According to standard assumptions in semantics, ordinary users of a language have implicit beliefs about the truth-conditions of sentences in that language, and they often agree on those beliefs. For example, it is assumed that if Anna and John are both competent users of English and the former utters ‘grass is green’ in conversation with the latter, they will both believe that that sentence is true if and only if grass is green. These assumptions play an important role in an (...) intuitively compelling picture of communication, according to which successful communication through literal assertoric utterances is normally effected thanks to our shared beliefs about the truth-conditions of the sentences uttered in the course of the conversation. Against these standard assumptions, this paper argues that the participants in a conversation rarely have the same beliefs about the truth-conditions of the sentences involved in a linguistic interaction. More precisely, it argues for Variance, the thesis that nearly every utterance is such that there is no proposition which more than one language user believes to be that utterance’s truth-conditional content. If Variance is true, we must reject the standard picture of communication. Towards the end of the paper I identify three ways in which ordinary conversations can be communication-like despite the truth of Variance and argue that the most natural amendments to the standard picture fail to explain them. (shrink)

Indirect speech reports can be true even if they attribute to the speaker the saying of something weaker than what she in fact expressed, yet not all weakenings of what the speaker expressed yield true reports. For example, if Anna utters ‘Bob and Carla passed the exam’, we can accurately report her as having said that Carla passed the exam, but we can not accurately report her as having said that either it rains or it does not, or that either (...) Carla passed the exam or pandas are cute. This paper offers an analysis of speech reports that distinguishes weakenings of what the speaker expressed that yield true reports from weakenings that do not. According to this analysis, speech reports are not only sensitive to the informational content of what the speaker expressed, but also to the possibilities a speaker raises in making an utterance. As I argue, this analysis has significant advantages over its most promising competitors, including views based on work by Barwise and Perry : 668–691, 1981), views appealing to recent work on the notion of content parthood by Fine :199–226, 2016) and Yablo, and Richard’s : 605–616, 1998) proposal appealing to structured propositions. (shrink)

The propositional view of communication states that every literal assertoric utterance of an indicative sentence expresses a proposition, and the audience understands those utterances only if she entertains the proposition(s) the speaker expressed. According to an important objection due to Ray Buchanan, the propositional view is ill‐equipped to handle meaning underdeterminacy. Using resources from situation semantics and MacFarlane's nonindexical contextualism, this article develops a view of literal communication close to the propositional view which overcomes Buchanan's underdeterminacy considerations while accounting for (...) the kind of indifference that typically characterizes speakers' intentions. (shrink)

The article Disagreement lost, written by Martín Abreu Zavaleta, was originally published electronically on the publisher’s internet portal on 16 September 2020 without open access. The copyright of the article changed on 18 September 2020 to © The Author 2020 and the article is forthwith distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution.

Estudos sobre a abordagem da história da filosofia por Deleuze ainda serão bem vindos: pesquisas sobre a sua maneira de remontar dos conceitos aos problemas que lhes dão sentido, de indissociar-se dos pensadores que estuda de modo a produzir um campo de intensidades, uma região de indiscernibilidades, lá onde ele próprio, Deleuze, pode criar com eles, retomando, prologando e renovando o pensamento. O objetivo desse texto define-se como a incursão por essa zona de indiscernibilidades e tem em vista um problema (...) e um conceito: o problema da seleção ética como melhor problema do que o julgamento como uma solução moral, e o conceito de "eterno retorno", tal como circunscrito pela interpretação que Deleuze faz da filosofia de Nietzsche. (shrink)

Cluster randomized controlled trials (cluster RCTs) randomize whole clusters of individuals in testing two or more competing interventions. Here we will present the ethical problems raised by cluster RCTs concerning their effect on inequality. We argue that some inequalities generated by cluster RCTs are larger in scope than those generated from individual RCTs. We also argue that any cluster RCT-generated inequalities, which divide groups rather than individuals, are more problematic in type than the inequalities created in individual RCTs. These concerns (...) should be taken into consideration when designing research at the cluster level, and those conducting the research should consider modified research design strategies in cases where they believe the risk of generating inequalities is large. (shrink)

This paper develops a puzzle about non-merely-verbal disputes. At first sight, it would seem that a dispute over the truth of an utterance is not merely verbal only if there is a proposition that the parties to the dispute take the utterance under dispute to express, which one of the parties accepts and the other rejects. Yet, as I argue, it is extremely rare for ordinary disputes over an utterance’s truth to satisfy this condition, in which case non-merely verbal disputes (...) are extremely rare. After examining various responses to the puzzle, I outline a solution using the framework of truthmaker semantics. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es presentar una reconstrucción de la teoría de los grupos dereferencia. La teoría, desarrollada por Robert K. Merton, ha sido largamente utilizada enlos más variados campos de las ciencias sociales, aunque con escasa o nula consideraciónmetateórica hasta ahora. La reconstrucción atenderá a la presentación que de la misma serecoge en sendos artículos de su libro Social Theory and Social Structure, de 1968, a saber:“Contributions to the theory of reference group behavior” y “Continuities in the theory (...) ofreference groups and social structure”. Para presentar esta reconstrucción me apoyaré en elinstrumental de la Metateoría Estructuralista. Después de una consideración informal de lateoría, serán presentados sus modelos potenciales, modelos, modelos potenciales parciales,sus aplicaciones intencionales y algunos comentarios acerca de la noción de “grupo de referencia”en lo que respeta su carácter relacional y disposicional. (shrink)

Say that an audience understands a given utterance perfectly only if she correctly identifies which proposition (or propositions) that utterance expresses. In ideal circumstances, the participants in a conversation will understand each other’s utterances perfectly; however, even if they do not, they may still understand each other’s utterances at least in part. Although it is plausible to think that the phenomenon of partial understanding is very common, there is currently no philosophical account of it. This paper offers such an account. (...) Along the way, I argue against two seemingly plausible accounts which use Stalnaker’s notion of common ground and Lewisian subject matters, respectively. (shrink)

This paper raises a new form of speaker error objection to the analysis of disputes as metalinguistic negotiations in cases in which disputants reject that analysis. It focuses on an obvious but underexplored form of speaker error: speakers’ misattribution of contents both to others and to themselves. It argues that the analyses of disputes that posit this type of speaker error are uncharitable in three different ways: first, by portraying speakers as mistaken interpreters of their interlocutors; second, by portraying speakers (...) as uncharitable interpreters of their interlocutors; third, by portraying speakers who retract their claims as mistaken interpreters of their own prior utterances. Taken together, these unfavorable consequences weigh significantly against the plausibility of this type of analysis for the cases in question. (shrink)