Abstract

Language is primarily a form of social interactive behaviour in which a speaker, writer or signer addresses utterances to an audience. It requires S to make certain assumptions about H’s ability to understand U. This includes choice of topic, language, language variety, style of presentation, and level of presentation. These assumptions constitute what can conveniently be called “common ground”. They have been subsumed to context ; and at least a part of the common ground constitutes what Lewis referred to as “common knowledge”, a term adopted by Stalnaker. Schiffer called it “mutual knowledge*”. Prince rejected “shared knowledge”, preferring “assumed familiarity”. Following Grice, Stalnaker named it “common ground”, which he described as “presumed background information shared by participants in a conversation” [..] “what speakers [take] for granted—what they [presuppose] when they [use] certain sentences”. A fatal flaw was carried over from Schiffer’s definition of mutual knowledge* into Stalnaker’s definition of common ground: “It is common ground that φ in a group if all members accept that φ, and all believe that all accept that φ, and all believe that all believe that all accept that φ, etc.”. The recursion within this definition would necessitate infinite processing on the part of each of S and H. This flaw has been accepted and repeated by many since ). Clark attempted to circumvent it but his definition includes a clause that calls itself, thus creating an endless loop. In this essay I suggest a way, inspired by Lee, to characterize common ground from the points of view of both S and H and which does not admit runaway recursion. In line with Stalnaker’s mingling of presupposition and common ground, it refers to the preconditions on illocutions.