Pragmatist Pragmatics: the Functional Context of Utterances

Abstract

structure, to be admired in its elegance; it is used for various purposes, and these purposes are always in some practical context. Barwise and Perry never mention pragmatics directly, however they do distinguish between meaning and interpretation. It is useful to compare this to Kaplan’s (1979) approach. On Kaplan’s approach we can retain traditional formal semantics for the content. The real problem is in identifying the full content of a particular utterance of ‘Julia is here now’, given all of the pragmatic factors. Formalist (typically model-theoretic) approaches to both semantics and pragmatics depend on the assumption that the primary function of language is representation. The presupposition is contained in the very use of model theory itself, in which the only consideration for truth is satisfaction. This can be seen in how Kaplan distinguishes between character and content. The character is the standard use of the terms in the statement, whereas the statement’s content is the proposition it expresses in its context of utterance. The character is a function from terms and contexts to contents, and the content is a function from contents (propositions) to truth-values. In both cases what matters are just the logical entailments: as in all formal approaches. In the Julia case, for example, we have a constant and two variables, one for ‘here’ and the other for ‘now’. The possible range of the ‘here’ variable would be places, and the possible range of ‘now’ variables would be times. This approach should not be unfamiliar to anyone working in theoretical linguistics, in which “Montague grammars” have wide currency. The problem we pointed out in section 2 is that ‘here’ need not refer to a place at all, so we must expand the range of the ‘here’ variable. It might be argued that our example makes unconventional use of the word ‘here’. This may be correct, but as we will discuss later, we do not think that this can be a satisfactory response. For now we continue with the explication of Kaplan’s view. Kaplan pointed out that on his account there are at least two distinct types of logical necessity: analyticity and metaphysical necessity. The two forms can come in all possible combinations. He gives the following example of an analytic but metaphysically contingent sentence: ‘I am here now’. This sentence is a variant on our Julia example, except that all referring terms are indexical. Because of the characters of the terms involved, the sentence is true whenever it is uttered (barring the possibility that unconventional meanings have been assigned). Yet the sentence is clearly not necessarily true, since I can conceive of circumstances under which I might not have been here now, for example, if I had been called to a meeting. The analyticity of ‘I am here now’ together with its metaphysical contingency depends on the fact that its components are indexicals: their interpretation depends on the context of utterance. On Kaplan’s approach, the semantic part is in the content, whereas the pragmatic part is in the character. However, Kaplan’s account of character is also modeltheoretic, and the only consideration is satisfaction. ‘I am here now’ is analytic since it is always satisfied when it is uttered, according to the account. In this general way, the possibilities of filling in the character function determine the entailments among characters. When something is true by meaning alone, on Kaplan’s account, it is true under all possible values of the character. This is similar, but different to the notion of content (a proposition) being necessary if it is true on every interpretation. In particular, as we have seen, the content of ‘I am here now’ is rarely if ever true on every interpretation. As we have seen in the Julia example, however, there is much more to say about what an utterance of the sentence ‘Julia is here now’ means than merely that the sentence’s character is satisfied: there are many ways in which it can be satisfied and, as we argued above, extralinguistic factors are involved in the evaluation of its content. The same arguments apply, mutatis mutandis, if Julia says ‘I am here now.’ This suggests, as we have argued, that formal pragmatics, though perhaps part of the story, cannot be the whole story in determining the meaning of an utterance. It might be argued that we could give the character of ‘Julia is here now’ such a broad range of possible values that all possible values are taken into consideration, and that the character can still be used to give the meaning of any particular utterance. The problem with this move is that it isn’t at all clear that there is any suitably delimitable set of parameters for the character. Again, the indeterminacy of formal approaches runs up against the wall of reality. Whereas on Kaplan’s approach meaning is associated with character, a function from linguistic forms and contexts to contents, meaning for Barwise and Perry is a relation between utterances (a kind of situation) and described situations, constrained systematically, such that the first carries information about the second. Interpretation, for them, applies to further determination of situations by a particular utterance, the determination often including circumstances in the actual world. Kaplan, however, retains traditional semantics in his content function, which is the closest thing to interpretation as used by Barwise and Perry. So, Barwise and Perry use situation semantics to deal with both aspects of meaning, just as Kaplan uses some version of models. The main difference is that models are abstract by nature, whereas situations are real. Abstract situations, which are useful for understanding abstract concepts and general meanings, are grounded in relations, individuals and locations, which are in turn grounded in real situations. So meaning, for Barwise and Perry, ultimately resides in the world. We agree with this move, but we want to retain the advantages of traditional semantics. Barwise and Perry (1983) make what Kaplan’s character is intended to deal with a problem of semantics, but since Peirce this has been more often considered a problem in the realm of pragmatics. There may be shortcomings with Kaplan’s account of content, but we will take it for granted for now that formal semantics is possible. There is a reason for doing this. The problem of formalizability, as we have been characterizing it, depends on the function of language. Function is inextricably tied to action. The etymology of ‘pragmatic’ stems from ‘praxis’, which refers to action. This is at least a prima facie reason for trying to 11 It would be necessarily true only for a necessary being that can make such statements. 12 In particular, when Julia says ‘I am here now’ in the technological context described in section 2, she means that she is ready to communicate. That statement might not be true, since she might falsely believe she is connected when she is not. In that case, what she means is simply not true, no matter what she believes. It is useful to compare this with Putnam’s claims about the necessary falsity of ‘I am a brain in a vat’ (Collier 1990). place aspects that vary according to the function of particular utterances into pragmatics rather than semantics. Model theoretic semantics has been proven to be a good tool for studying entailments, if we assume that we have picked out the correct propositions. Furthermore, replacing formal semantics is a very radical move that should have benefits that cannot be obtained otherwise. So, we will assume that the problems that Barwise and Perry raise can be dealt with by modifying pragmatics, not semantics. With this assumption we turn to examining the implications for pragmatics of Barwise and Perry’s evidence that formal approaches to language aren’t adequate (Barwise and Perry 1983: Chapter 2). Their classification of the evidence cuts across, to some extent, the standard parts of pragmatics: indexicality, illocutionary force, and implicature. This cross-classification presents some theoretical problems for pragmatics that are beyond the scope of this paper. The best we can hope for here is a general argument to the effect that a justifiable informal pragmatics can account for Barwise and Perry’s evidence. The six problems that Barwise and Perry claim cannot be solved by formal means are: 1. External significance of language: language is used to convey information about the world, and any aspect of language that can achieve this is a functional aspect of language. 2. Productivity of language: Principle of Composibility. 3. Efficiency of language, indexicality – exploitation of the discourse situation, speaker connections and reference, exploitation of resource situations. 4. Perspectival relativity of language: available resources depend on perspective. 5. Ambiguity of language: an expression can have more than one meaning. 6. Mental significance of language: utterances carry information both about the world and about the mental states of their speaker. Of these, 1 and 3 are most directly significant to our project, and also suggest most directly that the primary function of language is not to represent, as in the traditional view, but to convey information. Ambiguity and productivity depend partly on efficiency, and partly on perspectival relativity, which in turn depends on efficiency. Indexicality is a primary case of efficiency, and it and other context dependent aspects of language extend the notion in ways that cannot be formally delimited. In particular, illocutionary force can alter the literal or denotative information of an utterance so that it can mean almost anything, as we saw in considering the utterance 'Lovely weather we're having'. Even the simplest statements will have more force than their denotation through what is commonly called connotation. At the very least, any utterance tells us things about the speaker's mental state that are not con