We consider a range of cases-both hypothetical and actual-in which agents apparently know how to ϕ but fail to believe that the way in which they in fact ϕ is a way for them to ϕ . These "no-belief" cases present a prima facie problem for Intellectualism about knowledge-how. The problem is this: if knowledge-that entails belief, and if knowing how to ϕ just is knowing that some w is a way for one to ϕ , then an agent cannot both know how to ϕ and fail to believe that w, the way that she ϕ s, is a way for her to ϕ . We discuss a variety of ways in which Intellectualists might respond to this challenge and argue that, ultimately, this debate converges with another, seemingly distinct debate in contemporary epistemology: how to attribute belief in cases of conflict between an agent's avowals and her behavior. No-belief cases, we argue, reveal how Intellectualism depends on the plausibility of positing something like "implicit beliefs"-which conflict with an agent's avowed beliefs-in many cases of apparent knowledge-how. While there may be good reason to posit implicit beliefs elsewhere, we suggest that there are at least some grounds for thinking that these reasons fail to carry over to no-belief cases, thus applying new pressure to Intellectualism.
As an empirical inquiry into the nature of meaning, semantics must rely on data. Unfortunately, the primary data to which philosophers and linguists have traditionally appealed-judgments on the truth and falsity of sentences-have long been known to vary widely between competent speakers in a number of interesting cases. The present article constitutes an experiment in how to obtain some more consistent data for the enterprise of semantics. Specifically, it argues from some widely accepted Gricean premises to the conclusion that judgments on lying are semantically relevant. It then endeavors to show how, assuming the relevance of such judgments, we can use them to generate a useful, widely acceptable test for semantic content.Particular thanks are due to Sam Cumming and Mark Greenberg for suffering through a very early draft of this article, and for encouraging me to continue working on it. For extensive discussion and feedback over many years, thanks are due as well to:
The term "fake news" ascended rapidly to prominence in 2016 and has become a fixture in academic and public discussions, as well as in political mud-slinging. In the flurry of discussion, the term has been applied so broadly as to threaten to render it meaningless. In an effort to rescue our ability to discuss—and combat—the underlying phenomenon that triggered the present use of the term, some philosophers have tried to characterize it more precisely. A common theme in this nascent philosophical discussion is that contemporary fake news is not a new kind of phenomenon, but just the latest iteration of a broader kind of phenomenon that has played out in different ways across the history of human information-dissemination technologies. While we agree with this, we argue that newer sorts of fake news reveal substantial flaws in earlier understandings of this notion. In particular, we argue that no deceptive intentions are necessary for fake news to arise; rather, fake news arises when stories which were not produced via standard journalistic practice are treated as though they had been. Importantly, this revisionary understanding of fake news allows us to accommodate and understand the way that fake news is plausibly generated and spread in a contemporary setting, as much by non-human actors as by ordinary human beings.
In response to Habgood-Coote (2019. "Stop Talking about Fake News!" Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 62 (9-10): 1033-1065.) and a growing number of scholars who argue that academics and journalists should stop talking about fake news and abandon the term, we argue that the reasons which have been offered for eschewing the term 'fake news' are not sufficient to justify such abandonment. Prima facie, then, we take ourselves and others to be justified in continuing to talk about fake news.
Answering machines and other types of recording devices present prima facie problems for traditional theories of the meaning of indexicals. The present essay explores a range of semantic and pragmatic responses to these issues. Careful attention to the difficulties posed by recordings promises to help enlighten the boundaries between semantics and pragmatics more broadly.The invention is of great importance for telephonic purposes, as by providing a suitable apparatus in combination with a telephone communications can be received by the apparatus when the subscriber is absent, whereas upon his return he can cause the communications to be repeated by the apparatus. US Patent 661,619, for the Telegraphone -13 November 1900 Indexicals (paradigmatically 'I', 'here', and 'now') have long served as a focal point for philosophical debates about context-sensitivity. Famously, Kaplan (1989) noted that these expressions exhibit more regularity than many other context-sensitive terms (e.g., demonstratives), and proposed a straightforward set of rules ('characters') for associating each with a semantic value, relative to a context. Thereby, he provided an intention-free formal semantics to account for indexicals.Unfortunately, this simple and powerful picture is threatened by examples involving inscriptions and audio recordings. The best-known is the 'answering machine paradox': since there is no speaker when an answering machine is triggered, Kaplan's theory predicts that answering-machine occurrences of 'I' fail to refer. Yet answering machines regularly and successfully communicate information about specific individuals. * This paper is entirely collaborative; authors are listed in anti-alphabetical order.† Department of Philosophy, University of California, Los Angeles, Box 951451, Dodd Hall 321, Los Angeles, CA 90095, eliot.michaelson@gmail.com ‡ Department of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0119, joncohen@aardvark.ucsd.edu 1 This essay explores a range of semantic and pragmatic solutions to this paradox. These proposals merit attention not only for their intrinsic interest, but also because of the larger issues they raise about the appropriate range of data for semantics and pragmatics, and about the division of explanatory labor between these components of our total theory of language.
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