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Added by: Veronica CibotaruAbstract:
In asserting something I incur certain kinds of liabilities, including a responsibility for the truth of the content I express. If I say ‘After leaving the EU, the UK will take back control of c. £350 million per week’, or I tell you that ‘The number 14 bus stops at the British Museum’, I become liable for the truth of these claims. As my audience, you could hold me unreliable or devious if it turns out that what I said is false. Yet this socio-linguistic practice – of acquiring and ascribing ‘linguistic liability’ – is complicated, especially given philosophical distinctions between the various different kinds of contents people can express (am I liable, for instance, for the claim that the number 14 bus stops at the British Museum today or only usually?). This paper explores the different kinds of contents speakers might be taken to express, arguing that our practices around linguistic liability (including in legal disputes) reveal a crucial role for a notion of context-independent, literal meaning attaching to words and sentences. These practices thus vindicate what philosophers tend to term ‘minimal semantic content’.
Comment: This article may be useful for students who wish to become acquainted with the question of responsibility for the truth of the content we express through language and to engage in further reading in philosophy of language, ethics, and philosophy of law.
Borg, Emma. What Is It to Be Responsible for What You Say?
2024, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 95, pp. 107–126.
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