A Puzzle about Meaning and Communication*

Buchanan, Ray

doi:10.1111/j.1468-0068.2010.00743.x

Cited by 48 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…However, Buchanan (2010) denies that the objects of speaker meaning are propositional, and he does so on the basis of considerations similar to those raised here. So it is worth considering whether his view offers a solution to the recovery problem.…”

Section: Response: Alternative Propositional Objects Of Assertionmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…A similar line is pushed byWilliamson (1997).9 Indeed, supposing that in order to rationally intend to communicate p a speaker must have a reasonable expectation that the audience will recognise that intention, it seems irrational for a speaker to intend any particular value, for the audience will rarely ever be in a position to recognise which particular value was intended. This leadsBuchanan (2010) to conclude that propositions cannot be the objects of speaker meaning.…”

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confidence: 95%

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Testimony and the epistemic uncertainty of interpretation

Peet

2015

Philos Stud

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In the epistemology of testimony it is often assumed that audiences are able to reliably recover asserted contents. In the philosophy of language this claim is contentious. This paper outlines one problem concerning the recovery of asserted contents (the 'recovery problem'), and argues that it prevents audiences from gaining testimonial knowledge in a range of cases (even when the speaker is both sincere and a reliable belief former). The recovery problem, in essence, is simply that due to the collective epistemic limitations of the speaker and audience speakers will, in certain cases, be insensitive to the ways in which they may be misinterpreted. As a result audiences' beliefs will often fail the safety and sensitivity conditions on knowledge. Once the problem has been outlined and distinguished from several related problems in the philosophy of language and the epistemology of testimony, a series of responses are considered. The first response holds that audiences possess defeaters in recovery problem cases, and thus wouldn't form beliefs. The second response holds that the beliefs audiences form are very coarse grained, meaning they are not very vulnerable to failures of safety and sensitivity. The final response holds that the objects of speaker meaning are not propositional. All three responses are found to be unsatisfactory.

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Section: Response: Alternative Propositional Objects Of Assertionmentioning

confidence: 84%

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confidence: 95%

Testimony and the epistemic uncertainty of interpretation

Peet

2015

Philos Stud

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“…Another underdetermination argument with an interesting and far‐reaching conclusion is given by Buchanan (, pp. 348–350), who argues that speakers often cannot intend to communicate propositions by utterances of universally quantified sentences .…”

Section: The Problem Of Underdeterminationmentioning

confidence: 98%

Underdetermination, domain restriction, and theory choice

Bowker

2018

Mind & Language

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It is often possible to know what a speaker intends to communicate without knowing what they intend to express. In such cases, speakers need not intend to express anything at all. Stanley and Szabó's influential survey of possible analysis of quantifier domain restriction is, therefore, incomplete and the arguments made by Clapp and Buchanan against Truth Conditional Compositionality and propositional speaker‐meaning are flawed. Two theories should not always be viewed as incompatible when they associate the same utterance with different propositions, as there may be many ways to interpret speakers that are compatible with their intentions.

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“…Buchanan says that the standard view of meaning and communication among theorists of language is constituted by the following theses (Buchanan , 342). Content — What a speaker means, or intends to communicate (at least in cases of indicative speech) must be a proposition. Success — Understanding a speaker's utterance U requires (minimally) entertaining what they meant by U. …”

Section: The ‘Standard View’mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…I will argue that the move to the multiple proposition view is the most conservative response to a challenge that arises for the standard view of content and communicative success. The challenge has been raised most effectively by Ray Buchanan (Buchanan ; ; ). My paper can be best understood as accepting several of Buchanan's key premises while rejecting his conclusions; I will do this by offering an alternative theory of content and communication.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Meaning Underdetermines What Is Said, Therefore Utterances Express Many Propositions

Hodgson

2018

Dialectica

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Linguistic meaning underdetermines what is said. This has consequences for philosophical accounts of meaning, communication, and propositional attitude reports. I argue that the consequence we should endorse is that utterances typically express many propositions, that these are what speakers mean, and that the correct semantics for attitude reports will handle this fact while being relational and propositional.

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A Puzzle about Meaning and Communication*

Cited by 48 publications

References 43 publications

Testimony and the epistemic uncertainty of interpretation

Testimony and the epistemic uncertainty of interpretation

Underdetermination, domain restriction, and theory choice

Meaning Underdetermines What Is Said, Therefore Utterances Express Many Propositions

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