Bullshit, trust, and evidence

IF 1.8 2区文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS

Intercultural Pragmatics Pub Date : 2021-10-21 DOI:10.1515/ip-2021-5003

A. Briciu

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引用次数: 2

Abstract

Abstract It has become almost a cliché to say that we live in a post-truth world; that people of all trades speak with an indifference to truth. Speaking with an indifference to how things really are is famously regarded by Harry Frankfurt as the essence of bullshit. This paper aims to contribute to the philosophical and theoretical pragmatics discussion of bullshit. The aim of the paper is to offer a new theoretical analysis of what bullshit is, one that is more encompassing than Frankfurt’s original characterization. I part ways with Frankfurt in two points. Firstly, I propose that we should not analyze bullshit in intentional terms (i.e. as indifference). Secondly, I propose that we should not analyze it in relation to truth. Roughly put, I propose that bullshit is best characterized as speaking with carelessness toward the evidence for one’s conversational contribution. I bring forward, in the third section, a battery of examples that motivate this characterization. Furthermore, I argue that we can analyze speaking with carelessness toward the evidence in Gricean terms as a violation of the second Quality maxim. I argue that the Quality supermaxim, together with its subordinate maxims, demand that the speaker is truthful (contributes only what she believes to be true) and reliable (has adequate evidence for her contribution). The bullshitter’s main fault lies in being an unreliable interlocutor. I further argue that we should interpret what counts as adequate evidence, as stipulated by the second Quality Maxim, in contextualist terms: the subject matter and implicit epistemic standards determine how much evidence one needs in order to have adequate evidence. I contrast this proposed reading with a subjectivist interpretation of what counts as having adequate evidence and show that they give different predictions. Finally, working with a classic distinction, I argue that we should not understand bullshit as a form of deception but rather as a form of misleading speech.

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胡扯，信任，还有证据

说我们生活在一个后真相的世界几乎已经成为一种陈词滥调;各行各业的人都对真理漠不关心。哈里·法兰克福(Harry Frankfurt)认为，对事情的真实情况漠不关心是一种著名的废话。本文旨在对“胡说”的哲学和理论语用学讨论做出贡献。这篇论文的目的是提供一种新的理论分析，来解释什么是扯淡，这种分析比法兰克福最初的描述更具包容性。我在两点上与法兰克福分道扬镳。首先，我建议我们不应该以有意的方式(即冷漠)来分析废话。其次，我建议我们不应该把它与真理联系起来分析。粗略地说，我认为胡扯最好的特征是对自己谈话贡献的证据漫不经心地说话。在第三部分，我提出了一系列的例子来激发这种特征。此外，我认为，我们可以把对格里塞语中的证据的粗心大意分析为违反第二质量准则。我认为，品质至上准则及其从属准则要求讲话者是真实的(只发表她认为正确的言论)和可靠的(有足够的证据证明她的言论)。扯淡者的主要缺点在于他是一个不可靠的对话者。我进一步认为，我们应该用语境主义的术语来解释什么是充分的证据，正如第二条质量准则所规定的那样:主题和隐含的认知标准决定了一个人需要多少证据才能获得充分的证据。我将这一建议的解读与一种主观主义的解读进行对比，这种主观主义的解读认为什么是有充分证据的，并表明它们给出了不同的预测。最后，根据一个经典的区别，我认为我们不应该把胡扯理解为一种欺骗，而应该理解为一种误导性的言论。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Intercultural Pragmatics Multiple-

CiteScore

3.10

自引率

36.40%

发文量

期刊介绍： Intercultural Pragmatics is a fully peer-reviewed forum for theoretical and applied pragmatics research. The goal of the journal is to promote the development and understanding of pragmatic theory and intercultural competence by publishing research that focuses on general theoretical issues, more than one language and culture, or varieties of one language. Intercultural Pragmatics encourages ‘interculturality’ both within the discipline and in pragmatic research. It supports interaction and scholarly debate between researchers representing different subfields of pragmatics including the linguistic, cognitive, social, and interlanguage paradigms. The intercultural perspective is relevant not only to each line of research within pragmatics but also extends to several other disciplines such as anthropology, theoretical and applied linguistics, psychology, communication, sociolinguistics, second language acquisition, and bi- and multilingualism. Intercultural Pragmatics makes a special effort to cross disciplinary boundaries. What we primarily look for is innovative approaches and ideas that do not always fit into existing paradigms, and lead to new ways of thinking about language. Intercultural Pragmatics has always encouraged the publication of theoretical papers including linguistic and philosophical pragmatics that are very important for research in intercultural pragmatics.