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Full Idea
People slide from contextual variability to context relativity to context sensitivity to context dependence to contextual determination.
Gist of Idea
People slide from contextual variability all the way to contextual determination
Source
Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L3)
Book Ref
'Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language', ed/tr. Lepore,E/Smith,B [OUP 2008], p.543
A Reaction
This is reminiscent of the epistemological slide from cultural or individual relativity of some observed things, to a huge metaphysical denial of truth. Bach's warning applies to me, as I have been drifting down his slope lately. Nice.
| 9021 | A good way of explaining an expression is saying what conditions make its contexts true [Quine] |
| 15229 | We say there is 'no alternative' in all sorts of contexts, and there are many different grounds for it [Harré/Madden] |
| 10458 | People slide from contextual variability all the way to contextual determination [Bach] |
| 21645 | 'Semantic type coercion' is selecting the reading of a word to make the best sense [Hofweber] |
| 22249 | The Naive view of communication is that hearers acquire exactly the thoughts of the speaker [Recanati] |
| 13448 | The domain of an assertion is restricted by context, either semantically or pragmatically [Rayo/Uzquiano] |
| 18036 | A sentence can be meaningful, and yet lack a truth value [Magidor] |
| 18051 | In the pragmatic approach, presuppositions are assumed in a context, for successful assertion [Magidor] |
| 18406 | The basic Kaplan view is that there is truth-conditional content, and contextual character [Cappelen/Dever] |
| 18411 | It is proposed that a huge range of linguistic items are context-sensitive [Cappelen/Dever] |