4,616 research outputs found
Bounded Modality
What does 'might' mean? One hypothesis is that 'It might be raining' is essentially an avowal of ignorance like 'For all I know, it's raining'. But it turns out these two constructions embed in different ways, in particular as parts of larger constructions like Wittgenstein's 'It might be raining and it's not' and Moore's 'It's raining and I don't know it', respectively. A variety of approaches have been developed to account for those differences. All approaches agree that both Moore sentences and Wittgenstein sentences are classically consistent. In this paper I argue against this consensus. I adduce a variety of new data which I argue can best be accounted for if we treat Wittgenstein sentences as being classically inconsistent. This creates a puzzle, since there is decisive reason to think that 'Might p' is classically consistent with 'Not p'. How can it also be that 'Might p and not p' and 'Not p and might p' are classically inconsistent? To make sense of this situation, I propose a new theory of epistemic modals and their interaction with embedding operators. This account makes sense of the subtle embedding behavior of epistemic modals, shedding new light on their meaning and, more broadly, the dynamics of information in natural language
A Counterexample to Modus Ponenses
McGee argued that modus ponens was invalid for the natural language conditional âIfâŠthenâŠâ. Many subsequent responses have argued that, while McGeeâs examples show that modus ponens fails to preserve truth, they do not show that modus ponens fails to preserve rational full acceptance, and thus modus ponens may still be valid in the latter informational sense. I show that when we turn our attention from indicative conditionals to subjunctive conditionals, we find that modus ponens does not preserve either truth or rational full acceptance, and thus is not valid in either sense. In concluding I briefly consider how we can account for these facts
What âmustâ adds
There is a difference between the conditions in which one can felicitously use a âmustâ-claim like and those in which one can use the corresponding claim without the âmustâ, as in 'It must be raining out' versus 'It is raining out. It is difficult to pin down just what this difference amounts to. And it is difficult to account for this difference, since assertions of 'Must p' and assertions of p alone seem to have the same basic goal: namely, communicating that p is true. In this paper I give a new account of the conversational role of âmustâ. I begin by arguing that a âmustâ-claim is felicitous only if there is a shared argument for the proposition it embeds. I then argue that this generalization, which I call Support, can explain the more familiar generalization that âmustâ-claims are felicitous only if the speakerâs evidence for them is in some sense indirect. Finally, I propose a pragmatic derivation of Support as a manner implicature
ImportâExport and âAndâ
Import-Export says that a conditional 'If p, if q, r' is always equivalent to the conditional 'If p and q, r'. I argue that Import-Export does not sit well with a classical approach to conjunction: given some plausible and widely accepted principles about conditionals, Import-Export together with classical conjunction leads to absurd consequences. My main goal is to draw out these surprising connections. In concluding I argue that the right response is to reject Import-Export and adopt instead a limited version which better fits natural language data; accounts for all the intuitions that motivate Import-Export in the first place; and fits better with a classical conjunction
Practical Moore Sentences
I discuss what I call practical Moore sentences: sentences like âYou must close your door, but I donât know whether you willâ, which combine an order together with an avowal of agnosticism about whether the order will be obeyed. I show that practical Moore sentences are generally infelicitous. But this infelicity is surprising: it seems like there should be nothing wrong with giving someone an order while acknowledging that you do not know whether it will obeyed. I suggest that this infelicity points to a striking psychological fact, with potentially broad ramifications concerning the structure of norms of speech acts: namely, when giving an order, we must act as if we believe we will be obeyed
Modality and expressibility
When embedding data are used to argue against semantic theory A and in favor of semantic theory B, it is important to ask whether A could make sense of those data. It is possible to ask that question on a case-by-case basis. But suppose we could show that A can make sense of all the embedding data which B can possibly make sense of. This would, on the one hand, undermine arguments in favor of B over A on the basis of embedding data. And, provided that the converse does not holdâthat is, that A can make sense of strictly more embedding data than B canâit would also show that there is a precise sense in which B is more constrained than A, yielding a pro tanto simplicity-based consideration in favor of B. In this paper I develop tools which allow us to make comparisons of this kind, which I call comparisons of potential expressive power. I motivate the development of these tools by way of exploration of the recent debate about epistemic modals. Prominent theories which have been developed in response to embedding data turn out to be strictly less expressive than the standard relational theory, a fact which necessitates a reorientation in how to think about the choice between these theories
A solution to Karttunen's Problem
There is a difference between the conditions in which one can felicitously assert
a âmustâ-claim versus those in which one can use the corresponding non-modal claim. But it
is difficult to pin down just what this difference amounts to. And it is even harder to account
for this difference, since assertions of 'Must Ï' and assertions of Ï alone seem to have the
same basic goal: namely, coming to agreement that [[Ï]] is true. In this paper I take on this
puzzle, known as Karttunenâs Problem. I begin by arguing that a âmustâ-claim is felicitous
only if there is a shared argument for its prejacent. I then argue that this generalization, which
I call Support, can explain the more familiar generalization that âmustâ-claims are felicitous
only if the speakerâs evidence for them is in some sense indirect. Finally, I sketch a pragmatic
derivation of Support
If P, Then P!
The Identity principle says that conditionals with the form 'If p, then p' are logical truths. Identity is overwhelmingly plausible, and has rarely been explicitly challenged. But a wide range of conditionals nonetheless invalidate it. I explain the problem, and argue that the culprit is the principle known as Import-Export, which we must thus reject. I then explore how we can reject Import-Export in a way that still makes sense of the intuitions that support it, arguing that the differences between indicative and subjunctive conditionals play a key role in solving this puzzle
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