Semantic Plasticity and Speech Reports

Bibliographic Data

ID10696402
AuthorsCian Dorr (University of Oxford and New York University), John Hawthorne (0000-0002-6340-0242, University of Oxford)
Year2014
Volume123
Issue3
Pages281-338
Publication date2014-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Philosophical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8108 • E-ISSN: 1558-1470
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00318108-2683531
OpenAlexW2138981123
LanguageEN
Citations received29
References cited33

Most meanings we express belong to large families of variant meanings, among which it would be implausible to suppose that some are much more apt for being expressed than others. This abundance of candidate meanings creates pressure to think that the proposition attributing any particular meaning to an expression is modally plastic: its truth depends very sensitively on the exact microphysical state of the world. However, such plasticity seems to threaten ordinary counterfactuals whose consequents contain speech reports, since it is hard to see how we could reasonably be confident in a counterfactual whose consequent can be true only if a certain very finely tuned microphysical configuration obtains. This essay develops the foregoing puzzle and explores several possible solutions

Counterfactual conditional · Counterfactual thinking · Epistemology · Expression (computer science) · Linguistics · Meaning (existential) · Physics · Plasticity · Proposition · Computer Science · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation