Author ORCID Identifier:

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4832-9687

Date of Graduation

8-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Philosophy

Advisor/Mentor

McMullen, Amanda

Committee Member

Funkhouser, Eric

Second Committee Member

Donohue, Jenna

Keywords

Artificial Intelligence; Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence; Philosophy of Language; Philosophy of Technology; Pragmatics; Speech Acts

Abstract

In this work, I develop a view about what it means to share a social or conversational context with others, as well as what is normatively entailed by doing so. Working from a broadly Austinian perspective about the moral foundations of language use and how we use words to position ourselves within social space, as well as from a generally Stalnakerian social ontology (demarcating groups by dint of aligned or overlapping sets of commitments), I present three papers demonstrating how nonidealized, ordinary language philosophy can make sense of complex, real-world phenomena. Through analyses of heretical utterances, context collapse, and chatbot output, I explore how we use words to organize our cultural institutions, navigate our social identities, and regulate the processes by which we give our word to others and hold each other accountable for what we say; furthermore, by considering how these dynamics each function in digitally mediated situations, I also explore the impact of new technologies (like social media feeds or large language models) on what we can do with words. In sum, each paper explores how the dynamics of ordinary language shape the worlds we have in common as we play our language games together.

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