How to Embed an Epistemic Modal: Attitude Problems and Other Defects of Character*
نویسنده
چکیده
This paper develops an improved contextualist account of embedded epistemic modals. I focus primarily on three prominent objections to contextualism from embedding: first, that contextualism mischaracterizes subjects’ states ofmind; second, that contextualism fails to predict howepistemicmodals are obligatorily linked to the subject in attitude ascriptions; and third, that contextualism fails to explain the persisting anomalousness of “epistemic contradictions” (Yalcin 2007, 2011) in suppositional contexts. Previous contextualist accounts have inadequately appreciated the force of these objections. Drawing on a more general framework for implementing a contextualist theory (Silk 2015a), I argue that we can derive the seemingly problematic embedding phenomena from a particular contextualist interpretation of a standard semantics for modals, independently attested mechanisms of local interpretation, and typical features of discourse contexts. Two objections concerning the joint interpretation of embedded and unembedded epistemic modals are also briefly considered. These objections raise interesting broader issues about validity, quantification, presupposition, and anaphora with context-sensitive language. The paper concludes by briefly examining how the proposed contextualist account compares with certain relativist accounts. *Thanks to Daniel Rothschild, Paolo Santorio, and the audience at the 2nd Logic and Language Conference, Institute of Philosophy–London, for helpful discussion.
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