Taste predicates and retraction data: An improved framework

Abstract

Predicates of personal taste (PPT), which include words like ‘tasty,’ ‘fun,’ and ‘cool,’ have been at the centre of a set of lively, interdisciplinary debates spanning the past 20 years. Over this period, philosophers and linguists have developed five major accounts of what PPT mean and the sort of truth (if any) for which assertions involving PPT are apt. In this talk, I will explore one of the main empirical diagnostics that should be used in evaluating the ‘big five’ analyses of PPT, which involves considerations about retraction. After setting out the ‘big five’ analyses, I'll review the most influential account of why retraction data matter in the PPT debates, which comes from John MacFarlane. I take MacFarlane’s account to suffer from two significant problems, and after identifying them, I’ll develop an improved framework for thinking about retraction data and PPT. I'll then draw on this improved framework in reframing the significance of our current empirical data.