Publication details
Legitimita závazků připsaných mluvčímu: Retroaktivní aplikace inferenčních pravidel
| Title in English | The legitimacy of commitments ascribed to a speaker: Retroactive application of inferential rules |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2021 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | When interpreting a speech, we must choose a frame of reference by which we will interpret the speech. In the philosophy of language, there are different views on what the framework should be, whether it is the intention of the author, linguistic context, pragmatic context, truth, etc. In my contribution, I will not focus on choosing a specific privileged context, but I want to impose a general requirement. I believe that the context must be legitimate. The criterion of legitimacy must also be met by the attribution of commitments to speakers in language games, namely in a game of giving and asking for reasons. Legitimacy is closely related to the temporal aspect of understanding and the difference between the time of speech and the time of its interpretation. It seems illegitimate to ascribe to the speaker commitments established on the basis of later rules, i.e. on the basis of their retroactive application. I will present my argument on contemporary inferentialism, specifically Brandom, who was chosen because he explicitly uses normative terms, in particular rule, obligation and responsibility, which are commonly used in connection with the category of legitimacy. To present the thesis, I will use Brandom's own example of the Queen’s shilling, which shows the practice of attributing commitments to a person who does not know about the origin of her commitment. I argue that responsibility cannot be attributed on any rule, but only on one that is legitimate in the spokesperson's situation. To the speaker cannot then be ascribed an commitment (meaning, content of the concept), based on a rule she could not know. |
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