From: miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: The Cosmological Bad Dream
Date: 8 Oct 92 06:49:17 CDT
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

In article <1992Oct07.173018.39369@Cookie.secapl.com>, frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams) writes:

[discussion about the difference between asserting and hypothesizing,
and the nature of assertion]

> I disagree with the details of your taxonomy of human utterances.  At the
> very least, you are using "assertion" in a different way from its common
> usage.

     It seems to me that it is you who have in mind a special sense of
"assertion." 

     We can tell which speech acts are performed by a given
utterance in a context by noting how hearers report the speech
event:

          He said (promised, conceded, denied, asserted,
               hypothesized,...) that p.

Given an *assertion* that p, hearers will interpret p in context as
making some claim that something is the case.  This is what
assertions do; they claim that something is the case.  If the
assertion is successful, then what hearer interprets speaker as
claiming to be the case will match what the speaker intended to
claim to be the case.  Call this C, the interpreted content of the
assertion in context.

     C will be as exact as is required for the occasion, as judged
by speaker and (if the communicative act is successful) by hearer. 
Assertions differ greatly in their required exactness because
different contexts require different degrees of exactitude.  If a
driver asks you casually how far it is from here to some town, and
you respond "forty miles" then interpreted content C will be [the
distance is approximately forty miles].  Indeed if the driver, upon
reaching the town, discovers the distance to be precisely forty
miles, he will be surprised and probably remark on it.  But if the
driver finds the distance to be extremely wide of the mark, he will
conclude one of two things: 

     (a) you for some reason deliberately misled him, or 
     (b) you didn't have any idea what the distance was to start
               with.

     When someone asserts something, the default assumption is that
he does not intend to mislead and that he has reason to believe
that it is true to the required degree of exactitude. 
Communication would be highly inefficient if not absolute chaos if
these default assumptions were absent.

     Now to scientific hypothesis.  If one says, "I hypothesize
that p" what is interpretive content C like?  Due to the nature of
science, it is *as exact as possible* since its strength resides in
its falsifiability.  If it is anything else, there is simply a
breakdown in communication: the hearer (or even the speaker, God
forbid) simply does not understand science.  Thus the *content* of
a hypothesis is very exact.  Due, of course, to the invariant
context, that of the scientific method.

     Suppose I say in the driving context given above: "I
hypothesize that the distance is forty miles."  Note that neither
(a) nor (b) will correspond to conclusions of the hearer if the
distance turns out to be wide of the mark in this case.  (a) is
excluded at once, and if (b) had been the case the hypothesis would
have been trivial.  No; rather the hearer will say: "Well, back to
the drawing board."  If the distance turns out to be fairly close
the hypothesis will be revised.  

     So it seems to me that assertion and hypothesis differ greatly
in what hearer assumes the speaker to have in the way of
justification for the utterance, and, more importantly, the
required degree of exactitude of interpretive content C.

-- 
-Ken <miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> {Sometimes you have to look reality straight
 OPINIONS ARE MY OWN            {in the eye, and deny it. - G. Keillor          



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