I think I’m doing something more substantive than that.
I agree that it’s not unusual to be able to look at the dichotomy of whether people exhibit behavior B, or the spectrum of how often they exhibit B, or the contexts in which they exhibit B, depending on how much detail you want to go into.
However, whether (or to what extent, or in what contexts) the dichotomy and spectrum views constitute a useful“dimensionality reduction”, depends on the particular value of B. If B = “smiling”, then I do expect the spectrum view to be a reasonable proxy for general happiness levels. But if B = “typing the letter ‘q’”, I don’t expect the spectrum view to measure anything interesting.
It’s certainly possible that there’s a “general factor” of contextualizing—that people systematically and non-opportunistically vary in how inferentially distant a related claim has to be in order to not create an implicature that needs to be explicitly canceled if false. But I don’t think it’s obvious, and even if it’s true, I don’t think it’s pedagogically wise to use a politically-motivated appeal-to-consequences as the central case of contextualizing.
I think I’m doing something more substantive than that.
I agree that it’s not unusual to be able to look at the dichotomy of whether people exhibit behavior B, or the spectrum of how often they exhibit B, or the contexts in which they exhibit B, depending on how much detail you want to go into.
However, whether (or to what extent, or in what contexts) the dichotomy and spectrum views constitute a useful “dimensionality reduction”, depends on the particular value of B. If B = “smiling”, then I do expect the spectrum view to be a reasonable proxy for general happiness levels. But if B = “typing the letter ‘q’”, I don’t expect the spectrum view to measure anything interesting.
It’s certainly possible that there’s a “general factor” of contextualizing—that people systematically and non-opportunistically vary in how inferentially distant a related claim has to be in order to not create an implicature that needs to be explicitly canceled if false. But I don’t think it’s obvious, and even if it’s true, I don’t think it’s pedagogically wise to use a politically-motivated appeal-to-consequences as the central case of contextualizing.