Summary |
Assertion is a kind of speech act which plays a central role
in both philosophy of language and epistemology. The main philosophical issues
concerning assertion include: How to characterize which utterances of
(declarative) sentences count as assertions? What, if any, are the norms
governing assertion? What effects do
assertions have on the dynamics of conversation? What is the connection between
assertion and the semantic content, meaning, or truth of sentences? What is the
connection between what one asserts and what one believes or knows? How can we
separate between what is asserted by an utterance and what is conveyed by it
in more indirect means – such as presupposition or implicature? Are utterances
of conditional sentences a kind of assertion, or a different type of speech act
(a conditional assertion)?
These questions help to see why assertion plays such a
central role in philosophy: for example, assertion plays a central role in the
philosophy of language for anyone who thinks that there is a close connection
between what is asserted by an utterance and what its semantic content or
meaning is, and plays a central role in epistemology for anyone who thinks that
assertions are governed by a norm involving knowledge or belief (e.g. assert
only what you know or only what you believe). |