Issues in Experimental Philosophy of Language: Context, Perspective, and Utterance Content (2026/2027)

The seminar examines ordinary intuitions about how utterance content depends on context and perspective. It asks whether empirical evidence can support, challenge or refine semantic contextualism and relativism.

Participants analyse studies of knowledge ascriptions, epistemic modals, predicates of personal taste, aesthetic judgments and subjective adjectives. They also examine faultless disagreement and the retraction of earlier utterances. Discussion covers philosophical arguments, experimental scenarios, the operationalisation of concepts and methodological limitations. A central question is whether experiments measure semantic or pragmatic intuitions, normative judgments, or broader responses to a communicative situation.

The first semester and part of the second focus on reading and analysing research. The second half of the second semester is devoted to designing, conducting, provisionally analysing and presenting a team experiment in experimental philosophy of language.

Convenors: Katarzyna Kuś, Adrian Ziółkowski

Course code: 3800-PPE26-S. Language of instruction: Polish. Course description in USOS.

BLOCK 1. Context and knowledge ascriptions

  • Rose, D., Machery, E. et al. (2019) Nothing at Stake in Knowledge. Noûs, 53: 224-247.
  • Francis K., Beaman P. & Hansen N. (2019) Stakes, Scales, and Skepticism. Ergo 6 (16), pp. 427-487. Rose D.
  • Dinges A, Zakkou J. Much at stake in knowledge. Mind & Language. 2021;729–749.
  • Porter, B., Barr, K. et al. (2025). A puzzle about knowledge ascriptions. Noûs, 59, 392–408.

BLOCK 2. Context of utterance, context of assessment and tests of semantic theories

  • Knobe, J., & Yalcin, S. (2014). “Epistemic Modals and Context: Experimental Data”. Semantics and Pragmatics, 7(10), 1–21.
  • Beddor, B., & Egan, A. (2018). “Might Do Better: Flexible Relativism and the QUD”. Semantics and Pragmatics, 11(7).
  • Khoo, J., & Phillips, J. (2019). “New Horizons for a Theory of Epistemic Modals”. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 97(2), 309–324.
  • Kneer, M. (2022). “Contextualism vs. Relativism: More Empirical Data”. W: J. Wyatt, J. Zakkou & D. Zeman (red.), Perspectives on Taste: Aesthetics, Language, Metaphysics, and Experimental Philosophy.

BLOCK 3. Standards of application, thresholds and judge-dependence

  • Hansen, N., & Chemla, E. (2017). “Color Adjectives, Standards, and Thresholds: An Experimental Investigation”. Linguistics and Philosophy, 40(3), 239–278.
  • Solt, S. (2018). “Multidimensionality, Subjectivity and Scales: Experimental Evidence”. W: E. Castroviejo, L. McNally & G. W. Sassoon (red.), The Semantics of Gradability, Vagueness, and Scale Structure, 59–91.
  • Scontras, G., Degen, J., & Goodman, N. D. (2017). “Subjectivity Predicts Adjective Ordering Preferences”. Open Mind, 1(1), 53–66.
  • Soria Ruiz, A., & Faroldi, F. L. G. (2022). “Moral Adjectives, Judge-Dependency and Holistic Multidimensionality”. Inquiry, 65(7), 887–916.

BLOCK 4. Predicates of personal taste, aesthetic judgments and subjective evaluation

  • Kneer, M. (2021). “Predicates of Personal Taste: Empirical Data”. Synthese, 199, 6455–6471.
  • Cova, F., Olivola, C. Y., Machery, E., et al. (2019). “De Pulchritudine non est Disputandum? A Cross-Cultural Investigation of the Alleged Intersubjective Validity of Aesthetic Judgment”. Mind & Language, 34(3), 317–338.
  • Stojanovic, I., & Kaiser, E. (2022). “Exploring Valence in Judgments of Taste”. W: J. Wyatt, J. Zakkou & D. Zeman (red.), Perspectives on Taste: Aesthetics, Language, Metaphysics, and Experimental Philosophy, 231–259.

BLOCK 5. Faultless disagreement: taste, modality and morality

  • Katz, J., & Salerno, J. (2017). “Epistemic Modal Disagreement”. Topoi, 36(1), 141–153.
  • Kaiser, E., & Rudin, D. (2020). “When Faultless Disagreement Is Not So Faultless: What Widely-Held Opinions Can Tell Us about Subjective Adjectives”. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America, 5(1), 698–707.
  • Khoo, J., & Knobe, J. (2018). “Moral Disagreement and Moral Semantics”. Noûs, 52(1), 109–143.
  • Pecsok, E., & Aparicio, H. (2024). “How Can They Both Be Right? Faultless Disagreement and Semantic Adaptation”. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 46, 3939–3945.

BLOCK 6. Disagreement and retraction

  • Dinges, A., & Zakkou, J. (2020). “A Direction Effect on Taste Predicates”. Philosophers’ Imprint, 20(27), 1–22.
  • Marques, T. (2024). “Falsity and Retraction: New Experimental Data on Epistemic Modals”. W: D. Zeman & M. Hîncu (red.), Retraction Matters: New Developments in the Philosophy of Language, 41–70.
  • Almagro, M., Bordonaba-Plou, D., & Villanueva, N. (2023). “Retraction in Public Settings”. Synthese, 202, 137.
  • Skovgaard-Olsen, N., & Cantwell, J. (2023). “Norm Conflicts and Epistemic Modals”. Cognitive Psychology, 145, 101591.