Talks & Events

Event Details

Taste Predicates and the Acquaintance Inference

  • Event Date: April 21, 2015
  • Event Start Time: 1:00 PM
  • Event End Time: 2:00 PM
  • Event Location: Tufts University, Department of Philosophy
  • Event Type: Talks: RuCCS Colloquia
  • Event Semester: Spring 2015
  • Event Contact: Dr. Dilip Ninan
  • Event Extra info: <a href="http://ase.tufts.edu/philosophy/faculty/ninan.asp">Dr. Dilip Ninan</a>

Simple sentences containing predicates like “tasty" and “beautiful" typically suggest that the speaker has first-hand knowledge of the item being evaluated. I consider two explanations of this 'acquaintance inference': a presuppositional approach and a pragmatic-epistemic approach. The presuppositional approach has a number of virtues, but runs into trouble because the acquaintance inference has a very different projection pattern from that of standard presuppositions. The pragmatic-epistemic approach accounts for the main data I consider, but faces challenges of its own.