On unidirectionality in precisification
Peter Klecha - Personal Name
This paper provides a formal pragmatic analysis of (im)precision which
accounts for its essential properties, but also for Lewis’s (J Philos Logic 8(1):339–
359, 1979) observation of asymmetry in how standards of precision may shift due to
normal discourse move Only up not down I propose that shifts of the kind observed
and discussed by Lewis are in fact cases of underlying disagreement about the standard
of precision which is only revealed when one interlocutor uses an expression which
signals their adherence to a higher standard than the one adhered to by the other
interlocutor(s). This paper shows that a modest formal pragmatic analysis along the
lines of many prior optimality - theoretic and game-theoretic accounts can easily capture
the natural asymmetry in standard-signaling that gives rise to Lewiss observation so
long as such an account is dynamic and enriched with a notion of relevance.
accounts for its essential properties, but also for Lewis’s (J Philos Logic 8(1):339–
359, 1979) observation of asymmetry in how standards of precision may shift due to
normal discourse move Only up not down I propose that shifts of the kind observed
and discussed by Lewis are in fact cases of underlying disagreement about the standard
of precision which is only revealed when one interlocutor uses an expression which
signals their adherence to a higher standard than the one adhered to by the other
interlocutor(s). This paper shows that a modest formal pragmatic analysis along the
lines of many prior optimality - theoretic and game-theoretic accounts can easily capture
the natural asymmetry in standard-signaling that gives rise to Lewiss observation so
long as such an account is dynamic and enriched with a notion of relevance.
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