Resistance to Grice: Imaginable?

IMAGINATIVE RESISTANCE AND CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE
Bence Nanay
Syracuse University, New York
Copyright Journal compilation © 2009 The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly
ABSTRACT
We experience resistance when we are engaging with fictional works which present certain (for example, morally objectionable) claims. But in virtue of what properties do sentences trigger this 'imaginative resistance'? I argue that while most accounts of imaginative resistance have looked for semantic properties in virtue of which sentences trigger it, this is unlikely to give us a coherent account, because imaginative resistance is a pragmatic phenomenon. It works in a way very similar to Paul Grice's widely analysed 'conversational implicature'.