The reformulation argument: reining in Gricean pragmatics
The reformulation argument: reining in Gricean pragmatics
复制标题
重新表述论证：控制格赖斯语用学
DOI：
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发表时间：
2016
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Zachary Miller
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Zachary Miller
语义理论的目标是做出准确和全面的预测。然而，有时，语义理论达不到这一目标，预测和数据之间存在不匹配。在这种情况下，语义理论的捍卫者经常试图通过诉诸格里斯语用学来拯救它。人们希望，只要我们能用语用学来解释它的预测性失败，我们就能挽救这一理论。这一语用拯救策略是语言哲学、哲学逻辑和形式语义学中最受欢迎的举动之一。在这篇文章中，我认为，只要有争议的预测性失败可以用认识论或形而上学的术语来重塑，这一策略就会失败。这种笼统的“重新表述论点”破坏了各种各样的务实救援尝试。
A semantic theory aims to make predictions that are accurate and comprehensive. Sometimes, though, a semantic theory falls short of this aim, and there is a mismatch between prediction and data. In such cases, defenders of the semantic theory often attempt to rescue it by appealing to Gricean pragmatics. The hope is that we can rescue the theory as long as we can use pragmatics to explain away its predictive failures. This pragmatic rescue strategy is one of the most popular moves in philosophy of language, philosophical logic, and formal semantics. In this paper I argue that this strategy fails whenever the predictive failures at issue can be recast in epistemological or metaphysical terms. This general “reformulation argument” undermines a wide variety of pragmatic rescue attempts.