Feigning Objectivity: An Overlooked Conversational Strategy in Everyday Disputes

Bibliographic Details
Main Author:	McFarland, Kathryn
Language:	English
Published:	The Ohio State University / OhioLINK 2015
Subjects:	Philosophy Language
Online Access:	http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1426205479

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spelling	ndltd-OhioLink-oai-etd.ohiolink.edu-osu14262054792021-08-03T06:29:18Z Feigning Objectivity: An Overlooked Conversational Strategy in Everyday Disputes McFarland, Kathryn Philosophy Language In this dissertation, I reconsider core cases of alleged “faultless disagreement,” beginning with disputes about matters of taste. I argue that these cases demand no revisions to traditional truth-conditional semantics and that, instead, their interesting features—those features that theorists have thought to pose difficulties to traditional semantics—are in fact best explained at the level of pragmatics, rhetoric, and sociolinguistics. Specifically, I maintain that such disputes arise in situations in which, given conversational aims, it is rhetorically effective for disputants to feign contradiction—posturing as if their dispute concerned the truth of an “objective” proposition, even if this is not in fact the case. I demonstrate, moreover, than many canonical cases of so-called “merely verbal” disputes share these same interesting features of “faultless” disputes about taste—and that these disputes as well can be explained as rhetorically effective instances of merely “feigned” objectivity. Philosophical discussion of both types of disputes has been hampered by their uncritical assimilation to canonical “faultless” disputes—despite the differences in social role that become evident when the disputes are situated in their context of production—and this has led philosophers too often to neglect other important social and rhetorical reasons for which speakers express disagreement. 2015-05-21 English text The Ohio State University / OhioLINK http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1426205479 http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1426205479 unrestricted This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.
collection	NDLTD
language	English
sources	NDLTD
topic	Philosophy Language
spellingShingle	Philosophy Language McFarland, Kathryn Feigning Objectivity: An Overlooked Conversational Strategy in Everyday Disputes
author	McFarland, Kathryn
author_facet	McFarland, Kathryn
author_sort	McFarland, Kathryn
title	Feigning Objectivity: An Overlooked Conversational Strategy in Everyday Disputes
title_short	Feigning Objectivity: An Overlooked Conversational Strategy in Everyday Disputes
title_full	Feigning Objectivity: An Overlooked Conversational Strategy in Everyday Disputes
title_fullStr	Feigning Objectivity: An Overlooked Conversational Strategy in Everyday Disputes
title_full_unstemmed	Feigning Objectivity: An Overlooked Conversational Strategy in Everyday Disputes
title_sort	feigning objectivity: an overlooked conversational strategy in everyday disputes
publisher	The Ohio State University / OhioLINK
publishDate	2015
url	http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1426205479
work_keys_str_mv	AT mcfarlandkathryn feigningobjectivityanoverlookedconversationalstrategyineverydaydisputes
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Feigning Objectivity: An Overlooked Conversational Strategy in Everyday Disputes

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