I’m saying we should look at which context people consider relevant, not the amount of contextualizing they want.
Suppose Geraldine is a member of a political coalition that draws disproportionate support from green-eyed people, and Paulette is a member of a rival political coalition that draws disproportionate support from purple-eyed people. Whenever anyone says, “Green-eyed people commit twice as many murders,” Geraldine objects that the speaker should have disclaimed that they’re not saying green-eyed people should be stereotyped as criminals, but Paulette does not object. Whenever anyone says, “Purple-eyed people can’t hear music,” Paulette objects that the speaker should have disclaimed that they’re not saying purple-eyed people should be stereotyped as uncultured, but Geraldine does not object.
Even if contextualizing/decoupling is a spectrum rather than a dichotomy, it doesn’t help us understand the difference between Geraldine and Paulette: both of them demand contextualizing disclaimers, but in different situations. I think Geraldine and Paulette’s behavior is explicable using the standard theory of implicature plus motivated reasoning governing what context seems “relevant” to them.
Well, it’s hardly unusual that you can shift from viewing this as a dichotomy → spectrum → contextual depending on how much detail you want to go into.
I think I’m doing something more substantive than that.
I agree that it’s not unusual to be able to look at the dichotomy of whether people exhibit behavior B, or the spectrum of how often they exhibit B, or the contexts in which they exhibit B, depending on how much detail you want to go into.
However, whether (or to what extent, or in what contexts) the dichotomy and spectrum views constitute a useful“dimensionality reduction”, depends on the particular value of B. If B = “smiling”, then I do expect the spectrum view to be a reasonable proxy for general happiness levels. But if B = “typing the letter ‘q’”, I don’t expect the spectrum view to measure anything interesting.
It’s certainly possible that there’s a “general factor” of contextualizing—that people systematically and non-opportunistically vary in how inferentially distant a related claim has to be in order to not create an implicature that needs to be explicitly canceled if false. But I don’t think it’s obvious, and even if it’s true, I don’t think it’s pedagogically wise to use a politically-motivated appeal-to-consequences as the central case of contextualizing.
I’d suggest that it should be understood as a spectrum rather than a dichotomy. Dichotomies are just easier to explain.
I’m saying we should look at which context people consider relevant, not the amount of contextualizing they want.
Suppose Geraldine is a member of a political coalition that draws disproportionate support from green-eyed people, and Paulette is a member of a rival political coalition that draws disproportionate support from purple-eyed people. Whenever anyone says, “Green-eyed people commit twice as many murders,” Geraldine objects that the speaker should have disclaimed that they’re not saying green-eyed people should be stereotyped as criminals, but Paulette does not object. Whenever anyone says, “Purple-eyed people can’t hear music,” Paulette objects that the speaker should have disclaimed that they’re not saying purple-eyed people should be stereotyped as uncultured, but Geraldine does not object.
Even if contextualizing/decoupling is a spectrum rather than a dichotomy, it doesn’t help us understand the difference between Geraldine and Paulette: both of them demand contextualizing disclaimers, but in different situations. I think Geraldine and Paulette’s behavior is explicable using the standard theory of implicature plus motivated reasoning governing what context seems “relevant” to them.
Well, it’s hardly unusual that you can shift from viewing this as a dichotomy → spectrum → contextual depending on how much detail you want to go into.
I think I’m doing something more substantive than that.
I agree that it’s not unusual to be able to look at the dichotomy of whether people exhibit behavior B, or the spectrum of how often they exhibit B, or the contexts in which they exhibit B, depending on how much detail you want to go into.
However, whether (or to what extent, or in what contexts) the dichotomy and spectrum views constitute a useful “dimensionality reduction”, depends on the particular value of B. If B = “smiling”, then I do expect the spectrum view to be a reasonable proxy for general happiness levels. But if B = “typing the letter ‘q’”, I don’t expect the spectrum view to measure anything interesting.
It’s certainly possible that there’s a “general factor” of contextualizing—that people systematically and non-opportunistically vary in how inferentially distant a related claim has to be in order to not create an implicature that needs to be explicitly canceled if false. But I don’t think it’s obvious, and even if it’s true, I don’t think it’s pedagogically wise to use a politically-motivated appeal-to-consequences as the central case of contextualizing.