Publications
Publication details [#45548]
Akman, Varol. 2007. Similar situations. In Fetzer, Anita, ed. Context and Appropriateness: Micro meets macro. (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 162). John Benjamins. pp. 31–54.
Publication type
Article in book
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
John Benjamins
Annotation
This paper studies the notion of similarity with reference to situations of situation theory. While the commonsense notion of two situations resembling each other appears to be valuable in our daily life, it is shown that it is problematic for the same reasons researchers have been pointing out in psychological and philosophical literature. That human beings can use the notion naturally (without much effort) shows that their cognitive make-up is probably much more powerful than is commonly thought.