Assertion and Rejection

doi:10.1017/9781108766401.022

14 - Assertion and Rejection

from Part VII - Arguing and Rejecting

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 October 2022

Julian J. Schlöder

Edited by

Daniel Altshuler

Show author details

Daniel Altshuler: Affiliation:
University of Oxford

Book contents

Get access

Summary

I argue that rejection cannot be reduced to assertion. Adapting an observation by Huw Price, I argue that rejection is best conceived of as the speech act that is used to register that some other speech act is (or would be) violating a rule of the conversation game. This can be understood as registering norm violations where speech acts are characterized by their essential norms. However, rejection itself cannot be characterized by a norm. Instead, registering violations is a necessary condition for grasping the conversation game. The core observation is that the concept of an ‘illegal move’ is intelligible, so a speech act can be (say) an assertion, despite violating the essential norm of asserting. Rejection has the function of pointing out that a move is illegal. Registering rule violations is a precondition of playing games with rules (it is part of the concept ‘game’), not itself a rule in a game. A similar special role of rejection (that it is not explicable in the terms provided by a conceptual framework, but needed to grasp these terms) likely occurs in other frameworks as well, e.g. when one characterizes speech acts by commitments or their effect on a common ground.

Keywords

assertion rejection disagreement norms of assertion conversation game common ground Frege

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: Linguistics Meets Philosophy , pp. 414 - 438
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108766401.022 [Opens in a new window]
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Asher, N., & Lascarides, A. (2003). Logics of Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Bendall, K. (1979). Negation as a sign of negative judgment. Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 20(1), 68–76.Google Scholar

Bledin, J., & Rawlins, K. (2016). Epistemic resistance moves. In Moroney, M., Little, C. R., Collard, J., & Burgdorf, D. (Eds.), Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT), Vol. 26 (pp. 620–640).CrossRef Google Scholar

Brandom, R. (1983). Asserting. Noûs, 17(4), 637–650.Google Scholar

Brandom, R. (1994). Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar

Bussière, L. (n.d.). Dissent and Rejection. Unpublished manuscript, University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar

Cappelen, H. (2011). Against assertion. In Brown, J. & Cappelen, H. (Eds.), Assertion: New Philosophical Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Carston, R. (1996). Metalinguistic negation and echoic use. Journal of Pragmatics, 25, 309–330.CrossRef Google Scholar

Clark, H. H. (1996). Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Cohen, A., & Krifka, M. (2014). Superlative quantifiers and meta-speech acts. Linguistics and Philosophy, 37(1), 41–90.Google Scholar

Dickie, I. (2010). Negation, anti-realism, and the denial defence. Philosophical Studies, 150(2), 161–185.CrossRef Google Scholar

Dummett, M. (1991). The Logical Basis of Metaphysics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar

Farkas, D. F, & Bruce, K. B. (2010). On reacting to assertions and polar questions. Journal of Semantics, 27(1), 81–118.Google Scholar

Frege, G. (1879). Begriffsschrift: Eine der arithmetischen nachgebildete Formelsprache des reinen Denkens. Halle: Louis Nebert.Google Scholar

Frege, G. (1919). Die Verneinung: Eine logische Untersuchung. Beiträge zur Philosophie des deutschen Idealismus, 1, 143–157.Google Scholar

Frege, G. (1923). Gedankengefüge. Beiträge zur Philosophie des deutschen Idealismus, 3(1), 36–51.Google Scholar

Geach, P. T. (1958). Imperative and deontic logic. Analysis, 18(3), 49–56.CrossRef Google Scholar

Geach, P. T. (1965). Assertion. The Philosophical Review, 74(4), 449–465.CrossRef Google Scholar

Geach, P. T., and Black, M. (Eds). (1952). Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar

Geurts, B. (1998). The mechanisms of denial. Language, 74(2), 274–307.Google Scholar

Grice, H. P. (1991). Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar

Hindriks, F. (2007). The status of the knowledge account of assertion. Linguistics and Philosophy, 30(3), 393–406.CrossRef Google Scholar

Horn, L. (1989). A Natural History of Negation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar

Incurvati, L., & Schlöder, J. J. (2017). Weak rejection. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 95(4), 741–760.Google Scholar

Incurvati, L., & Schlöder, J. J. (2019). Weak assertion. The Philosophical Quarterly, 69, 741–770.CrossRef Google Scholar

Kaufmann, M. (2012). Interpreting Imperatives. Cham: Springer.CrossRef Google Scholar

Krifka, M. (2013). Response particles as propositional anaphors. In Snider, T. (Ed.), Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT), Vol. 23 (pp. 1–18).CrossRef Google Scholar

Krifka, M. (2015). Bias in commitment space semantics: Declarative questions, negated quetions, and question tags. In D’Antonio, S., Moroney, M., & Little, C. R. (Eds.), Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT), Vol. 25 (pp. 328–345).CrossRef Google Scholar

Lackey, J. (2007). Norms of assertion. Noûs, 41(4), 594–626.Google Scholar

MacFarlane, J. (2011). What is assertion. In Brown, J. & Cappelen, H. (Eds.), Assertion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Maitra, I. (2011). Assertion, norms, and games. In Brown, J. & Cappelen, H. (Eds.), Assertion: New Philosophical Essays. (pp. 277–296). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Meijer, A. M., Claus, B., Repp, S., & Krifka, M. (2015). Particle responses to negated assertions: Preference patterns for German ja and nein. In Proceedings of the 20th Amsterdam Colloquium (pp. 286–295).Google Scholar

Murray, S. E. (2009). A Hamblin semantics for evidentials. In Cormany, E., Ito, S., & Lutz, D. (Eds.), Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT), Vol. 19 (pp. 324–341).Google Scholar

Murray, S. E, & Starr, W. B. (2018). Force and conversational states. In Fogal, D., Harris, D. W., & Moss, M. (Eds.), New Work on Speech Acts (pp. 202–236). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Portner, P. (2018a). Commitment to priorities. In In Fogal, D., Harris, D. W., & Moss, M. (Eds.), New Work on Speech Acts (pp. 296–316). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Portner, P. (2018b). Mood. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Price, H. (1990). Why ‘not’? Mind, 99(394), 221–238.Google Scholar

Price, H. (1998). Three norms of assertibility, or how the MOA became extinct. Philosophical Perspectives, 12, 241–254.Google Scholar

Priest, G. (2006). Doubt Truth to Be a Liar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Roberts, C. (2012). Information structure in discourse: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics. Semantics and Pragmatics, 5(6), 1–69.CrossRef Google Scholar

Rumfitt, I. (2000). “Yes” and “No”. Mind, 109(436), 781–823.Google Scholar

Rumfitt, I. (2014). Truth and meaning. Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 88(1), 21–55.Google Scholar

Schlöder, J. J., & Fernández, R. (2019). How to reject what in dialogue. In Howes, C., Hough, J., & Kenning, C. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 23rd Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue – Full Papers.Google Scholar

Schlöder, J. J., & Fernández, R. (2015). Pragmatic rejection. In Purver, M., Sadrzadeh, M., & Stone, M. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Computational Semantics (pp. 250–260).Google Scholar

Schlöder, J. J., Venant, A., & Asher, N. (2017). Aligning intentions: Acceptance and rejection in dialogue. Sinn und Bedeutung 21, 1073–1090.Google Scholar

Schroeder, M. (2008). What is the Frege–Geach Problem? Philosophy Compass, 3(4), 703–720.Google Scholar

Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef Google Scholar

Smiley, T. (1996). Rejection. Analysis, 56(1), 1–9.Google Scholar

Stalnaker, R. (1978). Assertion. In Cole, P. (Ed.), Pragmatics (Syntax and Semantics 9). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar

von Fintel, K., & Gillies, A. (2007). An opinionated guide to epistemic modality. In Gendler, T. S. & Hawthorne, J. (Eds.), Oxford Studies in Epistemology, Vol. 2 (pp. 32–62). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

von Fintel, K., & Iatridou, S. (2017). A modest proposal for the meaning of imperatives. In. Arregui, A., Rivero, M., & Salanova, A. P. (Eds.), Modality across Syntactic Categories (pp. 288–319). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Weiner, M. (2007). Norms of assertion. Philosophy Compass, 2(2), 187–195.Google Scholar

Williamson, T. (1996). Knowing and asserting. Philosophical Review, 105(4), 489–523.CrossRef Google Scholar

Williamson, T. (2000). Knowledge and Its Limits. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Yalcin, S. (2018). Expressivism by force. In Fogal, D., Harris, D. W., & Moss, M. (Eds.), New Work on Speech Acts (pp. 400–426). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the HTML of this chapter is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.