Kolejny odczyt w ramach seminarium Znak-Język-Rzeczywistość/The SLR Seminar Meeting: Double-checking as a second order speech act

15 października 202415 października 2024 mstarczewska

Kolejny odczyt seminarium ZJR odbędzie się:

Czwartek 17 października 2024, 17.00

Grzegorz Gaszczyk
(University of Warsaw)

wygłosi odczyt:

Double-checking as a second order speech act

Abstrakt:

Abstract: Abstract: Questions and answers are two sides of the same coin. While questions are primarily
intended to seek information, answers provide them. Although we can ask and
answer questions in many ways, we typically use the default, flat-out linguistic
forms—the speech acts of asking and asserting, respectively.
An influential and widespread view holds that we ask questions to gain
knowledge. This stems from the conviction that „knowledge is a central sort of
epistemic achievement” (Sosa 2021, 22; cf. Friedman 2020; Kelp 2021). Following this
view, once we have acquired knowledge, there is no point in asking further. Let us
call it the Knowledge View (KV).
However, we often ask further even if we already know that p—we verify,
corroborate, confirm, or double-check whether p. KV wrongly predicts something
improper is happening in such cases (§ I). The main goal of this paper is to propose a
normative picture of speech acts (Goldberg 2015) that ask for and give more than
knowledge (§ II). I also discuss some implications of my proposal (§ III).
§ I Asking and double-checking
KV has clear benefits. According to this view, the speech acts of asking (often called
inquiring) and asserting complement each other. When inquiring, the speaker is
ignorant and assumes the hearer’s competence; when asserting, the situation
reverses—the speaker is competent and assumes the hearer’s ignorance. In
normative terms, while assertions are governed by the knowledge norm (Williamson
2000; cf. Kelp and Simion 2021), inquiries by the ignorance norm (Whitcomb 2017; cf.
van Elswyk and Sapir 2021).
The main challenge for KV are cases called double-checking, i.e., cases in which
we inquire further even though we already have reliable, knowledge-level
information. Imagine the following scenario (cf. Brown 2008, 176):
A surgeon examines a patient with a diseased kidney. She asks which kidney is
diseased and establishes that it is the left one. She decides to remove it. Just before the
operation, the surgeon asks her colleague to consult the patient’s notes to
double-check which kidney she should remove and hears that the left one. After that,
she proceeds to the operation.
The surgeon asks the same question twice. Firstly, she comes to know that p („the left
kidney is diseased”), secondly, she double-checks whether p. She neither loses
knowledge in the process nor forgets which kidney she has to operate on. By
double-checking, she can acquire one of many epistemic goods beyond knowledge
(Woodard 2022; Haziza forthcoming), such as certainty, knowing that she knows,
understanding, increased confidence, or justification.
What is the relationship between KV and double-checking? Two approaches
are available. The first tries to convince us that one who double-checks whether p
does not know that p and so KV is correct (Friedman 2019; van Elswyk and Sapir
2021). The second maintains that one who double-checks knows that p and so KV is
wrong (Archer 2018; Falbo 2021; Millson 2021; Woodard 2022; cf. Willard-Kyle 2023).
I argue that both approaches are unsatisfactory because both wrongly treat cases of
double-checking as instances of speech act of asking.
§ II The speech-act-theoretic perspective
While the currently dominant perspective is based on arguments that interrogatives
consist of one type of speech act (e.g. Roberts 2018, van Elswyk and Sapir 2021), I
turn to the speech-act-theoretic perspective (e.g. Searle 1969, Searle and Vanderveken
1985), according to which the interrogative mood may be used to perform various
speech act types.
As an illustration, consider alethic—i.e., truth-aiming—speech acts. They can
be ranked or sorted on a spectrum (credibility index, or speaker’s commitment).
Although assertions are the default ones, some alethic speech acts are weaker than
assertions (such as guesses, or conjectures) and others are stronger (such as
guarantees, or assurances). Guarantees, for instance, can be understood as
second-order assertions (Turri 2010, 2013); just as knowledge is the norm of assertion,
second-order knowledge (knowing that one knows) is the norm of guaranteeing.
Interrogatives exhibit analogous behaviour. While the speech act of asking is
the default use of interrogative mood, we can perform other types of
questions—including double-checking.
I propose that double-checking stands for asking like guaranteeing to
asserting. It is thus a second-order speech act that requires more than knowledge. To
meet this threshold, double-checking requires a guarantee, not an assertion, as an
answer.
This proposal has two advantages. First, it does not throw out KV but limits
its scope to the default question-type. Second, it respects the widely shared intuition
that one can both double-check whether p and know p.
§ III Implications
The sketched proposal has broad implications. Here are three examples.
1. Uninformative speech acts
No new knowledge is gained by double-checking; rather, the answer received is
uninformative, at least at the content level. The standard approach (e.g. Williamson
2000) treats such an answer as an assertion. However, because this answer provides
no new information, by many accounts it is an improper assertion (e.g. Stalnaker
1978; García-Carpintero 2004).
This issue does not arise in the present account. The answer to
double-checking is not an assertion, but a speech act—such as a guarantee—regulated by a stronger norm. Importantly, such a speech act does not
have to be informative.
2. Moore-paradoxical questions
Some questions are incoherent if not Moore-paradoxical (cf. Whitcomb 2017):
(a) I know which kidney is diseased, but I wonder which one.
Following KV, the infelicity in (a) arises from the fact that one represents oneself as
both knowing and now knowing whether p. However, this observation does not
apply to double-checking. Consider (a’):
(a’) I know which kidney is diseased, but I double-check which one, to be sure.
Here one represents oneself as both knowing that p and investigating further. This
can be done without inconsistency because the goal is to achieve other epistemic
gains beyond knowledge.
3. Insincerity and lying
The consensus states that only assertions are lie-prone. By asserting p, I commit
myself to p, which is necessary for lying (Marsili 2020; Viebahn 2021). Asking a
default type of question carries no such commitment. Double-checking, however,
seems to go against this. In such cases, one investigates further while knowing that p.
Thus, double-checking can be an ingenious type of question that carries enough
commitment to qualify for a lie.
References
Archer, A. (2018). Wondering About What You Know. Analysis, 78(4), 596–604.
https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anx162
Brown, J. (2008). The Knowledge Norm for Assertion. Philosophical Issues, 18(1), 89–103.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-6077.2008.00139.x
Falbo, A. (2021). Inquiry and Confirmation. Analysis. https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anab037
Friedman, J. (2019). Checking Again. Philosophical Issues, 29(1), 84–96.
https://doi.org/10.1111/phis.12141
Friedman, J. (2020). The Epistemic and the Zetetic. The Philosophical Review, 129(4), 501–536.
https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-8540918
García-Carpintero, M. (2004). Assertion and the Semantics of Force-Makers. In C. Bianchi (Ed.),
The Semantics/Pragmatics Distinction (pp. 133–166). Stanford: CSLI Lecture Notes, 155.
Goldberg, S. (2015). Assertion: On the Philosophical Significance of Assertoric Speech. Oxford
University Press.
Haziza, E. (forthcoming). Inquiring and Making Sure. Philosophical Topics.
https://philarchive.org/rec/HAZIAM
Kelp, C. (2021). Inquiry, Knowledge, and Understanding (1st ed.). Oxford University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192896094.001.0001
Kelp, C., & Simion, M. (2021). Sharing Knowledge: A Functionalist Account of Assertion. Cambridge
University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009036818
Marsili, N. (2020). Lying, Speech Acts, and Commitment. Synthese, 199(1–2), 3245–3269.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02933-4
Millson, J. A. (2021). Seeking Confirmation: A Puzzle for Norms of Inquiry. Analysis, 80(4),
683–693. https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anaa017
Roberts, C. (2018). Speech Acts in Discourse Context. In D. Fogal, D. W. Harris, & M. Moss (Eds.),
New Work on Speech Acts (pp. 317–359). Oxford University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198738831.003.0012
Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge University
Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139173438
Searle, J. R., & Vanderveken, D. (1985). Foundations of Illocutionary Logic. Cambridge University
Press.
Sosa, E. (2021). Epistemic Explanations: A Theory of Telic Normativity, and What it Explains. Oxford
University Press.
Stalnaker, R. (1978). Assertion. In P. Cole (Ed.), Syntax and Semantics (Vol. 9). Academic Press;
(References are to the reprint in R. Stalnaker, Context and content. Oxford University Press.
1999. pp. 78–95.).
Turri, J. (2010). Epistemic Invariantism and Speech Act Contextualism. Philosophical Review,
119(1), 77–95. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-2009-026
Turri, J. (2013). Knowledge Guaranteed. Noûs, 47(3), 602–612.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0068.2011.00849.x
van Elswyk, P., & Sapir, Y. (2021). Hedging and the Ignorance Norm on Inquiry. Synthese.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03048-0
Viebahn, E. (2021). The Lying-Misleading Distinction: A Commitment-Based Approach. The
Journal of Philosophy, 118(6), 289–319. https://doi.org/10.5840/jphil2021118621
Whitcomb, D. (2017). One Kind of Asking. The Philosophical Quarterly, 67(266), 148–168.
https://doi.org/10.1093/pq/pqw027
Willard-Kyle, C. (2023). Valuable ignorance: Delayed epistemic gratification. Philosophical Studies,
180(1), 363–384. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-022-01902-6
Williamson, T. (2000). Knowledge and its Limits. Oxford University Press.
Woodard, E. (2022). Why Double-Check? Episteme, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2022.22.

Seminarium odbywa się online. Prosimy o skorzystanie z linków:

Join Zoom Meeting
https://uw-edu-pl.zoom.us/j/92716044372?pwd=0l7PETAOwqQDBKTMCnheYQN7ag7zx1.1

Meeting ID: 927 1604 4372
Passcode: 697648

Strona seminarium:

http://pts.edu.pl/seminarium-2024-2025-seminar-2024-2025.html

Odczyt rozpoczniemy o godzinie 17.00 (odczyt będzie nagrywany).

—————————

The first meeting of the Sign-Language-Reality seminar in the academic year 2024/25 will take place:

Thursday, the 17th of October 2024, 17.00, Central European Time

Grzegorz Gaszczyk (University of Warsaw)

will deliver a talk:

Double-checking as a second-order speech act

Abstract: Questions and answers are two sides of the same coin. While questions are primarily
intended to seek information, answers provide them. Although we can ask and
answer questions in many ways, we typically use the default, flat-out linguistic
forms—the speech acts of asking and asserting, respectively.
An influential and widespread view holds that we ask questions to gain
knowledge. This stems from the conviction that „knowledge is a central sort of
epistemic achievement” (Sosa 2021, 22; cf. Friedman 2020; Kelp 2021). Following this
view, once we have acquired knowledge, there is no point in asking further. Let us
call it the Knowledge View (KV).
However, we often ask further even if we already know that p—we verify,
corroborate, confirm, or double-check whether p. KV wrongly predicts something
improper is happening in such cases (§ I). The main goal of this paper is to propose a
normative picture of speech acts (Goldberg 2015) that ask for and give more than
knowledge (§ II). I also discuss some implications of my proposal (§ III).
§ I Asking and double-checking
KV has clear benefits. According to this view, the speech acts of asking (often called
inquiring) and asserting complement each other. When inquiring, the speaker is
ignorant and assumes the hearer’s competence; when asserting, the situation
reverses—the speaker is competent and assumes the hearer’s ignorance. In
normative terms, while assertions are governed by the knowledge norm (Williamson
2000; cf. Kelp and Simion 2021), inquiries by the ignorance norm (Whitcomb 2017; cf.
van Elswyk and Sapir 2021).
The main challenge for KV are cases called double-checking, i.e., cases in which
we inquire further even though we already have reliable, knowledge-level
information. Imagine the following scenario (cf. Brown 2008, 176):
A surgeon examines a patient with a diseased kidney. She asks which kidney is
diseased and establishes that it is the left one. She decides to remove it. Just before the
operation, the surgeon asks her colleague to consult the patient’s notes to
double-check which kidney she should remove and hears that the left one. After that,
she proceeds to the operation.
The surgeon asks the same question twice. Firstly, she comes to know that p („the left
kidney is diseased”), secondly, she double-checks whether p. She neither loses
knowledge in the process nor forgets which kidney she has to operate on. By
double-checking, she can acquire one of many epistemic goods beyond knowledge
(Woodard 2022; Haziza forthcoming), such as certainty, knowing that she knows,
understanding, increased confidence, or justification.
What is the relationship between KV and double-checking? Two approaches
are available. The first tries to convince us that one who double-checks whether p
does not know that p and so KV is correct (Friedman 2019; van Elswyk and Sapir
2021). The second maintains that one who double-checks knows that p and so KV is
wrong (Archer 2018; Falbo 2021; Millson 2021; Woodard 2022; cf. Willard-Kyle 2023).
I argue that both approaches are unsatisfactory because both wrongly treat cases of
double-checking as instances of speech act of asking.
§ II The speech-act-theoretic perspective
While the currently dominant perspective is based on arguments that interrogatives
consist of one type of speech act (e.g. Roberts 2018, van Elswyk and Sapir 2021), I
turn to the speech-act-theoretic perspective (e.g. Searle 1969, Searle and Vanderveken
1985), according to which the interrogative mood may be used to perform various
speech act types.
As an illustration, consider alethic—i.e., truth-aiming—speech acts. They can
be ranked or sorted on a spectrum (credibility index, or speaker’s commitment).
Although assertions are the default ones, some alethic speech acts are weaker than
assertions (such as guesses, or conjectures) and others are stronger (such as
guarantees, or assurances). Guarantees, for instance, can be understood as
second-order assertions (Turri 2010, 2013); just as knowledge is the norm of assertion,
second-order knowledge (knowing that one knows) is the norm of guaranteeing.
Interrogatives exhibit analogous behaviour. While the speech act of asking is
the default use of interrogative mood, we can perform other types of
questions—including double-checking.
I propose that double-checking stands for asking like guaranteeing to
asserting. It is thus a second-order speech act that requires more than knowledge. To
meet this threshold, double-checking requires a guarantee, not an assertion, as an
answer.
This proposal has two advantages. First, it does not throw out KV but limits
its scope to the default question-type. Second, it respects the widely shared intuition
that one can both double-check whether p and know p.
§ III Implications
The sketched proposal has broad implications. Here are three examples.
1. Uninformative speech acts
No new knowledge is gained by double-checking; rather, the answer received is
uninformative, at least at the content level. The standard approach (e.g. Williamson
2000) treats such an answer as an assertion. However, because this answer provides
no new information, by many accounts it is an improper assertion (e.g. Stalnaker
1978; García-Carpintero 2004).
This issue does not arise in the present account. The answer to
double-checking is not an assertion, but a speech act—such as a guarantee—regulated by a stronger norm. Importantly, such a speech act does not
have to be informative.
2. Moore-paradoxical questions
Some questions are incoherent if not Moore-paradoxical (cf. Whitcomb 2017):
(a) I know which kidney is diseased, but I wonder which one.
Following KV, the infelicity in (a) arises from the fact that one represents oneself as
both knowing and now knowing whether p. However, this observation does not
apply to double-checking. Consider (a’):
(a’) I know which kidney is diseased, but I double-check which one, to be sure.
Here one represents oneself as both knowing that p and investigating further. This
can be done without inconsistency because the goal is to achieve other epistemic
gains beyond knowledge.
3. Insincerity and lying
The consensus states that only assertions are lie-prone. By asserting p, I commit
myself to p, which is necessary for lying (Marsili 2020; Viebahn 2021). Asking a
default type of question carries no such commitment. Double-checking, however,
seems to go against this. In such cases, one investigates further while knowing that p.
Thus, double-checking can be an ingenious type of question that carries enough
commitment to qualify for a lie.
References
Archer, A. (2018). Wondering About What You Know. Analysis, 78(4), 596–604.
https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anx162
Brown, J. (2008). The Knowledge Norm for Assertion. Philosophical Issues, 18(1), 89–103.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-6077.2008.00139.x
Falbo, A. (2021). Inquiry and Confirmation. Analysis. https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anab037
Friedman, J. (2019). Checking Again. Philosophical Issues, 29(1), 84–96.
https://doi.org/10.1111/phis.12141
Friedman, J. (2020). The Epistemic and the Zetetic. The Philosophical Review, 129(4), 501–536.
https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-8540918
García-Carpintero, M. (2004). Assertion and the Semantics of Force-Makers. In C. Bianchi (Ed.),
The Semantics/Pragmatics Distinction (pp. 133–166). Stanford: CSLI Lecture Notes, 155.
Goldberg, S. (2015). Assertion: On the Philosophical Significance of Assertoric Speech. Oxford
University Press.
Haziza, E. (forthcoming). Inquiring and Making Sure. Philosophical Topics.
https://philarchive.org/rec/HAZIAM
Kelp, C. (2021). Inquiry, Knowledge, and Understanding (1st ed.). Oxford University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192896094.001.0001
Kelp, C., & Simion, M. (2021). Sharing Knowledge: A Functionalist Account of Assertion. Cambridge
University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009036818
Marsili, N. (2020). Lying, Speech Acts, and Commitment. Synthese, 199(1–2), 3245–3269.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02933-4
Millson, J. A. (2021). Seeking Confirmation: A Puzzle for Norms of Inquiry. Analysis, 80(4),
683–693. https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anaa017
Roberts, C. (2018). Speech Acts in Discourse Context. In D. Fogal, D. W. Harris, & M. Moss (Eds.),
New Work on Speech Acts (pp. 317–359). Oxford University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198738831.003.0012
Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge University
Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139173438
Searle, J. R., & Vanderveken, D. (1985). Foundations of Illocutionary Logic. Cambridge University
Press.
Sosa, E. (2021). Epistemic Explanations: A Theory of Telic Normativity, and What it Explains. Oxford
University Press.
Stalnaker, R. (1978). Assertion. In P. Cole (Ed.), Syntax and Semantics (Vol. 9). Academic Press;
(References are to the reprint in R. Stalnaker, Context and content. Oxford University Press.
1999. pp. 78–95.).
Turri, J. (2010). Epistemic Invariantism and Speech Act Contextualism. Philosophical Review,
119(1), 77–95. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-2009-026
Turri, J. (2013). Knowledge Guaranteed. Noûs, 47(3), 602–612.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0068.2011.00849.x
van Elswyk, P., & Sapir, Y. (2021). Hedging and the Ignorance Norm on Inquiry. Synthese.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03048-0
Viebahn, E. (2021). The Lying-Misleading Distinction: A Commitment-Based Approach. The
Journal of Philosophy, 118(6), 289–319. https://doi.org/10.5840/jphil2021118621
Whitcomb, D. (2017). One Kind of Asking. The Philosophical Quarterly, 67(266), 148–168.
https://doi.org/10.1093/pq/pqw027
Willard-Kyle, C. (2023). Valuable ignorance: Delayed epistemic gratification. Philosophical Studies,
180(1), 363–384. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-022-01902-6
Williamson, T. (2000). Knowledge and its Limits. Oxford University Press.
Woodard, E. (2022). Why Double-Check? Episteme, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2022.22.

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

Seminar website (with a tentative list of meetings):
http://pts.edu.pl/seminarium-2024-2025-seminar-2024-2025.html

The meeting opens at 4:45 pm, the talk starts at 5 pm.

The presentation shall be recorded.