The Role of Presuppositions in Context-Shifting Mechanism

Abstract

Purpose

The main aim of this paper is to explain the notion of context shifting mechanism and the role of presupposition in this mechanism, in the context of John Hawthorne-Stewart Cohen debate. In section 1, I discuss John Hawthorne’s argument, by way of posing a paradox, against (Ascriber) Contextualism. In responding to Hawthorne’s paradox, Cohen speaks about the shifting of the context with an example (the Basketball Case). Section 2 begins with the example, the Basketball Case, which was offered by Stewart Cohen as a response to John Hawthorne’s paradox.

Method

I keep the Basketball Case as the base and I address the issue of context shifting mechanism, specifically within this example. There are two problems here: the shifting problem as well as the meaning problem. In Section 3, I specifically deal with the shifting problem. Thereafter, I try to explain the shifting of the context in terms of the creation and the destruction of presuppositions by the speakers. Secondly, I explain the creation and the destruction of presuppositions both in terms of speakers’ encountering some perceptual experience and speakers’ attending to it. In this the notion of partial and complete destruction of presuppositions is explained. The main aim of Section 4 is to explain the meaning problem.

Results

Two cases are considered here: (a) the meaning problem in explicit cases and (b) the meaning problem in implicit cases. I explain the meaning problem in the explicit case in detail with the help of word saindhava and the meaning problem in implicit cases by citing the example of the Basketball Case.

Conclusion

In Section 5, I attempt to apply the shifting problem and the meaning problem in knowledge case.