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Philosophy Speaker Series

Colloquium Series, Winter 2012

Both talks will be held from 3:30 to 5:30 pm, in 010 Vanier College, Senior common room.

Friday, March 9

Christopher Campbell (Glendon College, York University)

“What Might Joint Assertion Be?”

Abstract:

Austin reminded us that we do things with words.  That is, the use of language is (among other things) an exercise of our capacity for agency.  Philosophy of language in Austin's tradition, "speech act theory," has focused on the things individual language users do with words.  But a topic of burgeoning interest in recent philosophy of action is joint agency.  Certainly most of what we do with words, we do together: language is a paradigmatically social phenomenon.  But what about the "units" of that activity as speech act theory conceives of them, namely speech acts  themselves: is there room for the idea of a joint speech act?  In particular, can we make sense of the notion of a joint assertion, perhaps one of the types of speech act least obviously amenable to joint exercise?

 

Friday, March 23

Hannah Ginsborg (University of California, Berkeley)

“Meaning, Understanding and Normativity”

Abstract:

Kripke's claim that there is a normative relation between meaning and use -- that "meaning is normative" -- has come under considerable criticism in recent years.  I defend the claim by arguing for a new interpretation of the "ought" relevant to meaning.  Both critics and
defenders of the normativity thesis have understood statements about how an expression ought to be used as either prescriptive (indicating that speakers have reason to use the expression in a certain way) or semantic (designating certain uses as correct in a sense explicable
in terms of truth or other semantic notions).  I propose an alternative view of the "ought" as conveying the "primitively" normative attitudes speakers must adopt towards their uses if they
are to use the expression with understanding.  This yields a conception of the normativity of meaning which resists recent lines of objection.

 

For more information, contact Claudine Verheggen at cverheg@yorku.ca.