Knowledge,Presupposition, and Pragmatic Implicature

It is widely accepted that knowledge is factive, but two different understandings of ＂factivity＂ should be distinguished, namely, the implication version and the presupposition version. While the former only takes the truth of P as a necessary requirement for ＂S knows that P,＂ the latter considers it also necessary for ＂S does not know that P.＂ In this paper, I argue against presupposition and defend implication. More specifically, I argue against Wang and Tai＇s defense of the presupposition version as presented in a recent paper and propose a pragmatic response to the ＂persistence problem＂ of implication. In other words, my positive proposal is an account of implication plus pragmatic implicature. To conclude, I use my version to analyze Wang and Tai＇s distinction between inner skepticism and outer skepticism. My conclusion is that, after abandoning presupposition, we can identify two types of intermediate skepticism between Wang and Tai＇s inner and outer skepticism.     

Direct Reference and Implicature

Philosophical Studies -     

Situated Inference versus Conversational Implicature

As Grice defined it, a speaker conversationally implicates that p only if the speaker expects the hearer to recognize that the speaker thinks that p . This paper argues that in the sorts of cases that Grice took as paradigmatic examples of conversational implicature there is in fact no need for the hearer to consider what the speaker might thus have in mind. Instead, the hearer might simply make an inference from what the speaker literally says and the situation in which the utterance takes place. In addition, a number of sources of the illusion of conversational implicatures in Grice's sense are identified and diagnosed.     

A Pragmatic Case against Pragmatic Scientific Realism

Pragmatic Scientific Realism (PSR) urges us to take up the realist aim or the goal of truth although we have good reason to think that the goal can neither be attained nor approximated. While Newton-Smith thinks that pursuing what we know we cannot achieve is clearly irrational, Rescher disagrees and contends that pursuing an unreachable goal can be rational on pragmatic grounds—if in pursuing the unreachable goal one can get indirect benefits. I have blocked this attempt at providing a pragmatic justification for the realist aim of PSR on precisely the same pragmatic grounds—since there is a competing alternative to PSR, and the alternative can provide whatever indirect benefits PSR can offer while being less risky than it is, prudential reasoning favours the alternative to PSR. This undermines the pragmatic case for the realist aim of science since the instrumentalist alternative does not aim at the truth.     

Pragmatic Inconsistency and Credibility

A critic may attack an arguer personally by pointing out that the arguer’s position is pragmatically inconsistent: the arguer does not practice what he preaches. A number of authors hold that such attacks can be part of a good argumentative discussion. However, there is a difficulty in accepting this kind of contribution as potentially legitimate, for the reason that there is nothing wrong for a protagonist to have an inconsistent position, in the sense of committing himself to mutually inconsistent propositions. If so, any such charge seems to be irrelevant. The questions to be answered in this essay are: what, if any, is the dialectical rationale for this type of criticism, and in what situations, if any, is this kind of charge dialectically legitimate? It will be shown that these attacks can be dialectically legitimate, in special circumstances, and that they can be seen as strategic?manoeuvres where a party attempts to reconcile his dialectical and his rhetorical objectives.