SEMINAR ON RETRACTION
Tuesdays, 12.00-13.30 (CET)
Online
This is a biweekly seminar pertaining to my project Semantic Relativism about Perspectival Expressions: A Reassessment and Defense
(OPUS 17 project no. 2019/33/B/HS1/01269) that focuses on the phenomenon of retraction (i.e., the act of "taking back" a previous assertion, due to a change in perspective, to adopting a different standard etc.) and on arguments based on it, mostly found in the debate between contextualism and relativism about the so-called "perspectival expressions" (predicates of taste, aesthetic adjectives, moral terms, epistemic modals etc.).
The meetings are dedicated to reading and discussing classic papers on retraction, as well as recent ones - both purely theoretical and experimental. In addition, authors of new papers/work-in-progress will discuss their material with us (subject to availability). Once we have covered the basics, we will also read papers that depart from the usual discussion in semantics and address retraction from other directions (pragmatics, speech act theory etc.).
Schedule and readings
The seminar takes place on every other TUESDAY, from 12.00 to 14.00 (Warsaw time).
Here's the schedule and reading list:
November 10
Patrick Shirreff & Brian Weatherson, "Relativism", in B. Hale, C. Wright & A. Miller (Eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Language, Blackwell, pp. 787-803, 2017.
Max Kölbel, "Relativism 2: Semantic Content", Philosophy Compass, 10, 1, 52-67, 2015.
November 24
John MacFarlane, Assessment Sensitivity: Relative Truth and Its Applications. Oxford University Press, 2014, chapter 5.
Filippo Ferrari, "Assessment-Sensitivity". Analysis, 76, 4, 516-527, 2016.
December 8
John MacFarlane, "Epistemic Modals are Assessment-Sensitive", in A. Egan & B. Weatherson (Eds.), Epistemic Modality, Oxford University Press, pp. 144-178, 2011.
December 15
Kai von Fintel & Anthony Gillies, "CIA Leaks", Philosophical Review, 117, 1, 77-98, 2007.
January 19
Teresa Marques, "Retractions", Synthese, 195, 3335–3359, 2018.
January 26
Julia Zakkou, "Denial and Retraction: A Challenge for Theories of Taste Predicates", Synthese, 196, 1555-1573, 2019.
February 9
FIlippo Ferrari & Dan Zeman, "Radical Relativism, Retraction and ‘Being at Fault’", in F. Bacchini, S. Caputo & M. Dell’Utri (Eds.), New Frontiers in Truth, CSP, pp. 80-102, 2014.
Crispin Wright, "Alethic Relativism and Faultless Disagreement", in A. Coliva (Ed.), Mind, Meaning and Knowledge. Themes from the Philosophy of Crispin Wright, Oxford University Press, pp. 435-449, 2012.
February 23
Diana Raffman, "Relativism, Retraction, and Evidence", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 92, 1, 171-178, 2016.
Janice Dowell, "A Flexible Contextualist Account of Epistemic Modals", Philosophers' Imprint, 11, 14, 1-25, 2011.
March 9
Joshua Knobe & Seth Yalcin, "Epistemic Modals and Context: Experimental Data", Semantics and Pragmatics, 7, 1-21, 2014.
Andy Egan, "Epistemic Modals, Relativism and Assertion", Philosophical Studies, 133, 1, 1-22.
May 4
Markus Kneer, "Predicates of Personal Taste: Empirical Data", Synthese.
May 18
Laura Caponetto, "Undoing Things with Words", Synthese 197, 2399–2414, 2020.
June 1
Teresa Marques, "Falsity and Retraction: New Experimental Data on Epistemic Modals", unpublished manuscript.
June 16
Quill Kukla & Dan Steinberg, "'I Really Didn’t Say Everything I Said': The Pragmatics of Retraction", in L. Townsend, P. Stovall & H. B. Schmid (Eds.), The Social Institution of Discursive Norms. Historical, Naturalistic, and Pragmatic Perspectives, pp. 223-247. Routledge.