Higher-Order Deniability
Sam Berstler
MIT Philosophy
Download slides: www.samberstler.com
Email me: berstler@mit.edu
tl;dr
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We speak some ways, and not others, because we want to retain deniability for what we mean.
I’m going to complicate the dominant paradigm for thinking about deniability.
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I’m sure whatever happened wasn’t a big deal. And if anything ever did happen, you just…do what you have to do to make yourself feel better about it. I have this trainer in the city. Lawrence. He’s so handsome. He has blonde hair and these, like, big, blue eyes. He’s really funny too. I spend more time with him than Cameron sometimes. ‘Cause he’s so busy at work. Such a cutie. Wanna see a pic?
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Deniability as risk management
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The speaker aims to create deniability for her communicative act G in order to drive down the risks she undertakes in G-ing.
Deniability as risk management
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The speaker aims to create deniability for her communicative act G in order to drive down the risks to her own interests that she undertakes in G-ing.
Deniability as risk management
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The speaker aims to create deniability for her communicative act G in order to drive down the risks to her own interests that she undertakes in G-ing. In creating deniability for herself, she aims to prevent her addressee from retaliating against her for G-ing.
Deniability as risk management
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Such a cutie. Wanna see a pic?
Does Daphne mean that Lawrence is the father? I suspect so, but I’m unsure!
Daphne intends Harper to merely suspect that Daphne intends for Harper to believe that Lawrence is the father and so merely suspect that Lawrence is the father.
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The denier intends to make retaliation…
non-optimal
epistemically unjustified
…under a trigger condition (such as issuing a denial)
Pinker 2007; Pinker, Nowak, and Lee 2008; Lee and Pinker 2010
conversationally unjustified
Zakkou and Dinges 2023
Camp 2018
Berstler 2019; Zakkou and Dinges 2023
This is a fundamentally non-cooperative strategy.
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It does not challenge the assumption that if a speaker is cooperative, she ought to make clear what she means.
This is a fundamentally non-cooperative strategy.
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Can you drive me to the airport?
Uhhhhhhhhh
How uncouth!
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*hint hint* my ride to the airport canceled…
Of course I shall drive to the airport, madam!
What a well-bred lady!
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*hint hint* my ride to the airport canceled…
Of course I shall drive to the airport, fine lady!
What a well-bred lady!
In many language communities, speakers aim to retain deniability for their communicative actions in order to conform to social propriety or express moral regard for their interlocutor.
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Objection 1. The risk management fails to explain why speakers sometimes choose deniable speech in order to be tactful, discrete, polite, and other-regarding.
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Deniability as risk management
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Such a cutie. Wanna see a pic?
Does Daphne mean that Lawrence is the father? I suspect so, but I’m unsure!
Harper has an interest in knowing Daphne’s communicative intentions, that is, in Daphne’s pragmatic clarity. Daphne trades pragmatic clarity off against her own risk management.
Deniability as risk management
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Such a cutie. Wanna see a pic?
Does Daphne mean that Lawrence is the father? I suspect so, but I’m unsure!
Harper has an interest in knowing Daphne’s communicative intentions, that is, in Daphne’s pragmatic clarity. Daphne trades pragmatic clarity off against her own risk management.
So, she promotes her own interests at the expense of Harper’s.
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*hint hint* my ride to the airport canceled…
Of course I shall drive to the airport, madam!
If Charles says, “No, of course not!” Gertrude would feel embarrassed! But she would feel less embarrassed if she could convincingly claim, “I didn’t mean that!” Gertrude is trading off Charles’ interest in pragmatic clarity against her interest in risk management.
This isn’t other-regarding. It’s selfish!
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Hypothesis. The polite risk manager does promote her interlocutor’s interests, by enabling her interlocutor to ignore her communicative message.
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I am asking for a ride
I suspects that Gertrude wants me to drive her to the airport.
Gertrude knows that she’s asking for a ride.
Charles suspects that Gertrude is asking this.
Gertrude knows that Charles suspects that she’s asking for a ride.
Charles knows (suspects) that Gertrude knows that Charles knows that Gertrude is asking for a ride.
*hint hint* my ride to the airport canceled…
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Gertrude knows that she’s asking for a ride.
Charles suspects that Gertrude is asking this.
Gertrude knows that Charles suspects that she’s asking for a ride.
Charles knows (suspects) that Gertrude knows that Charles knows that Gertrude is asking for a ride.
Charles knows that if he doesn’t offer to drive her to the airport, Gertrude will learn that he probably doesn’t want to do her this favor. (Since if he, he would clarify whether she wanted it!) Not much better than if she had just asked outright! ☹
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Gertrude knows that she’s asking for a ride.
Charles suspects that Gertrude is asking this.
Gertrude knows that Charles suspects that she’s asking for a ride.
Charles knows (suspects) that Gertrude knows that Charles knows that Gertrude is asking for a ride.
Why are we assuming this?
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I am asking for a ride
I suspects that Gertrude is asking me to drive her.
Gertrude knows that she’s asking for a ride.
Charles knows that Gertrude is asking this.
Gertrude doesn’t know whether Charles knows that she’s asking for a ride.
*hint hint* my ride to the airport canceled…
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I am asking for a ride
I suspects that Gertrude is asking me to drive her.
Does know realize that I’ve figured this out?
Gertrude knows that she’s asking for a ride.
Charles knows that Gertrude is asking this.
Gertrude doesn’t know whether Charles knows that she’s asking for a ride.
*hint hint* my ride to the airport canceled…
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I am asking for a ride
I suspect that Gertrude is asking me to drive her.
Gertrude knows that she’s asking for a ride.
Charles knows that Gertrude is asking this.
Gertrude doesn’t know whether Charles knows that she’s asking for a ride.
Charles knows that Gertrude doesn’t know whether Charles know that she’s asking him for a ride.
*hint hint* my ride to the airport canceled…
Does know realize that I’ve figured this out? No.
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I am asking for a ride
Gertrude knows that she’s asking for a ride.
Charles knows that Gertrude is asking this.
Gertrude doesn’t know whether Charles knows that she’s asking for a ride.
Charles knows that Gertrude doesn’t know whether Charles know that she’s asking him for a ride.
*hint hint* my ride to the airport canceled…
So if I pretend I don’t know what she means, she won’t know that I don’t want to drive her to the airport! She might just think I’m a bit clueless!
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A speaker S intends to create higher-order deniability for her act of G-ing iff she intends:
i. that her addressee A know that S intended to G.
ii. that S not know whether (i), and
iii. that A know (ii).
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Jerry texts Annie at 8 pm on a Friday asking if she wants to have coffee at 10 pm.
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Jerry texts Annie at 8 pm on a Friday asking if she wants to have coffee at 10 pm.
He wants Annie to receive it in time. But he knows that he won’t know whether Annie received it in time. And he knows that Annie will know this.
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Clive has been discussing his failing grade with his professor. When the professor, Larry, isn’t looking, a student, Clive, leaves an envelope of cash on the professor’s desk in a non-obvious spot.
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Clive has been discussing his failing grade with his professor. When the professor, Larry, isn’t looking, a student, Clive, leaves an envelope of cash on the professor’s desk in a non-obvious spot.
Clive won’t know whether Larry has found the envelope and/or realize Clive was the one who left it.. If Larry does find the envelope, he’ll know that Clive won’t know.
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Such a cutie. Wanna see a pic?
When Daphne hands Harper the phone, she pointedly turns her body away from Harper and averts her eyes. Harper can see that Daphne has done this.
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Such a cutie. Wanna see a pic?
When Daphne hands Harper the phone, she pointedly turns her body away from Harper and averts her eyes. Harper can see that Daphne has done this.
Daphne can’t read Harper’s facial expression.
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Paradigmatically, a higher-order deniers will not directly seek to confirm whether her interlocutor “got” the message. She wants to enable her interlocutor to decide for herself whether to introduce the message into the conversation.
chooses to ignore
chooses to make
common ground the next day
….the key to why the higher-order denier expresses positive regard for the interlocutor…
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It’s common knowledge that…
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if G pulls the red lever, she maximizes her chance that C understands what she meant.
if G pulls the black lever, she increases her chance that C doesn’t understand what she meant but does enable C to decline to offer her a ride without revealing that he has so declined…
It’s common knowledge that…
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if G pulls the red lever, she maximizes her chance that C understands what she meant.
if G pulls the black lever, she increases her chance that C doesn’t understand what she meant but does enable C to decline to offer her a ride without revealing that he has so declined…
….So when G pulls the black lever, it’s common knowledge that she’s trading off her interests for Charles’.
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Corollary: speakers primarily using HOD for its expressive function must intend to have meta-deniability.
A speaker intends to have meta-deniability for act of G-ing iff:
(i) she intends to have deniability for G-ing and
(ii) she intends for her interlocutor to recognize (i).
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Higher-Order Deniability
| First-order deniability | Higher-order deniability |
Characterization | Prevents the addressee from taking action disfavorable to speaker | Enables the addressee to take action favorable to the hearer |
Example | Harper can’t convince a divorce court that Daphne confessed her adultery. | Harper can ignore Daphne’s revelation without revealing that she’s intentionally ignoring it. |
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Goffman’s hypothesis
Well-socialized speakers cooperate in maintaining each others’ face.
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A face is more than persona or social status.
Face is situation-specific.
I have a face f in a situation s only if
self-assignment: I presuppose in s that
I have f
ratification: my interactants presuppose
in s that I have f
Face determines and explains how we treat each other in the interaction and how others (in part) normatively judge our interaction.
I have a massive prudential interest in my face.
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We all jointly know far more about each other than we’d all like to admit into the interaction. Given that we can’t use joint knowledge about ourselves in order to guide our joint actions, what should we use?
Answer: face, or the ”public” part of the self.
Sam’s hypothesis*
*riffing on David Velleman and Thomas Nagel
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I “lose” face when…
(i) you and I attend to information that is
inconsistent with my face,
(ii) I presuppose that you fail to ratify, or
(iii) you presuppose that I have a face
that I have not self-ascribed.
Why? I reveal the “gap” between my public persona and real self.
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A good interactant ensures that her partner saves her face.
So if I have the face of a good interactant, and if I fail to save your face, I lose face too.
Note that even in antagonistic contexts, I want, for my own sake, to have the face of a good interactant.
As part of “facework,” we manipulate the social scenario to offset the risk of face loss both to ourselves and to others. Failing to do this is a mark of disrespect, incompetence, or both.��Facework is an implicitly learned skill that we implicitly esteem.�
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Often in conversation, I risk creating a situation in which I force you to choose between:
Choice A. Causing me to lose face, and so
causing yourself to lose face
Choice B. Going along with what I want
in the interaction, even though you
otherwise would not have wanted to do so.
Good interactants avoid creating these scenarios.
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Failing to offer a ride threatens Gertrude’s face as someone worthy of asking for a ride
Refusing to take up Daphne’s discussion point threatens Daphne’s face as an intimate of Harper
Failing to discipline the student threatens Larry’s face as a man of integrity
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So we engage in compensatory action…
Motive masking strategy | Example |
Suggest a face-saving reason to decline | “Would you like to co-teach next semester? Of course I know that you might have already told the chair your preferences!” |
Lengthen time to expected reply | “Could you let me know tomorrow whether you’re able to come to dinner?” |
Avoid the act in bad contexts | “I have nothing to do Saturday night. It’s great!’ Don’t immediately ask: “Do you want to come to a dinner part at my house Saturday night?” |
Create higher-order deniability | “Wanna see the pic?” |
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Though the speaker has a stake in maintaining her own face, she could have “left all the face-saving work” up to her interlocutor.
But the speaker helps out—again, at the expense of her own interest in pragmatic clarity.
This form of deniability is other-regarding and cooperative.
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A traditional idea. Meaning is distinct from mere intentional communication because meaning is transparent, overt, or manifest in a special way.
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For complicated reasons, we know that the traditional Grice analysis is insufficient for capturing the target notion of transparency.
Grice’s famous analysis
A speaker S means that p to an addressee A in uttering U iff in uttering U,
(i) S intends that A to believe that p
(ii) S intends that A to recognize (i), and
(iii) S intends for A to believe that p on the basis of so recognizing (i).
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I want Dan to think that he’s a better read of me than me, so that he’ll let his guard down and I can outfox him. When he says, “Do you like Elmar?” I say, “Oh yes!” but do with a subtle tell that I’m speaking “insincerely.” Dan recognizes that my tell is intentional and so phony. So Dan infers that I don’t like Elmar on the basis of recognizing my intention that he believe that I don’t like him. Dan thinks he’s just outsmarted me, so Dan doesn’t recognize that I also wanted him to recognize that my tell was phony! I’ve outsmarted him!
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I want Dan to think that he’s a better read of people than me, so that he’ll let his guard down and I can outfox him later. When he says, “Do you like Elmar?” I say, “Oh yes!” but do with a subtle tell that I’m speaking “insincerely.” Dan recognizes that my tell is intentional and so phony. So Dan infers that I don’t like Elmar on the basis of recognizing my intention that he believe that I don’t like him. Dan thinks he’s just outsmarted me in recognizing that my tell was intentional , so Dan doesn’t recognize that I also wanted him to recognize that my tell was intentional! I’ve outsmarted him!
This Machiavellian shit isn’t meaning.
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One strategy for analyzing publicity
A speaker S means that p to an addressee A only if S intends for all of S’s communicative intentions to become common knowledge between S and A.
Schiffer (1972), Stalnaker (2002, 2014)
S and A jointly know that p iff
S and A know that p,
know that they know that p,
know that they know that they know that p….
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Problem 1.
In some situations, S knows that it’s impossible S to achieve common ground with A.
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Problem 2.
In some situations, S is indifferent to whether it becomes common knowledge with A that she meant that p. My communicative act doesn’t fail qua communicative act if I fail to achieve common knowledge.
I shout at a guy in the ocean, “Hey, watch out for that shark!”
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Adjusting the approach
A speaker S means that p to an addressee A only if S does not intend for all of S’s communicative intentions not to become common knowledge between S and A.
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Problem 3.
Higher-order deniers intend for it not to become common knowledge that they are performing thus-and-such communicative act. But their communicative acts, qua communicative acts, in virtue of this.
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Another plausible principle
A cooperative speaker S means that p to an addressee A ought not S for her S’s communicative intentions not to become common knowledge between S and A.
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Problem 4.
Many higher-order deniers (unlike risk management deniers) are paradigmatically cooperative in all respects!
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The transparency of meaning, even under cooperative conditions, does not consist in its aiming at epistemic publicity.
Face-saving strategies directly bear on foundational questions in the theory of meaning.
Thank you!
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