Faultlessness and multidimensionality
Diogo Santos (LanCog, University of Lisbon)

04 June 2021, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – GMT+1) | Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia) & on Zoom

Abstract: Many have pointed out that non-evaluative vague predicates can give rise to faultless disagreements. This sort of faultlessness has to do with the gradable nature of vague predicates. This fact is usually not interpreted as undermining the claim that evaluative predicates (which are also gradable) give rise to faultlessness in a different way, because, when it comes to evaluatives, (i) intuitions of faultlessness persist even when the predicates are in a comparative form and (ii) only constructions of evaluative predicates under find are acceptable. While (i) justifies the claim that evaluative faultless disagreements are not due to gradability or vagueness, (ii) suggests that evaluative faultless disagreements occur due to experiencer/judge sensitivity. In this paper I argue that (i) and (ii) do not motivate the claim that evaluative and non-evaluative predicates generate faultlessness via different mechanisms. I argue that a reasonable explanation for faultlessness in the comparative form is due to multidimensionality and not specifically due to experiencer/judge sensitivity. I further argue that, if this is right, then evaluative and non-evaluative predicates give rise to faultless disagreements via similar linguistic mechanisms. I conclude with some remarks on the implications of the latter claim.

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