Norms

The idea that language use in general is governed by rules or norms is old and widespread. That speech acts, as speech acts, are governed by norms, is again a well established idea. It is also currently (2014) a very popular idea: by far most of the literature on assertion over the past fifteen years has concerned the question of the so-called “norms of assertion”, often simply taking for granted that there are such norms, and that they play a central and fundamental role. The task is then to identify them.
In the literature, two very different types of norm have been discussed. One type concerns the decision whether or not an assertion has been made by means of an utterance. These norms are usually characterized as conventions. The other type concerns conditions of propriety, orcorrectness, of assertion (in some cases actions following an assertion). These are typically called “norms”, and are sometimes characterized as “constitutive” of assertion as a speech act type. We shall discuss these two types separately.

6.1 Conventions

Austin held that illocutionary acts as opposed to perlocutionary acts are conventional, in the sense that they can be made explicit by the so-called performative formula (Austin 1962: 103). According to Austin, one can say ‘I argue that’ or ‘I warn you that’ but not ‘I convince you that’ or‘I alarm you that’. Presumably, the idea was that a speech act type is conventional just if there exists a convention by which an utterance of a sentence of a certain kind ensures (if uptake is secured) that a speech act of that type is performed. Austin probably thought that in virtue of the performative formulas this condition is met by illocutionary but not by perlocutionary act types.
The more general claim that illocutionary force is correlated by convention with sentence type has been advocated by Michael Dummett (1981: 302, 311). On this view, it is a convention that declarative sentences are used for assertion, interrogative for questions and imperative for commands and requests. Similar views have been put forward by Searle (1969) and Kotatko (1998), and the idea has been more recently defended by Kölbel (2010). According to Searle (1969: 38, 40), illocutionary acts are conventional, and the conventions in question govern the use of so-called force-indicating devices (Searle 1969: 64) specific to each language. Searle does not claim that the standard sentence types are force indicating devices (but speculates that a representation of illocutionary type would be part of the syntactic deep structure).
However, the view that illocutionary acts types are conventional in this sense has met with much opposition. Strawson (1964: 153–4) objected early on that ordinary illocutionary acts can be performed without relying on any convention to identify the force, for instance when using a declarative sentence like ‘The ice over there is very thin’ for a warning. This kind of criticism, now directed against Dummett, has later been reinforced by Robert J. Stainton (1997, 2006), stressing that in appropriate contexts, sub-sentential phrases like ‘John's father’ (pointing at a man) or ‘very fast’ (looking at a car) can be used to make assertions, and gives linguistic arguments why not all such uses can be treated as cases of ellipsis, that is, as cases of leaving out parts of a well-formed sentence that speaker and hearer tacitly aware of. If Strawson and Stainton are right, convention isn't necessary for making assertions.
Moreover, Donald Davidson (1979, 1984a) stressed that no conventional sign could work as a force indicator in this sense, since any conventional sign could be used (and would be used) in insincere utterances, where the corresponding force was missing, including cases of deception, jokes, impersonation and other theatrical performances. Basically the same point is made by Bach and Harnish (1979: 122–7). If Davidson, and Bach and Harnish are right, then conventions are also not sufficient.
Kölbel (2010) argues against this that in certain circumstances misuse is impossible. For instance, according to Kölbel (2010: 125) in a situation of contract signing, you cannot just pretend to be signing a contract; if you write your name at the appropriate place, you have thereby signed the contract, whatever went on in your mind. This is no doubt correct, but if Davidson and Bach and Harnish are right, it is possible to fake an entire contract signing situation, as a joke or as part of a performance. Within a fake situation, you can also fake the signing, by performing an action that looks just as the genuine signing itself.
The situation is complicated by the fact that the general question of when a convention, or rule of any kind, is in force for a speaker, is substantial and complex (cf. Pagin 1987: Chpt. 1). For instance, it may be fully determined by purely public features of a linguistic context [ltr]c[/ltr] whether according to a convention [ltr]R[/ltr] an assertion was made, but yet not itself settled by purely public features whether convention [ltr]R[/ltr] was in force for the speaker in [ltr]c[/ltr]. This would still leave it a non-public issue whether an assertion was made.

6.2 Norms of assertion

Most of the discussion of norms during the past fifteen years has concerned the propriety, orcorrectness, of assertions, not conventional means of recognizing them (Kölbel (2010) is one of few to discuss both).
In general, an account of assertion in terms of norms is an account that invokes the existence, or the being in force, of norms that uniquely govern assertions. This is not just a sociological observation. I can note that [ltr]S[/ltr] has committed himself to doing [ltr]F[/ltr], in the sense of accepting such a commitment, without myself thinking that [ltr]S[/ltr] is obligated to do it, just as well as I can think that [ltr]S[/ltr]is obligated although he himself does not recognize it. By contrast, if I both say that assertions are actions governed by such and such norms, and that furthermore assertions are in fact made, I have myself taken a normative stance, acknowledging the force of norms.
Does such an acknowledgment come already with classifying assertions as correct or incorrect? Is correctness an inherently normative notion, or is it just descriptive? According to, for instance, (an earlier view of) Paul Boghossian (1989: 513), the mere fact that we can evaluate assertions as correct or incorrect shows that words are governed by norms of use. According to Kathrin Glüer, Anandi Hattiangadi, and Åsa Wikforss, and to a later view of Boghossian's, on the other hand, there is no reason to see in the notions of correctness and incorrectness anything more than a descriptive classification, which may then be coupled with certain a preference for correct assertions over incorrect ones, both in making and in taking (cf. Glüer 2001: 60–5;Hattiangadi 2010; Wikforss 2001; Boghossian 2003; Glüer & Wikforss 2009a, 2009b). Those preferences may then be explained by wholly external factors, for instance by appeal to social psychology, or the desire for knowledge, but is not internal to the idea of assertion itself. Moreover, even if we are using a genuinely normative notion of correctness, it may well be that the norm in question is not unique to assertion, but governs a broader range of actions, perhaps actions in general, as in the case of moral norms. We shall return to this latter point.
As has often been noted, an assertion can be correct in different respects. For instance, a speaker can say something true but be impolite in saying it, thereby making an assertion that is incorrect with respect to norms of etiquette. It may also have been immoral, or imprudent, tactically or strategically bad. Moreover, an assertion may have, for instance an implicature that is incorrect, even though the primary act considered in isolation is to be deemed correct.
Sometimes, a distinction is made between aspects of badness that can be eliminated by means of retracting an assertion, and aspects that can't be. I can take back a claim if I find I was wrong, but I cannot eliminate for instance a breach of confidence. According to Dummett (1976: 48), this distinction is drawn between aspects that concern what is said and aspects that concern the saying of it, respectively (compare Kvanvig 2009: 148). The relevant notion of correctness, according to Dummett, concerns only what is said. He adds that

اقتباس :: an undifferentiated concept of the acceptability of an utterance—of an utterance's not being open to criticism of any kind—would be of little use for our purposes.

Clearly, it is the epistemic aspects of assertions that have been the concern in the literature when characterizing assertions as “correct”, “justified”, “proper”, “warranted”, “assertible”, or “warrantedly assertible”. Such a notion was taken on board in pragmatism, and in later forms of anti-realism. John Dewey (1938) seems to have been the first to characterize truth in terms of assertoric correctness, with his notion of warranted assertibility, even though this idea had a clear affinity with the verifiability principle of Moritz Schlick (1936). Dewey was later followed by, notably, Dummett (1976) and Hilary Putnam (1981). Common to them is the position that there cannot be anything more to truth than being supported by the best available evidence. Dewey, following Peirce, regarded truth as the ideal limit of scientific inquiry (Dewey 1938: 345), and a proposition warrantedly asserted only when known in virtue of such an inquiry. Warranted assertibility is the property of a proposition for which such knowledge potentiallyexists (1938: 9).
Putnam (1981: 54–6) operated with an idea of assertibility under ideal epistemic conditions. Under normal conditions, a speaker can be justified in making an assertion even though what she asserts is false. The evidence is enough for truth under normal circumstances, but because of abnormal interference the evidence falls short. For instance, improbable changes, say because of a fire, may have taken place after the speaker's observation. However, in ideal epistemic conditions evidence that is sufficient for justifying an assertion is also conclusive.
On Dummett's view, we do get a notion of truth distinct from the notion of a correct assertion only because of the semantics of compound sentences (1976: 50–2). In particular, the conditions of correctly assertorically uttering a conditional [ltr]ϕ → ψ[/ltr] may depend on the truth-conditions of[ltr]ϕ[/ltr] rather than the conditions of correct assertions by uttering [ltr]ϕ[/ltr]. This is the case in particular in the future tense, as in ‘If it will rain, the ceremony will take place indoors’. In this case, whether it is correct or not, at the time of utterance, to assert that it will rain, or that it will not rain, is irrelevant to the correctness of an assertoric utterance of the conditional itself.
In these early discussions, the strategy was that of getting a handle on truth by means of an appeal to the notion of the correctness of an assertion, which was taken as more fundamental. The question of what the correctness of an assertion consists in was not itself much discussed, although Dummett (1976: 77–8) is careful to distinguish between the case where a speaker makes an assertion on the basis of adequate evidence, and the case where adequate evidence isavailable, but the speaker makes the assertion without being aware of it. In the latter case, according to Dummett, the speaker was not correct, but the assertion was.
In recent discussions, by contrast, the general strategy has been to get a handle on knowledge, and most of the contributors have been concerned with assertion in the context of investigations in epistemology, often from different epistemological standpoints. Nevertheless, the scope of the discussion of assertion has increased, with more of a focus on the very question itself: under what conditions is an assertion correct, or proper.
The recent wave of discussion was started by Timothy Williamson (1996, 2000), who proposed that assertion is governed by a norm of assertion. Williamson proposed what has come to be known as the knowledge norm, or knowledge rule:

(K-A)One must: assert p only if one knows p. (Williamson 2000: 243)

(K-A) is proposed as part of an account of assertion. Other norms have been proposed, and some ideas about the role and status of the norm proposed are usually shared. Let's use [ltr]N[/ltr] as schematic for a norm of assertion.

(N1)N applies specifically to assertion.

By (N1), the norm is a norm only for the making of assertions. As a norm of assertion, the norm is in place to govern the making of assertions in general, and to govern nothing else.

(N2)The condition of N uniquely identifies assertion.

If (N2) holds of (K-A), then there is one unique speech act type, or even one unique action type such that the agent is permitted in general to perform actions of this type, with respect to a proposition [ltr]p[/ltr], only of the agent knows that [ltr]p[/ltr]. Knowing what the condition of permissibility is, we will also know what the action type is. This is different from (N1), for (N1) leaves it open that another norm with exactly the same condition (knowledge that [ltr]p[/ltr]) would hold for some otheraction type than assertion. This is ruled out by (N2).

(N3)Being subject to N is essential to assertion as an action type.

(N3) goes beyond (N2) insofar as (N2) leaves it open that assertion is only actually individuated by [ltr]N[/ltr], and that assertion could have been governed by some other norm. It should be emphasized here that on the norm view, it is being subject to the norm that characterizes assertion, notconforming to the norm. An assertion that violates the norm is still an assertion. Nothing but an assertion could violate the norm, if the (N2) and (N3) properties hold.

(N4)Assertion is constituted by N.

This is a stronger property than (N3), but several of the theorists do claim that their proposed norm has this property. We return below to what constitutivity amounts to.

(N5)A particular assertion can be subject also to other rules with different areas of application, such that the all-thing-considered outcome is that an assertion ought not to be done, even though not a violation of N.

رد: Norms الخميس مارس 17, 2016 4:22 am من طرف **free men**

As we shall see, although this is a property everyone agrees on, it has been used in the debate over the intuitive support of some candidate norms over others.

(N6)Norms are related to evaluations of assertions. An assertion that violates N isincorrect/improper. An assertion that satisfies all relevant norms is correct/proper.

On some understandings of the matter, (N6) is simply trivial. However, it is perfectly possible to see some candidate norms as ideals, while the evaluations of individual assertions may take into account various relations between the assertion and the norm over and above conformity. In fact, this has been an issue in the debate, as we shall also see.
The positive evaluation requires satisfaction of all relevant norms. If there is only one, this norm cannot be only prohibitive, that is, specify necessary conditions, as does (K-A), but should be biconditional, and also give sufficient conditions as well. A biconditional strengthening of (K-A) is

(K2-A)It is permissible for S to assert that p iff S knows that p.

Williamson gives only the prohibitive version. The biconditional version is discussed inHawthorne 2004: 23 and Lackey 2011: 251–75, as well as in Brown 2010 and 2011 (Brown(2010) argues against the sufficiency part by means proposed counterexamples).
It may be noted that (K2-A) is prima facie inconsistent with (N5): if the norm says that an assertion is permissible while another norm says that it is not, we have a contradiction, unless we specify a separate respect in which assertions are assessed with respect to the norm of assertion. As long as the norm is couched in neutral deontic terms, there is a problem. Merely prohibitive norms do not have this problem, unless in relation to other norms that are themselves biconditional.
For the most part, the literature on norms of assertion has concerned the question which the norm of assertion is. That is, it is in general not asked whether there are norms of assertion (in some sense or other), what status such norms have, whether they are constitutive, or what constitutivity amounts to. It is normally taken for granted that there is a norm that holds for all assertions and for assertions specifically (the property). The question is which, and what the reasons are for favoring this or that answer.
Over and above Williamson himself, the knowledge norm (K-A) (or (K2-A)) has been favored by Keith DeRose (2002), Steven Reynolds (2002), Jonathan Adler (2002: 275), John Hawthorne (2004), Jason Stanley (2005), Pascal Engel (2008), Jonathan Schaffer (2008), and John Turri (2010).
Some have proposed norms that are similar to (K-A), but instead sets the condition in relation to the transmission of knowledge to the hearer. An example is Manuel García-Carpintero (2004: 156):

(TK-A)One must (assert p only if one's audience comes thereby to be in a position to know thatp)

Similar norms have also been proposed by Pelling (2013) and by Hinchman (2013). Carpintero suggests that his version is preferable to Williamson's because it brings out the social, communicative function of language (2004: 157). He argues that only (TK-A) could be expected to be a convention, and takes that to speak in its favor.
Most alternatives to the knowledge norm that have been proposed are weaker, in requiring less than knowledge. It has been proposed that assertion goes just with truth, just with knowledge, or just with justification. Matthew Weiner (2005) proposed a truth norm:

(T-A)Assert only what is true.

(this formulation is close to what Weiner says. Cf. also the survey article Weiner (2007). MacFarlane (2014: 103) also proposes a truth rule, but requires it to be qualified as beingreflective: this means, in the context of MacFarlane's relativism, that the proposition should be true in the context of utterance, as assessed from the same context of utterance.[8] According to MacFarlane, the truth rule needs to be complemented by a retraction rule (see below).
A corresponding statement of a belief norm would be

(B-A)Assert only what you believe.

With ‘say’ instead of belief, this is close to a reformulations of Grice's second submaxim of Quality (“Do not say what you believe to be false.” Grice 1989: 27). The belief norm is explicitly stated by Bach (2008: 77). Bach directly infers that the norm of assertion is the belief norm from the fact that an assertion is sincere if, and only if, the speaker believes what she asserts.
A justifed belief norm requires more than (B-A):

(JB-A)Assert only what you believe with justification.

Exactly what justification amounts to varies between authors. Igor Douven (2006, 2009) argues for a norm of rational belief.
Several authors have argued that it is the justification itself that is the key to evaluating assertions. A standard formulation would be

(J-A)Assert only that for which you have proper justification.

This view has been taken by Jonathan Kvanvig (2009: 145; 2011: 249–50). Kvanvig proposes that the relevant concept of justification is such that it is sufficient for knowledge, provided the proposition is both believed and true (and the justification is undefeated). Justification is also emphasized by Jennifer Lackey (2007: 608), who proposes a Reasonable to Believe norm, according to which belief is not required; what is required is that it is reasonable to believe that [ltr]p[/ltr], and that the speaker asserts that [ltr]p[/ltr] for this reason (even if in fact not believing that [ltr]p[/ltr]). Lackey backs this idea up with thought experiments about so-called “selfless” assertions, where speakers make assertion in accordance with their evidence but against their beliefs. Also, Ishani Maitra and Brian Weatherson (2010: 112) propose what they call The Evidence Responsiveness Rule, that one assert that p only if one's attitude towards [ltr]p[/ltr] is properly responsive to the evidence (they also propose to complement it with an action rule, that it is proper to assert that [ltr]p[/ltr] only if acting as if [ltr]p[/ltr]is “the thing for you to do”.)
These alternatives to the knowledge norm all propose norms with weaker requirements. But a stronger requirement has also been suggested by Stanley (2008):

(EC-A)Assert only what is epistemically certain.

Here one is epistemically certain of a proposition [ltr]p[/ltr] is

اقتباس :: if and only if one knows that [ltr][size=18]p[/ltr] (or is in a position to know that [ltr]p[/ltr]) on the basis of evidence that gives one the highest degree of justification for one's belief that [ltr]p[/ltr]. (2008: 35)[/size]

Stanley also considers as an alternative a subjective certainty norm, where it is the degree of confidence of the speaker that matters, but in the end opts for regarding this norm as derivable from the epistemic certainty norm.
Some authors have proposed norms for what to do after an assertion. MacFarlane (2014: 108) holds that a speaker is required to retract an assertion if it turns out not be true, in a context of assessment:

(R-A)Retract an (unretracted) assertion if it turns out not to be true.

Again, in MacFarlane's case, this rule is stated in the context of his relativism, with respect to a context of use and a context of assessment. In MacFarlane's theory, assertion is governed jointly by the (reflective) truth norm and the retraction norm. According to Michael Rescorla (2009), there is no norm at all for proper making of assertions. There are only norms that govern later reactions. He proposes three similar alternatives, which share the idea that when a speaker is challenged with respect to an assertion he has made, he must either defend the assertion or else retract it (Rescorla 2009: 103–5).
Many authors have noted that standards for judging assertions vary between contexts, and have proposed to work that into the account. The first to do so was Keith DeRose (2002). DeRose argued from the knowledge norm and the varying standards for assertion as premises, to the conclusion that epistemic contextualism is true (2002: 182). Epistemic contextualism is the view that ‘know’ is semantically context dependent. The truth value of a knowledge attribution ‘X knows that [ltr]p[/ltr]’ depends on standards of knowledge in the context of the knowledge attributor.
DeRose's argument has been challenged by several authors. For instance, Brown (2010) points out that the argument depends on the biconditional version (K2-A) of the knowledge norm, and argues that the sufficiency part is less well supported. Stanley also criticizes DeRose, despite accepting that the standards of proper assertion vary between contexts. According to Stanley, the reason this does not lead to contextualism about knowledge is that assertion is governed by the certainty norm (2008: 55–6). According to Stanley, the varying standards of proper assertion depends on the context dependence of ‘certain’, not on any context dependence of ‘know’ (which Stanley rejects). According to Schaffer (2008), on the other hand, knowledge itself is relative to a question under discussion, which is reflected in his version of the knowledge norm (Schaffer 2008: 10).
Some authors who note that standards of proper assertion appears to vary between context suggest that there is not a single norm with a contextual parameter, but rather that different norms apply in different contexts, still governing one and the same speech act type, assertion. This line has been taken by Jim Stone (2007) and by Janet Levin (2008). In some contexts knowledge is required, in some contexts something less demanding, such as justified belief. Patrick Greenough (2011) takes this line even further by proposing norm-relativism: what norm is relevant for an assertion in a context is relative to a perspective.
One question that arises with respect to such views is this: if the speech act type is individuated by the norm governing it, and norms of utterances vary between contexts, is it then still the case that one and the same (illocutionary) speech act type is performed across contexts. One who has denied this is John Turri (2010). Turri suggests a class of “alethic” speech acts, including conjecturing, asserting, and guaranteeing. The first is weaker and the third stronger than assertion. They are ranked on a so-called “credibility index” (2010: 85), depending on what degree of credibility is required by the speech act type. In contexts with different demands on credibility, different speech acts are performed. For assertion itself, the standard is invariant, it is simply knowledge. Turri uses this view to counter DeRose's argument for epistemic contextualism. The view itself, however, seems not to conform to the standard view concerning which utterances belong in the extension of ‘assertion’.

رد: Norms الخميس مارس 17, 2016 4:23 am من طرف **free men**

A more radical conclusion from the assumed normative variation has been drawn by Herman Cappelen (2011). According to Cappelen, the proper conclusion is that assertion as a speech act type doesn't exist. In Cappelen's words, the term ‘assertion’

اقتباس :: fails to pick out an act-type that we engage in and it is not a category we need in order to explain any significant component of our linguistic practice. (2011: 21)

The picture is complicated even further by the fact that many accounts recognize more than one evaluation of assertions. This is proposed by Williamson himself (2000: 256–7), who speaks of a case where it is reasonable to assert that [ltr]p[/ltr] if one reasonable believes that one knows that [ltr]p[/ltr]. He goes on to say

اقتباس :: There may be other evidential norms for assertion, if they can be derived from the knowledge rule and considerations not specific to assertion. The reasonableness of asserting[ltr][size=18]p[/ltr] when one reasonably believes that one knows [ltr]p[/ltr] has just been derived in exactly that way (Williamson 2000: 257).[/size]

The same distinction between what the norm requires and what is reasonable in its light has been drawn by DeRose. In the terminology of DeRose (2002: 180), it is known as the distinction between primary and secondary propriety. It is primarily improper but secondarily proper to assert what you reasonably believe that you know but you in fact don't. Similarly, Adler (2002: 235, 275) distinguishes between proper assertions, requiring knowledge, and warrantedassertions, requiring full belief. Equally, Turri (2014) distinguishes between good assertions, requiring knowledge, and permissible assertions, requiring reasonable belief.
In these cases, a weaker secondary norm is derived from a stronger primary norm. Others have proceeded in the opposite direction. Both Bach (2008: 77) and Frank Hindriks (2007: 403–4) derive a knowledge norm from a belief norm by means of appealing to a knowledge norm forbelief: since you should assert only what you believe and believe only what you know, you should also assert only what you know. In a somewhat similar fashion, Weiner derives a reasonable belief norm from the truth norm by appeal to Gricean cooperation: the requirement that one's utterance have some point is part and parcel of Grice's Cooperative Principle. An assertion does not satisfy this requirement just by be being true (2005: 232–8) or by being based on facts equally available to the hearer. The speaker must have additional reasons, and in some cases knowledge.
Some authors reject this distinction between primary and secondary propriety. Examples are Lackey (2007: 604), Engel (2004: 56), and Kvanvig (2011: 242). They all think that what we need is an unequivocal notion of when a speaker has acted appropriately and when not: if one has acted in an inappropriate way, then one is subject to legitimate criticism, and otherwise not.[9]
Accepting the distinction between primary and secondary propriety induces a problem for the intuitive support for the various theories. A large part of the intuitions that serve to support one or the other norm theory relies on raw intuitions about what one should or shouldn't assert in some situation, or what is proper or improper to assert there. If there are several ways an assertion can be proper or improper, then it is not easy to see what concept of propriety is being tracked by these intuitions.
Indeed, the distinction was introduced precisely in order deflect counterintuitive consequences. Several authors have objected to the knowledge norm that it is too demanding: many assertions seem not improper even in case the speaker does not know what he asserts. As noted above, Williamson discusses such cases. The idea is that a particular intuition that seems to disconfirm a particular normative theory can be explained away by saying that it does not in fact track the primary propriety, but instead only some secondary propriety. The problem with this move is that for the theory to be supported by intuitions of correctness/propriety, the application of the primary/secondary distinction should itself be based on these very intuitions. Since intuitions don't come labeled as “primary” and “secondary”, there is a risk of a substantial underdetermination of theory by data: two theorists need not agree about whether or not an intuition about a particular case supports a certain theory. Hawthorne and Stanley (2008: 585–6) remark that

اقتباس :: […] intuitions go a little hazy in any situation that some candidate normative theory says is sufficient to make it that one ought to [ltr][size=18]F[/ltr] but where, in the case described, one does not know that situation obtains.[/size]

The situation is not solved by rejecting the primary/secondary distinction. As noted, everyone agrees that assertions are governed by various norms: moral, prudential, conversational, rules of etiquette. When does an intuition track the intended notion of a proper assertion, and when something else altogether? Kvanvig (2011: 235) and Engel (2008: 52–4) have drawn attention to this situation. According to Kvanvig, intuitions typically concern whether assertions are all-things-considered appropriate. Kvanvig points out that an assertion may be all-things-considered appropriate without being appropriate from the epistemic point of view. However, although this is an important distinction, the question is how intuition does support the idea that the epistemic point of view is what is relevant.
Virtually throughout the discussion, authors have simply appealed to their own intuitions. However, this is an area where experimental philosophy would be highly relevant, since the question largely seems to concern what norms ordinary asserters accept. The situation is about to change. Recently, John Turri (2013) has published results from a series of survey studies, where the aim was to determine whether speakers accept a factive or a non-factive norm: the norm isfactive in case an assertion is proper only if what is asserted is true, otherwise non-factive. Turri reports six studies, where subjects are presented with written scenarios and are given multiple choice questions in relation to them. Turri concludes that they all showed that speakers apply a factive norm. A story character Maria has strong evidence for a proposition [ltr]p[/ltr], but knows that the evidence is inconclusive (an inventory that is only almost complete). In one particular case, the evidence is misleading, and subjects are asked whether Maria “should” assert the false but well supported proposition. A clear majority answer no. However, when given a choice between alternatives of what to say in the same evidential situation where it is false that [ltr]p[/ltr] (Experiment 4), almost as many answer prefer “[ltr]p[/ltr]” or “probably [ltr]p[/ltr]” as prefer “probably not [ltr]p[/ltr]”, “not [ltr]p[/ltr]”, or “definitely not [ltr]p[/ltr]”. Furthermore, when asked to evaluate an assertion in a situation of blameless mistake, where the speaker had every reason to expect the evidence not to be misleading (Experiment 5), the outcome was also not straightforward. With respect to the question “Is there a sense in which it is incorrect for Robert to make the statement?”, a little more than half answered no. These results indicate that it is not so clear exactly what properties the subjects' intuitions track, nor to what extent there is intersubjective agreement. Further studies may help to clarify the picture.
In addition to direct intuitions about propriety, proponents of the knowledge norm have adduced indirect evidence in the form of intuitions about conversational patterns, claiming that these patterns are best explained by the acceptance of the knowledge norm. Williamson himself appeals to such patterns, two of which concern utterances of like

(35)It is raining, but I don't know that it is raining.
(36)Your ticket did not win.

Concerning the first, it is claimed (Williamson 2000: 253) that an utterance of (35) is as odd as ordinary belief-related Moorean sentences such as (24) above. The oddity is explained by appeal to the knowledge norm. If the assertion is proper, the speaker knows that the proposition expressed by (35) is true. Since knowledge distributes over conjunction, she knows that it is raining and she knows that she does not know that it is raining. As knowledge is factive, since she knows that she does not know that it is raining, she does not know that it is raining. So we have a contradiction. Hence, the assumption that the assertion is proper leads, on the knowledge account, to a contradiction. An assertion that cannot be proper is odd. Since the oddity is explained by the knowledge account, it supports the knowledge account.
(36) is imagined uttered by speaker A in the following situation. The draw of a (fair) lottery with a large number of tickets has been held. It is known that only one ticket wins. B has a ticket, but neither A nor B knows the result. A asserts (36) on merely probabilistic grounds. The probability that the ticket has won is very low (and one can get it arbitrarily low, short of zero, by increasing the number of tickets in the lottery). According to the argument, an assertion of (36) in such a case is intuitively incorrect. According to Williamson (2000: 246–49), A is criticizable, since Arepresented himself as having an authority for the assertion which he lacked. The conclusion is that only knowledge provides proper warrant, since no probability short of 1 escapes the criticism for lack of authority. Hence, the knowledge account explains the unacceptability of A's utterance.
Both arguments have been criticized by a number of authors. The most common line is that the data can be equally well or better explained by other competing accounts, extraneous principles, or a combination of these. For instance, Kvanvig (2009: 149–50) presents a derivation to show that the oddity of (35) can be explained by appeal to a justification norm. Similarly, Douven (2009), with respect to his rational belief account. According to Stanley (2008), since the certainty norm requires more than just knowledge, everything that can be explained by appeal to the knowledge norm can also be explained by appeal to the certainty norm. Others have pointed to the general pragmatic/rhetorical infelicity of (35) as a fact extraneous to norms of assertion, including Douven (2006: 474–5), Maitra & Weatherson (2010: 110), and Cappelen (2011: 38–40). Maitra and Weatherson claim that there need be nothing wrong with first asserting that [ltr]p[/ltr], and later, in response to a question, deny that one knows that [ltr]p[/ltr], but without retracting the assertion. What is strange is just conjoining the two statements. The opposite view on the matter was taken by Paolo Casalegno (2009: 246).

رد: Norms الخميس مارس 17, 2016 4:24 am من طرف **free men**

Concerning the lottery example (36), Weiner (2005: 236) explains the apparent unacceptability of the utterance by appeal to Grice's maxim of Manner: putting it categorically, as in (36), instead of in terms of high probability, legitimizes the inference that A has more information than what was known before the draw. Kvanvig (2009: 156) claims that the oddity is explained by the justification account, since for a belief to be justified, in Kvanvig's sense, requires that there is no need of further investigation. This is a condition that is not met for the utterance of (36) in the lottery scenario. In lotteries, you always have to wait for the draw in order to close the inquiry.
Further conversational patterns have been adduced in favor of the knowledge norm, by Williamson and others. For an overview, see Turri (2014: 565–6). A general problem with the appeal to conversational patterns is that they don't seem to favor specifically normative views over corresponding non-normative views. For instance, it appears that any linguistic phenomenon that can be explained by appeal to a knowledge norm can be equally well explained by appeal to the view that asserters represent themselves as knowing what they say (although there is no norm). Combine this with extraneous, non-assertion-specific norms. That A's utterance of (36) is bad can then be explained by appeal to self-representation of knowledge, together with the general moral norm that it is wrong the mislead hearers, for instance by representing oneself as having knowledge.
Let's finally turn to the question of the normative status of the proposed norms. In much of the literature, this question is not touched upon, but when it is, authors tend to favor the idea that the norm is constitutive of assertion. Williamson himself (2000: 238–41) is an example, and so areStanley (2008: 52), Rescorla (2009: 99–101), Kölbel (2010: 109–11), and MacFarlane (2014: 101–2). Typically, norms of assertion are held to be constitutive of assertion as a speech act type as rules of a game define the game and are constitutive of game action types. Thus, proponents take their preferred norms of assertion to have properties (N1)–(N4) above (by contrast, Dummett's view (1976: 89) was that convention settles what warrants assertion in a community).
Against the constitutivity claim, Pagin (2011) has argued that insofar as there are norms of assertion, their status among speakers do not much resemble rules of games. Firstly, players of a game rarely disagree about what the rules of the game are. If there is a disagreement, it is settled either by appeal to a generally recognized authority, such as a rule-book, or by stipulation, if it concerns a new case to be covered by rules. We don't find players appealing to intuition or the oddity of certain conversational patterns to convince each other of claims about what the rulesare. By contrast, in the literature on norms of assertion itself, (as is evident from the presentation above) authors disagree widely about what the norm is, and they appeal to both intuition and linguistic arguments to support their own view. It seems that these authors, and perhaps speakers in general, find it easier to agree about whether an utterance was an assertion than about whether it was or was not proper.
Secondly, for a constituted game action type, like castling in chess, to be performable at all, the rules of chess must by some decision be in force; if the rules of chess are not in force for a person at a particular time, her moving two pieces of wood at that time does not constitute castling (cf. Pagin 1987: Chpt. 3; Glüer & Pagin 1999). But this again seems very unlike the relation of norms to assertion. It does not seem that an utterance is recognizable as an assertionin virtue of a decision to regard it as subject to this or that norm. Rather, it seems that recognizing an utterance as an assertion precedes seeing it as subject to evaluation.
Maitra (2011) also criticizes the game analogy. Maitra claims that proposed norms fail to be properly constitutive:

اقتباس :: By contrast, neither the knowledge nor the truth norm tells us what it is to assert something. Rather, they each assume that there is something that counts as asserting, and tell us at what an asserter ought to be aiming when performing the speech act (Maitra 2011: 282).

According to Maitra, the reason for this failure on the part of the truth and knowledge norms is that they don't tell us what counts as asserting. They cannot be rewritten in that format either, because that would leave them incomplete. If we try “A speaker asserts [ltr]p[/ltr] when he utters a sentence appropriately related to [ltr]p[/ltr] and is criticizable for not knowing [ltr]p[/ltr]”, this leaves out a required specification of the kind of criticizability at issue (2011: 282, note 12). We might add a specification of this as well, but as I have understood Maitra, this information was supposed to be provided by the norm itself, and if it doesn't, the game analogy is of no help. A similar point, that we don't get the relevant specific notion of correctness from the general concept of a rule, is argued in Pagin (1987: Chpt. 2).
Finally, there is a fundamental question that is not discussed at all: In virtue of what is a norm of assertion in force for a speaker or a speech community, if it is in force? Is it because of a collective acceptance? If so, it must be tacit, and, because of the wide disagreement among theorists, usually not accessible to introspection. Is it because of some metaphysical fact that assertions are essentially governed by this or that norm whenever they are performed, and whatever speakers think about it? That would indeed make sense of the debate, since it can be construed as an investigation into normative reality. But there remains a question of what influence normative reality has on linguistic practice. Probably none, or at best a pretty haphazard one, judging from the disagreement. Is it perhaps something internal to each speaker, and not intersubjectively shared? That can explain the differences among the participants in the debate. But it is hard to square this with the assumption that we share a practice of making and understanding assertions. If you and I accept different norms, then I simply misapply my norm to your utterances when interpreting them, and consequently systematically misinterpret your utterances. But for all we can tell, this does not generally seem to happen. All in all, the norm approach to assertion seems to have rather many challenges.

» Intuitions, Norms, Experiments
» Morality as linked to norms for responses to behavior

Norms

6.1 Conventions

6.2 Norms of assertion

Norms :: تعاليق

Norms

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