Daniel W Harris
Biographic Data
| ID | 1180963 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Daniel W Harris |
| GIVEN NAMES | Daniel W |
| FAMILY NAME | Harris |
| SIGNATURE | HARRIS D W |
| AFFILIATIONS | City University of New York |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4764-3703 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 14 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Genre and Conversation
Conversations can belong to different types, or genres . We consider four dimensions of variation as case studies: Some conversations are about sharing information, others about making decisions; some are about making firm commitments, others about brainstorming options; some are about sticking to the facts, others involve make‐believe; some are highly cooperative, others adversarial. These are orthogonal dimensions of variation which explain why…
Intentionalism and bald-faced lies
In Lying and Insincerity, Andreas Stokke argues that bald-faced lies are genuine lies, and that lies are always assertions. Since bald-faced lies seem not to be aimed at convincing addressees of their contents, Stokke concludes that assertions needn't have this aim. This conflicts with a traditional version of intentionalism, originally due to Grice, on which asserting something is a matter of communicatively intending for one's addressee to beli…
Common Ground
Common ground is the information that the participants in a conversation treat as background information for the purposes of their interaction. We review two traditions of research on common ground. The formal tradition, consisting mainly of theoretical linguists and philosophers of language, has developed increasingly sophisticated formal models of common ground to generate predictions about an expanding range of empirical phenomena. Meanwhile, …
Talking about Talking About
How do we unpuzzle the theory of reference? The ancient Babylonians wrongly believed that Hesperus was not Phosphorus. When they intended to refer to Hesperus, were they also referring to Phosphoru
Context and Coherence
Here is a picture of the relationship between natural-language semantics and pragmatics that many theorists would accept: semantics seeks to reverse-engineer the database of word meanings and composition rules by means of which we encode and decode the meanings of sentences. This is going pretty well, because our encoding-decoding algorithms are sufficiently discrete and well behaved that they can be treated as an autonomous grammar in this way. …
Semantics without semantic content
I argue that semantics is the study of the proprietary database of a centrally inaccessible and informationally encapsulated input–output system. This system's role is to encode and decode partial and defeasible evidence of what speakers are saying. Since information about nonlinguistic context is therefore outside the purview of semantic processing, a sentence's semantic value is not its content but a partial and defeasible constraint on what it…
Imperative inference and practical rationality
Do forests provide watershed services for farmers in the humid tropics? Evidence from the Brazilian Amazon
The color of water
Intention and commitment in speech acts
What is a speech act, and what makes it count as one kind of speech act rather than another? In the target article, Geurts considers two ways of answering these questions. His opponent is intentionalism—the view that performing a speech act is a matter of acting with a communicative intention, and that speech acts of different kinds involve intentions to affect hearers in different ways. Geurts offers several objections to intentionalism. Instead…
New Work on Speech Acts
The essays collected in this book represent recent advances in our understanding of speech acts-actions like asserting, asking, and commanding that speakers perform when producing an utterance. The study of speech acts spans disciplines, and embraces both the theoretical and scientific concerns proper to linguistics and philosophy as well as the normative questions that speech acts raise for our politics, our societies, and our ethical lives gene…
Dogwhistles, Political Manipulation, and Philosophy of Language
This essay explores the speech act of dogwhistling (sometimes referred to as ‘using coded language’). Dogwhistles may be overt or covert, and within each of these categories may be intentional or unintentional. Dogwhistles are a powerful form of political speech, allowing people to be manipulated in ways they would resist if the manipulation was carried outmore openly—often drawing on racist attitudes that are consciously rejected. If philosopher…
A Puzzle about Context and Communicative Acts
Imagination and Convention
Humans are social primates, and our particular brand of sociality is enabled by cognitive capacities that are quantitatively or qualitatively unique on earth. One of these unique capacities is language, which allows us to store and communicate information using precise and informationally rich grammatical structures. A second capacity that makes us unique is mindreading—our capacity (and irresistible proclivity) to treat pieces of the world aroun…
Wittgenstein's influence on Austin's philosophy of language
Many philosophers have assumed, without argument, that Wittgenstein influenced Austin. More often, however, this is vehemently denied, especially by those who knew Austin personally. We compile and assess the currently available evidence for Wittgenstein's influence on Austin's philosophy of language. Surprisingly, this has not been done before in any detail. On the basis of both textual and circumstantial evidence we show that Austin's work demo…
Wittgenstein's influence on Austin's philosophy of language
Many philosophers have assumed, without argument, that Wittgenstein influenced Austin. More often, however, this is vehemently denied, especially by those who knew Austin personally. We compile and assess the currently available evidence for Wittgenstein's influence on Austin's philosophy of language. Surprisingly, this has not been done before in any detail. On the basis of both textual and circumstantial evidence we show that Austin's work demo…
A Puzzle about Context and Communicative Acts
Imagination and Convention
Humans are social primates, and our particular brand of sociality is enabled by cognitive capacities that are quantitatively or qualitatively unique on earth. One of these unique capacities is language, which allows us to store and communicate information using precise and informationally rich grammatical structures. A second capacity that makes us unique is mindreading—our capacity (and irresistible proclivity) to treat pieces of the world aroun…
Wittgenstein's influence on Austin's philosophy of language
Many philosophers have assumed, without argument, that Wittgenstein influenced Austin. More often, however, this is vehemently denied, especially by those who knew Austin personally. We compile and assess the currently available evidence for Wittgenstein's influence on Austin's philosophy of language. Surprisingly, this has not been done before in any detail. On the basis of both textual and circumstantial evidence we show that Austin's work demo…
New Work on Speech Acts
The essays collected in this book represent recent advances in our understanding of speech acts-actions like asserting, asking, and commanding that speakers perform when producing an utterance. The study of speech acts spans disciplines, and embraces both the theoretical and scientific concerns proper to linguistics and philosophy as well as the normative questions that speech acts raise for our politics, our societies, and our ethical lives gene…
Dogwhistles, Political Manipulation, and Philosophy of Language
This essay explores the speech act of dogwhistling (sometimes referred to as ‘using coded language’). Dogwhistles may be overt or covert, and within each of these categories may be intentional or unintentional. Dogwhistles are a powerful form of political speech, allowing people to be manipulated in ways they would resist if the manipulation was carried outmore openly—often drawing on racist attitudes that are consciously rejected. If philosopher…
Intention and commitment in speech acts
What is a speech act, and what makes it count as one kind of speech act rather than another? In the target article, Geurts considers two ways of answering these questions. His opponent is intentionalism—the view that performing a speech act is a matter of acting with a communicative intention, and that speech acts of different kinds involve intentions to affect hearers in different ways. Geurts offers several objections to intentionalism. Instead…
Do forests provide watershed services for farmers in the humid tropics? Evidence from the Brazilian Amazon
The color of water
Semantics without semantic content
I argue that semantics is the study of the proprietary database of a centrally inaccessible and informationally encapsulated input–output system. This system's role is to encode and decode partial and defeasible evidence of what speakers are saying. Since information about nonlinguistic context is therefore outside the purview of semantic processing, a sentence's semantic value is not its content but a partial and defeasible constraint on what it…
Imperative inference and practical rationality
Talking about Talking About
How do we unpuzzle the theory of reference? The ancient Babylonians wrongly believed that Hesperus was not Phosphorus. When they intended to refer to Hesperus, were they also referring to Phosphoru
Context and Coherence
Here is a picture of the relationship between natural-language semantics and pragmatics that many theorists would accept: semantics seeks to reverse-engineer the database of word meanings and composition rules by means of which we encode and decode the meanings of sentences. This is going pretty well, because our encoding-decoding algorithms are sufficiently discrete and well behaved that they can be treated as an autonomous grammar in this way. …
Common Ground
Common ground is the information that the participants in a conversation treat as background information for the purposes of their interaction. We review two traditions of research on common ground. The formal tradition, consisting mainly of theoretical linguists and philosophers of language, has developed increasingly sophisticated formal models of common ground to generate predictions about an expanding range of empirical phenomena. Meanwhile, …
Genre and Conversation
Conversations can belong to different types, or genres . We consider four dimensions of variation as case studies: Some conversations are about sharing information, others about making decisions; some are about making firm commitments, others about brainstorming options; some are about sticking to the facts, others involve make‐believe; some are highly cooperative, others adversarial. These are orthogonal dimensions of variation which explain why…
Intentionalism and bald-faced lies
In Lying and Insincerity, Andreas Stokke argues that bald-faced lies are genuine lies, and that lies are always assertions. Since bald-faced lies seem not to be aimed at convincing addressees of their contents, Stokke concludes that assertions needn't have this aim. This conflicts with a traditional version of intentionalism, originally due to Grice, on which asserting something is a matter of communicatively intending for one's addressee to beli…
Philosophy (7 works) · Linguistics (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition (4 works) · Philosophy and Theoretical Science (4 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (4 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (3 works) · Geography (3 works)