Meaning, Expression, and Indication: Reply to Buchanan

Meaning, Expression and Extremely Strong Evidence

“…Davis () replies to both cases above. Regarding the first, despite his claim that “[i]ndications of an event are evidence that it has occurred, but the evidence need not be conclusive, and may not even be sufficient to make the event probable” (, p. 46), Davis rejects Buchanan's claim that “[s]o long as e is some degree of evidence that S occurrently believes that p , it counts as an indication thereof” (, p. 154).…”

“…He attributes to Buchanan the mistake of claiming that, on Davis' account, (B) and (C) below follow from (A): An utterance may indicate a belief without being either conclusive evidence of the belief or evidence that makes it probable that S has the belief. So long as e is some degree of evidence that S occurently beliefs that p , it counts as an indication thereof. Offering a mere clue that q suffices to provide an indication that q . (, pp. 63–64) …”

“…In “Meaning, Expression, and Indication: Reply to Buchanan,” Davis () defuses Buchanan's objection by showing that the cases presented by Buchanan are in fact unproblematic. This paper investigates Davis' answers and assesses them as acceptable.…”

“…One when he answers Buchanan (“an indication that p [is] a piece of evidence on which the probability of p is at least 1%” [, p. 64]), the other as a “rough gloss” [“‘A indicates B’ says roughly that there is a causal or statistical relation between A and B in virtue of which A would give a suitably placed observer a reason to expect B.” (, p. 69]).…”

“…There is another answer that Davis gives to Buchanan's second case, involving the difference between speaker expression and natural/evidential expression (, second full paragraph on page 64). Part of that answer is the claim that Hannibal's encrypted utterance is not an expression of his belief that Mr. Steele is the killer because it is not “spontaneous”.…”