Books
The Language and Dynamics of Fiction
Introduktion till logik
(translated into Swedish by Karl Bergman)
The Language of Fiction
(co-edited with Emar Maier)
Lying and Insincerity
Lying: Language, Knowledge, Ethics, and Politics
(co-edited with Eliot Michaelson)
Selected Papers
What someone could have said sometime: Protagonist projection and covert mixed quotation [abstract][pdf]
Linguistics and Philosophy, forthcoming.
This paper offers an account of protagonist projection: cases where words or expressions are used from a perspective other than that of the speaker. The paper argues that protagonist projection is an instance of covert mixed quotation: the phenomenon by which expressions are both used and mentioned without overt quotation marks. I offer a quasi-monstrous account where expressions are evaluated relative to shifted contexts and times, but stopping short of full-blown monstrous shifting. The paper argues that mixed quotation, and hence protagonist projection, is modalized and temporalized. The resulting account explains some limits on mixed quotation and protagonist projection, first in the flexibility of non-verbatim quotes, and second in shifting indexicals outside metalinguistic environments.
Metafiction and Fictional Truth [abstract][pdf]
Journal of Philosophy, forthcoming.
Metafiction is the phenomenon by which we often talk about fictions. Traditionally, metafiction has been understood as the mirror image of fictional truth, or truth in fiction. This paper argues that this paradigm is too narrow. It is shown that we routinely use metafiction to talk about fiction in ways that do not track what is fictionally true. The paper provides a way of understanding this kind of metafiction. It argues that audiences keep track of information conveyed by narrators independently of what is fictionally true, and it shows how metafiction can be understood as aimed at representing such information.
Free Indirect Discourse in Shakespeare [abstract][pdf]
G.E. Hagberg (ed.), Literature in the Light of Philosophy: The Interpretative Imagination, Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming.
This paper demonstrates a number of uses of free indirect discourse in Shakespeare's plays, thereby putting pressure on the standard view that free indirect discourse was an outlier form in pre-modern literature. It is argued that the use of free indirect discourse in Shakespeare exhibits the features associated with free indirect discourse elsewhere: a dual perspective integrating both the point of view of the narrator and the protagonist, as well as involving mimicry of the protagonist's speech or thought. Free indirect discourse is seen to be a tool for narrativizing speech in the plays.
Bullshitters and Ordinary Liars (with Don Fallis) [pdf]
A Unified Account of Semantic and Pragmatic Infelicity (with Nils Franzén) [abstract][pdf]
This paper argues for a unified account of semantic and pragmatic infelicity. It is argued that an utterance is infelicitous when it communicates an inconsistent set of propositions, given the context. In cases of semantic infelicity the relevant utterance expresses a set of inconsistent propositions, whereas pragmatic infelicity is a matter of the utterance conflicting with contextual expectations or assumptions. We spell out this view within the standard framework according to which a central aim of communication is to update a body of information shared among the participants. We show that this account explains different kinds of infelicity for both declarative and non-declarative utterances. Further, the account is seen to make correct predictions for a range of cases involving irony, joking, and related non-assertoric utterances.
This paper examines a form of talking about speech acts, mental states, and other features so far unexplored in philosophy: quotative be like. Quotative be like is the use of like and to be that occurs in constructions such as "Ellen was like "I'm leaving!"" We argue that neglect of quotative be like represents a gap in our understanding of our ways of characterizing the minds and speech of ourselves and others. Further, we show that quotative be like is not reducible to more familiar forms of direct discourse or indirect discourse. Mapping out a number of different options for theorizing about quotative be like, we argue for an account on which the quoted material in quotative be like picks out properties.
This paper argues that no instances of acquiring knowledge from works of literary fiction are instances of the way we ordinarily learn from the testimony of others. The paper argues that the fictional status of a work is a defeater for the justification of beliefs formed on the basis of statements within that work, which must itself be defeated for such beliefs based on fiction to amount to knowledge. This marks a fundamental difference with learning from testimony, since regardless of one's views on testimony and testimonial knowledge, the fact that your belief that p was based on someone's testimony that p is not in and of itself a defeater for your justification for believing that p.
Lies are Assertions and Presuppositions are Not [abstract][pdf]
Most philosophers agree that lies are assertions. Most also agree that to presuppose information is different from asserting it. In a series of papers, Viebahn (2020), (2021), along with an empirical study in Viebahn, Wiegmann, Engelmann, and Williemsen (2021), has recently argued that one can lie with presuppositions, and therefore one can assert that p by presupposing that p. The latter conclusion is a rejection of a cornerstone of modern philosophy of language and linguistics, and as such we should require strong reasons for accepting it. I argue here that the reasons for thinking that presuppositions can be lies are too weak to motivate giving up either the view that lies are assertions or the traditional distinction between presuppositions and assertions.
Winged Horses, Rascals, and Discourse Referents [abstract][pdf]
This paper discusses some remarks Kaplan made in "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice" concerning empty names. I show how his objections to a particular view involving descriptions derived from Ramsification can be avoided by a nearby alternative framed in terms of discourse reference. I offer a treatment of empty names as variables carrying presuppositions concerning unique occupants of roles, or sets of properties, determined by the originating discourse.
This paper offers a theory of spatial indexicals like here and there on which such expressions are variables associated with presuppositional constraints on their values. I show how this view handles both referential and bound uses of these indexicals, and I propose an account of what counts as the location of the context on a given occasion. The latter is seen to explain a wide range of facts about what the spatial indexicals can refer to.
Fictional Names and Co-Identification [abstract][pdf]
This paper provides an account of co-identification with fictional names, the way in which a fictional name can be used to talk about the same fictional character on disparate occasions. I develop a version of the view that fictional characters are roles understood as sets of properties couched within a dynamic understanding of fictional discourse on which information is incrementally built up as stories unfold. I argue that this view captures what is right about so-called name-centric approaches to co-identification with fictional names while avoiding the difficulties of such views. I show how the dynamic view in addition provides a unified account of a number of ways of using fictional names that takes fictional names as having the same meaning in a range of different environments.
This paper argues for an account of fictional force, the central characteristic of the kind of non-assertoric speech act that authors of fictions are engaged in. A distinction is drawn between what is true in a fiction and the fictional record comprising what the audience has been told. The papers argues that to utter a sentence with fictional force is to intend that its content be added to a fictional record. It is shown that this view accounts for phenomena such as conversational implicatures in fictional discourse. Moreover, the view is seen to provide an attractive way of distinguishing fictional utterances from assertoric utterances. As a consequence, this account of fictional force offers a satisfactory way of distinguishing fiction from lying.
De Se Thinking and Modes of Presentation [abstract][pdf]
De se thoughts have traditionally been seen to be exceptional in mandating a departure from orthodox theories of attitudes. Against this, skeptics about the de se have argued that the de se phenomena demand no more of our theories of attitudes than traditional Frege cases. In this camp one view is that the de se can be accounted for by modes of presentation (MOPs) in the same way that MOPs can account for how it can be rational to believe, for instance, ”Hesperus is shining” while also believing ”Phosphorus is shining.” This paper formulates some minimal conditions that de se MOPs must have in order to explain the relevant de se phenomena. Some potential replies are answered. I conclude that de se MOPs are not exceptional.
According to an influential view, a context for a linguistic utterance is a body of shared information. The standard version of this view identifies this information with the information that is common ground in the conversation. Common ground information may be suited to the role that contexts play in the theory of communication and speech acts. Yet it has been argued that common ground information is less suited to the role that contexts play in the theory of indexical and demonstrative reference. This paper explores an alternative view that identifies shared information with what is common knowledge among the participants. We argue this view of shared information avoids the problems for the common ground approach concerning reference while preserving its advantages in accounting for communication.
Features of Referential Pronouns and Indexical Presuppositions [abstract] [pdf]
This paper demonstrates that the presuppositions triggered by the 1st and 2nd persons behave differently in important ways from those triggered by the 3rd person and the genders. While the 1st and 2nd persons trigger indexical presuppositions, the 3rd person and the genders do not. I show that the presuppositions triggered by the 1st and 2nd persons are not susceptible to presupposition failure of the kind familiar from ordinary presuppositions. Such failures occur for the 3rd person and the genders. Moreover, the presuppositions triggered by the 1st and 2nd persons do not exhibit the projection behavior of ordinary presuppositions. The 3rd person and the genders do. I sketch a semantics in which the relevant difference is between presuppositions that impose constraints on functions from contexts to intensions (characters) and presuppositions that impose constraints on intensions.
Navigation and Indexical Thought [abstract] [pdf]
This paper argues for a moderate form of essentialism about indexical thought (also known as de se, first-person, or egocentric thought). According to this moderate essentialism, there is a significant category of intentional action that necessarily involves indexical thought. This category of action is navigation, that is, intentionally moving from one location to another by using public information about the world such as a map or a set of directions. It is shown that anti-essentialists face a challenge in accounting for this kind of action without accepting the involvement of indexical thought or something equivalent. The conclusion that navigation necessarily requires indexical thought is neutral on the strong essentialist claim that there is a special class of indexical propositional attitudes that mandate rejecting standard theories of propositional attitudes. The conclusion is also neutral on the strong essentialist claim that any kind of intentional action necessarily requires indexical thought.
Importation in fictional discourse is the phenomenon by which audiences include information in the story over and above what is explicitly stated by the narrator. This paper argues that importation is distinct from generation, the phenomenon by which truth in fiction may outstrip what is made explicit, and draws a distinction between fictional truth and fictional records. The latter comprises the audience's picture of what is true according to the narrator. The paper argues that importation into fictional records operates according to principles that also govern ordinary conversation. An account of fictional records as a species of common ground information is proposed. Two sources of importation are described in detail, presupposition accommodation and conversational implicatures. It is shown that presuppositions are both mandatorily imported and mandatorily generated. By contrast, conversational implicatures are neither mandatorily imported nor mandatorily generated. The paper distinguishes conversational implicatures from contextual inferences. Both rely on background assumptions, yet conversational implicatures moreover depend on assumptions concerning Gricean cooperation.
Free Indirect Discourse in Non-Fiction [abstract] [pdf]
This paper considers some uses of Free Indirect Discourse within non-fictional discourse. It is shown that these differ from ordinary uses in that they do not attribute actual thoughts or utterances. I argue that the explanation for this is that these uses of Free Indirect Discourse are not assertoric. Instead, it is argued here that they are fictional uses, that is, they are used with fictional force like utterances used to tell a fictional story. Rather than making assertions about the actual world, these occurrences of Free Indirect Discourse introduce localized fictional scenarios from which audiences are meant to learn factual information. As such, they exhibit some of the ways in which the involvement of perspective in historical fiction has been shown to facilitate learning and retention of information.
Protagonist Projection, Character Focus, and Mixed Quotation [abstract] [pdf]
This chapter compares two kinds perspective-shifting language. The first is so-called "protagonist projection.” (Holton, 1997, Stokke, 2013) The second phenomenon is sometimes known as “character focus.” I argue that both protagonist projection and character focus should be analyzed as forms of mixed quotation. Drawing on the work of Potts (2007) and Maier (2014, 2015), mixed quotation is seen as interacting with two-dimensions of interpretation, one corresponding to the use-component of mixed quotation, the other corresponding to the mention-component. I propose that the mention-component of mixed quotation can be interpreted modally. As a result, protagonist projection and character focus can be seen to have the same semantics, while they differ pragmatically. In particular, while protagonist projection pragmatically conveys attributions of beliefs, character focus does not.
Lying, Deception, and Epistemic Advantage (with Eliot Michaelson)[pdf]
Fictional Names and Individual Concepts [abstract] [pdf]
This paper defends a version of the realist view that fictional characters exist. It argues for an instance of abstract realist views, according to which fictional characters are roles, constituted by sets of properties. It is argued that fictional names denote individual concepts, functions from worlds to individuals. It is shown that a dynamic framework for understanding the evolution of discourse information can be used to understand how roles are created and develop along with story content. Taking fictional names to denote individual concepts provides accounts of a number of uses of fictional names. These include non-fictional uses, fictional uses, metafictional uses, interfictional uses, counterfictional uses, and negative existentials. It is argued that this account is not open to objections that have been raised in the literature.
Lies, Harm, and Practical Interest [abstract] [pdf]
This paper outlines an account of the ethics of lying, which accommodates two main ideas about lying. The first of these, Anti-Deceptionalism, is the view that lying does not necessarily involve intentions to deceive. The second, Anti-Absolutism, is the view that lying is not always morally wrong. It is argued that lying is not wrong in itself, but rather the wrong in lying is explained by different factors in different cases. In some cases such factors may include deceptive intentions on the part of the liar. In other cases, where such intentions are not found, the wrong in lying may be explained by other factors. Moreover, it is argued that the interaction between considerations against lying and considerations against telling the truth are sensitive to the practical interests of those lied to., When the topic of the lie in question matters little to the victim’s rational decision making, the threshold for when considerations against telling the truth can outweigh considerations against lying are lowered. This account is seen to explain why lying to avoid little harm is sometimes permissible, and sometimes not.
Bullshitting [pdf]
Lying, Sincerity, and Quality [pdf]
Fabrication and Testimony [pdf]
Paternalistic Lying and Deception [pdf]
Bullshitting, Lying, and Indifference toward Truth (with Don Fallis) [abstract] [pdf]
This paper is about some of the ways in which people sometimes speak while being indifferent toward what they say. We argue that what Harry Frankfurt called ‘bullshitting’ is a mode of speech marked by indifference toward inquiry, the cooperative project of reaching truth in discourse. On this view bullshitting is characterized by indifference toward the project of advancing inquiry by making progress on specific subinquiries, represented by so-called questions under discussion. This account preserves the central insight of Frankfurt’s influential analysis of bullshitting in seeing the characteristic of bullshitting as indifference toward truth and falsity. Yet we show that speaking with indifference toward truth is a wider phenomenon than the one Frankfurt identified. The account offered in this paper thereby agrees with various critics of Frankfurt who argue that bullshitting is compatible with not being indifferent toward the truth-value of one’s assertions. Further, we argue that, while bullshitting and lying are not mutually exclusive, most lies are not instances of bullshitting. The account thereby avoids the problem that Frankfurt’s view ultimately is insufficient to adequately
distinguish bullshitting and lying.
Conventional Implicature, Presupposition, and Lying [abstract] [pdf]
Responding to parts of Sorensen (2017), it is argued that the connectives therefore and but do not contribute conventional implicatures but are rather to be treated as presupposition triggers. Their special contributions are therefore not asserted, but presupposed. Hence, given the generic assumption that one lies only if one makes an assertion, one cannot lie with arguments in the way Sorensen proposes. Yet, since conventional implicatures are asserted, one can lie with conventional implicatures. Moreover, since conventional implicatures may be asserted by non-declarative utterances, one can lie by uttering non-declaratives carrying conventional implicatures.
Metaphors and Martinis: A Response to Jessica Keiser [abstract] [pdf]
This note responds to criticism put forth by Jessica Keiser against a theory of lying as Stalnakerian assertion. According to this account, to lie is to say something one believes to be false and thereby propose that it become com- mon ground. Keiser objects that this view wrongly counts particular kinds of non-literal speech as instances of lying. In particular, Keiser argues that the view invariably counts metaphors and certain uses of definite descriptions as lies. It is argued here that both these claims are false.
Proposing, Pretending, and Propriety: A Response to Don Fallis [abstract] [pdf]
This note responds to criticism put forth by Don Fallis of an account of lying in terms of the Stalnakerian view of assertion. According to this account, to lie is to say something one believes to be false and thereby propose that it become common ground. Fallis objects by presenting an example to show that one can lie even though one does not propose to make what one says common ground. It is argued here that this objection does not present a problem for the view of lying as Stalnakerian assertion. Responding to the objection brings out important features of this view of discourse and of assertion.
It is sometimes argued that certain sentences of natural language fail to express truth conditional contents. Standard examples include e.g. Tipper is ready and Steel is strong enough. In this paper, we provide a novel analysis of truth conditional meaning (what is said) using the notion of a question under discussion. This account (i) explains why these types of sentences are not, in fact, semantically underdetermined (yet seem truth conditionally incomplete), (ii) provides a principled analysis of the process by which natural language sentences (in general) can come to have enriched meanings in context, and (iii) shows why various alternative views, e.g. so-called Radical Contextualism, Moderate Contextualism, and Semantic Minimalism, are partially right in their respective analyses of the problem, but also all ultimately wrong. Our analysis achieves this result using a standard truth conditional and compositional semantics and without making any assumptions about enriched logical forms, i.e. logical forms containing phonologically null expressions.
Truthfulness and Gricean Cooperation [abstract] [pdf]
This paper examines the Gricean view that quality maxims take priority over other conversational maxims. It is shown that Gricean conversational implicatures are routinely inferred from utterances that are recognized to be untruthful. It is argued that this observation falsifies Grice’s original claim that hearers assume that speakers are obeying other maxims only if the speaker is assumed to be obeying quality maxims, and furthermore the related claim that hearers assume that speakers are being cooperative only to the extent that they assume they are being truthful.
Lying and Misleading in Discourse [abstract] [pdf]
This paper argues that the distinction between lying and misleading while not lying is sensitive to discourse structure. It is shown that whether an utterance is a lie or is merely misleading sometimes depends on the topic of conversation, represented by so-called questions under discussion. It is argued that to mislead is to disrupt the pursuit of the goal of inquiry, i.e., to discover how things are. Lying is seen as a special case requiring assertion of disbelieved information, where assertion is characterized as a mode of contributing information to a discourse that is sensitive to the state of the discourse itself. The resulting account is applied to a number of ways of exploiting the lying-misleading distinction, involving conversational implicature, incompleteness, presuppositions, and prosodic focus. It is shown that assertion, and hence lying, is preserved from subquestion to superquestion under a strict entailment relation between questions, and ways of lying and misleading in relation to multiple questions are discussed.
Information Centrism is the view that contexts consist of information that can be characterized in terms of the propositional attitudes of the conversational participants. Furthermore, it claims that this notion of context is the only one needed for linguistic theorizing about context-sensitive languages. We argue that Information Centrism is false, since it cannot account correctly for facts about truth and reference in certain cases involving indexicals and demonstratives. Consequently, contexts cannot be construed simply as collections of shared information.
This paper argues for an account of insincerity in speech according to which an utterance is insincere if and only if it communicates something that does not correspond to the speaker’s conscious attitudes. Two main topics are addressed: the relation between insincerity and the saying-meaning distinction, and the mental attitude underlying in- sincere speech. The account is applied to both assertoric and non-assertoric utterances of declarative sentences, and to utterances of non-declarative sentences. It is shown how the account gives the right results for a range of cases.
Some dynamic semantic theories include an attempt to derive truth-conditional meaning from context change potentials. This implies defining truth in terms of context change. Focusing on presuppositions and epistemic modals, this paper points out some problems with how this project has been carried out. It then suggests a way of overcoming these problems. This involves appealing to a richer notion of context than the one found in standard dynamic systems.
This paper discusses a recent opposition between the influential dynamic semantic account of presupposition projection and a recent Gricean-pragmatic theory. The Gricean-pragmatic theory is partly motivated by an influential objection to dynamic semantics based on the compatibility of dynamic systems with connectives and operators exhibiting deviant projection behaviors. By identifying key features of the role of prediction and explanation in semantics, it is argued that the objection is based on a mistaken conception of the involvement of empirical foundations in semantic theories. The paper shows that the dynamic paradigm does not suffer from either predictive or explanatory inadequacy. The chapter concludes that while it is too early to decide in favor of either approach, the Gricean alternative to dynamic semantics cannot be seen as motivated by a flaw in the latter theories.
The paper argues that the correct definition of lying is that to lie is to assert something one believes to be false, where assertion is understood in terms of the notion of the common ground of a conversation. It is shown that this definition makes the right predictions for a number of cases involving irony, joking, and false implicature. In addition, the proposed account does not assume that intending to deceive is a necessary condition on lying, and hence counts so-called bald-faced lies as lies.
This paper provides a semantic analysis of Protagonist Projection, the phenomenon by which things are described from a point of view different from that of the speaker. Against what has been argued by some, the account vindicates the intuitive idea that Protagonist Projection does not give rise to counterexamples to factivity, and similar plausible principles. A pragmatics is sketched that explains the attitude attributions generated by Protagonist Projection. Further, the phenomenon is compared to Free Indirect Discourse, and the proposed account is seen to preserve the relation between them.
Lying, Deceiving, and Misleading [abstract] [pdf]
This article discusses recent work on lying and its relation to deceiving and misleading. Two new developments in this area are considered: first, the acknowledgment of the phenomenon of lying without the intent to deceive (so called ‘bald-faced lies’), and second, recent work on the distinction between lying and merely misleading. Both are discussed in relation to topics in philosophy of language, the epistemology of testimony, and ethics. Critical surveys of recent theories are offered and challenges and open questions for further research are indicated.
Intention-Sensitive Semantics [abstract] [pdf]
A number of authors have argued that the fact that certain indexicals depend for their reference-determination on the speaker’s referential intentions demonstrates the inadequacy of associating such expressions with functions from contexts to referents (characters). By distinguishing between different uses to which the notion of context is put in these argument, I show that this line of argument fails. In the course of doing so, I develop a way of incorporating the role played by intentions into a character-based semantics for indexicals and I argue that the framework I prefer is superior to an alternative which has been proposed by others.
Reviews and Critical Notices
Review of Peter Hanks, Propositional Content, Oxford University Press, 2015 [pdf]
Saying too Little and Saying too Much. Critical Notice of Lying, Misleading, and What is Said by Jennifer Saul [pdf]
Review of Wright & Pedersen (eds.), New Waves in Truth, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010 [pdf]
