Philosophy
Part II Philosophical Logic: Indexicals and Context-Dependence
This is the web page for the Philosophy Part II course ‘Indexicals and Context Dependence’ given by Richard Holton at the University of Cambridge, Michaelmas term 2020. This page will provide links to papers and other texts that may be useful and to pdf versions of the handouts. If you have suggestions or comments, please let me know by emailing me at rjh221@cam.ac.uk
We will examine recent work on idexicality and context dependence, showing how considerations originating in the philosophy of language have come to be applied to very wide variety of philosophical issues.
The class will take place on Zoom, on Mondays at 1.00 pm, starting 12th October 2020. I will send out Zoom invitations using the Cambridge Moodle site, so if you are a Cambridge student interested in coming ensure that you are registered for the course. To ensure that we get some real discussion there, please read the primary readings beforehand. I will keep them fairly short.
Lecture 1: Two Converging Themes within Pragmatics: Indexicals and Conversational Score
Primary
- David Kaplan, 'On the Logic of Demonstratives', Journal of Philosophical Logic Vol. 8, No. 1 (Jan., 1979), pp. 81-98. (We'll be focussing on the initial discursive discussion, not on the logic.)
- David Lewis, 'Scorekeeping in a Language Game', Journal of Philosophical Logic Vol. 8, No. 1 (Jan., 1979), pp. 339-359.
Secondary
Lecture 2: Two Dimensional Semantics and its Applications
Primary
- Laura Schroeder, 'Two Dimensional Semantics' Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Secondary
Lecture 3: Possibility, Knowledge
Primary
- David Lewis, 'Elusive Knowledge', Australasian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 74, (1996)
- Angelika Kratzer, 'What 'Must' and 'Can' Must and Can Mean',
Secondary
- John Hawthorn, Knowledge and Lotteries
Lecture 4: Some Moral and Political Applications
Primary
- Rae Langton, 'Speech acts and unspeakable acts.', Philosophy and Public Affairs Vol. 22, (1993)
- Ishani Maitra, 'Subordinating Speech', Maitra nd McGowan (eds.) Speech and Harm
- Quill Kukla, 'Performative Force, Convention, and
Discursive Injustice', Hypatia Vol. 29, (2014)