## 1. Speech Acts



Consider typical utterances made by means of the following
sentences



(1)


a.
There is beer in the fridge.
b.
Is there a beer in the fridge?
c.
I wish there were a beer in the fridge.
d.
Put a beer in the fridge!
 


Sentence (1a) would typically be used to make an assertion. The
speaker would *tell* or *inform* a hearer that there is
a beer in the fridge. Such an utterance of is called
*assertoric*, or *assertive*. By contrast, (1b) would be
used to ask a question (and the utterance would then be
*interrogative*), (1c) to express a wish (*optative*),
and (1d) to make a command, or a request (*imperative*). This
entry is about utterances of the first kind, and about the speech acts
performed by means of them.



Gottlob Frege emphasized the distinction between judging a thought
content (what Frege called a *Thought*) to be true, and merely
thinking/entertaining that content. Both are distinct from the content
itself. Analogously, he distinguished between utterances *with*
assertoric quality, or *force* (see below), and utterances
*without* assertoric force. For instance, an assertoric
utterance of



(2)
If it is raining, there will be umbrella salesmen in the
street.


as a whole, by which the conditional proposition is asserted, contains
as a proper part an utterance or the antecedent 'it is
raining'. But the utterance of "it is raining" is
not itself assertoric. The conditional can be true whether the
antecedent is true or false, and hence the speaker's belief
about rain is left open by the assertion



Like Frege, C.S. Peirce stressed the importance of distinguishing
"between a proposition and what one does with it". He also
adopted, albeit implicitly, a distinction between *force* and
*content*:



> 
> 
> one and the same proposition may be affirmed, denied, judged, doubted,
> inwardly inquired into, put as a question, wished, asked for,
> effectively commanded, taught, or merely expressed, and does not
> thereby become a different proposition (Peirce [NEM]:
>  248).[2]
> 
> 
> 



Frege characterized the assertoric quality of an utterance as an
assertoric *force* ("*behauptende Kraft*";
Frege 1918a [TFR: 330]) of the utterance. This idea was later taken
over by J. L. Austin (1962 [1975: 99-100]), the founding father
of the general theory of speech acts. Austin distinguished between
several levels of speech act, including these: the locutionary act,
the illocutionary act and the perlocutionary act. The locutionary act
is the act of " 'saying something' in the full
normal sense" (1962 [1975: 94]), which is the utterance of
certain words with certain meanings in a certain grammatical
construction, such as uttering 'I like ice' as a sentence
of English.



The notion of an illocutionary act was introduced by Austin by means
of examples (1962 [1975: 98-102]), and that is the normal
procedure. Illocutionary acts are such acts as asserting, asking a
question, warning, threatening, announcing a verdict or intention,
making an appointment, giving an order, expressing a wish, making a
request. An utterance of a sentence, i.e., a locutionary act, by means
of which a question is asked is thus an utterance with
*interrogative force*, an if an assertion is made, it has
*assertoric force*.



The perlocutionary act is made by means of an illocutionary act, and
depends entirely on the hearer's reaction. For instance, by
means of arguing the speaker may *convince* the hearer, and by
means of warning the speaker may *frighten* the hearer. In
these examples, convincing and frightening are perlocutionary
acts.



The illocutionary act does not depend on the hearer's reaction
to the utterance. Still, according to Austin (1962 [1975:
116-7]) it does depend on the hearer's being aware of the
utterance and understanding it in a certain way: I haven't
warned someone unless he heard what I said. In this sense, the
performance of an illocutionary act depends on the "securing of
uptake" (Austin 1962 [1975: 117]). However, although
Austin's view is intuitively plausible for speech acts verbs
with speaker-hearer argument structure (like *x* congratulates
*y*) or speaker-hearer-content argument structure (*x*
tells *y* that *p*), it is less plausible when the
structure is speaker-content ("Bill asserted that
*p*"). It may be said that Bill failed to tell
*Lisa* that the station was closed, since she had already left
the room when he said so, but that Bill still *asserted that*
it was closed, since Bill believed she was still
 there.[3]



Austin had earlier (1956) initiated the development of speech act
taxonomy by means of the distinction between *constative* and
*performative* utterances. Roughly, whereas in a constative
utterance you report an already obtaining state of affairs--you
*say* something--in a performative utterance you create
something new: you *do* something (Austin 1956 [1979: 235]).
Assertion is the paradigm of a constative utterance. Paradigm examples
of performatives are utterances by means of which actions such as
baptizing, congratulating and greeting are performed. However, when
developing his general theory of speech acts, Austin abandoned the
constative/performative distinction, the reason being that it is not
so clear in what sense something is *done* for instance by
means of an optative utterance, whereas nothing is done by means of an
assertoric one.



Austin noted, e.g., that assertions are subject both to infelicities
and to various kinds of appraisal, just like performatives (Austin
1962 [1975: 13-66]). For instance, an assertion is
*insincere* in case of lying as a promise is insincere when the
appropriate intention is lacking (Austin 1962 [1975: 40]). This is an
infelicity of the *abuse* kind. Also, an assertion is,
according to Austin, *void* in case of a failed referential
presupposition, such as in Russell's



(3)
The present King of France is bald


(Austin 1962 [1975: 20]). This is then an infelicity of the same
kind--*flaw-type misexecutions*--as the use of the
wrong formula in a legal procedure (Austin 1962 [1975: 36]), or of the
same kind--*misinvocations*--as when the requirements
of a naming procedure aren't met (Austin 1962 [1975: 51]).



Further, Austin noted that when it comes to appraisals, there is not a
sharp difference between acts that are simply true and false, and acts
that are assessed in other respects (Austin 1962 [1975: 140-7]).
On the one hand, a warning can be objectively proper or improper,
depending on the facts. On the other hand, assertions (statements) can
be assessed as suitable in some contexts and not in others, and are
not simply true or
 false.[4]



As an alternative to the constative/performative distinction, Austin
suggested five classes of illocutionary types (or illocutionary
verbs): *verdictives*, *exercitives*,
*commissives*, *behabitives* and *expositives*
(Austin 1962 [1975: 151-64]). You exemplify a verdictive, e.g.,
when as a judge you pronounce a verdict; an exercitive by appointing,
voting or advising; a commissive by promising, undertaking or
declaring that you will do something; a behabitive by apologizing,
criticizing, cursing or congratulating; an expositive by acts
appropriately prefixed by phrases like 'I reply', 'I
argue', 'I concede' etc., of a general expository
nature.



In this classification, assertion would best be placed under
expositives, since the prefix "I assert" is or may be of
an expository nature. Austin explicitly includes the verbs
"affirm", "deny", and "state", in
his first group of expositives (1962 [1975: 162]). Marina Sbisa
(2020) argues that assertion belongs to both expositives and to
verdictives, insofar as assertion expresses a judgment/verdict.



Other taxonomies have been proposed, for instance by Stephen Schiffer
(1972), John Searle (1975b), Kent Bach and Robert M. Harnish (1979),
Francois Recanati (1987), and William P. Alston
 (2000).[5]


## 2. Pragmatics



Assertion is generally thought of being open, explicit and direct, as
opposed for instance to implying something without explicitly saying
it. In this respect, assertion is contrasted with
*presupposition* and *implicature*. The contrast is,
however, not altogether sharp, partly because of the idea of indirect
speech acts, including indirect assertions.


### 2.1 Presupposition



A sentence such as



(4)
Kepler died in misery.


is not true unless the singular term 'Kepler' has
reference. Still, Frege argued that a speaker asserting that Kepler
died in misery, by means of (4) does not also assert that
'Kepler' has reference (Frege 1892 [TPW: 69]). That Kepler
has reference is not part of the sense of the sentence. Frege's
reason was that if it had been, the sense of its negation



(5)
Kepler did not die in misery.


would have been *that Kepler did not die in misery or
'Kepler' does not have reference*, which is absurd.
According to Frege, that 'Kepler' has reference is rather
*presupposed*, both in an assertion of
 (4)
 and in an assertion of its negation.



The modern treatment of presupposition has followed Frege in treating
survival under negation as the most important test for presupposition.
That is, if it is implied that *p*, both in an assertion of a
sentence *s* and in an assertion of the negation of *s*,
then it is presupposed that *p* in those assertions (unless
that *p* is entailed by all sentences). Other typical examples
of presupposition (Levinson 1983: 178-181) include



(6)
John managed [didn't manage] to stop in time.


implying that John tried to stop in time, and



(7)
Martha regrets [doesn't regret] drinking John's home
brew.


implying that Martha drank John's home brew.



In the case of
 (4),
 the presupposition is clearly of a semantic nature, since the
sentence "Someone is identical with Kepler", which is true
just if 'Kepler' has reference, is a logical consequence
of
 (4)
 and (under a standard interpretation) of (5). By contrast, in the
negated forms of
 (6)
 and
 (7),
 the presupposition can be canceled by context, e.g., as in



(8)
John didn't manage to stop in time. He didn't even
try.


This indicates that in this case the presupposition is rather a
pragmatic phenomenon; it is the speaker or speech act rather than the
sentence or the proposition expressed that presupposes something.



However, the issue of separating semantic from pragmatic aspects of
presupposition is complex, and regarded differently in different
approaches to presupposition (for an overview, see Simons
 2006).[6]


### 2.2 Implicature



Frege noted (1879: [TPW:10]) that there is no difference in truth
conditional content between sentences such as



(9)


a.
John works with real estate and likes fishing.
b.
John works with real estate but likes fishing.
 


"and" and "but" contribute the same way to
truth and falsity. However, when using
 (9b),
 but not when using
 (9a),
 the speaker indicates that there is a contrast of some kind between
working with real estate and liking fishing. The speaker is not
*asserting* that there is a contrast. We can test this, for
instance, by forming a conditional with
 (9b).
 The antecedent of (10) preserves the contrast rather than make it
hypothetical, showing that the contrast is not asserted, forming a
conditional with
 (9b)
 in the antecedent preserves the contrast rather than make it
hypothetical:



(10)
If John works with real estate but likes fishing, I think we can
bring him along.


It is usually said that the speaker in cases like
 (9b)
 and
 (10)
*implicates* that there is a contrast. These are examples of
*implicature*. H. Paul Grice (1975, 1989) developed a general
theory of implicature. Grice called implicatures of the kind
exemplified *conventional*, since it is a standing feature of
the word "but" to give rise to them.



Most of Grice's theory is concerned with the complementing kind,
the *conversational* implicatures. These are subdivided into
the *particularized* ones, which depend on features of the
conversational context, and the *generalized* ones, which
don't (Grice 1975: 37-8). The particularized
conversational implicature rely on general conversational maxims, not
on features of expressions. These maxims are thought to be in force in
ordinary conversation. For instance, the maxim *Be orderly*!
requires of the speaker to recount events in the order they took
place. This is meant to account for the intuitive difference in
content between



(11)


a.
John took off his shoes and sat down.
b.
John sat down and took off his shoes.
 


According to Grice's account, the speaker doesn't assert,
only implicates that the events took place in the order recounted.
What is asserted is just that both events did take place.



Real or apparent violations of the maxims generate implicatures, on
the assumption that the participants obey the over-arching
*Cooperative Principle*. For instance, in the conversation



(12)


*A*:
Where does John spend the summer?
*B*:
Somewhere in Canada.
 


*B* implicates that he doesn't know where in Canada John
spends the summer. The reasoning is as follows: *B* violates
the Maxim of Quantity to be as informative as required. Since
*B* is assumed to be cooperative, we can infer that he cannot
satisfy the Maxim of Quantity without violating some other maxim. The
best candidate is the sub-maxim of the Maxim of Quality, which
requires you not to say anything for which you lack sufficient
evidence. Hence, one can infer that *B* doesn't know.
Again, *B* has not asserted that he doesn't know, but
still managed to convey it in an indirect
 manner.[7]


### 2.3 Indirect assertions



The distinction between assertion and implicature is to some extent
undermined by acknowledging *indirect* assertion as a kind of
assertion proper. A standard example of an indirect speech act is
given by



(13)
Can you pass the salt?


By means of uttering an interrogative sentence the speaker requests
the addressee to pass the salt. The request is indirect. The question,
literally concerning the addressee's ability to pass the salt,
is direct. As defined by John Searle (1975b: 59-60), and also by
Bach and Harnish (1979: 70), an indirect illocutionary act is
subordinate to another, more primary act and depends on the success of
the first. An alternative definition, given by Sadock (1974: 73), is
that an act is indirect just if it has a different illocutionary force
from the one standardly correlated with the sentence-type used.



Examples of indirect assertions by means of questions and
commands/requests are given by



(14)


a.
May I tell you that, obviously, the square root of a quarter is a
half?
b.
Let me tell you that, obviously, the square root of a quarter is a
half!
 


(Levinson 1983: 266). Rhetorical questions also have the force of
assertions:



(15)
Is not Switzerland a peace-loving nation?


Another candidate type is irony:



(16)
Switzerland is known for its aggressive foreign policy.


assuming the speaker does mean the negation of what is literally said.
However, although in a sense the act is indirect, since the speaker
asserts something different from what she would do on a normal, direct
use of the sentence, and relies on the hearer to realize this, it is
not an indirect assertion by either definition. It isn't on the
first, since the primary act (the literal assertion) isn't even
made, and it isn't on the second, since there is no discrepancy
between force and sentence
 type.[8]



The very idea of indirect speech acts is, however, controversial. It
is not universally agreed that an ordinary utterance of
 (13)
 is indirect, since it has been denied, e.g., by Levinson (1983:
273-6) that a question has really been asked, over and above the
request. Similarly, Levinson have questioned the idea of a standard
correlation between force and sentence form, by which a request would
count as indirect on Sadock's criterion.



Common to all conceptions of indirect assertions is that they are not
explicit: what is expressed, or literally said, is not the same as
what is asserted. One question is whether an utterance is an assertion
proper that *p* if that content is not exactly what is
expressed, or whether it is an act of a related kind, perhaps an
 implicature.[9]


### 2.4 Explicitness



A related question is how far an utterance may deviate from
explicitness and yet be counted as an assertion, proper or indirect.
According to one intuition, as soon as it is not fully determinate to
the hearer what the intended content of an utterance is, or what force
it is made with, the utterance fails to be assertoric.
Underdetermination is the crucial issue. This has been argued by
Elizabeth Fricker (2012). But the issue is controversial, and
objections of several kinds have been made, for instance by John
Hawthorne (2012), Andrew Peet (2015, forthcoming) and Manuel
Garcia-Carpintero (2016,
 2019b).[10]


## 3. Descriptive Accounts, Content-Directed



Descriptive accounts characterize assertion in terms of its
psychological, social, and linguistic features, without appeal to
normative notions. The content-directed accounts focus on the
relations between the speaker and content and between hearer and
content.


### 3.1 Relation to truth



Frege (1918a [TFR: 329]) held that an assertion is an outward sign of
a *judgment* (*Urteil*). A *judgment* in turn, in
Frege's view, is a step from entertaining a *Thought* to
acknowledging its truth (Frege 1892 [TPW:
 64]).[11]
 The subject first merely thinks the Thought that *p*, and
then, at the judgment stage, moves on to acknowledge it as true. Since
for Frege, the truth value is the reference (*Bedeutung*) of a
sentence, a judgment is an advance from the sense of a sentence to its
reference. In case the subject makes a mistake, it is not the actual
reference, but the reference the subject *takes it* to
have.



For Frege, truth is not relative. There is exactly one point of
evaluation of a Thought, the world itself. If instead we accept more
than one point of evaluation, such as different possible worlds, truth
simpliciter is equated with truth at the *actual* world. We can
then adapt Frege's view to say that judging that *p* is
advancing to reference *at the actual world*, or again,
evaluating as true in the actual world.



On this picture, what holds for judgment carries over to assertion. It
is in the force of an utterance that the step is taken from the
content to the actual point of evaluation. This view has been stated
by Recanati with respect to *the actual world*:



> 
> 
> [...] a content is not enough; we need to connect that content
> with the actual world, via the assertive force of the utterance, in
> virtue of which the content is presented as characterizing that world.
> (Recanati 2007: 37)
> 
> 
> 



In Pagin (2016a: 276-278), this idea is generalized. If contents
are possible-worlds propositions, the points of evaluation are
possible worlds. All actual judgments are then applications of
propositions to the *actual world*. If contents are
*temporal* propositions, true or false with respect to
world-time pairs, then all actual judgments are applications to the
ordered pair of the actual world and a relevant time, usually the time
at which the judgment is made. This is the point with respect to which
a sentence, used in a context of utterance, has its truth value (cf.
Kaplan 1989: 522). Again, the relation is general: if the content of a
judgment is a function from *indices* of some type to truth
values, then a judgment is the very step of taking the content to be
true at the actual/current index, or again *applying* the
content to that index. The *force* of an assertion, on this
view, connects the content of the assertion with the relevant index.
The assertion indicates that the content is *true* at the
index.



On the more social side, it is often said that in asserting a
proposition the speaker "presents the proposition as true"
(cf. Wright 1992: 34). *Prima facie*, this characterizes
assertion well. However, there are problems with the idea. One is that
it should generalize to other speech act types, but does not seem to
do so. For instance, does a question present a proposition as one the
speaker *would like to* know the truth value of? If so, it does
not seem that this way of presenting the proposition distinguishes
between the interrogative force in
 (17a),
 the optative force in
 (17b),
 and the imperative force in
 (17c).



(17)


a.
Is Elsa at home?
b.
I would like to know whether Elsa is at home.
c.
Inform me whether Elsa is at home!
 


If other speech act types could be characterized in ways analogous to
assertion, that would strengthen the proposal. If not, it appears to
be a weakness.



Another problem is that it remains unclear what
"presenting" amounts to. It must be a sense of the word
different from that in which the proposition is presented as true in
the sentence



(18)
The proposition that snow is white is true.


even if the sentence is *not* uttered assertorically. That is,
"present as true" must not refer to a feature simply of
*content*. Since there is a sense of "present as
such-and-such" that *does* refer to representational
content, there is a need to specify, in a non-question-begging way,
the other sense of "present" that is relevant.



In addition, there is a question of distinguishing the assertoric way
of presenting something as true from weaker illocutionary
alternatives, such as guesses and conjectures, which also in some
sense present their contents as being true.



There are therefore weaker senses of "present as true",
which do not require that the presentation itself is made with
assertoric force (like an obsolete label on a bottle), and these
senses are too weak. There is clearly also a stronger sense that
*does* require assertoric force (for cases when the label is
taken to apply), but that is just what we want to have
(non-circularly) explained. Simply using the phrase "present as
true" does not by itself help.



Another idea for characterizing assertion in terms of truth-related
attitudes is that assertion *aims* at truth. This is stated for
instance both by Bernard Williams (1966), by Michael Dummett (1973
[1981]), and more recently by Marsili (2018). The notion of
"aiming at truth" can be understood in rather different
ways (for some ways of understanding what it could be for
*belief* to aim at truth, see Engel 2004 and Gluer &
Wikforss
 2013).[12]



Williams (1966) characterizes assertion's aim in different
terms. For him, the property of aiming at truth is what characterizes
*fact-stating* discourse, as opposed to, e.g., evaluative or
directive discourse. It is natural to think of



(19)
The moon is about 384.000 km from the Earth.


as stating a fact, and of



(20)
Bardot is good.


as expressing an evaluation, not corresponding to any fact of the
matter. On Williams's view, to regard a sincere utterance of



(21)
It is wrong to steal.


as a moral *assertion*, is to take a *realistic*
attitude to moral discourse: there are moral facts, making moral
statements objectively true or false. This view again comes in two
versions. On the first alternative, the existence of moral facts
renders the discourse fact-stating, whether the speaker thinks so or
not, and the non-existence renders it evaluative, again whether the
speaker thinks so or not. On the second alternative, an utterance of
 (21)
 is an assertion if the speaker has a realistic attitude towards moral
discourse and otherwise not.



On these views, it is assumed that truth is a substantial property
(Williams 1966: 202), not a concept that can be characterized in some
deflationary way. As a consequence, the sentence



(22)
"Bardot is good" is true.


is to be regarded as false, since
 (22)
 is objectively neither true nor false; there is no fact of the
 matter.[13]


### 3.2 Cognitive models of communication



Perhaps the best way of capturing the cognitive nature of assertion is
to give a theory of the cognitive features of normal communication by
means of assertion. A classic theory is Stalnaker's (1974,
1978). Stalnaker provides a model of a conversation in which assertion
and presupposition dynamically interact. On Stalnaker's model,
propositions are presupposed in a conversation if they are on record
as belonging to the common ground between the speakers. When an
assertion is made and accepted in the conversation, its content is
added to the common ground, and the truth of the proposition in
question will be presupposed in later stages. What is presupposed at a
given stage has an effect on the interpretation of new utterances made
at that stage. For Stalnaker, the common ground is a set of
propositions. He models this with the set of worlds in which all
common ground propositions are true, the *context set*.



In this framework Stalnaker (1978: 88-89) proposes three rules
for assertion:



(Stal)


i.
A proposition is always true in some but not in all of the
possible worlds in the context set.
ii.
Any assertive utterance should express a proposition, relative to
each possible world in the context set, and that proposition should
have truth value in each possible world in the context set.
iii.
The same proposition is expressed relative to each possible world
in the context set.
 


Stalnaker comments on the first rule:



> 
> 
> To assert something incompatible with what is presupposed is
> self-defeating [...] And to assert something which already
> presupposed is to attempt to do something that is already done.
> 
> 
> 



On such an approach, the satisfaction of a presupposition is an
*admittance condition* of an assertion (cf. Karttunen 1974;
Heim 1988). This idea connects with Austin's more general idea
of felicity conditions of speech
 acts.[14]
 Does Stalnaker offer an account of assertion itself? The answer is
no, for the role of assertion is shared by other speech acts such as
*assuming* and *conjecturing* (Stalnaker 1978: 153).
What is added to the common ground is only for the purpose of
conversation, and need not be actually *believed* by the
participants. It is only required that it be *accepted* (cf.
Stalnaker 2002: 716).



Stalnaker has not (as far as we are aware) attempted to add a
distinguishing feature of assertion to the model. This has, however,
been attempted by Schaffer (2008), Kolbel (2011: 68-70),
and Stokke
 (2013).[15]



Another cognitive account is offered by Pagin (2011, 2020). The
account is summarized by the phrase: "an assertion is an
utterance that is prima facie informative". For an utterance to
be informative is for it to be made in part "because it is
true". What this amounts to is different, but complementary, for
speaker and hearer. For the speaker, part of the *reason* for
using a particular sentence is that it is true (in context); that is,
the speaker believes, with a sufficient strength, that the sentence
expresses a true proposition, and utters it partly because of that.
For the hearer, taking the utterance as informative, means, by
default, to update their credence in the proposition as a response to
the utterance, both in the upwards direction and to a level above
0.5.



The *prima facie* element of the account means that the typical
properties on the speaker and hearer side are only *default*
properties associated with surface features of the utterance: the
declarative sentence type, a typical intonation pattern, etc. There
are many possible reasons why a speaker may utter such a sentence
without believing the proposition, and why a hearer may not adjust
their credence in the typical manner. For example, the speaker may be
lying, the hearer may distrust the speaker, or may already have given
the proposition a very high credence before the utterance. On
Pagin's picture, it is the cognitive patterns associated with
surface features, on the production and comprehension sides, that
characterize assertion. This way of dividing the account between
speaker and hearer is somewhat controversial.



Yet another cognitive account is elaborated in Jary (2010).
Jary's account is situated within *Relevance Theory*, a
more general account of cognition and communication. As a typical
ingredient of this general framework, when an assertion is made, the
proposition expressed by the utterance is presented as "relevant
to the hearer" (2010: 163), where 'relevant' is a
technical term (Sperber & Wilson 1986 [1995: 265]).



What distinguishes assertion from other speech act types is something
different:



> 
> 
> Assertion cannot be defined thus, though. In order for an utterance to
> have assertoric force, it must also be subject to the cognitive and
> social safeguards that distinguish assertion. [...] It is the
> applicability of these safeguards that distinguishes assertion both
> from other illocutionary acts and from other forms of information
> transfer. (Jary 2010: 163-164)
> 
> 
> 



Social safeguards consist in sanctions against misleading assertions,
while cognitive safeguards consist in the ability of the hearer to not
simply accept what is said but meta-represent the speaker as
expressing certain beliefs and intentions (2010: 160). It is part of a
full account of assertion, according to Jary, that assertions are
subject to these safeguards. This also distinguishes assertions from
promises and commands, where the proposition is not presented as
subject to the hearer's safeguards; "rejection is not
presented as an option for the hearer" (2010: 73).


## 4. Descriptive Accounts, Hearer-Directed



Hearer-directed accounts of assertion are primarily concerned with the
speaker's thoughts and intentions about their audience.


### 4.1 Self-representation



According to Frege (1918a [TFR: 329]), as noted, an assertion is an
outward sign of a *judgment* (*Urteil*). The term
"judgment" has been used in several ways. If it is used to
mean either *belief*, or *act by which a belief is formed or
reinforced*, then Frege's view is pretty close to the view
that assertion is the expression of *belief*.



This idea, that assertion is the expression of belief, has a longer
history, going back to at least Kant. How should one understand the
idea of expressing here? It is natural to think of a belief state,
that is, a mental state of the speaker, as causally co-responsible for
the making of the assertion. The speaker has a belief and wants to
communicate it, which motivates an assertoric utterance. But what
about the cases when the speaker does not believe what he asserts? Can
we still say, even of insincere assertions, that they express belief?
If so, in what sense?



Within the communicative intentions tradition, Bach and Harnish have
emphasized that an assertion gives the hearer *evidence* for
the corresponding belief, and that what is common to the sincere and
insincere case is the intention of providing such evidence:



> 
> 
> For *S* to *express* an attitude is for *S* to
> *R*-intend the hearer to take *S*'s utterance as
> reason to think *S* has that attitude. (Bach & Harnish
> 1979: 15, italics in the original)
> 
> 
> 



('R-intend' is, as above, short for "reflexively
intend"). On this view, expressing is wholly a matter of
hearer-directed intentions.



This proposal has the advantage of covering both the sincere and the
insincere case, but has the drawback of requiring a high level of
sophistication. By contrast, Bernard Williams (2002: 74) has claimed
that a sincere assertion is simply the *direct* expression of
belief, in a more primitive and unsophisticated way. Insincere
assertions are different. According to Williams (2002: 74), in an
assertion, the speaker *either* gives a direct expression of
belief, *or* he intends the addressee to "take it"
that he has the belief (cf. Owens 2006).



Presumably, the intention mentioned is an intention about what the
hearer is to believe about the speaker. In this case the objection
that too much sophistication is required is less pressing, since it
only concerns insincere assertions. However, Williams's idea (as
in Grice 1969) has the opposite defect of not taking *more*
sophistication into account. The idea, that the alternative to
sincerity is the intention to make the hearer believe that the speaker
believes what he asserts, is not general enough. For instance, there
is double bluffing, where the speaker asserts what is true in order to
deceive the hearer, whom the speaker believes will expect the speaker
to lie. Again, an insincere speaker *S* who asserts that
*p* may *know* that the hearer *A* knows that
*S* does not believe that *p*, but may still intend to
make *A* believe that *S* does *not* know about
*A*'s knowledge, precisely by making the assertion that
*p*. There is no definitive upper limit to the sophistication
of the deceiving speaker's calculations. In addition, the
speaker may simply be stonewalling, reiterating an assertion without
any hope of convincing the addressee of anything.



A more neutral way of trying to capture the relation between assertion
and believing was suggested both by Max Black (1952) and by Davidson
(1984: 268): in asserting that *p* the speaker
*represents* herself as believing that *p*. This
suggestion appears to avoid the difficulties with the appeal to
hearer-directed intentions.



A somewhat related approach is taken by Mitchell S. Green (2007), who
appeals to "expressive conventions". Grammatical moods can
have such conventions (2007: 150). According to Green (2007: 160), an
assertion that *p* invokes a set of conventions according to
which the speaker "can be represented as bearing the
belief-relation to *p*".



As one can represent oneself as believing, one can also represent
oneself as knowing. Inspired by Davidson's proposal, Peter Unger
(1975: 253-270) and Michael Slote (1979: 185) made the stronger
claim that in asserting that *p* the speaker *represents
herself as knowing that p*. To a small extent this idea had been
anticipated by G. E. Moore when claiming that the speaker
*implies* that she knows that *p* (1912 [1966: 63]).



However, it is not so clear what representing oneself amounts to. It
must be a sense different from that in which one represents *the
world* as having certain features. The speaker who asserts



(23)
There are black swans.


does not also claim that she *believes* that there are black
swans. It must apparently be some weaker sense of
"represent", since it is *not* just a matter of
being, as opposed to not being, fully explicit. If I am asked what I
believe and I answer by uttering
 (23),
 I do represent myself as believing that there are black swans, just
as I would have done by explicitly saying that I *believe* that
there are black swans. I do represent myself as believing that there
are black swans, equivalently with asserting that I do. What I assert
then is false if I don't have the belief, despite the existence
of black swans.



On the other hand, it must also be stronger than the sense of
"represent" by which an actor can be said to represent
himself as believing something on stage. The actor says



(24)
I'm in the biology department.


thereby representing himself as asserting that he is in the biology
department, since he represents himself as being a man who honestly
asserts that he is in the biology department. By means of that, he in
one sense represents himself as believing that he is in the biology
department. But the audience not invited to *believe* that the
speaker, that is, the actor, has that belief.



Apparently, the relevant sense of "represent" is not easy
to specify. That it nevertheless tracks a real phenomenon is often
claimed to be shown by Moore's Paradox. This is the paradox that
assertoric utterances of sentences such as



(25)
It is raining but I don't believe that it is raining.


(the omissive type of Moorean sentences) are distinctly odd, and even
*prima facie* self-defeating, despite the fact that they may
well be true. Among the different types of account of Moore's
Paradox, Moore's own emphasizes the connection between asserting
and believing. Moore's idea (1944: 175-176; 1912 [1966:
63]) was that the speaker in some sense *implies* that she
believes what she asserts. So by asserting
 (25)
 the speaker induces a contradiction between what she asserts and what
she implies. This contradiction is then supposed to explain the
 oddity.[16]


### 4.2 Communicative intentions



Typically, the speaker who makes an assertion has hearer-directed
*intentions* in performing a speech act. The speaker may intend
the hearer to come to believe something or other about the speaker, or
about something else, or intend the hearer to come to desire or intend
to do something. Such intentions can concern institutional changes,
but need not. Intentions that are immediately concerned with
communication itself, as opposed to ulterior goals, are called
*communicative intentions*.



The idea of communicative intentions derives from Grice's (1957)
article 'Meaning', where Grice defined what it is for a
speaker to *non-naturally mean* something. Although Grice did
not explicitly attempt to define assertion, his ideas can be
straightforwardly transposed to provide a definition:



(Gr-A)
*S* asserts that *p* by the utterance *u* iff
there is a hearer *H* such that


i.
*S* intends *u* to produce in *H* the belief
that *p*
ii.
*S* intends *H* to recognize that *i*
iii.
*S* intends *H* to believe that *p* at least
partly for the reason that *i*
 


In the early to mid 1960s Austin's speech act theory and
Grice's account of communicative intentions began to merge. The
connection is discussed in Strawson 1964. Strawson inquired whether
illocutionary force could be made overt by means of communicative
intentions. He concluded that when it comes to highly conventionalized
utterances, communicative intentions are largely irrelevant, but that
on the other hand, convention does not play much role for ordinary
illocutionary types. Strawson also pointed out a difficulty with
Grice's analysis: it may be the case that all three conditions
(i-iii) are fulfilled, but that the speaker intends the hearer to
*believe* that they aren't (for instance, if the speaker
wants the hearer to believe that *p* for reasons altogether
independent from his making the statement).



Such intentions to mislead came to be called *sneaky
intentions* (Grice 1969), and they constituted a problem for
speech act analyses based on communicative intentions. The idea was
that genuine communication is essentially open: the speaker's
communicative intentions are meant to be fully accessible to the
hearer. Sneaky intentions violate this requirement of openness, and
therefore apparently they must be ruled out one way or another.
Strawson's own solution was to add a fourth clause about the
speaker's intention that the hearer recognize the third
intention. However, that solution only invited a sneaky intention one
level up (cf. Schiffer 1972: 17-42; Vlach 1981; Davis 1999).



Another solution was to make the intention *reflexive*. This
was proposed by Searle (1969), in the first full-blown analysis of
illocutionary types made by appeal to communicative intentions. Searle
combined this with an appeal to social institutions as created by
rules. We return to these in
 section 5.1.



Searle criticized Grice for requiring the speaker to intend
*perlocutionary* effects, such as what the speaker shall come
to do or believe, pointing out that such intentions aren't
essential (1969: 46-7). Instead, according to Searle, the
speaker intends to be *understood*, and also intends to achieve
this by means of the hearer's recognition of this very intention
itself. Moreover, if the intention is recognized, it is also
fulfilled: "we achieve what we try to do by getting our audience
to recognize what we try to do" (Searle 1969: 47). This
reflexive intention is formally spelled out as follows:



(Srl-I)
*S* utters sentence *T* and means it (i.e., means
literally what he says) = *S* utters *T* and


a.
*S* intends (i-1) the utterance *U* of *T* to
produce in *H* the knowledge (recognition, awareness) that the
states of affairs specified by (certain of) the rules of *T*
obtain. (Call this the illocutionary effect, IE)
b.
*S* intends *U* to produce IE by means of the
recognition of i-1
c.
*S* intends that i-1 will be recognized in virtue of (by
means of) H's knowledge of (certain of) the rules governing (the
elements of) *T* (Searle 1969: 49-50).
 


The illocutionary effect IE is the effect of generating the state
specified in the constitutive rule. In the case of assertion, the
speaker *intends* that her utterance counts as an undertaking
that *p* represents an actual state of affairs, depending on
the constitutive rule (cf.
 section 5.1).



Bach and Harnish follow Searle in appealing to reflexive communicative
intentions. On their analysis (1979: 42), assuming a speaker
*S* and a hearer *H*,



(BH-A)
*S* asserts that *p* iff *S* expresses


i.
the belief that *p*, and
ii.
the intention that *H* believe that *p*.
 


According to Bach and Harnish's understanding, a speaker
*S* *expresses* an attitude just in case *S*
*R*-intends (reflexively intends) the hearer to take
*S*'s utterance as reason to think *S* has that
attitude. They understand the reflexive nature of the intention pretty
much like Searle. They say (1979: 15) that the intended effect of an
act of communication is not just any effect produced by means of
recognition of the intention to produce a certain effect, it is
*the recognition of that intention*.



These appeals to reflexive intentions were later criticized, in
particular by Sperber and Wilson (1986 [1995:256-257]). Their
point is that if an intention *I* has as sub-intentions both
the intention *J* and the intention that the hearer recognize
*I*, this will yield an infinitely long sequence: the intention
that: *J* and the hearer recognize the intention that:
*J* and the hearer recognize the intention that: *J* and
...). If this is an intention content at all, it is not humanly
 graspable.[17]



Apart from the communicative intentions accounts of assertion, there
are more general questions about what intentions are required of a
speaker in order for his utterance to qualify as an assertion. For
instance, must he intend it to *be* an assertion? Must it be
made voluntarily?


## 5. Normative Accounts, Content-Directed


### 5.1 Norms of assertion



Most of the discussion on assertion during the past twenty years has
concerned norms of assertability. Simply put, philosophers aim to
determine under which conditions it is epistemically permissible (or
proper, warranted, correct, appropriate) to make an assertion.


#### 5.1.1 Modern approaches: correctness and warranted assertability



Philosophers have long been interested in analyzing what we mean when
we characterize an assertion as "correct",
"justified", "proper",
"warranted", "assertible", or
"warrantedly assertible". The latter notion was taken on
board in pragmatism, and in later forms of anti-realism. Dewey (1938)
seems to have been the first to characterize truth in terms of
assertoric correctness, with his notion of *warranted
assertibility*, even though this idea had a clear affinity with
the verifiability principle of Moritz Schlick (1936). Dewey, following
Peirce, regarded truth as the ideal limit of scientific inquiry (1938:
345), and a proposition warrantedly *asserted* only when known
in virtue of such an inquiry. Warranted assertibility is the property
of a proposition for which such knowledge *potentially* exists
(1938: 9). Dewey was later followed by, notably, Dummett (1976) and
Putnam (1981). Common to them is the position that there cannot be
anything more to truth than being supported by the best available
evidence. In these early discussions, the strategy was that of getting
a handle on *truth* by means of an appeal to the notion of the
correctness of an assertion, which was taken as more fundamental. On
Dummett's view, we do get a notion of truth *distinct
from* the notion of a correct assertion only because of the
semantics of *compound* sentences (1976: 50-52). The
question of what the correctness of an assertion consists in was not
itself much discussed in earlier work, but became subject of
discussion already in the 1980s, with the work of Boghossian and
others.


#### 5.1.2 Contemporary approaches: the norm of assertion



The contemporary wave of discussion about assertoric normativity is
almost exclusively content-directed; the norms concern the epistemic
relation between the speaker and the content of their
 assertion.[18]
 Williamson (1996, 2000) initiated this debate by proposing that
assertion is governed by a single *norm*, of the format:



(N)
One must: assert *p* only if *p* has
*C*.


According to this hypothesis, you are entitled to assert a proposition
only if that proposition has a certain unspecified property
*C*. The (N)-schema formalizes the key philosophical question
about assertability: which epistemic property *C* that makes a
proposition assertable?



Williamson's answer is that property *C* must be
*knowledge*, i.e., being known by the speaker. If this is
right, you can properly assert only what you know: assertion is
governed by the knowledge-norm
 (KNA):



(KNA)
One must: assert *p* only if one knows *p*.


(Williamson 2000: 243). (KNA) is proposed as part of *an account of
assertion*. Other norms have been proposed: the most prominent
alternatives are the truth norm (TNA), the justification norm (JNA)
and the belief norm (BNA):



(TNA)
One must: assert *p* only if *p*.
(JNA)
One must: assert *p* only if one is epistemically justified
in believing *p*.
(BNA)
One must: assert *p* only if one believes *p*.


Determining which of these norms governs assertion depends (at least
in part) on what we mean by hypothesizing that assertion is governed
by a simple norm by *N*. In the next section
 (5.1.3),
 we clarify what philosophers typically mean when they say that
*N* governs assertions. In the subsequent section
 (5.1.4),
 we review the various accounts of which specific norm governs
assertion (i.e., the different views as to *which* property
*C* makes a proposition assertable).


#### 5.1.3 What kind of norm?



Williamson's initial framing of the debate on the norm of
assertion takes for granted a number of assumptions: for instance,
that there is a single norm, that it is constitutive of assertion,
that all and only assertions are subject to it. In subsequent work,
some of these assumptions have been questioned. Here we limit
ourselves to list each assumption (ignoring the numerous objections
that affect them). The interested reader will find a discussion of the
case for and against each assumption in the supplementary document
 Which Kind of Norm?.



(A1)
*Specificity*: *N* applies specifically to
assertion: only assertions are subject to *N*.
(A1\*)
*Directness*: Assertions are subject to *N*
directly, qua assertions.


By *Specificity*, *N* is a norm that regulates only one
species of action: asserting. In this sense, it is specific to
assertion. It governs the making of assertions in general, and nothing
else. *Directness* is closely connected to
*Specificity*. It clarifies that assertions are subject to
*N* only in virtue of the fact that they are assertions.



(A2)
*Uniqueness*: There is only one norm of assertion:
assertion is only subject to *N*
(A2\*)
*Indirectness*: Assertions are subject to other normative
standards, but only indirectly (not in virtue of the fact that they
are assertions).


The "uniqueness assumption" holds that assertion is
subject to a single norm. *Indirectness* specifies that
*Uniqueness* is compatible with recognizing that there are
other norms that apply to assertion, albeit only indirectly
(Williamson 1996: 489). For instance, an assertion can follow
*N* (e.g., satisfy the Justification Norm JNA) and violate
standard of politeness, morality, legality, etc. Unlike *N*,
these other normative standards are not specific to assertion, since
they apply also to other actions (questions, orders, as well as
non-linguistic actions).



An important corollary of *Indirectness* is that whether an
assertion is all-things-considered permissible or not may depend on
factors that are independent of *N*. When you say something
offensive, or reveal a secret that you agreed to keep, you may follow
*N* and yet make an (all-things-considered) impermissible
assertion. And when you lie to save a life, you may violate *N*
and make an assertion that is (all-things-considered) permissible.



(A3)
*Individuation*: *N* uniquely identifies assertion:
assertion is the only speech act that is only subject to
*N*.


According to the *Individuation* assumption, the norm of
assertion is individuating: assertion can be defined as the unique
speech act who is subject to this unique norm (Williamson 2000: 241;
Goldberg 2015: 25; Montminy 2013a). It should be emphasized here that
it is *being subject to* the norm that characterizes assertion,
not *conforming* to the norm. An assertion that violates the
norm is still an assertion. A definition of assertion in terms of its
norm would read as:



(D)
*S* asserts that *p* iff in saying *p*,
*S* is subject to the obligation imposed by *N*.


If
 (A3)
 holds, an important motivation for identifying *N* is that it
will provide us with a definition of assertion. Once we determine what
*N* is (say, JNA), we can disambiguate the content of this
definition (say, "the only speech act who is only subject to
JNA").



(A4)
*Essentiality*: Being subject to *N* is essential to
assertion as an action type: Necessarily, assertion is subject to
*N*.


The *Essentiality* assumption goes beyond
*Individuation*: *Individuation* allows that assertion
is only actually individuated by *N*, and that it could have
been governed by some other norm. By contrast,
 (A4)
 holds that assertions could not exist and be governed by a different
norm: if assertion were subject to a different norm, it would be a
different speech act. Nothing but an assertion could violate the norm,
if the
 (A3)
 and
 (A4)
 properties hold.



(A5)
*Permissibility*: *N* establishes a condition for
permissible assertion: *p* is permissible to assert only if
*p* meets *C*.


By
 (A5),
 an assertion is permissible (appropriate, epistemically proper,
warranted, correct--depending on one's favorite
terminology) only if it meets condition *C*, and impermissible
if it does not meet *C*. Permission is related to the negative
evaluation of assertions: assertions who violate *N* are
*prima facie* faulty, and criticizable (qua violations of
*N*). Permissibility only establishes what is
*necessary* for permissible assertion, not what is
 *sufficient*.[19]



Most theorists take for granted that *N* is the
"constitutive" norm of assertion, and some explicitly
advocate
 (A6).[20]



(A6)
*Constitutivity*: *N* is the constitutive norm of
assertion.


However, there is substantial (and often unacknowledged) disagreement
about what constitutivity amounts to (for more the debate surrounding
each of these assumptions, see the supplementary document
 Which Kind of Norm?).


#### 5.1.4 Which Norm of Assertion?



For the most part, the literature on norms of assertion has concerned
the question of *which* specific norm governs assertion, and
what are the reasons for favoring one candidate norm over another.
Below, we briefly go through the main candidates from the
literature.


##### The knowledge norm



(KNA)
One must: assert *p* only if one knows *p*.


Over and above Williamson,
 (KNA)
 has been favored by DeRose (2002), Reynolds (2002), Adler (2002:
275), Hawthorne (2004), Stanley (2005), Engel (2008), Schaffer (2008),
and Turri (2010), among others.



In addition to direct intuitions about the appropriateness of specific
sentences, proponents of the knowledge norm have adduced indirect
evidence in the form of intuitions about conversational patterns,
claiming that these patterns are best explained by the acceptance of
the knowledge norm. Williamson himself appeals to such patterns, such
as those arising from Moorean Assertions
 (26),
 Lottery Assertions
 (27),
 and Challenges
 (28):



(26)
It is raining, but I don't know that it is raining.
(27)
Your ticket did not win.
(28)
How do you know that?


Concerning the first, Williamson (2000: 253) claims that an utterance
of
 (26)
 is just as odd as any ordinary Moorean sentence involving belief,
such as
 (25)
 above. The oddity of
 (26)
 can be explained by appeal to the knowledge norm, and this is taken
by supporters of
 (KNA)
 to be a datum in its favor. By
 (KNA),
 (26) is proper only if the speaker knows that the proposition
expressed by
 (26)
 is true. Since knowledge distributes over conjunction, this means
that the speaker should know that it is raining and also that she does
not know that it is raining. Since knowledge is factive, this
generates a contradiction: it follows that an assertion of
 (26)
 cannot be proper, and this explains its oddity.



Similarly,
 (KNA)
 seems well positioned to explain the oddity of asserting
 (27)
 merely on probabilistic grounds. Suppose that a (fair) lottery with a
large number of tickets has been held; only one ticket has won.
*B* has a ticket, but neither *A* nor *B* knows
the result. *A* asserts
 (27)
 on merely probabilistic grounds. Although the probability that the
ticket has won is very low (and one can get it arbitrarily low, short
of zero, by increasing the number of tickets in the lottery), it is
intuitively incorrect for *A* to tell
 (27)
 to *B* (Williamson 2000: 246-249). No probability short
of 1 seems to authorize *A*'s utterance of
 (27).
 Since *A* does not know that
 (27)
 is true,
 (KNA)
 explains the unacceptability of A's utterance.



Finally, in standard contexts, it is perfectly appropriate to
challenge an assertion with questions like
 (28),
 but
 (28)
 presupposes that the speaker knows that what she says is true.
 (KNA)
 is well positioned to explain why this presupposition is appropriate:
if speakers are only entitled to assert what they know, then it is
within the hearer's conversational rights to assume (and
presuppose) that the speaker knows that what they say is true. Further
conversational patterns supporting
 (KNA)
 have been proposed, e.g., by Benton (2011).



The claim that
 (KNA)
 is supported by these conversational patterns has been extensively
criticized. The most common line is that the available data can be
explained equally well (if not better) by competing accounts. For
instance, several authors argue that the oddity of Moorean Assertions
and Lottery Assertions can be explained by appeal to a justification
 norm.[21]
 Others have noted that these conversational patterns may be explained
by appealing to more general principles, rather than assertoric norms
specifically. For instance, it has been argued that Lottery Assertions
and Moorean Assertions are improper because they violate more general
(Gricean) conversational
 principles.[22]



A different criticism comes from Sosa (2009), who notes that
 (KNA)'s
 explanation of Moorean assertions fails to generalize as it should,
because
 (KNA)
 is unable to explain "dubious assertions": cases in which
the speaker asserts *p* while admitting that he doesn't
know whether he knows that *p* (but see Benton 2013, Montminy
2013a). Finally, several authors have questioned the assumption that
it is always improper to assert that one's ticket is a loser on
purely probabilistic
 grounds.[23]



The argument from challenges like
 (28)
 is surely the least compelling. First, to meet the challenge raised
by
 (28),
 it would be sufficient for the speaker to show that she has good
*reasons* to believe that what she said is true (Lackey 2007:
610; Kvanvig 2009: 143; McKinnon & Turri 2013). It does not seem,
by contrast, that the speaker has to prove that she knows (rather than
merely believe) that what she said is true. Second, taking the
argument seriously proves too much. Consider
 (29):



(29)
Are you sure?
(30)
How can you be certain?


Since
 (29)
 and
 (30)
 are also natural ways to challenge an assertion, by the same logic,
we should conclude that assertion is also governed by a certainty
rule. We could extend this to other challenges (Is that true?). So the
challenge argument doesn't seem to show a primacy of knowledge
over alternative rules.



A general problem with the appeal to conversational patterns is that
they don't seem to favor specifically normative views over
corresponding non-normative views. For instance, it appears that any
linguistic phenomenon that can be explained by appeal to a knowledge
norm can be equally well explained by appeal to the view that
asserters represent themselves as knowing what they say, although
there is no norm (cf. Pagin 2016b; D. Black 2018). Combine this with
extraneous, non-assertion-specific norms. That A's lottery
assertion
 (27)
 is bad can then be explained by appeal to self-representation of
knowledge, together with the general moral norm that it is wrong to
mislead hearers.



Many objections against
 (KNA)
 are based on the idea that its requirements are too strong. First,
*Gettiered* assertions. Suppose that you have a justified true
belief that falls short of knowledge. For instance, you walk into a
cafe, look at the clock, and conclude that it's 4.35; but
your belief is only accidentally true because (unbeknownst to you) the
clock has been stuck at 4.35 for several days. If someone asks you the
time, it seems perfectly appropriate for you to respond "4.35
pm". However, by making such an assertion, you would be
violating
 (KNA),
 which intuitively speaks against it (Lackey 2007: 596; Kvanvig 2009:
146-7; Coffman 2014: 36).



Similar objections arise in relation to the intuitive permissibility
of *unlucky* assertions: assertions that you have excellent
reasons to believe to be true, but that happen to be false. Since the
problem with unlucky assertions is that
 (KNA)
 entails
 (TNA)
 (it only allows true assertions), we will discuss it below, as we
consider objections to
 (TNA).



Lackey objects that
 (KNA)
 fails to accommodate *selfless* assertions. She presents
several examples: one involves a teacher, Stella, who firmly believes
in creationism, but is aware that the scientific consensus is that
humans evolved from apes. Stella recognizes that Darwinism is
supported by stronger empirical evidence, but this is not enough to
shake her firm belief in creationism. Suppose that she tells her
students:



(31)
Homo sapiens evolved from Homo erectus.


Intuitively, it would be appropriate for Stella, as a teacher, to
assert
 (31).
 However,
 (KNA)
 predicts that
 (31)
 is incorrect, because Stella does not believe, and therefore does not
know, that
 (31)
 is true. Selfless assertion have generated a lively debate, mostly
involving attempts to explain their propriety within a
 (KNA)-framework
 (see Montminy 2013a, Turri 2015, Milic 2017).



Further objections concern so-called *unsafe* assertions, where
the speaker does know what is asserted, but would easily have made the
assertion in a similar situation *without*
 knowledge.[24]



A few authors who sympathize with
 (KNA)
 have emphasized the role of the hearer. Their proposals are similar
to
 (KNA),
 but set the condition in relation to the transmission of knowledge to
the *hearer*. An example is Garcia-Carpintero (2004:
156):



(KNA-T)
One must: assert *p* only if one's audience comes
thereby to be in a position to know that *p*.


Similar norms have also been proposed by Pelling (2013a) and by
Hinchman (2013). Garcia-Carpintero suggests that his version is
preferable to Williamson's because it brings out the social,
communicative function of language (but see Willard-Kyle forthcoming
for objections to KNA-T).[25]


##### The truth norm



Most alternatives to the knowledge norm that are weaker than
 (KNA):
 they require less than knowledge for proper assertion. Weiner (2005)
and Whiting (2013, 2015) propose a truth norm (cf. also Alston
2000):



(TNA)
Assert that *p* only if *p* is true.


Just like the knowledge norm, the truth norm is factive: both entail
that you can assert a proposition only if it is true. This generates a
problem concerning the intuitive appropriateness of *unlucky
assertions*. To illustrate, imagine that you have had a cat for
several years. During a conversation, a friend asks you if you have
any pets at home, and you reply:



(32)
I have a cat at home.


Unbeknownst to you, however, some thieves broke into your house and
stole everything you have, including your cat. Since you could not
possibly have foreseen the eventuality of such an absurd theft, it
seems that your assertion is appropriate: in response to your
friend's question,
 (32)
 is simply the right thing to say. However,
 (KNA)
 and
 (TNA)
 give a different verdict: they predict that
 (32)
 is an inappropriate response. What's more,
 (TNA)
 (but not
 (KNA))
 predicts that the appropriate reply would have been to assert the
negation of
 (32),
 namely that you don't have a cat at home. But again, such a
"lucky assertion" would be intuitively inappropriate:
since you have no reason to believe that your cat was stolen, in
saying that you don't have a pet you would be
 lying.[26]



Proponents of
 (KNA)
 and
 (TNA)
 tend to concede that unlucky assertions (and *Gettiered*
assertions) are intuitively appropriate, and that lucky assertions are
intuitively inappropriate. Their standard defense strategy is to
invoke some distinctions that explain away their incorrect
predictions. Williamson (2000: 256-257) suggests that making
unlucky and Gettiered assertions is reasonable, and this is why
assertions like
 (32)
 usually don't warrant criticism. However, here the prediction
that uttering
 (32)
 is reasonable is made by general observations about rationality, and
not by
 (KNA)
 itself. If
 (KNA)'s
 job is to tell us which assertions are appropriate and which are not,
it is not clear how these observations really help its case, since
there are other norms (such as
 (JNA))
 that are able to make this prediction without appeal to independent
epistemic standards.



A parallel solution has been delineated by DeRose, who draws a
distinction between *primary and secondary propriety*. Primary
propriety is just what a rule says: when a rule prescribes to
*f* only if *C*, it is primarily proper to *f* if
*C*, and primarily improper to *f* if not *C*.
Secondary propriety is dictated by whether you have reasons to think
you are following the rule. If you *f* because you reasonably
believe that *C*, but *C* is accidentally false, your
action is primarily improper but secondarily proper, and doesn't
deserve blame. If you *f* although you reasonably believe that
*C* is false, but *C* is accidentally true, your
assertion is primarily proper but secondarily improper, and
doesn't deserve praise. This strategy helps defend
 (TNA)
 and
 (KNA)
 against the devised counterexamples. Unlucky and Gettiered assertions
are primarily improper but secondarily proper, and that's why
they don't deserve blame. Lucky assertions are primarily proper
but secondarily improper, and that's why they don't
deserve praise.



Several authors reject this distinction between primary and secondary
 propriety.[27]
 Most of them think that this distinction is spurious. If the job of
an epistemic norm is to identify the one epistemic standard *C*
from which it is appropriate to assert, then it is not clear that
appealing to secondary propriety, epistemic excuses or reasonableness
is a legitimate move, given that more economic alternatives are
available. Reasonably thinking that you are in *C* (secondarily
following the rule) is itself an epistemic state; if being in such a
state epistemically entitles you to assert, such permissibility should
be built into the
 norm.[28]



Accepting the distinction between primary and secondary propriety
induces a problem for the intuitive support for the various theories.
A large part of the intuitions that serve to support one or the other
norm theory relies on raw intuitions about what one should or
shouldn't assert in some situation, or what is proper or
improper to assert there. If there are several ways an assertion can
be proper or improper, then it is not easy to see which concept of
propriety is being tracked by these intuitions. The idea is that a
particular intuition that seems to disconfirm a particular normative
theory can be explained away by saying that it does not in fact track
the primary propriety, but instead only some secondary propriety.
Since intuitions don't come labeled as "primary" and
"secondary", there is a risk of a substantial
underdetermination of theory by data (stressed by Pagin 2016b): two
theorists need not agree about whether or not an intuition about a
particular case supports a certain theory.



A problem persists even if we reject the primary/secondary
distinction. As noted, everyone agrees that assertions are governed by
various norms: moral, prudential, conversational, rules of etiquette.
When does an intuition track the intended notion of a proper
assertion, and when something else altogether? Kvanvig (2011: 235) and
Engel (2008: 52-54) have drawn attention to this. According to
Kvanvig, intuitions typically concern whether assertions are
all-things-considered appropriate. But an assertion may be
"all-things-considered appropriate" without being
"epistemic appropriate" (or the other way around). Since
we do not have a reliable method for telling apart intuitions about
"overall appropriateness" from intuitions about
"epistemic appropriateness", it is often unclear to which
extent a given set of intuitions supports or undermines a given theory
(cf. Hawthorne & Stanley 2008: 585-6). To address this
problem, Greenberg (forthcoming) proposes to reframe the debate in
terms of epistemic norms constraining action, rather than
assertion.



Complex refinements of
 (TNA)
 have been proposed, too. MacFarlane (2014: 103) adopts a truth norm,
but requires it to be qualified as being *reflective*. This
means, in the context of MacFarlane's *relativism*, that
the proposition should be true in the context of utterance, as
assessed from *the same* context of
 utterance.[29]
 According to MacFarlane, the truth norm needs to be complemented by a
*retraction rule* that enjoins the speaker to retract the
assertion if it turns out not be true (cf. Dummett 1991: 165), in a
context of assessment:



(RNA)
Retract an (unretracted) assertion if it turns out not to be
true.


This rule is also stated in the context of MacFarlane's
relativism, with respect to a context of use and a context of
assessment. According to the resulting view, assertion is governed
jointly by the (reflective) truth norm and the retraction rule.
Rescorla (2009a), who defends a commitment account of assertion (see
 section 6.1),
 argues there is no norm at all for proper *making* of
assertions. There are only norms that govern later reactions. He
proposes three alternatives to
 (RNA),
 which share the idea that when a speaker is challenged with respect
to an assertion he has made, he must either defend the assertion or
else retract it (Rescorla 2009a: 103-105; cf. Rescorla
2009b).


##### The justification norms



Several authors have argued that assertability requires justification,
rather than belief or knowledge. A standard formulation would be:



(JNA)
Assert only that for which you have proper justification.


What "justification" is taken to refer to varies between
authors. Douven (2006, 2009) and Lackey (2007, 2008) argue for a norm
of *rational* belief. Note that
 (JNA)
 does not require that you *believe* what you say: all that it
requires is that it is (or would be) *rational* for you to
believe it. As such,
 (JNA)
 classifies *selfless* assertions (which are disbelieved, but
rational to believe) as appropriate, a prediction that Lackey (2007)
takes to be a crucial advantage of
 (JNA).



Different conversational contexts may require different degrees of
justification. For instance, suppose that you are serving your friend
a curry that you just defrosted. You remember that you prepared it for
a vegan dinner over a month ago, but you're not absolutely sure.
If your friend has a mild dislike for cheese,
 (33)
 may be an appropriate thing to say; not so much if your friend has a
deadly allergy to lactose:



(33)
There is no cheese in this curry.


To accommodate this sort of intuitions, some authors have proposed
context-sensitive versions of
 (JNA).
 Gerken (2012, 2014, 2017) says that an assertion must be based
"on a degree of discursive justification for believing that
*p* that is adequate" relative to the conversational
context. He also argues that the notion of justification is best
understood in internalist terms: a speaker asserting *p* is
justified only if they would be able to consciously articulate their
reasons in support of *p*. McKinnon (2013, 2015) also defends a
version of
 (JNA)
 that is context-sensitive. She argues that one may assert that
*p* only if (i) the speaker has supportive reasons for
*p*, and (ii) the relevant conventional and pragmatic elements
of the context of assertion are present. On this view, the pragmatic
features of the context have an effect on which epistemic support is
needed. Pragmatic features can regard the *stakes* involved
(how much depends practically on the truth of what is asserted) or
*pedagogical* requirements (in case the speaker is a teacher
who is required to teach what is rational to believe; McKinnon 2015:
Section 4.4).



If justification comes in degrees, perhaps some propositions are more
assertable than others. According to an influential view (Jackson
1974, 565, cf. Lewis 1976, 297), the degree to which a proposition is
assertable is a function of its probability. But Sam Carter
(forthcoming) shows that this view makes systematically incorrect
predictions. He suggests that assertability is a matter of
*normality* instead: "asserting *p* is more
appropriate than asserting *q*, for a speaker in evidential
state E, iff amongst the worlds compatible with E, *p* is more
normal than *q*" (in turn, normality has to do with what
is compatible with our evidence-based expectations; cf. Carter
forthcoming: SS5 for a formal definition).



(JNA)
 does not explicitly forbid insincere assertions (assertions that are
believed to be false). Some find this feature unattractive, and prefer
to amend
 (JNA)
 so as to introduce a belief-requirement, as in
 (JBNA):



(JBNA)
Assert that *p* only if you justifiably believe that
*p*.


Since
 (JBNA)
 requires both justification and belief, it entails that both
 (JNA)
 and
 (BNA)
 are true. But how should we characterize *justification* for
the purpose of this more demanding norm? For Kvanvig (2009, 2011), the
relevant notion is knowledge-level justification: "the kind [of
justification] that is sufficient for knowledge in the presence of
ungettiered true belief" (2009: 156); a stronger version of this
requirement (would-be-knowledge) is defended by Coffman (2014).



A datum that justification rules may have trouble explaining is the
wrongness of false assertions. There seems to be something inherently
defective about false assertions, and there is clearly a sense in
which true, justified assertions are more valuable than false, equally
justified ones. But
 (JNA)
 and
 (JBNA)
 have no resources to explain what is defective about falsity. In
response, Marsili (2018) notes that proponents of non-factive accounts
can avail themselves of the notion of an assertion's aim: when
we make an assertion, we purport to describe the world as it is; our
assertion's purported goal is met only if the assertion is true.
On this view, false assertions are not impermissible, but are still
defective, because they fail to meet their purported aim.



There are views that come very close to justification rules. Maitra
and Weatherson (2010: 112) propose what they call *The Evidence
Responsiveness Rule*: that one assert that *p* only if
one's attitude towards *p* is properly responsive to the
evidence (they also propose to complement it with an *action
rule*, that it is proper to assert that *p* only if acting
as if *p* is "the thing for you to do"). Smithies
(2012) defends the view that *p* is assertable only if you have
a justification to believe that you are in a position to know that
*p* (cf. Koethe 2009, Rosenkranz forthcoming). This version of
 (JNA)
 restores a guiding normative role for knowledge, while accommodating
many of the intuitions that motivate a preference for
 (JNA)
 or
 (KNA)
 (for a critique, see M. Smith 2012).


##### Other proposals



Belief norms are the weakest norms on the market:



(BNA)
Assert only what you believe.


The belief norm is explicitly stated by Hindriks (2007) and Bach
(2008: 77). If one substitutes 'say' for
'assert', this is close to a reformulations of
Grice's second submaxim of Quality ("Do not say what you
believe to be false" (Grice 1989: 27).



Intuitively,
 (BNA)
 is too permissive: it allows us to assert whatever we believe, even
if we have no evidence but a hunch to support our claim. To explain
away this prediction, advocates of
 (BNA)
 typically add that while
 (BNA)
 is the only norm that is specific to assertion (and regulates
assertion directly, cf.
 (A1)
 and
 (A2)),
 it is not the *only* norm that regulates it. Since assertions
necessarily express a belief, and *appropriate belief* (and/or
practical action) is allegedly governed by a knowledge-norm,
 (KNA)
 ultimately determines which assertions all-things-considered
appropriate (Hindriks 2007; Bach 2008; Montminy 2013a).



All the alternatives to the knowledge norm considered so far require
*less* than knowledge for proper assertion. A stronger
requirement has been suggested by Stanley (2008):



(EC-A)
Assert only what is epistemically certain.


Here one is epistemically certain of a proposition *p*



> 
> 
> if and only if one knows that *p* (or is in a position to know
> that *p*) on the basis of evidence that gives one the highest
> degree of justification for one's belief that *p*. (2008:
> 35)
> 
> 
> 



According to Stanley, since the certainty norm requires more than just
knowledge, everything that can be explained by appeal to the knowledge
norm can also be explained by appeal to the certainty
 norm.[30]



Goldberg (2015) argues that the norm of assertion hypothesis can
explain why we have a (pro tanto) epistemic entitlement believe what
we are told. He identifies some requirements that are needed to meet
this desideratum. One is that the norm of assertion is robustly
epistemic, and strong enough to warrant testimonial belief (2015: 96).
Another is that it must be *common knowledge* between speaker
and hearer that the speaker's assertion is subject to this norm.
A further requirement (2015: 8) is that the speaker
*authorizes* the hearer to defer back to the speaker the
responsibility of meeting challenges to the assertion. Together, these
assumptions should be able to explain why beliefs based on testimony
are pro tanto justified.


##### Experimental evidence



Most authors who write about the norm of assertion appeal to their own
intuitions. However, this is an area where experimental data is highly
relevant. If the aim is to describe a real-word communicative act,
rather than a purely idealized philosopher's construct, it
follows a good theory of assertion should make predictions that are
consistent with our actual practice: it should deem appropriate the
assertions that ordinary speakers deem appropriate, and inappropriate
the ones that they criticize as inappropriate. If this is right,
competing accounts can be tested empirically against the intuitions of
competent speakers of the language.



Empirical research on the norm of assertion was initiated by Turri.
His (2013) study aims to determine whether people's
assertability judgments are better predicted by a factive norm, like
 (KNA)
 or
 (TNA),
 or a non-factive one, like
 (JNA)
 or
 (BNA).
 Turri reports the results of six experiments, primarily investigating
judgments about unlucky assertions (false assertions that the speaker
reasonably believes to be true). In the first experiment, Maria
incorrectly thinks that she has a 1990 Rolex in her watch collection,
because this is what her inventory says. When a friend asks Maria if
she has that particular Rolex, participants are asked: "Should
Maria tell her guest that she has a 1990 Rolex in her
collection?" [Yes/No]. Participants overwhelmingly selected the
negative option (No), even when different factors were manipulated
(the control questions, what is at stake, the response options, etc.),
apparently providing robust evidential support for factive accounts.
Turri has since conducted several more studies, accumulating an
impressive body of evidence supporting factive accounts of assertion
in general and the knowledge-norm in particular (for a review, see
Turri 2017), including studies on other potential counterexamples to
 (KNA),
 like *selfless assertions* (2015a), and *Gettiered
assertions* (2016).



It seemed that the debate was settled in favor of the knowledge rule,
until new studies came out that pointed in the opposite direction.
Reuter and Brossel (2019) argue that two factors likely skewed
the results in favor of factive accounts in Turri's (2013)
seminal study. First, the protagonist (Maria) has a defeater against
her belief: she is *aware* that her inventory is occasionally
mistaken. Second, participants were asked what Maria *should*
say, but it would seem more appropriate to ask whether her assertion
was *permissible*. Manipulating these factors reverted the
results: a majority of participants gave responses aligning with
non-factive accounts. The authors then conducted new experiments
involving both *lucky* assertions (true, but not justified) and
*unlucky* assertions (false, but justified), finding that
 (JNA)
 was reliably a better predictor of assertability than any of its
factive rivals
 (TNA,
 KNA).



Kneer (2017) also found solid evidence that
 (JNA)
 is a better predictor of assertability judgments than
 (KNA),
 TNA, and
 (BNA).
 In a first experiment, he tested *Gettiered* assertions and
*unlucky* assertions, measuring assertability with different
prompts: he asked whether the protagonist "should say
*p*", whether she "is permitted to say
*p*", and if saying *p* is
"appropriate". In both the *Gettiered* condition
and the *unlucky* condition, the overwhelming majority of
participants considered *p* assertable, but not known. Kneer
concludes that "knowledge quite clearly doesn't constitute
the norm of assertion". The other experiments were therefore
designed to verify whether
 (JNA) makes
 more reliable predictions. Experiments 2 and 3 found robust evidence
that
 (JNA) is
 a better predictor of assertability judgments than
 (KNA),
 both in *Gettier* assertions and *unlucky* assertions,
even when different factors (like the response options or the kind of
epistemic support) are manipulated. Experiment 4 shows that
 (JNA) is
 a better predictor of assertability judgments than
 (BNA):
 people judge that "having a hunch" that *p* is
true is not good enough ground to assert *p*. Like Reuter and
Brossel, Kneer concludes that
 (JNA),
 rather than
 (KNA),
 is better supported by the empirical evidence. In a subsequent study,
Kneer (2021) found that these results are stable across different
cultures.



These results are at odds with the initial findings by Turri and
colleagues. Given the contrasting data available, how can we determine
which account is best supported by empirical evidence? To answer this
question, Marsili and Wiegmann (2021) note that, in all their
differences, Turri's studies share a central methodological
aspect: they explore laypeople intuitions by asking a sample of
subjects to judge what a particular agent *should do* in a
given scenario, *before* the protagonist makes the assertion;
Kneer, Reuter and Brossel adopt instead different prompts and
tense structures. Marsili and Wiegmann argue that the divergent
results are the predictable bi-product of a flaw in the questioning
method employed in the former set of studies. They note that
"should" can be interpreted in two ways:
*teleologically* (or instrumentally), when it indicates what
you should do to achieve your aims, and *deontologically*, when
it indicates what you should do to live up to some norms or
obligations. The authors found experimental evidence that participants
in Turri's studies interpreted the test questions
teleologically, which undermines a factive interpretation of the
results. Furthermore, they identify measures that can be introduced to
prompt the intended (deontological) reading of the test question,
finding that when these measures are implemented into Turri's
vignettes, participants' judgments overwhelmingly align with
non-factive views like
 (JNA).



It would therefore seem that the latest studies have tipped the scale
in favor of non-factive views like
 (JNA).
 However, further research will be needed to settle the disagreement
on empirical grounds.


### 5.2 Conventions



Austin held that illocutionary acts as opposed to perlocutionary acts
are *conventional*, in the sense that they can be made explicit
by the so-called performative formula (Austin 1962: 103). According to
Austin, one can say "I argue that" or "I warn you
that" but not "I convince you that" or "I
alarm you that". Presumably, the idea was that a speech act type
is conventional just if there exists a convention by which an
utterance of a sentence of a certain kind ensures (if uptake is
secured) that a speech act of that type is performed. Austin probably
thought that in virtue of the performative formulas this condition is
met by illocutionary but not by perlocutionary act types.



The more general claim that illocutionary force is correlated by
convention with sentence type has been advocated by Dummett (1973
[1981: 302, 311]). On this view, it is a convention that declarative
sentences are used for assertion, interrogative for questions and
imperative for commands and requests. Similar views have been put
forward by Searle (1969) and Kot'atko (1998), and the
idea has been more recently defended by Kolbel (2010). According
to Searle (1969: 38, 40), illocutionary acts are conventional, and the
conventions in question govern the use of so-called force-indicating
devices (Searle 1969: 64) specific to each
 language.[31]



However, the view that illocutionary acts types are conventional in
this sense has met with much opposition. Strawson (1964:
153-154) objected early on that ordinary illocutionary acts can
be performed without relying on any convention to identify the force,
for instance when using a declarative sentence like "The ice
over there is very thin" for a warning. This kind of criticism,
directed against Dummett, has later been reinforced by Robert J.
Stainton (1996, 2006), stressing that in appropriate contexts,
sub-sentential phrases like "John's father"
(pointing at a man) or "very fast" (looking at a car) can
be used to make assertions, and gives linguistic arguments why not all
such uses can be treated as cases of ellipsis (that is, as cases of
leaving out parts of a well-formed sentence that speaker and hearer
tacitly aware of). If Strawson and Stainton are right, convention
isn't necessary for making assertions.



Moreover, Davidson (1979, 1984) stressed that no conventional sign
could work as a force indicator in this sense, since any conventional
sign could be used (and would be used) in insincere utterances, where
the corresponding force was missing, including cases of deception,
jokes, impersonation and other theatrical performances. Basically the
same point is made by Bach and Harnish (1979: 122-127). If
Davidson, and Bach and Harnish are right, then conventions are also
not sufficient (but see Kolbel 2010 for an argument against this
view).



Williamson (1996, 239) has argued that that speech acts defined by
constitutive rules (like assertion, in his own view) cannot be
conventional. However, Garcia-Carpintero (2019) has shown that
this position is controversial. The situation is complicated by the
fact that the general question of when a convention, or rule of any
kind, is *in force* for a speaker, is substantial and complex
(for more on the relation of assertion to convention, Green
2020a).


## 6. Normative Accounts, Hearer-Directed


### 6.1 Commitment



Making an assertion has normative consequences. To characterize the
social dimension of assertion, some authors focus on the distinctive
responsibilities
 ("commitments"[32])
 that a communicator takes on when they claim that something is the
case. We shall begin by reviewing two main ways to understand what
assertoric commitment is.



A first view, that we may call "commitment as
accountability", focuses on the *sanctions* that speakers
accept to face if what they claimed turns out to be false. This
characterization of assertion was first developed by Peirce:



> 
> 
> an act of assertion [...] renders [the speaker] liable to the
> penalties of the social law (or, at any rate, those of the moral law)
> in case [the asserted proposition] should not be true, unless he has a
> definite and sufficient excuse. ([CP]: 2.315)
> 
> 
> 



William P. Alston (2000: 55) presents the idea as follows: a speaker
accepts responsibility for a content *p* being true iff the
speaker



> 
> 
> knowingly [takes] on the liability to ([lay] herself open to) blame
> (censure, reproach, being taken to task, being called to account), in
> case of
>  not-*p*.[33]
> 
> 
> 



The notion of *liability* at play here is normative: when you
assert that *p*, your audience acquires a (defeasible) right to
criticize you if what you say is false. On this view, to assert is
akin to signing a contract by means of which you take responsibility
for something (what you said) being true, and accept to pay the
consequences
 otherwise.[34]



To emphasize this, some authors write that assertions
*guarantee* (Peirce [CP]: 5.543; Watson 2004: 66),
*assure* (Moran 2005, Hinchman 2013) or *warrant*
(Carson 2006) that their content is true. However, it is not obvious
that what assertions guarantee is that their content is *true*.
It may be that an assertor instead accepts the responsibility for
being *justified in believing that one knows* that the
proposition is true (Green 2009), or that they *know* that the
proposition is true.



An alternative way to characterize the responsibilities generated by
assertions is to focus on what the speaker *is expected to do*,
in virtue of making an assertion. Assertoric responsibility can be
understood as a commitment *to act in a certain way*. When you
make an assertion, you generate an expectation that you will behave in
certain ways and not in others, especially in relation to what you
will *say*
 next.[35]
 To take a simple example, once you assert that *p*, it becomes
inappropriate for you to make statements that blatantly contradict
*p* (Hamblin 1970b), or to behave in ways that are sharply at
odds with accepting *p* as true (Geurts
 2019).[36]



Furthermore, making an assertion commits you to respond to
people's questions and challenges in certain ways, as the
conversation evolves. Brandom (1994: 173-175) emphasizes this,
and argues that asserting achieves two different social results at the
same time: (i) it commits the speaker to defend her claim in response
to *legitimate challenges*; and relatedly (ii)
*authorizes* the hearer to claim anything that follows from
what the speaker asserted. MacFarlane (2003: 14
 [Other Internet References])
 summarizes (and revises) the underlying idea as follows:



> 
> 
> To assert a sentence *S* (at a context *U*) is
> (*inter alia*) to commit oneself to providing adequate grounds
> for the truth of *S* (relative to *U*), in response to
> any appropriate challenge, or (when appropriate) to defer this
> responsibility to another asserter on whose testimony one is relying.
> One can escape this commitment only by withdrawing the assertion.
> 
> 
> 



Several technical notions are at play here. One is the notion of
*challenge*. To challenge an assertion is to question its
veracity (or, at least, the speaker's entitlement to make the
assertion). An interlocutor can challenge an assertion by means of
questions, such as (Q), or explicit denials, like (D):



(Q)
How do you know that?
(D)
That's not true!


Challenges like (Q) and (D) 
 are usually appropriate, but not always. For instance, they may be
inappropriate if in the conversaation it is already settled that what
the speaker said is
 true.[37]
 Asserting only commits you to respond to *appropriate*
challenges - or else retract your assertion (on norms of
retraction, see
 section 5.1.4.)



It is often argued that there is a whole family of speech acts
("assertives" or "representatives") that
"commit the speaker (to varying degrees) to something's
being the case" (Searle 1979: 12): illocutionary acts such as
*warning, denying, reminding, arguing, deducing*, and so forth.
These speech acts differ in the strength of the commitments they
generate (e.g., *swearing* that *p* involves a stronger
commitment than plain assertion), and in the conditions required for
their felicitous performance (e.g., warning about *p* is only
appropriate if *p* involves a risk or danger for the
interlocutor). If a speech act involves a stronger commitment than
assertion and/or extra felicity conditions, we can say that it is
"stronger" than assertion. Searle and Vanderveken (1985)
note that whenever you perform the stronger speech act, you have also
made an assertion. For example, it would not be incorrect to report
 (34)
 or
 (35)
 by saying that the speaker has *claimed*, *asserted*,
or *affirmed* that she is a certified forklift operator:



(34)
I swear that I am a certified forklift operator.
(35)
I warn you that I am a certified forklift operator.


If this is right, the term "assertion" does not designate
a single illocutionary act, but rather a class of them: it denotes
every speech act that is normatively stronger than (or equal to)
assertion. This seems to lose track of a narrower meaning of the term
"assertion", one that sets plain assertions apart from
stronger assertives. A strategy to rescue this narrow meaning while
acknowledging assertion's close ties with other assertives is
found in Green (2013, 2017, 2020b: 8). Green, (like Brandom)
understands commitment as a responsibility to defend your claim, and
argues that an assertion commits you to a greater justificatory burden
than weaker assertives, and lesser than stronger assertives (for an
alternative, like-minded solution, Marsili 2015: 123-127).
Labinaz (2018) outlines some difficulties for extending the Brandomian
framework to assertive speech acts, and proposes to adopt an
alternative approach to degrees of commitment that rather owes to the
work of Austin (cf. also Labinaz & Sbisa 2014:
SS3).



We have seen that assertions differ from other speech acts in terms of
the commitments that they engender. It has also been noted that
assertions themselves can differ in terms of the commitments that they
generate: not all assertions generate commitment of the same
strength.



Using expressions like "I think that *A* is
*B*", "Probably/Perhaps *A* is
*B*", or "*A* is quite *B*", a
speaker can *mitigate* their assertion that *A* is
*B*. And using intensifiers like "I know that *A*
is *B*", "Surely *A* is *B*",
or "*A* is absolutely *B*", the speaker can
*strengthen* or *boost* their assertion that *A*
is *B*. These expressions modulate the *degree* of the
commitment engendered by the assertions in which they occur: they can
be used to undertake *more* or *less* responsibility
towards the content of the assertion, and more generally to modulate
the force and of the resulting speech
 act.[38]



The commitments generated by assertions have often been compared to
those generated by promises. For instance, by saying
 (36)
 to a friend, a speaker will typically commit herself to calling the
repair shop at 8.



(36)
I promise to call the repair at 8.


In a standard context, as a result of uttering
 (36),
 both the speaker and the addressee will regard the speaker as having
incurred an obligation to the addressee.



In the literature, the standard view is that assertions and promises
generate commitments of different kinds, so that they belong to
different families (e.g., Searle 1969, 1979). The relation between
asserting and promising is discussed in detail in Watson (2004), who
introduces a distinction between *primary* and
*secondary* commitments. Assertions and promises differ in the
*primary* commitments that they generate. When you promise to
*ph*, your primary commitment is to (intend to)
act so as to make *ph* happen. By contrast,
when you assert that *p*, your primary commitment is to facts
that are independent of your actions: namely, for Watson, the
*defensibility* of *p* (Watson 2004: 68). Furthermore,
both assertions and promises also involve a secondary commitment to
act in certain ways "if one is queried or if things go
wrong" (2004: 67). The speaker's commitment to defend the
assertion if challenged is on this view a secondary commitment, that
follows from the primary one (2004: 70).



Some authors maintain a stronger connection between promising and
asserting. Marsili (2016) argues that promising that you will
*ph* "illocutionary entails"
asserting that you will *ph*. The idea is that
promises behave like the "strong assertives" discussed
above (swearing, confessing, guaranteeing, etc.), whose performance
commits the speaker to having made an assertion. For instance, if Pepa
utters
 (36),
 it would be appropriate to say that Pepa has *asserted,
affirmed* or *claimed* that she will call the repair shop.
And if Pepa does not believe that she will call the repair shop, it
would be appropriate to say that Pepa has lied. In this sense,
promising that you will do something entails asserting that you will
do
 it.[39]



Hawley (2019) also draws a strong connection between asserting and
promises, but in the opposite direction: she analyses assertion in
terms of promising (cf. also Carson 2006). Hawley suggests that
whenever you make an assertion about *p*, you also promise to
speak truthfully as to whether *p*. This means that whenever
you assert, your promise to speak truthfully is simultaneously made
and either fulfilled or broken (depending on whether you are speaking
truthfully or not). However, this view has trouble explaining an
important difference between asserting and promising: assertions can
be mitigated ("Maybe I will do it" is perfectly fine) but
promises cannot ("I promise that maybe I will do it" is
not a genuine promise).



Commitment-making is central to some "mixed" accounts of
assertion--that is, accounts that incorporate insights from
different theories of assertion. For Peirce, commitment is central to
assertion, but not alone in characterizing it. In his view, asserting
also involves belief-expression: it "consists in the furnishing
of evidence by the speaker to the hearer that the speaker believes
something" (Peirce [CP]: 2.335). Furthermore, for Peirce
assertion is necessarily accompanied by an intention to convince the
hearer: "every assertion involves an effort to make the intended
interpreter believe what is asserted" (Peirce [CP]: 5.547). In
short, Peirce's view is that in asserting that *p*, you
attempt to convince your audience that *p* is true by providing
them with evidence that you believe that *p*, thereby becoming
committed to (i.e., accountable for) the truth of
 *p*.[40]



Another mixed account is defended by Searle (1969) (cf. also Searle
1975b: 322 and Searle & Vanderveken 1985). Searle's
characterization of assertion varies slightly throughout his writings,
but the central idea is that assertion can be identified on the basis
of its distinctive rules--the rules for uttering an assertion
"successfully" and "non-defectively" (i.e.,
felicitously). They are presented as rules for the use of
force-indicating devices (Searle 1969: 62-4). The rules can be
summarized as follows. Here *S* is the speaker and *H*
the hearer:



(Searle)


1.
The propositional content rule: what is to be expressed is any
proposition *p*
2.
First preparatory rule: *S* has evidence (reasons etc.) for
the truth of *p*.
3.
Second preparatory rule: It is not obvious to both *S* and
*H* that *H* knows (does not need to be reminded of,
etc.) *p*.
4.
Sincerity rule: *S* believes *p*.
5.
Constitutive rule: Counts as an undertaking to the effect that
*p* represents an actual state of affairs.
 


The fifth rule is the crucial one, and is held to be
*constitutive* of assertion. Searle contrasts constitutive
rules with regulative
 rules.[41]
 Constitutive rules, according to Searle, are like definitions: they
define what it is to engage in a certain activity: for instance,
"attacking the king in such a way that no move will leave it
unattacked counts as checkmate" (Searle 1969: 33).



Searle seems to adopt a notion of "commitment" that
involves both a responsibility to respond to challenges (a la
Brandom) and a liability to sanctions (a la Peirce): the
assertor is expected to "be able to provide reasons for the
original statement [...] and can be held publicly responsible if
it turns out to be false" (Searle 2010: 82). Like Peirce, also
Searle (1969: 65) integrates commitment with belief-expression: the
speaker expresses the state required by the sincerity rule, i.e., in
the case of assertion, whose sincerity rule is (4), the speaker
expresses a belief. Finally, the speaker implies that the preparatory
conditions are met--so that Searle's view has the odd
consequence that in asserting *p*, you imply that *p* is
not obviously true.



A third "mixed" account is defended by Green (1999, 2000,
2007, 2013, 2017, 2020a). Green distinguishes three different
normative notions in terms of which assertions (and other assertive
speech acts) can be characterized:


1. Fidelity
2. Liability
3. Frankness



The first component, *fidelity*, tracks commitment: one's
responsibility to respond to legitimate challenges. More specifically,
for Green, being *assertorically committed* to *p* means
being responsible to provide "strong justification if
challenged" (2017). Here "strong" is used in
contrast to weaker assertives, like conjectures, for performing which
is sufficient to be able to provide *some* (non-conclusive)
justification if challenged.



The second component is *liability to error:*



> 
> 
> one who asserts that *P* is liable to be right or wrong on the
> issue of *P*'s truth exactly as *P* turns out to
> be true or false. (2020a: 350)
> 
> 
> 



This is a feature that assertion has in common with weaker assertives:
also in guessing or hypothesizing that *p*, you may be right or
wrong depending on whether *p* is actually true. This relates
to Dummett's idea that "an assertion is a kind of gamble
that the speaker will not be proved wrong" (1976: 84).



The third component, *frankness*, has to do with sincerity:
"assertion is sincere just in case the speaker believes the
content she has asserted" (Green 2020a: 350). This requirement
sets assertion aside from other assertives (such as educated guesses
and conjectures) that do not require belief for sincere performance
(but rather, e.g., some reasons to think the content true).



A full account of assertion has to provide necessary and
*sufficient* conditions for asserting. But is commitment to
what you say sufficient for asserting? That is, if you say that
*p* and thereby also commit to the truth of *p*, does it
follow that you have asserted that *p*? Pagin (2004) offers a
negative response. The reason is that one can construct an utterance
type that isn't assertoric, but that would be assertoric
according to envisaged sufficiency view. A simple example is given
by



(37)
I hereby commit myself to the truth of the proposition that there
are black swans.


Whoever utters
 (37)
 felicitously incurs a commitment to the truth of the proposition that
there are black swans. However, intuitively
 (37)
 would not be an assertion that there are black swans; at most, it is
a declaration of the speaker's intent to be committed to that
proposition. What is said here does not entail that there are black
swans (it may be accurate even if there are no black swans). If this
is right, then incurring a commitment is not sufficient for asserting.
This objection puts pressure on any "hearer-directed"
account, including all the ones discussed in section 4, because
parallel constructions can be derived from any hearer-directed view;
for instance (against belief-expression views) by letting the speaker
declare that she is representing herself as believing a given
proposition.



Some authors have questioned whether this test really undermines
commitment accounts of assertion (and social accounts more
generally). Pegan (2009) argues that the counterexamples can be
blocked by carefully amending the theory; see Pagin (2009) for a
response. MacFarlane (2011) and Garcia-Carpintero (2013)
suggest that if we distinguish between *what is said*
and *what is asserted*, we can
regard (37) as an assertion that all swans are
black. Marsili & Green (2021) argue that this sort of test is
unreliable, questioning some key assumptions needed for
(37) to work as a
counterexample. They acknowledge, nonetheless, that assertions are not
fully reducible to their social effects.