In everyday conversation, we often do not pay attention to the structure and conversational dynamics. For instance, philosopher David Lewis believes that the structure of a conversation is based on a “conversational scoreboard” and the scoreboard contains several different features that add or subtract to a conversation. Within this scoreboard, features such as presupposition and assertion can capture the relevance of a conversation. In addition, these features have rules that can determine the status of the conversational scoreboard. However, Lewis appears to be vague on his rules. For these rules to encompass all speech acts, it is important to expand upon them. In any type of conversation, there is some information that is presupposed. A presupposition is when at any time throughout a conversation, the participants take a piece of the information as known for the sake of the conversation.
Perhaps, if someone is having a conversation and they utter the sentence “John got fired”, then the conversational partner would presuppose that John had a job prior to his dismissal. Lewis believes that the information of John’s job is taken for granted in this conversation and does not need to be stated in order for the conversational partner to know this piece of information. However, Lewis does not think that presuppositions are unregulated; he believes there are a set of rules that guide presuppositions through a conversation. Lewis’ first rule of presupposition, he says that it is only appropriate to say something in a context if it has already been presupposed. In other words, if one of the participants was oblivious to John’s job, then Lewis would find it inappropriate to say that John recently got fired.
On the other hand, it would be appropriate to talk about John getting fired if all the participants knew of John’s firing beforehand. In the second rule of presupposition, Lewis adds that if someone asserts something and the conversational partner does not reject the utterance, then the presupposition becomes a part of the next context. In this case, if someone mentions “John had a job”, then Lewis would deem it appropriate to add, “John just got fired”. In the final rule, Lewis says if something has already been presupposed in a context, then it is inappropriate to utter that presupposition in the current context. For example, it would be inappropriate to say, “John just got fired, and John had a job”. In this case, it would be more acceptable to say, “John had a job, and John just got fired”. While these rules give insight to how a presupposition guides a conversation, it seems as if they do not include other speech acts. Lewis’ rules for presupposition are unclear and vague.
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More specifically, Lewis’ second rule needs to be expanded so it can leave no room for arguments and confusion. The rule states that if the conversational partner does not reject an utterance, then the presupposition gets added to the next context. There is confusion on how long someone can reject an utterance before the presupposition is added to the next context. Perhaps, someone is having a conversation about baseball and they say, “I really enjoy watching baseball”. Then, after it has already been established that the speaker enjoys baseball, their conversational partner asks, “do you like baseball?”. It does not sound like Lewis has an answer that could help resolve this issue. It seems rather inappropriate for someone to reject an utterance after is has already been established that the speaker likes baseball.
Another apparent issue with Lewis’ second rule of presupposition is that he does not give any limitations on what can be asked or said in response to a speaker’s utterance. For instance, Lewis does not say anything about the relevance of what a conversational partner can respond with. In other words, a conversational partner may be able to say, “dogs are my favorite animal” in response to the speaker’s utterance of “I really enjoy watching baseball”. It is unclear whether David Lewis would consider the conversational partner’s utterance of “dogs are my favorite animal” as a rejection of the speaker’s utterance and whether that would cause the presupposition in the current context to carry on to the next context.
If Lewis requires the conversational partner’s rejection to be relevant to the context, he does not mention anything about how their utterance adheres to the second rule of presupposition. If the conversational partner responds hours later to the speaker’s utterance of “I really enjoy watching baseball” with “do you like baseball?”, it is unclear if this adheres or violates the rules. The third rule of presupposition states the appropriateness on uttering a presupposition in a current context. For example, it would be inappropriate for the speaker to utter a presupposition in a current context when it has already been taken for granted in the conversation and doing so would be a violation of this rule; Lewis does not mention something like this in his second rule.
In other words, Lewis may deem it appropriate for someone to reject the speaker’s utterance well after the utterance has been made and accepted. Although, grammatically, this type of action would not make sense, Lewis’ rules may permit it and if he does not, then it should be made clearer. Another issue seen in David Lewis’ second rule of presupposition is that Lewis is vague on what he would consider a “rejection” to be. Does David Lewis only consider questions as a way of rejecting the speaker’s utterance? Or, does he think that a rejection can include all speech acts such as assertions and other utterances? It seems like this rule should be revised to specify what a rejection is.
For example, If the conversational partner says, “do you like baseball?” to the speaker’s utterance of, “I really enjoy baseball”, does the listener’s question count as a rejection or would a rejection have to come in the form of a statement such as, “I like baseball too”? This portion of the second rule needs to be revised. For Lewis’ rules of presupposition to make sense and encompass all speech acts, it is important that we expand upon these rules. David Lewis’ first and third rules appear to make the most sense and leave little room for arguments. However, Lewis’ second rule is where the confusion lies. The first issue with the second rule is how long does Lewis deem it acceptable to reject or not reject a speaker’s utterance that carries the current presupposition into the next context. For example, if two participants are having a conversation, then hours later while the two are continuing their conversation, the listener then rejects the speaker’s utterance with a question.
Lewis does not have a response to how long a listener has before their utterance is considered as a rejection. Personally, it would make more sense if Lewis expanded upon this portion of the rule by rephrasing it to something such as, “The rule states that if the conversational partner does not reject an utterance shortly after the utterance was made, then the presupposition gets added to the next context”. The next issue with the second rule is that the rule is vague on what the limitations of what can be said. For example, it does not reference relevancy. Therefore, if the listener responds to the speaker’s utterance about baseball with “dogs are my favorite animal”, Lewis does not have an answer as to how this fits into his second rule. A way to reconcile this is to specify that the listener’s utterance must be relevant in order for the presupposition to carry into the next context.
Another issue is how David Lewis believes certain responses violate or adhere to his rules. For instance, if a listener responded hours after the speaker stated that they like baseball, Lewis does not have a response on how a situation like this would follow or break his second rule. The final issue seen in David Lewis’ second rule of presupposition is what he considers a “rejection” to be. One possible solution is to specify what constitutes as a rejection to a speaker’s utterance. For example, the rule should state as follows, “if you assert something, and no one rejects your utterance in the form of a statement or a question, then the presupposition becomes part of the next context”. This way, the audience can understand and comprehend whether their conversational partner has rejected their utterance or not.
In the end, if all of the revisions to David Lewis’ second rule were included, the rule would read as “If you assert something and your conversational partner does not reject your utterance in the form of a statement or a question shortly after it was made, then the presupposition becomes part of the next context”. By using this revised version, a reader may have an easier time understanding what is included in this rule. On the surface, David Lewis’ three rules of presupposition may appear to be simple and easy to understand. However, the further one continues to read Lewis’ rules, the more one may become puzzled because of the vagueness that is included with his rules. It is necessary that Lewis’ rules are expanded because there needs to be rules which govern how questions can be asked.
In other words, Lewis does not have an answer as to how he believes a question can be asked during a conversation and how asking a question affects the conversational score. Since Lewis does not respond to all these concerns, then it is important that the rules are revised that include all of the different types of speech acts and eliminates the vagueness that is included in the rules. Once this is done, then one can fully understand how David Lewis’ believes a presupposition is guided through a conversation.
