Matt Weiner, a frequent commentator on this blog and a recent Pitt grad, has a new papers page with the following two papers on it.

Must We Know What We Say?

The knowledge account of assertion holds that it is improper to assert that p unless the speaker knows that p. This paper argues against the knowledge account of assertion; there is no general norm that the speaker must know what she asserts. I argue that there are cases in which it can be entirely proper to assert something that you do not know. In addition, it is possible to explain the cases that motivate the knowledge account by postulating a general norm that assertions would be true, combined with conversational norms that govern all speech acts. A theory on which proper assertions must be true explains the data better than a theory on which proper assertions must be known to be true.

Deductive Closure and the Sorites

I argue against unqualified acceptance of the principle of deductive closure (DC): that, if p follows deductively from premises that are already known, we are in a position to know p. DC, I claim, is a sorites premise; it seems intuitively irresistible, but indiscriminate application of it leads to absurd conclusions. Furthermore, a theory on which the application of DC explains our practice of deriving new knowledge from old knowledge better than a theory on which our application of DC is unrestricted. This restriction on the application of DC allows contextualists to meet an argument of Hawthorne’s that contextualism must lead either to absurd knowledge attributions or to constant shifting of the standards for knowledge. Even if the standard of knowledge remains constant, the absurd knowledge attribution is the conclusion of a sorites argument and should be rejected.