Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

'That’s just locker-room talk’ makes use of a certain concept. Its use in a speech act presupposes and testifies that there is a social norm which excuses certain behaviour. It could be a back-door lie, if there is no such norm. It could help build such a norm, if it was not there before. The accommodation of presupposition in conversational score affects norms and knowledge, not only through testimonial presupposition, but through presuppositions about credibility, standards for knowledge, and stakes for knowledge. If a knowledge norm applies to assertion, this applies equally to back-door testimony, achieved via informative presupposition and its ilk. Socially constructive assertion and presupposition present problem cases. Hypotheses: the knowledge required by a 'knowledge norm' is receptive (not constructive), with mind-to-world direction of fit. As speakers, we can be responsible for what we presuppose. And as hearers and bystanders, we can be responsible for what we block, or fail to block. This, indeed, may be a significant and unnoticed dimension to political counter-speech.