The Burman lectures 2025. Lecture 1 : Felicitous Underspecification
Wed
8
Oct
Wednesday 8 October, 2025at 13:15 - 15:00
HUM.H.119, Humanities Building, Umeå University
The Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies invites you to the annual Burman lectures in philosophy. This years invited lecturer is Professor John Macfarlane, UC Berkeley. He will give three open lectures over three days.
Lecture 1: Felicitous Underspecification Wednesay 8 October at 13.15-15.00 PM in Lecture Hall HUM.D.220
Abstract: In recent work, Jeffrey King has called our attention to the phenomenon of “felicitous underspecification”: felicitous uses of context-sensitive language in the absence of determinate intentions about the needed contextual supplementation. An example would be talk of a “local shop” in the absence of a determinate intention defining the scope of the locality (local-to-the-neighborhood, local-to-the-city, local-to-the-region?). After discussing the challenge this phenomenon poses for standard theories of communication, I consider King’s own solution and argue that it is inadequate. I then describe the solution I think is needed, which makes use of the basic ideas of Allan Gibbard’s plan expressivism. According to this approach, ordinary descriptive claims like “I went to a local bar” must be understood as expressive of practical plans for the use of words, as well as ordinary beliefs. Indeterminacy amounts to practical indecision.
