Resolving Bank-Type Puzzles via Action-Directed Pragmatics

Igal Kvart*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

In this paper I undertake to resolve a main pragmatic puzzle triggered by Bank-type cases. After accepting ‘sanitized’ intuitions about Truth-Values, as reflected in x-phi experiments, the pragmatic puzzle about whether the husband is inconsistent remains, and if he isn’t (contrary to a first-blush impression), which intuitively is the case, how are we to explain it. The context in such cases is pragmatic, with awareness of high risks, and the treatment I propose is pragmatic as well, but not Gricean. I offer a new Pragmatics whose main tools are Steering Thrust (towards, e.g., action) and Posting. It focuses on what I call Action-Directed Pragmatics. An overall view of Pragmatics centers on the primary resort to Sayability rather than to Truth-Values, and to the Pragmatic phenomenon of co-present operative norm-types, which can conflict in some cases vis-à-vis particular actions and about what subjects can say. The very satisfactory explanation of the above puzzle that I offer is in such terms. In particular, attention is focused on the phenomenon of Negative-Polarity Pragmatic Functors (such as: I don’t know that p, or: I am not sure that p; or: It might be that not-p).

Original languageEnglish
Article number298
JournalSynthese
Volume200
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.

Keywords

  • Action-directed pragmatics
  • Ascriber
  • Assertibility
  • Assertibility conditions
  • Bank case
  • Context
  • DeRose
  • Epistemic contextualism
  • Epistemic norms
  • Epistemic position
  • Epistemic sayability
  • Fantl
  • Instrumental norms
  • Invariantism
  • Knowledge
  • McGrath
  • Negative polarity
  • Norms
  • Overall sayability
  • Pragmatic encroachment
  • Pragmatic functors
  • Sayability
  • SSI
  • Stakes
  • Stanley
  • Steering Thrust
  • Truth-conditions
  • Weatherson

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