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    A purely contextualist treatment of epistemic modals is i... — Carmelics
    Home/Philosophy of Language
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    A purely contextualist treatment of epistemic modals is insufficient to explain the puzzle of cross-context truth-value shifts.

    Philosophy of LanguageTruth & Knowledge
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Contextualism dissolves the puzzle by saying that sentences express different propositions relative to different contexts of utterance.
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    • 2.The puzzle involves not just sentences but propositions varying in truth-value across contexts.
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    • 3.If the proposition itself—not merely the sentence—changes truth-value, contextualism about utterance contexts cannot account for the phenomenon.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Contextualism à la DeRose (1992) individuates propositions by the epistemic state of the attributor's context, not merely the sentence uttered.
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    • 2.If 'might p' expresses a proposition about what is compatible with a contextually-fixed body of knowledge, truth-value shifts across contexts reflect distinct propositions, not instability in a single proposition.
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    • 3.The supporting argument's P3 illicitly assumes propositions are context-invariant entities, begging the question against a thoroughgoing contextualist semantics.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.MacFarlane's relativist framework is motivated by eavesdropper cases, but Egan (2007) shows that contextualism can handle these by invoking the eavesdropper's own context as the relevant parameter.
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    • 2.If eavesdropper intuitions—the primary evidence for cross-context truth-value shifts—are explicable within a sophisticated contextualism, the puzzle loses its force as an argument against contextualism.
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    Topics

    Philosophy of LanguageTruth & Knowledge

    Connections

    1 topic

    Modality & Possibility2 linked

    Related

    Contextualism dissolves the puzzle by saying that sentences express different pr...Contextualism à la DeRose (1992) individuates propositions by the epistemic stat...If 'might p' expresses a proposition about what is compatible with a contextuall...If eavesdropper intuitions—the primary evidence for cross-context truth-value sh...
    +4 moreShow less
    If the proposition itself—not merely the sentence—changes truth-value, contextua...MacFarlane's relativist framework is motivated by eavesdropper cases, but Egan (...The puzzle involves not just sentences but propositions varying in truth-value a...The supporting argument's P3 illicitly assumes propositions are context-invarian...

    Similar

    If contextualism about epistemic modals is correct, then the semantics...87%Propositions expressed by epistemic modal sentences can vary in truth-...83%Relativism about epistemic modals holds that propositions can differ i...82%Truth-relativism for epistemic modals is more plausible than contextua...82%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: meaning
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    But this is puzzling. It is not puzzling that the sentence “The murderer might have been on campus at midnight” could be true when uttered in the first context but false when uttered in the second context; that fact could be accommodated by any number of contextualist treatments of epistemic modals, which would dissolve the puzzle by saying that the sentence expresses different propositions relative to the two contexts. The puzzle is that the truth of the second sentence seems to imply that the
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit