CUNY Linguistics Colloquium
Spring 2015
SPECIAL ADDED TALK!
Sven Lauer (University of Konstanz)
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Time: 4:15pm
Room: C205
Model-theoretic pragmatics and obligatory implicatures
The model-theoretic approach to semantics has enabled the development of articulated, formally explicit theories of natural language meaning. At the same time, pragmatic explanations are still frequently given informally, or in terms of rather rough schematic inference schemes. I show that a model-theoretic approach to pragmatics is feasible, and that it significantly improves our understanding of pragmatic inference.
To that end, I present a model-theoretic pragmatic theory, the Dynamic Pragmatics of Lauer (2013), and show that it makes rather unexpected predictions: There are pragmatic inferences, which, though Gricean in nature, arise necessarily whenever an expression is used, and when such an inference is known to be false, this makes the expression infelicitous. This goes against conventional wisdom in pragmatics, according to which Gricean inferences are, by necessity, optional and cancelable.
I argue that the prediction is nonetheless correct, reviewing a range of cases where an arguably non-semantic inference is non-optional and robust enough to trigger infelicities. The model-theoretic analysis shows that these inferences are not just pragmatic in a vague sense, but neatly fit into the Gricean fold: They arise in exactly the same way as classical examples of implicatures. The only difference between the better-studied optional implicatures (such as the familiar scalar ones) and obligatory implicatures is that the former are driven by pragmatic pressures that are context-dependent in a particular way, while the latter are driven by pressures that apply equally in all contexts.
All are welcome. Please come!
CUNY Graduate Center – 365 Fifth Avenue – New York (between 34th and 35th Streets) Phone: 212-817-8500. Email: linguistics@gc.cuny.edu website: www.gc.cuny.edu/linguistics
Abstract: It is easy to take reason as an authoritative power and to observe that we obey it, or at least, we should obey it. However, it is not obvious how we could explain the nature of the authority that compels us to obey reason. Why and how do we take reason as an authority and feel obliged to obey it? What is the nature of demanding for justification? In virtue of what do we feel coerced by reason in our inferential practices, in both practical and theoretical reasoning? The power of reason can be taken, for example, as guiding our decisions for practical life and as the power to compel one to accept the conclusion of a proof. How can some forms of reasoning compel one to act and to infer? The difficulties with the normativity of logic seems to be even more difficult in the contemporary context of a great diversity of logical systems. To tackle the problem of logical pluralism, in this talk, I aim at developing a pragmatist and constructivist philosophical proposal based on the notions of games, that is, ruled practices, and of public agreements to understand the phenomenon of rationality in general, and, of logical necessity in particular. Accordingly, I develop philosophical investigation connecting games, proofs, and morality, which goes back to Frege (1897), as he seminally relates the nature of logic to the philosophical discussion on moral and freedom: “Logic has a closer affinity with ethics [than psychology] … Here, too, we can talk of justification, and here, too, this is not simply a matter of relating what actually took place or of showing that things had to happen as they did and not in any other way” (Posthumous Writings, p. 4). The interpretation to be developed here is that rational obligation should be taken as moral obligation and, in particular, that logical necessity should be taken as a kind of moral coercion, based on the normative notions of rules, authority, commitment, and mutual recognition. This work is part of a larger project related to a pragmatist approach to understand the normativity of logic in the context of logical pluralism.
https://sites.google.com/site/marcossilvarj/
The meeting is open to all interested. Please feel free to pass this announcement on.
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Logic and Metaphysics Workshop Fall 2017:
September 11 Lovett, NYU
September 18 Skiles, NYU
September 25 Jago, Nottingham
October 2 Greenstein, Private Scholar
October 9 GC Closed. No meeting
October 16 Ripley UConn
October 23 Mares, Wellington
October 30 Woods, Bristol
November 6 Hamkins, GC
November 13 Silva, Alagoas
November 20 Yi, Toronto
November 27 Malink, NYU
December 4 Kivatinos, GC