Testing for context-dependence [Book Review]

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 73 (2):443–450 (2006)
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Abstract

How much context-sensitivity is there in English? Cappelen and Lepore’s answer: Not very much. On their view, context-sensitivity is confined to a ‘Basic List’, ‘plus or minus a bit’, that includes pronouns, demonstratives, temporal and spatial adverbs like ‘here’, ‘now’, and ‘yesterday’, and a short list of context dependent nouns and adjectives. Shockingly, the authors claim that ‘Lepore is ready’, ‘Cappelen has had enough’, and ‘Cappelen is quite tall,’ have a context-invariant meaning. Nor is that meaning incomplete, in the sense of being something that can only be given a truth value relative to an enrichment. No, simultaneous utterances of ‘Lepore is ready’ always express the same proposition—that Lepore is ready—one that is true or false. When is it true? Cagily, the authors inform us that it is true if and only if Lepore is ready. One might wish to inquire further as to when Lepore is ready. For example: ‘If Lepore is ready for breakfast but not ready to learn to play golf, is Lepore ready?’ and ‘Given that I am always ready for a fulfilling relationship, am I ever not ready?’ Whenever they are faced with questions such as these, the authors defer to the arena of metaphysics, where they admit to being ‘rank amateurs’.

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John Hawthorne
Australian Catholic University

Citations of this work

Quasi Indexicals.Justin Khoo - 2018 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 100 (1):26-53.
Response.Herman Cappelen & Ernest Lepore - 2006 - Mind and Language 21 (1):50–73.
Minimizing indexicality.Wayne A. Davis - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 168 (1):1-20.
Saying and Agreeing.Ernie Lepore & Adam Sennet - 2010 - Mind and Language 25 (5):583-601.

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