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Assertions, Handicaps, and Social Norms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2020

Peter J. Graham
Peter J. Graham*
Affiliation:
University of California, Riverside, CA, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: peterg@ucr.edu
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Abstract

How should we undertand the role of norms – especially epistemic norms – governing assertive speech acts? Mitchell Green (2009) has argued that these norms play the role of handicaps in the technical sense from the animal signals literature. As handicaps, they then play a large role in explaining the reliability – and so the stability (the continued prevalence) – of assertive speech acts. But though norms of assertion conceived of as social norms do indeed play this stabilizing role, these norms are best understood as deterrents and not as handicaps. This paper explains the stability problem for the maintenance of animal signals, and so human communication; the mechanics of the handicap principle; the role of deterrents and punishments as an alternative mechanism; and the role of social norms governing assertion for the case of human communication.

Keywords

epistemologynormsanimal cognitionsignalingsocial epistemology
Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 17 , Special Issue 3: Epistemic Norms as Social Norms Conference , September 2020 , pp. 349 - 363
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press.

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