Human Communication
This is the working title of a book I am writing, which is under contract with Oxford University Press. It defends a broadly Gricean theory of human communication, with a lot of attention to literatures on animal communication, cognitive architecture, natural-language semantics, mindreading, and practical reasoning. I will post chapter drafts here as they become ready to share.
Preface
I introduce my book and situate it in various literatures.
1. Intention Recognition and its Psychological Underpinnings
I introduce the book's central claims: human communication is special in that it often takes the form of intention recognition, which relies on our unique capacities for mindreading, planning, and language.
2. Designing Communicative Acts
Humans' powerful ability to design communicative acts for their addressees is best explained by understanding how communicative intentions are embedded in our broader plans.
3. Planning Conversations Together
Conversations are governed by shared conversation plans. This makes human communication more efficient, and this explains why we try to reveal our intentions to one another.
What Makes Human Communication Special?
This used to be chapter 1, but I am planning to work it into later chapters. I am leaving it here for now in case people are interested.