RULES. TRUTH AND LINGUISTIC COMMUNITY

Colin B. Johnston

Submitted in partial fùlfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

At

Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia

August, 1999

O Copyright by Colin B. Johnston. 1999

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For Neil. Mary and Morwema.

Table of Contents

Table o f Contents v

Abstract vi

Acknowledgements vi i

Introduction 1

Chapter One: Rule Scepticisrn 4

Chapter Two: Private Language. Following a Rule and Truth 37

Chapter Three: Anti-Individualism and Linguistic Community 79

Bibliography : 129

A bstrac t

Kripkefs interpretation of Wittgenstein's mle following considerations is

examined and rejected. Drawing on some of Wittgenstein's remarks in the private

language argument. 1 suggest a new reading and clarie exactly what kind of "private"

language Wittgenstein rejects in the private language argument. This account of rule

following is then applied to show what is wrong with some brands of anti-

individualism that have been defended by Putnam, Burge, and Gary Ebbs. It is argued

that neither scientific realism, nor collectivist models of content ascription can do

justice to rule following and linguistic community.

Acknowledeements -

Dalhousie has k e n an excellent place to study philosophy. and 1 thank the

entire department for making my year here a rewarding one that 1 will always

remernber fondly. Many people have been more generous than they had to with their

time. Thanks to Nathan Brett. Steven Burns. Duncan Macintosh. Melinda Hogan.

Steve Maitzen. and Richmond Campbell for many rewarding conversations outside o f

the ciassroom. and to Neil Robertson of Kings College for agreeing to be my external

reader. i would especially like tu than Mike Hymers. who has shaped most of the

views expressed in this thesis. and spent much time and energy helping me to express

them.

Introduction

Since Wittgenstein wrote the Investieations, much has k e n said about the

relation between rules of language and linguistic comrnunity. At first glance. this

relationship seems unproblematic; insofar as we are following the same d e s . we share a

language and are members of the same linguistic community. What could be simpler?

One of the claims made in the Investieations, however. is that things are not nearly so

tidy. As Wittgenstein tries to unpack the notion of following a rule. it becomes apparent

that we don3 really understand much of what we want to Say about the cornmon

standards of meaning supposedly shared by members of the same community. One of

Wittgenstein's central projects is to get clear on what can be said about following a nile

(or at least what can't be said). thereby nipping wrong thinking about language in the

bud.

It continues to be a leading bone of contention in the philosophy of language.

however. what Wittgenstein is claiming in the d e following considerations. and what

we are to Say about meaning in the Iight of them. Some. such as Saul Kripke'.

Christopher ~eacocke'. and. arguably. Crispin wright'. hold that the central insight of

Wittgenstein's work is that our intuition that we are rnembers of the same linguistic

community because we are following the same d e s acnially has things completely

backwards. They cite the Investigations' early passages on following a rule, and the

' Saul A. Kripke, Witteenstein on Rules and Private Laneuaee: an Elementarv Exposition (Blackwell, Oxford, 1982).

Christopher Peacocke, "Rule-Following: The Nature of Wittgenstein's Arguments" in Witteenstein: To Follow a Rule Steven H. Holtzman and Christopher M. Leich eds. (Routledge and Kegan Paul , London, 198 1 ) pp. 72 - 95.

3 - pnvate language argument which follows them. as endorsing the view that rule following

is essentially a communal practice. Wittgenstein's revolutionary claim about rule

following, so the story goes, is that we cannot meaningfidly say of someone that he

means something by his words, or is following a d e of any kind. if that person is taken

in isolation fiom a surrounding community of fellow rule followers.

Were this an empirical point about the conditions under which one learns to

follow d e s . it would be unexceptional; children raised by wolves don't learn language.

and 1 use the word "yellow", rather than "geld". to refer to yellow things because my

parents, tiiends and teachers do the sanie. The commentators mentioned above have

something more radical in mind, however. On their view, it is not just that one cannot

l e m to use a concept in isolation fiom a community. but that the very concept of

"concept" must be relativized to the cornmunity in which it is used to talk about

speaker's grasp of language. When we Say of someone that she means something by one

of her words. on this view. we are not really saying anything about her. or her linguistic

practices. We are, rather. expressing Our own reaction to her way of using language.

There are no matters of fact here, only a community of language users reacting

favourably or unfavourably to each other's speech dispositions. Thus. the logic of

content ascriptions is collectivist; "he is following the mie for addition" is analysed as

something like "he would be judged by members of communiiy x to be following the rule

for addition".

Crispin Wright, Wittgenstein on the Foudations of Mathematics (Duckworth. London, 1980).

3

1 will examine how Saul Kripke arrives at this position in chapter one. and survey

the. 1 think, pernicious consequences of the collectivist view. In chapter two. 1 will

discuss Wittgenstein's private language argument, which Kripke cites in support of his

interpretation of the mie following considerations. 1 will show that. properl y understood.

it does nothing to support the collectivism bnefly mentioned above and. in fact. provides

material with which we can sketch a much more plausible account of mle following. In

chapter three. 1 will survey the revolutionary anti-individualist (or extemalist) positions

of Hilary Putnarn and Tyler Biuge. which also fix the content of an individual's concepts

and propositional attitudes with reference to her surrounding community, though for

much different reasons than Kripke does. 1 will show there that, if the picture of meaning

and tmth 1 extract from Wittgenstein's rule following considerations and private

language argument is correct, the scienti fic realism motivating anti-individualism of this

sort is il1 founded. While the view 1 will sketch in this essay is. in some sense. an

externalist one. it does little to support the notion that the logic of content ascriptions is

collective.

1 should add that the account of rule following and linguistic community 1 will

try to develop here, while inspired by Wittgenstein's work and. I think. more in accord

with his views than the collectivist interpretation against which 1 will argue, is not

intended as an exegesis. That task is far to great to be undertaken in an essay of this

length, or by this writer. My airn here is not to present a definitive picture of

Wittgenstein's views on d e following and their place in his philosophy, but to show

how some of his remarks on d e s and private language bear on anti-individualism.

Chauter One: Rule Sce~ticism

1. Our past language-use. and that of others in Our cornmunity. set conditions on

our hture actions in a way that distinguishes the use of language from many other

types of behavior. For example. 1 have done my best to apply the word -greenm to only

green things in the past. and 1 have also cringed in disgust every time my housemate

offered me one of his mango chutney and processed cheese sandwiches at breakfast.

Were 1. quite suddenly. to decide that Kraft singles with chutney is my breakfast of

choice this would constitute a radical change in my behavior. but nothing more. If.

however. having followed rny fellow English-speakers in applying the word 'green' to

green things in the past. 1 suddenly started calling al1 yellow and orange things green

as well. we would not just Say that my use of 'green' had changed, but that it had

changed for the worse. 'Green' cannot be applied to orange things. and my new use of

that word would be. not merely eccenuic. but wrong. The question of what foods are

breakfast- foods is answered when we have given a full description of what people

actually eat for breakfast, but finding out what 'green' means. or how it is used. isn't

just a matter of canvassing people's dispositions to utter that word. Were we to

conduct such a survey, we would find that some of those uses were correct. and others

incorrect. So it seems that we have an understanding of what constitutes the proper

use of a word. which is pior to and independent of any description we can give of

people's actual propensities to use it. Moreover. we feel that Our own uses of

expressions are subject to the same standards by which we evaluate the language-use

of others - that if o w future language-use comes to violate the standard we presently

5

understand to govem the proper use of a term, it will be wrong. Whatever facts with

reference to which 1 audit the language use of those around me is understood to apply

in the same way to my own speech. '"X is green' is true rflx is green'' cannot simply

be read as "something is green rgwe cal1 it 'green'". if we take the facts about what

Our words mean to have nonnative force - to serve as objective standards which Our

actual use of language can fail to meet.

The puzzle here seems to be. then. that of how the history of a concept's use

- its role in a finite number of exchanges between beings who share an environment

and set of marks and noises that help them cope with it - establishes what we would

cal1 the righ! way to go on using that term in the future. The meaning of 'green'. for

instance. might consist in an objective fact about how we have applied 'green' in the

past - a pattern that properly extends to certain new cases but not others. We might

explain the objectivity of rneanings. then. by saying that words corne to bear a certain

relation, whether by ostensive definition or whatever. to a class of corresponding

entities or properties which make up their extension. What makes rule-governed

behavior. such as speech or the continuation of a mathematical series. different from

meaningless reflex, our thinking might go. is that following a rule involves the

grasping of a relation between a rule and the instances o f its application.

On this view, a competent rule-follower's success consists in her apprehending

whatever standard has been set by her training in the correct use of a tenn and

determining whether or not a new instance (a novel shade of color or fragment of a

number-series) meets that standard. This would explain how someone who has

6

successfully understood what a nile dernands of him is able to make an infinite

number of correct applications of that nile. Once 1 have "caught on" to a number

series. or mastered my color terrns, 1 can continue that series indefinitely. and apply

the word 'green' to novel shades of green that 1 have never encountered. '*lt is". says

Wittgenstein. -'as if we could grasp the whole use of the word in a flash."'

The kind of view sketched above has been described by Peter Carruthers as

"logical realisrn" - the view that.

AI1 interna1 relations - whether between a concept and the things

which are its instances. or between sentences - are determined only

by the manner in which the expressions are understood, independently

of the inclinations and dispositions of the speaker or of anyone else. . . .

Thus sense will reach out. by itself. to determine al1 interna1

relationships. unfettered by any empirical limitation or constraint.'

Whatever metaphysical qualms we might have in reconciling ourselves to

meaning-facts that exist independently of our own, or anyone else's, language use.

this robust realism about rules quite nicely bears out our intuition that we audit each

others' speech with reference to non-arbitrary standards of correct use.) It makes

1 Wittgenstein, Philosobhical Investiaations (Blackwell, Oxford. 1 W8), $ 19 1 Peter Carruthen, "Ruling out Realism", Phiioso~hia, S 85. p. 64

3 Whether "independent" is an appropriate word to use in this context is a question I hope to address in this essay. The view I am describing at the moment has no problem with putting things this way, but how much there is to recommend it remains to be seen.

7

intuitive sense to Say that. when we make decisions about whether a terni has applied

been applied correctly. there is a fact about the meaning of that term around which Our

thoughts about its use converge. there to be discovered by those learning to use the

term properly. In the example above, where 1 decide to start applying the word

"green" to orange things. my use of that word is wrong, not merel y di fferent from that

of others. because it is a perfectly objective property of the word "green" that it

applies to only certain things. Indeed. since on this view an expression's sense exists

independently of how anyone actually interprets it. it is not impossible that we could

al1 go collectively wrong in our use of a word. systematically applying it to things that

do not properly answer to its meaning."

This position is given considerable attention by Wittgenstein in the

Philosoohical Investi~ations. His concem is not with the intuition behind logical

realism. the feeling that there is a firmness to the "logical must" of the d e s of

language. Rather, he hopes to prevent the kind of metaphysical speculation into which

this picture can lead philosophical discussions of meaning and truth. Saul Kripke

takes Wittgensteinos criticisms of logical realism as his jumping off point in

Wittgenstein on Rules and Private ~aneuaee.' 1 will spend this chapter discussing

Kripke's interpretation of Wittgenstein's views on this matter. and what Knpke takes

to be their consequences for the philosophy of language.

4 Carruthers. "Ruling our Realism", 63. S a d A. Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Pnvate Laneuaee: an Elementarv

Exposition (Blackwell, Oxford, 1982).

8

I I . Kripke expresses the logical realist intuition using the addition-function of

simple arithmetic as an example. "Even now as 1 write." he says. "1 feel confident that

there is something in my mind - the meaning 1 attach to the 'plus' sign - that

instructs me what 1 ought to do in al1 future c a ~ e s . " ~ Wittgenstein's aim in the rule

following passages of the Investieations. according to Kripke. is to show that we can

not make sense of this picture and. hence. of the notion of rule-following at all.

Suppose. says Kripke. that we have never before performed addition with any

number larger than fifiy-seven and, now faced with 68 + 57. answer 1 25. "What fact

about your past use of '+"'. a skeptical onlooker might now ask us. "determined that

you intended it to denote the addition function rather than that of. Say. quaddition?"

By 'quaddition'. the skeptic means a hnction that yields surns for inputs smaller than

57. but 5 when performed on any number greater than 57. The skeptic challenges us to

point to something in our prior speech-dispositions, mental life. or anything else we

c m think of (Kripke grants us complete omniscience). which determined that ' 125'

was the correct answer for us to arrive at in our use of -+' above. rather than '5 ' or any

other nurnber. If there is any tmth to the logical realist view of rule following. says

Kripke, there must be something that has been guiding us in our use of .-+- - some

fact about the meaning o f '+' that we grasped in becoming competent adders. All we

need to do to silence the skeptic is show him the rule that we have been following al1

along.

Likely, Our response to this question will be that we simply

our adding sixty-eight and fiS.-seven that we intended to add, and

knew at the tirne

that we therefore

Kripke, Wittgenstein. 22.

9

intended that ' 125' be taken as the correct answer. The skepticos doubts. however. do

not yet extend to Our epistemic authority over Our present intentions. His question is.

rather, how do we know that the intentions we have had in the past did not detennine

that Our present beiief that ' 125' is the correct answer is wrong? We are committed.

afier all. to the view that following a rule is not simply a matter of intending to have

your words taken in a certain way at any given time. but of having what your words

mean determined by some property of the words themselves - a property you have

become acquainted with during your history as a user o f those words. Certainly. it

seems likely that addition was indeed what we meant by '+' in Our past use of that

symbol. but is it entirely impossible that we could be wrong about this? It is at feast

imaginable that we are under the influence of a powerful hallucinogen and have

forgotten what we were really intending in al1 of those past uses of '+'. 1s there

nothing more to Our certainty that we meant to add in our past uses of '+' than our

feeling that this is what we meant? Certain that we did mean addition by -+' rather

than anything else. yet not allowed by the skeptic to have this settled by our word on

the matter. we are forced to point to something in our previous use of '+' in which our

having meant addition rather than quaddition consists.

Some have objected that Kripke's skepticism about our reliability in reporting

Our past intentions is unfounded, resting on the merely logical possibility of error

rather than on any skeptical possibility worth taking seriously. Perhaps it is

imaginable that 1 might be hallucinating when 1 take myseif to have meant addition by

*+' in the past, just as it is logically possible (to some) that 1 am really a brain in a vat.

but if this is ail there is driving Kripke's philosophical paranoia why should we feel

compelled to answer his nile-skeptic at all? This objection misses what is really going

on in Kripke's argument, however. As Paul Boghossian notes in "The Rule Following

Considerations", Kripke's rule-skepticism is. as we shall see below. constitutive rather

than ~ ~ i s t e r n o l o ~ i c a l . ~ That is. Kripke is not relying on the possibility that. when 1

look back on what 1 meant by my words in the past, an evil demon has corrupted my

abilitl; to see things aright - this possibility is belied by the fact that Kripke is

allowing us total omniscience with respect to our past language use.' The rule-skeptic

is perfectly willing to allow our ability to know whatever facts there are about what

our words mean when we see them - al1 he requires is that we show him what these

facts could be.

The skeptic's challenge might seem, at first. to be easily met. Of course it is

easy for him to feign confirsion about what mie is governing our use o f '+' if al1 he is

considering is the finite set of additions he has actually seen us perform. The skeptic

can interpret our meaning in any number of ways. but this is just because a finite set

of examples is always going to be compatible with many different rules. each of

which incorporates it but points in a different direction. The problem here is that the

skeptic is allowing himself to see only the instances of addition themselves. and not

the rule which makes them addition. A rule determines what 1 ought to do much in the

same way that an algorithm, as a finite set o f directions, yields outputs for an infinite

number of inputs. The rule informing Our performances of addition, which. unlike a

' Paul A. Boghossian, "The Rule Following Considerations", Mind, O 89, pp. 507 - 549.

set of examples, will extend over an infinite number of previously unencountered

cases. might read something like this: "To add x and y, take a huge bunch marbles.

count out x marbles in one heap. y marbles in another, put the two heaps together and

count how many are there." Once we have discovered what algorithm figures in

someone's performance of an operation. perhaps having k e n internalized as a set of

mentalese directions as they learned language. there can be no mistake as to what that

person ought to do in each new casee9

This move is considered, and rejected, by Wittgenstein at many points in the

Investigations, and the reason it is unsatisfactory is clear - we have disambiguated

our use of one sign, 'tg. by defining its proper use in terms of new ones. such as

'count'. The skeptic. instead of being satisfied that we have met his challenge to

justiQ Our going on as we do in our use of '+'. will simply reissue that challenge with

respect to the terms with which we have given ourselves directions for addition. What

is to Say. asks Kripke. that the skeptic cannot interpret our word 'count' as actually

denoting an operation called quounting, under which interpretation our directions are

for quaddition rather than addition?" We have. after all, used œcount' on just as Anite

a number of occasions as we have used '+'. and so our use of that symbol is just as

open to skeptical interpretation. "[Iln the course of our argument," laments

Wittgenstein, "we give one interpretation after another; as if each one contented us at

least for a moment. until we thought of yet another standing behind it,"' ' and any

Kripke, Wittgentstein, 14 9 Kripke, Wittgenstein, 16. 1 O Kripke, Wittgenstein, 16.

" Wittgenstein. PI, 5 201.

12

interpretation at which we stop "hangs in the air along with what it interprets."'2 On

pain o f regress. then, we cannot take recoutse to algorithmic self-direction in meeting

the skeptical challenge, since following such a direction requires the very

interpretative determinacy we are trying to provide a foundation for.

Better. we might Say. to give a disposifional account of the rneaning of -+'

which takes our past additions as instances o f a type of behavior which will manifest

itself whenever we are called upon to add in the future as well. No interpretative

regress can vitiate a dispositional account, since we are conceming ourselves oniy

with how a subject is disposed to behave. not with his ability to give reasons for this

behavior. If, as Wittgenstein says, we follow Our rules ' *b~ ind l~ , " ' ~ perhaps the best

descriptions of rule-governed practices are those which accurately predict which

behaviors rule followers will tend to approve o f in others and engage in themselves.

To foIlow the rule for addition. rather than quaddition. in our use of '+* would be. on

such an account. simply to have a disposition to answer ail future addition problems

with a sum rather than a quum. While we might grant the skeptic that our past actions

were ambiguous with regard to what rule we were following, the disposition to add

rather than quad was there nonetheless. ready to manifest itself in al1 of our future

additions. '' But how, asks Kripke, could a disposition j z ~ ~ j ' j my going on in a certain

way? 1s this not, he goes on, "simply an equation o f performance and ~orrectness"? '~

'2 lbid, €j 1 98. I 3 Ibid, 219. 14 Kripke, Wittgenstein, 23. * Kripke, Wittgenstein, 24.

13

There is an obvious problem with equating the facts about what [ have done in the

past. and whatever 1 will be disposed to do in the future, with those about what 1 oughl

to do; we risk losing the ability to Say that my dispositions could be wrong. A

dispositional account ends up equating "whatever is going to seem right to me" with

what ir right. and that. as Wittgenstein complains. "only means that here we canot talk

about right."16

Paul Boghossian plays down the importance of this objection.17 That some

dispositional accounts wiil leave us no room to distinguish between successful and

unsuccessfùl attempts to follow a rule. says Boghossian. is evidence that any

dispositional account of meaning will need refinement. but is no good reason to reject

al1 such accounts out of hand. Indeed. it is obvious what might motivate the hope for

such a retinement. If we surrender to Kripke's skepticism about dispositional

analyses. then our feeling that we understand each other appears to corne under even

more severe threat than Our self-understanding. In arguing against the skeptic that 1

have a perfectly good understanding of what I mean by my words. 1 might seek

evidence of my own nile following in the realm of occurrent mental States which

accornpany my language use. But since our knowledge o f each other's rule-following

is gleaned fiom behavioral data, a dispositional account o f meaning seems our best bet

for explaining how we manage to share whatever rules we are following and. hence. a

language.

16 Wittgenstein, PI, 5 258. 17 Boghossian, "Rule Following", 533.

14

As for Kripke's claim that dispositions aren't normative. says Boghossian. this

is not c1ea.r. Since speaking the same language as your fellows has obvious

advantages. there seems nothing problematic in the claim that the dispositional facts

about what rules others in your community are following. if such there be. could set

the standards by which people's linguistic cornpetence is evaluated. It would do a

great deal to explain how we corne to share a language if we could discover patterns

of correct use in the behavior of competent speakers which would be available to

those learning a language.

Kripke's argument that dispositional accounts of rule following do not explain

the normative force of ow understanding of language is best understood. however. as

working in conjunction with another one of his doubts about this approach. The

problem fkr any dispositional account, finessed to meet Boghossian's order. will be to

distinguish between successful and unsuccessfui applications of a rule. Kripke

observes that the set of errant behaviors that a successful dispositional reduction of

mle following will have to filter out will be wide and varied. Not only are we ofien

w o n g in our use of a word, but there are brute facts about us which set limits on the

ways in which we will manifest whatever dispositions we have. Some nurnbers. for

instance, might be so large that my brain mind will be unable to perfonn additions

with them, or I might die before completing the operation. Since we do not want such

contingencies to place limits on an account of what our words mean. a successfiil

dispositional account of meaning will end up availing itself of a ceteris paribus

clause. Errors due to hallucination, shortcomings of our cognitive capacities, Our

15

rnortality. and the like, need not corne into an account of how we are disposed to

behave, the disposition-theorist will Say, because a dispositional theory is about what

we will do rtnder ideal circumstances. To Say that someone is following the mle for

addition because he is disposed. cereris paribus, to add. is to Say that, bamng

cognitive faiiure. sudden heart-attack, acts of God, or any other such contingency. he

will answer a problem containing '+' with its surn.

The problem here. says k ipke . is that we can understand such an account only

as clearly as we understand its ceteris paribus clause. What would we mean. in a

dispositional theory of meaning. when we talked about "all things being equal"?

Perhaps as something like: if my brain had been stuffed with

suficient extra matter to grasp large enough numbers. and if it

were given enough capacity to perform such a large addition.

and if my life (in a healthy state) were prolonged enough. then

given an addition problem involving two large nurnbers. m and

n, 1 would respond with their s~rn.'~

Of course, Our ceteris paribus clause would likely have to cover many more details

than the few mentioned by Kripke in this passage, and we haven't any idea of how to

predict the consequences of even these. This, says Kripke. means that we couldn't

really understand Our dispositional law at all. l9

18 Kripke, Wittgenstein, 27. l 9 Ibid, 28.

16

Boghossian dismisses this objection too. claiming that if ceteris parihus

clauses are perfectly intelligible in disciplines like physics. then there is no good

reason to suppose that they would not be so in a dispositional study of meaning:

No one can claim to know al1 of what would be true if

molecules and containers actually satisfied the conditions over

which the ideal gas laws are defined: but that does not prevent

us from cIaiming to know that. if there were ideal gases. their

volume would v q inversely with the pressure on them.

Similady. no one can claim to know ail of what would be true if

I were so modified as to survive a trip to Alpha Centauri; but

that need not prevent us from claiming to know that. if 1 were to

survive such a trip. 1 would cal1 the hones there *herse'."

In giving a dispositional account of meaning. we must. naturally. arrive at a means of

el iminating those contingencies which complicate its successfd application. j ust as

we eliminate considerations of friction from textbook discussions of how gravity

works. Of course, we cannot imagine al1 of the events that would have to not transpire

if a language user were going to meet our idealized standard of infallibility. but that

has nothing to do with the usefulness of such an idealization for the purpose of

speciqing the semantic properties of words in terms of speakers' dispositions. So

goes Boghossian's objection to Kripke.

17

The reason that this objection fails is c o ~ e c t e d to f i p k e ' s daim that

dispositional descriptions of meaning cannot capture the normative force of niles. The

analogy between the problem Kripke has sketched - that o f how we are to find some

fact about speakers which indicates unambiguously what standards of correct use they

are following - and the formulation of explanatory laws in physics is not apt. The

hope of a dispositionalist program is something like this: just as we bring observed

physical events under explanatory laws. classieing them as types of events that will.

if Our laws are any good. behave in predictable ways. we might bring utterances under

dispositional laws in order to classify them as types of utterances (utterances with

certain meanings) govemed by certain conditions of correctness.

However. the two cases are actually quite different. The ceteris paribus clause

in a physical law is part of the explmation; that is. we know what we are bracketing

when we Say that "all things being equal". objects accelerate towards the Earth at a

rate of 9.8 m/sZ. A physicist knows. for instance. that she is bracketing considerations

of friction when she says this, and knows exactly how this move is to be

accommodated by the theory she is employing and exactly what observations will

determine the success of that move. If observations fly in the face of an explanatory

law even once the bracketed conditions have been taken into account. that law. or the

contents of its ceteris paribus clause, will need revision, and the best revisions to

make will be those which best accommodate the new observations while perturbing

our present theory as littIe as possible. Again. with a good explanatory law. we know

20 lbid, 29.

1s exactly what the consequences of such revisions for the content of our ceteris puribus

cIauses will be.

On the other hand, when we Say that someone following the rule for addition

will answer every problem containing '+' with a surn. "al1 things being equal". we

have no idea what things are being treated as equal. Saying that the ceteris paribus

clause is rneant to indicate that a dispositional law holds under "ideal cognitive

conditions" does nothing to help matters if al1 we can Say about these conditions is

that they are the ones that obtain when someone who means addition by '+' always

responds to addition probiems with a surn. How are we to determine whether a

recalcitrant observation is to be accommodated by adjusting Our ceteris puribus clause

or the disposition we are attributing to that speaker? For instance. a subject may

answer every addition problem she encounters with a sum and then unexpectedly

daim that ' 2 + 5 = 8'. How do we know, in this case. what adjustments we should

make to our dispositional mode1 of her competence with the -+' sign? Should we

should conclude that she has made a mistake and that our account of the ideal

cognitive conditions under which she performs addition must be adjusted to

accommodate this result, or have we given the wrong account of the disposition itself:

has she, that is. been correctly "schmadding" al1 along? This decision can be made

only if we already know what the subject was supposed to do when she was faced

with '2 + 5' - in other words, we can only understand the 'ideal' in 'ideal cognitive

conditions' with reference to our prior understanding of what mle is being followed.

19

which is the very thing we were hoping to gain fiom a dispositional account of Josh's

behavior.

So much, then. for the explanatory value of dispositional accounts of nile

following. When Kripke objects to the fact that a blank-cheque ceteris paribus clause

covers a host of contingencies that we cannot envision. he is not merely objecting to

the queemess of whatever such "ideal conditions" might be. His point is that. without

aiready having an account of how -+' is to be properly understood in an infinite

number of cases. we know nothing about what the ceferis paribus clause contains

other than "those conditions under which '+' is used incorrectly by a competent

speaker."'0 Thus. the normative aspect of our understanding of rules that appears to

fa11 out of dispositional accounts of rule following - Our ability to Say what someone

following a certain nile oughr to do in an infinite number of cases - turns out to be

the only means by which we can understand these dispositional "reductions" of rule

following. Such an account is therefore incapable of answering the skeptic's challenge

without begging the question.

One rnight agree with the sceptic that dispositional accounts of meaning are

flawed. but add that what is most fûndamentally wrong with them is also wrong with the

way the sceptic has h e d his challenge. That is. anyone who challenges us to point to a

meaning-constituting fact in our past language-use, or to infer what rule we are following

fiom our previous behaviour, has misconstrued competent speakers' knowledge of their

own practices. "Perhaps", says Kripke,

the "decisive move in the conjuring trick" has been made when

the sceptic notes that 1 have performed only finitely many

additions and challenges me, in the light of rhis fact. to adduce

some fact that 'shows' that I did not mean quus. Maybe 1 appear to

be unable to reply just because the experience of rneaning

addition by 'plus' is as unique and irreducible as that of seeing

yellow or feeling a headache. while the sceptic's challenge invites

me to look for another fact or experience to which this can be

reduced."

This possibility might be taken in two ways. First. we could take the

phenornenon in question as a prescriptive quale of some kind. which intimates to us what

is the correct thing to do in each new case. However. this line seems open to the same

objection as the one that was levelled against self-given algorithms: explaining our

ability to recognise the meaning of our words in "what it is like" to mean one thing rather

than another cannot satisfj the sceptic unless each of such irreducible experiences

unambiguously determines what rule we are following. However. if explicit directions in

mentalese cannot cut off the interpretative regress, it is hard to see how more guidance

could be provided by what it feels like to mean '+'. however this is to be thought of.

--

'O Ibid. 28. 2' Ibid. 41.

2 1

As Wittgenstein notes at many points in the investieations there is no necessary

connection between the feeling of following a rule and actually following one." 1 might.

on acid. find that a block of previously incomprehensible Egyptian hieroglyphs now

intimates the secrets of the pyramids to me. Focussing hard on each sign. furrowing my

brow. 1 might experience the feeling of ease and farniliarity 1 ordinarily have when

reading English. and take myself to have broken into a dead ianguage. The feeling of

ease I presently have with the alien tex& however, -il1 do nothing to sway me fiom

saying, when 1 wake up in the morning. that 1 had no idea what the glyphs meant and

was not, in fact. reading at d l . 1 often emphatically feel that fhis is how 1 am supposed to

go on and subsequently find out that 1 have gone wrong, and just as ofien follow a d e

flawlessly and unthinkingly. without any accompanying experience in particular. If there

is anything to be said about the feeling of meaning one thing rather than another. then. it

does not seem likely that it will yield an explanation of what it is to follow a rule.

The second way in which we might interpret the suggestion that knowing the

meaning of -+' is an irreducible experience is as suggesting that following a mle is a

state of knowing, sui generis, that fhis is the mie we are folIowing and that that rule

commands that we do fhis. Crispin Wright. for instance, has objected that Kripke's

sceptical challenge is unanswerable only because it forces us to take a distorting

perspective on our tint-personal knowledge o f the rules we are f~ l lowing '~ Of course

we can find nothing to fit the bill when the sceptic asks us to produce a fact about our

previous applications of a rule from which w e can unambiguously infer that we are

- --

22 See, for instance, PI, @ 139, 179, and pg 59.

77 c-

following the rule for addition rather than quaddition. There should be nothing surprising

or disturbing about this. however, since the kind of knowledge we have of our own rule-

following practices is of the same kind as the kind we have about our intentions or

perceptual experiences - it is non-inferential.

The recognition that you have an intention, Wright observes. does not involve an

inference fiom details of your mental life to the conclusion that you have an intention of

a certain sort. For. if recognition of one's own mental content moved fiom evidence to

the making of hypotheses in this way. how would we ever recognise the thoughts on

which we were basing our inference other than by M e r evidence-based judgements.

and so on. ud infnifum? The gramrnar of claims about mental content works in precisely

the opposite way, says Wright; 1 recognise my thoughts about what 1 intend to do

tomorrow as such. I identifi the thoughts connected with my intention to do such and

such because they are thoughts with a certain intentional content."<

It seems plausible to argue against Knpke's rule-sceptic in the same way. I f 1 am

wondering whether a new case falls under the extension of one of my rules. I do not look

back on my past applications of that rule to discover what. exactly. that rule is. For how

do I know that the past applications 1 am s w e y i n g are relevant to the present situation

unless I recognise them as imances of the relevant nile? This problem tums up in the

very frarning of Kripke's sceptical challenge. when we are asked to survey al1 of our past

additions to see whether they determine that we are adding rather than quadding. How

are we to undertake what the sceptic asks if not by bringing a number of o u past actions

'3 Crispin Wright, "Kripke's Account of the Argument Against Private Language.. . Journal of P h i l o s o ~ h ~ , D 84, pp. 759 - 777.

33

under the mle which makes them additions? The very act of playing the sceptic's game.

then. seerns to involve the de-govemed act of recognition that the game seeks to render

problematic. Ironically, we can be led to the conclusion that our past applications of a

rule underdetermine what that rule is. only if we are allowed to be guided by that rule in

recognising the evidence for what it is.

The suggestion that our grasp of niles is sui generis. then. does more justice to

our ability to follow niles than any of the other accounts examined by Kripke. and seems

to offer us a stable position from which to resist the sceptic. But Kripke dismisses this

position out of hand, claiming that the notion of sui generis meaning States seems.

"desperate: it leaves the nature of this postulated primitive state - the primitive state of

.meanhg addition by "plus"' - completely mystenous".'5

Kripke's attitude towards this solution is rooted in his conception of the

problem at hand. The sceptic challenges us to support our intuition that we know what

we mean by pointing to some state of affairs in which our meaning addition by -+'

consists - something that we could, at least in principle. make a mistake about or fail

to notice. as language leamers presumably do. This request might be understood this

way: Kripke is attempting to show that discourse about meaning is projective. or

instrumental. as opposed to genuinely fact-stating. in the same way that Hume is ofien

taken to have shown this of causality and morality. If we can find anything in the

world which answers to the descriptions found in a domain of discourse. as, for

instance, snow-s whiteness does to talk about snow, then we can treat sentences in that

'" ibid, 776. ' 5 Kripke. Witteenstein, 5 1.

domain as genuinely truth-conditional - Le., as true or false by virtue of the

existence or non-existence of a corresponding state of affairs. If, however. we find

that nothing answers to the sentences of a domain of discourse. we have two options.

We might adopt an error thesis about the sentences of that domain. concluding that

they are uniformly false. Alternatively, we can be non-factualists about the family of

sentences in question, holding that it is not their purpose to refer to objective facts at

aII. Some find it difficult. for instance. to make sense of the idea that the furniture of

the world could indude moral properties to which true statements about goodness and

virtue correspond; for what would it mean to Say that something is good. in and of

itself? Statements about morality. on this view. cannot be ascribed truth conditions.

because the things they purport to talk about could not exist. Rather. these statements

are thought of as expressions of the speakers' approval or disapproval of some state of

affairs: they are more like languaged cheers or howls than genuine assertions.

Kripke's discussion of meanings works along the same Iines. We have been

asked to look around in the world to see whether there is anything we point to in

establishing the truth or falsity of claims about nile following. It is not enough. the

sceptic thinks, to answer this challenge by saying that we just know when we mean

one thing rather than another. because he is fiilly prepared to admit that our saying this

is a part of our practice of talking about what rules we are following. The challenge.

as Wright observes. is to show that there could exist facts in the world to which our

staternents about meaning correspond - to show, in other words, that Our discourse

2 5

about meaning is genuinely tmth conditional rather than projective.26 If. having found

nothing in the realm of dispositions or occurrent mental states to turn the trick. we tell

the sceptic that foliowing a rule is something we know sui generis. he will take us to

have posited a species of entities over and above the ones already considered and

rejected. That is. he will take our talk of s~ri generis meaning states to commit us to

the existence of abstract. conceptual objects. our acquaintance with which guides us in

following d e s . This view does seem queer. posing a host of episternologicaI

problems (how do we corne to know these abstract objects which contain within

themselves al1 of the correct applications of a mie?) and offending our metaphysical

scruples if we distrust the positing of abstract objects to solve philosophical problems.

Wright admits this danger - the only view that does justice to our non-inferential

grasp of rules perennially tempts us towards an unappealing Platonist mythology -

but he does not propose how it might be avoided."

Not everyone thinks that there is anything in this picture of rneaning that we

orrghr to avoid. Boghossian embraces the metaphy sical picture of rule-following.

arguing essentially by elimination: since neither Kripke's rule-scepticism nor any of

the other accounts of rule following considered by Kripke is coherent this last

possibility. no rnatter how unlikely, must be tr~e.'~ The only stable response to

Kripke's sceptic, then, appears to depend on the very idea of rules as "rails invisibly

laid to infix~it~"'~ that Wittgenstein's rule following considerations are meant to refùte.

26 Wright, 'Kripke's Account", 760. " Ibid, 778. '* Boghossian. "Rule Following." 548. '9 Wittgenstein, PI, 5 218.

There is something very appealing about Wright's response to Knpke and. I

tliink. very right. However. I share Wright's lack of enthusiasrn for the metaphysics of

meaning it seems. at this point in the discussion. to entail. The Platonism that Boghossian

explicitly endorses3' is one many would rather live without. What is more. it would be

disappointing if the lnvestiaations provided us with no stronger a means of resisting this

picture - which is, afier ail, one of Wittgenstein's main targets in that work - than

Kripke's interpretation suggests. If a convincing defence of our non-inferential grasp of

rules can & given which does not necessitate a robust. metaphysical realism about

meanings, then the burden of showing why we should accept such a view will be

squarely on Boghossian's shoulders. Much more needs to be said. however. before we

arrive at a position fiom which we can do justice to the tmth of what Wright says while

sparing ourselves Boghossian's metaphysicai cornmitrnents. and 1 will Save that

discussion for chapter two. For the rest of this chapter. I will tum to Kripke's own

solution of the sceptical problem and show why it is unsatisfactory.

III. Kripke admits that the skeptic's conclusion - that there are no facts to be

found out about rules. nothing at al1 to correspond to our talk about meaning and

nothing. therefore. to make it true or false that "x means p by 'S"' - is insane.

However. he takes it that there is no getting around the problem on its own ternis - i t

is the conclusion to which our cornmonsense intuitions about rule following have

driven us. We cannot, therefore, simply ignore the paradox because of its absurdity

- - -- -

30 See, for instance, his "Sense Reference and Rule-Following", Philoso~hv and Phenomenolo~iical Research, 54, p 139.

27

and resume Our talk about rule-following, meaning, and truth-conditions as before:

any reconstruction of such discourse will have to play by the new rules set by the

paradox. We need. in Kripke's words. a "skeptical solution" to our new skeptical

problem - an account of how we manage to ascribe content to each other's speech

that rnakes no mention of facts to which such ascriptions correspond."

I f we look at how discourse about meaning actually tunctions in linguistic

comrnunities. says Kripke. we will find the makings o f such an ac~ount .~ ' In actual

practice. talk of d e s and correctness operates between individuals whose speech

dispositions must come to resemble each other if those individuals are to hnction as a

community. So when one individual uses a concept in a way incompatible with the

speech dispositions of his fellows, it is said that he has gone wrong in his following of

the mle governing that concept's use. or perhaps that he is following the wrong rule.

Kripke's claim is that "right". "wrong". "rule". and Our other normative concepts

about rule following have no application with respect to the language-use of

individuals taken in isolation. Rather. our talk about rules has its role in the

cooperation of individuals who follow their rules "blindly". and who audit each

other' s tanguage-use, not with reference to objective standards. but with reference to

how they themselves would be inclined to act in the speaker's situation. "[Wjhen 1 say

that the teacher. in order to judge that the child is adding, must judge that. for a

problem with larger numbers. he is applying the 'ripht' procedure even if he cornes

3 1 Kripke, Wittgenstein, 66. " Ibid, 89.

2 8

out with a mistaken result." says Kripke, "1 mean that he judges that the child is

applying the procedure he himself is inclined to apply."33

Wright. in one of his earlier interpretations of the rule-following

considerations, expresses a view similar to this one, claiming, as Kripke does. that al1

we can salvage of the notion of linguistic correctness consists in the relation between

a speaker and the linguistic community in which he ~ ~ e a k s . ~ ' ' A corollary of this

conclusion. which jars one of the intuitions motivating the logical realism Kripke has

rejected, is that the notion of "correctness" has no application to the community itself.

"None of us," claims Wright. "unilaterally c m make sense of the idea of correct

employment of language Save by reference to the authority of securable communal

assent on the matter; and for the community itself there is no authority. so no standard

to meet."35 Our properly understanding '*'Grass is green' is true iflgrass is green" is

not. on this account, a matter of our successfully apprehending whatever property

determines how 'green' is to be appIied to the world. Since Kripke holds that there are

no such facts of the matter for an individual to grasp. the "warrant" we have for

saying that someone is a competent rule-follower is that her behavior does not offend

the inclinations of our community. Thus. Kripke takes the skeptical argument to have

shown that we are not talking about genuine facts here at all. Being a competent user

of 'green' is simply a maner of using that word in a way that the majorïty of our

fellow language users will let us get away with. However. since al1 we can salvage of

3 4 See his Wittgenstein on the Foundations of Mathernatics (Duckworth. London. 1980). 220. Given some of his remarks in "Kripke's Account". it appears that he may have repudiated this view.

29

the notion of mle foltowing lies in the individual's relation to her community. there is

nothing to be made of the idea that the community's use of language might go wrong.

Considerations like those leveled by Kripke against the idea that there is any fact of

the matter as to which rule an individuai. taken in isolation. is following apply equally

well to the community taken as a whole. There is no way to make sense of an

independent standard that a community could go wrong in "tracking": language is

impressions al1 the way down, and linguistic sanity is statistica~.'~

The problem with Kripke's "solution" is that he has not given us any

indication of how disputes about word use are to be resolved other than by saying that

whatever "inclinations" are most predominant in a community will inevitably win out

over deviant ones. 1s our intuition that there are important matters of truth at stake in

such disputes really so much of an illusion? Also. Paul Boghossian has observed that

Kripke's non-factualism about meaning cannot be confined to this realrn of discourse

a~one .~ ' If we deny that statements about what Our expressions mean. and therefore

about what truth-conditions our sentences have. are truth conditional. then the

sentences to which we are ascribing meanings will themselves be no more than

assertable. That is. if, in saying. '"Snow is white' is tnie iff snow is white". 1

implicitly refer to whatever the consensus of my community is at this time. then the

"truth" of "Snow is whitev must, itself. depend on this consensus. 1 can't decide on the

truth of a sentence unless 1 know its truth-conditions, and if there is no fact of the

matter as to what these are independent of how my fellow speakers arc inclined to use

'' Ibid, 220. 3 6 Kripke, Wittgenstein, 9 1.

30

their words, then there can be no such fact of the matter about a sentence3 tmth

either. Kripke's non-factualist treatment of content ascriptions quickly yields global

non-factua~isrn.~~

To this cornplaint. Kripke responds that.

Wittgenstein's way with such objections is short. Like many others.

Wittgenstein accepts the 'redundancy' theory of tmth: to that a

statement is tme ... is simply to afEm the statement itself, and to say it is

not true is to deny it: ('p' is true = p). ... We cal2 something a proposition.

and hence tnie or false, when in our language we apply the calculus of

truth hc t ions to it. That is. it is just a primitive part of our language

37 Boghossian, "Rule Following", 524. 38 The reader may object to the quickness with which Boghossian arrives at this conclusion. After all, is it not righr to Say that the way my words relate to the world is largely determined by my community? 1 do not invent the Ianguage 1 speak - 1 inherit it. The fact that the English word. -snow', is properly applied to a11 and only bits of snow obtained before 1 attained competence in this language and will continue to do so after 1 have ceased to speak at all. Nonetheless, it is plainly not the inclinations of my fellow English speakers that determine when "This is snow" is t ~ e in my mouth - this matter is decided by checking with the world to see if the stuff in question is in fact snow. However, the picture of linguistic competence which makes this objection seem plausible is that of an individual who, having learned a linguistic practice from others, is now committed to determinate standards as to how his words can be used to say true things. We should recall that Kripke has claimed that, regardless of how long an individual has been dubbed a competent speaker by his community, there is no fact ut ail about what his words mean if we Iook at him as an individual isolated from his community. We can give content to the claim that an individual can go wrong in his use of a term only by considering him as open to correction by those around him. So Kripke is claiming something much stronger than that we can learn language only as members of a community - he is claiming that reference to community consensus is in the very logic of content ascriptions, that statements about the truth-conditions goveming a speaker's sentences make sense

garne. not susceptible of deeper explanation, that tmth functions are

applied to certain sentences.39

The objection above still stands, however. There is nothing wrong with

denying that "true" refers to a robust relation obtaining between true sentences and the

independently existing facts in the world, which make them true. However. on

Kripke's account of nile following. we are lefi with no idea of how even a deflated

truth-predicate is to apply to true sentences. Our ability to Say true things about what

our words mean, and therefore our saying true things with those words. has been

reduced by Kripke to whatever Our community consents to at the time. In banishing

the problematic notion of truth-as-correspondence. Kripke has left us no means of

distinguishing true sentences from those the herd assents to most loudly - surely an

important difference. "Snow is white" is me because snow really is white. and the

question facing Kripke is how any amount o f applause from my audience could allow

m e to Say thut.

Worse still for Kripke, Boghossian notes that some such notion of truth. one

which is independent of the community ' s consensus, ir presrcpposed by any

formulation o f the kind of community-based "assertability conditions" that Kripke

seeks. 1 cannot reasonably expect someone to take my complaint that she has added

wongly set-iously if 1 am known to be an unreliable adder myself. So a skeptical

solution to the rule-following problern cannot Say something like. "It is warranted to

only if that speaker is considered as subject to the consensus of some particular community.

32

assert of Jones that he means addition by '+'. provided he agrees with my responses to

arithrnetical queries." 1 am no( warranted in doing any such thing if 1 know myself to

be an unreliable calculator of s~rns. ' '~ My understanding of my own cornpetence as a

judge of others' performance of addition involves my knowing how to differentiate

between. Say. the adding-dispositions 1 have when drunk and those 1 have when

concentrating on addition in a library. Implicit in any convincing formulation of

warranted assertability for clairns about meaning. then. is the distinction between

successful and unsuccessful following of the rule concerned. in this case a knowledge

of what c m truly and falsely be said of sums. Thus, says Boghossian. "the

acceptabi lity of the cornmunitarian conditions is strongly parasitic on the acceptability

of the solitary ones. and not the other way around.""' This criticism applies. regardless

of how Kripke chooses to treat the truth-predicate.

It is very strange that Kripke takes recouse to deflationism at this point

anyway. He has. after d l . argued at length that. since we can not make sense of the

idea that expressions might have robust properties of meaning. we can make no sense

of the idea that rneaning-ascriptions are truth-conditional. 'Truth' and 'falsity'. as

applied to discourse about meaning go by the wayside in favor of 'assertability'. In

response. we have complained that denying the truth-conditionality of statements

about meaning entails not just a non-factualism about meaning, but global non-

factualism. And Kripke's reply is that 'true' and 'false' are "just a primitive pan of

our language game." predicates that apply to any well-formed sentence. If this is

39 Kripke, Wittgenstein, 86. Boghossian, "Rule Following", 522.

33

Kripke's position, however, why is he so intent on denying that meaning ascriptions

have truth-conditions? Indeed, how c m he be? if "'snow is white' is true iff snow is

white" had no tnith-value. then there would be no fact of the matter as to whether or

not anything in particuiar made "snow is white" true. and we would thus be unable to

apply any tmth predicate. deflated or otherwise. to that sentence. If. on the other hand.

it is true. in however trivial and non-robust a sense one likes. that snow is white. then

it must be equally true to Say that "snow is white" is tnie if and only if snow is white.

Just as one cannot confine non-factualism to the domain of meaning-discourse one

cannot be a deflationist about al1 discourse but that about meaning. Kripke is faced

with a dilemma: he can retract his deflationary claim about truth. and accept the

global non-factualism to which rule-skepticism has led him: or he c m apply his

deflationism consistently and grant the truth-conditionality o f statements about

meaning. From where we stand now. however. neither of these options is satisfactory.

If Kripke wozdd be prepared to admit that he is committed to global non-

factualism, daims Boghossian, his position is incoherent. Non-factualism denies that

a certain realm of discourse is truth-conditional because the robust properties to which

propositions in that realm are thought to correspond could not actually exist. So

statements about meaning. on Kripke's view. have no truth-conditions because

meaning. as a property which determines how expressions connect to the world. has

been shown by the skeptic to be an uninstantiated property. Thus. f i p k e ' s non-

factualist position relies on the supposition that if a sentence is true, it is so because it

corresponds to a robust, extra-linguistic state of affairs. Truth itseif is. on this view.

3 4

conceived o f as a robust property, one obtaining between linguistic entities (sentences

or propositions) and bits of the world. whether these are individuated at the level of

objects or facts. However, if Kxipke treats "truth'' in his skeptical considerations as a

robust property of this kind, how is he to express his denial that any sentence has a

truth-condition. except as a statement of fact? If. in order for statements about

meaning to have truth-conditions. there must exist robust. extra-linguistic semantic

properties to which such statements correspond. then the claim. -"S has tmth

condition p' is false". must be true by virtue o f the absence of such a robust

property.'" To deny the existence of robust truth-conditions, one must. o f course. use a

sentence that is made tme by their non-existence. But a sentence whose truth and

falsity turns on the existence o f a robust property is. by definition. one that possesses

robust tmth conditions. Knpke's atternpt at denying that sentences possess robust

truth conditions turns out to be tnie only if it is false.

On the other hand. Kripke might be prepared to admit that the deflated tmth-

predicate. which he has ciaimed applies unproblemmatically to our everyday

sentences about couches and snow. also applies to statements about meaning. No

longer a non-factualist, he need not worry about the incoherence of denying that we

can say anything true. The problem here is that Knpke has given us no idea o f why

what he has called "assertability" deserves the name "truth". The reason that it makes

so much more sense to Say that meaning is assertion-theoretic rather than truth-

theoretic. if we buy Kripke's story, is that Kripke has attempted to explain Our

linguistic practices solely in terrns of whatever the community rh inh is right. Thus.

'" ibid, 526.

there is no way to make sense of the cornmunity's going wrong in any of its

judgements about how an expression is to be used - there are no facts about a

speaker's language use that could, in the future. show us that we have al1 gone wrong

in correcting hirn. It is appropriate, if this is so. to Say that judgments about meaning

have only "assertion conditions". as this term emphasizes that the "correctness" of the

majority's judgements about rule-following is guaranteed simply by their being made.

The tmth predicate. deflated or otherwise. is such that it is possible for us to find out

in the future that we were wrong in applying it to some proposition in the past. And

this is something that the community in Kripke's skeptical solution cannot find out

with respect to its judgements about meaning - whatever the comrnunity thinks is

correct is correct. This is also. I think. a sign that the skeptical solution is flawed. as it

is an obvious feature of our actual linguistic practices that an overwhelming consensus

about what an expression means can be wrong. and can be rationally shown to be so.

Judging the language use of another involves deterrnining whether it is more correct.

fitting, or useful than one's own. and these things have nothing to do with whether or

not his inclinations happen to be the sarne as one's own. But Kripke has given us no

indication of what might be involved in such judgements.

If rhis is the strongest position we c m extract from Wittgenstein's rule-

following considerations, then we ought to be disappointed indeed. 1 think. however.

that we can find stronger arguments in the Investieations, - ones with which to resist

both Knpke's rule-skepticism and Boghossian's metaphysical picture of rule

following. The shortcornings of Kripke's interpretation of Wittgenstein stem from two

36

misconceptions. The first is that he takes the logical realist conception of meaning

rejected in the rule following considerations to be the only one in terms of which we

c m make sense of rule following as an objective matter that does not involve essential

reference to comrnunity consensus. The second problem is related. and consists in

Kripke's erroneous interpretation of the concept o f "privacy" in Wittgenstein's private

language argument. A "private" d e . for Kripke. is one followed in isolation from other

rule-followers. This, 1 witl argue. is not what Wittgenstein has in mind in the private

language argument - if it were, then the private language argument would be

unconvincing. There seems nothing about our concept of following a rule that makes the

idea of someone following a rule in cornplete isolation a priori unintelligibie. What is

impossible. however. is someone's following a rule that is private in principle.

Wittgenstein's argument is. or at least ought to be. that we cannot make sense of a rule

that. once established by the individual following it. no one else would be able to learn.

The reasons for this are instmctive, and point to a solution to Kripke's rule-following

problem that does not concede as much of our ordinary talk about truth and falsity to the

sceptic as Kripke thinks we have to.

Chapter Two: Private Language. Following a Rule and Truth

1. One of Kripke's central theses in Wittgenstein on Rules and Pnvate Lanauage is

that the conclusion Wittgenstein is driving at in the private Language argument. which

Kripke takes to begin "officially" at section 243 of the Investi~ations. has actually been

established much earlier. in the sceptical arguments surveyed last chapter. In broad

terms. the kind of private language considered by Wittgenstein in these passages is one

in which expressions "refer to what can only be known to the person speaking; to his

immediate private sensation^.'^^ Wittgenstein's farnous (or infamous) conclusion is. of

course, that it is impossible that there couid be such a language. Wittgenstein works his

theme in these sections through many different thought experiments. the best known of

which is first mentioned at section 258.

We are to imagine that someone has a recurrent sensation of some sort which

does not manifest itself in any publicly observable behaviour or physiological effects.

For the purpose of recording this sensation's comings and goings in a diary. this person

rnight baptise it. 5". How. Wittgenstein asks. is our private linguist to know that the

next time he records "SM in his diary. he has done so in accord with the nile he gave

himself when he ostensively defined "SN? By hypothesis, there are no other users of "Su

fiom whorn he can receive feed-back, and no facts about his body or behaviour to

indicate that he has conectly identified S. and so it seems that al1 he has to go on every

time he writes "S" is his conviction that his present sensation is an S. To this. says

17 Wittgenstein. PL 9 243.

3 8

Wittgenstein, "One would like to say: whatever is going to seem right to me is right. And

that only means that here we can't talk about 'right'.'48

The theme is. by now. farniliar - according to Kripke. Wittgenstein's remarks

express scepticism about our ability to apply our d e s to new instances, or even to know

what rule we are following in the first place. According to Kripke. however. the private

Ianguage argument. taken on its own. is not sufficient to motivate this scepticism. More

particularly. Kripke thinks that the experirnent relies on groundless doubts about our

ability to recognise our own experiences. "If 1 redly were in doubt as to whether 1 could

identi@ any sensations correctly." asks Kripke. "how would a comection of my

sensations with extemal behaviour, or confirmation by othen. be of any help?""' Checks

on whether 1 have correctly identified kinds of experience must corne to an end

somewhere - if they did not, how would 1 be able to identify the cnteria by which 1

follow any rule. public or private? Following a d e must involve correctly identieing

certain kinds of experience, such as seeing red or perceiving disapproval in another's

tone of voice or facial expression.

This is essentially the objection expressed by Ayer in his "Can there be a

Private ~ a n g u a g e ? ~ ~ Ayer, like Kripke. interprets Wittgenstein as claiming that our

ability to mean anything by a sign depends on there being some independent test

available to determine whether we have used that sign correctly. However, no such

test can count as a justification at al1 unless our recognition of its results is taken as a

given. not in need of some further test itself. Wittgenstein remarks that checking one's

memory of a train tirnetable in order to figure out when the next train will be

departing for one's destination is different fiom rememkring what one's last S-

experience was like in order to ascertain whether the present sensation really qualifies

as an S:

[Flor this process has got to produce a memory which is actually correct.

If the mental image of the time-table could not itself be tesrai for

correctness, how couid it codirm the correctness of the first memory?

(As if someone were to buy several copies of the moming paper to assure

himself that what it said was t r ~ e . ) ~ ~

But surely, cornplains Ayer. the test by which 1 judge the correctness of my memory of

the time-table relies on a foundation of untested recognition every bit as much as my

memory of what my last S-experience was like. Says Ayer.

[Ulnless 1 can trust my eyesight at this point, unless 1 can recognise the

figures that 1 see written dow-~i, I am stilI no better off. ... Let the object to

which 1 am attempting to refer be as public as you please. let the word

which 1 use for this purpose belong to some common language, my

--

49 A.J. Ayer, "Can There be a Private Language?" in Wittgenstein: The Philosophical Investieations, George Pitcher ed. (Macmillan and Co.. London. 1970) pp. 25 1 - 266. 50 Wittgenstein, PI, 5 265.

assurance that 1 am using the word correctly. that 1 am using it to refer to

the 'right' object, must in the end rest on the testimony of my senses.*'

Thus. far from relying on testability. our ability to correctly identi6 types of experience

is a precondition of our perfoming tests of cornpetence - al1 language is. in this sense.

grounded on our identification of private experiences with which we have imrnediate

acquaintance. So. claims Ayer. there can be nothing problematic about my naming these

experiences and recognising them for what they are when they reappear in the future.

Ayer claims that, in addition to Wittgenstein's unfounded distrust of

introspection. there is a further false assumption at work in the private language

argument: that one person can use a sien meaningfully oniy if it is possible for others to

understand his rneanir~g'~ It is simply fdse, Ayer says. that we c m not speak of correctly

or incorrectly following a d e if there is no possibility of our k i n g corrected by others.

A solitary Iinguist cari incorrectly identiQ a bird which flies quickly over head. and

might aiso misident@ a fleeting sensation. That it will be dificult for him to tell when

he has done so does not entail that the misidentification has not occurred: "In neither case

may the mistake make any practical difference to him. but to Say that nothing turns upon

a mistake is not to say that it is not a mistake at

5 ' Ayer, "Private Language". 256. '' ibid, 258. 53 ibid, 260. 54 Kripke. Wittgenstein, 79.

4 1

II. Ayer's mistake. in Kripke's view, is in his failwe to notice that the second one of

these "assumptions" - that 1 cannot follow a rule on my own - is not assumed at d l .

but has already been established in Wittgenstein's discussion of de-scepticism.5" As the

sceptic's paradox has shown us, says Kripke. no rule, whether public or pnvate. can

guide the language use of a solitary speaker in isolation fiom a community. Ayer may be

right to disrniss unfounded scepticism about our epistemic access to our own

experiences. but this is not enough in itself to answer Wittgenstein's sceptical challenge.

No matter how detailed our knowledge of our past mental States. there is simply nothing

we corrld know, no fact of any kind, which could tell us how to correctly use any of o u -

expressions. So even if. as Ayer claims, we would be wrong to doubt our introspective

access to our mental goings on and our ability to check a present impression with the

memory of one that has corne before it. the sceptic will stiIl ask us. "How do you know

that when you defined 'S. you intended that the sensation you are having right now and

the original feeling should be of the same kind?" Just what "Su means is

underdetermined by any and al1 facts about the private linguist's past mental life and use

of that sign. and so whether or not the present sensation really is an S cornes down to

mere impressions.

So there are two senses of "privacy" operating here - that in which subjective

experiences are unsharable and that in which someone who follows a rule in isolation

from a community does so privately. However. puce Ayer, the impossibility of the latter

is not an assumption; it is the already-established conclusion of an earlier argument, of

which it is a corollary that no language could be private in the former sense. We are

42

presented with a discussion of private language. according to Kripke. only because our

uses of expressions such as 'pain', since they seem to refer to experiences which are

hidden from everyone else, might be thought to jeopardise Wittgenstein's claim that nile-

following is a communal practice. Says Kripke.

We have seen that it is part of Wittgenstein's general view of the

workings of all our expressions attributing concepts that others can

confirm whether a subject's responses agee s i t h their own. The lprivate

language] considerations simply spell out the form this confirmation and

agreement take in the case of a v o w a l ~ . ~ ~

The impossibility of following a rule in order to refer to private experiences. which

would by necessity be a rule one followed on one's own. follows fiom the impossibility

of following any nile on one's own.

III. At the end of the 1 s t chapter. 1 said that Kripke has misinterpreted what

Wittgenstein means by "privacy" in the private language argument. 1 claimed there that

the sense of "privacy" with which Wittgenstein is concemed in the private language

argument is that in which the meaning of a texm might consist in its referring to

something which is, inprinciple. hidden fiom anyone but the user of that term. In this

section 1 wi1I argue that Wittgenstein's primary concem in this argument is to show that it

43

is impossible that a language might refer to such objects. I will also argue that he does

no! rely on the daim that we can not speak of an individual following rules in isolation

from a cornmunity in order to establish this conclusion. Indeed, Wittgenstein's reasons

for rejecting private language do not in any way cast doubt on the idea that an individual

might follow d e s in complete isolation from a cornmunity. The best place to start

illustrating where 1 part ways with Kripke is at Ayer's cornplaint that the private

language argument relies on a scepticism about our abifity to identi@ the contents of our

minds in the absence of any extemal checks to confirm that we are doing so correctly.

The objection is that many of our identifications of "public" objects are made

without any check as to their correctness king possible. and that since this is no reason

to deny that any identification is really king made in these cases it should not be so in

the case of private objects either. Robinson Cnisoe might identifi a bird which flies

quickiy over head and have no way of knowing whether or not he has done so correctly.

Nonetheless. says Ayer. there was a bird of some kind that flew over head just now. and

tiiere is a fact of the matter as to whether or not Cnisoe was right to cal1 it a "parrot". Just

so with the phenornena of consciousness, reasons Ayer - a sensation is by nature

fleeting and irrepeatable, and so 1 cannot check to see if 1 have correctly called it an "S"

after the fact? But I did have an experience of some kind when 1 made the

identification. and so there is a fact of the matter as to whether that experience was an S

or not.

Wittgenstein's concem in the pnvate language argument is to show that analogies

such as this one between the misidentification of zoological types and that of "private"

44

mental states are misleading. At PI 258. Wittgenstein asks how the meaning o f a private

sensation-word might be set up. and his interlocutor's response, like Ayer's. is that this

could be done with a simple ostensive definition. So just as Crusoe might look at a

Rabbit and narne it a "Gavagai", thereby connecting the word to that Rabbit and ali

things like it. he might focus his attention on a passing sensation and impress on himself

that "Sm refers to that sensation and al1 things like it. However. notes Wittgenstein. if

such an act is really establishing the meaning o f "S". it must make it possible. "that 1

remember the connexion right in the future. But in the present case 1 have no criterion of

correctness. One would like to Say: whatever is going to seem right to me is right. And

that only rneans that here we can't talk about 'right'."" Ayer takes this as an inference

frorn the fact that we can't check to see if we have correctly followed the nile goveming

"S"'s use. established with the giving of an ostensive definition. to the conclusion that

there is no such fact at d l .

But there is another way to take Wittgenstein's claim that in the case of a pnvate

language we have "no criterion of correctness": his point is not that we have no way of

knowing whether or not we are following our nile. but that we have not yet established

what that mle is. That is, if my focussing on this sensation is really an act o f definition.

one that establishes how 1 ought to use "S" in the future, then 1 must have some idea of

what will count as a satisfactory identification of an S. The mere act of focussing on a

sensation and saying "S" to myself could, after all, be taken to express an infinite nurnber

of meanings - does "S" extend over al1 headaches. al1 pains in general. or al1 conscious-

" Ayer, "Private Language". 260.

4 5

states? Of course. the pnvate linguist might cornplain that he knows full well what is

happening inside himself right now. and that to suppose othenvise is just to reiterate

Wittgenstein's absurd distrust of introspection. But this is not the point - once we know

what counts as a kind of thing, we tend to be quite good at recognising new instances of

it. Taken entirely on its own. however. the wodd-be private linguist's act of introspection

is insufficient to establish what we mean ourselves to recognise. Regardless of how well

1 c m remember what the previous mental states 1 called "S" were like. what is it that wili

justify my claim that this feeling is of the same kind as those other ones? All 1 c m Say

here is that 1 am inclined to cal1 this sensation an S. but there is nothing to tell me

whether or not 1 would be right to do so - no/ because 1 can't remember what the

sensation with which 1 ostensively defined "Sv was like. but because that definition did

not establish what is to count as an S. The 'this' with which 1 "point inward" is. so far.

devoid of content. Wittgenstein cornplains that the picture of ostensive definition heid by

philosophers like Ayer is of "an occult process". in which.

Naming appears as a queer connexion of a word with an object. - and you

really get such a queer connexion when the philosopher tries to bring out

the relation between narne and thing by staring at an object in front of

hirn and repeating a name or even the word "this" innumerable times. For

philosophical problems &se when language goes on holiday.j8

57 Wittgenstein, PI, 8258. 58 ibid, 5 38.

46

Ayer's cornparison of the act of naming in a private Ianguage to that in a public one takes

language on holiday in just this way; the act of naming is lified out of a context in which

it has an established role into a philosophical picture in which it can do no work. The

"this" of an ostensive definition has content only if 1 can specifi what would qualiQ as

pointing to another instance of this. If 1 point to a table and Say, "this is what 1 want." for

instance. I can clarify what "this" means in this context by picking the table up and

showing it more closely, pointing to other tables. telling you why I want it, and the like.

But this is not possible when 1 focus inward and say "this is an S"; there is no one to

show what 1 am introspecting, and so far no purpose that things different fkom this

private object might fail to achieve. "The balance on which impressions are weighed."

says Wittgenstein. "is not the impression of a so far, however. the private

Iinpist has nothing more substantial than impressions on which to hang his rules.

IV. Wittgenstein's line of argument here is actually quite different from that of his

Kripkenstinian ersatz. While Knpkenstein holds that private rules and public ones are

impossible by the sarne token, Wittgenstein's claim is that the pnvate Iinguist is unable to

follow a rule. not because rule following is impossible. but because private rules are not

v e d rules. The "rules" of a private language are missing the context from which the rules

we follow without trouble every day derive their force. However, this context is not that

of a community that agrees or disagrees with each individual's rule foIlowing. There is

no problem at all, says Wittgenstein, with imagining "human beings who spoke only in

17

monologue; who accompanied their activities by talking to themselves. - An explorer

who watched them and listened to their taik might succeed in translating their language

into ours."" What would make it possible for a visiting explorer to l e m such a language

is the very thing that is missing when we imagine someone ostensively defining a private

object. When we imagine Ayer's Robinson Cnisoe giving names to public objects on his

island. we imagine more than the mere act of pointing and naming - we see that the

ostensive definition takes place within a practice in which it makes sense. We might

imagine. for exarnple, that fresh water is quite scarce on the island. and that Crusoe must

spend a lot o f time wandering around in search of it. While he is stumbling around in the

bush, he must also take great care not to faIl into one of the island's numerous tar pits.

Accordingly. he might make hirnself a kind of rudimentary map. on which he recorded

where fiesh water holes and tar pits are to be found. In such a case. Crusoe might

ostensively define the symbol for water holes. intending " W" to stand for "this and al1

things like it" when he marks down the position of a water hole on his map. His nature as

a being with certain needs, the details of h is environment. and the manner in which he

keeps himsel f d ive on the island. are not rnerely incidental to an act of connecting the

symbol and its referents. They are. rather. the "stage setting" that any act of naming

presupposes, the context outside of which "this and al1 things like it" could not mean

anything at d l . 6'

Just as the introspective focussing of the would-be pnvate linguist is insufficient

to establish the meaning of an expression, so too would the mere act of pointing in the

" ibid, 5 243. 6' ibid, 257.

48

direction of a water hole be were it not part of Robinson Crusoe's practice of seeking out

water holes. In a practice as important as this. Crusoe c m have no doubt as to when he

has made a mistake in writing d o m " W". because it is clear what wiil qualiQ as a W -

narnely anything containing fluid that will keep him alive. "W"'s use is governed by the

tind of standard of correctness lacked by the expressions of a private language because it

has a purpose which its application can fail or succeed in achieving. The very thing

which makes Crusoe's linguistic practice leamable by others - that if you share Crusoe's

need for water. and c m therefore understand his practice of looking for it. you can see

how the word is used - is what gives the word its meaning for Cnisoe. So while

Crusoe's practice may be a solitary one. it is certainly not private in principle.

One might object. with Simon Blackburn, that while we might grant that a word

can have a meaning only within a practice. there is no reason to think that a practice

could not involve a ptivate obje~t .~ ' And if such a practice is possible. then there is no

problem with the idea of a language refemng to ptivate experiences. We might imagine.

for instance. that C w o e is occasionally over-swept by a wonderhl euphoria. of which

there is no apparent cause and which does not manifest itsel f in any way other than as a

purely subjective, private experience. He might start a diary in order to track the

occurrences of S. so that he can sleep only during those times of day when this euphoria

rare1 y occurs. Of course, he will have no way to check that he has correct1 y identi fied his

mental state every time he writes down "S", and so will have no way to differentiate

between his k i n g right and his thinking that he is so. He is still. however, engaged in a

49

practice with the sign "S" and his private experiences; he has a criterion by which to

individuate the kind of experience he means to denote by 'Y' - it is that state so

wondefil that he hopes to sleep only when it is not going to be present. Should we not.

in this case. say that C m e is using a private ~ a n ~ u a ~ e ? ~ '

Crusoe's practice would probably consist in this: he notices that he feels a certain

way, thinks something like "this is the kind of feeling 1 want to be awake for." and writes

d o ~ n an "S" in his diary. 1s this aprivcztr practice, which no one else could learn? We

might follow Wittgenstein's advice here. and assess the "pnvacy" of this practice by

assurning that the mental events Crusoe "refers to" by "S.. are always radically different

from one another but that Crusoe always takes them for the sarne kind of thing because

of a faulty memory. Thus. the feeling he currently calls an S would actually be as

different a quale from the one he originally baptised as 3" as headaches are fiom the

taste of chocolate. Will this make any difference at al1 to Crusoe's practice. and hence to

the meaning of "S"? Well whatever the nature of his present experience. he will surely

not be mistaken when he judges that this is a Feeling for which he would rather be awake

than asleep. His practice involves only his writing "S" when it strikes hirn that he is

having a good feeling, and while it is possible to infer wrong conclusions from

impressions. impressions themselves are just not the sort of thing one can go wrong

about. The idea that Crusoe could mistakenly write down "S" in this way is as

nonsensical as the thought that 1 might mistakenly let out a cry of agony only to realise

afterwards that 1 was not actually in any pain. But if this is so then it seems that al1 we

62 See, Simon Blackburn. "The Individual Strikes Back", Svnthese, Mr 84. pp. 281 - 302.

50

really need in order to understand the meaning of "S" is Crusoe's practice of telling

himsel f whic h times are better to be awake at than others. Our understanding S as a

particular kind of sensation is based, says Wittgenstein, on "the kind of way this sign is

ernployed in this language-game.'a The meaning of "S" is not tied CO anything hidden

about Ss, and Cnisoe's practice, while solitaty, is no more private and unteachable than

his practice of mapping-out water holes. There would. afier ail. be nothing preventing a

newcorner to Crusoe's island fiom learning the practice of using 3" if he had some

reason to engage in it. If, for instance, he and Crusoe wanted to work out a schedule of

who should keep watch for ships at various times of the night. Crusoe rnight teach him to

use "S" to indicate what waking hours were best for him. Inducted into Cnisoe's

practice. the newcomer too could now be attributed "S-states". The meaning of "S" is

part and parcel of this practice of scheduling sleeping patterns: something is an S just in

case it is the good-to-be-alive feeling worth staying awake for. and the question as to

whether al1 Ss are "really" alike at some more basic. "imer" ievel has no sense unless

there is a fùrther practice in ternis of which we c m speci& the relevant differences.

V. Whatever the virtues of this argument. Knpke might Say. there is nothing about

the notion of a practice that can answer the sceptic's challenge. Wittgenstein's earlier

discussion of rule-following has s h o w that there are an infinite number of ways in

which we could incorporate a word into our practices at every nim. and nothing that

rnakes any one of them more correct than any other. Thus. the problem dogging the

6-1 Wittgenstein, PI, 5 270.

5 1

private linguist - that there is no fact of the matter as to what d e he is following. and

thus no fact about his going right or wrong - a h presents itself ti, a solitary speaker

whose language refers to public objects.

So let u s assume that Bob Crusoe has mistakenly marked "Ur' down on his map

at a place where there is a tar pit and later comes back to the place marked as "W. to a

great disappointment. Kripke's question here is: how does Bob know whether he has

made a mistake in his application of "W'. which should therefore be corrected. or simply

forgotten the rule he was following when he m t e "W" on his map? Has he misused the

word or misunderstood it? The answer to this question. Kripke will Say. comes down to

no more than how Bob is inclined to see his language use at the time - there are no

funher facts to determine what the right answer to this question is. and therefore no fact

of the matter at d l . What is Crusoe to do. then - should he switch "W. for 7"'. or

resolve to remember next time that "W. and "T" mean different things depending on

which part of the map they are on? Both are compatible with the way in which he

baptised water holes as "Ws". and both would prevent his arriving thirsty at this tar-pit

again in the Future. Any number of such possibilities are open to Bob. so it seems that his

being "guided by a rule is more like his perpetually having to rnake decisions about

what rule he has been following. And as there is no objective fact against which to

measure the correctness of such a decision. "whatever is going to seem right is right."

However. if we accept that rule following always takes place within a practice

and cannot properly be made sense of in abstraction fiom that practice. we see this

problem for the chimera that it is. Kripke can only get his sceptical interpretation of

5 2

Wittgenstein moving by making what Gary Ebbs calls an "objectifjing move"; that is. he

takes "an extemal perspective on our own assertions and judgements. treating them as

objects of our investigation into meaning.'** Kripke sees o u everyday talk of rule

following as implicitly working with a particular metaphysical picture of meaning. When

we Say that someone is following a rule, he claims there are hvo things we are talking

about: the set of behaviours we Say is prescribed by the rule (a set of utterances of

"green" in response to green objects. let's say). and the d e . whether it be a mysterious

act of mind. unambiguous algorithm, or whatever, from which ail of the "correct"

instances of this behaviour follow as a consequence. We might Say that. on Kripke's

view. mies are entities quantified over by the folk metaphysics of language. entities to

which the folk take their talk about nile-following to correspond in the same way that

their talk about chairs. when tme. corresponds to chairs. To say that someone is

following a rule, on this view, takes the form of an explanatory hypothesis that can only

be confimed by our discovering some fact about nile-followers which yields the kind of

66 behaviour they take to be correct as its unique consequence. Since such a fact could

not possibly exist, Kripke concludes that the folk philosophy of language must be

severely flawed, and that what the folk mean to say when they claim that someone is

following a mle is false. There is no guidance provided by a use-independent meaning of

"W.. and however Bob feels like interpreting, or modiîjring. his use of that terrn is going

to be the "right" way to do so. Self-correction does not involve a reaiisation on Crusoe's

65 Gary Ebbs, Rule Foilowinn and Realism (Harvard University Press. Cambridge. 1997) p. 63. 66 See, G.P. Baker and P.M.S. Hacker, Scepticism. Rules and Languaee (Basil Blackwell, Oxford. l984), 9 1.

53

part that. given the way things are with his word and the world, this is how he oicghr to

go on.

But this is surely false. Retuming to the mistake we imagine Cmsoe to make

when he misapplies "water-hole" to what is actuaily a ta. pit, let us ask how he ought to

solve his problem. In a sense, Knpke is right when he claims that any number of

interpretations are logically possible -for al1 the mle sceptic could infer from Cnisoe's

behaviour. Crusoe might have intended to refer to everything in the set of cherry trees.

water holes and tar pits found on Tuesday when he coined the tenn "water hole". But

how many of these possibilities are actually likely to present themselves to C m o e as

live options as he stands hot and tired at the lip of a pool of bubbling tar? He knows what

he is trying to do when he uses the sign. "W'. and he knows that some ways of

accornplishing this end are better than others; if he didn't, then his use of " W couidn't

have gotten off the ground in the first place. When Crusoe realises that he has made a

mistake in his use of "Ur' he is, as a k i n g with certain cognitive limitations and

physiological needs, trying to find drinkable water and to ensure that he is able to do so

again in the Future. These facts about C m e are brute - they are not niles he has given

himsel f or things he might "discover" about himsel f. but are the background against

which he does what we cal1 "following a rule" and "making discoveries". Within

Cnisoe's form of life - the rich background of needs. abilities and practices to which

the meaning of "W. is essentially tied - sceptical interpretations of "W.. in the unlikely

event that they would occur to Crusoe at dl, are obviously not in accord with his rule for

labelling water-holes on his map. As a de-follower with certain expectations and meam

of satisfjing hem, Cnisoe can distinguish between ways of applying " W' that are in

accord with his mle and those which will hinder his practice of finding water, or make it

impossible. Sceptical possibilities are of the latter variety. and so do not represent serious

alternatives to Crusoe's a c t d practice of applying "W'.

Crusoe's knowledge of what does and does not count as a W. then. has no need

of justification by reference to some additional rule, any more than our choosing to keep

ourselves alive for as long as it is tolerably cornfortable to do so needs support fiom

reason. At this point, we reach what Wittgenstein refers to as the "beàrock which

underlies our linguistic practices. It is the point at which. as he puts it. "there is a way of

following a rule which is not an interpretation, but which is exhibifed in what we cal1

-obeying a d e ' and 'going against it' in actual ca~es.'"~ Of course. were we diens with

absolutely nothing in common with hurnan beings. we rvould find ourselves in the

position of a Kripkean rule-sceptic, and unable to see what there is in a body of human

linguistic behaviour which dignifies it as meaningfùl. But should it be of any surprise to

us that we can share a language at al1 only because we are not alien to one another to this

extent? Were we to land on Robinson Cnisoe's island, we would be able to see that he

was following a d e in his use of "W' because. as beings who also die if they don't get a

drink of water every now and then, we c m see what he is trying to do and what the best

way to go about doing it is.

1 think it is something Iike this to which McDowell alludes in his "Wittgenstein

on Following a Rule". when he claims that.

-

67 Wittgenstein. PI. 8 201. My italics. 68 John McDowell, "Wittgenstein on Following a Rule", Svnthese, Mr 84, p. 350.

Shared membership in a cornrnunity is not just a matter of matching in

aspects of an exterior that we present to anyone whatever, but equips us

to make our minds available to one another, by confionting one another

with a different extenor fiom that which we present to ~utsiders.~'

McDowrell's enigmatic remarks about our presenting a "different exterior" to each other

from that we present to "outsiderst can be understood in the light of our discussion of the

importance of practices to rule-following. A king who didn't require water for survival

and. for whatever reason. couid not recognise certain of our behaviours as what we cal1

"searching", while it might be able to observe Crusoe's behaviour. would fmd itself in

the same position as a Kripkean sceptic - the data would always underdetermine any

theory it had as to what was going on here.69 A human being. on the other hand. c m

understand Crusoe's practice non-inferentially, because she has the ability to engage in it

- she leams Cnisoe's language as a technique rather than as an object to be explained.

The difference between the two is far fiom trivial. From Kripke's de-sceptical

perspective. whether or not "W. refers to water and strychnine pools will be an open

question until we has observed enough utterances of "W. in response to stimuli of the

69 Though this is admittedly difficult to imagine. We can, with a stretch. Say that even arnoebas "search" for food. Anything so alien that we could not understand it at even this level would probably not qual ie as a living king, and certainly not as anything capable of possessing a language. Still, this connection between our conceiving of hypothetical language users as something like ourselves - as describable with folk psychological concepts, for instance - and our being able to attribute concepts and rules to them is exactly what 1 am trying to bnng out.

56

water and strychnine kinds to be justified in hazarding a guess at the answer. A hurnan

being. however, can tell that Crusoe is looking for water when he stumbles around his

island marking "W" on a piece of paper because water. and maps that lead to it. are

plain1 y what creatures like herse1 f and Crusoe need on desert islands. The possibility that

"W" might refer to anything other than drinking water in this situation is. to a human

onlooker. an absurd. sceptical one.

Another way to put this is to Say that the facts about what rule someone is

following can be made sense o f only fiom what Ebbs calls a *'participant

The fact that we c m o t understand a lanyage fiom the perspective of no one in

particular should not. however. lead us to doubt the objectivity of rules; nor should it

lead us to conclude that the right thing to do in any case is merely whatever we are

inclined to do. One cannot understand Cnisoe's rule unless one shares his form of li fe to

a relevant extent, but this makes it no less of a fact that. if you are engaged in Cmsoe's

practice. some things clearly do and some clearly do not qualiw as water holes.

regardless of what you might think about the matter. Thus. those who can understand the

significance of what Cnisoe does when he applies "W. to water holes, know that

Crusoe's practice is govemed by determinate standards of correctness. whether or not

there is anyone else there to enforce them. Crusoe's island is still there when we no

longer perceive it, and his rule following is similarly robust.

VI. Although Kripke is wrong about what it is. there is an important connection

between Wittgenstein's rule following considerations in the early passages of the

57

Investigations and the private language argument. While the so-called " d e sceptical"

passages of the Investieations do not question the respectability of our comrnon-sense

talk about mle following, they do reject the picture of rule following that makes the idea

of a private language seem unproblematic. The private linguist thinks that an act of self-

given definition is suficient to establish the meaning of a term. such that in focussing

inward and telling myself that this thing and al1 things like it will be called 3". 1 have

succeeded in detemining what subjective States count as Ss. But there is nothing in this

performance, or the mental phenornena accompanying it. that sets any rigid conditions

on the speaker's tiiture behaviour. The act of ostensive definition is compatible with any

nurnber of rules for the application of the sign it defines. and the daim that by 3" you

mean this. no matter how emphatic. does no work in explaining how "S" should be used.

We have seen, however, that, far fiom opting for a "sceptical solution'' to this problem.

Wittgenstein goes on to argue that a rule c m be understood only as part of a practice.

The private language argument is a logical continuation of this line of thought.

i llustrating that private objects. insofar as they are uninvolved in any practice. play no

role in grounding the meanings of our words.

The pnvate language argument and d e following considerations are linked in

another important way : they make the case that the relation between a rule and the

instances of its application. and that between a propositional attitude and its object. is to

be seen as an internui one. Exactly what 1 mean by 'intemal relation' here can best be

explained by contrasting relations of this kind with extemal ones. The picture of rule

following at work in Kripke's sceptical argument portrays the relation between the terms

-

70 See Ebbs, Rule Followine and Realism, pp. 307 - 308, for instance.

58

considered - a d e and its applications. or a meaning and its extension - as one of the

latter kind. The act of applying a rule is seen here as one in which the nile-follower

succeeds in bridging the interpretative gap between two ternis - a rule. whether this be

a dispositional law, Platonic form, or whatever. and a particular that might fa11 under the

extension of that rule. Michael Hymers cites one of Wittgenstein's examples of this kind

of relation in o'lntemal Relations and Analyticity: Wittgenstein and ~uine"." The

relation between a rule and its instances is portrayed by the rule-sceptic as analogous to

that between a jacket and the pants that match it.'* There is nothing for me to see in a

jacket and pare of pants. taken in themselves, that will tell me whether they go well

together. In order to relate these two things in this kind ofjudgement. 1 must first know a

third thing: what are the rules of chic goveming the combination of jackets and pants? In

order to be "guided" by the jacket in my selection of pants. that is. I must have a nile as

to how jackets and pants are to be properly ~ombined. '~ While there is nothing

problematic about seeing our selection of outfits in this way. we run into problems when

we û-y to relate concepts and their extensions externally. If the rule is seen as a

*bsuperlative fact"" of some kind which. unlike a suit jacket. must. by itself. intimate to

us every state of &airs with which it properly corresponds. we end up unable to imagine

what such a fact might be. Every ntle seems to stand in need of some further direction

. - --

7 1 Michael Hymers, "Intemal Relations and Analyticity: Wittgenstein and Quine". Canadian Journal of Philosophv, Decembr '96, pp. 59 1 - 6 12. " Wittgenstein, Philosovhical Grammar (University of Chicago Press. Chicago. 1975)' 5 134. 73 Hymen. " Interna1 Relations", 595. 7 J Wittgenstein, PI, 192

5 9

for its proper interpretation, on this view. and the would-be mle follower receives no

guidance fiom it.

The private language argument suggests an alternative picture of the relation

between a rule and its application. one in which the normative demands of a rule are only

in ternis of the circurnstances surrounding the actua) applications of that rule within a

practice. A child learns how to use the word. 'white'. for instance. by applying it to

paradigm instances of whiteness - as she is taught to do things with snow. bed-sheets

and the language we use in comection with them. Language leamers are gradually

inducted into our practices with the furniture of the world. and their acquisition of a

language is continuous with this process. The chiId is taught by her siblings to roll snow

balls and build a snow fort, and. afier she can demonstrate some ability in these things. is

treated as a usefiil kid to have around during snow bal1 fights - she has acquired an

ability. No one, however, would be tempted to ueat the child's newly acquired ability to

wage war with snow and her successfülly making snow forts and snow balls in particular

cases as metaphysically separate entities. The former does not esplain the latter - it j m

is the latter. What counts as k ing able to build a snow fort is defined with reference to

paradigm cases of building good snow forts, and one l e m s what these paradigm cases

are by being inducted into the practice of having snow bal1 fights. Likewise. we should

Say. for the ability to follow a rule of language. We cannot understand either the ability

to build a snow fort or use the word 'white' in accord with its meaning without

understanding what count as paradigrn displays of fort building or applications of the

word "white". Change the performances that are criterial in our judging a person's

60

cornpetence in a technique, and you have changed the technique we are making

judgements about. This, says Hymers, is the cnterion distinguishing an intemal relation

from an extemal one; 1 cannot grasp one tenn in an internai relation. without

sirnultaneously understanding the ~ t h e r . ' ~ 1 grasp what the mle governing the use of the

word. 'white'. demands when 1 know how to successhlly apply that word within the

practices in which it plays a role. and c m see that some things are clearly instances of

whiteness because 1 have the ability to use the word, 'white'. Change the instances that

count as paradigm applications of the word, 'white'. and you will have changed what

counts as an ability to use that word - you witl have changed the word's meaning.

Though 1 can imagine a jacket remaining the sarne while changes in fashion pare it off

with a nurnber of different styles of trouser. 1 cannot hold my understanding of a word

constant whiIe changing what 1 count as paradigm instances of its use.

Important things follow when Wittgenstein changes the aspect under which we

look at philosophical problems of meaning and mind in this way. In the private language

passages of the Investi~ations, for instance. he argues that I cannot identify my mental

state without. by the same token, knowing what public criteria establish its identity. This

is at the root of Wittgenstein's clairn that the relations of intentional States to their objects

are intemal. The idea that it is a philosopher's task to discover the metaphysical glue

which connects, for instance, a desire and its satisfaction, presupposes that the two are

extemally related to begin with, that there must be some mle or mechanisrn bridging the

gap between mind and world. But the private language argument is a demonstration that

identifications of intentional attitudes are understandable only within o w public practice

7 5 Hymers, "Intemal Relations", 597.

61

of identifying their objects. Knowing what my intentional state is and knowing what is

its object comect in Ianguage. not via some third term in which the satisfaction of desire

consists. Imagine a case. for example. in which you nin into someone at a buffet, who is

ponderously sampling handfils of every dish on the table. If you asked him why he was

behaving so oddly and he responded. "1 have had a mystenous desire for the past three

dais. and am trying to find out what it is for," you would conclude that he did not

understand what "desire" means. It is simply part of the grammar of desire that the facts

about what 1 want are only as determinate as my ability to specim the object of my desire

is precise.

One might object that, though the above exarnple is ridiculous. there are plenty of

less outlandish real-life occasions on which people really don3 know what the objects of

their desires or intentions are. People ofien wonder just what it was they were going to

do today. or quibble about whether the desire they feel is for Thai or Mexican. But the

daim that intentional States are internally reIated to their objects does not entai1 that one

cannot identifi such a state without identifiing its unique object. only that one's desire

or intention is on& as determime as one's ability to distinguish between what will and

will not satise it. 1 may not be quite clear on what it is that 1 want. but if 1 Iight on a

possibility 1 can Say whether it will fit the bill without conducting a test. In support of

this view. we can observe that the less precise a person's ability to tell us what she

desires. the more elaborate is the story we m u t tell ourselves in order to explain the

imprecision. An inabiiity to specify what kind of cuisine one is interested in is a tolerable

degree of undecidedness; not knowing whether you want the person or her beauty is

explained as fogginess of judgement or a lack of self-honesty; and claiming to

desperately want something but king unable to say whether it is power. wealth. peace or

a slice of pizza betokens madness. or. more likely. a complete misunderstanding of the

word. "desire".

The same considerations apply just as readily to the relation between rules and

their application. Just as 1 cannot identiQ this mental state without identifiing its

significance in some practice or another, a public object cannot be identified in

accordance with a rule outside of a practice in which there is something that counts as

success and, thus, sets a standard of correct use- My ability to follow a rule, then. is only

as determinate as the distinction 1 can make between successful and unsuccesshl

applications of it. The reference of "W'. for instance. is only as fixed as the distinction

Crusoe makes between cases of its application to which he would assent and those to

which he would not. Since his ability to follow a rule at al1 is dependent on his k i n g able

to make distinctions of this kind. we cannot make sense of the idea that the rneaning of

his word. "W.. rnight exceed this ability; without the brute facts about what does and

does not satise Crusoe's expectations of Ws. there is nothing to end the Kripkean

regress of interpretations which makes rule-following altogether impossible.

Analogously. one's ability to use and understand a sentence does not exceed one's ability

to distinguish between those States of affairs that make it m e and those that do not. And

one can make such distinctions only fiom within a f o m of life in which they matter. in

which one's dealings with the world and other people necessitate that the tools of

language be used in certain ways rather than others.

From this picture of the relation between the d e s of language and our

applications of them in actual cases. it follows that our concepts of reference and tmth

can be understood only fiom within a form of life which animates the niles according to

which they are fixed. and that the relation obtaining between a sentence and the state of

affairs which makes it true is a philosophically uninteresting, intemal one. These claims

will be important in chapter three. when I consider anti-individualist theories of meaning

inspired by the insight that meaning and thought content are fixed by their objects rather

than by anything "in the head". Before moving on. then. 1 wish to elabonte on what the

denial that tnith is metaphysically problematic arnounts to. and defend this claim against

some serious objections levelled against txuth-deflationism by Paul Boghossian.

My denial that there is anythng philosophically interesting to be said about tmth

takes the same form as my denial that the relation between a d e and its applications is

extemal. and is closely related to it. That is. I am taking issue with the view that truth is a

philosophicalty problematic. extemal relation of correspondence behÿeen ekrnents of

language and language-independent states of &airs (or. if "states of aRairs" are

metaphysically offensive, objects). Some correspondence theorists see the philosophical

"problem" of tntth as that of discovering what sort of relation obtains between the

meanings of our tems and elements of the world when a sentence is tme. Not every use

of a term succeeds; a child who uses the word 'dog' on his first encounter with a pig has

said something false, something not in accord with the meaning of that word. The

philosopher's task, in the correspondence theorist's view, is to give an account of the

relation that obtains between the sense of a sentence or proposition and the states of

64

affairs to which it properly applies, thus making clear what we are talking about when

we distinguish between tme and false, and the correct and incorrect use of concepts.

This approach to tmth portrays the relation between a rule of language and its

correct applications in the same way as Knpke's sceptic does. It is thought a mystery

how a meaning (whether this is an abstract object. mental state. or disposition) can

determine exactly which worldly States of affairs will render certain uses of language

m e . The correspondence theorist holds that if we wmt to bear out our intuition that it is

an objective matter of fact whether any given use of language is successful. we must give

some account of what this relation of fit consists in. As we have seen. however. this

approach to rule following creates more mysteries than it solves.

As an alternative to this dead-end. 1 have argued that my grasp of a rule jusf is

my grasp of how to use a word successfully in particular cases. Learning the meaning of

a word involves learning what instances of its use are uncontroversially tme. 1 do not

understand the rneaning of 'white' unless 1 c m see that "Snow is white". dong with

similarly paradigrnatic applications of that word, is true. There is no "philosophicd

problem" here of how the meaning of 'white' and the worldly property of whiteness that

satisfies it are related. My learning the meaning of 'white' is the same process in which,

on sunny days when surrounded by fiesh snow. 1 l e m that snow is white. and if 1 did not

assent to the tmth of "Snow is white,'' 1 would not be a comptent user of the word,

'white'.

But "true" is just another word in this respect. 1 learn how to use it in learning to

apply other words, like "quark". '-white" and %catch" in our linguistic practices with

65

quarks. white things and bottles of scotch. There is no conceptually isolating the meaning

of "me" from these practices, any more than there is with words like "white". L e a ~ n g

the meaning of a tenn and leaming how to apply it to uncontroversial elements of its

extension are not different processes, and this is just to say that learning the meanings of

the words in a domain of discourse and learning how to determine whether sentences in

that domain are pue are intemally related. Certainly. "true" is an important and

fiindamental concept. integral to our acquisition and use of many. if not all, other

concepts. For al1 that, however, it is still just another instrument of language. which can

be as little understood in abstraction from the actuai practices in which it is used as any

other. Investigating the nature of truth and reference only seems like and important

research program if we are first convinced that truth and reference are must serve as the

mediating rertium qrrid between the realm of concepts and that of mid-sized dry goods. 1

have argued in this chapter that we should not be so convinced.

VII. In "The Status of ~on ten t . " ' ~ Paul Boghossian offers some powerfùl

arguments against non-robust (or internal) accounts of truth. Such accounts. he daims.

are. a) unable to draw important distinctions between the truth conditions of sentences

in different domôins of discourse (e-g. between physics and Folk Psychology) and. b)

actually rely on a robust conception of truth and reference when they are formulated.

and are therefore unstable.

76 Paul Boghossian, "The Status of Content" in Philosoohical Review, No. 99. pp. 157 - 184.

66

One of deflationism's main supposed attractions, says Boghossian. is that it

allows us to treat domains of discourse like Folk Psychology as truth-conditional without

having to posit extra-linguistic, unobservable (private) truth makers which are not

reducible to physics. "[I]rrealists about [mental] content" he says. "tend to be realists

about physics. and. indeed the former because the ~atter."~' The deflationist wants to

hold that the real fùrniture of the world will be described by a mature physics without

having to say that al1 Folk Psychological and semantical statements not reducible to

physics are false. ~eflationism'~ appears to allow us to separate questions of ontology

- - - - -

77 Boghossian. "Content", 178. 7 8 1 have seen the term, "deflationism," used in two senses. It is sometimes used to refer to the idea that "true" is a mere device for semantic ascent that adds no content to the sentence to which it is ascribed. To Say that "Snow is white" is true. on this view. is to say no more than that snow is white. Those who hold this theory Say that once we have described the structure of a language disquotationally (as an axiornatized set of T-sentences of the form. "'S' is true ~#p"). we have said everything there is to say about truth. t do not wish to advance so strong a claim here. Though 1 sympathize with the disquotationalists' claim that a truth-theory for a language. L. holds no place for metaphysical speculation about how language and world connect via the truth-relation, it seems that the signifigance of the truth- predicate to Our linguistic practices must outstrip the emaciated rote it plays in disquotational tnith-theories. Understanding a language is largely a matter of knowing how to go about assessing the truth of sentences expressed in it. The problem is that. while truth-as-disquotation can be used to charactense the place of the truth-predicate within a language, it cannot capture our application of "true" in various domains of discourse. A disquotational account will tell me. for instance, that "Snow is white" is true tflsnow is white and that "Charlie believes x" is true ~HCharlie believes x. but cannot tell me how to go about determining when the right sides of these biconditionals obtain, or demonstrate the philosophically interesting ways in which our verification practices with these two sentences will differ. it seems that there is more to be said about truth than simple disquotation. The second, broader sense of "deflationism" re fers to the weaker claim that, whatever we should Say about truth. the logical realist conception of it as a robust, metaphysical relation must be wrong. This position is fully compatible with my remarks about truth-as-disquotation above. and is the one 1 intend to express when 1 use the term, "deflationism." in this essay. For an excellent discussion of various brands of deflationism. see Donald Davidson's.

67

fiom those of semantics in just this way. While "tmth" and "reference" apply usefully to

the sentences and expressions with which we talk about the quarks, aeroplanes and

beaches that inhabit the world. they are. themselves. metaphysically uninteresting

concepts about which there is no more to say than can be expressed as "Y is true [fis".

Any sentence is mithconditional. then, if it is well formed and dec~arative.'~ Thus. the

deflationist seems to have provided for the truth-conditiondity of Folk PsychologicaI

content ascriptions without having to allow the Imguage-independent existence of senses

and irreducible mental States. Once tmth is conceived as a mere device for semantic

ascent. rather than a robust relation between elements of language and the things which

make them tme. saying that an area of discourse is truth-conditional does not commit

one to the existence of extra-linguistic truth-makers of any kind. This is the kind of move

80 that Stephen Schiffer makes in Remnants of Meaning . when he describes himsel f as an

"ontological physicalist", accepting physics as the only metaphysics. and a "sentential

dualist". holding that the truth conditionality of Folk PsychoIogical sentences does not

consist in any kind of relation between those sentences and extra-linguistic entities."

The problem with this tactic, says Boghossian, is that. since Schiffer denies that

truth is a relation between sentences and the extra-linguistic entities to which they

correspond, he cannot draw any interesting distinction between the truths of physics and

those of Folk Psychological content-ascnption. At least, there is nothinç in a deflationist

position that will g m d the claim that physicai entities are "more real" than semantic

"The Folly of Trying to Define Truth", in The Journal of Philosophv, 93, pp. 263 - 278. 79 Boghossian, "Content," 164. ' O Stephen Schiffer, Remnants of Meaning (MIT press, Cambridge. 1987).

68

and psychological ones. If one claims, with the ontologicai physicalist, that there are

estra-linguistic physical properties but no psychological or semantic ones. then mth and

reference as they apply to the sentences of physics must be robust. and Folk

Psychological sentences will fail to have real truth-values. On the other hand. if one

decides. with the deflationist. that there is nothing to be said about "truth". and thus no

interesting distinction to be drawn between physics-truth and Folk Psychology-tmth. it

rnakes no sense to say that only miths of physics correspond to the world as it "reaily

isVag2 Since the deflationist cannot talk about "truth maken", talk of whether or not

certain areas of discourse are made true "by us" or "by the world" is. by his own

standards, nonsense.

We need not look far ahead, Boghossian claims. to see that the sarne kind of

problem lies at the very foundation of deflationism. For what the truth-deflationist wants

to say is something like, "'tme' does not refer to a property." As soon as he does so.

however. the deflationist is faced with the same difficulty he had in trying to distinguish

the ontological s ta tu of physical properties fiom that of psychological ones. If the

sentence expressing the deflationist's position is tme. then it must be so because there is

no extra-linguistic relation of tnith to which 'me' refers. But if rhis is why we hold the

sentence. "'tme' refers to an extra linguistic property," to be false. we must be working

with a robust conception of tmth, and have therefore contradicted ourselves. If. on the

other hand. we stick with our daim that any sentence has a truth condition if it is well

formed and declarative. and that any expression refen if it is meaningful, then we must

'' ibid, pp. 143 - 145, 156- 166. 82 Boghossian. ''Content," 180.

69

acknowledge that "me" refers to a property every bit as robust as gravity. The

deflationist cannot consistently apply his principle without seeing that his position. when

made explicit. is falses3 This, recall is the objection Boghossian levels against Kripke's

global non-factualism. considered in chapter one. 1s it effective against deflationism?

I have adopted just the two positions that Boghossian argues are incoherent. I

have. that is, endorsed Wittgenstein's claim that it is folly to think of 'belief'. 'desire'. or

'rule' as referring to objects in the sarne way that 'quark' and 'table' do. Save that Folk

Psychological objects are "private" objects known only by the subject of a propositional

attitude. 1 also claimed that we cannot properly make sense of truth and reference as

extemal relations obtaining between the sense of an expression. as an instruction grasped

by the mind. and the language independent objects or States of flairs answering to that

sense. The position 1 have taken in this essay. then, qualifies as the kind of deflationist

position Boghossian targets. described by him as the denial that "'refers to a property'

espresses some sort of objective relation that may obtain between predicates and

language-independent properties, a relation of the sort that causal theories of predicate

reference may be understood to be attempting to el~cidate. ' .~~

1 am not. however. convinced that anything held dear by people who make this

deflationary daim is threatened by Boghossian's argument. He has shown that

deflationism cannot be formulated as an explicit denial that truths, reference relations.

and beliefs stand alongside stars and protons as things to which we c m refer. But the

deflationist does not. or at least should not, feel any urge or need to do this anyway.

83 ibid. 181. *.' ibid. 166.

70

Deflationism places a ban on discussions about what kind of thing truth might be. on

theories about what kind of relation (whether rnetaphysical or physical) between pieces

of language and pieces of the world must obtain when something true is said. The

deflationist's reason for doing this is not that it is an empirical fact that truth is not such a

relation. a fact which might, had things tumed out differently. have been otherwise. but

that we cannot even make sense of what we are saying when we try to talk about tmth

and reference in this way. Wittgenstein's rule-following considerations. and the puzzle

that Kripke draws out of them. are illustrations of the confision into which such attempts

to talk about truth and reference as external relations lead SO the deflationist holds

that the concept of truth is not arnenable to M e r definition in terms of more

fkndamental concepts. since it is a precondition of our having concepts at dl; we cannot.

that is. understand how to use a concept without taking tmth and reference for granted. It

just is the essence of k i n g able to employ a concept that one can distinguish between

successfiil and unsuccessfùl applications of it. But this claim does not. on its own. entail

that we cannot draw any kind of interesting distinctions between different regions of

discourse. or even that we cannot draw important ontological lessons from these

distinctions.

85 Causal theories of reference, of the kind pursued by Hartry Field (See, for instance. his "Tarski's Theory of T ~ t h " , in The Journal of Philoso~hy, 69. pp. 347 - 375) Iead, in their own way. to similar problems; that is, they are unable to establish a necessary relation between the sense o f sentences, conceived dong the lines of a physicalist reduction, and the tnith of those sentences. 1 do not have the space to do justice to the issue here, but for an excellent discussion of causal theories of reference and truth see Schiffer's Remnants of Meaninq, pp. 93 - 106.

7 1

There are, for instance. no witches, if 'witch' is conceived as meaning something

like "broom riding old hag with supernaturd powers." and so we can say that any

sentence like. "she's a real witch" is, on this interpretation of 'witch'. false. One cannot.

outside of new-age circles. rant about old ladies with powers over the elements without

being deemed crazy. Boghossian claims that when we are presented with a case Like this

- one in which we conclude that "nothing possesses (or, perhaps, could possess) the

sorts of property denoted by the characteristic predicates of [a fiagrnent of discourse]

Fn86 - we have two options. We can adopt an error conception of this realm of

discourse. holding that nothing answers to its predicates and that it is therefore uniformly

false or. perhaps. has a purely instrumental function. Or. altematively. we cm be non-

factualists about the area of language in question. claiming that it is not really meant to

express States of affairs (as expressivists have done with ethical and aesthetic

statements). However. Boghossian claims, since. "expressing a possible state of affairs"

consists in no more. on a deflationist account than k ing a well-forrned sentence ripe for

semantic ascent. the non-factualist option is not open to deflationists. Our oniy options.

then. are either to claim that al1 sentences in which reference is made to 'truth'. 'belief.

and the like. are false. which is absurd, or to conclude that these expressions do refer to

real properties into the nature of which it makes sense to enquire."

Boghossian is right that we cannot claim that 'tnith' and 'belief are not refemng

tems if reference is conceived trÏvially. and that we are therefore barred fiom claiming

that truths and beliefs do not exist. We cannot, as Boghossian's objection to Kripke

86 Boghossian, "Content." 159. *' ibid. 1 83.

72

shows. Say that the robust-truth theorist's claim that truth is an extra-linguistic relation

between language and world is false. For. in order to procIaim a sentence fdse, we m u t

first acknowledge that it is meaningful. And, as we saw when we discussed Kripke's

non-fachialism in chapter one. if one claims to understand "truth is a robust, extra-

linguistic relation" as the logicd redist does. one's denial of that sentence must possess

the very robust truth conditions he is trying to deny the existence of'.

However. it is not clear that the deflationist cannot distinguish between seemingly

well-formed sentences which succeed in expressing truth conditions and those which do

not. Kripke's rule-sceptical argument and Wittgenstein's private language argument can

be seen as doing just this. We examine a candidate theory of what the sentences of a

domain of discourse mean (for instance. the claim that when 1 say. "1 believe x." 1 am

referring to an introspectable. private experience). and it is found that, on that

interpretation. we cannot understand what would make sentences in that domain tnie or

false. What wouid it be like for our self-ascriptions of propositional attitudes to Function

as the private linguist says they do? In trying to figure this out. we find that we cannot

even envision what would have to obtain for the private-language hypothesis to be true.

As we have seen. it is not just that when we examine the private linguist's "theory" we

find that it expresses a possible state of f l a i r s that happens not to be the case. but that

the term, "private object". as the private linguist uses i t fails to mean anything. The

private linguist's tdk of "pnvate objects" has no comection with any of our actuai

practices of talking about OUT own and other people% minds. The criteria by which we

individuate mental states have their places in public practices, and when the pnvate

73

linguist tells us that private objects are, by definition, not comected to such practices. we

are lefi with no idea of how such a concept is to be used. The same thing occurs in

Kripke's discussion of logical realism. We are told that our k i n g able to follow mies

consists in our grasping meanings. and that truth is an extemd relation obtaining

between these meanings and the world. However. when we examine this "explanation"

fùrther. in order to see exactly how it is to give us a more perspicuous view of our

linguistic practices, we fmd that things have k e n made no clearer. and that "tnith" and

"meaning" are doing no work in the picture that has k e n given us.

In neither case, then, do we dismiss the rejected picture o f lan mage as a fdse

theory (for how c m we say a theory is false if we can't imagine what would make it

me?). but, rather, Say that the conclusions some philosophers want to draw from the

trivial claims that ' belief refers to beliefs and 'tnith' refers to tniths fail to express a

deterrninate sense.

The deflationist does not. then, rely on a robust notion of reference and truth in

order to establish his position. and need not clairn that '"truth' refers to a property-' is

false because 'tnith' fails to refer to some extra-tinguistic property. The would-be private

linguist says that statements about his own and other minds are m e by virtue of their

corresponding to private experiences. and the private language argument is an anempt to

ilIustrate that we cannot make sense of how a language like this would Say anyrhing. If

we find Wittgenstein's argument compelling, we have no choice but to reinterpret our

statements about people's beliefs, desires. etc., in such a way that they do not fail to tell

us anything at all. Likewise, Kripke's paradox should be taken to show that if we

74

conceive of the meanings we amibe to other people's words dong logical realist lines.

we cannot understand what makes sentences like "he is followïng the d e for addition"

tme. In neither case are we told that the expressions about which we are confiised fail to

refer - it is a trivial consequence of the fact that they are meaningfûl expressions that

they do refer - just that they cannot refer to the introspectable mental States or Piatonic

entities posited by would-be private Iinguists and logical realists like Boghossian. The

method here is that of looking at how an area of discourse is a c d l y used. at how

comptent speakers manage to refer and say true things using these words. and then

eliminating the confùsed interpretations given to these activities by some philosophers.

"Truth" need not be used non-disquotationally at any stage of this therapeutic process.

This is the central insight behind deflationism - there is nothing metaphysicaily

important about k i n g referred to, nothing in the fact that we quanti@ over "tniths" and

"beliefs" that would justi@ Boghossian's daim that the property referred to by "truth"

must be a "robust". "extemal" one about which we c m Say something metaphysically or

scientifically interesting. Boghossian is right that the deflationist cannot draw any

interesting differences between kindr of reference relations. since there is nothing

interesting to be said about the reference relation on the deflationist's account to begin

with. It is therefore tme that we cannot coherentl y formulate the denial that " truth" refers

to a property. The correct response of any deflationist to someone expressing

Boghossian's offered formulation of his position should be one of puulement - the

formulation is, as Boghossian has shown. nonsensical. But, surely. the fact that the study

of "reference" has no interesting metaphysical lessons to teach us - that the deflationist

75

cannot draw any interesting lines in the ontological sand using this concept - does nor

entai1 that al1 o f the things we refer to are of the exact sarne kind. Chain and quarks are

different kinds of things from tmths and beliefs. and we can explain how they are

different by examining how we determine whether or not things said about them are true;

to understand what kind of thing a concept refers to we examine how that concept is

used. There are truths expressed using the concepts, "tnith". "chair" and "anti-matter".

and so truths. chairs and anti-matter are dl things. Al1 the deflationist holds who denies

that cognitive science has anythng interesting to tell us about beliefs and that there is

anything for metaphysics to uncover about truth is that such attempts at explanation

misunderstand how these concepts are used. This has nothing to do with denying that

"truth" refers to a property. whatever that might mean.

t y 8 8 In - ' M a t is a Theory of Meaning. , Michael Dummett complains that any

theory which takes truth for granted and then proceeds to give a truth-conditional

explanation of linguistic cornpetence leaves nothing expiained. Says Dummett.

if we want to maintain that what we leam. as we learn the language. is.

primarily. what it is for each of the sentences that we understand to be

me, then we must be able, for any given sentence, to give an account of

what it is to know this which does not depend u p n a presurned pnor

88 Michael Dummett, "What is a Theory of Meaning (II)?', in Gareth Evans et al eds. Truth and Meaning (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1976) pp. 67 - 137.

understanding of the sentence; otherwise our theory of meaning is

circular and explains nothing."

*

1 have suggested that truth and the idea of following a rule can both be made

sense of as interrelated features of linguistic practices. You can understand what rnakes

any particular use of language successfbl only if you understand the objectives it is

meant to achieve, if what you do with language matters. Some uses of a symbo1. such as

Crusoe's "W". clearly make more sense than others because the background against

which we can make a distinction between successfd and unsuccessfùl applications of

.-W. is already there in our dependence on water and the means Cnisoe has of finding it.

Language is meaningful because it is one. inextricable element of meaningfùl behaviour

- the holding of needs, desires and beliefs by language users in relation to feanires of the

physical world by which those needs. desires and beliefs are individuated. This is an

unexciting observation. but. perhaps because it is so banal. it is just the thing that the

logicai realist ignores when he asks for an "explanation" of the necessary and suficient

conditions for a sentence's truth. Conceiving of senses as abstract objects. Iogical real ism

treats the relation between rules and their proper application as one that obtains

regardless of how the rules are acrually applied. thereby dropping the form of life which

gives the d e s their normative force out of the picture entirely. To say that truth and

reference can be made sense of only within a practice is simply to acknowledge that this

move cannot be made. There really is no need to offer an account of what it is to know

7 7

that a sentence is true over and above knowing how to use that sentence successtùlly

within a practice. Deflationism seerns circular only if we share the logical realist's belief

that "tmth" is a concept in terms of which we must expiain what makes certain uses of a

sentence successfùl within a practice. rather than something to be understood in terms of

this success- Saying true things and referring to objects are part of an ability to use

language successfùlly in dealings with the physical world. not independently obtaining

word-world relations in virtue of which language use is successfbl . This does not mean

that we cannot speak of "truth" and -referenceV as relations in which expressions of a

language stand to the things which satisQ them - if, for instance, I am explaining to

someone the meaning of "Snow is white" 1 will point to the state of affairs. snow's k i n g

white. which makes it true. Al1 this deflated picture of rule-following denies is that the

meaning of a term can be discussed in abstraction fiom how it is actually applied to

objects and that the objects of the physical world can be conceived o f without falling

under the extension of some rule-govemed tem.

So while the deflationist c m gan t Paul Boghossian that truth and reference are

indeed relations. he holds that they are reIations presupposed by our ability to speak

about an-ything, inciuding the relation between language and reality. We need not. then.

accept Dummett's assumption that a theoty of truth is needed in order to explain how Our

understanding of "truth" brings words and the world together. Any philosophicai attempt

to arrive at a constitutive account of tnith, rather than a purely descriptive account of

how the word 'hue' is used in the various practices which sustain a language. must treat

the ability to speak about objects as ilsevan object. But in trying to examine the

78

workings of language fiom outside our actual practices of saying anything, as a relation

between concepts and an undescribed world. the logical realist finds that nothing is

explained. The senses posited as explanatory entities are dead, as likely to mean one

thing as any other, and our ability to say anything remains as much a mystery as ever -

even. if we follow Kripke. impossible. Abandonhg this dead end. the deflationist takes

the fact that we can and do say very many true things by refemng to objects with words

as his first philosophy . This. of course. means that "truth" and "reference" are not.

themselves. arnenable to any account which runs deeper than descriptions of how they

are actually used. and that the deflationist can only raise his hands when someone asks

for a theory of truth. This is not, however, a denial of any possible state of affairs. or the

sweeping of a tough philosophical problem under the mg; it is simply a refusa1 to Say

anything that. as any Kripkenstinian sceptic will tell you, says nothing.

Chapter Three: Anti-Individualism and Lineuistic Communitv

1. In chapter two. 1 observed that the picture of propositional attitude ascription

and self-knowledge suggested by Wittgenstein's private language argument is an

externalist (or anti-individualist) one. I would like to spend the rest of this essay getting

clear on exactly what anti-individualist doctrines 1 am comrnitted to. Because 1 endorse

deflationism about tmth and reference. 1 take issue with some of the most radical claims

made by anti-individualists such as Tyler Burge and Hilary Putnarn. I will also look at

Gary Ebbs's recent effort to offer a deflationist account of anti-individualism and show

why he does not take his deflation quite far enough.

In his 1973, "Meaning and ~eference. ' '~ Putnam sketches an extemalist

alternative to the kind of logical realist account of reference fixing 1 exarnined in chapter

one. described by him as the idea that.

the concept corresponding to a tenn provided (in the ideal case. where

the term had "complete meaning") a criterion for belonging to the

extension (not just in the sense of "necessary and sufficient condition."

but in the strong sense of way of recognizing whether a given thing

falls into the extension or n ~ t ) . ~ '

90 Hilary Putnam, *'Meaning and Reference," in A. P. Martinich, ed The Philosophv of Lanauaee (New York, Oxford University Press, 1990) pp. 308 - 3 15. 9' ibid, 284. 9' ibid. 285.

80

In itself. the claim that possessing a concept involves having criteria by which one

recognises whether a pariicular fdls under the extension of that concept is. I have argued.

unproblernatic. It is only when the logical realist makes his objectifj4ng move and looks

for the "semantic facts" which language usen must interpret correctly in using a concept

that problems occur. 1 take Putnarn to be arguing against the form of logical realism

entertained by the private linguist. examined in chapter two - that meaning consists in

the mind's grasp of a concept which determines a word's h l1 extension.

Putnam's argument against the idea that meanings are "in the head" is his

famous twin Earth thought expriment. We are asked to imagine two parallel worlds.

Earth and twin-Earth, identical in every respect. Save that on Earth the chemical

structure of water is H 2 0 and on t-Earth it is XYZ. Aside from this difference in

microstructure water and t-water are indistinguishable. sharing the same macro-

properties at ordinary pressures and temperatures. and are called "water" by

Earthlings and t-Earthlings respectively. Since water and t-water are identical in their

macro-properties. Earthling explorers having a conversation with t-Earthlinps would

initially assume that 'water' has the same meaning on t-Earth as on Earth. until. that

is. the ship's scientist discovered that t-water differed from water in its chemical

structure. At this point. says Putnam. a reinterpretation of what "water" means on t-

Earth would be in order. and the Eanhian space ship would report to home base that

"on Twin Earth the word -water9 means X Y Z . " ~ ~ This is just the kind of thing we do

every day in interpreting the content of each other's thought and meaning: if you want

to find out what someone means by 'water'. look at the method by which she

8 1

determines what things are properly called by that narne. and figure out what kind of

importance those things have in her practices. T-Earthians' practices with t-Water are

quite similar to our own, Save for the fact that the criterion by which their chemists

identiG something as 'water' is that it has the chemical structure, XYZ. Given the

centrality of this scientific practice to the t-Earthian use of 'water' it only makes sense

for our Earthian explorers to translate the t-Earthian word. 'water', into our language

as refenlng to a substance similar to water. but with the chemical structure. XYZ.

Putnam's next step is to consider how the meaning of "water" in English

would have compared to that in t-Earthian in the year 1750, before the advent of

chemistry on either worid. Both worlds are still taken to be identical in every respect

Save for the microstnictural differences between water and t-water. right down to the

psychological and phenomenological histories of two of their inhabitants, Oscar and t-

Oscar. There is no sensory experience Oscar has had in his dealings with water that t-

Oscar has not had courtesy of t-water, and al1 and only the beliefs Oscar holds about

water are held by t-Oscar about t-water. The entire history of Oscar's use of the word

"water". then. is identical in every respect to t-Oscar's; the criteria by which each

determines whether something answers to the name -'water" are exactly the ones used

by his doppelganger in that regard. Nonetheless. says Putnarn.

the extension of the terni 'water' was just as much H20 on Earth in

1750 as in 1950: and the extension of the term 'water was just as much

XYZ on Twin Earth in 1750 as in 1950. Oscar1 and Oscar2 understood

the term 'water' differently in 1750 afthough they were in the same

psycholagical stute, and although, given the state of science at the time,

it would have taken their scientific cornmunities about fifty years to

discover that they understood the term 'water' different~~.~)

One might ask. if one's intuitions are not Putnam0s. what good reason Putnarn

has for saying so; if the chemical structure of the world has no effect on Oscar and t-

Oscar's conscious experiences of leaming. understanding and using 'water. it will

surely not. for this reason. participate in the meaning of that word. The view against

which Putnarn is arguing sees ostensive definition as a mental act, which establishes a

concept by picking out a particuiar as a type of thing by virtue of the '-content" of the

thoughts one directs toward that particular in using it to define a concept. Thus. the

relation between the meaning of a concept and the objects which fa11 under its

extension is thought of as one between an intensional act, or state of the mind. and

whatever objects happen to answer to it. however this relation of "fit'- between sense

and reference is to be cashed out. This. recall. is essentially the kind of view

motivating Ayer's objection to the private language argument. and anyone who finds

it compelling is Iikely to strongly object to the conclusion Putnarn arrives at in his

thought-experiment as well. If the contents of Oscar and t-Oscar's rninds are identical

in every respect, then the sense 'water' has in both of their mouths must. on this view.

determine exactly the sarne extension in each case.

93 ibid. 286.

However. if we pay attention to the nature of ostensive definition. says

Putnam. we will see that this kind of thinking is misguided. An ostensive definition

does involve relating one particular to a host o f others. but not by any magical act of

mind. Rather. an act of ostensive definition should be analyzed as. "this and al1 things

like it are to be called x". where what actually qualifies as an x is a theoretical

question: "whether something is or is not the same liquid as this." says Putnam. "rnay

take an indeteminate amount of scientific investigation to deter~nine."~~ The content

of the "this and al1 things like it" clause in an ostensive definition is something on

which we constantly elaborate in Our investigations of how the world of objects

referred to by our words actually works. In 1750, we knew that the stuff picked o u t by

Our word. 'water'. is good to drink and sail on, and these true beliefs informed our use

of that word. Now. we also know that the stuff w e cal1 'water' has the chernical

structure. H 2 0 - another true belief about water which infonns our use of the word

referring to it. The traditional distinction between what a word means and what it

refers to is. on Putnam's view. not bom out by Our actual practice of figuring out how

the world works. Nor, of course. is the belief that the contents of Our minds sornehow

determine what things in the world answer to the words we use. We routinely discover

new facts about the world. which set new limits o n how we can use our words to Say

true things. These facts are not "conceptual", dwelling in a realm of conscious

thought. but ernpirical ones about how the objects with reference to which we define

our words are constituted. On this view. Putnam's twin-Earth experiment is not

94 ibid. 287.

84

counter-intuitive at ail. Earthlings were refemng to the same stuff by 'water' in 1750

as they are now: they just didn't know an important fact about that stuff that

distinguishes it from the XYZ referred to by twin-Earthlings as 'water'.

In 1750 or in ! 850 or in 1950 one might have pointed to. Say. the liquid

in Lake Michigan as an example of "water." What changed was that in

1750 we would have mistakenly thought that XYZ bore the relation

sameL [same liquid] to the liquid in Lake Michigan. whereas in 1800

or 1850 we would have known that it did n ~ t . ~ ~

The reference relation between a word and naturat kind is established in an

initial baptism in which the person giving the ostensive definition and the natural kind

being named are directly related. Thus, when Benjamin Franklin defined 'electricity'.

the incomplete and partiatly inaccurate description by which he did so was one of

electricity because it was thar phenornenon with which he was interacting in giving

the definition. Once this relation between a word and the thing it designates is set up.

however. the natural kind in question need not figure directly in anyone's use or

understanding of the term refemng to it. Our interactions with others in Our linguistic

community is suficient to connect us to the event which originalIy introduced the

word into our communal vocabulary, and thereby to the natural kind referred to, even

if we have not, ourselves, have had any direct contact with il. For example, says

Putnam. "if 1 teach the word ['electricity'] to someone else by telling him that the

85

word 'electrïcity' is the name of a physical magnitude, and by telling him certain facts

about it which do not constitute a causal description .. . - even if the facts 1 tell him

do not constitute a definite description of any kind, let alone a causal description -

still, the word's k i n g in his vocabulary will be causally linked to its k i n g in my

vocabulary. and hence. ultimately, to an introducing e ~ e n t . " ~ ~

It is fiom this anti-individudistic picture of how our words acquire meaning

that Putnam arrives at the thesis of the "division of linguistic labor." 97 The words in

each of our vocabularies, barring unusual exceptions, are not of our own making.

Rather. we inherit them, and the causal relations they bear to the world. From the

linguistic community in which we deveiop into cornpetent speakers. One need not

stand in an immediate causal relation to the substances one taiks about to have the

meanings of one's words fixed by the "same-substance'' relation. For example. not

everyone in a linguistic community will be able to tell. as a chemist could. the

difference between gold and other elements. They may. in fact. never have seen real

gold before in their Iives. or have had its physical qualities described to them in detail.

Nonetheless. since they know that gold is a more valuable commodity than most.

these people will have considerable interest in referring to only one element by the

word "gold", narnely to whatever it is that chemists say is gold. ïhus. laymen are

implicitly committed to communal standards of which they may be only dimly aware

in their everyday use of natural kind terms. Not only are meanings not in the head.

then; by virtue of the division of linguistic labor, they are not even to be found in the

95 ibid. 286. 96 Quoted in Ebbs, Rule Following, 194.

86

direct interactions of individuals with their environment. The conditions which tix the

meanings of the average speaker's words transcend him twice over - the content of

what he says is ofien parasitic on the linguistic practices of those who possess

knowledge which he does not, and the full nature of those features of the world

figuring in experts' practices may remain indefinitely beyond even their grasp.

The same kinds of considerations underpin Tyler Burge's anti-individualist

characterizations of our linguistic practices.9g He holds. for instance. that the

meanings of natural kind terms, and therefore the accuracy of the practices in which

communities establish noms for their use. are fixed by something like Putnarn's

'same substance' relation. It is in our dealings with the external world that we

introduce words into language, and the meanings of those words are tied to those

features of the world figunng in these introductions. even if the tme nature of those

features escapes us. Says Burge,

To think of something as water, for exarnple, one must be in some

[direct or indirect] causal relation to water. In the normal cases. one

97 Putnam, "Meaning and Reference," 287. 98 1 am aware that some of Bwge's views differ in important ways from Putnam's: Burge seems much more friendly, for instance, to talk about meanings as senses grasped by the mind (see, for instance, Gary Ebbs's discussion of Burge's "Intellectual Noms and Foundations of Mind" in Rule following and Realism, pp. 244 - 245). He also speaks of the contents of intentional States k i n g fixed externally. while Putnam does not. In this essay, however. 1 am interested only in his views on the contribution of the physical and social environrnents to meaning and the semantic features of propositional attitudes. As far as 1 c m tell, his views are similar to Putnam's in this regard.

sees and touches water. . . . To know that such conditions obtain. one

must rely on empirical methods. To know that water exists. or that

what one is touching is water, one cannot circumvent empirical

procedures. But to think that water is a liquid, one need not know the

complex conditions that must obtain if one is to think that thought.

Such conditions need only be p r e s ~ ~ ~ o s e d . ~

Burge's thinking here runs parallel to Putnam's in "Meaning and Reference"; one's

words are defined and used in relation to a world that transcends one's knowledge of

it. and so one is in the position of continually finding out how the meanings of one's

terrns are fixed.

Something very much like Putnam's division of linguistic labor is at work in

Burge's anti-individualism as well. If. for instance. I tell a doctor that i have arthritis

in my thigh. falsely believing that arthritis is an inflarnmatory disease of the muscles

and joints. I will be told that "arthritis" does not refer to inflammations of the muscles.

and that my belief could not possibly be true. In such cases. 1 do not complain that the

doctor has misinterpreted what 1 mean by "arthritis", and explain that 1 mean to refer

to all inflarnmatory conditions by that word. Rather, 1 will conclude that I had a false

belief about the condition that the English word "arthritis" refers to, narnely that it is

99 Tyler Burge, "Individualism and Self-Knowtedge," in Peter Ludlow and Norah Martin, eds. Externalism and Self-Knowledge, (CSLI Publications, Stanford. 1998), p. 116.

8 8

possible to have it in one's thigh, and will defer to the expert on this point.'00 Burge

agrees with Putnam, then, that achieving linguistic cornpetence involves learning to

whorn one ought to defer about the truth of beliefs expressed with certain words. The

meanings of the words one uses to express one's thoughts. on Burge's view. are not

necessarily linked to one's understanding of those words. or to the beliefs one holds

about the things they refer to. In the arthritis thought experiment outlined above. for

instance, my utterance. "1 have arthritis in my thigh." expressed a false belief. since.

according to the experts of my community, 'arthritis' refers to a condition of the

joints.

We could easily imagine, says Burge, that 1 had a Doppelganger in some

possible world (we'll cal1 it T-Earth again). identical to Earth in every respect Save

that t-Experts have decided that "arthritis" is a condition of the joints or muscles. My

doppelganger and 1 are identical in every experience we have had with arthritis. and

hold the same beliefs containing 'arthritis'. Yet on Earth the meaning of "l have

arthritis in rny thigh" is such that this sentence is false, while on t-Earth the sarne

sentence is tme. Burge takes this to demonstrate "the possibility of someone's having

a propositional attitude despite an incomplete mastery of some notion in its content . . .

[I]f the thought experiment is to work. one must at some stage find the subject

believing (or having some attitude characterized byj a content. despite an incomplete

understanding or rn i~a~~l ica t ion . " '~ ' Not only c m one be ignorant of the true nature of

'Oo Tyler Burge, "lndividualisrn and the Mental," in Peter Ludlow and Norah Martin. eds. Externalism and Self-Knowledae, (CSLI Publications, Stanfor, 1 W8), p. 26.

'O' ibid, 35.

89

the referents of one's words while still having thoughts about those things, one can

express thoughts with content that is determined by the standards of the experts in

one's community without k i n g aware of what those standards actually are. This.

according to Burge, is evident fiom the fact that my twin-Earth Doppelganger and 1

use the word 'arthritis' to express thoughts with different tmth conditions. even

though we and our relations ta the physical world are identical in every way: that we

each inhabit different iinguistic communities is the only plausible explanation lefi.

Out of the great number of beliefs about things like arthritis and gold in a

community only some - those arrived at by chemists and doctors about gold and

arthritis - will constitute the community's best judgernents about those things. It is

by this corpus of expert opinion that what Burge calls the "conventional linguistic

meaning" of our terms is fixed. The rneanings of the words one uses are fixed. not by

anything in one's mind. or the use one personally makes of those words. but by the

CO-operative activities in which one's community engages to discover the truth about

what their words refer to.

It might seem to follow fiom this picture that we ofien do not have a complete

grasp of what the contents of our thoughts and utterances are. Burge argues, however.

that this is not so. To return to Putnam's twin-Earth example, Oscar and t-Oscar may

not know anything about the microstructures of water and t-water but, nonetheless.

each means something different when he expresses his thoughts with the word

'water'. In spite o f their ignorance. they are fully competent users of that word - they

routinely point to water (or t-water), teach other members of their linguistic

90

community how to use the word designating it. and the like - and this is al1 one

needs in order to know that when one says "1 think that water is tasty" one is thinking

about water. Whether o r not one's beliefs about water are mistaken is. of course. only

determinable by a potentially indefinite amount of empirical enquiry. However. if one

is a competent speaker within a linguistic community in which 'water' has corne to

rigidly designate whatever water turns out to be. one has full authority over the

content of one's thoughts.

It is notable that. on Burge's treatment of self-knowledge, the conditions of

which one may be ignorant while still having command of a language include. not

only facts about one's physical environment, but also features of one's social

environment. The only condition of having authoritative. first-person knowledge of

the contents of one's beliefs is that one be competent with the concepts one uses to

express them. It is the criterion of a person's grasping his concepts that he is able to

use them to effectively communicate in his linguistic community. An essential aspect

of this ability. in Burge's view, is knowing one's place in the pattern of investigation

and deference that sustains the conventional linguistic meaning of one's words. The

very concept of linguistic competence, on this view, involves the tacit acceptance of

communal standards, even if one is not a direct participant in the practices which

generate those standards. Meaning is not to be found in the activities or mental acts of

individuals, but is sustained by "a vast, ragged network of interdependence.

established by patterns of deference which lead back to people who would elicit the

9 1 WI02 assent of others. In becoming a comptent language user, one becomes a

functional part of this network without needing to k aware of how it is constmcted or

where it touches the world.

Because Burge holds that self knowledge does not depend on awareness of the

factors detennining what one's words mean. he finds no problem in imagining cases

in which the meanings of out words change without our knowledge while we. al1 the

while. retain authontative knowledge of our thought contents. "[I]magine." he says.

a case of slow switching between actual home and actual twin-home

situations. In the former situation. the person must think "1 am thinking

that water is a liquid." In the latter situation. the person may think "1

am thinking that twater is a liquid." In both cases. the person is right

and as fully justified as ever. The fact that the person does not know

that a switch has occurred is irrelevant to the tmth and justified

character of these judgments. ... Given that the thought is fixed and that

the person is thinking it self-consciously. no new knowledge about the

thought could undermine the self-ascription - or therefore its

justification or a~ thor i ty . " '~~

'O' Tyler Burge, "lntellectual Noms and Foundations of Mind," The Journal of Philosophy, 1986, pp. 702. 'O3 Burge. "Individualism and Self-Knowledge." 122.

92

In a "slow switch" thought experiment. 1 imagine that 1 am transported from my home

community. in which my belief. "water is tasty". is a belief about water. to a twin-

Earthian cornmunity, identical in al1 respects to my own Save that here 'water' refers

to XYZ. Afier a period of, Say. five years, during which time 1 use the word 'water'

enough to establish membership in the new community. the beliefs 1 express with

'water' will become beliefs about t-water. Mediated by a new community with

different practices, my linguistic relation to the world has changed without my

knowledge. According to Burge, however, knowledge of the new context in which I

use my words is not a necessary condition of linguistic competence. and so am still a

cornpetent and authoritative reporter of my own beliefs even though their content has

changed without my knowledge.

II. While 1 agree with the fundamental insight driving the anti-individualist

positions held by Putnam and Burge - that we cannot correctly regard linguistic

cornpetence, or the following of a rule, as a mental act of interpretation that grasps al1

of the correct uses of a word or continuations of a practice at once - 1 am at odds

with the two most radical conclusions they draw frorn this insight. 1 argued in chapter

two that we can make sense of our abiiity to follow a rule only if we see criteria of

correctness as inextricable from the practices in which Our words serve a purpose.

Without abandoning this claim. 1 cannot agree with Putnam that the meaning of a

word may be partly constituted by a fact about the wortd of which al1 its users are

cornpletely ignorant, as Oscar and t-Oscar were in 1750 about the chernical structure

93

of water. Furthemore, if 1 am right to reject this thesis. 1 must also reject the claim

that an individual's words. and the contents of her propositional attitudes, are

deterrnined by the linguistic practices of her community in any philosophicully

interesting way.

Burge's claim that communities play a constitutive role in fixing the content of

their individual members' beliefs has stmck some. such as Donald Davidson 'OJ. as

confusing. Certainly, it makes pragmatic sense to use your words as the best-infomed

members of your linguistic community do. and to assume that others will take your

words at face value. Why, however. should we believe that the meanings of our words

must be individuated with reference to the consensus of our fellow language users - is

the logic of content ascriptions really collectivist in this way?

We can understand why Putnam and Burge find this idea compelling if we

remember that they share a scientific realist picture of the meanings of naturai kind

terms. When he wrote "Meaning and Reference". Putnam held that the history of an

expression's use and gradua1 elucidation through the division of linguistic labor can

be traced back to an initial baptism, in which a new word is coined to refer to what is.

at that time. a dimly understood natural kind. Taking his cue from Kripke's causal

picture of names, Putnam characterized natural kind terms as "rigid designators". A

rigid designator is one that is given its extension at the moment of definition, and that

retains that extension regardless of whatever descriptions and beliefs its users may

express with it. Kripke cites the baptism of individuals with persona1 proper narnes as

See his, "Knowing One's Own Mind," in Peter Ludlow and Norah Martin. eds. Externalism and Self-Knowledee, pp. 87 - 1 10.

94

an example of the kind of rigidity he has in mind here.Io5 For instance. the name

'Alexander' was once given to an Athenian infant. Many descriptions have been given

of this individual since his baptism. but none of them, nor al1 of them taken together.

fix the meaning of 'Alexander'. Kripke observes that a11 o f our beliefs about

Alexander are. in principle, revisable. Assuming that there are only three beliefs

presently held about him - that he was a Greek general. that he was a student of

Aristotle and that he drank too much - we can intelligibly imagine that none of these

descriptions actudly applies to Alexander. Yet, when we d o so, we still take ourselves

to be refemng to exactly the same individual by 'Alexander' as we were before giving

up al1 of our beliefs about him. Kripke takes considerations like this to show that the

meanings of proper names are essentially tied to the extralinguistic objects to which

they refer. regardless o f what changes occur in our beliefs about those objects.'06

In "Meaning and Reference." Putnarn takes natural kind terms to function in

just this way. rigidly designating whatever important physicai properties individuate

the natural kind with reference to which those terms are ostensively defined.

regardless of how incomplete or inaccurate Our descriptions of those kinds might be at

the time. and might remain in the future. There is something with a set of discoverable

properties we are taiking about when we Say 'Alexander'. even if we can give no

other description of him than his name. Likewise. says Putnam. there is a natural kind

with a definite, discoverable set of properties referred to by -water0 even if our present

knowledge about water is exhausted by an ability to point to its instances and give

1 O5 S a d Kripke, na min^ and Necessitv, in Robert M. Hamish, ed. Basic Totiics in the Philosophy of Lanmaee (Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1 994), p. 200.

95

vague descriptions of its incidental r n a ~ r o - ~ r o ~ e r t i e s . ' ~ ~ Mien 1 ostensively define

'water' with reference to the stuff that I and the rest of my comrnunity routinely drink.

bathe with and surf on. 1 establish a standard according to which only stuff possessing

whatever features individuate what I have called 'water' as a unique physical kind can

correctly be called 'water'. So, says Putnarn,

-'Water0' on Twin Earth is not water. even if it satisfies the operational

definition, because it doesn't bear sarneL [the relation of k i n g the sarne

kind of liquid as . - . ] to the local stuff that satisfies the operational

definition, and local stuff that satisfies the operational definition but has a

microstructure different fiom the rest of the local stuR that satisfies the

operational definition isn't water either, because it doesn't bear sumeL to

the normal examples of the local . - ~ a t e r . " ' ~ ~

We can see that Putnam has not, then. deviated fiom the logical realist's daim that when

the meaning of a term is set up, al1 of the correct uses of that term are determined in

advance. Rather. Putnarn's position is a compelling defence of that view. which differs

from the logical realist account in placing the metaphysical "go" of a concept's

normative autonomy in the objects it refers to rather than in the mind that apprehends

those objects.

' O 6 ibid. 204. 'O7 Pumam. "Meaning and Reference," 289.

96

This is why Putrtam and Burge take social factors to be so important in fixing the

extension of the concepts with which individuals express their beliefs. The patterns of

investigation and deference with which the memben of a linguistic community use their

words can ail be traced back to a single introductory event in which a rigid relation was

established between a shared concept and the world. Since the meanings of our words

are. "in part. determined i n d e x i c a l ~ ~ " ' ~ the coherence of a linguistic community is

grounded in the fact that we are d l . in a modally strong. "rigid sense. talking about the

same thing. Burge's claim that environmental features of which we may remain

completely ignorant partiaily determine the meanings of our words indicates that his

view is similar to Putnam's in this regard. In "lndividuaiism and Self-Knowledge."

Burge goes so far as to daim that.

I know that my word 'mercury' applies to mercury (if to anything). no<

by being able to provide an explication that distinguishes mercury from

every conceivable twin mercury. but by being a competent user of the

word, whose meaning and reference are grounded in this environment

rather than in some environment where the meaning of the word would

be different.' ' O

' O 8 ibid. 289. '09 Putnam, "Meaning and Reference." 29 1.

1 I O Burge, "Individualism and Self-Knowledge," 124, n. 7.

9 7

Later. he claims that it is not a condition of one's having a thought with a certain content

that one should be able to "explicate correctly one's thoughts or concepts via other

thoughts and concepts . . . [Olne can know what one's thoughts are," he says. "even

while one understands one's thoughts only partially. in the sense that one gives

incomplete or mistaken explications of one's thoughts or concepts."' ' l For Burge too.

then. what one means by one's words is determined partly by potentially unknown

environmental contingencies. partly by communal standards with which one need not

be acquainted. and very little by the manner in which one uses them.'"

While the scientific realist picture of meaning at work in Putnarn's and

Burge's positions is different from the logical realist one argued against by Kripke. it

suffers from the same kind of shortcoming. That is. it is unclear how we are to make

sense o f the idea that the meaning of an expression couid be rooted in facts that play

no role in the practices of those who use it. Putnam claims that natural kind terms like

'water' are. at least in part, fixed indexicdly, such that the 'this' in an ostensive

definition Iike "this is water" should be analyzed as "this and al1 things which share

the same important properties." There is nothing objectionable about this claim taken

on its own. Robinson Crusoe's baptism of water as 'W. could be characterized in this

'" ibid. 125. '" This is not to say that one's use of a concept doesn't figure at al1 in that concept's meaning. It is, afier all, only my ability to apply a concept like 'quark- in actual cases (I know that they are very. very small and that physicists talk about h e m ) that makes me a minimally competent user of that concept and, hence. someone whom experts can hold accountable to their standards and to whom they c m attribute thoughts about quarks. Nonetheless, one could not tell, from my minimally competent use of 'quark'. what quarks are or what the conventions are governing the proper use of that word in my community, and nor could 1. AlII know is that 1 mean by 'quark*. whatever physicists mean by that word.

98

way: the criteria by which Crusoe judges what is or is not water could be thought of as

water's "important properties". But Putnam holds that the "important properties"

which individuate whatever a natural kind terrn refers to might, at the time of their

baptism. be inconceivable to those performing the baptism. For instance. the chemical

structure. H 2 0 . was. not only unknown, but also unimaginable to those who baptized

water as 'water'. people who had not yet conceived of the scientific method. let alone

chemistry. Yet Putnam holds that if the Oscar of 1750 is presented with a sample of

XYZ from Twin-Earth and calls it 'water' he will have made a mistake. Even though

Oscar has judged the sample to be "water" according to the best means of

individuating water available (tasting it, boiling it, holding it up to the light. and

whatever else he can think of). fbture scientists know better. This strikes me as far too

counter-intuitive a bullet to bite, given our everyday practice of reinterpreting the

words of people who express beliefs radically different from Our own.

1 can illustrate this point with my own thought experiment. involving only one

Earth but requinng the use of a time machine. Imagine a Mesopotarnian water vendor.

Abdul. who services the routes leading into Jericho, selling ciean drinking water (a

rare and pricey commodity in this prehistoric desert state). which he calls 'water'. to

people en route to the city. We might imagine that ail of the stuff in Mesopotarnia that

Abdul calls 'water' is H 2 0 , but that the rivers of the yet to be discovered new-world

run with the XYZ of Putnarn's twin-Earth. Enter Putnam. who amves in pre-historic

Mesopotmia with a sample of XYZ fresh fiom the water-cooler in his office at

Harvard and knowledge of the "important" chemical properties by which we modem

99

North Americans distinguish between water and twater. Catching sight of the tirne-

wandering philosopher and his big jar of twater. Abdul might approach him and Say

--1-11 give you twenty gold pieces for that water." Putnam, aware that 'water' functions

in Abdul's language as a rigid designator of H 2 0 , and knowing that Abdul hasn't

learned any chemistry, might offer Abdul a correction. teiling him that what he is

carrying is. at the invisible level of chemical structure. far different from water.

It is dificult, however, to see why Abdul would. or should. defer to Putnam on

this point. More likely. he would check to see if the stuff in Putnarn's hand satisfied

the criteria by which he judges that a sample of stuff is 'water'. that it can play the

right kind of role in his practice of selling people a clear. tasteless beverage that will

keep them alive. If it does, what does Putnarn have to show Abdul to convince him

that he is wrong? That, perhaps. molecules of water and twater pack together

differently when frozen? Whatever differences between water and twater are relevant

to the practices of twentieth century chemists will almost certainly not be so to the

practices in which Abdul uses and understands the word 'water'. and if anyone

qualifies as an expert on the nature of water in pre-historic Mesopotarnia. it's Abdul.

The features of water and twater with reference to which Putnam has attempted to

"correct" Abdul play absolutely no role in his use of that word, and this seems as good

a reason as 1 can think of for concluding that the meaning of 'water' in Abdul's

practices and beliefs has nofhing ro do with the chemical structure, H 2 0 .

The problem here is the familiar one we ran into in chapters one and two.

when we considered what gives a rule its normative force, or a name its ability to

1 O0

refer. The act of ostensive definition. in which the would-be private linguist "points

inward" with an emphatic 'rhis' to narne a kind of subjective experience. does not

succeed in specifiing anything unless the act of definition establishes enforceable

criteria for how the new word is to be used correctly in the future. And we cannot

understand how a mere speech act of this kind could establish normative criteria.

unless we abandon the rule-skeptical view that a sien only has an objective meaning if

it is like a "super-rigid machine". which c m only be interpreted in one way. regardless

of the interpreter's interests. A sign has as many viable interpretations as we can

imagine practices involving it. and the skeptic, in bracketing his pre-reflective

understanding of what our practices are. is at a loss when he tries to bridge what he

sees as a gap between the sign and its application. The "this and al1 things like it"

clause that Putnam takes to operate in the introduction of natural kind terms into

language faces the same problem. What properties are to count as the important ones

by which different kinds of stuff are to be individuated. if not the ones that currently

figure in our use of a natural-kind term? And how are we to know what those salient

features of the world are. if we are not competent participants in the practices in which

they figure? If we conceive of the reference relation as extemal to our linguistic

practices. as Putnam does. it seems at best mysterious. and at worst arbitrary. what

properties we should Say are "essential" in fixing the meaning of a natural kind term.

Putnam says that, since al1 the stuff on Earth which passed as 'water' in 1750 had the

chemical structure. HZO, 'water' must have referred to al1 and only H 2 0 at that time.

Since we cannot point to anything in the linguistic practices of people in the year 1750

10 1

to indicate that possessing the chemical structure, H20. was criterial in their use of the

word. 'water'. however, it seems we that we are simply ussuming that -waters rigidly

designated a chemical structure in 1750. The fact that chemical structures are norr:

criterial in individuating natural kinds may make this a convenient assurnption. but it

is hardly a felicitous one.

Our investigation into the nature of things c m be only as precise as our

working idea of what the things k i n g investigated are. And it is Our cunent interests

in those things, and the way we use language to distinguish between them. that set

conditions on which properties we will judge "important" and which merely

incidental. Granted, we continually discover new facts about the referents of our

words, and treat these discoveries as insights into the things we were talking about

"al1 along". But these are newly discovered facts about certain rhings. things for

which we already have established cnteria of identity. It is a distortion. then. to say

t hat undiscovered facts about the physical world partial1 y determine the meaning

andor reference of our words. On a far more charitable interpretation of what was

going on when people pointed to water in 1750. water and twater did stand in the

sameL relation, and 'water' referred to stuff with water's macro-properties in al1

possible worlds. twater included.

This is not to Say, of course. that empirical discoveries about the referents of

our natural kind terms sometimes end up affecting our subsequent use of those tenns

in profound ways. The discovery that al1 water had the sarne chemical structure and

that, moreover. this structure had properties of great interest to the developing

102

chemical and biological sciences. made possession of the chemical structure. H20. the

most important of "important properties" distinguishing water frorn other stuff. Such

discoveries sometimes initiate a change in how a word is used - a change of

meaning. The interests which guide modem chemists in their use of 'water' are not

Abdul's, and the kind of scientific realism Putnam espoused at the time of his writing

"Meaning and Reference" illegitimately projects our current uses of natural kind

terrns onto others when it makes radical claims about the contribution of the

environment to meaning.

We can do justice to the content of people's beliefs and come to understand

what features of the world play the role of criteria in their use of natural kind terms

only by learning how their words relate to the world within their pracrices. And so 1

c m make no sense of Burge's claim that "one can know what one's thoughts are even

while one understands one's thoughts only partially. in the sense that one gives

incornpiete or mistaken explications of one's thoughts or concepts."' " This is because

there simply coutd not be anything but one's ability to distinguish between successful

and unsuccessful appIications of one's rules that nails down the content of what one

thinks and saYs."" Since it makes sense to attribute a criterial role in the fixing of a

tcrm's meaning to properties of the world only if they play a role in the lives of the

-- --

I I ; Burge, "Individuat ism and Sel f-Knowiedge," 1 25. 1 IJ Being able to distinguish between correct and incorrect uses of a word is not. however. the sarne as being able to give an explication of its meaning. For instance, 1 know how to apply 'true' in English but have no idea o f how to give an account o f what it means other than by pointing to actual instances of its use. Abdul may not be able to give Putnarn a definition of 'water' in his language, but we can stil1 tell by his practice of establishing what does o r does not count as water that, whatever the right

I O3

people who use that term, changes in the physical environrnent that lie outside the

concerns of a linguistic community cannot be treated as effecting changes in the

meanings of that community's natural kind terms. Unless we are committed to the

strong form of scientific realism discussed above. Putnam and Burge's claim that the

content of our beliefs and utterances can transcend our best abilities to explain how

our words are used is not compelling.

III. t f I was right when 1 ventured that the anti-individudist claim that meaning and

thought content are fixed socially depends on Putnads scientific realist picture of

reference. then it seems that the social thesis must fall with scientific realism.

However. Garry Ebbs daims in Rule Following and Realism that this is not so. Ebbs

also holds that we cannot make sense o f the contribution of the environrnent to

meaning unless we see that that contribution is mediated by the interests and practices

of the comrnunities in which natural kind terms have a use.'15 Accordingly. Ebbs

rejects the robust notion of tmth at work in Putnam's earty formutation of anti-

individualism, opting instead for deflationism. However. according to Ebbs. the social

thesis of anti-individualism is self-sufkient. The essential merit of Putnam and

Burge's positions is that they allow us to understand how the meaning and reference

of terms remains stable, even when the people using those terms hold radically

different beliefs. Putnam's picture of the division of linguistic labor does justice to the

fact that we enter disputes about the nature of what ow words refer to as members of a

definition of 'water' in Mesopotarnian is. it should not refer to the chernical structure, H20.

1 O4

linguistic community - disputes about the tnie nature of, say, water, are a co-

operafive endeavor, the results of which are binding on al1 competent speakers within

the community engaged in such disputes. In Ebbs's view. "the central insight behind

Putnarn's view of reference is that we can properly describe Our linguistic practices

* y 1 16 only if we abandon the idiolectical picture of language. It is the CO-operative

nature of our investigations of the world and Our resolution of debates about what our

words mean that grounds the stability of meaning. By abandoning the "idiolectical

picture of language." Ebbs claims. the anti-individualist can sketch a picture of the

linguistic division of labor in which speakers of the same language take each others'

words at face value. without relying on a robust conception of reference and truth to

ground linguistic community.

The key to understanding Ebbs's position is his conception of the "idiolectical"

picture of language and his reasons for rejecting it as a viable means of understanding the

fiinction of rules of language in linguistic communities. Ebbs cites Quine's

behaviouristic approach to language as an example of an idiolectical approach to

language. and Quine's indeterminacy thesis as the consequence of such an approach.' l 7

What we know as a public Ianguage is, for the Quinian field linguist, the semblance of

order we manage to read into the aggregate of whatever speech dispositions the

individuals in a community exhibit in response to environmentai stimuli. A degree of

agreement in individuals' speech dispositions will, perforce, corne to exist when those

II5 Ebbs, Rule Following, 2 16. ibid, 183.

' l 7 See Quine's Word and Obiect (MIT press. Cambridge, 1960).

IO5

individuals share an environment and social life. especially at the levef of utterances

most directly keyed to stimuli fiom the environment they share (observation sentences

regarding colour. irnmediately observable objects. etc.). However. according to Quine's

infamous indetenninacy thesis. our prescientific intuition that people who speak the

same language are following the same mies in doing so - that they cornrnunicate with

words that have a cornrnon meaning - has no basis in fact.

For an anthropologist trying to devise a translation manual for an alien

language. the behavioral facts about the natives' language use will always so

underdetermine the accuracy of his translation that many incommensurable translation

manuals will explain and predict the natives' speech behavior just as well the one he

Even simple observation reports in response to immediately observable

objects. such as, for instance. rabbits. will be open to many interpretations which are

faithfkl to speakers' vocal responses to rabbits. A native who routinely utters

'Gavagai' excitedly at the appearance of a rabbit might be interpreted as saying. "Lo.

a rabbit!". "Lo, a rabbit tirne-slice!", or even "Lo. a collection of undetached rabbit

l9 The translation manuals accommodating these interpretations will differ

from one another in some respects. reflecting the effects each interpretation of

"Gavagai!" has on how the field linguist should understand the rest of the language.

However. as long as each o f them successfully predicts the native's propensities to

make noises in response to his environment. there will be no fact of the matter as to

which of them is more "correct" than the others. Of course. the linguist. as a speaker

I I8 ibid, 27. ' l 9 ibid, 29.

of English, will probably find it usefùl to translate 'Gavagai' as 'rabbit'. thus

preserving as close a comection between the native observation sentence and one

which has a similar use in his own language. but this choice is. from a scientific stand-

point. arbitrary. This translation does no more justice to the facts about the native

language than any nurnber of less practical translations would.

According to Quine. there is no difference between the translator's situation and

our own: an individual gets on with her environment and fellow speakers with the

language she has internalised, her idiolect. This idiolect. having been trained into her in

interactions with other speakers will be more or less compatible with the idiolects of

those around her. but idiolects, ow own intemaiised "translation manuals". can be

compatible without k i n g commensurable.'" We cannot infer from the fact that we

manage to get dong with others in our linguistic community. then. that there are facts

about what the sounds we share as speakers of the same language mean. Just as it is easy

for the radical translater to translate "Gavagai" as "rabbit" when he sees that utterance

made in response to what he calls a rabbit, it is easy for me to translate the words of other

speakers "homophonicaily" into my own idiolect. 1 could. however. just as well do

otherwise. This means that, strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a "public

language". On this view, observes Ebbs, "what we ordinarily cd1 'language'. such as

English or French. is a more or less loose association of idiolects linked together by

-- -- - -

"O ibid, 72. I 2 I Ebbs, Rule Following;, 15 1.

1 O7

entrenched but scientifically arbitrary assurnptions about how to 'translate' between

*em.""'

One troubling consequence of Quine's indeterminacy thesis is that it undermines

our intuition that parties who disagree about a subject, as, for instance, Newtonian and

relativistic physicists once did about how to properly describe energy. are refemng to the

same thing in their disagreement. On Quine's view. the disputants c m be viewed as so

many speakers of idioiects. who are each disposed to use the word, 'energy'. in different

ways. Since any number of 'translation manuals' coutd do justice to any disputant's

dispositions to assent to sentences containing 'energy', our decision to treat each

physicist as refemng to the same thing as his fellows when he utters that word is an

arbitrary one. There simply are no facts compelling us to translate the claims of our

fellow speakers into our idiolect homophonically. that is. to translate an utterance like "e

= %ndiij" as -"e = 1 ~ m d ' is tme rfle = 1/2m?". We could just as readil y. according to

Quine. adopt translations according to which 'energy' meant something different when

each scientist used it and another word, such as 'mass'. remained fixed. or we could even

choose manuals according to which no words were homophonically translated from one

disputant's idiolect to another. So long as our interpretations of our fellow language users

in this case did justice to their dispositions to make assertions in response to stimuli.

there would be no further fact of the matter as to how we should take their words. what

we should take their beliefs to be. Thus. relativity theurists' decision to take their

Newtonian rivals' utterances as expressing differences of opinion on an empincal matter

(on the facts about energy) rather than on matters of nomenclature (on what 'energy'

1 O8

means) was. on this Mew, a cornpletely arbitrary one. Ebbs notes that "[mlappings

between the sentences and terms of earlier and later physical theories." on this view.

"always reflect our tacit 'choice' of one set of 'analytical hypotheses' over another

empirically adequate set."'E

According to Ebbs. we do nct need to join scientific or logical realists in positing

use-transcendent facts about what the words of public language mean in order to

overcome the vertigo we are likely to experience when thinking about how Quine's

indeteminacy thesis applies to our CO-operative linguistic practices. Rather. he claims.

fiom our perspective as participants in these practices. we can see that the seemingly

endless interpretative possibilities left open to us by individuals' speech dispositions are

not really live options at d l . If we can sketch a plausible picture of how reference is fixed

fiom within our linguistic practices, says Ebbs. then we will no longer be forced to

accept the standpoint of Quine's radical translater. and the attending indeterminacy

thesis. as the only garne in tomn.'"

Putnam's picture of the division of linguistic labour. he claims. allows us to do

just this. and without positing use-transcendent facts about meaning. Putnam and

Burge's illustrations of how the division of linguistic labour fünctions in exchanges

between experts who disagree with each other, or between people who are well informed

about a subject and laymen, show us that there is no question of "translation" in these

cases. When 1 infonn a doctor of my false belief that 1 have arthritis in my thigh it is not

an arbitrary matter of "choice" whether the doctor corrects my empirically false belief

-

'" ibid, 170. I z 3 ibid, 1 73.

1 O9

about the possible ways in which arthritis can be contracted or treats me as holding a true

belief about whatever I refer to by 'arthritis'. Even if we abandon Putnam's scientific

realism. the fact remains that the language we are born into is not of our own making.

The linguistic practices which sustain the meanings we inherit in learning a language are

independent of the speech dispositions of any particular mem ber of that community. and

set the conditions under which we are deemed by others to be linguistically competent

reporters of our own beliefs.'" Thus, linguistic competence cannot be properly

understood in abstraction fiom the communal practices that set standards on what counts

as "competence" in the first place. Speaking a language is a CO-operative endeavour. and

linpistic competence is the ability to participate in. and submit to the results of. CO-

operative investigations into the referents of words that we share.

Quine's idiolectical approach. on Ebbs's view, presents us with a distorted

picture of these practices by viewing each individual speaker in isolation from the

cornrnunity in which she speaks. as possessing her own language rather than speaking

the language of the cornmunity in which she attains linguistic competence. But we need

not choose to take Quine's starting point as our own. From our "participant perspective"

as speakers who CO-operate with others we c m see that our words are public artefacts,

which. a fortiori. are used by al1 speakers according to the same standard. If we choose

this starting point. taking the public language we al1 use as Our object of study rather than

the ways in which individuals are disposed to use it. we side-step the problems that

"" ibid, 21 8.

1 IO

plague anyone who sees speakers of the same language as having to "interpret" each

other in order to comrnunicate. Says Ebbs.

[Jlust as for Quine it is unproblernatic to Say that two occurrences of

the same word within a single person's idiolect have the same

reference. so for Putnam it is unproblematic to Say that two

occurrences of the same word within a single public language have the

same reference. lZ5

Anti-individualism thus presents us with an alternative viewpoint from which

we can make sense of our intuition that people who speak the same language are

committed to the same standards. Moreover. this approach does not require that we

posit use transcendent facts about meaning. We c m understand what a fellow speaker

means by his words. not because we are related to the same physical or conceptual

"fact" as he is when we use that word, but because we see him as a participant in "a

'collective' linguistic practice that includes other speakers both at a given time and

over long periods of time."'26 Because we are al1 participants in the same practice. we

are al1 held accountable in our expression of beliefs to whatever standards. such as

"Arthritis is an inflammation of the joints," those practices generate, whether or no[

w e are clctually aware of them. Since it is community-membership. rather than

participating in a rnetaphysical word-world relation. that makes one subject to the

Iz5 ibid. 183 - 184. ibid, 193

l I I

authority of his community's best judgements about how the world works, the tmths

to which al1 speakers are connected by the division of linguistic labor can be

expressed disquotationally. Thus. says Ebbs. when we adopt the participant

perspective on our linguistic practices we can see that membership in a linguistic

community is sufficient to ground commonality of meaning and shared reference in a

way compatible with deflationism about truth. From the participant perspective. we

c m see that it is "philosophically unproblematic" that members of the same linguistic

cornmunity are subject to the same standards. and that the normative force of the

community's best judgements about language use extends to them. independent of

their .'idiolectical" speech dispositions."'

1 . So. in order to defend the notion o f linguistic community from Quine's

indeterminacy thesis. Ebbs rejects the scientific realism of Putnam and Burge's anti-

individualisrn while retaining the social thesis. Although use-transcendent features of

one's physical environment do not determine the meanings o f one-s words. the

interests and practices of the community in which one uses language fix the content of

one's thoughts and utterances. Thus. we can still run PutnadElurge two-worlds

experiments in which the meanings of an individual's words change when h e is.

unbeknownst to him. moved from one community to another with slightly different

practices."8 Ehbs's position side-steps Quinian doubts about interpretation by treating

I l 7 ibid, 2 13. '" ibid, 271.

112

public languages. rather than idiolects. as the ultimate bearers of meaning. This is a

tempting alternative to meaning scepticism, but is it a coherent one?

One thing that is instantly troubling is the claim that membership in a

linguistic community is suficient to determine the content of an individual's thoughts

and make him subject to whatever standards of correct use govem a word's use in that

community. Ebbs seems perilously close to escaping Scylla. the untenable realist

position at work in Putnam's anti-individualism. only to be dragged under by

Charybdis. the notion that standards of correct language use always involve essential

reference to community consensus, which, as we saw in chapter one. ends in an

unattractive global nonfactualism.

Ebbs is aware of this danger. but claims that, from the participant perspective.

we can find our way between these extremes by seeing that the binding objectivity of

Our community's best judgements stems fiom Our al1 sharing the same ubilily to use

language rather than from the use-transcendent facts of the realist or the arbitrary

decisions of the conventionalist. To illustrate the approach he has in mind. Ebbs cites

an example of R.M. Hare's in which a group of people discusses how to properly

dance the eightsome reel. We are to assume that these people are al1 cornpetent

dancers of the eightsome reel. who have never actually described to anyone what the

dance involves. Such a group. perhaps asked by someone unfamiliar with the dance

how it goes, could arrive at the correct description of the dance even though none of

them initially knows what the details of that description should be. Al1 the dancers

need do in this case is dance the dance, picking out the important features of what is

II3

done as they go. As they went dong. for instance. someone might Say, "at this point

we al1 change hands." only to have someone remind him that his characterization is

only partially right and that people change hands only every other time this point in

the dance is reached. The first speaker's acceptance of this correction wouId not be a

malter of caprice. Rather, as someone who already knows how to dance the eightsome

reel. he would see that when he performs the dance he does foHow this pattern. and

that he had simply not noticed this feature of his practice before. In the same way.

says Ebbs. we can resolve disputes as to how our words are used by advancing and

considenng proposats about what beliefs Our uses of a word most clearly commit us

129 to. Newtonian physicists did not. then, need to '-assumev that Relativity theorists

were talking about the same thing as they were before giving up their position; rather.

given their already existing ability to use the word, 'energy'. in their scientific

practices. and some new data, they saw that relativistic equations gave a better

characterization of what they called 'energy' than Newtonian ones. Ebbs concludes

that we can retain our belief that some characterizations are more compelling than

others, and that members of the same linguistic cornmunity olcghr to defer to them.

without slipping into logical or scientific r e a ~ i s m . ' ~ ~ The best judgernents of the

community are not the product of our arbitrary "decisions" to go on in one way rather

than another, but insights into how we ought to go on which are progressively more

convincing in light of our pre-reflective ability to use Our words.

lZ9 ibid, 25 1 1 3 * ibid. 252.

The dancers' dialectic is a good illustration of how we need not posit

metaphysical facts about meaning to understand how a group of people involved in

the same practice can present each other with ways of following their rules which can

be seen as objectively better than others to people engaged in that practice. The

dancers' ability non-inferentially to recognize a correct characterization of the

eightsome reel is of the same kind as Cmsoe's ability to recognize when something

does or does not answer to his narne for water holes; in neither case is there any

problem of recognizing what the mle k i n g followed demands. What is more, Ebbs is

right to observe that the division of linguistic labour plays an important role in how we

use our words. In many cases, we do intend to have our words taken "at face value": that

is. many of our words. natural-kind ternis especially, play roles in practices that, while

important to the whole community. are fully understood by only a srnall cadre of experts.

Some words (1 ike 'quark', 'cyclotron', 'superego' and 'signifier') on1 y have any rneaning at

al1 because of their roie in such exclusive practices. and in order to mean anything at al1

by using such words one must accept whatever standards govern the experts' use of

them. Also, we need not embrace a robust conception of truth to see that part of the

meaning of 'uuth' consists in what Rorty has called its "cautionary use."'3' #en we

claim that an empincal sentence is true. it goes without saying that some presently

unaccounted-for evidence could prove us wrong; it is always possible, that is. to say

"your claim is completely justified, but is it true?" Deference to the verdicts of future

inquiries, then. is implicit in many of out uses of the tnith-predicate, and this is ofien a

1 3 ' See Richard Rorty, "Pragmatism, Davidson and Truth," in Richard Rorty. Obiect ivi~ relativism and truth: Philoso~hical Pamrs (Cambridge University Press.

I l5

good reason for saying that temporally separated camps of physicists with divergent

views are talking about the same thing when they disagree. Ebbs is right, then. that there

is still something to be said about the division of linguistic labour if one is a deflationist

about tmth.

V. iiowever, there is a lacuna in Ebbs's account, and an unnecessary one at that.

Ebbs grounds his deflated sketch of the division of linguistic labour by rejecting the

'idiolecticd' approach to language and treating public standards as the level at which

meaning is fixed. The normative force of public standards, he claims, stems fiom our

cornmitment to CO-operative practices to which al1 members of a community are

connected by virtue of their using words that are grounded in those practices. Ebbs takes

this line because he feels that Quine's indeterminacy thesis is the inevitable result of any

attempt to make sense of our linguistic practices by looking at the speech dispositions of

individuals fiom Quine's naturalistic, idiolectical perspective.'3' There is no fact o f the

matter as to what anyone, taken as an individual with certain dispositions to utter "gold

in response to certain stimuli. means by that word. Viewed from the participant

perspective. however. meaning is not to be found in individuais' speech dispositions.

Regardless of how they are disposed to use 'gold'. individuals ought. as part of our

culturaVlinguistic cornmunity, to defer to whatever is the best account our community

presently has of how the word, "gold". is to be used.

New York, 199 1 ), pp. 126 - 150. ''' Ebbs. Rule Following, 17 1.

116

But Ebbs recoils too far fiom Quine's position when he claims that we c m

simply "take for granted that a member of our linguistic community means the same

thing by her words as we do. and that translating each other's words homophonically is

phi losophically unproblematic. 13' If we are familiar with the problems that Kripke's

"solution'' to rule-scepticism runs into, Ebbs's deflated anti-individualism is bound not to

be a very satisfying alternative to Putnarn's scientific realism. The sarne fhdamental

move seems to have k e n made by both Kripke and Ebbs: when the attribution of content

to isolated individuals is taken to be problematic. whether our troubles are Kripkean or

Quinian, the cornmunity is appealed to as a stand-in for objective standards of correct

use. Granted. Ebbs's account is more refined than the one offered by Kripke. but Ebbs

has still dodged the question of w h j i~ l j i es us in treating others as members of ow

linguistic community and holding them accountable to the standards set by our experts.

The lacuna in Ebbs's approach is that he can give no account of how we are to tell when

it is righr to treat someone as subject to our standards rather than reinterpreting his

words. or when it is reasonabIe to defer to an expert rather than telling him to stop k i n g

pedantic.

Ebbs has claimed that. as long as another speaker '*passes muster" as a

minimally competent user of a term (if he c m Say, for instance. that 'quarks' are very

small things talked about by physicists and can use this word to express his thoughts

and beliefs about what physicists and quarks do), it is philosophically unproblematic

for us to take 'quark' as meaning the same thing in his mouth as it does when a

117

physicist uses it. But this move turns our commonplace practice of "taking experts-

word for it" when they correct us in our use of a specialized terni into a general

principle by which to individuate the content of people's thoughts. There are.

however. numerous occasions on which speakers who are. by experts' standards.

"minimally competent" in the use of a word. actually mean something quite different

by that word from what the experts do. While we do sometimes defer to experts on

questions of rneaning, it is just as common for u s not to because doing so is not useful

to us. There are also nurnerous occasions on which, though we might be willing to

defer to an expert if there were one around. we end up talking past each other because

of different understandings of what a word means. Such barriers to communication

are surmounted only when we recognize that someone means something else by a

word than we do and we are able to figure out exactly how our uses of that word

di ffer.

Ebbs claims that. despite radical differences in the beliefs we hold about a

given subject. it is a routine part of our linguistic practices to take those beliefs as

being about the same thing. So. if 1 think that arthritis is a disease of the joints and

muscles and express the belief that Jones has arthritis. and you. who know that

arthritis affects only the joints. claim that he does not. we can unproblematically be

134 understood to hold beliefs about the same thing, one false and one true. It is no?

clear that this is our ordinary way of doing things, however. A speaker who claims

that someone has arthritis of the thigh cannot be usefully interpreted as claiming that

someone has an inflarnmatory condition of the joints in his thigh. Davidson observes

Il8

the importance of interpreting the language use of individuals in "Knowing One's

Own Mind". If 1, thinking that arthritis is only caused by calcium deposits. report my

belief that Jones does not have arthritis. and a better infonned friend believes that

Jones does have arthritis, a third party reporting our beliefs to a doctor over the phone

rnay actually mislead his listener if he reports our contradictory beliefs "at face

7' 135 value. Ordinarily. when someone is aware of this danger. he will qualiQ such a

report by saying something Iike, "but Colin thinks that arthritis is only caused by

calcium deposits." The point. says Davidson. is that we routinely improve the

accuracy of our reports of other people's beliefs by specifjing the ways in which their

understandings of public terms differ from the nom. According to Davidson. it

simply wouldn't do justice to the contents of my thought in the above example to say

that my belief and my fiend's, insofar as they are both contain the term 'arthritis'.

have the same content.

Burge has an answer to this argument: he will say that. while taking one of a

person's beliefs at face value without determining the content of some of her other.

related beliefs can lead to misunderstandings. the words in which we specifi those

beliefs are still understood according to their standard meanings. So, while it will help

anyone trying to understand the content of my thought in the above example to find out

about my false belief about the relation of arthritis to calcium deposits, there is no reason

to infer fiom this that my belief is "metaiinguistic". resting on a misunderstanding of the

rneaning of "arthritis," rather than k i n g an empirically false belief about what we al1

13' ibid. 185. 135 Davidson, "Knowing One's Own Mind," 99.

119

refer to by that word. The fact that my belief about arthritis is not compatible with the

established rneaning of "arthritis" does not make it any less a belief about arthritis. Says

Burge. "[bloth . . . 'analyticaily' true and . . . 'analytically' false attitudes are linguistic in

the sense that they are tested by consulting a dictionary or native linguistic intuitions.

rather than by ordinary empirical investigation. . . . The pragmatic focus of expressions of

these attitudes wilI be on usage. concepts. or meaning. But it is simply a mistake to think

that these facts entail, or even suggest. that the relevant contents are metalinguistic in

f~rrn.""~ Ebbs takes this argument as support for his claim that interpreting beliefs that

differ from our ow-n does not involve reinterpreting thought contents in ternis of non-

public, "idiolectical" meanings.

In cases like the one 1 have described above. this line is unproblematic. That

is. when words have a rigorously maintained standard use within one. well-established

practice in which everyone. including laymen. has a vested interest. there is nothing

anyone corrld intend other than to have that word taken according to its standard use.

As I argued in chapter two. a word has a meaning only within a practice. If the

experts' practice with a word is the only game in tonm. and an important one at that.

then it is unproblematic to assume that laymen intend to have their use of the experts'

word held to the experts' standards. As Ebbs illustrates in his discussion of the

eightsome reel example. such standards have recognizabIe normative force for a

whole community when we share a prereflective ability to use language within a

certain practice, or when we recognize that others are much better acquainted with the

'36 Burge. quoted in Ebbs, Rule Followinq, 230.

120

relevant practice than we are. A layman ought to defer to a physicist in his use of the

word. "proton", not because he and the physicist are both speakers of English. but

because "proton" only has a meaning within the physicist's practices. It is important

to note, however, that the meaning o f 'proton' here is not being fixed socially. with

reference to the community in which it is k i n g used. M a t Ebbs sees as the social

fixing of meaning through the division of linguistic labor is parasirie on the practices

of experts. and the meanings of specialized terms when they are used by experts are

nor socially determined. The layman's use of 'proton' can be evaluated according to

community standards with which he is not acquainted because 'proton' only has a use

in the scientific practices that generate those standards.

What is important here is the practice. not the community in which it is

conducted. The layman is not directly involved in the practices of physicists. is not

farniliar with the criteria for establishing whether or not something is a proton and

does not know what makes the criteria that physicists use important. This is why the

layman's use of 'proton' makes implicit reference to the linguistic practices of

physicists; given the poverty of the average layman's practices with 'proton'. that

word wouldn't reall y mean anything if it were not understood according to the criteria

set by experts. A physicist. on the other hand. succeeds or fails in her use of 'proton'

depending on how well her use of that word furthers her practice of explaining how

the world works. This is not to Say that scientists can't correct each other's use of

language. of course - only that there is no "taking for granted" of linguistic

community when this happens. Experts can correct each other because they are

I Z I

engaged in the same practice, and because if you know how to do physics. you will

see that some claims about protons are objectively true and others not. An expert. as

someone who is a hl ly competent participant in the practices which give the word.

'proton'. its meaning. will not cease to mean what he now does by that word if he is

surreptitiously transported to a min-community in which people use that word

differently. Rather. he will now mean something different from the t-experts around

him - he will be doing something different with the word. 'proton'. Far fiom having

to take the transported scientist's words at face value. it seems more likely that the t-

experts. as competent scientists, would realize that his use of the word. 'proton'.

di ffered sysrernaficaliy from their own.

Moreover. there is ofien no well-defined. shared practice in which al1 users of

a word are at least minimally competent, and no clear reason why laymen should be

regarded as expressing beliefs about the same things as experts when they use that

word. We have seen that many linguistic practices change sufficiently over time that

we distort the thoughts of past cultures by taking their words at face value. Similar

difficulties are to be found within a linguistic community at the same time. A painter.

for instance, might find that both of the substances called "acids" and "bases" by

chemists work equally well at eating tough grime off of the surfaces he works on. and

cal1 whatever does so "acid". M e n he wants his apprentice to bring him more of the

strong base he is using, he will Say "bring me some more acid." his supplier will ask

him "how much acid" he wants to buy when he is ordering cans of strong base. and so

on. A chemist who arrives on the scene and tries to correct the painter in his use of the

122

word "acid" will have missed a diflierence between the painter's practice with that

word and his own which would be better classified as one of meaning than one of

belief. Laymen are ofien uninterested in distinctions made by experts, and when they

are engaged in a practice in which those distinctions do not apply, practices different

from those of experts, they tend not to accept expert advice. and have no good reason

to."' The chemist's interests in acid are not part of the painter's practice. nor is

defening to chemists on how to use the word, "acid".

This kind of situation is far closer to the n o m than Putnam's picture of the

division of linguistic labor indicates. Linguistic communities are not well-ordered

systems in which each word has a defined use within a practice participated in. to

varying degrees, by every community member. The practices giving words their

meaning blend in and out of one another. some parasitic on older. more established

ones. some related only by a vague family resemblance to whatever practice they

originally took their cue from (think of what "energy" means in the mouth of a new-

ager). The order emerging from our linguistic interactions. and our ability to take each

other's words at face value. is. I think. more tenuous Uian Ebbs takes it to be. We may

ofien get away with taking it for granted that we c m report each other's beliefs

without pausing to think about whether we have properly understood each other

because. as a general rule of thumb. competent speakers of the same language rend to

137 Of course, there are also dificult cases in which we don't know whether to Say whether someone is observing a real difference of meaning between her own use of a word and someone else's or simply k i n g obstinate. Which way we go in such judgements depends on how well the proclaimed difference of meaning is mirrored in differences in how the speaker uses that word, and in how entrenched it is in her related beliefs.

123

refer to the same things with their words. We would be inhabitants of Babel. rather

than a "linguistic community" if this were not so. But. as 1 argued in chapter two. we

need not be intimidated by Quine's indeterminacy thesis into doubting our ability to

recognize and understand linguistic practices that are different from Our own. and it is

plainly false that we must assume common reference in order for communication to

take place. Indeed, the opposite appears to be true. Our rneaning the same thing by our

words does not follow from our being members of the same linguistic community. but

is rhe busis on which we recognize when it is reasonable to hold each other to the

same standards. An expert can recognize when his advice to a Iayman is not welcome

because he can see when a layman's use of a word is parasitic on his own practices

and when it is entrenched in a different. though perhaps related, practice in which

different conditions govem its correct use.

Our ability to recognize gaps in communication. and bridge them by

reinterpreting another's words. then. is logically prior to the notion of linguistic

community or public standards.'38 M a t is wrong with the g*idiolectical~' approach to

language and linguistic community is not its focus on individuals - we are perfectly

able to make sense of the meaningful behavior of other human beings - but its

insistence that meaningful behavior must be recognizable as such from a stand point

that treats it as something alien. something understandable only by observation and

hypothesis.

13' 1 am not claiming that we must posit Chomskian innate interpretative abilities in order to explain linguistic community. It is just that we can only make sense of the concept of linguistic community if we know what it is for two speakers to mean the same thing by their words.

124

1 mentioned at the beginning of section V that the lacuna in Ebbs's account -

his failing to recognize that our ability to understand the linguistic practices of

individuals gives us a critenon of when we are to treat them as part o f our linguistic

community - is unnecessary. 1 Say this because Ebbs has a resource within his own

position with which to combat Quine's indeterminacy thesis without abandoning the

idea that we are members of the same linguistic community becarrse each of us means

the sarne thing by our words and not the other way around. Ebbs notes that Harems

eightsome reel example shows us how important having an ability to use language is

to being able to recognize it as governed by objective standards. For a Quinian

anthropologist. there is no fact of the rnatter as to what the "correct" way to dance the

eightsome reel is; al1 he will see is a bunch of natives jumping around in a circle

together. some occasionally differing f?om others in how they do so. Any number of

"interpretations" of how the eightsome reel is danced could accommodate the

movements of the natives. and so there is no fact of the matter as to how the

eightsome reel is properly danced. With no ability to dance the dance himself. the

anthropologist is unable to recognize some of the natives' movements as mistakes and

some of their utterances as corrections. The asymmetry between the field-linguist and

the native speaker in this regard is exactly the same, says Ebbs; that is. the native

speaker recognizes some utterances as better than others when al1 the linguist hears is

a cacophony of competing responses to s t i rn~l i ."~

'39 Ebbs, Rule Followinq, 249.

In chapter two, 1 made the same cornparison between the native's

understanding of her own linguistic cornpetence and that of the Kripkean sceptic.

Why. then. if Ebbs accepts Hare's insight into our understanding of rules. does he feel

compelled to accept the social thesis of anti-individualism as a means of combating

the indeterminacy thesis? After all. breaking into the linguistic practices of others is

just as much a human ability as dancing. For people who can dance the eightsome

reel. or who can l e m to do so, there is a fact of the maner about what the eightsome

reel is that could be found out by dancing it. Likewise. there is a fact about what. for

instance. "water" means in Crusoe's language which could be found out either by

surveying how that term is used if you are already a participant in Crusoe's practice of

finding water or by learning how to engage in that practice. The lesson we ought to

take away from Hare's example is that the anthropologists' situation is not Our own.

and could not be. because they are not engaged in Our practices and base their

understanding of linguistic behavior solely on inferences. rather than on their ability

to engage in human activities. Having access only to scientifically respectable "input

output" relations. the radical translator cannot take the perspective of a participant in

linguistic practices, and cannot recognize what features of those practices are most

salient to meaning.

Given that Ebbs wants to adopt a participant perspective on Our linguistic

practices. however, he does not need to buy into this picture. We bipedal, water-

drinking. rational animals can learn whether or not the words of another one of our

1 26

kind should be talcen "at face value" by finding out what purposes those words serve.

In his discussion of Hare. Ebbs says,

If we are to understand the dancers' dispute and its resoiution we

cannot restrict ourselves to descriptions available to Harets

anthropologists. who are unable to dance the eightsome reel. or to

distinguish between the eightsome reel and other dances. We also saw

that there is nothing mysterious about the dancers' perspective as

participants in the dispute about how to dance the eightsome reel.'"O

We could just as easily say.

I f we are to understand Robinson Crusoe's solitary practice we cannot

restrict ourselves to descriptions available to Quine's anthropologists.

who are unable to engage in the practice of searching for water and

avoiding tar-pools, or to distinguish between the respective

si gni ficances of these practices. There is nothing rnysterious about Our

perspective as participants in the dispute about how to properly use

" water".

''O ibid. 25 1.

127

The daim that the linguistic practices of individuais c m be made sense of without

reference to the community of which they are members - that meaning can be

understood "idiolectically" - does not require that reference be conceived as

metaphysically robust. along logical or scientific realist lines. We need not buy into

Quine's objecti@ing move which forces us to observe each other's linguistic practices

as alien objects of study rather than as embedded in practices which we either share or

share an ability to learn.

What. then. is lefi of anti-individualism once we have rejected scientific

realism and the social thesis? Perhaps something like this: if we were to translate our

ordinary. intensional descriptions of people's language use into a physicalist account

of the interactions between the stuff behind people's eyes and the stuff in front of

them. we would find that "meanings just ain't in the head". We might. for instance.

know that Ralph and t-Ralph use the word. 'water'. to refer to water and twater

respectively. and that the chernical structures of these liquids are the criteria by which

Oscar and t-Oscar identi@ them. Despite their different understandings of 'water'.

iiowever. Oscar and t-Oscar might be physiologically indistinguishable when they Say.

'-This is water"; the sarne peripheral neurons could be firing and sending messages

along exactly the same pathways to trigger the same utterance. The difference in their

respective meanings lies in the externat world, in the nature of the stuff to which they

are pointing and the fact that they disfinguish this stutj?om orher stuflin their use of

rhe word, 'warer '. There is, however, no dependence of reference on unknown

features of the social or physical environment here. We can understand what features

128

of the environment play an important role in Oscar and t-Oscar's linguistic practices

only by giving folk psychological descriptions of the way they interact with that

environment through language. Meanings. along with beliefs and desires. are

something we ascribe to rational beings when we are trying to understand how they

interact with their environment. Naturally beliefs cannot be made sense of in

abstraction from the environment towards which they are directed. and so with

rneanings. So beliefs and meanings are not in the head. It is equally true that beiiefs

and rneanings. as things we attribue to rational beings, cannot be made sense of in

abstraction fiom descriptions of language users' other beliefs and desires. as attached

to features of the world which do not figure in their practicss. So while meanings

aren't in the head, they aren't in the world either, at least not in the way that Putnam

thought they were in "Meaning and Reference". This stripped-down anti-

individualism holds no more than that it oniy makes sense to talk about meaning. or

nile-following, or linguistic communities, where one sees people using sounds or

signs to help them in their dealings with quarks. trees. and water holes in a way that

admits of rational description. This does not attach any metaphysical importance to

either side of the intensional relations involved -world or mind.

A.J. Ayer. "Can There be a Private Language?" in Wimenstein: The Philoso~hical Investkations. ed. George Pitcher. (Macmillan and Co.. London. 1970) pp. 25 1 - 266.

Baker. G.P. and Hacker, P.M.S. Scepticism. Rules and Lannuane. (Basil Blackwell. Oxford. 1984).

Blackburn, Simon. "The Individual Strikes Back" in Svnthese. No. 58. March. 1984. pp. 28 1 - 302,

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