🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct8.064917.43675@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>Given an *assertion* that p, hearers will interpret p in context as
>making some claim that something is the case. ...  Call this C, the
>interpreted content of the assertion in context.

>     C will be as exact as is required for the occasion, as judged
>by speaker and (if the communicative act is successful) by hearer. ...

>     Now to scientific hypothesis.  If one says, "I hypothesize
>that p" what is interpretive content C like?  Due to the nature of
>science, it is *as exact as possible* since its strength resides in
>its falsifiability.

I think this is not quite accurate.  A scientific hypothesis is
simultaneously interpreted in two different ways: one as exact as possible,
and the other quite loose.

While this exact pattern is specific to scientific hypotheses, multiple
precision of interpretation is not unusual in assertions made in other
contexts.  In the example I gave of a personal description, my listeners and
I might both understand that I think all the details I gave are correct, but
that there is a much greater degree of certainty that they are approximately
correct.

Of course, you can find distinguishing characteristics for scientific
hypotheses from (other) assertions; after all, we do successfully make such
a distinction.  But I think these characteristics fall well within the
normal range of variance for assertions in everyday language.