Individual and stage-level predicates of personal taste: another argument for genericity as the source of faultless disagreement
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Editors
Wyatt, J
Zakkou, J
Zeman, D
Publisher
Journal
Perspectives on Taste: Aesthetics, Language, Metaphysics and Experimental Philosophy
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This chapter compares simple predicates of personal taste (PPTs) such as 'tasty' and 'beautiful' with their complex counterparts (eg 'tastes good', 'looks beautiful'). I argue that the former differ from the latter along two dimensions. Firstly, simple PPTs are individual-level predicates, whereas complex ones are stage-level. Secondly, covert Experiencer arguments of simple PPTs obligatorily receive a generic interpretation; by contrast, the covert Experiencer of a complex PPT can receive a generic, bound variable or referential interpretation. I provide an analysis of these facts based on a novel proposal about the licensing of individual-level predicates (the ‘Licensing Condition on ILPs’). This condition states that all covert pronominal arguments of an individual-level predicate must be bound by the generic operator. Finally, I show that generic construal of the Experiencer is a necessary condition for faultless disagreement. This is evidence in favour of treatments of subjective meaning that appeal to genericity, and against relativism about PPTs.
Authors
Pearson, HCollections
- Linguistics [250]