Martin Schlombs: Is Speaker-Meaning without Common Ground Uptake Possible?
When speakers insinuate a content p they communicate it in such a way such that they retain deniability for p. How does deniability work? One plausible hypothesis is that while p is speaker-meant, p does not itself update the Stalnakerian common ground (Camp 2018, ). Absence of common ground uptake ensures deniability.
In this talk I would like to address a puzzle for this view. The puzzle is as follows: how can a speaker speaker-mean (that is, intend to have his audience believe) a particular content, while at the same time intending that this content does not make it to the common ground? Ensuring that a content p does not make it to the common ground requires acting as if one had the disposition to act as if one did not believe that p (Stalnaker 1974).
Additional Information: Ockham will be held online via MS Teams during TT21. Please email alexander.read@philosophy.ox.ac.uk if you wish to attend.
