Talking About

Abstract

The book develops and argues for a new intentionalist theory of the speech act of singular reference. Specifically, it proposes a Gricean theory of pragmatic competence within which referential competence can be identified and explained. It argues that combining insights from theories of mechanistic explanation in cognitive science and intentionalist theories of speech acts affords a completely new perspective on old questions about reference and speaker meaning. The resulting theory is called edenic intentionalism and it is based on the idea that referential competence is explained by a dedicated cognitive mechanism with a specific function, namely the function of enabling the production of edenic or optimal referential speech acts. Importantly, the author shows how this theory dissolves traditional puzzles in the philosophy of language and mind, puzzles arising from cases where the speaker is confused about the identity of the object of intended reference. The author develops an original account of the mental state of confusion, based on a detailed examination of the distinction between representational actions and representational states, which allows for a satisfying answer to familiar questions about attitude ascription and Frege’s puzzle about identity.

Confusion and explanation

“…We should begin with some clarity about our topic. The particular kind of confusion at issue for Unnsteinsson is identity confusion and Unnsteinsson counts two kinds of cases as species of “the mental state of [identity] confusion” (Unnsteinsson, 2022, Chap. 2).…”

“…However, Unnsteinsson's view is that all cases of identity confusion lead to the indeterminacy or failure of reference of the cognitive act of referring. Of course, he acknowledges the intuitive implausibility of the claim that Lois cannot refer successfully to Superman, and so offers an account according to which her speech acts might pass muster for most ordinary purposes even though they are, in fact, cognitively defective in the same way that his daughter's utterances of “Malcolm” are (Unnsteinsson, 2022, pp. 18–20, 158–165).…”

“…The motivating context for Elmar Unnsteinsson's (2022) Talking about is a challenge to the legitimacy of intentionalist theories of reference and meaning: If reference can occur when referential intentions are “confused” (and would thereby fail to determine the right referent or any referent) then how can intentionalism be true? Unnsteinsson's response is, essentially, that confusion does in fact interfere with successful reference.…”

The social epistemology of introspection

“…This, finally, affords a notion of normal function. The mechanism in question performs its normal or proper function exactly when its operation successfully produces the characteristic effect (for more detail, see Unnsteinsson, 2022). This is of course highly schematic.…”

“…On the notion of function in mechanistic explanation, seeGarson (2013Garson ( , 2017Garson ( , 2022 andNeander (2017). For more discussion on the relevance of both to pragmatic competence, seeUnnsteinsson (2022).4 This is a slight modification of the standard terminology in relevance theory(Carston, 2002;Sperber & Wilson, 1986;Sperber & Wilson, 1995;Wilson & Sperber, 2012), where "effective" is "informative" and "signaling" is "communicative". I want to preserve "communicative" for the whole and I think "effective" is better because many utterances are not primarily intended to impart information.…”