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Force Cancellation

DOI:10.1007/s11229-016-1223-9
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Francois Recanati at Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris
Francois Recanati
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Abstract

Peter Hanks and Scott Soames both defend pragmatic solutions to the problem of the unity of the proposition. According to them, what ties together Tim and baldness in the singular proposition expressed by ‘Tim is bald’ is an act of the speaker (or thinker) : the act of predicating baldness of Tim. But Soames construes that act as force neutral and noncommittal while, for Hanks, it is inherently assertive and committal. Hanks answers the Frege–Geach challenge by arguing that, in complex sentences, the force inherent in the content of an embedded sentence is cancelled. Indrek Reiland has recently objected to Hanks’s proposal that it faces a dilemma: either force cancellation dissolves the unity of the proposition secured by the cancelled act of assertion (and Hanks’s proposal does not work), or Hanks’s proposal reduces to Soames’s. In this paper, I respond to Reiland by offering an analysis of force cancellation which gets rid of the alleged dilemma. The proposal is based on a set of distinctions from speech act theory : between two senses of ’force’, two types of act, and two types of context. The role of simulation in force cancellation is emphasized, and connections drawn to broader issues such as the evolution of complex language.
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Synthese (2019) 196:1403–1424
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1223-9
S.I.: UNITY OF STRUCTURED PROPOSITIONS
Force cancellation
François Recanati1
Received: 27 November 2015 / Accepted: 15 September 2016 / Published online: 7 October 2016
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016
Abstract Peter Hanks and Scott Soames both defend pragmatic solutions to the prob-
lem of the unity of the proposition. According to them, what ties together Tim and
baldness in the singular proposition expressed by ‘Tim is bald’ is an act of the speaker
(or thinker) : the act of predicating baldness of Tim. But Soames construes that act
as force neutral and noncommittal while, for Hanks, it is inherently assertive and
committal. Hanks answers the Frege–Geach challenge by arguing that, in complex
sentences, the force inherent in the content of an embedded sentence is cancelled.
Indrek Reiland has recently objected to Hanks’s proposal that it faces a dilemma:
either force cancellation dissolves the unity of the proposition secured by the can-
celled act of assertion (and Hanks’s proposal does not work), or Hanks’s proposal
reduces to Soames’s. In this paper, I respond to Reiland by offering an analysis of
force cancellation which gets rid of the alleged dilemma. The proposal is based on
a set of distinctions from speech act theory : between two senses of ’force’, two
types of act, and two types of context. The role of simulation in force cancellation is
emphasized, and connections drawn to broader issues such as the evolution of complex
language.
Keywords Unity of the proposition ·Illocutionary force ·Locutionary act ·
Polyphony ·Echoic uses ·Cancellation ·Frege–Geach problem ·Embedding ·
Simulation ·Language and theory of mind
BFrançois Recanati
frecanati@gmail.com
1Institut Jean Nicod, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 29 rue d’Ulm, 75005 Paris, France
123
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