Free Logic and Presupposition Failure
Which free logic best captures natural language? I distinguish two important sorts of argument offered to settle this question. Top-down arguments appeal to our intuitions about the truth values of various sentences and acceptability of various inferences. Bottom-up arguments appeal to independently motivated semantic considerations. I suggest care is needed with top-down arguments and bottom-up arguments are methodologically preferable. However these seem to push us towards a very weak neutral free logic (VWFL). In turn this leaves us needing to explain away certain recalcitrant intuitions. Call this the intuition problem.
Instances of non-catastrophic presupposition failure (NCPF) are utterances which suffer presupposition failure (and are therefore semantically defective) but which we nevertheless hear as having truth values. There is currently no adequate account of what is going on in these cases but we can nevertheless make some useful observations about the mechanisms in play.
I suggest that the mechanisms underpinning NCPF look as if they should be operative in the sorts of cases generating the intuition problem. More precisely I argue that VWFL is defensible. Indeed, not merely can contrary intuitions be explained away, if VWFL were correct we would expect people to have the contrary intuitions they do.