Lewis and t he Semantics-Pragmatics Divide

1. Lewis andthe Semantics-Pragmatics Divide Ernie Lepore Matthew Stone

2. Outline • Rethinking semantics and pragmatics • coordination (Lewis 1969) • the conversational record (Lewis 1979) • Linguistics and the social • Implications for philosophical practice

3. Background • Last time: Intentions • Intention recognition is an important ingredient of understanding, collaboration • BUT • Problematic to locate linguistic knowledge using intentions • Need to look elsewhere to get clear on the scope of linguistic rules as social constructs

4. Coordination • Situations where agents’ actions must agree • but no intrinsic reason to prefer one joint strategy over another

5. Coordination • Examples from Lewis (1969) • Arrange a meeting • Restart an interrupted phone call • Row a boat • Share the road when driving • Perform a search as a group • Collude to set prices • Signal a choice

6. Coordination as a game

7. Games and reasoning • If an agent chooses her action deliberately, she must consider her expectations about her partner. • Idealization: equilibrium • no player would change his move,given the moves the others make

8. Games and reasoning • We generally expect equilibria in real life • where agents play repeatedlythey can learn to match one anothereven if individual decisions are heuristic • Equilibrium describes regularity in behavior • Lets us ascribe certain states to agents (perhaps tacit or implicit)

9. State underlying equilibrium • It’s common knowledge that • everyone conforms to R • everyone expects everyone else to conform to R • everyone prefers to conform to R on the condition that others do

10. Lewis: this is a convention • Objections: • Silent about how conventions are instituted • That’s the point. • Lewis describes how we can get convention from salience, precedents and convergence – but this is just one story among many

11. Games and reasoning • A range of mechanisms explain equilibrium • Architecture – we’re only biologically capable of one equilibrium • Salience – we’re so constituted that preferred equilibrium leaps to mind • Experience – we’ve learned that others follow a given equilibrium

12. All potentially relevant to language faculty • Architecture: Universal Grammar • Salience: Primitive preferences for particular patterns of interpretation • Experience: Acquired lexical items, syntactic parameter settings, etc.

13. Lewis: this is a convention • Objections: • We don’t have to know all these things (Burge) • Fair point – let’s talk about ‘social competence’ instead as whatever lets us solve (certain) coordination problems – not prejudging the actual status of skills, knowledge, choice & alternatives

14. Lewis: this is a convention • Objections: • Lewis’s conventions are always followed – this seems too strong (Gilbert, Millikan) • Examples: handing out cigars, using ‘bank’ to mean financial institution

15. Lewis: this is a convention • Objections: • Lewis’s conventions have to achieve preferred outcomes – this seems too strong (Gilbert, Millikan) • Examples: decorating for Christmas specifically with red and green

16. Lewis: this is a convention • Objections: • Seems to assume coordination problem exists antecedently of equilibrium – this seems too strong (Marmor) • Examples: playing chess by the rules

17. Response • In keeping with idea of social competence, let’s think of coordination problems are rational reconstructions

18. Lewis on Signaling • One party produces signal,knowing the state of the world • The other acts,having seen the signal • Explains information carried by signal,but a long way from meaning

19. Signaling example • ‘one if by land, two if by sea’ • Sexton hangs certain patterns of lightsconditional on what British are doing • Revere prepares particular pattern of defenseconditional on what lights he sees • They want equilibrium

20. Signaling games

21. Problems • Meaning is underdetermined • 1 light: the British are coming by landor • 1 light: prepare the land defenses!or • both?

22. Problems • Meaning only present at equilibrium • So what about coordination that succeeds through other mechanisms – salience? good luck? partial or tentative precedents?

23. Lewis on Convention • Lewis attempts to generalize to languageby directly understanding truth conditionsas conventions for agents to use certain sentences in certain conditions(namely, when they are true)

24. Lewis on Convention • This is very cumbersome • And doesn’t seem to get at the real difficulties

25. Another idea • Language combines social competence with specific institutions targeted at meaning • Specifically: the conversational record (Lewis 1979)

26. Conversational record • List of propositions associated with discourse • Specifies • interlocutors’ environment • what has been said already • what the purposes and plan is • what standards of meaning are in play • what issues are open • what conversation is committed to • (Lewis 1979, Thomason 1990)

27. Conversational record • Record is dynamic • topic can change • meaning standards can be negotiated • presuppositions can be challenged • interlocutors can commit to new propositions or rescind previous commitments • Utterances specify updates • generally, as a matter of meaning

28. Conversational record • Abstraction • Free to specify discourse referents,standards for vague predicates,other constructs from formal theories • Need not be tied to interlocutors’ knowledge or belief

29. Record is arbitrary • In key respects, it’s up to us how the record changes • So it’s natural to think of the record as an object of coordination

30. Coordinating on the Record • One way of thinking • I have my version of what’s happened • You have your version of what’s happened • When it lines up, we’ve communicated • Compare Neale’s presentation here

31. Coordinating on the Record • One way of thinking • I have my version of what’s happened • You have your version of what’s happened • When it lines up, we’ve communicated • Drawback: describing cases of miscommunication, clarification, etc.

32. Coordinating on the Record • An indirect way of thinking • Each of us defers to practices • Meanings specify how to update the record • We coordinate on what we defer to

33. Coordinating on the Record • An indirect way of thinking • Each of us defers to practices • Meanings specify how to update the record • We coordinate on what we defer to • Promises a better handle on miscommunication, clarification

34. The Received View • Semantics • linguistic specification of reference, truth • settles what the speaker is saying • Pragmatics • general principles of inference and strategy • settles what speaker is doing

35. Problems • Fails to describe linguistic knowledge • more linguistic facts than supposes • e.g., rules for indirection, presupposition, information structure, etc. • Fails to describe interpretive inference • wide range of practices for engaging with imagery, drawing insights

36. Overall picture • Key theoretical notion is inquiry • process (normally collaborative)in which interlocutors settle how things are • Requires • public meanings • open to negotiation, debate

37. Overall picture • Inquiry privileges conventional meaning • depends on conversational record • depends on coordination • Allows for a broad understanding of meaning • Excludes insight or point of open-ended, idiosyncratic engagement with utterance

38. Inquiry and CR • Conversational record tracks inquiry • Assertion registers proposition on recordas commitment of one party • Enables further follow up, such asclarification questions,arguments for or against,agreement or disagreement by other parties • Record ensures a shared interpretation

39. How will this affect philosophy? • Better arguments, but more difficult ones. • Close with case study: • Grice versus ordinary language philosophers

40. Color: the dialectic • Claim: color supervenes on appearance • Something is red just in case it looks red under normal conditions to appropriately endowed observers. • Objection (Austin): • Hogwash! You’d only say something looked red if it wasn’t red!

41. Color: the dialectic • Reply (Grice): • Well, yes, you wouldn’t say something looks red unless it wasn’t red. • But, that’s not part of the meaning of “it looks red”, it’s an implicature. • Us: • Sorry Grice, your linguistics is bogus.

42. What next? • Us: • Sorry Austin, your linguistics is bogus too! • Often say “something looks red” when it is: • His fake tan looks orange. • Contaminated water still looks clear. • The distant shores look green and inviting. • (examples after google searches)

43. What next? • Us: • Sorry Austin, your linguistics is bogus too! • When “it looks red” means it’s not, it’s because of intonation. • No objection to analysis of color,as long as you don’t use that intonation!

44. Similar cases • Believe and know. • Try and succeed. • Or and and. • Ordinary language folks: 1st suggests not 2nd • Grice: That’s just an implicature. • Us: You’re both wrong. • 1st suggests not 2nd if marked elsewherelots of times 1st doesn’t suggest not 2nd.

45. Basic point • Our theories need to acknowledge the richness and complexity of language and communication. • We can do the linguistics and philosophy we want without unhelpful categories like “conversational implicatures”.