The University of Wollongong Philosophy Research Seminar
Held Fortnightly in the CAPSTRANS Seminar Room 1003 (Building 19, Arts) on
Wednesdays at 17.30, all are welcome.
5 September 2007 Dr. John Burgess (Wollongong)
Confidentially, This Paper is a Solution to the Performadox
Abstract
In 1980, Steven E. Boer and William Lycan introduced a superficially simple
paradox which they named the Performadox. Consider the following sentence:
(1) Frankly, you disgust me.
Sentences like (1) are easily understood and their entailments seem clear.
But, there is a mystery about what the adverb 'frankly' can be modifying in
(1). Were I to utter (1), presumably it would be my saying that you disgust
me that is frank, so it might appear that (1) is just a shortened version of
(2) I say frankly that you disgust me.
But this cannot be right. (1) clearly entails
(3) You disgust me.
whilst (2) clearly does not entail (3). Conversely, (2) clearly entails
(4) I say something
whilst (1) clearly does not. But what could possibly be frank other than
what I said? No other verb in (1), present or plausibly tacit, is a
candidate for adverbial modification of that kind. What on earth is going
on here?
After an initial flurry of more or less hopeless attempts to
solve the paradox, it fell off the radar in the mid '80s, unsolved but still
mystifying. In this paper, I offer a solution which models not only my
intuitions but also those which Boer and Lycan found impossible to model.
My solution covers not only the Performadox but a whole family of related
paradoxes and it also illuminates distant cousins like Moore's Paradox.
With best wishes,
Richard
Dr. Richard Menary
Lecturer in Philosophy and Research Seminar Convenor
The University of Wollongong
http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/selpl/philosophy/UOW025977.html
Cognitive Integration Available from:
http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=275285
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