Context as Assumptions
Msh Lorraine Preprints 2010 of the Proceedings of the Epiconfor Workshop on Epistemology, Nancy 2009 (
2010)
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Abstract
In the tradition of Stalnaker there is a number of well-known problems that need to be addressed, because revision of iterated belief modalities is required in this case. These problems have already been investigated in detail in recent works on DDL Leitgeb/Segerberg 2007)and DEL see e.g. Ditmarsch et. Another strategy would be to maintain and revise assumptions independently of the beliefs of an agent.I will briefly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each of these views. In both views, assumptions constitute the subjective context in which an agent interprets an utterance and encounters the world. The result of an interpretation is in turn checked against the agent’s original beliefs, and if the checking operation succeeds the agent revises his beliefs by the result in the normal way described by the AGM paradigm. The second of the above questions needs to be addressed on the basis of concrete examples. Considering utterance like David is ready’ or ‘John is tall’that from a contextualist viewpoint express semantically incomplete content in the sense of Bach is needed in order to obtain a useful model of the checking step, since fortunately not everybody believes everything that other people say. These requirements put the theory of interpretation based on assumptions in the frontline of ongoing research on the implementation of belief revision and update in dynamic logics. Such a theory might also be useful for contextualist accounts of strong knowledge, as it can be argued convincingly that when a knowledge ascription appears to be context-sensitive, this is so because the embedded proposition is context-sensitive and not because knowledge itself is context-sensitive. Hence,the context-sensitivity of embedded propositions in knowledge claims and how different agents in the same situation arrive at different assessments about them may be explained by an inferential theory of interpretation similar to the one outlined here but with another underlying concept of assumptions. Literature Alchourrón, C. E. ; Gärdenfors, P. & Makinson, D., 'On the logic of theory change: partial meet contraction and revision functions', Journal of Symbolic Logic, 510-530. Bach, K., 'Minimalism for Dummies: Reply to Cappelen and Lepore', Technical report, University of San Fransisco, Department of Philosophy. Bach, K., Context ex Machina, in án Gendler Szabó, ed.,'Semantics versus Pragmatics', Oxford UP, Oxford, pp. 16-44. Ditmarsch, H. v. ; Hoek, W. v. d. & Kooi, B., Dynamic Epistemic Logic, Kluwer. Gärdenfors, P., Knowledge in Flux, MIT Press. Leitgeb, H. & Segerberg, K., 'Dynamic doxastic logic: why, how, and where to? ', Synthese155, 167-190. Stalnaker, R., Assertion, in. Cole, ed.,'Pragmatics', Academic Press, New York, pp. 315-332. Stalnaker, R., 'Common Ground', Linguistics and Philosophy25, 701- -721