1,720,964 research outputs found
The Structure of Open Secrets
Get PDFIn conversation, we often do not acknowledge what we jointly know to be true. This article identifies a distinctive kind of non-acknowledgment norm, open secrecy norms, and analyzes how such norms constrain our speech. First, the author argues that open secrecy norms are structurally different from other everyday non-acknowledgment norms. Open secrecy norms iterate: when p is an open secret, then there’s a norm not to acknowledge that p, and this norm is itself an open secret. Then, the author argues that the non-acknowledgment at issue in open secrecy norms motivates a more complex understanding of discourse structure. When interlocutors are conforming to open secrecy norms, they rely on at least two disjoint common grounds, one of which has a privileged status. To understand why and how it is privileged, the author develops Erving Goffman’s notion of defining a social interaction. Finally, the author shows how strategic speakers can exploit the structure of open secrecy norms in order to both communicate about the open secret and shield themselves from retaliation for what they communicate
A Study of Gendered-Communication in the Doctor-Patient Consultation Room
No full textWomen and men have different communicative styles, both shaped by social conventions.
Women, in particular, are systematically stereotyped and forced into using language that is prone
to more error. This susceptibility is exacerbated by the fact that the healthcare system is not
trained to recognize and engage with women’s communicative styles. Consequently, women may
be experiencing disproportionate problems as they are not being understood or believed by their
doctors
What’s the Good of Language? On the Moral Distinction between Lying and Misleading
Get PDFI give a new argument for the moral difference between lying and misleading. First, following David Lewis, I hold that conventions of truthfulness and trust fix the meanings of our language. These conventions generate fair play obligations. Thus, to fail to conform to the conventions of truthfulness and trust is unfair. Second, I argue that the liar, but not the misleader, fails to conform to truthfulness. So the liar, but not the misleader, does something unfair. This account entails that bald-faced lies are wrong, that we can lie nonlinguistically, and that linguistic innovation is morally significant
The Ritual Infrastructure of Conversation
No full textI sketch a theory of small talk’s structure and function. Small talk enables us to “get to know each other” not through what we say to each other but through the way we conform to social practices in saying it. Through small talk, we indirectly generate evidence about the nature of our underlying practical agency. I show why my analysis predicts small talk’s most striking structural features. I then distinguish between two types of questions: questions about what interlocutors aim to do within a conversational genre and questions about what a conversational genre aims to do. Analytic philosophers of language have ignored the second type of questions. This paper demonstrates their importance
Non-Epistemic Deniability
Get PDFThis paper develops an analysis of non-epistemic deniability. On my analysis, a speaker has non-epistemic deniability for G-ing when non-acknowledgement social norms make it impermissible for others to retaliate against the speaker for G-ing. I identify two kinds of non-acknowledgement norms that generate non-epistemic deniability: two-tracking norms, which function to contain conflict within a group, and open secrecy norms, which function to inhibit the group from acting on shared knowledge. Narrowly, this paper builds on Alexander Dinges and Julia Zakkou’s recent landmark analysis of deniability. Dinges and Zakkou argue that non-epistemic deniability does not exist. I disagree. But I also use their account of epistemic deniability in order to motivate my own analysis of non-epistemic deniability. Broadly, my paper provides a case study in how speakers strategically leverage non-acknowledgement norms in order to protect their own interests at the expense of others’
Conversation’s Seedy Underbelly
Get PDFI provide an opinionated discussion of two recent volumes on the structure, ethics, and politics of bad conversations. In Just Words (2019), Mary Kate McGowan argues that despite our best intentions, we sometimes inadvertently bring oppressive norms to bear on our interactions. In Grandstanding (2020), Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke argue that the human desire to cut a good moral figure before others systematically distorts moral discourse. Though their authors have different political outlooks, both books converge on a similar theme: conversational bad behavior isn’t always just morally obnoxious. It can be silencing
The Grice Is Right: Grice's Non‐Cooperation Problem and the Structure of Conversation
No full textH. P. Grice seemed to rest his theory of conversational implicature on the assumption that speakers aim to cooperatively exchangeinformation with each other. In the real world, speakers often don’t. Does one of the most influential theories in 20th-centuryphilosophy of language rest on a mistake? Yes—but not in the way that philosophers have thought. I argue that Grice shouldhave rested his theory on a different assumption: that speakers aim to appear to aim to cooperatively exchange informationwith each other. This proposal dissolves Grice’s Non-Cooperation Problem but preserves Grice’s central insights about the natureof conversational implicatures. More generally, it enables the Gricean to illuminate the structure of many non-cooperative orotherwise “non-ideal” conversations
The Grice Is Right: Grice's Non‐Cooperation Problem and the Structure of Conversation
Get PDFABSTRACT H. P. Grice seemed to rest his theory of conversational implicature on the assumption that speakers aim to cooperatively exchange information with each other. In the real world, speakers often don't. Does one of the most influential theories in 20th‐century philosophy of language rest on a mistake? Yes—but not in the way that philosophers have thought. I argue that Grice should have rested his theory on a different assumption: that speakers aim to appear to aim to cooperatively exchange information with each other. This proposal dissolves Grice's Non‐Cooperation Problem but preserves Grice's central insights about the nature of conversational implicatures. More generally, it enables the Gricean to illuminate the structure of many non‐cooperative or otherwise “non‐ideal” conversations
The Ritual Infrastructure of Conversation
Get PDFI sketch a theory of small talk’s structure and function. Small talk enables us to “get to know each other” not through what we say to each other but through the way we conform to social practices in saying it. Through small talk, we indirectly generate evidence about the nature of our underlying practical agency. I show why my analysis predicts small talk’s most striking structural features. I then distinguish between two types of questions: questions about what interlocutors aim to do within a conversational genre and questions about what a conversational genre aims to do. Analytic philosophers of language have ignored the second type of questions. This paper demonstrates their importance
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