Insensitive Semantics

Insensitive Semantics is an overview of and contribution to the debates about how to accommodate context sensitivity within a theory of human communication, investigating the effects of context on communicative interaction and, as a corollary, what a context of utterance is and what it is to be in one. Provides detailed and wide-ranging overviews of the central positions and arguments surrounding contextualism Addresses broad and varied aspects of the distinction between the semantic and non-semantic content of language Defends a distinctive and explanatorily powerful combination of semantic minimalism and speech act pluralism Confronts core problems which not only run to the heart of philosophy of language and linguistics, but which arise in epistemology, metaphysics, and moral philosophy as well

Preface. Acknowledgements. 1. Overview. Part I: From Moderate to Radical Contextualism. 2. Exegesis: The Methodology of Contextualism. 3. The Instability of Context Shifting Arguments. 4. Diagnosis: Why Context Shifting Arguments are Misused. 5. The Instability of Incompleteness Arguments. 6. Digressions: Binding and Hidden Indexicals. Part II: Refutation of Radical Contextualism. 7. Objections to Radical Contextualism (I): Fails Context Sensitivity Tests. 8. Objection to Radical Contextualism (II):Makes Communication Impossible. 9. Objections to Radical Contextualism (III): Internal Inconsistencies. Part III: Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism. 10. Semantic Minimalism. 11. Semantics and Metaphysics. 12. Semantics and Psychology. 13. Speech Act Pluralism. References. Index