Or suppose you’re a guest at my house, and you ask where the washing machine is, and I say it’s by the stairs. If the machine then turns out to be broken, and you ask, “Hey, did you know your washing machine is broken?” and I say, “Yes”, you’re probably going to be pretty baffled why I didn’t say “It’s by the stairs, but you can’t use it because it’s broken” earlier (even though the decontextualized answer “It’s by the stairs” was, in fact, true).
It doesn’t seem like this is what either Chris Leong’s post or John Nerst’s post was about.
The intent of that paragraph is to provide an example illustrating the general concept of implicature, which explains when it makes sense to object that a literally true statement should have been provided with more context.
Yes, it does. “Contextualizers” think that the statement “Green-eyed people commit twice as many murders” creates an implicature that ”… therefore green-eyed people should be stereotyped as criminals” that needs to be explicitly canceled with a disclaimer, which is an instance of the more general cognitive process by which most people think that “The washing machine is by the stairs” creates an implicature of ”… and the machine works” that, if it’s not true, needs to be explicitly canceled with a disclaimer (”… but it’s broken”). “Decouplers” don’t think the statement about murder rates creates an implicature about stereotyping.
I don’t think it’s necessarily about implacature. It’s often about being taken “out of context” or used as a justification. That is, I may not think “green eyed people commit twice as many murders” implies anything about stereotyping, but I still think it may lead to more stereotyping due to motivated reasoning. It’s much more about consequences rather than implications.
Edit:
To expand on this:
There are several types of context:
The context in which it is said (Implacature)
The context about the state of mind/biases which the other person is in when hearing it (Inference)
The context in which what was said may be used (culture).
Contextualizing vs. decoupling seem much more about the the latter two to me—No one is arguing that you shouldn’t be clear in your speech. The question is how much you should take into account other people and culture. That is, decouplers often decouple from consequences and focus merely on implacature, whereas contextualizers try and contextualize how what they say will be interpreted and used.
Yeah I realized that when reading through but going back and changing everything feels pointless since you basically get the implicature of what I was trying to say.
It doesn’t seem like this is what either Chris Leong’s post or John Nerst’s post was about.
The intent of that paragraph is to provide an example illustrating the general concept of implicature, which explains when it makes sense to object that a literally true statement should have been provided with more context.
Right, but the implacature of contextualizing in those posts has nothing to do with implacature.
Yes, it does. “Contextualizers” think that the statement “Green-eyed people commit twice as many murders” creates an implicature that ”… therefore green-eyed people should be stereotyped as criminals” that needs to be explicitly canceled with a disclaimer, which is an instance of the more general cognitive process by which most people think that “The washing machine is by the stairs” creates an implicature of ”… and the machine works” that, if it’s not true, needs to be explicitly canceled with a disclaimer (”… but it’s broken”). “Decouplers” don’t think the statement about murder rates creates an implicature about stereotyping.
I don’t think it’s necessarily about implacature. It’s often about being taken “out of context” or used as a justification. That is, I may not think “green eyed people commit twice as many murders” implies anything about stereotyping, but I still think it may lead to more stereotyping due to motivated reasoning. It’s much more about consequences rather than implications.
Edit:
To expand on this:
There are several types of context:
The context in which it is said (Implacature)
The context about the state of mind/biases which the other person is in when hearing it (Inference)
The context in which what was said may be used (culture).
Contextualizing vs. decoupling seem much more about the the latter two to me—No one is arguing that you shouldn’t be clear in your speech. The question is how much you should take into account other people and culture. That is, decouplers often decouple from consequences and focus merely on implacature, whereas contextualizers try and contextualize how what they say will be interpreted and used.
Meta: it’s implicature. The second vowel is an i.
Yeah I realized that when reading through but going back and changing everything feels pointless since you basically get the implicature of what I was trying to say.