{"id":2146,"date":"2026-02-16T17:09:42","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T17:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/?p=2146"},"modified":"2026-02-16T17:09:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T17:09:42","slug":"seminar-series-in-analytic-philosophy-2025-26-session-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/seminar-series-in-analytic-philosophy-2025-26-session-15\/","title":{"rendered":"Seminar Series in Analytic Philosophy 2025-26: Session 15"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Fashion Statements: Sartorial Communication and Common Ground<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sanna Hirvonen (LanCog, University of Lisbon)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">20 February 2026, 16:00 (Lisbon Time \u2013 WET)<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sala Mattos Rom\u00e3o [C201.J] (Departamento de Filosofia)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>We learn a great deal about others from what they wear. Outfit choices can signal profession, social class, culture, lifestyle, gender, sexuality, and aesthetic taste. How is such sartorial communication possible? Marilynn Johnson (2022) suggests that clothing can be understood through H. P. Grice\u2019s intention-based account of non-natural meaning. While this proposal shows that clothing can convey communicative intentions, it leaves open crucial questions about how clothes can systematically acquire information potential, and when that information is successfully communicated. I address these questions by developing a framework for sartorial communication, drawing on Robert Stalnaker\u2019s account of context and common ground. Unlike speech, wearing clothes is continuous, and its audience keeps shifting. This raises distinctive problems: What constitutes the context of utterance? Who counts as the intended audience? And what determines the common ground that is required for communication to succeed? I argue, first, that communities generate sartorial conventions through repeated, meaning-conveying use, thereby enabling clothes to acquire non-natural meaning. Second, knowledge of these conventions is required for a shared common ground. Third, since not everyone knows the relevant conventions, sartorial communication is conditional: it succeeds only in contexts where a member of the intended kind of audience is present.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This event is funded by Portuguese national funds through FCT \u2013 Funda\u00e7\u00e3o para a Ci\u00eancia e a Tecnologia, I.P., within the project UID\/00310\/2025, Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa (<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.54499\/UIDB\/00310\/2025)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/doi.org\/10.54499\/UIDB\/00310\/2025)&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1770463467307000&amp;usg=AOvVaw35QFDHYWd1p41DTuiSdFEb\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.54499\/<wbr \/>UIDB\/00310\/2025)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fashion Statements: Sartorial Communication and Common Ground Sanna Hirvonen (LanCog, University of Lisbon) &nbsp; 20 February 2026, 16:00 (Lisbon Time \u2013 WET) Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa Sala Mattos Rom\u00e3o [C201.J] (Departamento de Filosofia) &nbsp; Abstract:\u00a0We learn a great deal about others from what they wear. Outfit choices can signal profession, social class, culture, lifestyle, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"federate","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2146"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2147,"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2146\/revisions\/2147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}