The Oxford Handbook of Assertion

Assertions belong to the family of speech acts that make claims regarding how things are. They include statements, avowals, reports, expressed judgments, and testimonies - acts which are relevant across a host of issues not only in philosophy of language and linguistics but also in subdisciplines such as epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, ethics, and social and political philosophy. Over the past two decades, the amount of scholarship investigating the speech act of assertion has increased dramatically, and the scope of such research has also grown. The Oxford Handbook of Assertion explores various dimensions of the act of assertion: its nature; its place in a theory of speech acts, and in semantics and meta-semantics; its role in epistemology; and the various social, political, and ethical dimensions of the act. Essays from leading theorists situate assertion in relation to other types of speech acts, exploring the connection between assertions and other phenomena of interest not only to philosophers but also to linguists, psychologists, anthropologists, lawyers, computer scientists, and theorists from communication studies.

Sanford C. Goldberg is Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University. His interests range over philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. He is the author of dozens of articles on these topics as well as several books, including Conversational Pressure (Oxford University Press, forthcoming), To the Best of Our Knowledge (OUP, 2018), Assertion (OUP, 2015), Relying on Others (OUP, 2010), and Anti-Individualism (Cambridge University Press, 2007).

The Oxford Handbook of Assertion Introduction Sanford C. Goldberg Part I. The Nature of Assertion: Various Approaches 1. Stalnaker on the Essential Effect of Assertion Lenny J. Clapp 2. Assertion and the Declarative Mood Mark Jary 3. Assertion: The Constitutive Norms View Mona Simion and Christoph Kelp 4. Commitment Accounts of Assertion Lionel Shapiro 5. The Belief View of Assertion Mark Siebel 6. The Indicativity View Peter Pagin 7. Assertion: A Defective Theoretical Category Herman Cappelen Part II. Assertion among the Speech Acts 8. Assertion among the Speech Acts Marina Sbisà 9. Promising and Assertion Mark van Roojen 10. Threats, Warnings, and Assertions Hallie Liberto Part III. Types of Assertion 11. Rhetorical Questions as Indirect Assertions Marga Reimer 12. Hedged Assertion Matthew Benton and Peter van Elswyk 13. Bullshit Assertion Ben Kotzee 14. Slurs, Assertion, and Predication Christopher Hom 15. Proxy Assertion Kirk Ludwig 16. Can Groups Assert that P? Deborah Tollefsen Part IV. Methodological Questions in the Study of Assertion 17. Assertion and Convention Mitchell S. Green 18. Testing for Assertion Martin Montminy 19. Assertion and Mindreading William S. Horton 20. Can Artificial Entities Assert? Ori Freiman and Boaz Miller Part V. Assertion in Semantics and Metasemantics 21. Assertion and Fiction Manuel García-Carpintero 22. De Se Assertion Isidora Stojanovic 23. Assertion and the Future Corine Besson and Anandi Hattiangadi 24. Assertion and Modality Fabrizio Cariani 25. Assertibility and Paradox Tim McCarthy Part VI. Assertion in Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind, and Philosophy of Action 26. Assertion and Testimony Edward S. Hinchman 27. Assertion of Knowledge Patrick Rysiew 28. Asserting Ignorance Rik Peels 29. Assertoric Quality Jennifer Lackey 30. Austin on Asserting and Knowing Robert Fiengo 31. Formal Models of Assertion Erik J. Olsson 32. Epistemic Norms of Assertion and Action Mikkel Gerken and Esben Nedenskov Petersen 33. Moore's Paradox and Assertion Clayton Littlejohn Part VII. The Social Dimensions of Assertion 34. The Function of Assertion and Social Norms Peter J. Graham 35. Silencing and Assertion Alessandra Tanesini 36. Social Identity and Assertion Casey Rebecca Johnson 37. Ethical Dimensions of Assertion Terence Cuneo 38. The Norm of Assertion and Blame Jessica Brown 39. Assertion, Lying, and Untruthfully Implicating Jessica Pepp