Charles Taylor on Expression and Subject-Related Properties

Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Charles Taylor on Expression and Subject-Related PropertiesAuthor(s): Steven DavisSource: Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Sep., 1988), pp. 433-447Published by: Canadian Journal of PhilosophyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40231592 .

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CANADIAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY 433 Volume 18, Number 3, September 1988, pp. 433-447

Charles Taylor On Expression and Subject-Related Properties

STEVEN DAVIS Simon Fraser University Burnaby, BC Canada V5A 1S6

Charles Taylor claims that '...human life is constituted by self- understanding,' a self -understanding which is achieved in part by our capacity to use language (9).1 Because of this, the philosophy of language is important in Taylor's philosophical views and central to these are his views on expression. I shall argue that one way to understand Taylor's theory of expression is to place it within a theory of speech acts. And I shall try to show that this gives us a way to interpret his contention that expression is a subject-related property and that there cannot be an objective science of it. Finally, I shall argue that Taylor's grounds for the latter claim are defective and that this leaves open the possibility that there can be an objective science of expression.

An initial difficulty in discussing Taylor's views on language is in determining how he uses the term 'expression.' In 'Language and Human Nature' it occurs in his discusson of his distinction between designative and expressive theories of meaning. Since Taylor champi- ons the latter, I shall concentrate my attention on it, only contrasting it with the designative theory when this throws light on the expressive theory.

Taylor claims that

The sentence 'The book is on the table," designates a book and a table in a certain relation; but it can be said to express my thought, or perception, or my belief that the book is on the table. (218)

1 All references to Taylor are to his Human Agency and Laguage: Philosophical Papers 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1985).



434 Steven Davis

Expression here is a relation between a sentence and a thought, perception, or belief and it is the intentional state expressed which, on Taylor's view, is the meaning of the sentence (9).2 Expression then is a property of certain sentences and it is supposed to play a role in a theory of linguistic meaning.

In Theories of Meaning' Taylor appears to view expression as a use of language which has as a consequence that it must be explained within a theory of speech acts. Hence, it seems that for Taylor 'expression' applied to language has a dual role; it plays a role in a theory of linguistic meaning in which it designates a relation between sentences and the meanings of sentences and it plays a role in a theory of speech acts in which it designates a speech act which a speaker can perform in various ways. As we shall see, these uses are connected. I shall begin my discusson of Taylor's views on expression by considering its role in the expressive theory of meaning.

According to Taylor, expression is to be explained by appealing to the notion of manifestation.

Something is expressed, when it is embodied in such a way as to be made manifest. And "manifest" must be taken here in a strong sense. Something is manifest when it is directly available for all to see. It is not manifest when there are just signs of its presence, from which you can infer that it is there.... (219)

To illustrate this Taylor asks us to compare someone whose facial expression expresses his joy or sorrow with someone who hides his feeling of anger, but we are able to infer his anger from a bulging vein in his forehead or from the rigid way he holds his body. An expression of joy makes manifest joy; the bulging vein is evidence for the anger.

When we apply this to Taylor's linguistic example, the expression is the sentence The book is on the table,' and what is supposed to be expressed is his thought that the book is on the table. Taylor makes two related claims. He argues first, that his thought is 'directly available for all to see' and second, that no inference need be made from the sentence to the thought. But both claims seem to me to be mistaken. Let us consider the first point. Suppose that in uttering the sentence Taylor does not believe that the book is on the table. That is,

2 Professor Taylor's theory seems to be similar to Frege's, except that Professor Taylor identifies the linguistic meaning of a sentence with the thought, perception, or belief which the sentence is said to express. As Tyler Burge has pointed out, there are problems with this, but I shall not discuss them here. See his 'Sinning Against Frege,' Philosophical Review 88 (1979) 398-432.



Charles Taylor On Expression 435

he is lying. But if this were the case, he would not be expressing his thought that the book is on the table which would be 'directly available for all to see/ However, even if he were lying he would be expressing the thought that the book is on the table, although he does not have the thought. In this case there is still a certain direct relationship between the sentence uttered and the thought expressed. But there are situatons in which the thought expressed is not 'directly available for all to see.' Suppose that Taylor is being ironic. Then the thought that the book is on the table would not be expressed, although some other thought might be expressed, a thought which would not be the meaning of the sentence uttered and which might well be missed by Taylor's audience. There is a parallel between linguistic expression and facial expression. An actor can have a joyful facial expression without feeling joyful; in such a case he has expressed joy, but not his joy. More- over, it is even possible for the actor to have a joyful expression without expressing joy. Imagine that his expression is meant to be ironic which is revealed by his sorrowful words. Hence, we can have a joyful expression without a feeling of joy and we can even have a joyful expression without its being an expression of joy. This shows that Tay- lor is mistaken when he claims 'Expressions... make our feelings manifest; they put us in the presence of people's feelings' (219). 3

Let us turn to the second point. It seems to me that there is an inference that I make from Taylor's utterance to what thought I take him to be expressing. This can best be brought out by a different example from the one which we have been considering. Suppose that I receive a note from Taylor in which he writes 'I'll meet you at the bank.' To understand what intention he expresses I must determine what he means by the words he utters, to what he is referring in using 'the bank,' and what speech act he is performing. Given an hypothesis about these, and on the assumption that he is speaking literally and means what he says, I can conclude that he is expressing an intention to meet me at some bank or other. Notice that the inference is not to what his intention is, for he might not have the intention to meet me

by some bank, but to the intention expressed. I can then make the further inference to his intention on the additional assumption that Tay- lor is an honorable man who would not mislead me.

3 Taylor assimilates expression in the visual arts and music with verbal and facial

expression (218). However, our capacity to lie or to mislead in our speaking and

in our facial expressions marks an important difference between the way we can

be said to express our thoughts and emotions and the way in which a painting or a symphony can be said to express something. In what way could a sympho-

ny lie?



436 Steven Davis

Taylor finds the expressive dimension of language mysterious and claims that we cannot have an 'objective science' of it. The reason for the mystery is that

Expressive meaning canot be fully separated from the medium, because it is only manifest in it. The meaning of an expression cannot be explained by its being related to something else, but only by another expression. Consequently, the meth- od of isolating terms and tracing correlations cannot work for expressive meaning. (221)

Taylor holds that the expressive meaning of an expression can only be explained by another expression and he implies that this distinguish- es expressive meaning from designative meaning in which 'the meaning of words or sentences is explained by their relation to things or states of affairs in the world' (220). It is not clear what Taylor means by 'another expression.' He could mean that to give the expressve meaning of an expression another expression must be used or that another expression must be mentioned. We have the latter sort of explanation of meaning in manuals for translation, when we say, for example, 'red' in English means the same as 'rouge' in French. We would have an example of the former if we were to explain Taylor's supposed remark to me in the example above by saying that he means that he will meet me at the Royal Bank at the corner of Peel and Sher- brooke. In this case expressions are used to give the meaning of Tay- lor's remark. I believe that we should interpret Taylor's 'by another expression' as meaning 'by using another expression,' since he claims that the expressive meaning of a sentence can be a thought and thoughts are not expressions, but are manifest in expression.

On this interpretation Taylor's claim is that the meaning of a sentence is a thought and to specify the thought expressed another expression must be used. But now the contrast with designative theories is not so clear. Taylor holds that in a designative theory we can estab- lish correlations between expressions and the things which they are supposed to designate and he implies that we could do this without employing expressions. However, it is doubtful that this could be done. How would the sentence 'The book is on the table,' be related to the state of affairs which Taylor has it designate? Not by pointing. If I point to the book on the table, I have also pointed to the book's being red, the table's being brown, the book's being rectangular, the table's being square, etc. The pointing does not distinguish among these. It is only by using words that a designative theory can specify the objects which the terms and sentences are supposed to designate.

So the difference between the two sorts of theories cannot be that expressive theories, but not designative theories, must use language to connect expressions to the things which are supposed to be their




meanings. The difference must lie elsewhere. Perhaps it is in what Taylor calls 'subject-related properties' to which, he argues, expressive theories must make reference and for which there cannot be an objective science.

An expressive account of meaning cannot avoid subject-related properties. Ex- pression is the power of a subject; and expressions manifest things, and hence essentially refer us to subjects for whom these things can be manifest... What expression manifests can only be made manifest in expression, so that expressive meaning cannot be accounted for independently of expression. If we make expression fundamental, it seems impossible to explain it in terms of something; but it is itself a subject-related phenomenon, and hence does not allow of objective science. (221)

This is in need of interpretation. 'Expression' can play a triple role: it can be used to refer to a speaker's act of expressing a belief, thought, perception, etc.; to the sentence which is used in the act; or to the relation between the sentence and what it expresses. Moreover, 'subject' can play a dual role; it can refer either to speaker or to audience. It is not clear in which way or ways Taylor is using the term 'expression' or what roles subjects are supposed to play. However, without understanding these it is difficult to assess Taylor's claim that expression is a 'subject-related phenomenon, and hence does not allow of

objective science,' even if we assume with him that we cannot explain expression in terms of anything else except expression.

Let us return to the sentence 'The book is on the table' which supposedly expresses Taylor's thought that the book is on the table. Be- cause the sentence contains an incomplete definite description, it cannot express a thought apart from its being used on a particular oc- casion to express a thought. That is, for it to express a thought Taylor must express a thought in uttering it. Moreover, that Taylor performs the act of expressing a thought is a function of what speech acts he is performing in uttering his words. Consequently, expression is not

primarily a fact about language, about the meaning of words, or about sentences. It is a fact about the uses to which language can be put. Sentence expression then depends on speaker expression, which de-

pends on other acts the speaker performs. Thus, an account of expression should not be part of a theory of language, but should be part of a

theory of speech acts.4 As Searle has taught us, there is a constitutive

4 Placing expression within a theory of speech acts should not be seen as implying that this is contrary to Taylor's views about expression, for he holds that 'the ex-

pressive conception gives a view of language as a range of activities in which we

express/realize a certain way of being in the world' (234).



438 Steven Davis

relation between certain speech acts and the expression of certain intentional states.5 To return to our example, Taylor utters The book is on the table/ and, in doing so, he states that the book is on the table which counts as his expressing the belief that the book is on the table. So we have the following order of explanation: what The book is on the table' expresses is to be explained by what Taylor expresses, and what he expresses is to be explained by what speech act he performs.

Placing expression in a theory of speech acts gives a sense to Tay- lor's claim that 'expression is the power of the subject.' A speaker's power to express his intentional states is identical to his capacity to perform certain speech acts which count as the expression of correla- tive intentional states. It also gives a sense to Taylor's contention that what a speaker expresses is not inferred in the same way that anger may be inferred from a bulging vein. The bulging vein does not count as an expression of anger; it is evidence for the anger. Our warrant for the inference to the anger is the generalization that in certain cir- cumstances bulging veins are caused by anger. In contrast, if we determine that someone has made a statement that p, then we have determined that he has expressed a belief that p, since his making the statement counts as an expression of the belief. Our warrant in this case is not a generalization, but rather our speech act competence by virtue of which we know that stating that p counts as expressing the belief that p. In addition, a speech act view of expression gives us a way of understanding Taylor's thesis about manifestation. It can be interpreted in part as a thesis about the relationship between certain speech acts in which one speech act counts as the performance of another. However, speech act theory does not give a full account of manifestation, since speech acts are not the only ways in which emotions, thoughts, perceptions, etc., can be expressed. But it does give an account of Taylor's example.

Let us turn to Taylor's discussion of subject-related properties. I shall assume that 'subject-related' means the same as 'anthropocentric,' 'subjective,' 'experience-dependent,' and 'subject-referring.' Subject-related or anthropocentric properties are supposed to contrast with 'absolute' properties.

"Anthropocentric" properties are those which things have only within the ex-

perience of agents of a certain kind...; while "absolute" properties... are supposedly free of any such relativity. (2-3)

5 John Searle, Expression and Meaning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1979), 4




Lockean secondary qualities are supposed to be paradigm expamples of subjective properties. There are several interpretations of Locke's account of secondary qualities. One view, advanced by Mackie, is that secondary qualities are powers in an object that cause in us certain sorts of ideas or sensations.6 These powers are primary qualities of objects which exist in them independently of our experiencing them and can exist even if we were not to exist. To use a more modern idiom, they are dispositional properties of an object which in the appropriate cir- cumstances cause us to have certain experiences, which exist without our experiencing them, and which could exist without our existing to experience them. Another interpretation of Lockean secondary qualities, which is to be found in Berkeley, is to regard them as being identical to secondary ideas, the existence of which depends upon their being perceived.7 1 take it that Taylor is giving the latter interpretation to 'secondary qualities,' since he takes subjective properties, and, thus, secondary qualities, which are paradigm examples of such properties, to 'only exist in a world in which there are subjects of experience' (54) who have sensibilities similar to ours. According to Taylor, the existence of subject-related properties, which seem not to fit into an objective theory of the world, has motivated a variety of reductionist accounts of human behavior, including linguistic behavior. It is Tay- lor's contention that our explanation of human action cannot dispense with subject-related properties and that, because of this, reduction to physical and computational theories which contain no commitment to such properties cannot be successful.8

Taylor does not provide an explicit account of the way in which ex-

pression is a subject-related property and it is not immediately obvious that 'expression' in any of the senses we have distinguished refers to such a property. For Taylor secondary properties, like yellowness, are experiences, the existence of which depends on our having them. If there were no creatures with sense organs similar to ours, yellowness would not exist. But 'expression' in any of its senses does not refer to experiences, the existence of which depends upon our having them. The act of expressing a thought, the sentence which is used to express a thought, and the relation between sentence and thought are not ex-

periences. Nor are the thoughts which are expressed. No sense organs

6 J.L. Mackie, Problems From Locke (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1976), 7-36

7 George Berkeley, Two Dialogues Between Hylas and Philanous (New York: Liberal Arts Press 1954), 9-50

8 The view that physical and computational theories contain no such commitment, which is inherited from Hobbes and Locke, has been contested.



440 Steven Davis

are involved in any obvious way in their existence. Hence, it does not seem that expression is a subject-related property, as Taylor claims.

We need a fuller understanding of subject-related properties and for this we must make a brief excursion into Taylor's theory of the emotions in which he gives his fullest account of such properties. I shall argue that it is implicit in Taylor's account that there are two ways in which a property can be subject-related, but that it is only one of these which applies to expression. Moreover, I shall try to show that this application of subject-relatedness leaves it open as to whether there can be an objective science of expression.

Let us first turn to Taylor's account of the emotions. According to Taylor,

Experiencing a given emotion involves experiencing our situation as being of a certain kind or having a certain property. But this property cannot be neutral... or else we would not be moved. Rather, experiencing an emotion is to be aware of our situation as humiliating, or shameful, or outrageous... and so on. (48)

Taylor calls these properties 'imports.' An import is '...a property of something whereby it is a matter of non-indifference to a subject' (48). Moreover, the judgment that a particular situation has a certain import, for example, that a subject finds a given situation shameful, serves as his ground or reason for his emotion, for his feeling shame. Or, if he does not feel shameful, what could be a reason for him to feel shame. Since ascriptions of imports are judgments that situations are of a certain sort which have an importance to the subject, it is possible for such ascriptions to be mistaken. And if they are mistaken, it might be mistaken, inappropriate, or even irrational for a person to have a particular emotion.

Some judgments we make about imports involve only what Taylor has called 'objective properties.' Suppose we feel fear because we believe that a situation in which we find ourselves is one in which we might be injured, for example, we believe that we are on the edge of a cliff and a fall from the cliff could cause us great harm. The belief that we have about the situation is a belief that it has certain properties where none of the properties are subject-related. It is an objective fact about the world that a fall of 20 meters is harmful to humans. And the property of being injured by a fall of 20 meters does not depend for its existence on its being experienced. According to Taylor, there would be nothing to prevent us from having an objective science for such properties.

Taylor claims that there are other judgments which involve subject- related properties for which there cannot be an objective science. Let us consider his account of shame.




Shame is an emotion that a subject experiences in relation to a dimension of his existence as a subject. What we can be ashamed of are properties which are essentially properties of a subject. This may not be immediately evident, because I may be ashamed of my shrill voice, or my effeminate hands. But... it only makes sense to see these as objects of shame if they have for me or my culture an expressive dimension: a shrill voice is (to me, to my culture) something unmanly, betokens hysteria, not something solid, strong, macho, self contained.... Both voice and hands clash with what I aspire to be, feel that my dignity demands that I be, as a person, a presence among others. (53)

There are several features which play a role in Taylor's account of someone's finding his shrill voice shameful. First, there are the properties of having a shrill voice, of being unmanly, of being a sign of being hysterical, and of being a sign of being a person who is not solid, strong, macho, and self contained. Second, there is the connection between the latter properties and having a shrill voice. A shrill voice is counted by a subject and/or by his community as having some or all of these properties. Third, there is the connection between being shameful and the properties of being unmanly, being hysterical, and

being a person who is not macho, strong, solid, etc. These properties are regarded by the subject as being shameful and also believed by him to be so seen by his community. And lastly, there are the ways in which the subject thinks of himself. He takes himself to be a person who wishes to regard himself and be regarded by others as being manly, solid, strong, etc. That is, it matters to the subject whether he is seen as having certain of the properties which are connected by him and others to having a shrill voice. The last feature requires that the

subject be capable of being aware that certain characteristics he has, e.g., his shrill voice, are taken to possess properties which he and others in his community regard as being shameful.

Taylor claims that being shameful is a subject-related property, because the imports of a shameful situation are subject-related properties (51). But it is not clear that this is the case. None of the properties which Taylor takes to be in the import of the situation described above are experiences. Neither being unmanly nor being a sign of being hysterical are objects of experience in the way in which the quality of yellowness is an object of experience. On the Berkeleyian view of

secondary qualities, if no sentient creature is currently experiencing the yellowness of a piece of paper, the yellowness of the paper does not exist. However, something might be unmanly or be a sign of being hysterical without currently being experienced. And although they might well be properties which are unique to humans, this would not show that they are subjective properties. Thus, if being shameful is to be a subject-related property, it must turn on the second, third, or fourth features above. Two and three involve relations between properties.



442 Steven Davis

However, having a shrill voice might be a natural sign of being hysterical. Both having a shrill voice and a tendency to hysterical behavior might be caused by the same underlying hormonal conditions. Thus, the relation between the properties would be objective and, consequently, not subject-related. This leaves us with the features in three and four for grounding the subject-relatedness of the shameful. There is nothing in the natural scheme of things which connects the property of being unmanly or of being hysterical with being shameful. What brings about these connections is how we or our society regard or interpret these properties. In some societies being unmanly might be taken to be a sign of heightened sensitivity to the mysteries of the uni- verse and a person who exhibits this property might be given a spe- cial place of honor in the society as, say, a priest. In such a society a shrill voice might then be prized and not be regarded as being shameful. Thus, what is required for a shrill voice to be considered to be shameful is that being unmanly, which is connected with having a shrill voice, must be seen as, or experienced as, being shameful. Moreover, being manly and being in control must be regarded as being of value, of importance.

This seems to give us the subject-relatedness of being shameful, for, as we have seen, a property is subject-related if it is a property of an object '...only within the experience of agents of a certain kind' (2). But experiencing a property as being of a certain sort is not the same as experiencing it. This distinction gives rise to two ways in which properties can be subject-related. In the latter properties are subject- related, because they only exist in the experience of creatures endowed with certain kinds of perceptual capacities. This yields the subject- relatedness of the secondary qualities and the qualities which other creatures like bats experience. In the former case, the reasons for a property to be considered as being subject-related are more complicated. When we experience a property as being of a certain kind, we experience the property and believe of it that it is a certain kind. More- over, where there is no natural relation between the property and the kind, what is required to make the connection is that we, or our linguistic community, take there to be a connection imposing it on the natural order of things. It is, if you will, a matter of convention. But for there to be such conventional relations requires a range of intellec- tual and perceptual capacities. When I experience a piece of cloth as the Canadian Flag, I must be able to recognize it as a flag. And to do this, I must be able to apply correctly, or incorrectly, concepts to objects and recognize that I do so. In addition, that a particular shape, color, and design of a piece of cloth counts as a Canadian flag does not depend only on the way I see the piece of cloth. It rests on how others regard pieces of cloth of that particular configuration. Hence,




I must be sensitive to the standards that others have set for something's being a Canadian flag and, thereby, be able to recognize certain criticisms that emanate from the users of Canadian flags as being relevant to my behavior. Perhaps it is even required in this case that I be able to use a language. Hence, it is only for creatures which have intellec- tual and perceptual capacities which are similar to ours that a property can be experienced as being of a certain kind. And it is in this sense that such properties are subject-related. No bat can experience a Cana- dian flag as a Canadian flag or even as a piece of cloth.

Let us return to our discussion of the expressive dimension of language and apply to it the latter sense of 'subject-related property.' We have interpreted Taylor as claiming that speaker expression is an act a speaker performs in uttering a sentence and hence, 'expression' in this sense refers to a speech act. But it is an act which is generated by another act, by the illocutionary act which the speaker performs.9 For a speaker to have the ability to express his thought in saying something, he must experience his saying something as an expression of his thought. That is, he must recognize that his illocutionary act of stating something counts as an expresson of a thought. Were he not to

recognize this, there would be some doubt that he has the capacity to state anything. This can be brought out by considering some of the criticisms which we can make of a speaker who has stated something. We can criticize him, for example, for not having the thought which he has expressed, that is, for lying. Moreover, if he does not recognize the relevance of the criticism, we would regard this as evidence that he has not made a statement. And for a speaker to recognize the relevance of the criticism he must recognize the importance of telling the truth in the practice of stating. He must realize that he is under a prima facie obligation not to lie and that in speaking he is giving out or, as Taylor might put it, expressing to others that he is under such an obligation. Thus, stating and the related act of expressing require self-awareness on the part of a speaker, awareness that certain standards apply to his behavior. Moreover, these standards are not standards only of an individual speaker. Nor could they be. For one of the

points, if not the point, of stating is for a speaker to communicate his

thoughts to others. Hence, they must be standards of the community of speakers with whom an individual speaker might wish to engage in conversation. So expression is a subject-related property in the sense that the standards which apply to expression are subject-related and

9 Alvin Goldman, A Theory of Action (Princeton: Princeton University Press

1970), 38-44



444 Steven Davis

that no creature not endowed with the capacity to recognize that these standards apply to his behavior could express his thoughts, beliefs, etc. in saying something.

Taylor's claim that expresson is subject-related is a metaphysical thesis about the nature of expression: expression is a property of speakers in so far as they experience it as such a property. And it exists in so far as they experience it. The claim can also be interpreted as an epistemological thesis. Creatures who are not equipped with our sensibilities could not understand what expression is. Taylor does not argue for this directly, but presents an argument which he applies to the secondary qualities and it is this argument to which I shall now turn. He asks us to imagine creatures which he calls 'Alpha Centau- rans/ 'who are large gaseous clouds, somehow endowed with sapi- ence' (46). These creatures lack anything which we would recognize as sense organs, but, Taylor claims, we are able to communicate with them. We can, he argues, learn 'each other's conventions for measurement' (46). So we could share beliefs with them about the wave- length of light reflected from a particular object which we, but not they, experience as being colored. Taylor claims that 'what we experience as color would remain quite incommunicable' (46). He appears to suppose that they could not fully understand our color terms without having the experience of color. If we apply this to 'expression,' what seems to be necessary for a full understanding of the term is that we have knowledge by acquaintance of the corresponding property. But Alpha Centaurans would not find 'expression' to be incommunicable in the same way in which they find 'red' to be incommunicable. By hypothesis we are able to communicate to them our conventions for measurement. On this assumption, there must have been some way we were able to express our thoughts so that they understand what thoughts we have. This, it would seem, would require them to have a notion of expression similar to ours. Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, 'expression' does not seem to be true of any experience which it is necessary to have for an understanding of the term. Thus, even though Alpha Centaurans lack anything like our sense organs, they might well have capacities which would enable them to understand what expression is, since they have the capacity to understand our standards for measurement and, thereby, to 'experience' measurements which are in accordance with the standards we share with them. Hence, if the understanding of expression is supposed to be experience dependent, as Taylor claims, then he must provide us with an argument which establishes this thesis on grounds other than those he gives for the secondary qualities.

It might seem obvious that expression, even if not subject-related in the way in which secondary qualities are subject-related, is a sub-




jective property which renders it beyond the domain of objective science. As we have seen, expression is an act done in performing an illocutionary act. Consequently, for a speaker to be able to express his thoughts in uttering a sentence, he must have the capacity to recognize that his illocutionary act counts as the expression of an intentional state. That X counts as Y depends on how the speaker, and/or his linguistic community, sees or regards or experiences Y. It is the speaker, embedded in a linguistic community, who makes it the case that a particular utterance act counts as an act of stating and the community of speakers who make it the case that stating itself counts as an act of expressing a thought. Thus, an illocutionary act's counting as an expression of an intentional state is not part of the natural order of the world which can be explained by an objective scientific theory. This argument for expression's being a subjective property does not turn on our having experiences which are dependent on particular sorts of perceptual capacities. Rather, the very existence of expression is grounded in our having certain sorts of beliefs and standards, in our capacity to reflect on these beliefs and standards, and in our ability to recognize the appropriateness of criticisms which apply to actions which are rationalized by these beliefs and standards. Thus, there seems to be good reason to accept the thesis that expression is an ex-

perience dependent property if we construe it as the metaphysical thesis that expression could not exist independently of us and of the

particular beliefs and standards which give rise to the possibility of our being able to express our thoughts in saying something.

I have argued that subject-relatedness is also an epistemological thesis: we cannot understand 'yellow' without having the experience of

yellowness. It is only knowledge by acquaintance which will enable us to understand the term. The question is whether understanding 'ex-

pression' requires knowledge by acquaintance. 'Expression' is not true of an experience in the way in which, on a Berkeleyan view of secon-

dary quality terms, 'yellow' is. Expression requires that certain kinds of illocutionary acts be experienced as expressions of co-relative intentional states. And to understand 'expression' it is necessary to understand this. But experiencing X as being Y does not entail that X itself is an experience. Consider, for example, a children's game in which a group of children regard a piece of cloth as being the flag of a ficti- tious country which they call 'Philosophia.' This requires that they ex-

perience the piece of cloth and that they believe of it that it is a

Philosophian flag. This has two features, first, the experience of the

piece of cloth and second, the belief of it that it is a Philosophian flag. Neither involves the sorts of experiences which are supposedly required for an understanding of 'yellow' and for the existence of the corresponding property. The piece of cloth is not the having of an experience,



446 Steven Davis

nor is the de re belief about the piece of cloth that it is a Philosophian flag. Moreover, and more importantly for an assessment of Taylor's thesis, we can understand the children's game and what they mean by 'the flag of Philosophia' without sharing their belief about the piece of cloth and without having experiences of any properties which are 'properties of an object in our experience of it' (49). Hence, experiencing X as Y does not require knowledge by acquaintance of X or of it as being Y. And with this lies the hope of having an objective science of expression.

The limits of objective science cannot be so specified that it excludes what is regarded by practice as being within the range of objective science. Nor can the range of facts for which there could be an objective science be limited to those for which there is an already existing objective science. One way of extending the range is by regarding any facts similar to those for which there is an objective science as facts for which there could be an objective science. Most practitioners of linguistics would regard it to be an objective science, especially those aspects of it which deal with phonological and syntactic phenomena. A parallel can be drawn between expression and, for example, the syntactic features of our language. The syntax of English does not exist apart from the particular beliefs and standards which speakers of Eng- lish have about their language. Hence, on my interpretation of Tay- lor's views, syntactic properties are subject-related. But, as syntacticians have shown, it is possible to have an objective theory of the syntactic structures of English. However, the science of linguistics is not modeled on the sciences of physical phenomena, but this should not prevent us from bestowing on it the honorific 'science' and regarding it as being objective. Similarly, there is nothing in principle to rule out the possibility of an objective science of expression. This is not to suggest that linguistic theory is to serve as the model for a theory of expression, but only that if there can be an objective science for syntactic phenomena, there is no reason why there cannot be objective theories for expression. Perhaps, speech act theory gives a start on such a theory of linguistic expression.

Let me conclude by summarizing what I have tried to show. I have argued that one way to understand Taylor's use of 'expression' in his discussion of the expressive theory of meaning is by placing expression within a theory of speech acts. That is, by regarding it as being a speech act which is generated by the performance of a variety of illocutionary acts, such as stating, promising, congratulating, etc., where the relation between these illocutionary acts and the act of expressing is constitutive. Performing any one of these illocutionary acts then con- stitutes an act of expressing a particular intentional state. Moreover, for a speaker to have the capacity to perform one of these illocutionary




acts, he must recognize that there is a constitutive relationship between the illocutionary act performed and an intentonal state, that the constitutive relation sets a standard for his behavior in his speech community, and that in performing the illocutionary act he is expressing that he is conforming to the standard. Further, I have tried to show that if expression is subject-related, then it is not subject-related in the way that secondary qualities are subject-related, but in the sense that its existence depends upon there being creatures like us with the kinds of complex beliefs which are necessary to perform the sorts of illocutionary acts which, when performed, count as an expression of an intentional state. Finally, I have claimed that the argument which Taylor gives to show that the secondary qualities are not objective properties cannot be applied to expression and thus, that it remains an open question as to whether there can be an objective science of expression.

Received November, 1987



Documents

Charles Taylor on Expression and Subject-Related Properties