No Special Treatment for the Epistemic Normativity of Telling

2021 ◽  
pp. 131-140
Author(s):  
Mona Simion
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Special Treatment ◽  
Epistemic Norm ◽  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
Vast Amount ◽  
Normative Constraints

While recent years have featured a vast amount of literature concerned with the epistemic norm for assertion, comparatively little attention has been paid to the corresponding norm governing acts of telling. One plausible explanation of this is that people have generally taken assertion and telling to fall under the same normative constraints. Recent work, however, ventures to show (i) that this assumption is false and (ii) that the epistemic propriety of instances of telling partly depends on what’s at stake for the hearer. This chapter argues that the case against normative commonality for assertion and telling fails due to speech act-theoretic and value-theoretic inaccuracies. In a nutshell, the chapter argues that there’s nothing special about the epistemic normativity of telling.

The Epistemic Norms of Action

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikkel Gerken
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Epistemic Norm ◽  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Knowledge Norm ◽  
Knowledge Ascriptions ◽  
Epistemological Principle ◽  
Knowledge Norms

Chapter 6 concerns the normative relationship between action and knowledge ascriptions. Arguments are provided against a Knowledge Norm of Action (KNAC) and in favor of the Warrant-Action norm (WA). According to WA, S must be adequately warranted in believing that p relative to her deliberative context to meet the epistemic requirements for acting on p. WA is developed by specifying the deliberative context and by arguing that its explanatory power exceeds that of knowledge norms. A general conclusion is that the knowledge norm is an important example of a folk epistemological principle that does not pass muster as an epistemological principle. More generally, Chapter 6 introduces the debates about epistemic normativity and develops a specific epistemic norm of action.

scholarly journals Dempster-Shafer Theoretic Learning of Indirect Speech Act Comprehension Norms

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (06) ◽  
pp. 10410-10417
Author(s):  
Ruchen Wen ◽  
Mohammed Aun Siddiqui ◽  
Tom Williams
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
Rule Learning ◽  
Indirect Speech ◽  
Robot Teams ◽  
Indirect Speech Acts ◽  
Indirect Speech Act

For robots to successfully operate as members of human-robot teams, it is crucial for robots to correctly understand the intentions of their human teammates. This task is particularly difficult due to human sociocultural norms: for reasons of social courtesy (e.g., politeness), people rarely express their intentions directly, instead typically employing polite utterance forms such as Indirect Speech Acts (ISAs). It is thus critical for robots to be capable of inferring the intentions behind their teammates' utterances based on both their interaction context (including, e.g., social roles) and their knowledge of the sociocultural norms that are applicable within that context. This work builds off of previous research on understanding and generation of ISAs using Dempster-Shafer Theoretic Uncertain Logic, by showing how other recent work in Dempster-Shafer Theoretic rule learning can be used to learn appropriate uncertainty intervals for robots' representations of sociocultural politeness norms.

The Impossibility of “Freedom as Independence”

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Carter ◽  
Ronen Shnayderman
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Normative Constraints ◽  
Key Aspects

Most of the recent work on freedom is concerned with the liberal-republican debate. The latest move in this debate has been made by List and Valentini who argue in favor of a conception of freedom (called “freedom as independence”) that is located midway between the liberal and republican conceptions. In this article, we review some key aspects of the debate that led to List and Valentini’s move and then argue that their midway position is untenable. We first show how the debate has given rise to List and Valentini’s (republican-inspired) view that unfreedom is created not merely by more or less probable constraints (as liberals have claimed) but by the sheer possibility of constraints. We then argue that this position on possible-but-improbable constraints makes unfreedom ubiquitous and that “freedom as independence” is therefore an impossible ideal. In the course of our argument, we rebut some possible rejoinders that appeal to the difference between positive normative and non-normative constraints and to the ways in which “freedom as independence” is an open and versatile concept.

Diagnosing Practical Factor Effects

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikkel Gerken
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Epistemic Norm ◽  
Communicative Function ◽  
Knowledge Ascription ◽  
Knowledge Ascriptions ◽  
Directive Speech Acts ◽  
Directive Speech

Chapter 12 deals with the practical factor effects by arguing that in the cases where practical factor effects are generated, the focus is on some pertinent action. In the cases where the knowledge ascription is merely mental, it is argued to serve as a heuristic proxy for a more complex judgment about epistemic actionability. Linguistic knowledge ascriptions are argued to serve a directive communicative function in the relevant cases. Therefore, the “shifty” judgments about the knowledge ascriptions reflect whether they meet or violate the epistemic norm governing directive speech acts—specifically the speech act of recommending. Thus, Chapter 12 combines psychological and linguistic considerations to account for the puzzling patterns of knowledge ascriptions constituting practical factor effects.

The Myth of a State of Intending

Dialogue ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 549-559
Author(s):  
Devlin Russell
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Joseph Raz ◽  
Normative Constraints

ABSTRACTRecent work by Joseph Raz, Niko Kolodny, and Sergio Tenenbaum suggest that there are no normative constraints peculiar to intentions as such. Such constraints are a myth. We can understand the rationality of intention without positing that intention is a mental state. I argue that, further, we can understand the descriptive nature of intention (i.e., its role in intrapersonal coordination) without positing that intention is a mental state. Such a posit is itself a myth. Instead, intention is an action with certain characteristic sub-actions that play a coordinating role.

The Epistemic Norms of Assertion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikkel Gerken
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Epistemic Norm ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Norms Of Assertion ◽  
Knowledge Norm ◽  
Conversational Context

Chapter 7 extends the discussion of epistemic norms to the linguistic realm. Again, it is argued that a Knowledge Norm of Assertion (KNAS) is inadequate and should be replaced with a Warrant-Assertive Speech Act norm (WASA). According to WASA, S must be adequately warranted in believing that p relative to her conversational context in order to meet the epistemic requirements for asserting that p. This epistemic norm is developed and extended to assertive speech acts that carry implicatures or illocutionary forces. Particular attention is given to the development of a species of WASA that accounts for assertive speech acts having a directive force, such as a recommendation. Thus, Chapter 7 contributes to the debates concerning epistemic norms of assertions.

scholarly journals Speech Act Theory and the Study of Argumentation

2014 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Francisca Snoeck Henkemans
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Conversational Implicature ◽  
Dialectical Theory

Abstract :In this paper, the influence of speech act theory and Grice’s the- ory of conversational implicature on the study of argumentation is discussed. First, the role that pragmatic insights play in van Eemeren and Grootendorst’s pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation and Jackson and Jacobs’ conver- sational approach to argumentation is described. Next, a number of examples of recent work by argumentation scholars is presented in which insights from speech act theory play a prominent role.

scholarly journals Representing discourse in clausal syntax

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Metin Bağrıaçık
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Clause Structure ◽  
Epistemic Vigilance

In Pharasiot Greek, an Asia Minor Greek dialect, a certain particle copied from Turkish, ki, is employed in a number of seemingly unrelated constructions. Close scrutiny, however, reveals that in each of these constructions, ki is employed as a device geared to influencing the interlocutor’s epistemic vigilance. Based on the Cartographic Approach which defends the syntactization of the interpretive domains, I propose that this unique semantics of ki should be represented in the clause structure. Following recent work which advocates the existence of a pragmatic field—Speech Act Phrase (SAP) in particular—above the CP-layer, where discourse and pragmatic roles are mapped onto syntax, I propose that ki is the overt exponent of SA0 and is further endowed with a [+ sentience] feature indexing the speaker as the sentient mind. The apparent differences between various construction types which involve ki—hence, in which SAP projects—then reduce to whether the [+ sentience] feature on SA0 is checked by an internally or externally merging category in Spec, SAP.

scholarly journals Knowledge and reasoning

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mona Simion
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Drop Out ◽  
Epistemic Norm ◽  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Theoretical Reasoning ◽  
Epistemic Function ◽  
In Virtue Of

AbstractThis paper develops a novel, functionalist, unified account of the epistemic normativity of reasoning. On this view, epistemic norms drop out of epistemic functions. I argue that practical reasoning serves a prudential function of generating prudentially permissible action, and the epistemic function of generating knowledge of what one ought to do. This picture, if right, goes a long way towards normatively divorcing action and practical reasoning. At the same time, it unifies reasoning epistemically: practical and theoretical reasoning will turn out to be governed by the same epistemic norm—knowledge—in virtue of serving the same epistemic function: generating knowledge of the conclusion.

What sentimentalists should say about emotion

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlie Kurth
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Moral Cognition ◽  
Multilevel Structure

Abstract Recent work by emotion researchers indicates that emotions have a multilevel structure. Sophisticated sentimentalists should take note of this work – for it better enables them to defend a substantive role for emotion in moral cognition. Contra May's rationalist criticisms, emotions are not only able to carry morally relevant information, but can also substantially influence moral judgment and reasoning.

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