Institut Jean Nicod

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PANALM

The Paris-Nancy Colloquium in Logic and the Philosophy of Mathematics or PANALM is a forum for general expository talks accessible and relevant for all researchers in logic and the philosophy of mathematics.

For more information on the PANALM seminar, you can have a look at our website https://www.panalm.org/
 
 

 Next session

John MacFarlane (UC Berkeley)

Title : "Felicitous underspecification"
 
February 3rd, 2026 (11 am - 1 pm) | IJN Meeting room | 29, rue d’Ulm
 
Abstract : In recent work, Jeffrey King has called our attention to the problem 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 about whether we mean local-to-the-city or local-to-the-county. After discussing the problems raised by this phenomenon, 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 ideas from Allan Gibbard’s plan expressivism. According to this approach, ordinary descriptive claims like "I went to a local shop" must be understood as expressive of practical plans for the use of words, as well as ordinary beliefs. Indeterminacy amounts to practical indecision.
Everybody is welcome !


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