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Work #1474 · Mid-to-late period

Context and Content

Stalnaker's 1999 essay collection — essays on intentionality and speech in context

Robert Stalnaker · 1999 · English · Philosophical essay collection

Tradition: Analytic metaphysics / philosophy of language / philosophy of mind

Stalnaker's 1999 essays on intentionality, context, and the structure of belief and assertion

Published by Oxford University Press in 1999, 'Context and Content: Essays on Intentionality in Speech and Thought' collects fifteen years of Stalnaker's papers (with new introductions specifically composed for the volume). The book is organised in two parts. Part I: Content — eight essays on the nature of propositional content, including 'On What's in the Head' (1989, against narrow content), 'Twin Earth Revisited' (1993), 'Mental Content and Linguistic Form' (1990), 'The Problem of Logical Omniscience' (1991), and 'Belief Attribution and Context' (1988). Part II: Context — seven essays on the pragmatic-conversational dimension of meaning, including 'On the Representation of Context' (1996), 'Assertion' (1978 — the founding paper of the common-ground model of conversation), 'Pragmatic Presuppositions' (1974), 'Indicative Conditionals' (1975), and 'Possible Worlds and Situations' (1986). The book is the principal mid-career synthesis of Stalnaker's philosophy of language and mind, organising the work between 'Inquiry' (1984) and 'Ways a World Might Be' (2003). Together the essays develop Stalnaker's distinctive view: propositions as sets of possible worlds; belief as relation to a doxastic alternative set; assertion as proposing to add a proposition to the conversational common ground; context as the set of possibilities still live in conversation. The framework has shaped formal pragmatics and dynamic semantics across linguistics and philosophy of language.

Author

Editions cited

  • Context and Content: Essays on Intentionality in Speech and Thought (Oxford University Press, 1999)
  • Companion volumes: Inquiry (MIT, 1984); Ways a World Might Be (Oxford, 2003); Context (Oxford, 2014); Our Knowledge of the Internal World (Oxford, 2008)
  • Individual papers all originally published in journals or anthologies before 1999
  • Critical context: Daniel Stoljar and Yujin Nagasawa (eds.), There's Something About Mary (MIT, 2004)
Compare this work

School Embodiments

Philosophy of Language · 28%
Analytic Metaphysics / Logical Atomism · 22%
Pragmatism · 18%
Naturalism · 12%
Structuralism · 10%
Realism · 10%
Analytic Philosophy · 8%
Philosophy of Language 28%

Mature statement of Stalnaker's philosophy of language.

"Context and content can be sharply distinguished only by attending to the pragmatics of speech." (Context and Content, introduction)
Analytic Metaphysics / Logical Atomism 22%

Analytic-metaphysical underpinnings — propositions, worlds, content.

"Possible-worlds talk is the right framework for content." (Context and Content, ch. 1)
Pragmatism 18%

Pragmatic theory of context, presupposition, and assertion.

"Pragmatic analysis is essential to a sound philosophy of language." (Context and Content, ch. 3)
Naturalism 12%

Naturalistic-functional account of belief and assertion.

"Belief and assertion are to be understood through their roles in cognitive and conversational life." (Context and Content, ch. 7)
Structuralism 10%

Structural account of content — possible-worlds spaces structured by accessibility.

"Structured spaces of possibilities are the right model for belief." (Context and Content, ch. 5)
Realism 10%

Realism about propositional content.

"Content is objective, not merely a matter of speaker-stance." (Context and Content, ch. 2)
Analytic Philosophy 8%

Analytic-philosophical tradition.

Internal Tensions

Mature statement of the Stalnakerian philosophy-of-language programme. The common-ground model of conversation (from 'Assertion') has shaped formal pragmatics and dynamic semantics across linguistics and philosophy of language.

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I. Time

1999. Stalnaker was 59 and at MIT (his institutional base since 1988).

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Grain: Continuous Freedom: NDet Traversability: Linear Direction: Uni-directional Dimensionality: One
✦

II. Space

MIT philosophy department.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Curvature: Curved Dimensionality: Three Locality: Local
◉

III. Matter

Fifteen-essay collection (~430 pages). Form is monographic-essay: each essay independent but each carrying forward the broader Stalnakerian programme.

Attributes
Extent: Finite Ontological Status: Substantival Conservation: Conserved Dimensionality: Three Locality: Local
◎

IV. Observer

Mid-to-late Stalnaker. The observer-philosopher is positioned at the maturity of his philosophical-linguistic programme.

Attributes
Time Instance: Single Space Instance: Single Knowledge Extent: Immediate Knowledge Retainment: Total Physicality: Embodied Agency: Active Number: Plural Metaphysical Agency: Impersonal
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V. Energy

Synthesising energies of a mid-career systematic theorist. The new introductions explain how the essays fit together philosophically.

Attributes
Extent: Finite Ontological Status: Substantival Conservation: Conserved Dispersibility: Irreversible
⧉

VI. Information

Single English-language essay collection. The 'Assertion' paper (1978) and 'On What's in the Head' (1989) are among the most-cited individual entries.

Attributes
Ontological Status: Substantival Cosmic Conservation: Conserved Personal Conservation: Non-conserved Granularity: Continuous

Personas that cite this work

Robert Stalnaker David Lewis David J. Chalmers

Personas with the nearest attribute fingerprint

Historical figures whose own classification on the same six-dimensional grid lands closest to this work's. Computed by attribute-agreement on coordinates both address.

97%
John Searle
33/34
97%
Robert Stalnaker
33/34
94%
Ernst Cassirer
32/34
94%
Karl Popper
32/34
94%
Roy Bhaskar
32/34
93%
Diogenes of Sinope (the Cynic)
28/30

Computed school proximity

The work's attribute fingerprint scored against all schools using the same quiz scorer. Useful as a sanity check on the hand-curated embodiments above.

62%
Stoicism
21/26
60%
Presentism
22/26
59%
Deontological Ethics
22/26
58%
Classical Greek Thought
20/26
58%
Structuralism
20/26
57%
Cognitivism (Mind)
21/26
57%
Critical Realism
21/26
56%
Virtual Realism
20/26

How Context and Content resolves each dilemma

31 resolved positions across 4 dimensions · 26 unaligned.

Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.

Time · 9 dilemmas, all mainstream
How much weight do future people deserve? Future people are as real as you are — and their interests count for as much. 47% Is regret rational? The past is as real as the present; regret is a real attitude toward a real thing. 47% Do we owe extinct species something we cannot give them? Extinct species are as real as we are; they have standing. 47% Is the universe running out of usable energy? Time is unbounded but matter is finite; usable energy can fail without time failing. 47% Are natural resources fundamentally finite, or only practically so? Time goes on but matter is bounded; we are eventually constrained even with infinite time. 47% Could we owe future generations more than is materially possible to provide? Time is unbounded but matter is not; we can owe more across long time than the matter can provide. 47% Are addicts responsible for their addiction? — — Do you really choose? — — Should we hold AI systems responsible for what they do? — —
Matter · 7 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is the world created from nothing? Yes — matter was created and is conserved as a real substance. 55% Is the physical world fully real? Yes — the physical world is fully real, mind-independent, persisting. 55% Does matter have intrinsic moral standing? Matter is morally considerable insofar as it is created or conserved good. 55% What is money? Money is a real institution with intrinsic features. 54% What is a nation? A nation is a real moral community with intrinsic character. 54% What makes someone male or female? Sex is a real biological kind with given content. 54% Should we edit the human germline? Human nature is a real biological kind given by reproductive biology or by creation; editing the germline transgresses what is given. 54%
Observer · 37 dilemmas, all mainstream
Could causation work backwards? Causation runs one way — the arrow of time is real and structural. 68% Is the asymmetry between memory and anticipation a real feature of time, or just of us? The asymmetry is real because time itself has a real direction. 68% Is the arrow of time a real feature of the cosmos, or only of how we describe it? The arrow is real and structural; the asymmetry isn't an artifact of description. 68% Is environmental damage ever truly permanent? Damage is real and permanent on the relevant timescales. There is no recovery; there is only limitation. 66% Can a civilization recover from collapse? Civilizational complexity is hard to build and easy to lose; recovery is at best partial. 66% Does the second law of thermodynamics mean something morally? Entropy is what time is. The moral weight, if any, is the weight of working against the current. 66% When does a person begin? A person exists from conception — when a new being comes into existence. 54% What is marriage? Marriage has a given form — it’s a kind of thing we recognize, not make. 54% What is our place in nature? Active in a real nature — we cultivate, steward, transform. 48% Should we colonize space? Cultivating worlds beyond Earth is the next form of stewardship. 48% Is genetic engineering of food stewardship or domination? Genetic modification is cultivation by other means. 48% Should we trust expert testimony when we can't verify it? Trust expertise whose conclusions a competent mind can in principle reproduce. 32% Is religious revelation a real source of knowledge? Revelation is evaluable by reason — and not above it. 32% Does an LLM 'know' the things it correctly produces? An LLM can produce correct outputs but not reason to them; useful, not knowing. 32% Are coincidences ever more than coincidence? — — Are the dead morally present to the living? — — Are there indivisible units of experience? — — Can prayer for someone far away affect them? — — Could a fetal brain organoid in a petri dish be conscious? — — Could an AI have a mind that matters? — — Do animals have moral standing comparable to humans? — — Does environmental harm in another country bind me morally? — — Does history have a direction or meaning? — — Does meditation reveal something genuinely timeless? — — Does prayer change God's mind? — — How is knowledge of reality produced? — — If a teleporter copied and destroyed you, would you have survived? — — Is divine omniscience compatible with human freedom? — — Is memory stored or reconstructed? — — Is reality fundamentally digital? — — Is salvation, liberation, or fulfillment individual or communal? — — Is the late-stage dementia patient still the person their spouse married? — — Is truth universal, tradition-bound, situated, or constructed? — — What happens to "you" when you die? — — What kind of religious-theological authority does the tradition recognize? — — What makes someone the same person over time? — — Who is the moral primary — the individual, the community, the cosmos, the class, or the species? — —
Information · 4 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is anything truly lost when someone forgets? Information is lost when a mind forgets; matter and energy continue, but the pattern is gone. 51% Does deleting your data online destroy something real? Information is genuinely lost when the substrate that hosted it goes; deletion really destroys. 51% Could the dead, in principle, be brought back? The information dissipates with the substrate; restoration is in principle impossible. 51% Is forgiveness ontologically possible? The offense is locally constituted by its substrate; when the substrate dissolves, the offense genuinely passes away. 51%
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