The autism objection to pretence theories

Philosophical Quarterly 60 (241):764-782 (2010)
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Abstract

A pretence theory of a discourse is one which claims that we do not believe or assert the propositions expressed by the sentences we utter when taking part in the discourse: instead, we are speaking from within a pretence. Jason Stanley argues that if a pretence account of a discourse is correct, people with autism should be incapable of successful participation in it; but since people with autism are capable of participiating successfully in the discourses which pretence theorists aim to account for, all these accounts should be rejected. I discuss how pretence theorists can respond, and apply this discussion to two pretence theories, Stephen Yablo's account of arithmetic and Kendall Walton's account of negative existentials. I show how Yablo and Walton can escape Stanley's objection

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David Liggins
University of Manchester

Citations of this work

Abstract Expressionism and the Communication Problem.David Liggins - 2014 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 65 (3):599-620.
Platonism in Metaphysics.Markn D. Balaguer - 2016 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 1 (1):1.
Fictionalism in the philosophy of mathematics.Mark Balaguer - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Platonism in metaphysics.Mark Balaguer - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Fictionalist Strategies in Metaphysics.Lukas Skiba & Richard Woodward - 2020 - In Ricki Bliss & James Miller (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics. New York, NY, USA:

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