Some Solutions to the Perspectival Plurality Problem for Relativism

(1) Johnny played a silly prank and had a lot of tasty licorice. phenomenon of perspectival plurality has been shown to pose a serious problem for at least some versions of relativism about predicates of taste (the view that postulates a parameter for perspectives in the circumstances of evaluation with respect to which utterances of sentences are evaluated). Perspectival plurality is the phenomenon whereby sentences containing two or more predicates of taste have to be interpreted by appeal to two or more perspectives. The problem for (certain versions of) relativism stems from this phenomenon getting in tension with a core commitment of such versions, namely that “[i]n a relativist theory, in order to assess a sentence for truth or falsity, one must adopt a stance – that is, truth assessment is always done from a particular perspective” (Lasersohn, 2008: 326). In this presentation I want to further the debate by i) showing that the phenomenon applies to a wider range ofexpressions than predicates of taste and ii) investigating and criticizing a number of possible relativist proposals to account for perspectival plurality. In the works mentioned, perspectival plurality is illustrated with respect to predicates of taste, which is a good place to start. Thus, consider the following scenario: Halloween has just passed, and the neighbors discuss about how their kids spend the holiday. Parents take turns, and when Johnny’s father’s turn comes, he utters