In defense of Unarticulated Constituents in the Lekton

NICOLÁS FRANCISCO LO GUERCIO

Fortaleza

Congreso; II Congreso de la Sociedad Brasilera de Filosofía Analítica; 2012

Sociedad Brasilera de Filosofía Analítica

<!-- @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; direction: ltr; color: #000000; widows: 0; orphans: 0 } P.western { font-family: "Liberation Serif", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; so-language: es-AR } P.cjk { font-family: "WenQuanYi Micro Hei", "MS Mincho"; font-size: 12pt; so-language: zh-CN } P.ctl { font-family: "Lohit Hindi", "MS Mincho"; font-size: 12pt; so-language: hi-IN } A:link { so-language: zxx } --> In Persectival thought, Recanati argues extensively against the Externality Principle defended by Perry. This principle is a criterion for the inclusion of contextual elements either as unarticulated constituents of content or as parameters in the circumstances of evaluation. Mainly, in order to be part of the circumstances of evaluation, the element must be contributed by the external environment rather than cognitively discriminated. Recanati acknowledges two main arguments favoring this principle and presents some objections to them. In this paper I will show that his arguments in this direction are misled. Hence, the idea of unarticulated constituents of the Lekton stillstands. The mental representation argument points that, whenever the relevant parameter is not fixed by the context but by the speaker?s intentions and beliefs, it must be articulated in the belief related to the utterance, and mainly, in the belief constituting the content it expresses. Thus, it is part of the utterance?s explicit content even when it is not linguistically represented: it is an unarticulated constituent of content. Recanati rejects this piece of reasoning arguing that is not necessary for the speaker that mentally represents the parameter to do it as part of the belief that is the content of the utterance: the speaker could represent the parameter in other associated beliefs. So, a parameter can be part of the circumstances of evaluation and nevertheless be cognitively discriminated. Even if this is so, I claim that it is not enough for rejecting the idea of unarticulated constituents in the lekton: there are, plausibly, many cases where the parameter is, in fact, represented in the belief expressed by the utterance. That fact, together with the acceptance of ?the assumption that the content of an utterance is the same as that of the belief it expresses? (Recanati, 2007: pp. 226) is enough to maintain the idea of unarticulated constituents. The second argument appeals to invariance: whenever a parameter relevant to the truth-conditions of an utterance is invariant it goes into the circumstances of evaluation and the utterance expresses a propositional function whose truth value obtains when applied to that circumstances. Now, for Perry, invariance covers also the cases of parametric invariance, that is, cases where the value of the parameter shift in accordance to a fixed relation to the context. Keeping that in mind, Recanati argues that examples like Perry?s Murdock case can easily be explained as cases of parametric invariance, therefore, as cases where the parameter goes into the circumstances of evaluation: sometimes we use ?It is raining? to talk about the place we are in and sometimes to talk about other places. The latter is the Murdock case, Recanati claims, and the relevant parameter is ?the place one is talking about?, fixed by cognitive factors. Now, one may ask, what settles the relevant mode of discourse (to talk about the place I´m in versus to talk about other places)? The answer seems unavoidable: the speaker?s intentions. But if the relevant mode of discourse can shift freely according to the speaker´s intentions, then there is no parametric invariance but free shiftability. Hence, the Externality principle stands.