context, Interest-Relativity, and the Sorites,’ Analysis, 63/4: 269–80. —— (2003b), ‘Context, Interest-Relativity, and Knowledge,’ MS. —— and Z. Szabó (2000a), ‘On Quantifier Domain Restriction,’ Mind and Language, 15/2: 219–61. —— —— (2000b), ‘Reply to Bach and Neale,’ Mind and Language, 15: 261–5. —— and T. Williamson (1995), ‘Quantifiers and Context-Dependence,’ Analysis, 55: 291–5. Strawson, P. (1950), ‘On Referring,’ Mind, 59: 320–44. Szabó, Z. (2001), ‘Adjectives in Context,’ in I. Kenesei and R. M. Harnish (eds.), Perspectives on Semantics, Pragmatics and Discourse (Amsterdam: John Benjamins), pp. 119–46. Taylor, Ken (2001), ‘Sex, Breakfast, and Descriptions,’ Synthese, 128: 45–61. Travis, Charles (1985), ‘On What is Strictly Speaking True,’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 15/2: 187–229. —— (1989), The Uses of Sense (Oxford: Oxford University Press). —— (1994), ‘On Being Truth-Valued,’ in S. L. Tsohatzidis (ed.), Foundations of Speech Act Theory (London: Routledge), pp. 167–86. —— (1996), ‘Meaning’s Role in Truth,’ Mind, 100: 451–66. —— (1997a), ‘Pragmatics,’ in B. Hale and C. Wright (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Language (Oxford: Blackwell), pp. 97–107. —— (1997b), ‘Reply to Simmons,’ Mind, 106: 119–20. Unger, Peter (1975), Ignorance: A Case for Skepticism (New York: Oxford University Press). —— (1984), Philosophical Relativity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). —— (1995), ‘Contextual Analysis in Ethics,’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 55: 1–26. Vallée, Richard (2003), ‘Context-Sensitivity Beyond Indexicality,’ Dialogue, 42: 79–106. Vendler, Z. (1967), Linguistics and Philosophy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Westerståhl, Dag (1985), ‘Determiners and Context Sets,’ in J. van Benthem and A. ter Meulen (eds.), Quantifiers in Natural Language (Dordrecht: Foris), pp. 45–71. —— (1989), ‘Quantifiers in Formal and Natural Languages,’ in D. Gabbay and F. Guenthner (eds.), Handbook of Philosophical Logic, iv (Dordrecht: Kluwer), pp. 1–131. Wilson, D., and D. Sperber (1981), ‘On Grice’s Theory of Conversation,’ in P. Werth (ed.), Conversation and Discourse (London: Croom Helm), pp. 155–78.

214

Index

a priori truths, 76, 78–9, 151 adicity, 75 adjectives, 1, 79, 95, 102, 103, 144, 172 adverbs, 1, 102, 144 ambiguity, 35, 42, 145 anaphoric relations, 73, 76, 77, 79, 151 Austin, J. L., 5, 6, 30, 32 availability principle, 185–8 see also psychological requirement Bach, K., 7, 9, 25, 34, 36, 37, 51, 60, 61, 62, 63, 147 basic set (of context sensitive expressions), 2, 6–8, 12, 14, 17, 39, 40, 42, 59, 63, 89, 90, 93, 94, 100, 106, 108, 113 belief reports, 22–4, 36, 37 Bezuidenhout, A., 31, 35, 43, 44, 68, 92, 123–5, 131, 135–40, 184 bin Laden, Osama, 108, 172 binding arguments, 69–76, 83 see also indexicals, hidden binding, 70–1, 73 Blair, Dan, 76 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 127, 184 Burge, T., 55 Bush, George W., 47–8, 89 Cappelen, H., 57, 71, 76, 90, 118, 127, 187, 196, 197, 200, 203

Carnap, Rudolf, 121 Carston, R., 5, 7, 32, 38, 43, 62, 147, 149, 154, 175, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 185 Casteneda, Hector-Neri, 28 character, 78, 118, 148 CIA, 192–203 Clapp, Lenny, 22, 24 cohabitating expressions, 12, 77 Cohen, S., 8, 28, 29, 109, 120, 121 collective descriptions, 99–104 collective descriptions test, 99–104, 151 color terms, 44, 68, 92–4, 111, 118–19, 161 communicated content, 22, 113, 122, 149, 207 communication, 88, 91, 107, 112, 123–7, 131, 144, 153, 156, 170, 175, 178, 180, 182, 184, 185, 204–7 comparative adjectives, 9, 21–2, 32, 53, 79, 94, 95, 103, 170, 171, 172 comparative similarity, 25, 26 completion, 34, 35, 62, 65 compositionality, 12, 145 concept construction, 12 conditionals, 25, 26 Condoravdi, C., 1 context shifting, see context shifting argument

215

Index context shifting argument (CSA), 4, 5, 10, 14, 17–33, 35, 37, 38, 39–52, 53–8, 60, 64, 68, 69, 70, 73, 107, 109, 111, 115, 116 instability, 39 local contextualist solutions, 42, 49–52 context shifting intuitions, see context shifting argument contextual isolationism, 153, 204 contextual salience, 149 contextual salience absorption, 88, 113–16 contextual two-dimensionalism, 201 contextuals, 1 counterfactual conditionals, 24–6, 30, 31 Crimmins, M., 11, 22–4, 62 Dahlberg, K., 195 Davidson, D., 54, 55, 75 Dean, John, 192, 195 definite descriptions, 19 demonstratives, 2, 147–50 DeRose, Keith, 8, 27, 28, 107, 109, 119 direct quotation, 51, 121 disambiguation, 34, 131, 177 disquotational truth conditions, 65, 164 domain of discourse, 37 see also quantifier domain restrictions; quantifiers Dreier, James, 29, 30 enrichment, 12 epistemic attitude attributions, see knowledge attributions epistemic contextualism, 26, 28 Evans, G., 118 Farkas, Donka, 71 FBI, 192–203 Fodor, J., 126 fragmentary proposition, 7 free enrichment, 12 Frege, G., 123, 152–3

216

Gaulker, Christopher, 20, 38 Gawron, Jean-Mark, 1 GEN, 40–52 genitives, 1, 35, 144 see also possessives genuinely context sensitive expressions, 2, 143 see also basic set geometrical terms, 30, 94, 96, 103 Gettier, Edmund L., 27 gradable adjectives, 21 Graff, Delia, 118, 171 Graham, Martha, 161 Gray, Pat, 192, 194 Grice, P., 10, 124, 150, 178–9, 204 minimalism, 176–80 what-was-said, 54, 176–80, 186 Haldeman, R. H., 192–203 Hawthorne, J., 76, 171, 203 Heal, Jane, 51 Heller, Mark, 28 Helms, Richard, 192–4 hidden domain variable, 70–7, 103 see also indexicals, hidden hidden indexical strategy, 12 see also indexicals, hidden Higginbotham, J., 21 Hopkins, Anthony, 198 Hunt, E. Howard, 195 implicature, 57, 176–82, 204 impoverished context shifting argument (ICSA), 107–8, 110, 116, 117, 122 incomplete logical form, 7 incompleteness, see semantic incompleteness incompleteness argument, 5, 10, 11, 17, 33–8, 52, 59–68, 69, 70, 73, 156, 166 instability, 59–65 psychological reply, 65 subsyntactic constituents reply, 66–8 incorporation, 77

Index indexicals, 1, 8, 9, 28, 54, 69–83, 115, 118, 121, 131, 145, 147–50, 172 hidden, 12, 50, 69–83 syntactic evidence, 52, 69, 70–2 indirect discourse, see indirect reports indirect reports, 50–2, 55, 88–99, 118, 138, 152, 196, 197, 199, 200, 204, 205, 206 indirect speech, see indirect reports inter-contextual content sharing, 184 inter-contextual disquotation (ICD) test, 104–9, 113–14, 151 inter-contextual disquotational indirect report test, 90, 94, 104, 151 interpretive truth conditions, 146, 164 introspection, 49, 97 justification, 28, 129, 180 Kamp, Hans, 102 Kaplan, David, 1, 2, 13, 54–5, 78–9, 82, 117–18, 120–1, 144, 149 Kennedy, John F., 96 King, Jeffrey C., 154, 175 knowledge ascriptions, see knowledge attributions knowledge attributions, 8, 26–9, 32, 94, 95, 102, 107, 110–11, 171 Kripke, S., 23 Larson, R., 55, 75 Lepore, E., 57, 71, 76, 80, 89, 90, 118, 126, 127, 187, 189, 196, 197, 200 Lewis, D., 8, 19, 25, 26, 28, 30, 82, 107, 109, 118 Liddy, Gordon, 195 logical form, 9 Ludlow, Peter, 55, 79, 90 McDowell, J., 55, 56 Mill, John Stuart, 26 minimal content, 152 minimal propositions, 177 see also semantic minimalism

metaphysical nihilism, 161–3 minimal semantic content, 180–6, 205 cognitive role, 184 missing arguments, 36 mistaken assumption (MA), 13, 40, 53–8 modal constructions, 94 modals, 96 moderate contextualism (MC), 2, 5, 7–14, 37, 39–52, 54, 57, 59–68, 83, 88, 96, 101, 102, 104, 105, 107, 123, 151, 155, 156, 189 confused semanticism, 151 hidden indexical strategy, 8, 9 misguided semanticism, 7 semantic opportunism, 7, 151 surprise indexical strategy, 8, 9 unarticulated constituent strategy, 8, 9 monsters, 88, 116–22 Montague, R., 82 moral contextualism, 29 moral judgments, 29, 32, 94 moral terms, 95 Moravcsik, J. M., 43 Mozart, 37 narrow context, 12, 13, 147–8 Neale, Stephen, 19 Nelson, Michael, 71 neo-Wittgensteinians, 5 Nixon, Richard M., 192–203 nominal restriction, 72 nominals, 94, 95, 102, 103 nonliterality, 42 Nunberg, G., 1 occasion-sensitivity, 135 original utterance centrism, 154, 181, 201, 206 Oswald, Lee H., 96 Paderewski, 36, 37 Pagin, Peter, 30 Parsons, T., 21 Partee, Barbara H., 1

217

Index Perry, John, 9, 11, 22–4, 30, 34, 62, 159 Pietroski, Paul, 77 Platts, M., 55 polysemy, 42, 47 possessives, 35, 53, 94, 95, 103 pragmatic content, 148 pragmatic interpretation, 148, 177 pragmatically enriched proposition, see implicature primary scope, 118, 121 PRO, 77 proposition asserted, 150 proposition semantically expressed, 2, 4, 6, 9, 11, 19, 20, 21, 33, 59, 92, 98, 101, 108, 109, 115, 124, 143–50, 154, 155–75, 177, 181–9, 200, 205, 206, 207 see also semantic content propositional attitude ascriptions, 22–4, 32, 36, 94, 95, 102 propositional fragment, 6, 11, 61 propositional schema, 7 psychological attitude ascriptions, see propositional attitude ascriptions psychological requirement, 187 see also availability principle psychologism, 152 pure semantic content, 148 quantified noun phrases, 73 quantifier domain restriction, 35, 41, 49, 70–83, 102, 103 screening off, 81–3 see also quantifiers quantifiers, 8, 12, 18–21, 30, 31, 35, 41, 48, 49, 50, 53, 55, 70–83, 94, 95, 102, 103, 104, 158, 159 Quine, Willard Van Orman, 25, 26 Rachmaninov, 36 radical, see propositional fragment radical contextualism (RC), 2, 5–14, 31, 39–68, 83, 85, 87–140, 151, 155, 156, 181, 189, 199, 204, 205 internal inconsistency, 115, 128, 133

218

Raffman, Diana, 102 Ramsey, F., 26 real context shifting argument (RCSA), 104–22, 151 Recanati, F., 5, 7, 18, 32–3, 43, 62, 124, 131, 147–9, 154, 175, 177, 181, 186, 186–9, 197, 198 reference assignment, 131, 177 Reimer, M., 196 relativization to context, 200 relevance theory, 5, 32, 124, 175, 181, 185 reported context, 93 reporting context, 93 Richard, Mark, 21, 22, 192, 193, 196 Russell, B., 150 Russert, Tim, 47 ‘said that’ context sensitivity, 200 samesaying, 55 saturation, 12, 177 Schiffer, Stephen, 19 Schlenker, Philippe, 120 Searle, John R., 6, 32, 43, 64, 109, 131 Segal, Gabriel, 75 Sellarsians, 5 semantic content, 2, 3, 4, 13, 40, 53, 54, 57–8, 63, 72, 89, 99, 113, 115, 116, 121, 122, 143–54, 164–5, 175, 177, 181, 182, 200, 202, 203, 204, 207 see also minimal semantic content; proposition semantically expressed semantic incompleteness, 33–8, 62–8 see also incompleteness argument semantic interpretation, 35, 148, 177 semantic minimalism, 2–14, 57, 59, 87, 92, 97, 98, 114, 115, 136, 141, 143–75, 176, 177, 178, 180, 186, 189, 204, 206 argument by elimination, 150, 151 argument from explanatory force, 150, 151 minimal propositions, 61, 132, 143, 156, 185, 186, 189 communicative role, 156, 176–89

Index metaphysical nihilism, 163, 170, 171, 175 metaphysical objection, 155–75 psychological objection, 175, 176–89 semantic potential, 123, 124, 125 semantic scaffolding, 7 semantic skeleton, 7 semantic solipsism, see contextual isolationism semantic template, 7 semantic truth conditions, 134, 164 semantic underdetermination, see semantic incompleteness sentence meaning, 131 shared context, 125, 175, 182–5 Simpson, O. J., 196 Smoking Gun Tape, 192–203 Soames, Scott, 102, 119, 120 source-situations, 124 speaker’s intentions, 5, 13, 134, 147–9, 193 speaker’s meaning, 131, 148, 177 speech act content, 4, 5, 13, 40, 53, 57–8, 131, 145, 147, 150, 152, 153, 154, 165, 175, 176, 181, 182, 189, 190–207 privileged access, 202 speech act pluralism (SPAP), 2, 4, 5, 14, 97, 141, 143, 150, 154, 175, 176, 189, 190–207 central observation, 190–9 methodology, 191 Sperber, D., 5, 7, 32, 34, 35, 43, 62, 175 Stanley, J., 18, 19, 20, 22, 70–3, 76–9, 95, 102, 103, 154, 171, 175 Stone, Oliver, 198 storytelling context, 107–22 subpropositional content, 177

surprise indexical strategy, 12 surprising context sensitivity, 112 syntactic ellipses, 42, 47 Szabó, Z., 19, 20, 70–3, 76–9, 102, 103 target context, 107–22 Taylor, Ken, 7, 33, 34, 66, 67, 68 temporal reports, 11, 53, 94, 96 tense indicators, 145 Thurman, Uma, 158, 160, 164, 165 Travis, Charles, 6, 31, 32, 43, 47, 54, 56, 62, 63–4, 67, 109, 131, 132–6 true belief principle (TBP), 203 truth-conditional content, 197 truth-conditional intuitions, 197 unarticulated constituent strategy, 12, 50 unarticulated constituents, 22, 23, 159 underdeterminacy, 38 see also semantic underdetermination Unger, Peter, 29 use-mention fallacies, 88, 116 vague predicates, 102 vagueness, 25, 26, 42 Vallée, Richard, 1 verb phrase (VP) ellipsis test, 101–3, 151 verificationism, 164 Walters, Vernon, 192 Watergate, 192–203 weather reports, 11, 30, 33, 53, 94, 96 wide context, 12, 13, 147, 148 Westerståhl, Dag, 103 Williamson, Timothy, 18 Wilson, D., 5, 7, 32, 34, 35, 43, 62, 175 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 5, 6, 32

219