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- Title
Inferences from Utterance to Belief.
- Authors
Zavaleta, Martín Abreu
- Abstract
If Amelia utters 'Brad ate a salad in 2005' assertorically, and she is speaking literally and sincerely, then I can infer that Amelia believes that Brad ate a salad in 2005. This paper discusses what makes this kind of inference truth-preserving. According to the baseline picture, my inference is truth-preserving because, if Amelia is a competent speaker, she believes that the sentence she uttered means that Brad ate a salad in 2005; thus, if Amelia believes that that sentence is true, then she must believe that Brad ate a salad in 2005. I argue that this view is not correct; on pain of irrationality, normal speakers can't have specific beliefs about the meaning of the sentences they utter. I propose a new account, relying on the view that epistemically responsible speakers utter sentences assertorically only if they believe all the propositions which they think those sentences might mean.
- Subjects
TRUTH; BELIEF sentences (Logic); SALADS; PROPOSITION (Logic); ASSERTIONS (Logic)
- Publication
Philosophical Quarterly, 2023, Vol 73, Issue 2, p301
- ISSN
0031-8094
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/pq/pqac053