In Defense of the Pragmatic View

Abstract

The chapter argues that those versions of Inherently Evaluative according to which thick terms and concepts carry global evaluation as conventional implicature, semantic presupposition or a convention of use cannot explain the defeasibility and certain further features of global evaluations. Pragmatic views which treat the relationship as conversational implicature or pragmatic presupposition are also found problematic. A positive Pragmatic View is defended on which global evaluations are defeasible “not-at-issue” implications of utterances deploying thick terms. They are typically “backgrounded” in conversational context but need not be mutually accepted in the way pragmatic presuppositions should be. This view of thick words strongly suggests that global evaluation is not essential to thick concepts either, even if some thinkers happen to have thick concepts that contain it. The Pragmatic View also allows thick concepts to play important roles in our practical reasoning.