Communication, Similarity, and Recalcitrant Underdetermination

Víctor M. Verdejo (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)

The next meeting of the Sign-Language-Reality seminar in the academic year 2024/25 will take place:   Thursday, the 27th of February 2025, 17.00, Central European Time   Victor Verdejo (Pompeu Fabra University)   will deliver a talk: Communication, Similarity, and Recalcitrant Underdetermination (joint work with Valantine Simpson)   Abstract: It is increasingly acknowledged that, in a wide range of cases,
speakers of a language cannot determine the proposition expressed by the
utterance of a sentence in a particular context. Underdetermination has been
invoked to cast doubt on a standard picture of communication and testimonial
knowledge. While there are epistemic and metaphysical versions of the problem,
in this paper, we argue that the most pressing challenge is to show how
communication actually often succeeds despite its recalcitrant character.
Against a dominant convergentist strategy, we develop the suggestion that
communication succeeds in the face of recalcitrant underdetermination when
determinable propositional types bring together divergent but similar
determinate propositions.   The seminar will be held online, to join the meeting, please use the information below: Join Zoom Meeting   https://uw-edu-pl.zoom.us/j/92716044372?pwd=0l7PETAOwqQDBKTMCnheYQN7ag7zx1.1 Meeting ID: 927 1604 4372
Passcode: 697648   The meeting opens at 4:45 pm, the talk starts at 5 pm