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SUMMARY:On recent work on faultless disagreement - Max Kolbel (University 
 of Barcelona)
DTSTART:20090305T163000Z
DTEND:20090305T180000Z
UID:TALK15897@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Lauren Kassell
DESCRIPTION:In a number of different areas\, there have recently been deba
 tes about two different forms of construing context-dependence: contextual
 ism (indexical relativism) and relativism. For example\, consider those wh
 o think that the truth of claims about what is known depends on an epistem
 ic standard (e.g. Cohen 1986\, DeRose 1991 and Lewis 1996). For example\, 
 the claim that Anna knows that she has hands\, will be true with respect t
 o low epistemic standards\, but not true with respect to the highest epist
 emic standards. Supposing that the truth of such claims does indeed depend
  on epistemic standards\, then there are two different ways of explaining 
 this. The first one is to say that it is the propositional content of clai
 ms that varies with the context. Thus\, when I say first\, truly\, that An
 na knows she has hands\, and then later say falsely that she knows she has
  hands\, then the change in truth value is due to the fact that the two ut
 terances expressed different propositions (each of them about a different 
 epistemic standard). This can be called 'contextualism'. The second way of
  construing the situation is to say that the proposition expressed is the 
 same on each of the occasions\, it's only that that proposition is evaluat
 ed with respect to different epistemic standards (e.g. MacFarlane 2005). T
 his can be called 'relativism'. The same alternatives arise in many other 
 areas\, e.g. epistemic modals/probabilities\, evaluative sentences\, futur
 e contingents\, causal claims\, etc.\n\nIn this paper\, I first review the
  motivations for supporting either of the two alternatives\, in particular
  recent work by MacFarlane\, Recanati and Cappelen and Hawthorne. I show t
 hat even in the hardest cases (e.g. future contingents) there are no compe
 lling reasons to prefer relativism to contextualism or vice versa\, though
  some weak reasons to do with theoretical elegance can be adduced in favou
 r of relativism. Then I consider some phenomena that are difficult to expl
 ain for both relativists and contextualists. I offer a tentative explanati
 on of these phenomena.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, History and Philosophy of Science\, Department o
 f
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