Yu, Xinyi;
(2025)
Disagreement, Contextualism, and Coordination.
Masters thesis (M.Phil.Stud), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
The present work is concerned with disagreement over predicates of personal taste (PPTs), such as judgments that a symphony is beautiful or a dish is tasty. These disputes, though grounded in subjective standards, often nonetheless present themselves as genuine disagreements: speakers treat their judgments as incompatible and seek resolution, even while acknowledging their first-personal character. An adequate account must therefore explain both the subjective basis of taste and the interpersonal dynamics that make these exchanges persist as disagreements. Plunkett and Sundell have proposed a metalinguistic negotiation framework, on which such disputes are understood as moments when speakers press competing standards for how a term like “beautiful” should be applied. I develop this proposal by integrating it into a Stalnakerian conception of context, which distinguishes between the private standards fixed by private Kaplanian contexts and the public Stalnakerian context shared by interlocutors. On this view, disagreement is not simply a matter of expressing opposing standards, but of attempting to influence what is taken up into the common ground—whether one’s own standard or a revised, mutually scrutinized alternative. The resulting framework shows how contextualist semantics can preserve the first-personal authority of taste judgments while also explaining why disputes over beauty invite argument and revision. In this way, the account provides a plausible picture of how aesthetic discourse can support both individual perspectives and the possibility of genuine disagreement, without committing to an objectivist metaphysics of PPTs.
| Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | M.Phil.Stud |
| Title: | Disagreement, Contextualism, and Coordination |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2025. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Dept of Philosophy |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10215588 |
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