Convention and Idiosyncrasy
Convention and Idiosyncrasy
This chapter focuses on how we show what's within in ways not typical of our species. A person's idiosyncratic display of an emotion, for instance, might nevertheless make that emotion perceptible if that display is a characteristic component thereof. Such behavior can later become conventionalized, and it is argued that this is one major route into the conventionalization of expression. Conventions also make language possible, and it is argued that natural language is used to indicate the content, and sometimes also the modality, of the states we express. In the process of this argument, an analogy between attitude ascription and measurement (such as has been suggested by D. Davidson, H. Field, R. Matthews, R. Stalnaker, and others) is explored. The chapter concludes with a discussion of some devices of natural language that have a distinctively expressive role, so-called illocutionary force indicators.
Keywords: convention, measurement, attitude ascription, illocutionary force, D. Davidson, H. Field, R. Matthews, R. Stalnaker
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