Class 10: Works in Progress

Some interpretive objects are works in progress – their shape is not yet clear, and could go in different ways, depending on what we do next.  This week we look at why if persons are interpretive objects at all, we are interpretive works in progress, and at the consequences of this observation for the extension of persons in modality, with applications for understanding the construction of conversational contexts, conceptual engineering, and existentialist freedom.

The main assigned reading for today’s class is chapter 6 of Interpretive Objects.

As always, I have suggested background readings and some also recommended readings for thinking more about related things. This week my suggested readings are a paper of mine that develops the example of Umbhali and its application to the analysis of existentialist freedom just a little bit further, and a paper by Brett Sherman that influenced my thinking about linguistic contexts long ago.

If you are looking for more to read this week, I also recommend Simone de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity, if you have not read it before, especially the first 20-30 pages, for someone who is really interested in how freedom balances against the constraints of our embodiedness.