The Theory of Truth in The Theory of Meaning Rattan

The Theory of Truth in the Theory of Meaning
Gurpreet S. Rattan
1.
Introduction
I aim in this paper to explore and establish a quite definite view of the relationship between the theory of truth and the theory of meaning. The view derives from reflection on the philosophies of truth and meaning of Donald Davidson and Michael Dummett. The paper tries to make explicit the conceptions of truth and meaning in that strand of the recent analytic tradition that takes their views as central. According to the view, the theory of truth and the theory of meaning are connected in ways such that differences in the conception of what it is for a sentence to be true are engendered by differences in the conception of how the meaning of a sentence and its constituents depend upon the meanings of other sentences and their constituents, and on a base of underlying facts. I argue that this view is common ground between Davidson and Dummett, and that central differences in their theories of truth emerge from prior differences in the theory of meaning. In particular, the dispute over realism springs from the contrast between Davidsons holism and Dummetts molecularism. I concentrate in this paper on the connection between molecularism and the antirealist conception of truth. I take the value of exploring the view to be three-fold. First there is the value in laying out the reasoning that constitutes the view and its attendant picture of the deep interconnectedness of truth and meaning. Because I think that that deep interconnectedness is generally misunderstood, I will try to offer a new defence and way to think about it. Second, although others have held the view I aim to establish,1 there is at least one influential commentator who seems to locate the root of the disagreement between Davidson and Dummett not in the disagreement about the holistic or molecularistic nature of linguistic meaning, but rather in the general explanatory ambitions reductive ambitions of Dummetts theory of meaning. I am speaking here of John McDowell and his dispute with Dummett over whether the theory of meaning ought to be fullblooded or modest. I hope to locate precisely where McDowell goes wrong in these matters. Finally, what I say has some bearing on a thought commonly espoused by pragmatists who aim to claim Davidson as their own: on the thought that Davidson somehow positions himself outside, somehow transcends, the debate between realism and antirealism. I will argue briefly that this commonly espoused pragmatist thought is incorrect.
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The Theory of Truth in the Theory of Meaning 2. Tarski2
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Tarski shows how to define a predicate, true-in-L, for various mathematically well-behaved languages, a predicate that picks out all and only the true sentences of the language. This feature of the predicate is built into Tarskis definition of true-in-L through his criterion of adequacy for a truth definition, that a truth definition satisfy Convention T. An adequate theory of truth for a language L will satisfy Convention T by implying, for each declarative sentence of the language, instances of the T-schema: implying, that is, as consequences of the definition, sentences of the form T s is true-in-L if and only if p; where s is a metavariable which has as values names of sentences of the language for which the definition is being given (the object-language) and p is a metavariable which has as values translations of the object-language sentence, used, in the language of the definition (the metalanguage). Thus, an adequate definition of truth for English, given in English, should yield as a consequence the sentence TI 0 snow is white0 is true-in-English iff snow is white and, correspondingly, for every declarative sentence of language. The instances of the T-schema T-sentences comprise the set of consequences of the definition of the outlined form, one for each declarative sentence of the language. The T-schema functions as part of a criterion of adequacy for a truth-definition because it is a characterization of the concept of truth. The T-schema is meant to supply an answer to the following question: Why is the definition of some predicate true-in-L the definition of an expression that expresses the concept of truth? Tarskis answer is that the definition satisfies Convention T; and this serves as an answer to the question because the T-schema is supposed to capture all there is to the general concept of truth. Note that this is not to say that the Tschema is supposed to be a definition of the general concept of truth: of course part of the point of Tarskis work is that there cannot be any such definition, on pain of contradiction. Nevertheless, the T-schema is supposed to, without defining the concept of truth, illuminate it. It is this idea, of an explication that illuminates without defining, that I am calling a characterization. In the remainder of this section, I want to consider some objections and responses to Tarskis characterization. That will set up the fundamental objection that inaugurates the move from Tarski to Davidson and Dummett. The first objection to consider is that Tarskis view simply gets the extension of the concept of truth wrong. Tarskis predicates can apply only to sentences of a single language; but the concept of truth applies to sentences of many languages. So no one predicate of Tarskis (and of course they are officially different predicates) captures the proper extension. So, no predicate expresses the general concept of truth. So, Tarskis truth definitions cannot be an account of the general concept of truth (cf. Davidson 1990: 28586). But this can be overcome. Tarski shows how to
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define language-specific truth predicates true-in-L, for various, but specified, languages L, but we can expand his insight so as to have bearing on the general concept of truth. One can think of the metavariables s and p that function in the T-schema as having as values, respectively, names of all declarative sentences of all languages, and all declarative sentences-in-use of all languages.3 This requires that we rethink the role of the in-L in true-in-L: the in-L is no longer ineluctably attached to the true. The L does not refer to a specific language, but is rather a metavariable which ranges over all languages. Formally, true becomes a two-place predicate, having as its semantic value a set of ordered pairs, with each pair consisting of a sentence with its language. It is helpful to represent the idea pictorially. The general truth predicate has as its semantic value the extension of the general concept of truth; this extension is the union of the extensions of the language-specific truth-concepts. The language-specific truth-concepts, in turn, have as extensions ordered pairs of sentences tagged with the language of which they are part:
truegeneral
refers to the extension of the general concept of truth
Ext(truegeneral)= Union of {Ext(true-in-L)}

each member of which is
{<s, L>: s is true in L}
In this general setting, then, Tarskis account tells us what it is for any sentence of any language to have the property of being true: a necessary and sufficient condition for any sentence of any language to have the property of being true is stated by the very sentence, or a translation of that sentence, in use. A second line of criticism accepts that Tarskis characterization gets the extension of the general concept of truth right. But the criticism now is that Tarskis characterization of the general concept of truth makes no headway in the characterization of the general concept, i.e., in the elucidation of the sense of the general truth predicate, but rather only in the specification of its reference. That is, although the T-schema may give the extension of the general concept of truth by giving the extensions of the various true-in-L predicates, it does not give any insight into the sense expressed by the various truth predicates. At best we have the extensions of various predicates true-in-L1, true-in-L2, etc., whose union is taken to determine the extension of the general concept, but nothing which tells us why these predicates express the general concept of truth for all languages. I think that this objection too can, for the most part, be turned away, and in an important way. I have said that the T-schema works as a criterion of adequacy for a truth definition by being a characterization of the concept of truth. But it can
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serve as a characterization of the concept of truth only if the sentence used on the right-hand side of the T-biconditional is a translation of the sentence mentioned on the left-hand side. It is worth being explicit how this is supposed to characterize the concept of truth. Consider the following biconditional: TI 0 snow is white0 is true-in-English iff snow is white The mentioned sentence on the left says something, namely that snow is white. The sentence on the right, in virtue of being a used version of the same sentence, or a translation of it, is a way to say what the mentioned sentence says, namely, that snow is white. Now, if things are as a use of the mentioned sentence, or a translation of it, says they are, i.e., if snow is white, the mentioned sentence is true; and, if things are not as a use of the mentioned sentence, or a translation of it, says they are, i.e., if snow is not white, the mentioned sentence is false. That is, TI 0 snow is white0 is true-in-English iff snow is white: What we have done here is derived an instance of the T-schema from a more general, underlying indeed, platitudinous idea: the idea, namely, that a mentioned sentence is true iff things are as a use of the mentioned sentence, or a translation of it, says they are; in this case, iff, snow is white.4 The objection is turned away by noting that the T-schema does not merely give the reference of the general concept of truth, but gives it in a specific way; and not just any way of picking out the extension of the general concept of truth will pick out the extension in way that is in conformity with the platitude about truth that we have just uncovered. For example, per impossible, an outright listing of the extension of the concept will not pick out the extension in such a way that allows one to understand what it is that makes all the true-in-L express the general concept of truth. Nor does a set of sentences which redistributes right-hand sides of T-sentences with the constraint that only true right-hand sides may be switched with other true right-hand sides, and only false with false. These are both ways in which the extension of the concept may be given, and thus, according to a Fregean understanding of the notion, particular senses. But it is clear that whichever senses these senses are, they are not the sense which is the general concept of truth. The platitude underlying the T-schema can be put in the following succinct way: Plat if s means-in-L that p; then s is true-in-L iff p Since in a T-sentence, the used sentence p is constrained to mean what the mentioned sentence s means, T-sentences are guaranteed to be true. The platitude underlies the T-schema in the sense that the platitude articulates clearly how the Tschema is to be understood and why its instances are so compelling. I think that this is a sufficient response to the objection as it stands. But the objection can be pursued from a slightly different perspective. It is essential to this way of understanding how the T-schema captures the content of truth that we be able to say what the mentioned sentence says by having it, or a translation of it, at our disposal. But it is a consequence of understanding the concept of truth in this way that it will not be available for providing an account of either the
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concept of meaning or of the meaning of particular sentences, for the concept of a particular mentioned sentence meaning what it does is taken as unanalyzed in the account of the concept of truth. But should we be content with an account of truth that outlaws the use of the concept of truth in an account of meaning?
3.
Davidson on Truth and Meaning
These quick thoughts suggest a second, redirected, line of criticism that can be leveled against Tarski. The problem with the T-schema is that the concept it characterizes can play no role in the theory of meaning, because the characterization takes the concept of meaning as theoretically and conceptually more basic, as already given. But it is not clear that we can account for meaning without the use of the concept of truth, and indeed it may seem that we need the concept of truth to understand meaning. In general, the claim that an account of meaning must deploy the concept of truth is difficult to justify at the outset, in advance of further theoretical considerations. The platitude linking meaning and truth (Plat) reflects the fact that a central use of language is to represent how things are. But that on its own does not suffice to show that the representational role of language is central to a theoretical description of the language. What would help to show that is to show how other uses and aspects of language could be explained through thinking of the representational role as central (cf. Dummett 2003: 12). A detailed discussion of this would take us too far afield.5 But, focusing on the central, representational use reflected in (Plat), at least the following can be said. (Plat) tells us that it is a necessary condition for two sentences to share meaning that they share conditions for truth; and its platitudinous character tells us that this connection between meaning and truth is conceptually fundamental, rather than derivative. This suggests that sameness of truth conditions is not only necessary for sameness in meaning, but figures more crucially in understanding the concept of meaning. So, even if meanings can be accounted for in some way that does not seem at first to use the concept of truth, that account must ultimately be constrained to determine conditions for truth, so as to connect up with our understanding of the concept of meaning. If these initial and vague thoughts are right, we are left with the result that if truth is to be fully comprehended through the T-schema, its use in understanding meaning cannot be allowed without going round a tight circle. The characterization of truth provided by the T-schema precludes substantial accounts of meaning. These thoughts are crystallized in Davidsons thinking in a particularly clear way. Davidson famously proposed that a meaning theory for a natural language take the form of a Tarskian truth-definition, reinterpreted to function as a meaning theory. But what is the nature of the reinterpretation? Whereas Tarskis definition of truth is a purely a priori inquiry, Davidsons interest in providing meaning theories for natural languages requires the theories to be dependent upon the use of the language by actual speakers in the following sense: the claims
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that theories of this kind make about the languages of individuals, about what words mean in the mouths of individuals, have their truth conditions based on are made true by the use of those words by those individuals (on which there will be much more to say later). What we have seen in our short discussion of Tarski is that the a priority of Tarskis inquiry is secured by an appeal to (what is for Tarski) the conceptually prior notion of meaning: it is only because it is taken as an unanalyzed given that la neige est blanche means that snow is white, and similarly for all other declarative sentences, that satisfying Convention T is a constraint on a truth-theory. But since Davidson wishes to provide a substantial general theory of meaning and to give the meanings of sentences through a statement of their truth conditions, he cannot make a prior appeal to the concept of meaning, and to the information that a certain sentence means what it does, in the understanding of truth. Davidson can make no use of the characterization of truth provided through the T-schema and Convention T. Before carrying on any further, it is important to make explicit a distinction that has been implicit throughout. Dummett, David Lewis, Martin Davies and others distinguish between a meaning theory and the theory of meaning.6 A meaning theory is, in its application to speakers of a natural language, an empirical theory. It is, in the form under consideration here, a specification (or derivation from a theory of reference) of the truth-conditions for each declarative sentence of a particular language. By contrast, what I am calling the theory of meaning, is an a priori theory which outlines both the form of meaning theories, and the general principles that determine the correctness conditions for specifications of, in the form under consideration here, the truth conditions for sentences of any language. An analogous distinction should be made between a truth definition (a truth theory) and the theory of truth. Both a theory of meaning and a theory of truth are map[s] of a certain region of philosophical space7 in which the concepts of meaning and truth are located in the form of principles of application that implicitly define them. (More on this later in this section). Returning to Davidson: the received view about how Davidson reinterprets Tarskis truth definition runs as follows. According to Davidsons proposal, a Tarskian truth theory is a meaning theory, but that Davidson, in his use of such theories, inverts Tarskis procedure: whereas Tarski takes the concept of meaning or translation as primitive and goes on to give a truth definition, Davidson takes the concept of truth as primitive and goes on both to characterize the concept meaning and to give the meanings of particular sentences through a statement of their truth conditions.8 I think that the received view oversimplifies. It needs to be acknowledged that there must be room left to say something which although does not define, nevertheless illuminates; it is important to see, as Davidson has recently, that taking the concept of truth as indefinable, does not mean that we can say nothing revealing about it (Davidson 1996: 263; cf. also Davidson 1990). As Davidson admits, he was slow to come to these realizations; his mistake was to think that we could both take a Tarskian truth definition as telling us all we need to know about truth and use the definition to describe an actual language (Davidson 1990: 286).9
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The general nature of Davidsons recent insight into the concepts of truth and meaning is at base an analytic insight: we can come to obtain a characterization of both the concepts of truth and meaning by understanding better the form a meaning theory for a natural language ought to take and the conditions under which any such theory is correct. A theory of meaning places the concepts of truth and meaning in map of philosophical space; it lays out, as Davidson puts it, the geography of the concepts, the lay of the conceptual land. If there is some viable analytic insight here, it will allow steering a middle path between the two extremes we have already encountered: on the first hand, the Tarskian account, which can provide an account of the general concept of truth only by foreclosing on the possibility of a substantial general theory of meaning; and on the other hand, the received view of Davidson, which allows a general theory of meaning, but only by foreclosing on the possibility of a substantial general theory of truth. The metaphors of a conceptual geography and a map of philosophical space are meant to suggest a model of analysis for accomplishing both tasks at once. Now these metaphors are helpful, but something more explicit is needed. How does the theory of meaning give insight into the sense of the general truth predicate? The general idea, which is all that I want to convey here, is that the theory of meaning can be used to functionally or implicitly characterize its fundamental theoretical concepts. These will include at least the concepts of the propositional attitudes, the concept of assertion, and, crucially, the concepts of truth and meaning. The directionality of analysis that is characteristic of all implicit characterizations is important here. A theory of meaning does not say: a meaning theory satisfies certain constraints because its theorems are instances of the T-schema. The T-schema does not stand as an independent benchmark, informed by an independent understanding of the concept of truth and/or meaning, through which a meaning theory may be certified as correct or incorrect. Rather, a theory of meaning says: the theorems of a meaning theory are instances of the T-schema because that theory satisfies certain constraints. Part of the general thought here is well captured by David Lewis when he says: Karl might have no beliefs, desires, or meanings at all, but it is analytic that if he does have them then they more or less conform to the constraining principles by which the concepts of belief, desire, and meaning are defined. (Lewis 1974: 112) The thought is that the principles of interpretation, such as the Principle of Charity, are related to meaning and intentionality in an a priori fashion. However, this idea can be extended to the concept of truth itself, and it is in the extension of Lewiss idea that we can see an elucidation of the sense of a general truth predicate. What can be said in that case is: there is no such thing as being an instance of a meaning-delivering theorem of a meaning theory that takes the form of a truth theory of a meaning theory whose theorems look like, and really just are instances of the T-schema without meeting the a priori empirical and formal constraints on a meaning theory. We also may put it like Lewis and say:
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If we think now that the T-schema captures something deep about the concept of truth, as I would like to recommend, it does so conceptually parasitically rather than primitively. It is parasitic upon the satisfaction of the constraints that license thinking about any biconditional of the form s is true iff p as being an instance of the T-schema. In effect, the empirical and formal constraints on a meaning theory are a characterization of the sense of the general truth predicate.10 So the question of how Tarski is to be reinterpreted so as to allow the possibility of a substantial theory of meaning, without swinging to the far extreme of the received view of Davidson, is answered as follows. The biconditionals that serve to provide the extension of the concept of truth and to give the meanings of sentences of object languages are the theorems of meaning theories that satisfy the constraints on meaning theories specified in the theory of meaning. These constraints are constraints upon the proper ascription of a meaning theory to an individual, and thus a characterization of the concept of meaning. Since the platitude that connects the concept of truth and meaning allows a meaning theory to take the form of a theory of truth, and does so non-accidentally, the constraints on meaning theories are at the same time constraints on truth theories, and thus also characterize the concept of truth. So the concept of truth and the concept of meaning are each characterized in such way that substantial characterization of the other is not pre-empted. So the extremes of the Tarskian view and the received view of Davidson are avoided. To revert again to the metaphors: the principles which constrain a proper meaning theory serve to locate a region of philosophical space in which both truth and meaning reside; the theory of truth and the theory of meaning describe a single tract of the conceptual geography. It is for these reasons that the concept of truth takes its life from a theory of meaning that specifies certain a priori principles of correctness for empirical meaning theories, which themselves take the form of truth theories that Davidson says: It bears emphasizing: absent this empirical connection, the concept of truth has no application to, or interest for, our mundane concerns, nor so far as I can see, does it have any content at all. (Davidson 1996: 277)
4.
Dummett on Truth and Meaning
I will begin my discussion of Dummett by showing that the ideas that I have put forth here are ones to which he also subscribes, and indeed of which he was perhaps the principal originator.11 But, as we will also see, there is a philosophical orientation that derives from Davidson.
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Dummett states some general requirements on an adequate meaning theory when he says: y[a] meaning-theory itself must make no appeal to our prior understanding of the object-languageyIn such a case, therefore, the fact (if it be one) that all instances of [the T-schema]yhold good is one of which we can take no official noticeyThe intelligibility of the meaning-theory, and the fact that it serves the purposes of a meaning-theory cannot depend upon our awareness that [the T-schema] is satisfied. I have tried to emphasize these points by noting that the satisfaction of Convention T, assuming uncritically as it does the concept of translation, does not serve as a usable, or primitive, constraint on a meaning theory. Continuing with Dummett: Rather the significance of the word true, as employed in the meaningtheory, will depend jointly upon the specification of the conditions for sentences of the object-language to be true and those other principles of the meaning-theory that are expressed by means of the predicate true, namely, the connections established by the meaning-theory between the property of being true and the use that speakers make of the sentence. I have made this point by showing that the concept of truth is not characterized by the T-schema, but rather by its functioning in the theory of meaning, in particular by the principles of interpretation which provide the correctness conditions for meaning theories, and which, thereby, implicitly characterize the concept. There are differences between Dummett and Davidson on this point, but there is agreement on what it is to characterize truth; the difference resides in what this characterization ought to be (see 6). Finally: Conversely, therefore, an explanation of the use of true by means of an outright stipulation that each instance of [the T-schema] is to holdycannot be part of, or be extended to, any general account of how the language functions, precisely because it depends on and exploits the prior understanding of those sentences to which the predicate true is to be applied. (Dummett 1991a: 6869) Dummetts point here is that truth is not characterized by the T-schema, nor can its proper characterization be arrived at by extending the T-schema, because the T-schema itself presupposes a prior understanding of the meaning of the sentences to which its instances ascribe truth. But to provide an account of speakers understanding of sentences just is the explanatory task of a meaning theory. Exploiting a prior understanding of the sentences to which the truth predicate applies is thus a problem; it prevents the concept of truth from figuring in an account of the meaning of particular sentences, and more generally, of how the language functions.
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I hope that this short sketch of Dummetts views shows that Davidson underestimates Dummetts ideas on truth when he says, unfavourably, that Dummett is trying to provide a brief criterion, schema, partial but leading hintyattempts at substitutes for definitions of truth.12 If indeed Dummett is trying to do this, he is moved to do so by methodological reflections very similar to Davidsons own. We might put the point by saying that Dummett and Davidson agree that the concept of truth is to receive a form of implicit characterization; they disagree about the details of the implicit characterization, and about what property realizes the implicit characterization. These are some of the details upon which Dummett and Davidson agree and which, as matter of the history of these ideas, seem to stem from Dummett. But there is a philosophical orientation here that derives from Davidson. Opening his What is a Theory of Meaning? (I) Dummett adopts the following, Davidsonian, view as his own: According to one well-known view [Davidsons], the best method of formulating the philosophical problems surrounding the concept of meaning and related notions is by asking what form should be taken by what is called a theory of meaning for any entire language [a meaning theory, in the terminology of this paper]yIt is not that the construction of a [meaning theory], in this sense, for any one language is viewed as a practical project; but it is thought that, when once we can enunciate the general principles in accordance with which such a construction could be carried out, we shall have arrived at a solution of the problems concerning meaning by which philosophers are perplexed. (Dummett 1975: 1)13 Now my recommendation for understanding both Davidson and Dummett on the concept of truth is to see that the characterization of the general concept of truth is also to be arrived at by considerations in the theory of meaning, in particular, of the principles which specify the constraints on ascription of a meaning theory to an individual or group of individuals. It is in these principles that the deep interconnectedness of truth and meaning is to be found.14 I think that it is fair to say that Dummett describes the nature of Davidsons theory of meaning, in particular the way in which the T-schema and Convention T do not and cannot function in a meaning theory as well as, as far as I know, anywhere Davidson does himself. My interpretation of Davidson, along these explicitly Dummettian lines, then, can be seen as an attempt to bring Davidson into line with the conception of the interconnectedness of truth and meaning which has long been at the centre of his own work. 5. Manifestation, Full-bloodedness, and Modesty
Despite much agreement, Dummett and Davidson disagree on the characterization of truth that emerges from the theory of meaning on the details of how the notion that is to function in meaning theories is to be understood. Truth is
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characterized by the general principles that link the meaning theory to the use of the language; it is in the details of the description of these constraints that Dummetts differences from Davidson emerge. According to Dummett, a theory of meaning should answer not only what it is that a competent speaker of the language knows when she understands the language, but also the constitutive question of in what understanding a language grasp of the concepts that its expressions can be used to express consists. But what does this involve? In What is a Theory of Meaning? (I) Dummett takes the constitutive question to demand that the theory of meaning make accessible to one who is without concepts the concepts expressed by expressions of the language.15 The theory would explain, then, how creatures, initially bereft of language, could come to be linguistically competent.16 It seems clear that a philosophical theory by itself is ill-suited to execute this task, as it clearly depends heavily upon empirical considerations. But the demands of the constitutive account are weakened in the Logical Basis of Metaphysics; speaking initially of the distinction between modesty and full-bloodedness (on which more below), Dummett says: Such a demand would obviously be exorbitantyA modest meaningtheory assumes not merely that those to whom it is addressed have the concepts expressible in the object-language, but that they require no explanation of what it is to grasp those concepts. A more robust conception of what is to be expected of a meaning-theory is that it should, in all cases, make explicit in what a grasp of those concepts consists the grasp which a speaker of the language must have of the concepts expressed by the words belonging to it. (Dummett 1991a: 108) Unfortunately, in the context of the dialectic I have set up, it is precisely this formulation of what a constitutive account of meaning involves that it make explicit in what a grasp of concepts consists that needs explaining and supplementation. But, though we have come around a circle, we have learned something in the trip. Dummetts thought that a philosophical account of in what meaning consists ought to explain how it is that that a creature becomes linguistically competent is surely too strong; but perhaps the point is the weaker one that a philosophical account of what is constitutive of meaning and having a language must be able to embed into an account of how it is that a creature becomes linguistically competent. We do acquire the language, and the account of what meanings are constitutively needs to be consistent with that. To further understand the more general point being made here, consider Davidsons ideal radical interpreter. For all we have said so far, meaning might be constituted by any kind of fact. But the point of Davidsons ideal radical interpreter is to restrict the kinds of facts that might serve as the constitutive basis of meaning to what an interpreter could find out. To focus further, the radical and ideal nature of the interpreter impoverishes her as much as possible with respect
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to the notion under study meaning so as to be able to reconstruct it ab initio, as it were, while idealizing her with respect to other valuable informational and computational resources. But what are the philosophical ends of this elaborate set-up? I think that what is on Davidsons mind here are issues about the interaction of the metaphysics and epistemology of language. Since speakers can and do come to know meanings even in the very worst case of a radical interpreter it must be that the facts about meaning are knowable. Meaning must be made out of what the radical interpreter, idealized, needs to have access to in order to come to know meanings. I think that the upshot of the Dummettian and Davidsonian accounts can be put like this: the philosophical account of what is constitutive of meaning must be able to embed into an explanation of the epistemic situation of speakers an explanation of the fact that speakers know, and come to know, the meanings of expressions.17 And their positive thought, following people like Wittgenstein and Quine, is the following: that the constitutive facts about meaning are facts about use. These facts are available to real speakers and hearers real interpreters in their actual epistemic situation, as well as to the radical interpreter, in her epistemically impoverished situation. So the thought is that a use theory of meaning is the theory of meaning that can ultimately embed in a philosophical explanation of our knowledge of meaning.18 This brings us to Dummetts Manifestation Constraint and to his distinction between full-blooded and modest theories of meaning. A theory of meaning meets the Manifestation Constraint iff it gives a description of the abilities to use the language that constitute speakers knowledge of a meaning theory. These abilities provide (ideally) necessary and sufficient conditions for a speaker to know a particular meaning theory T. Full-bloodedness is a constraint on the descriptions of manifestation; it is to be understood as follows: A theory of meaning is full-blooded to a greater or lesser degree to the extent that it provides a description in an idiom lesser or greater intentional or semantic of the abilities to use the language that constitutes speakers knowledge of a meaning theory. In other words, a theory of meaning will be full-blooded to the extent that the descriptions of manifestation employed eschew unexplained or primitive intentional and semantic resources. The requirement of full-bloodedness on manifestation can thus be seen as the Dummettian analogue of the radical character of the Davidsonian interpreter. Ill assume for the purposes of this paper that intentional and semantic resources cannot be completely eschewed; that is, Ill assume that a reduction of semantic competence to an austere behaviourism is not in the cards. The question then will be how, and how much of, the intentional and semantic is to be invoked. This possibility is captured by the definition in that it allows full-bloodedness to be a matter of degree: a theory
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of meaning can be more or less full-blooded. Finally, the less full-blooded a theory of meaning is, the more modest it is. Dummetts Manifestation Constraint, I will argue below, is recognized by Davidson and McDowell as well. The constraint derives from and interprets both Wittgensteins slogan that meaning is use and Freges idea of the third realm.19 It is what the speaker is able to do that makes it the case that she possesses a particular competence. So it is important to note that the Manifestation Constraint expresses a philosophical postulate, the postulate that semantic competence is, to use Gareth Evanss phrase, a logical construction out of use.20 Ill follow Evanss usage to denote this philosophical postulate. The postulate seems to be accepted by many in the philosophical community (or at least that part of the philosophical community that works in the paradigm of philosophy initiated by Frege and influenced by Wittgenstein).21 The crucial Fregean idea is what Dummett calls the extrusion of thought from the mind that thought is constituted, somehow, by what one can do, ones abilities, with particular prominence given to ones linguistic abilities.22 I associate this postulate partly with Frege, not because the idea is in Frege explicitly, but because it is a direct descendant of Freges idea of the third realm and the objectivity and communicability of sense.23 The postulate is contentious. Of course there will be some basic distinctions, proposed by both those who work within and without the Fregean framework, that need to be recoverable from a conception of competence as a logical construction out of use; for example some distinction like that made by Quine between being guided by rather than merely acting accordance with rules or like that made by Chomsky between competence and performance would be required by any theory of meaning which has meaning theories figure as theories of semantic competence.24 As well, accepting the postulate forces one to face a substantial problem in accounting for the distinction between use and misuse (see Kripke 1982). I think that it is a substantial and pressing problem for the adherent of the postulate to show that it is consistent with these distinctions.25
6.
Truth and Manifestation
It is well known that Dummetts concern with meaning and truth are but part of his larger, overall project of bringing a new tractability to the traditional metaphysical questions of realism and antirealism. Dummetts overall project can be seen as comprised of two parts. The first links the theory of meaning to the question of realism. For Dummett, the question of whether to be a realist or antirealist about a particular discourse is a question about the notion of truth that figures in an account of the meaning of the sentences of the discourse; the concern is no longer with objects, but rather, with objectivity, in particular with the objectivity of the statements which comprise the discourse. The notion of truth appropriate to a particular discourse will be an index of the objectivity of, and hence an index of our metaphysical attitude towards, the discourse. This first
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part of Dummetts project just is the link between the concepts of meaning and truth described in 2 and 3 of this paper, a link that allows conclusions about the nature of truth and objectivity to follow from claims about the nature of meaning. The second part of Dummetts overall project tries to establish what it might be for a particular concept to be an appropriate notion of truth for a particular discourse. Here Dummetts Manifestation Constraint becomes important. Dummett extracts from the constraint a general antirealist orientation for the concept of truth, where antirealist signifies any epistemically constrained notion of truth. According to Dummett, a meaning theory that employs a concept of verification-transcendent truth overdescribes (the term is Wrights) a speakers competence by ascribing to her a competence that she cannot possibly manifest. One cannot, Dummett claims, manifest a knowledge of the truth-conditions of a sentence when one is unable, in principle, to tell that they obtain, or that they do not; there is nothing that one can do to ground the idea that that meaning has been grasped, those truth conditions, rather than some more conservative meaning, one which is provided by some epistemically constrained notion such as conditions which warrant assertion.26 However, even if these points do push us to some epistemically constrained notion, it is important to see that the notion which is to function in a meaning theory must be, even if epistemically constrained, a notion of truth: the notion of truth is indispensable to a meaning theory.27 So there are at least two conceptions of truth a realist and an antirealist conception that can figure in a meaning theory; and it would clearly, thus, be question-begging at this point simply to assume that the concept of truth is realist and epistemically unconstrained. Now Davidson, it seems, begs the question in precisely this way. It is a necessary condition for the construction of a meaning theory that utterances be interpreted in accordance with the Principle of Charity, given, as I have claimed, that the principles of interpretation are a priori true of meaning, belief, etc. I do not wish to get into the debates about the proper formulation and extent of the Principle, except to say that, despite other disagreement, both Quine and Davidsons version of the Principle ascribes to speakers an adherence to classical logic; any behaviour which looks like evidence for disbelief in an aspect of classical reasoning on the part of a speaker is always better interpreted as evidence for poor interpretation.28 One might wonder, as Dummett does, with what justification it may be contended that interpretation contrary to the strictures of classical logic may be ruled out. Presupposing classical logic in this way is merely to refuse to face the demands of the Manifestation Constraint; nothing that a speaker could do could count as reason to ascribe to her classical logic, as opposed to the more conservative intuitionistic logic. There is temptation here to see Davidson as retreating within, as endorsing psychologism the view that the meanings are somehow there in the head, even if they never do or could come out in behaviour and giving up the idea that meaning is a logical construction out of use, as it is expressed in the Manifestation Constraint. Unless there is some reason to think that Dummetts version of the Constraint is unduly restrictive, it will indeed look
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as though Davidsons use of charity has been indiscriminate and that he has no recourse but to the psychologism which he officially disavows. However, Dummetts requirements do indeed seem restrictive; it looks as though one has very little room to manoeuver. John McDowell develops a reading of Dummett according to which an acceptable degree of full-bloodedness requires, to put it in Fregean terminology, a description of the manifestation of knowledge of the theory of sense without an invocation of elements from the theory of force. McDowell argues that descriptions of manifestation that fail to invoke force notions will prove inadequate to meet the Manifestation Constraint. Ill discuss McDowells objections in 7 below, but for now we can note that McDowell takes this inadequacy to imply, erroneously I will argue, that satisfaction of the Manifestation Constraint for knowledge of the truth conditions of some sentence s requires describing manifesting uses as assertings that, as in, M X asserted that p where p is the proposition expressed by s.29 But this is unacceptable for Dummett because precisely the effect of the Manifestation Constraint, for him, is to put into jeopardy the possibility of saying, with some problematic sentence s, that p, where this content or proposition determines, or is constrained by, classically conceived truth conditions. From Dummetts perspective, to construe manifestations as taking the form (M) is, like with Davidson, to fail to take the antirealist challenge seriously; the view evades, rather than illuminates, the issues and problems the theory of meaning poses for truth and realism.30 But, reconsideration of the definition of full-bloodedness may suggest not that there is little room to maneuver, but that there is no room. What is required, according to that definition, is a description of the manifestation of competence; and, it is required, that such a description uses the intentional idiom to some degree (this is the anti-behaviourist idea). The first portion of the requirement already pushes us to McDowells answer: of course, what it is that a competent speaker can do that one that is not cannot is utter, say, the noises There is a table in the hall, to assert none other than that there is a table in the hall. One can have no qualm with this other than to wonder whether some deeper, non-trivial, account can be given; but, it seems that the second portion of the requirement forecloses on the possibility of saying more, for what is required are descriptions of manifestation given in the intentional idiom. The sense of conceptual claustrophobia felt here can be put in the form of a question: How can something be described in an intentional idiom, without appealing to the contents of exercises of intentionality? What else is it to describe in the intentional idiom? Davidson provides an answer to precisely these questions. We may eschew attempts of reduction, and thus remain in the idiom of the intentional, without appealing to contents, by employing non-individuating attitudes.31 A nonindividuating attitude is an attitude that a speaker may take to a sentence thus a sentential rather than a propositional attitude and which does not in itself, thus, presuppose recognition of the content of the sentence to which the attitude is directed. For example, one may recognizably hold-true or prefer-true a sentence
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without it being recognizable, by the interpreter, what the sentence means. A speaker, ascribed a competency via an ascription of a certain meaning theory, will manifest that competency, then, by holding-true, or preferring-true, certain sentences under certain conditions, and it is this information which is summarized by the ascribed meaning theory. If one sees holding-true as a passive form of assertion, the point may be put in the following Fregean way: although appeal must be made to elements from the theory of force, one is not thereby committed to appealing to elements of the theory of sense. We can hold back from this latter move. A speaker may have to be described as asserting a sentence, but that is not to describe her as asserting thaty, where in place of the ellipsis is a description of the content of the assertion. This points to the space that needs to be occupied by the full-blooded theorist of meaning, and to the lacuna in McDowells reasoning for the contention that descriptions of manifestation must take the form of a description of the types of speech acts, with their propositional content, that speakers can effect.32 The manifestation consists, rather, in taking the attitude of holding-true or preferring-true a sentence. The austerity of the resources employed by Davidson, the austerity, in particular, of the notion of a non-individuating attitude, reveals a way of meeting the Manifestation Constraint in a way considerably more full-blooded than McDowells (whom we may take as the standard of modesty, as providing a meaning theory of minimal full-bloodedness). One might speculate, given the confined conceptual quarters within which manifestation must be described, a scarcity of conceptual space which urges upon one, at least in the first instance, the apparent inevitability of the McDowellian response, that Davidsons theory discharges the Manifestation Constraint with maximal full-bloodedness.33
7.
Holism and Molecularism
I want to further elaborate on this conclusion by considering the overall proposal of Davidsons in which the non-individuating attitudes figure. I will also try to make clear my difference with McDowell on the matter. We can learn more about this overall proposal by considering McDowells arguments to the effect that any attempt to describe manifestation in terms sparser than his own leads inevitably to a rule-following scepticism about meaning. Any description of a saying that the table is in the hall in lesser terms, say as a disposition to assert The table is in the hall when there is, ceteris paribus, a table in the hall, could be taken as manifesting the belief, say, that The table is in the hall means that the table is in the hall and 2 5 2, instead of as manifesting the knowledge that The table is in the hall means that the table is in the hall. McDowell says: Of course no one, confronted with what is plainly a speaker of Englishywill so much as entertain any of the competing candidates. But with what right does one ignore them? It is illicit at this point to
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Gurpreet S. Rattan appeal to someone who is plainly a speaker of English: the issue is precisely whether someone could make it manifest (plain) in his behaviour that it is this rather than that language as characterized, supposedly, by a full-blooded theory of meaning that he is speaking. (McDowell 1987: 9697)
Now, McDowells response to the claim that we are confronted with a speaker of English is surely well founded; but does this mean that we are doomed to a rulefollowing scepticism? We would not be if we thought of manifestations, in addition to functioning in a logical construction out of use, as being evidence for a hypothesis about what the speakers words mean.34 That is, although uses are ultimately going to be constitutive of meaning, particular uses can also serve as evidence for hypotheses about meaning. But McDowell dismisses this idea, on the grounds that to make a meaning theory a hypothesis is to commit oneself to a view of semantic competence akin to the code conception of meaning, in which linguistic behaviour is the outward manifestation of an inner realm of concepts and contents which are themselves contentful in a way logically prior to their manifesting linguistic behaviour.35 To put it in the terminology of this paper, McDowell thinks that construing meaning as a hypothesis commits one to a denial of the thought that meaning is a logical construction out of use. Now, it is certainly true that, if one is committed to the code conception of meaning, that a meaning theory, constructed on the basis of publicly observable linguistic behaviour, becomes a hypothesis about what is going on in the now private mental domain.36 But it is the converse that matters to McDowell in this context, and it does not hold; namely a commitment to the code conception of meaning does not follow from the construal of a theory of meaning as a hypothesis. The hypothesis does not concern what is going on inside, but what would go on outside. One hypothesizes, in ascribing a particular meaning theory to a speaker, that the speaker would, or is committed to, use words in the way that the meaning theory says that she would, i.e. that she would, or she is committed to, hold-true, or prefer-true such and such sentence under such-andsuch conditions (conditions which might include a demand that one hold-true certain sentences on the basis of other sentences held-true). And since the meaning theory ascribes an infinite capacity, it will always be an epistemic question as to whether one is speaking the language ascribed. Of course, when a speaker employs the language in accordance with the ascribed meaning theory over a great length of time, the assurance that the meaning theory has been correctly ascribed is very high as high, and no higher, than the confirmation the theory has received from the linguistic behaviour of the speaker. But this is how it should be.37 Davidson deploys the non-individuative attitudes in a theory that construes meaning facts in a holistic way. However, one must be careful, especially in the light of these most recent remarks about the evidential basis for a theory of meaning, about how holism is to be understood. Davidson writes that it is holism that allows very thin evidence in support of each of a potential infinity of points [to] yield rich results, even with respect to the points. By knowing only the
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Nothing short of conformity with the theory in all its implications entitles one to say conclusively that the speaker has that particular semantic competence. In this sense, a meaning theory is always a hypothesis, and always subject to revision.39 (This follows from the empirical nature of a meaning theory.) But Davidsons talk of evidence for a meaning theory may mislead one into thinking that he is making a merely epistemic point. The epistemic point is the point that matters for meaning-theories. But the point is not merely epistemic, but rather also metaphysical; that is, the point is also a point in the theory of meaning, about what meaning is. Construed as such, the question that Davidson is answering is the constitutive question of in what our understanding of the language consists, of what it is that constitutes ones competency. Talk of holding- and preferringtrue behaviour is, in effect, Davidsons attempt at a logical construction of semantic competence out of use.40 In this setting, holism and molecularism are views about the way that the logical construction is to be carried out. I think it is illuminating to think of holism and molecularism as competing interpretations of Freges context principle. In Grundlagen, Frege counsels us to never ask for the meaning of a word in isolation, but only in the context of a proposition. Suppose we render here meaning as Fregean sense, and proposition as Fregean Thought.41 I propose to understand the context principle as conceptually privileging the righthand side over the left-hand side in the following Identity Constraint on meaning theories: Identity Constraint: the sense of a subsentential expression is the contribution made by the subsentential expression to the senses of sentences in which it takes part. Now, in itself, the Identity Constraint is a constraint on all meaning theories, and is partly constitutive of the notion of sense (by being a constraint on the interrelations amongst senses). As such, a semantic atomist, like early Hartry Field 1972 or Jerry Fodor 1990, a Dummettian molecularist, and a Davidsonian holist can all endorse it. However, if the context principle is a correct thesis in the theory of meaning, it will serve to rule out the first of these, for one way to characterize the semantic atomist is as giving conceptual priority to the left-hand side of the Identity Constraint. Now the holist further interprets the context principle as saying that the sense of a subsentential expression is an abstraction from the senses of all sentences in which it occurs, and thus the sense of every sentence in which the expression occurs is partly constitutive of the sense of the subsentential expression. The molecularist, by contrast, privileges the senses of a set of sentences as constitutive of the sense of a particular expression, and maintains that the occurrence of the expression in other sentences must be faithful
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to the sense of the expression, partly determined, as it is on her account, by the occurrence of the expression in the privileged set.42 A speakers semantic competence is a logical construction out of the use that speaker makes of the language. Holism is an interpretation of this idea. An ascription of a particular meaning theory to a speaker, i.e., a particular assignment of senses and significance to semantically basic expressions and construction serving to determine the senses of semantically complex expressions, is done in such a way that the assignments made to compositionally basic expressions and constructions are determined by a speakers use, both actual and possible, of every sentence of the language. To put the point in other words, this is to say that there is no proper subpart of the language such that it would be sufficient for two speakers to agree in their use of that subpart in order to be ascribed the same meaning theory. In short, the full-bloodedness of Davidsons theory is achieved by conceiving of use as the asserting or holding-true (or not) of sentences under certain conditions; the holism enters in considering the holdingtrue use, actual and potential, of every sentence as partially constitutive of the sense of each expression of the language. Let me contrast this understanding of holism with McDowells. According to McDowell, holism is simply the inextricability of meaning, belief, and desire.43 But inextricability is one thing, holism, at least as it is being thought of here, another (although closely and interestingly related) thing. The point most relevant to our concerns here is that McDowell does not connect Davidsons holism to his logical construction of meaning out of use, or at least does not do so in a way that recognizes the particular form of descriptions Davidson employs to meet the Manifestation Constraint.44 So McDowell cannot see Davidsons holism as that which allows him, if indeed it does, to meet the Manifestation Constraint with an epistemically untainted truth-conditional conception of meaning. Dummett has been very critical of holism; and he has opposed to it his own molecularist view of language, in which the meanings of at least some expressions are constituted independently of the meanings of the rest. This allows there to be a level of semantic competence that does not presuppose other semantic competence. In other words, there is some subpart of the language in the use of which two speakers can agree that suffices to determine the semantic values and contributions of the compositionally primitive expressions and constructions that figure in an account of their semantic competence. This follows from the account of molecularism together with some conception of the idea that meaning is a logical construction out of use. Dummetts antirealism results from the existence (or possible existence) of sentences that stand at the lowest level of semantic competence, but for which there is no way to manifest an epistemically untainted truth-conditional conception of their content. Sentences may stand higher up in the network of sentences, in which case their deductive and evidential connections to other sentences can be exploited to manifest semantic competence; other sentences may stand at the lowest levels in the network, and possess a kind of content competence with which can be manifested by a recognition of the obtaining, or not, of the condition for truth. Antirealism is
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generated by the existence (or possible existence) of sentences at the lowest levels of the network that are supposed to possess contents whose truth conditions obtain undetectably. In short, the thought is that a molecularist view in the theory of meaning entails anti-realism about truth. Explicitly, the argument for this runs as follows: P1. Suppose molecularism. Molecularism requires that semantic competence with at least some set of sentences, S, does not presuppose semantic competence with other sentences. (assumption; definition of molecularism) Semantic competence needs to manifested in ability. The manifestation of semantic competence with some set of sentences S1ySn is accomplished in use; quite generally the relevant uses are either those of other sentences containing the constituents of S1ySn, or the uses of S1ySn in response to the recognition of the obtaining or not of the truth conditions of S1ySn. (Manifestation Constraint, together with an elaboration of kinds of use.) Semantic competence with the sentences in S must be manifested without the use of other sentences; more specifically, semantic competence with the sentences of S is to be manifested through a capacity to recognize the obtaining or not of the truth conditions of the sentences in S. (P1, P2) There are, or can be, sentences, suppose S1ySn in S, whose meaning is given by recognition-transcendent truth conditions. (assumption for reductio) There are, or can be, sentences, in particular S1ySn in S, semantic competence with which requires the recognition of the obtaining of recognition-transcendent truth conditions. But this is absurd. (C1, P3) The notion of truth relevant to semantics must be recognitionally or more generally, epistemically constrained. (P3, C2)
P2.
C1.
P3.
C2.
C.
My point is not to endorse the argument, but rather just to make clear what it is.45 But what should be noted for the purposes of this paper is that everything in the argument ought to be completely acceptable to Davidson everything, that is, except P1. But P1 is crucial to securing the antirealist conclusion. It should be clear that the argument does not show that holism suffices for realism; that is a separate question that I do not take up here in any detail. But at the very least, we can see that the hope of the holistic view lies in the fact that there is an extra degree of freedom such that for every set of sentences S1ySn, this extra degree of freedom the use of other sentences can be exploited to manifest a realist truth conditional competence with S1ySn (and their constituents). That extra degree of
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freedom may make room for realist truth. So, in sum, my point is that the dispute about truth turns, at least partially, if not wholly, on the dispute about molecularism and holism. This is how I wish to describe Dummetts position. McDowell, however, does not see things this way. McDowells reading of Dummett revolves around the idea that an account of content must be given from outside content (McDowell 1987). But, as we have seen, this does not have the implications that McDowell takes it to have. This blinds McDowell from seeing Dummetts antirealist orientation as a product of a molecularist logical construction of semantic competence from use. And because McDowell cannot see the role of Dummetts molecularism, he cannot make any sense of Dummett except as being so far outside content that he is a crude behaviourist, attempting to reduce the semantic and intentional to non-intentionally characterized behaviour. McDowell thus sees Dummett as still trying to effect the logical construction of semantic competence out of use, but in way that is doomed from the beginning. In sum, then, my difference with McDowell is the following. McDowell interprets the break between Davidson and Dummett over the question of realism as grounded in the division of intentional versus non-intentional logical constructions of semantic competence out of use; that is why Dummett, unlike Davidson, is attempting a construction from outside content. Remaining within the intentional makes realism possible for Davidson, but rejecting the intentional makes only antirealism possible for Dummett. It is this understanding of the issues that I oppose. I have assumed, with McDowell, that an account from outside content makes meaning or content altogether impossible. But on my view, the divide between Davidson and Dummett lies elsewhere; it lies within the space of intentional logical constructions of semantic competence out of use. They divide over whether the constructions are holistic or molecularist in nature. This can be seen by making clear the basis of the antirealist argument in molecularism, and the prospect of realism through the extra degree of freedom present in holism. If that is right, McDowell will have got neither Dummett nor Davidson exactly right: Davidson is not as modest, and Dummett not as fullblooded, as McDowell would have us think.46 This was, and still is, the tenor of McDowells criticisms of Dummett.47 I have tried to give an interpretation of Dummett, and of Davidson, that understands their disagreements against a larger background of agreement than McDowell allows.
8.
Conclusion: A Partial Reduction of the Debate Over Truth
It is not my aim in this paper to decide whether a molecularistic or holistic picture of language is the correct one; what I hope is that it is clear that it is, at least partially, the holism/molecularism issue upon which the question of the proper characterization of the concept of truth rests. Let us review the steps that have led to this conclusion. We saw that the T-schema, as Tarski might have understood it, takes us quite far in understanding the concept of truth; but it falls
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short in taking translation as primitive in the account of truth, and thus foreclosing on the possibility of using the concept of truth in the account of meaning (2). For this reason, we found that the T-schema, again as Tarski might have understood it, plays no role in Davidsons theory of meaning (3): it does not provide any insight into the concept of truth, at least none of which we can take official notice, and, consequently does not provide any usable constraints on a meaning theory. I remarked on the fact that these are points on which Dummett is in agreement, and in fact which he has made himself (4). This leaves it a question as to what is to be the method of a proper characterization of truth; the answer, according to both Dummett and Davidson, is to describe the general constraints on a meaning theory in which the concept of truth is to do its work (3, 4). This links the concept of truth to other important philosophical concepts, including meaning, belief, and desire. Truth is to be characterized in a functionalist fashion, with the implicitly characterizing theory being a theory of meaning (or more generally, a theory of interpretation). These, then, are all general points of agreement between Dummett and Davidson. But it is within the details of this general agreement that the disagreements crop up; in particular, it might be thought, that it is in the demands made by the requirement that understanding of the language be manifested (5, 6). But even this is not the real point of contention. Looking more closely, we see that it is the requirement that understanding be manifested within a certain picture of the metaphysics of meaning, namely a molecularist picture, in which the understanding of at least some sentences must be manifestable independently of the ability to use other sentences, or a holistic picture, in which no such asymmetrical constraint on manifestation is imposed (7). The former, because certain ground-level sentences do not allow for the manifestation of epistemically untainted truth-conditional content, necessitates a concept of truth which is epistemically constrained; the latter, on the other hand, having an extra degree of freedom, holds out the possibility that truth is epistemically untainted (but of course, on this point the holist is obligated to say more hence the partial reduction of the debate). But the issues turn on which model of the metaphysics of meaning, molecularistic or holistic, is correct.48 In a paper in which he interprets Davidson as a contributor to the pragmatist tradition in philosophy, Richard Rorty writes: y[O]n my view the futile metaphysical struggle between idealism and physicalism was superseded, in the early years of this century, by a metaphilosophical struggle between the pragmatists (who wanted to dissolve the old metaphysical questions) and the anti-pragmatists (who still thought there was something first-order to fight about). This latter struggle is beyond realism and anti-realismySo, despite his occasional pledges of realist faith, is Davidson. (Rorty 1986: 149) Bjrn Ramberg echoes this view when he says: [The realism/antirealism] debate has endured, in only slightly different garb, for centuries, and it is not my intention to contribute to it here. The
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Gurpreet S. Rattan present point is that on my reading, Davidson is not a party to it, Dummetts polemic notwithstanding. (Ramberg 1989: 46)
But if I am right about the importance of the molecularism/holism debate, and if Dummett is right, in the context of a molecularist picture of language, that the requirements of manifestation determine truth to be constrained epistemically, thereby making us antirealists, then it may be that the only way to be realist is the way that Davidson is a realist.49 So Davidson is not outside the dispute; he makes, instead, precisely the required meaning-theoretic moves to sustain realism. Now, of course Rorty and Ramberg are both right in claiming Davidson to be outside the debate in the sense that he has dropped the essential premise of molecularism (or less) upon which the debate has, at least within recent history, been conducted.50 But, given the view I have been trying to make clear and defend here about the deep interconnections between the theories of truth and meaning, I see no reason not to think of ones views about meaning and its constitution as pregnant with consequences of a recognizably and deeply metaphysical sort.51 Gurpreet S. Rattan Department of Philosophy University of Toronto 215 Huron St. Toronto, M5S 1A1 Canada gurpreet.rattan@utoronto.ca NOTES
The interdependency of the holism/molecularism debate and the debate about conceptions of truth is discussed in Bilgrami 1986. 2 I do not intend the claims of this section as serious Tarski scholarship. My aim, rather, is to set a background from which the projects of Davidson and Dummett can be seen to emerge. 3 Of course issues of paradox loom large here. The point must be restricted to avoid them. To do so, we may assume that the metavariables do not to take on as values names of expressions and expressions from the language in which the account is being given. I will assume such a qualification throughout, especially in the construction immediately following. 4 Cf. McDowell 1987: 2 and 1981: 3. Cf. also Crispin Wrights closely related outline of the argument in the introduction to Wright 1993: 18, and the rather opaque formulation of the idea in Davidson 1967: 23. For ease of exposition, I follow McDowell, Wright, and Davidson in abstracting away from various details concerning context-dependence and vagueness. 5 Issues about the compositionality of meaning are also relevant here. The fact that a truth conditional semantics can illuminatingly reveal semantic structure and help to explain the productive character of language counts in favour of casting truth or representation in a central role. Cf. Davidson 1967: 1920.
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6 Dummetts formulation of the distinction occurs in Dummett 1991a. It is implicit, as well, in the opening paragraph of Dummett 1975: 1. David Lewis formulates the distinction explicitly in the opening pages of Lewis 1975; Martin Daviess formulation comes from his classic Davies 1981: 3. I depart from Dummetts 1991a usage of the theory of meaning, as he uses it to mean, roughly the philosophy of language. I use the phrase more restrictively, to denote inquiries into the form and correctness conditions of empirical meaning theories. In this way, my use of the expression follows much more closely Daviess use. 7 See Davies 1981: 27. Davies is actually there speaking of the theory of meaning, but the point can be extended to the theory of truth. 8 The received view originates with Davidson himself (although, as I will argue below, he no longer adheres to it). See Davidson 1974: 150. For other expressions of the received view see Schantz 1993, and Ramberg 1989: 54. 9 This is a fundamental matter on which Davidson and Dummett have converged over the years (this paper describes their post-, not pre-convergence views). Davidson moves from a compatibilist position, in which the T-schema is a full characterization of the concept of truth and truth plays a role in a meaning theory, to an incompatibilist inflationist view, in which truth plays a role in a meaning theory and is thus not fully characterized by the Tschema. Dummett 1959 also moves to the inflationist position, but from a different incompatibilist position, in which the characterizing role of the T-schema implies that truth does not play a role in a meaning theory. The shuffling is profitably seen as an attempt to come to grips with a fundamental dilemma about the theories of truth and meaning that Dummett 1959 poses. These issues are discussed in Rattan (ms1). 10 I think that this point is missed in David Wigginss excellent Wiggins 1997. Wiggins points out how the questions of what makes a meaning theory a correct meaning theory, and what makes a truth theory a correct truth theory arise symmetrically (12, 14), and he also thinks that it is essentially Davidson who put us on track to arrive at the answers. But Wiggins describes Davidsons strategy as the invert-Tarski strategy (19, 26). This does not seem to provide the required illumination on the concept of truth. Although the present work was composed before seeing Wigginss work, the view espoused here bears close affinities to it, and to Wiggins 1980. 11 These themes make their appearance as early as Dummett 1959. 12 Davidson 1996: 276. Davidson there levels these charges at others as well; I mean only to defend Dummett. 13 Cf. also Dummett 1991a: 22. Here Dummett acknowledges that the idea stems from Davidson. 14 The deep interconnectedness here speaks against the deflationary view of truth. Very quickly, the problem is the following. Either the deflationist accepts that meanings determine truth conditions, or he does not. If he does, then it seems as though the purity of truth (see Horwich 1990: 12) is lost; if he does not, he has undercut the basis for his own view, in which something like the T-schema provides a full account of truth. For the thought that the T-schema says anything about truth, let alone everything about truth, is completely parasitic on the idea that meanings determine truth conditions. These thoughts are elaborated and generalized in Rattan (ms2). 15 I am indebted to Haim Gaifman for making me appreciate some of the delicacies involved in understanding Dummett on these points. See Gaifman 1996: 388389. 16 I have here exploited Dummetts endorsement of some version of a priority-thesis of language over thought to rewrite his views about what is initially a requirement on thought as one on language. This is, I think, a subtle and difficult topic, and no doubt, a
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further account of the matters discusssed in this paper would contain some discussion of the priority thesis. I will not attempt that here. For more on these topics, see Dummett 1991b, and Peacock 1997. 17 Cf. Wrights 1986: 215216 idea of reconstructive analytic epistemology as an idealized epistemology of understanding. 18 I think that constitutive accounts of meaning must be able to embed into an explanation of our actual epistemic situation. I have severe doubts about whether any use theory of meaning is able to do so. I say little more about this below, but, in general, this is not the place to pursue the scepticism. For some more on this see Rattan 2002a: Chapter 4. 19 Dummett is explicit that this is the ancestry of the Manifestation Constraint; see Dummett 1976: 91. 20 See Evans 1981: 335. Evanss full idea is that the theory of which we have tacit knowledge is a logical construction out of the use of whole sentences. See also Elizabeth Frickers discussion of the metaphysical perspective, in Fricker 1983: 1. 21 We might include in this group, authors as diverse as Dummett, Quine, Davidson, McDowell, and Evans; as well as those theorists who wish to give a constitutive grasp of meaning or concepts according to their conceptual role: authors like Bilgrami, later Field, Horwich, Peacocke, Ned Block, and no doubt many others. This should also allay fears that the Manifestation Constraint and the demand for full-bloodedness necessarily involve a crude behaviourism. 22 See Dummett 1993b: Chapter 4. Dummett takes Freges idea to point to a particular role for the social in the very idea of objective thought; but I do not think that Freges idea need take that particular form. I will not argue for an alternative here. 23 George 1997 argues that although the objectivity of sense is explicit in Frege, there is not much evidence for the idea of the communicability of sense. This would imply that there is a substantial gap between Frege and Wittgenstein, between the objectivity of sense, and the idea that meaning is use. This last point further relies on the assumption that communication, and not (or not merely) the expression of thought, is what is important in use. For discussions of these latter topics see Dummett 1989. There is, however, even if George is correct, still a point to understanding things this way. 24 For an example of a denial of the postulate, see Noam Chomskys discussion of knowledge and ability in Chomsky 1980: 51ff.; in Chomsky 1986: 9ff. and 1921; and, most recently, in Chomsky 2000: 5052. For Chomskys (related) idea of the distinction between competence and performance, see Chomsky 1980: 205 and the opening pages of Chomsky 1965. For the distinction between being guided by a rule and merely having ones behaviour conform to a rule, see Quine 1972. 25 In fact I do not think that the challenge can be met; in Rattan 2002a: Chapter 4, I get started on arguments aimed to show that use theories of meaning are not able to recover these crucial distinctions. 26 I do not mean to imply by this formulation that all that one can do in order to manifest ones understanding is to be able to tell whether the conditions which render true or false a sentence obtain. There are of course other abilities that might manifest ones understanding of a sentence, perhaps involving ones abilities with other sentences. So, it is important to note that it is not required that the understanding of each sentence have its own, isolated, quasi-behavioural manifestation. But, to anticipate some of the discussion below, one of the implications of holding a molecularist view of language is that this cannot everywhere be the case. 27 Thus, it cannot be the simple notion of warranted assertibility through which the concept of sentence meaning is elucidated; a dawning recognition of this idea led
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Dummett to say in the Preface of Dummett 1978a: xxiii, while the notion of truth will not be fundamental, in the sense [that a commitment to determinate truth-values and the principle of bivalence requires], it will be crucial; and in Dummett 1991a this view is extended so as to see the concept of truth as essential to a meaning theory. Dummett adduces there reasons for this view, reasons which are well documented in Gaifman 1996: 382. But if these points are to cohere, there must be some reason to think that there can be such a thing as an epistemically constrained notion of truth; that is, it needs to be shown that epistemically constrained truth is possible. I do not think that Dummett has shown that. Crispin Wrights construction and defence of superassertibility can be seen as attempting to answer the question of how an epistemically constrained account of truth is possible. See Wright 1992: Chapter 2, 5. 28 I think that Davidson is firm on this point; see Davidson 1973: 136137. Quine, however, has wavered on it over the years. For the view in which everything is revisable see Quine 1951; for the view respecting the sanctity of classical logic see Quine 1954. 29 See for example, McDowell 1981: note 21 and McDowell 1987: 5, 7. One can understand, if McDowells account of Dummettian full-bloodedness is correct, why he thinks that Dummett cannot steer between psychologism and behaviourism. Despite protestations to the contrary, Dummett does seem headed here towards behaviourism, for unlike in the view outlined below, in which the notion of what it is to assert a sentence is taken as basic, Dummett seems to want to reconstruct that as well (cf. Dummett 1991a: 52 54). And then it seems that the only appeal to be made is to non-intentionally described behaviour. I suggest re-reading Dummett in such a way that the project of reconstructing force notions is given up. In that case, he can both avoid behaviourism, and retain his conception of truth and thus, his antirealism. I will be arguing that this is a better way to understand Dummett, as well as a better way to understand Dummetts dispute with Davidson. 30 As we will see in the next section, McDowells views here are of a piece with his interpretation of Davidson as a modest theorist of meaning. 31 This phrase occurs in Davidson 1991, although the idea behind it dates back to Quines notion of prompted assent. This is also the root of the idea used by Paul Horwich the idea that the metaphysical basis of meaning is the use property of accepting sentences under certain conditions. See Horwich 1998. 32 See the closing remarks of his discussion of Quine and Dummett in McDowell 1981: 8 for a relatively clear example of McDowell missing this alternative. I propose to read Dummett as following Davidson in this regard, and thus as appreciating that assent behaviour is not, in McDowells words, presupposition-free. 33 For a very insightful discussion of these themes that links them to the questions of rule-following, the indeterminacy of interpretation, and the very possibility of theorizing about meaning, see Bilgrami 1986: 8. 34 This is not to say that generally, the observation of uses is what entitles a speakers knowledge of meaning when she has such knowledge. 35 This is McDowells view in McDowell 1987: 97; 100. McDowell 1981 also dismisses the idea of meaning-as-hypothesis, and again on generally anti-psychologistic grounds. In the latter paper (which was written earlier), McDowell connects the criticism more explicitly to issues in the epistemology and phenomenology of understanding. 36 For a discussion of this point see Dummett 1978b: 102. Dummett commits himself there to only to the one-way implication, although he does take it that if meaning were to be a hypothesis, that communication would not be possible.
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37 Cf. Davidson 1992: 110111. The only place that I know of in which McDowell considers (as opposed to simply dismisses) such a line of argument is in his McDowell 1984: 1011, especially p. 247. But there as throughout that article, McDowell does not envision the middle, Davidsonian, position, in which descriptions are given in the intentional idiom and constitute hypotheses. Any talk of hypotheses McDowell can only see as given in purely behaviouristic or psychologistic terms. 38 I think that the phrase given a satisfactory theory is misleading; it should read, rather, by constructing a satisfactory theory. 39 Note that there will always be play between whether to regard revision as a revision of the theory to match a stable but as-of-yet uncaptured competence, or to regard the speaker as having changed languages, in some finely individuated sense of language. There seems to me to be an indeterminacy thesis lurking here. This has a very direct bearing on the nature of the concept of tacit knowledge that underlies many of the issues being discussed in this paper. For more on tacit knowledge, see Rattan 2002b. 40 On holism in respect of the evidence and holism as a thesis in the theory of meaning, cf. the Appendix to Dummett 1975. In general, that Appendix lays out a view, contra McDowell, according to which Davidsons view is both holistic and full-blooded, and thus is in line with a major contention of this paper, namely that the issue that divides Davidson and Dummett is not that between modesty and full-bloodedness, but rather that between holism and molecularism. 41 Frege 1950: x. I am not here making a general recommendation for the interpretation of early Frege. 42 In closely related terminology, this is just the distinction between holistic and canonical conceptual role theories of content. 43 See McDowell 1987: 103. McDowell comes close to the conception of holism being advocated here on the very same page, and indeed in a footnote (n. 44), provides a brief outline of a defence of it from some remarks of Dummetts. But in dismissing this form of holism, McDowell says only that he does not want to defend this form of holism, and that it seems a most implausible reading of Davidson. 44 McDowells position is often characterized by a reticence to play the antirealist game; but in at least one place he does engage more directly with the antirealist challenges and arrives at a position quite similar to that given here. But as far as I know, this is an isolated occurrence. See McDowell 1978: 7. 45 There are plenty of problems in understanding the full import of the argument. For example, it is not clear, on this formulation of molecularism, how a global antirealist commitment is to follow from the existence of sentences like S1ySn. It seems too strong to hold that the notion of truth to be employed in a meaning theory be uniform throughout the language, for it seems plausible to think that the objectivity of claims in various sectors of the language is not constant, and that the varieties of objectivity are to be reflected in the concept of truth that figures in meaning theories for those sectors. But, at least in some cases, the sentences pinpointed as problematic by Dummett involve an inability on the behalf of speakers to manifest competency with a particular construction, say, subjunctive conditionals or the past tense, and these cut across subject matters or areas of discourse, so a resistance to uniformity along the lines given above might seem to miss the point. However, it still might be maintained that the antirealist commitment should be restricted to sentences that employ those constructions, and not to all sentences of the language. Alternatively, it may be that the formulation of molecularism offered here is unnecessarily weak, and that stronger formulations can generate a global antirealist commitment. Of course, the strength of the formulation of molecularism may be inversely proportional to
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its plausibility. Given this, and since my focus is to understand how molecularism brings antirealism - any antirealism - in its wake, a weaker rather than stronger formulation serves my purposes better. The issue deserves a more extended treatment (see the following note as well). Thanks to Crispin Wright and Bernhard Weiss for valuable discussion and correspondence. 46 Indeed, I think that McDowells understanding of Dummett leaves unexplained why Dummetts view ends up in antirealism, where the fundamental notion of a meaning theory that notion in terms of which sentence meaning is given is epistemically constrained truth, rather than in the kind of eliminativism or irrealism about meaning that one might plausibly read into Quine 1951 and 1960: Chapter 2, according to which there is, properly speaking, nothing for a meaning theory to be a theory of. I agree with McDowell 1981: 8, however, that understanding the relation between Quine and Dummett (and Kripke 1982, I would add) would benefit from a more extended treatment. 47 See McDowell 1987 and, more recently, McDowell 1997. But in partial defence of McDowell, see note 29. 48 My point complements that to which Bilgrami arrives at the end of 3 of Bilgrami 1986. His point there, as he sums it up, is that it is misleadingyto think of [Dummetts] anti-holism as something established independently of the critique of the truth-theoretic conception of realism. I have framed the issues in such a way that it seems better to put the point the other way around: that it is misleading to think of Dummetts critique of the truth-theoretic conception of meaning as independent of his anti-holism. 49 There is of course the fourth possibility of being a holist and an antirealist; but that holism is a natural philosophical ally of a truth-conditional view of meaning becomes apparent when seen from the point of view of language acquisition. See Bilgrami 1986: 117. 50 It should be noted in this connection that the realism/instrumentalism debate within the philosophy of science between realists and logical positivists did not envision the possibility, until Quine, or at least Hempel, reviving the views of Duhem, that the idea that sentences had meanings in isolation could be questioned. See Hempel 1950 and Quine 1951. 51 This paper has been too long under construction. Over the years it has benefited immensely from conversations with Robert Armstrong, Akeel Bilgrami, Ray Buchanan, Mark Couch, Ihsan Dogramaci, Haim Gaifman, Massimo Grassia, Rami Gudovitch, Jay Leahy, David Maier, Federico Marulanda Rey, Achille Varzi, Lee Whitfield, and Crispin Wright. Students in my Winter 2003 seminar at the University of Toronto provided many helpful reactions. Bernhard Weiss and Phil Kremer provided very perceptive written comments on the penultimate draft. Finally, thanks to a warm and helpful colloquium audience at Simon Fraser University.
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The Theory of Truth in The Theory of Meaning Rattan

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The Theory of Truth in the Theory of Meaning

The Theory of Truth in the Theory of Meaning 2. Tarski2

Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004

Ext(truegeneral)= Union of {Ext(true-in-L)}

{<s, L>: s is true in L}

Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004