Experimenting on contextualism

Hansen, N. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5074-1075 and Chemla, E. (2013) Experimenting on contextualism. Mind and Language, 28 (3). pp. 286-321. ISSN 1468-0017 doi: 10.1111/mila.12019

Abstract/Summary

In this article we refine the design of context shifting experiments, which play a central role in contextualist debates, and we subject a large number of scenarios involving different types of expressions of interest to contextualists, including ‘know’ and color adjectives like ‘green’, to experimental investigation. Our experiment (i) reveals an effect of changing contexts on the evaluation of uses of the sentences that we examine, thereby overturning the absence of results reported in previous experimental studies (so-called null results), (ii) uncovers evidence for a ‘truth bias' in favor of positive over negative sentences, and (iii) reveals previously unnoticed distinctions between the strength of the contextual effects displayed by scenarios involving knowledge ascriptions and scenarios concerning color and other miscellaneous scenarios.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/29494
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Interdisciplinary Research Centres (IDRCs) > Centre for Cognition Research (CCR) Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Humanities > Philosophy
Publisher	Wiley-Blackwell
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