From Thought Experiments to Real Experiments in Pragmatics
The puzzle of thought experiments is a hot topic in the philosophy of science. The chapter raises the puzzle with respect to pragmatics as follows: How is it possible that thought experiments in pragmatics yield new experiential information about communic
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Abstract The puzzle of thought experiments is a hot topic in the philosophy of science. The chapter raises the puzzle with respect to pragmatics as follows: How is it possible that thought experiments in pragmatics yield new experiential information about communication, although they are carried out entirely in one’s head? The chapter shows, first, that the structure of thought experiments in pragmatics consists of a series of plausible inferences. Second, the function of thought experiments is to serve as the initial step in the process of plausible argumentation as well as to test the plausibility of rival hypotheses. Third, while on the one hand, thought experiments and real experiments may be continuous, on the other hand, the former may be also indispensable components of the latter. Fourth, these properties provide a solution to the puzzle of thought experiments in pragmatics. The key idea of the solution is that thought experiments in pragmatics cannot generate new experiential information; rather, during the process of plausible argumentation they contribute to the retrospective re-evaluation of experiential information already given.
1 Introduction The investigation of the relationship between thought experiments and real experiments in pragmatics is motivated by the state of the art in two different fields of inquiry. A. Kertész Research Group for Theoretical Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Debrecen, Hungary e-mail: [email protected] F. Kiefer (&) Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Benczúr utca 33 H-1068 Budapest, Hungary e-mail: [email protected]
A. Capone et al. (eds.), Perspectives on Pragmatics and Philosophy, Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology 1, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-01011-3_3, Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2013
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A. Kertész and F. Kiefer
The first is, of course, pragmatics. Currently, there is a growing interest in the application of experimental methods.1 The use of real experiments in pragmatics is especially interesting, if one relates it to the philosophical origins of the discipline. In particular, Grice’s ideas put forward in his seminal papers, Searle’s widely discussed arguments for his account of illocutionary acts, and many other classical contributions to pragmatics have been based on invented ‘stories’ supporting the hypotheses which fertilized the development of this field. The way some authors characterise these stories highlights features which are typical of thought experiments. For example, Meibauer (2012: 769) maintains that ‘‘pragmatic evidence is more often than not construed as a story, the story reflecting pragmatic intuitions of a speaker or hearer’’ (emphasis added). Noveck and Sperber (2004a, b: 8) maintain that ‘‘the only source of evidence’’ which those philosophers and linguists who developed pragmatics ‘‘have ever used has been their own intuition about how an invented utterance would be interpreted in a hypothetical situation’’ (emphasis added). The features mentioned in these q
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