Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Predicates of personal taste, semantic incompleteness, and necessitarianism

  • Original Research
  • Published:
Linguistics and Philosophy Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

According to indexical contextualism, the perspectival element of taste predicates and epistemic modals is part of the content expressed. According to nonindexicalism, the perspectival element (a standard of taste, an epistemic situation) must be conceived as a parameter in the circumstance of evaluation, which engenders “thin” or perspective-neutral semantic contents. Echoing Evans, thin contents have frequently been criticized. It is doubtful whether such coarse-grained quasi-propositions can do any meaningful work as objects of propositional attitudes. In this paper, I assess recent responses by Recanati, Kölbel, Lasersohn and MacFarlane to the “incompleteness worry”. None of them manages to convince. Particular attention is devoted to an argument by John MacFarlane, which states that if perspectives must be part of the content, so must worlds, which would make intuitively contingent propositions necessary. I demonstrate that this attempt to defend thin content views such as nonindexical contextualism and relativism conflates two distinct notions of necessity, and that radical indexicalist accounts of semantics, such as Schaffer’s necessitarianism, are in fact quite plausible.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Stalnaker (1970) is amongst the first to state this view as the orthodoxy; for a detailed defense against recent alternatives, see Cappelen and Hawthorne (2009).

  2. Eternalists include Stalnaker (1970), Wettstein (1979), Richard (1981, 1982), Salmon (1986), Stanley (1997a, b), Fitch (1998). Temporalists include Kaplan (1989), Aronszajn (1996), Ludlow (2001), Recanati (2004), Brogaard (2012).

  3. See inter alia Perry (1986), Carston (1988), Crimmins (1992), Taylor (2001), Recanati (2002, 2007a), Borg (2005), Cappelen and Lepore (2007), Sennet (2011).

  4. See for instance Egan et al. (2005), Kölbel (2009), Von Fintel and Gillies (2008, 2011), Schaffer (2011), MacFarlane (2011, 2014), Dowell (2011), Yanovich (2013), Marushak (2018), Marushak and Shaw (2020), Roberts (2019). For empirical work on the question, see Knobe and Yalcin (2014), Kneer (2015, 2020b), Khoo (2015), Beddor and Egan (2018).

  5. See inter alia Wright (2001), Kölbel (2004a, b, 2009), Lasersohn (2005, 2008, 2011, 2016), Stojanovic (2007, 2012), Recanati (2007b), Glanzberg (2007), López de Sa (2007), Cappelen and Hawthorne (2009), Saebo (2009) MacFarlane (2009, 2014), Egan (2010), Schaffer (2011), Collins (2013), Ferrari and Zeman (2014), Kompa (2015), Kneer (2015), Dinges (2017), Zakkou (2019a, b).

  6. I will use “perspectives” as a general way to refer to perspectival features such as epistemic perspectives, standards of taste etc.

  7. In certain contexts the standard of taste invoked might be that of a person distinct from the speaker (which Lasersohn (2005, p. 671) calls an exocentric reading), that of a particular group, or people in general (i.e. a generic reading). To facilitate discussion, we will focus principally on what Lasersohn calls the autocentric readings of perspectival claims—readings that invoke the speaker’s own standard of taste—which stand at the centre of the debate.

  8. As regards the argument from faultless disagreement, cf. inter alia Kölbel (2004a, b, 2009) and Lasersohn (2005, 2009). For responses sympathetic to contextualism, cf. Glanzberg (2007), Stojanovic (2007), Schaffer (2011), Sundell (2011) and Cappelen and Hawthorne (2009).

  9. Cf. in particular MacFarlane (2007, 2014). For discussion focusing also on epistemic modals, see Egan et al. (2005), Egan (2007), von Fintel and Gillies (2008), Schaffer (2011), Dowell (2011), Yanovich (2013), Kneer (2015), and Lasersohn (2008).

  10. This has become the standard way to interpret definitions of disagreement by nonindexcialists such as Kölbel (2004, pp. 53–54) and Lasersohn (2005, p. 647). For discussion cf. e.g. Stojanovic (2007, 2017) and MacFarlane (2014, Ch. 6.3 and 6.7).

  11. Both Stojanovic and Moltmann explicitly invoke semantic competence with respect to the predicates at stake. Stojanovic defines it thus: “Speakers of English are semantically competent with predicates of taste: they master their meaning and truth conditions.” (2007, p. 696).

  12. Austin (1971).

  13. According to this definition, disagreement arises in virtue of contradictory lekta alone, independently of the circumstance of evaluation. In saying “Socrates is sitting” at 10am Mary would be in disagreement with John, who said “Socrates is not sitting” a few hours earlier. If the lekta are time-neutral, the difference in time of tokening manifest in the circumstances of evaluation simply does not play a role.

  14. Stojanovic (2007) provides a logical proof, which demonstrates that indexicalism and moderate nonindexicalism are truth-conditionally equivalent. But by aid of Recanati’s framework, the point can be made at an intuitive level: It doesn’t matter whether the standard of taste features in the lekton or the circumstance of evaluation as long as the resulting Austinian proposition, distributed over both aspects of content, remains the same.

    Recanati, a moderate nonindexicalist, is explicit that such a view “by itself, does not give a solution to the problem of faultless disagreement, contrary to what Kölbel and Lasersohn believe” (2007b, p. 91). On such an account, “alleged” faultless disagreement might “arguably” arise (2007b, p. 94), because both interlocutors invoke a generic taste parameter referring to the community’s standards, and they might disagree about what those standards should be. This would of course reduce instances of faultless disagreement to very few. Furthermore, it is not evident, as Recanati points out, whether the proposal generalizes to other domains such as epistemic modals.

  15. I follow Recanati (2007a, b, Ch. 2) in distinguishing “moderate” nonindexical contextualism from “radical” nonindexical contextualism. Recanati himself calls nonindexical contextualism “relativism”. I reserve the latter term for MacFarlane’s position, as has become commonplace in the literature.

  16. Does anyone actually propose such a picture as regards taste-neutral sentences? I think there is clear evidence that a view like this is advocated by authors such as Kölbel (2004b), Richard (2004, 2008, 2011) and Lasersohn (2005, 2009) to name but a few.

  17. Perhaps nonindexicalists could argue that time-neutral contents behave in important respects differently from taste-neutral contents—respects that explain why it might strike us as intuitively implausible in the former, but not in the latter case, to attribute disagreement. However, in justifying parameter proliferation, much of the efforts of nonindexicalists have focused on emphasizig the similiarty between the “new parameters” (standard of taste, epistemic perspective etc.) and more traditional ones such as worlds and times (see e.g. Kölbel 2009).

  18. Note that MacFarlane himself is sceptical of the notion of faultless disagreement (2014, pp. 133–136).

  19. A proposition, Perry suggests, is about some feature F, if F is one of its propositional constituents (articulated or not). For instance, according to eternalists like Frege and Evans, propositions or “thoughts” always include a temporal specification, even if only tacitly so, and are thus always about particular times. Alternatively, a proposition can be said to concern a feature F, if its truth value depends on how things stand as regards F. That’s how a temporalist understands tensed propositions: Their content is standardly time-neutral, but they concern a particular time. If Mary utters the time-neutral sentence “Socrates is sitting” at midday, it concerns that specific time since its truth must be evaluated with respect to the world and the time determined by the context of utterance.

  20. Whether or not it is empirically adequate, the assessment-sensitive framework remains, of course, philosophically coherent. But if the meaning of perspectival expressions is in fact not assessment-sensitive, as the data suggests, then its interest is limited, as it will be devoid of application.

  21. See also Moltmann (2010) and Pearson (2012).

  22. “Tasty” and “fun”, as Glanzberg observes, are more complex than off-the-shelf gradable adjectives such as “rich” or “tall” in so far as they can draw on more than a single scale. However, he argues, “this is not a feature specific to adjectives of personal taste. Many gradable adjectives can be associated with multiple scales. For instance, someone can be smart as in ‘book smart’ or ‘street smart’, a large city can be large in population, geography, etc.” (2007, p. 10).

  23. Examining situations of apparent disagreement over taste (such as (3) and (4) above), Kölbel writes that linguistic evidence of this sort “is not meant to consist in the purported fact that these cases do indeed involve both faultlessness and disagreement in some pre-theoretical sense. Rather the evidence at best consists in the fact that there appears to be faultless disagreement” (2009, p. 389).

  24. Beillard (2010), who devotes an entire article to this phenomenon contends that “the appearance [of faultless disagreement] is possible only under conditions that disqualify it as evidence: gross ignorance or irrationality, or else a prior commitment to an especially crude and implausible form of relativism” (2010, p. 603).

  25. Another debate fuelled by concerns of incompleteness is the one surrounding “unarticulated constituents” e.g. in weather reports. The debate differs from the PPT debate in many regards and I will set it aside in this paper.

  26. At the risk of repetition: Although MacFarlane is one of the few authors who engages with the incompleteness worry, I do not think that the latter constitutes a challenge for his view, that is, relativism (see Sect. 2.4).

  27. As such we explicitly refrain from attempting to block the argument in ways familiar from Evans (1985). Evans argues that the world parameter is special because there is a unique default value—the actual world, whereas there is no such default value for time and other parameters. In a similar vein, Cappelen and Hawthorne (2009) emphasize that the actual world is “the only reality there is” (2009, p. 78) and propose a picture according to which world information is specified neither in the propositional content nor the circumstance of evaluation.

  28. Recanati (2007b), who calls this position Strong Moderate Relativism, defends it convincingly against incompleteness and related worries.

  29. An intuitive grasp of the “actually” operator suffices for our purposes. For discussion of the operator’s behaviour in propositional modal logic, cf. Crossley and Humberstone (1977), Gregory (2001) and Blackburn and Marx (2002). Gregory (2001, p. 61ff) is particularly pertinent for our premises P3 and P4. For “actually” in first-order modal logic based on S5 cf. Hodes (1984), for a more general first-order modal logic treatment see Stephanou (2005).

  30. The formulations are borrowed, with slight modification, from Hanson (2006, p. 448).

  31. Evans is principally concerned with the contingent a priori, but the strategy carries over to the necessary a posteriori (cf. Davies and Humberstone 1980), which is our primary focus.

  32. Not an unusual move, see Davies and Humberstone (1980) as well as (Davies 2004).

  33. Evans’ analysis proceeds in terms of sentences, rather than propositions or contents. We will follow Kment (2017, p. 2) in making the common assumption that “[a] sentence is necessary (possible, contingent) just in case it expresses a necessary (possible, contingent) proposition.”

  34. Cf. Davies and Humberstone (1980), as well as Davies (2004).

  35. This section draws heavily on Schaffer (2012, Sect. 3.1). See also Schaffer (2018).

  36. Richard (1981) and Salmon (2003) offer an alternative approach: Rather than invoking object-language quantification they use intensional operators which manipulate semantic values that do not amount to full-fledged propositions. For discussion cf. Schaffer (2012, p. 131, note 19).

  37. Note that eternalism and necessitarianism are demanding views: For them to be correct, all propositions must be time-specific or world-specific. Temporalism and contingentism, by contrast, are comparatively undemanding: For them to be correct, it suffices for there to be a single proposition that is time-neutral or world-neutral respectively. This point will be of importance in the next section.

  38. One possibility is to conceive of “actually” as assessment-sensitive (a view nobody, to my knowledge, holds). Just like the assessment-sensitivity of predicates of personal taste and epistemic modals, this would constitute an empirical hypothesis about ordinary English.

  39. More formally, the suggestion is the following:

    • (S1) For all sentences φ and all singular terms α, \({{\ulcorner}}\)FOR α, φ \({{\urcorner}}\)is a sentence.

    • (S2) For all φ, α, w, s and a: if φ is a sentence and α is a personal name referring to a, w is a possible world, and s is a [perspective]: \({{\ulcorner}}\)FOR α, φ \({{\urcorner}}\) is true in a circumstance <w, s> iff φ is true in <w, s(a)> (where s(a) is a’s [perspective]) (2009, p. 384).

  40. Thanks to Jonathan Schaffer (p.c.) for this example.

  41. Travis (2006) also argues against rich Fregean contents, but his complex arguments would take us too far afield. I hope to respond to them at another occasion.

  42. See Wimmer and Perner (1983).

  43. Note that Recanati himself points out that the option of “going extensional” is not off the table even if the argument did work, as long as special precautions are taken (2007b, p. 72; said precautions draw on variadic functions, cf. Recanati 2002).

  44. Following Lasersohn, let φ be a sentence, pro a covert pronoun much like the overt pronoun pro, M a model, c a context, w a world, p a perspective, P a non-empty set of perspectives, g an assignment and g[x/n] a sequence in which x is the nth element and which agrees with g in all other positions. Then object-language binding is defined by (i), and meta-language binding by (ii):

    1. (i)

      [[λnφ]]M, c, w, p, g = {x ∈ P | [[φ]]M, c, w, p, g[x/n] = 1} (2008, p. 313)

    2. (ii)

      (a) If φ is a sentence containing at least one occurrence of pron, then μn φ is a sentence abstract.

      (b) [[μnφ]]M, c, w, p, g = {x ∈ P | [[φ]]M, c, w, x, g[x/n] = 1} (2008, p. 324)

References

  • Aronszajn, M. (1996). A defense of temporalism. Philosophical Studies, 81(1), 71–95.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Austin, J. L. (1971). Philosophical papers (ed. by J. O. Urmson & G. J.Warnock). 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Barker, C. (2002). The dynamics of vagueness. Linguistics and Philosophy, 25, 1–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beddor, B., & Egan, A. (2018). Might do better: Flexible relativism and the QUD. Semantics and Pragmatic, 11(7), 1–47.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beillard, J. (2010). The appearance of faultless disagreement. Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review, 49(4), 603–616.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blackburn, P., & Marx, M. (2002). Remarks on Gregory’s “actually” operator. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 31(3), 281–288.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Borg, E. (2005). Saying what you mean: Unarticulated constituents and communication. In R. Elugardo & R. Stainton (Eds.), Ellipsis and nonsentential speech (pp. 237–262). Berlin: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Brogaard, B. (2012). Transient truths: An essay in the metaphysics of propositions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cappelen, H., & Hawthorne, J. (2009). Relativism and monadic truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cappelen, H., & Lepore, E. (2007). The myth of unarticulated constituents. In M. O’Rourke & C. Washington (Eds.), Situating semantics: Essays on the philosophy of John Perry (pp. 199–214). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carston, R. (1988). Implicature, explicature, and truth-theoretic semantics. In R. Kempson (Ed.), Mental representations: The interface between language and reality (pp. 155–181). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collins, J. (2013). The syntax of personal taste. Philosophical Perspectives, 27, 51–103.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cresswell, M. J. (1990). Entities and indices. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Crimmins, M. (1992). Talk about beliefs. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crossley, J. N., & Humberstone, L. (1977). The logic of “actually”. Reports on Mathematical Logic, 8(1977), 11–29.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davies, M. (2004). Reference, contingency, and the two-dimensional framework. Philosophical Studies, 118(1–2), 83–131.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davies, M., & Humberstone, L. (1980). Two notions of necessity. Philosophical Studies, 38(1), 1–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dinges, A. (2017). Relativism, disagreement and testimony. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 98, 497–519.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dowell, J. L. J. (2011). A flexible contextualist account of epistemic modals. Philosophers’ Imprint, 11(14), 1–25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Egan, A. (2007). Epistemic modals, relativism and assertion. Philosophical Studies, 133(1), 1–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Egan, A. (2010). De Gustibus Non Disputandum Est (at least, not always). In R. Feldman & T. Warfield (Eds.), Disagreement (pp. 247–286). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Egan, A., Hawthorne, J., & Weatherson, B. (2005). Epistemic modals in context. In G. P. Preyer (Ed.), Contextualism in philosophy (pp. 131–168). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Evans, G. (1979). Reference and contingency. The Monist, 62(2), 161–189.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Evans, G. (1985). Does tense logic rest on a mistake? In G. Evans (Ed.), Collected Papers (pp. 343–363). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferrari, F., & Zeman, D. (2014). Radical relativism, retraction, and “being at fault”. In S. Caputo, M. DellUtri, & F. Bacchini (Eds.), New frontiers in truth (pp. 80–102). Cambridge: Cambridge Scholar Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fitch, G. (1998). Temporalism revisited. Philosophical Studies, 92(3), 251–256.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frege, G. (1979). Logic (transl. by P. Long & R. White). In H. Hermes, H. Kambartel, & F. Kaulbach (Eds.), Posthumous writings (pp. 1–9). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  • Glanzberg, M. (2007). Context, content, and relativism. Philosophical Studies, 136(1), 1–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gregory, D. (2001). Completeness and decidability results for some propositional modal logics containing “actually” operators. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 30(1), 57–78.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hanson, W. H. (2006). Actuality, necessity, and logical truth. Philosophical Studies, 130(3), 437–459.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hodes, H. T. (1984). Axioms for actuality. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 13(1), 27–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huvenes, T. (2012). Varieties of disagreement and predicates of taste. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 90(1), 167–181.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kamp, H. (1971). Formal properties of ‘now’. Theoria, 37, 227–274.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan, D. (1989). Demonstratives. In J. Almog, J. Perry, & H. Wettstein (Eds.), Themes from Kaplan (pp. 481–563). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Khoo, J. (2015). Modal disagreements. Inquiry, 58(5), 511–534.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • King, J. C. (2003). Tense, modality, and semantic values. Philosophical perspectives, 17, 195–245.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kment, B. (2017). Varieties of modality. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Spring 2017 edition. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/modality-varieties/.

  • Kneer, M. (2020a). Predicates of personal taste: Empirical data. Ms., University of Zurich. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.22335.00164.

  • Kneer, M. (2020b). Epistemic modals are not assessment-sensitive. Ms., University of Zurich.

  • Kneer, M. (2020c). Perspectival plurality: Evidence from native English speakers. Ms., University of Zurich. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.21914.06085.

  • Kneer, M. (2015). Perspective in language. Ph.D. dissertation, Ecole Normale Superieure/EHESS, Paris.

  • Kneer, M., Vicente, A., & Zeman, D. (2017). Relativism about predicates of personal taste and perspectival plurality. Linguistics and Philosophy, 40(1), 37–60.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Knobe, J., & Yalcin, S. (2014). Epistemic modals and context: Experimental data. Semantics and Pragmatics, 7(10), 1–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kölbel, M. (2004a). Faultless disagreement. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 104(1), 53–73.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kölbel, M. (2004b). Indexical relativism versus genuine relativism. International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 12(3), 297–313.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kölbel, M. (2009). The evidence for relativism. Synthese, 166(2), 375–395.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kölbel, M. (2011). Objectivity, relativism and context dependence. Hagen: Fernuniversität Hagen.

  • Kompa, N. (2015). Contextualism and disagreement. Erkenntnis, 80(1), 137–152.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kripke, S. A. (1972). Name and necessity. In D. Davidson & G. Harman (Eds.), Semantics of natural language (pp. 253–355). 2nd edn. Dordrecht: Reidel.

  • Lasersohn, P. (2005). Context dependence, disagreement, and predicates of personal taste. Linguistics and Philosophy, 28(6), 643–686.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lasersohn, P. (2008). Quantification and perspective in relativist semantics. Philosophical Perspectives, 22(1), 305–337. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1520-8583.2008.00150.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lasersohn, P. (2009). Relative truth, speaker commitment, and control of implicit arguments. Synthese, 166(2), 359–374. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-007-9280-8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lasersohn, P. (2011). Context, relevant parts and (lack of) disagreement over taste. Philosophical Studies, 156(3), 433–439.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lasersohn, P. (2016). Subjectivity and perspective in truth-theoretic semantics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • López de Sa, D. (2007). The many relativisms and the question of disagreement. International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 15(2), 269–279.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • López de Sa, D. (2008). Presuppositions of commonality: An indexical relativist account of disagreement. In M. Garcia-Carpintero & M. Kölbel (Eds.), Relative truth (pp. 297–310). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • López de Sa, D. (2015). Expressing disagreement: A presuppositional indexical contextualist relativist account. Erkenntnis, 80(1), 153–165.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ludlow, P. (2001). Metaphysical austerity and the problems of temporal and modal anaphora. Noûs, 35(s15), 211–227.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MacFarlane, J. (2007). Relativism and disagreement. Philosophical Studies, 132(1), 17–31.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MacFarlane, J. (2009). Nonindexical contextualism. Synthese, 166(2), 231–250.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MacFarlane, J. (2011). Epistemic modals are assessment-sensitive. In A. Egan & B. Weatherson (Eds.), Epistemic modality (pp. 144–178). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • MacFarlane, J. (2012). Relativism. In D. Graff Fara & G. Russell (Eds.), The Routledge companion to the philosophy of language (pp. 132–142). New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacFarlane, J. (2014). Assessment sensitivity: Relative truth and its applications. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Marques, T. (2014). Doxastic disagreement. Erkenntnis, 79, 121–142.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marques, T. (2015). Disagreeing in context. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 257.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marques, T. (2020). Falsity and retraction: New experimental data on epistemic modals. Ms., University of Barcelona.

  • Marques, T., & García-Carpintero, M. (2014). Disagreement about taste: Commonality presuppositions and coordination. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 92(4), 701–723.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marushak, A. (2018). Reasons and modals. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.

  • Marushak, A., & Shaw, J. (2020). Epistemics and emotives. Ms., University of Pittsburgh. https://bit.ly/3muP4K7.

  • Moltmann, F. (2010). Relative truth and the first person. Philosophical Studies, 150(2), 187–220.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Partee, B. H. (1973). Some structural analogies between tenses and pronouns in English. The Journal of Philosophy, 70(18), 601–609.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pearson, H. (2012). A judge-free semantics for predicates of personal taste. Journal of Semantics, 30(1), 103–154.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Perry, J. (1986). Thought without representation. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, 70, 137–166.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Plunkett, D., & Sundell, T. (2013). Disagreement and the semantics of normative and evaluative terms. Philosopher’s Imprint, 13.

  • Recanati, F. (2002). Unarticulated constituents. Linguistics and Philosophy, 25(3), 299–345.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Recanati, F. (2004). Literal meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Recanati, F. (2007a). It is raining (somewhere). Linguistics and Philosophy, 30(1), 123–146. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-006-9007-1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Recanati, F. (2007b). Perspectival thought: A plea for (moderate) relativism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Richard, M. (1981). Temporalism and eternalism. Philosophical Studies, 39(1), 1–13.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richard, M. (1982). Tense, propositions, and meanings. Philosophical Studies, 41(3), 337–351.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richard, M. (2004). Contextualism and relativism. Philosophical Studies, 119(1), 215–242.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richard, M. (2008). When truth gives out. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Richard, M. (2011). Relativistic content and disagreement. Philosophical Studies, 156(3), 421–431. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9687-9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roberts, C. (2019). The character of epistemic modality: Evidential indexicals. Ms., Ohio State University. https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/roberts.21/Roberts.EpistemicModality.pdf.

  • Saebo, J. S. (2009). Judgment ascriptions. Linguistics and Philosohpy, 32, 327–352.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salmon, N. (1986). Frege’s puzzle. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salmon, N. (2003). Tense and intension. In Q. Smith & A. Jokic (Eds.), Time, tense, and reference (pp. 107–154). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schaffer, J. (2011). Perspective in taste predicates and epistemic modals. In A. Egan & B. Weatherson (Eds.), Epistemic modality (pp. 179–226). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Schaffer, J. (2012). Necessitarian propositions. Synthese, 189(1), 119–162.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schaffer, J. (2018). Confessions of a schmentencite: Towards an explicit semantics. Inquiry, 1–31.

  • Sennet, A. (2011). Unarticulated constituents and propositional structure. Mind and Language, 26(4), 412–435.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stalnaker, R. (1970). Pragmatics. Synthese, 22(1–2), 272–289. Reprinted in Stalnaker, R., Context and content: Essays on intentionality in speech and thought (pp. 31–46). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

  • Stanley, J. (1997a). Names and rigid designation. In B. Hale & C. Wright (Eds.), A companion to the philosophy of language (pp. 555–585). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stanley, J. (1997b). Rigidity and content. In R. Heck (Ed.), Logic, language and reality: Essays in honor of Michael Dummett (pp. 131–156). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stephanou, Y. (2005). First-order modal logic with an ‘actually’ operator. Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 46(4), 381–405.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stojanovic, I. (2007). Talking about taste: Disagreement, implicit arguments, and relative truth. Linguistics and Philosophy, 30(6), 691–706.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stojanovic, I. (2012). On value-attributions: Semantics and beyond. The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 50(4), 621–638. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-6962.2012.00137.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stojanovic, I. (2017). Context and disagreement. Cadernos de Estudos Linguísticos, 59(1), 7–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stone, M. (1997). The anaphoric parallel between modality and tense. Philadelphia: Department of Computer and Information Science Technical Reports, University of Pennsylvania.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sundell, T. (2011). Disagreements about taste. Philosophical Studies, 155(2), 267–288.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sundell, T. (2017). Aesthetic negotiations. In James Young (Ed.), The semantics of aesthetic judgment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, K. A. (2001). Sex, breakfast, and descriptus interruptus. Synthese, 128(1–2), 45–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Travis, C. (2006). Thought’s footing: A theme in Wittgenstein’s philosophical investigations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • van Benthem, J. (1977). Tense logic and standard logic. Logique et Analyse, 20(80), 395–437.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vlach, F. (1973). ‘Now’ and ‘then’: A formal study in the logic of tense anaphora. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles,

  • Von Fintel, K., & Gillies, A. S. (2008). CIA leaks. Philosophical Review, 117(1), 77–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Von Fintel, K., & Gillies, A. S. (2011). ‘Might’ made right. In A. Egan & B. Weatherson (Eds.), Epistemic modality (pp.108-130). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Wettstein, H. K. (1979). Indexical reference and propositional content. Philosophical Studies, 36(1), 91–100.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wimmer, H., & Perner, J. (1983). Beliefs about beliefs: Representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children’s understanding of deception. Cognition, 13(1), 103–128.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wright, C. (2001). On being in a quandary. Relativism vagueness logical revisionism. Mind, 110(437), 45–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yanovich, I. (2013). Standard contextualism strikes back. Journal of Semantics, 31(1), 67–114.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zakkou, J. (2019a). Denial and retraction: A challenge for theories of taste predicates. Synthese, 196(4), 1555–1573.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zakkou, J. (2019b). Embedded taste predicates. Inquiry, 62(6), 718–739.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

For helpful feedback I would like to thank Jonathan Schaffer, François Recanati, Jack Woods, John MacFarlane, John Perry, John Mackay, Dan Zeman, Julia Zakkou, Adam Marushak, Isidora Stojanovic and several anonymous referees of this journal.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, Centre for Ethics, University of Zurich, Zollikerstr. 118, 8008, Zurich, Switzerland

    Markus Kneer

Authors
  1. Markus Kneer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Markus Kneer.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Kneer, M. Predicates of personal taste, semantic incompleteness, and necessitarianism. Linguist and Philos 44, 981–1011 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-020-09303-w

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-020-09303-w

Keywords

Search

Navigation