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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Propositions expressed by epistemic modal sentences can vary in truth-value depending on the context of assessment, not just the context of utterance.

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    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Epistemic modal sentences like 'might p' are context-sensitive indexicals whose propositional content is fixed at utterance, not assessment.
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    • 2.When a second speaker says 'The murderer might not have been on campus,' they express a numerically distinct proposition relative to their own epistemic state, not a reassessment of the first proposition.
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    • 3.Apparent truth-value variation across contexts is fully explained by the standard Kaplanian framework of context-dependent content without invoking a separate index of assessment.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.MacFarlane's relativism conflates the pragmatic phenomenon of retraction with the semantic phenomenon of propositional truth-value variation.
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    • 2.The social norm compelling a speaker to retract 'it might be raining' upon learning it is not raining is best explained by Gricean updating of conversational commitments, not by the original proposition becoming false.
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    • 3.Positing contexts of assessment multiplies semantic machinery beyond necessity when a pragmatic account of retraction norms is already independently motivated.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.The sentence 'The murderer might have been on campus at midnight' can be true when uttered in one context but false when evaluated in a second context.
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    • 2.The truth of the second utterance implies that the proposition expressed by the first utterance—agreed to be true relative to that context—is false relative to the second context.
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    • 3.This variation cannot be explained merely by sentences expressing different propositions relative to different contexts, since it is the same proposition whose truth-value varies.
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