TY - JOUR AB - Assertions are often accepted without being understood, a phenomenon I call stupefying. I argue that stupefying can be a means for conversational manipulation that works through at-issue content, in contrast with the not-at-issue and back-door speech act routes identified by others. This shows that we should reject a widely assumed connection between attention and at-issue content. In exploring why stupefying happens, it also emerges that stupefying has important cooperative uses, in addition to its manipulative ones, and so should not be avoided altogether. AU - Michael Deigan DA - 2022/4// DO - 10.3998/phimp.2117 IS - 0 VL - 22 PB - Michigan Publishing Services PY - 2022 TI - Stupefying T2 - Philosophers' Imprint UR - https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/phimp/article/id/2117/ ER -