Infelicitous Cancellation: The Explicit Cancellability Test for Conversational Implicature Revisited

This paper questions the adequacy of the explicit cancellability test for conversational implicature as it is commonly understood. The standard way of understanding this test relies on two assumptions: first, that that one can test whether a certain content is conversationally implicated, by checking whether that content is cancellable, and second, that a cancellation is successful only if it results in a felicitous utterance. While I accept the first of these assumptions, I reject the second one. I argue that a cancellation can succeed even if it results in an infelicitous utterance, and that unless we take this possibility into account we run the risk of misdiagnosing philosophically significant cases

Challenges and barriers for a sustainable transport system – exploring the potential to enact change

This report is divided into three parts; the first part summarizes the results from a workshopconducted within the TRANSFORuMproject. The second part presents the results of interviewscarried out with different experts discussing the different goals and their perceptionsof what might prevent or delay appropriate implementation. The third part is based on a literature reviewdiscussing how to overcome or remove the various barriersand challenges. The overall aim ofthe studies presented in this report is to identify barriers but also to present necessary steps which need to be takenin order to help achieving the goals.The term "Barrier" relates to something which prevents some form of progress or movement, while "Challenge" can be something difficult but also something which is regarded as stimulating; or an opportunity

Forced‐March Sorites Arguments and Linguistic Competence

Agent relativists about vagueness (henceforth ‘agent relativists’) hold that whether or not an object x falls in the extension of a vague predicate ‘P’ at a time t depends on the judgemental dispositions of a particular competent agent at t. My aim in this paper is to critically examine arguments that purport to support agent relativism by appealing to data from forced-march Sorites experiments. The most simple and direct versions of such forced-march Sorites argu- ments rest on the following (implicit) premise: If competent speakers’ judgements vary in a certain way, then the extensions of ‘P’ as used by these speakers must vary in the same way. This premise is in need of independent support, since otherwise opponents of agent relativism can simply reject it. In this paper, I focus on the idea that one cannot plausibly reject this premise, as that would commit one to implausible claims about linguistic competence. Against this, I argue that one can accommodate the data from forced-march Sorites experiments in a way that is compatible with a plausible picture of linguistic competence, without going agent relativist. Thus, there is reason to be sceptical of the idea that such data paired with considerations about linguistic competence can be invoked in order to lend any solid support to agent relativism. Forced-march Sorites arguments of this kind can, and should be, resisted.Mentala tillstånd och yttrandeinnehållMental States and Utterance Conten

Vagueness, semantics and psychology

According to extension-shifting theories of vagueness, the extensions of vague predicates have sharp boundaries, which shift as a function of certain psychological factors. Such theories have been claimed to provide an attractive explanation of the appeal of soritical reasoning. I challenge this claim: the demand for such an explanation need not constrain the semantics of vague predicates at all