Dean Pettit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (original) (raw)

Papers by Dean Pettit

Deflationists maintain that truth is not a substantive property, that a complete account of truth... more Deflationists maintain that truth is not a substantive property, that a complete account of truth does not include any account of its nature. The present paper subjects deflationism to an indirect test by considering whether it can provide an adequate account of the kindred notion of accuracy. The concept of accuracy seems to work very much like truth but applies to a broader range of representational phenomena. Very roughly, truth appears to be something like a species of accuracy. The important point for the present paper is that the notions of truth and accuracy are sufficiently alike that we should not expect them to be fundamentally different in nature, such that deflationism might hold for one but not the other. This would make it a condition of theoretical adequacy that deflationism be able to provide an adequate account of accuracy. I will suggest, moreover, that failure to provide an adequate account of accuracy would undermine the theoretical interest of deflationism about truth, since a substantive notion of accuracy can play the same theoretical role as a substantive notion of truth. It appears then that deflationism must rise to the challenge of providing an adequate account of accuracy. What I argue in the present paper is that it cannot. The discussion focuses primarily on Minimalism, the deflationist account of truth that offers the best prospect for a deflationist account of accuracy.

The meaning of ‘good’ has long been a topic of philosophical interest. Much of the philosophical ... more The meaning of ‘good’ has long been a topic of philosophical interest. Much of the philosophical literature has aimed to understand the semantics of ‘good’ within predicative and attributive constructions. In these constructions, ‘good’ has often been understood to predicate some property or concept (or family thereof), though this view has been challenged by non-cognitivists. Relatively little attention has been given to a range of syntactic constructions ‘good’ occurs in that are characteristic of modal adjectives, such as ‘necessary’ and ‘possible’. The present paper argues that these constructions are more revealing as to the semantics of ‘good’. The central thesis will be that ‘good’ is a modal adjective with a distinctive modal semantics that, rather than merely quantifying over possible worlds, sets up comparisons between worlds. This constitutes both a novel approach to the semantics of ‘good’ and a novel species of modality. The predicates ‘good’ occurs in have a derivative modal semantics that applies to objects by construing them as occupying a particular role within worlds that the semantics can compare.

The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, …, Jan 1, 2010

How do we know what other speakers say? Perhaps the most natural view is that we hear a speaker’s... more How do we know what other speakers say? Perhaps the most natural view is that we hear a speaker’s utterance and infer what was said, drawing on our competence in the syntax and semantics of the language. An alternative view that has emerged in the literature is that native speakers have a non-inferential capacity to perceive the content of speech. Call this the perceptual view. The disagreement here is best understood to be an epistemological one about whether our knowledge of what speakers say is epistemically mediated by our linguistic competence. The present paper takes up the question of how we should go about settling this issue. Arguments for the perceptual view generally appeal to the phenomenology of speech comprehension. The present paper develops a line of argument for the perceptual view that draws on evidence from empirical psychology. The evidence suggests that a speaker’s core syntactic and semantic competence is typically deployed sub-personally (e.g., by something like a module). The point is not just that the competence is tacit or unconscious, but that the person is not the locus of the competence. I argue that standing competence can enter into the grounds for knowledge only if it is subject to a certain sort of epistemic assessment that is appropriate only if the person is the locus of that competence. If the person is not the locus of a speaker’s core linguistic competence, as the psychological evidence suggests, then that competence does not enter into the grounds for our knowledge of what speakers say. If this line of argument is right, it has implications for the epistemology of perception and for our understanding of how empirical psychology bears on epistemology generally.

Mind & Language, Jan 1, 2009

A series of recent studies have shown that people's moral judgments can affect their intuitions a... more A series of recent studies have shown that people's moral judgments can affect their intuitions as to whether or not a behavior was performed intentionally. Prior attempts to explain this effect can be divided into two broad families. Some researchers suggest that the effect is due to some peculiar feature of the concept of intentional action in particular, while others suggest that the effect is a reflection of a more general tendency whereby moral judgments exert a pervasive influence on folk psychology. The present paper argues in favor of the latter hypothesis by showing that the very same effect that has been observed for intentionally also arises for deciding, in favor of, opposed to, and advocating.

Mind, Jan 1, 2002

It is a natural thought that understanding language consists in possessing knowledge—to understan... more It is a natural thought that understanding language consists in possessing knowledge—to understand a word is to know what it means. It is also natural to suppose that this knowledge is propositional knowledge—to know what a word means is to know that it means such‐and‐such. Thus it is prima facie plausible to suppose that understanding a bit of language consists in possessing propositional knowledge of its meaning. I refer to this as the epistemic view of understanding language. The theoretical appeal of this view for the philosophy of language is that it provides for an attractive account of the project of the theory of meaning. If understanding language consists in possessing propositional knowledge of the meanings of expressions, then a meaning theory amounts to a theory of what speakers know in virtue of understanding language. In this paper I argue that, despite its intuitive and theoretical appeal, the epistemic view is false. Propositional knowledge is not necessary for understanding language, not even tacit knowledge. Unlike knowledge, I argue, linguistic understanding does not fail in Gettier cases, does not require epistemic warrant and does not even require belief. The intuitions about knowledge that have been central to epistemology do not seem to hold for linguistic understanding. So unless epistemologists have been radically mistaken about what knowledge requires, knowledge is unnecessary for understanding language.

Mind, Jan 1, 2005

I want to begin by filling in a bit of the background, as I see it, before addressing the substan... more I want to begin by filling in a bit of the background, as I see it, before addressing the substance of Gross's criticisms. In Pettit (2002), I argue against the view that to understand a bit of language with a certain meaning is to know that it has that meaning, what I call the epistemic view. ...

Psychological bulletin, Jan 1, 2005

The authors examine 6 theories of panic attacks as to whether empirical approaches are capable of... more The authors examine 6 theories of panic attacks as to whether empirical approaches are capable of falsifying them and their heuristic value. The authors conclude that the catastrophic cognitions theory is least falsifiable because of the elusive nature of thoughts but that it has greatly stimulated research and therapy. The vicious circle theory is falsifiable only if the frightening internal sensations are specified. The 3-alarms theory postulates an indeterminate classification of attacks. Hyperventilation theory has been falsified. The suffocation false alarm theory lacks biological parameters that unambiguously index dyspnea or its distinction between anticipatory and panic anxiety. Some correspondences postulated between clinical phenomena and brain areas by the neuroanatomical hypothesis may be falsifiable if panic does not depend on specific thoughts. All these theories have heuristic value, and their unfalsifiable aspects are capable of modification.

Queen's Quarterly, Jan 1, 1992

My dissertation concerns the nature of linguistic understanding. A standard view about linguistic... more My dissertation concerns the nature of linguistic understanding. A standard view about linguistic understanding is that it is a propositional knowledge state. The following is an instance of this view: given a speaker S and an expression a that means M, S understand a just in case S knows that a means M. I refer to this as the epistemic view of linguistic understanding. The epistemic view would appear to be a mere conceptual truth about linguistic understanding, since it is entailed by the following two claims that themselves seem to be mere conceptual truths: (i) S understands a iff S knows what a means, and-given that a means M-(ii) S knows what a means iff S knows that a means M. I argue, however, that this is not a mere conceptual truth. Contrary to the epistemic view, propositional knowledge of the meaning of a is not necessary for understanding a. I argue that linguistic understanding does not even require belief. My positive proposal is that our understanding of language is typically realized, at least in native speakers, as a perceptual capacity. Evidence from cognitive neuropsychology suggests that our perceptual experience of language comes to us already semantically interpreted. We perceive a speaker's utterance as having content, and it is by perceiving the speaker's utterances as having the right content that we understand what the speaker says. We count as understanding language (roughly) in virtue of having this capacity to understand what speakers say when they use language. This notion of perceiving an utterance as having content gets analyzed in terms of Dretske's account of representation in terms of a teleological notion of function: you perceive a speaker's utterance as having content when the utterance produces in you a perceptual state that has a certain function in your psychology.

Mind, Jan 1, 2005

In Radical Interpretation and Indeterminacy, Timothy McCarthy undertakes an attractive project th... more In Radical Interpretation and Indeterminacy, Timothy McCarthy undertakes an attractive project that attempts to bring together two dominant themes in the philosophy of language of the last half century, which have largely been treated separately from each other. One theme ...

Queens Quarterly, Jan 1, 1992

Deflationists maintain that truth is not a substantive property, that a complete account of truth... more Deflationists maintain that truth is not a substantive property, that a complete account of truth does not include any account of its nature. The present paper subjects deflationism to an indirect test by considering whether it can provide an adequate account of the kindred notion of accuracy. The concept of accuracy seems to work very much like truth but applies to a broader range of representational phenomena. Very roughly, truth appears to be something like a species of accuracy. The important point for the present paper is that the notions of truth and accuracy are sufficiently alike that we should not expect them to be fundamentally different in nature, such that deflationism might hold for one but not the other. This would make it a condition of theoretical adequacy that deflationism be able to provide an adequate account of accuracy. I will suggest, moreover, that failure to provide an adequate account of accuracy would undermine the theoretical interest of deflationism about truth, since a substantive notion of accuracy can play the same theoretical role as a substantive notion of truth. It appears then that deflationism must rise to the challenge of providing an adequate account of accuracy. What I argue in the present paper is that it cannot. The discussion focuses primarily on Minimalism, the deflationist account of truth that offers the best prospect for a deflationist account of accuracy.

The meaning of ‘good’ has long been a topic of philosophical interest. Much of the philosophical ... more The meaning of ‘good’ has long been a topic of philosophical interest. Much of the philosophical literature has aimed to understand the semantics of ‘good’ within predicative and attributive constructions. In these constructions, ‘good’ has often been understood to predicate some property or concept (or family thereof), though this view has been challenged by non-cognitivists. Relatively little attention has been given to a range of syntactic constructions ‘good’ occurs in that are characteristic of modal adjectives, such as ‘necessary’ and ‘possible’. The present paper argues that these constructions are more revealing as to the semantics of ‘good’. The central thesis will be that ‘good’ is a modal adjective with a distinctive modal semantics that, rather than merely quantifying over possible worlds, sets up comparisons between worlds. This constitutes both a novel approach to the semantics of ‘good’ and a novel species of modality. The predicates ‘good’ occurs in have a derivative modal semantics that applies to objects by construing them as occupying a particular role within worlds that the semantics can compare.

The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, …, Jan 1, 2010

How do we know what other speakers say? Perhaps the most natural view is that we hear a speaker’s... more How do we know what other speakers say? Perhaps the most natural view is that we hear a speaker’s utterance and infer what was said, drawing on our competence in the syntax and semantics of the language. An alternative view that has emerged in the literature is that native speakers have a non-inferential capacity to perceive the content of speech. Call this the perceptual view. The disagreement here is best understood to be an epistemological one about whether our knowledge of what speakers say is epistemically mediated by our linguistic competence. The present paper takes up the question of how we should go about settling this issue. Arguments for the perceptual view generally appeal to the phenomenology of speech comprehension. The present paper develops a line of argument for the perceptual view that draws on evidence from empirical psychology. The evidence suggests that a speaker’s core syntactic and semantic competence is typically deployed sub-personally (e.g., by something like a module). The point is not just that the competence is tacit or unconscious, but that the person is not the locus of the competence. I argue that standing competence can enter into the grounds for knowledge only if it is subject to a certain sort of epistemic assessment that is appropriate only if the person is the locus of that competence. If the person is not the locus of a speaker’s core linguistic competence, as the psychological evidence suggests, then that competence does not enter into the grounds for our knowledge of what speakers say. If this line of argument is right, it has implications for the epistemology of perception and for our understanding of how empirical psychology bears on epistemology generally.

Mind & Language, Jan 1, 2009

A series of recent studies have shown that people's moral judgments can affect their intuitions a... more A series of recent studies have shown that people's moral judgments can affect their intuitions as to whether or not a behavior was performed intentionally. Prior attempts to explain this effect can be divided into two broad families. Some researchers suggest that the effect is due to some peculiar feature of the concept of intentional action in particular, while others suggest that the effect is a reflection of a more general tendency whereby moral judgments exert a pervasive influence on folk psychology. The present paper argues in favor of the latter hypothesis by showing that the very same effect that has been observed for intentionally also arises for deciding, in favor of, opposed to, and advocating.

Mind, Jan 1, 2002

It is a natural thought that understanding language consists in possessing knowledge—to understan... more It is a natural thought that understanding language consists in possessing knowledge—to understand a word is to know what it means. It is also natural to suppose that this knowledge is propositional knowledge—to know what a word means is to know that it means such‐and‐such. Thus it is prima facie plausible to suppose that understanding a bit of language consists in possessing propositional knowledge of its meaning. I refer to this as the epistemic view of understanding language. The theoretical appeal of this view for the philosophy of language is that it provides for an attractive account of the project of the theory of meaning. If understanding language consists in possessing propositional knowledge of the meanings of expressions, then a meaning theory amounts to a theory of what speakers know in virtue of understanding language. In this paper I argue that, despite its intuitive and theoretical appeal, the epistemic view is false. Propositional knowledge is not necessary for understanding language, not even tacit knowledge. Unlike knowledge, I argue, linguistic understanding does not fail in Gettier cases, does not require epistemic warrant and does not even require belief. The intuitions about knowledge that have been central to epistemology do not seem to hold for linguistic understanding. So unless epistemologists have been radically mistaken about what knowledge requires, knowledge is unnecessary for understanding language.

Mind, Jan 1, 2005

I want to begin by filling in a bit of the background, as I see it, before addressing the substan... more I want to begin by filling in a bit of the background, as I see it, before addressing the substance of Gross's criticisms. In Pettit (2002), I argue against the view that to understand a bit of language with a certain meaning is to know that it has that meaning, what I call the epistemic view. ...

Psychological bulletin, Jan 1, 2005

The authors examine 6 theories of panic attacks as to whether empirical approaches are capable of... more The authors examine 6 theories of panic attacks as to whether empirical approaches are capable of falsifying them and their heuristic value. The authors conclude that the catastrophic cognitions theory is least falsifiable because of the elusive nature of thoughts but that it has greatly stimulated research and therapy. The vicious circle theory is falsifiable only if the frightening internal sensations are specified. The 3-alarms theory postulates an indeterminate classification of attacks. Hyperventilation theory has been falsified. The suffocation false alarm theory lacks biological parameters that unambiguously index dyspnea or its distinction between anticipatory and panic anxiety. Some correspondences postulated between clinical phenomena and brain areas by the neuroanatomical hypothesis may be falsifiable if panic does not depend on specific thoughts. All these theories have heuristic value, and their unfalsifiable aspects are capable of modification.

Queen's Quarterly, Jan 1, 1992

My dissertation concerns the nature of linguistic understanding. A standard view about linguistic... more My dissertation concerns the nature of linguistic understanding. A standard view about linguistic understanding is that it is a propositional knowledge state. The following is an instance of this view: given a speaker S and an expression a that means M, S understand a just in case S knows that a means M. I refer to this as the epistemic view of linguistic understanding. The epistemic view would appear to be a mere conceptual truth about linguistic understanding, since it is entailed by the following two claims that themselves seem to be mere conceptual truths: (i) S understands a iff S knows what a means, and-given that a means M-(ii) S knows what a means iff S knows that a means M. I argue, however, that this is not a mere conceptual truth. Contrary to the epistemic view, propositional knowledge of the meaning of a is not necessary for understanding a. I argue that linguistic understanding does not even require belief. My positive proposal is that our understanding of language is typically realized, at least in native speakers, as a perceptual capacity. Evidence from cognitive neuropsychology suggests that our perceptual experience of language comes to us already semantically interpreted. We perceive a speaker's utterance as having content, and it is by perceiving the speaker's utterances as having the right content that we understand what the speaker says. We count as understanding language (roughly) in virtue of having this capacity to understand what speakers say when they use language. This notion of perceiving an utterance as having content gets analyzed in terms of Dretske's account of representation in terms of a teleological notion of function: you perceive a speaker's utterance as having content when the utterance produces in you a perceptual state that has a certain function in your psychology.

Mind, Jan 1, 2005

In Radical Interpretation and Indeterminacy, Timothy McCarthy undertakes an attractive project th... more In Radical Interpretation and Indeterminacy, Timothy McCarthy undertakes an attractive project that attempts to bring together two dominant themes in the philosophy of language of the last half century, which have largely been treated separately from each other. One theme ...

Queens Quarterly, Jan 1, 1992