Generics are exception-admitting generalisations, which find expression in apparently diverse linguistic forms. A standard claim is that there is a hidden linguistic unity to genericity in the form of a covert operator, Gen. This article surveys and rejects a range of considerations that purport to show Gen to be syntactically essential to the explanation of a range of linguistic phenomena connected to genericity. The conclusion reached is that genericity is not a specifically linguistic property insofar as it does not supervene (...) upon any especial linguistic device; rather, genericity supervenes on broader cognitive competencies within linguistic constraints. (shrink)

This paper discusses free-choice like effects in generics. Just as Jane may drink coffee or tea can be used to convey Jane may drink coffee and Jane may drink tea (she is free to choose ), some generics with disjunctive predicates can be used to convey conjunctions of simpler generics: elephants live in Africa or Asia can be used to convey elephants live in Africa and elephants live in Asia. Investigating these logically slightly more complex generics and especially the free-choice (...) like effects throws light on both the semantics of generics and the interaction between world knowledge and the interpretive options generics offer. This paper presents a package of semantic and pragmatic hypotheses to account for the data, including why the effect is absent in the superficially logically similar elephants live in Africa or give birth to live young. (shrink)

This article1 investigates a particular use of generic sentences (or “characterizing” sentences, in the terminology of Krifka e.a. 1995), which is most prevalent with indefinite singular subjects. Such subjects cannot always be interchanged with bare plural NPs, as has been famously pointed out by Lawler (1973).

In recent work on context­dependency, it has been argued that certain types of sentences give rise to a notion of relative truth. In particular, sentences containing predicates of personal taste and moral or aesthetic evaluation as well as epistemic modals are held to express a proposition (relative to a context of use) which is true or false not only relative to a world of evaluation, but other parameters as well, such as standards of taste or knowledge or an agent. Thus, (...) a sentence like chocolate tastes good would express a proposition p that is true or false not only at a world of evaluation, but relative to the additional parameter as well, such as a parameter of taste or an agent. I will argue that the sentences that apparently give rise to relative truth should be understood by relating them in a certain way to the first person. More precisely, such sentences express what I will call first­person­based genericity, a form of generalization that is based on or directed toward an essential first­person application of the predicate. The account differs from standard relative truth account in crucial respects: it is not the truth of the proposition expressed that is relative to the first person; the proposition expressed by a sentence with a predicate of taste rather has absolute truth conditions. Instead it is the propositional content itself that requires a first­personal cognitive access whenever it is entertained. This account, I will argue, avoids a range of problems that standard relative truth theories of the sentences in question face and explains a number of further peculiarities that such sentences display. (shrink)

There is a standard quantificational view of generic sentences according to which they have a tripartite logical form involving a phonologically null generic operator called 'Gen'. Recently, a number of theorists have questioned the standard view and revived a competing proposal according to which generics involve the predication of properties to kinds. This paper offers a novel argument against the kind-predication approach on the basis of the invalidity of Generic Excluded Middle, a principle according to which any sentence of the (...) form ⌜Either Fs are G or Fs are not G⌝ is true. I argue that the kind-predication approach erroneously predicts that GEM is valid, and that it can only avoid this conclusion by either collapsing into a form of the quantificational analysis or otherwise garnering unpalatable metaphysical commitments. I also show that, while the quantificational approach does not validate GEM as a matter of logical form, the principle may be validated on certain semantic analyses of the generic operator, and so, such theories should be rejected. (shrink)

Is it harmful to make generic claims about social groups? Those who say yes cite the reinforcement of oppressive stereotypes and cognitive bias. Those who say no cite the potential of generics to do good, rather than harm, by taking advantage of the same mechanisms that perpetuate the harms. This paper analyzes generic utterances in the context of social justice efforts to weigh in on the debate about whether and how generic utterances contribute to stereotypes and oppression. We need to (...) first pay more attention to what it means to utter generics in social justice contexts. Doing so will allow us to distinguish those generic utterances that are helpful for social justice projects from those that might impede their progress. I argue that there is an important pragmatic sense in which generics can be undermined: especially generics used in service of social justice claims. I then offer an epistemic thesis for why some generics are more susceptible to being undermined by counter-examples than others. I conclude that if we are interested in using generics in the service of social justice, then there is reason to restrict the contexts in which we utter generics. In doing so, I challenge the conventional wisdom that generics are resistant to counterexamples. (shrink)

In his book, "Prejudice", Endre Begby offers a novel and engaging account of the epistemology of prejudice which challenges some of the standard assumptions that have so far guided the recent discussion on the topic. One of Begby's central arguments against the standard view of prejudice, according to which a prejudiced person necessarily displays an epistemically culpable resistance to counterevidence, is that, qua stereotype judgments, prejudices can be flexible and rationally maintained upon encountering many disconfirming instances. By expanding on Begby's (...) analysis, I argue that, given the variety of truth conditions for true generic statements, the generic form of stereotype judgements can sometimes make prejudice extremely resistant to encounters with statistical facts about the distribution of the property among members of a certain group. At the same time, I argue that a more careful consideration of the generic form of stereotypes also allows us to recognize that evidence about how many members of the kind instantiate a property is not the only type of evidence which could disconfirm a prejudice. Evidence of no explanatory relation between a kind and a property should also have a direct effect on a prejudicial belief. For this reason, things may not look as dim for the standard view of prejudice in assessing paradigmatic instances of prejudicial beliefs as irrationally resistant to evidence. (shrink)

While generic generalisations have been studied by linguists and philosophers for decades, they have only recently become the focus of concentrated interest by cognitive and developmental psychologists, who propose the generics-as-default view. In this paper we focus on the ‘Generic Overgeneralisation’ (GOG) effect proposed by Leslie and colleagues and the native speaker judgments that have been used to support it, and by extension, the generics-as-default view. We take a step back to look at the history of the GOG effect in (...) order to contextualise it. We review existing experimental evidence and discuss four non-mutually exclusive explanations for the GOG effect: ignorance, subkind interpretation, atypical behaviour of all and quantifier domain restriction. We conclude that a closer look at the semantics and pragmatics of generics and universal quantifiers may provide a more nuanced explanation for the pattern of judgment data than that proposed by the generics-as-default view. (shrink)

Arguments for context-sensitivity are often based on judgments about the truth values of sentences: a sentence seems true in one context and false in another, so it is argued that the truth conditions of the sentence shift between these contexts. Such arguments rely on the assumption that our judgments reflect the actual truth values of sentences in context. Here, I present a non-semantic explanation of these judgments. In short, our judgments about the truth values of sentences are driven by heuristics (...) that are only fallible reflections of actual truth values. These heuristics can lead to different truth-value judgments in different contexts, even when the sentence at issue is not semantically context-sensitive. As a case study, I consider Sterken’s (Philos. Imprint, 15, 2015a) argument for the context-sensitivity of generic generalisations. I provide a non-semantic explanation of Sterken’s truth-value judgments, which builds on Leslie’s (Philos Perspect 21(1):375–403, 2007; Philos Rev 117(1):1–47, 2008) theory of default generalisation. (shrink)

This paper is about an underappreciated aspect of generics: their non-specificity. Many uses of generics, utterances like ‘Seagulls swoop down to steal food’, express non-specific generalisations which do not specify their quantificational force or flavour. I consider whether this non-specificity arises as a by-product of context-sensitivity or semantic incompleteness but argue instead that generics semantically express non-specific generalisations by default as a result of quantifying existentially over more specific ones.

The ‘limits of markets’ debate broadly concerns the question of when it is (im)permissible to have a market in some good. Markets can be of tremendous benefit to society, but many have felt that certain goods should not be for sale (e.g., sex, kidneys, bombs). Their sale is argued to be corrupting, exploitative, or to express a form of disrespect. InMarkets without Limits, Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski have recently argued to the contrary: For any good, as long as it (...) is permissible to give it for free, then it is permissible to give it for money. Their thesis has led to a number of engaging objections, and I leverage recent work on the nature of feasibility within political philosophy to offer a new challenge.I argue that feasibility offers a constraint on which markets can be permissibly implemented. Though it may be possible to create a morally acceptable version of an otherwise repugnant market, some of these markets may be infeasible, and so we are not permitted to implement them. After laying out this challenge, I consider several replies. They concern the relevance of feasibility, and whether any markets really are infeasible. This provides an opportunity to explore the dangers of pursuing the infeasible and with markets generally. I conclude by considering what might lead us to pursue these markets despite their infeasibility, or how knowledge of infeasibility may prove useful regardless. (shrink)

Generic claims like ‘women stay home and raise children’ and ‘boys don’t cry’ are normative generics: generic claims that express a norm. The truth conditions of normative generics are even harder to account for than those for more descriptive generics like ‘ducks lay eggs.’ Until recently, such generics were treated as deviant and thus not accounted for in standard accounts of generics. But recent work on the semantics and pragmatics of normative generics has changed that. In light of this recent (...) work, I propose that a speech act analysis of normative generics as instructions will shed light on normative generics. I end by discussing the ways in which this might allow us to use generics to counter harmful speech. (shrink)

Presenting the first comprehensive, in-depth study of hyperintensionality, this book equips readers with the basic tools needed to appreciate some of current and future debates in the philosophy of language, semantics, and metaphysics. After introducing and explaining the major approaches to hyperintensionality found in the literature, the book tackles its systematic connections to normativity and offers some contributions to the current debates. The book offers undergraduate and graduate students an essential introduction to the topic, while also helping professionals in related (...) fields get up to speed on open research-level problems. (shrink)

While generic generalisations have been studied by linguists and philosophers for decades, they have only recently become the focus of concentrated interest by cognitive and developmental p...

This article discusses recent theories of the meaning of generics. The discussion is centred on how the theories differ in their approach to addressing the primary difficulty in providing a theory of generic meaning: The notoriously complex ways in which the truth conditions of generics seem to vary. In addition, the article summarizes considerations for and against each theory.

In this paper, we compare the formal semantics approach to genericity, within which genericity is viewed as a species of quantification, and a growing body of experimental and developmental work on the topic, mainly by psychologists rather than linguists, proposing that genericity is categorically different from quantification. We argue that this generics-as-default hypothesis is much less well supported by evidence than its supporters contend, and that a research program combining theoretical and experimental research methods and considerations in the same studies (...) is required to make progress. (shrink)

Simple locative sentences show a variety of pseudo-quantificational interpretations. Some locatives give the impression of universal quantification over parts of objects, others involve existential quantification, and yet others cannot be characterized by either of these quantificational terms. This behavior is explained by virtually all semantic theories of locatives. What has not been previously observed is that similar quantificational variability is also exhibited by locative sentences containing indefinites with the ‘a’ article. This phenomenon is especially problematic for traditional existential treatments of (...) indefinites. We propose a solution where indefinites denote properties and are assigned locations similarly to other spatial descriptions. This Property-Eigenspace Hypothesis accounts for the correlation between the interpretations of locative indefinites and the pseudo-quantificational effects with simple entity-denoting NPs. Thereby, the proposal opens up a new empirical domain for property-based theories of indefinites, with implications for the analysis of collective descriptions, generics, negative polarity items and part–whole structure. (shrink)

Despite extensive studies, the issue concerning the pragmatic mechanisms leading to causal and temporal interpretations of and remains problematic and has not yet been addressed in its totality within one framework. This paper proposes a solution based on presuppositional mechanisms built into a comprehensive analysis that accounts for both the various interpretations of and-sentences as well as those of other types of sentences involving similar interpretations. This account is a specific part of a unified solution to the knotty problem of (...) different manners of conveying causal and temporal relations both with connectives and also with juxtaposed sentences. It is formulated within the Relevance Nomological Model which provides a general framework for the analysis of causal constructions such as the connective because and why-questions. (shrink)