1998 On the Conceptual Foundations of Anti-Realism

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On the Conceptual Foundations of Anti-Realism Author(s): Sanford Shieh Source: Synthese, Vol. 115, No. 1 (1998), pp. 33-70Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20118041Accessed: 30-06-2015 21:27 UTC

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SANFORD SHIEH

ON THE CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS OF ANTI-REALISM*

ABSTRACT. The central premise of Michael Dummett's global argument for anti-realism

is the thesis that a speaker's grasp of the meaning of a declarative, indexical-free sentence

must be manifested in her uses of that sentence. This enigmatic thesis has been the subject

of a great deal of discussion, and something of a consensus has emerged about its content

and justification. The received view is that the manifestation thesis expresses a behaviorist

and reductive theory of meaning, essentially in agreement with Quine's view of language,

and motivated by worries about the epistemology of communication.

In the present paper I begin by arguing that this standard interpretation of the mani

festation thesis is neither particularly faithful to Dummett's writings nor philosophically

compelling. I then continue by reconstructing, from Dummett's texts, an account of the

manifestation thesis, and of its justification, that differ sharply from the received view. On

my reading, the thesis is motivated not epistemologically, but conceptually. I argue that

connections among our conceptions of meaning, assertion, and justification lead to a con

clusion about the metaphysics of meaning: we cannot form a clearly coherent conception

of how two speakers can attach different meanings to a sentence without at the same time

differing in what they count as justifying assertions made with that sentence. I conclude

with some suggestions about how Dummett's argument for global anti-realism should be

understood, given my account of the manifestation thesis.

In this paper I will discuss the foundations of Michael Dummett's anti

realism. Anti-realism, as is well-known, is a program for interpreting is

sues in metaphysics and the philosophy of logic, and resolving these issues

on the basis of a verificationist view of meaning. The focus of my discus

sion is the central premise of Dummett's argument for this verificationist

view of meaning:

(1) A subject's knowledge of the meaning of a sentence must be

'manifest' in the use she makes ofthat sentence, or must consist

of possessing a capacity to use that sentence in certain ways.

I will call this claim the manifestation thesis, and I will discuss two issues

about it. One is, what does it mean? The other is, how is it justified?

By and large I will confine myself to answering these questions, and

will say relatively little about how it is used to argue for anti-realism.

Hence, unlike much of the existing discussions of anti-realism in the lit

erature, I shall not be attempting to defend, attack, or evaluate Dummett's

views.

Synthese 115: 33-70, 1998. ? 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

*



34 SANFORD SHIEH

I have two reasons for choosing such a narrow focus. Firstly, answers

to these questions are surely necessary before it is possible to understand

how the anti-realist program is supposed to work or to assess its success

or failure. Secondly, I would argue that many of the existing discussions

of anti-realism have in fact made the manifestation thesis harder rather

than easier to understand. This is because the interpretation of the thesis

that comes out of these discussions is inconsistent with a number of other

views about meaning that Dummett holds. Given the foundational role that

the manifestation thesis plays in anti-realism, to my mind this fact shows

that Dummett's anti-realist program has yet to be fully understood.

I do not claim that my reading of the manifestation thesis is the only

'right' way to understand it. Indeed, I think that perhaps the best that

might be said on this score is that several manifestation theses coexist in

Dummett's work. So, my main purpose here is merely to sketch one one

way into understanding the foundations of anti-realism. This said, however, I should mention two things in favor of my account of the manifestation

thesis. Firstly, it squares with precisely those of Dummett's texts that more

standard interpretations of the thesis fail to account for. Secondly, and more

importantly, I would claim that my interpretation represents an attempt to

uncover the basic motivations of Dummett's anti-realism, and thus enables

one to begin to grasp its philosophical depth. The following divides into three sections. In the first, I will present what

I call "the standard interpretation" of anti-realism and of the manifestation

thesis, which is an amalgam of existing discussions of anti-realism, and

show what I think is wrong with it.1 This motivates my interpretation of

the manifestation thesis, which I will present in the second section. In the

final section, I will discuss briefly the relation between my account of the

manifestation thesis and Dummett's argument for anti-realism.

I. THE STANDARD INTERPRETATION OF ANTI-REALISM

The core of anti-realism is a negative thesis, namely, that what Dummett

calls the 'realist' conception of meaning is problematic. This conception of meaning consists of the following two claims:

(2) The meaning (or a central component of the meaning) of a

declarative, indexical-free sentence is the condition in which

it is true.

(3) The truth condition of such a sentence can obtain (or fail to do

so), even if we, human speakers of the language of the state

ment, are not capable, even in principle, of recognizing that it

obtains (or fails to do so).



ON THE CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS OF ANTI-REALISM 35

(2) is of course a familiar thesis in the philosophy of language, and it would

seem that whatever is controversial about it is not peculiar to anti-realism.

(3) is part of Dummett's interpretation of realism; it expresses a view of

truth applicable to various areas of discourse; and, according to Dum

mett, it constitutes the non-metaphorical content of traditional realisms'

claim about the mind-independence of entities.2 I will call truth conditions

conforming to (3) realist truth conditions.

Anti-realism takes issue with the second of these theses. Specifically, Dummett argues for what might be called the central thesis of anti-realism:

(4) 7/"meaning is identified with truth conditions, then the truth con

ditions of most interesting classes of statements cannot have the

feature described by thesis (3).

Dummett has several different arguments for this thesis. The most well

known of these can be represented by the following set of claims from "The

Philosophical Basis of Intuitionistic Logic" (Dummett 1978, 215-277).

(i) The meaning of a ... statement ... cannot be, or contain as an in

gredient, anything which is not manifest in the use made of it, lying

solely in the mind of the individual who apprehends that meaning: if two individuals agree completely about the use to be made of the

statement, then they agree about its meaning

(ii) The reason is that the meaning of a statement consists solely in its r?le

as an instrument of communication between individuals, just as the

powers of a chess piece consist solely in its r?le in the game according to the rules.

(iii) An individual cannot communicate what he cannot be observed to

communicate: if one individual associated with a mathematical symbol or formula some mental content, where the association did not lie in

the use he made of the symbol or formula, then he could not convey that content by means of the symbol or formula, for his audience would

be unaware of the association and would have no means of becoming aware of it.

(iv) [KJnowledge of the meaning of a particular symbol or expression is

frequently verbalizable knowledge, that is, knowledge which consists

in the ability to state the rules in accordance with which the expression or symbol is used ....

(v) But to suppose that, in general, a knowledge of meaning consisted in

verbalizable knowledge would involve an infinite regress: if a grasp of the meaning of an expression consisted, in general, in the abil

ity to state its meaning, then it would be impossible for anyone to



36 SANFORD SHIEH

learn a language who was not already equipped with a fairly extensive

language.

(vi) Hence that knowledge which ... constitutes the understanding of ...

language ... must be implicit knowledge.

(vii) Implicit knowledge cannot, however, meaningfully be ascribed to

someone unless it is possible to say in what the manifestation of that

knowledge consists: there must be an observable difference between

the behaviour or capacities of someone who is said to have that knowl

edge and someone who is said to lack it.

(viii) Hence it follows, once more, that a grasp of the meaning of a ... state

ment must, in general, consist of a capacity to use that statement in a

certain way ....

(ix) [I]t is quite obscure in what the knowledge of the condition under

which a sentence is true can consist, when that condition is not one

which is always capable of being recognised as obtaining ....

(x) [W]hen the sentence is ... not effectively decidable, ... the condition

which must, in general, obtain for it to be true is not one which we are

capable of recognising whenever it obtains, or of getting ourselves in

a position to do so.

(xi) Hence any behaviour which displays a capacity for acknowledging the sentence as being true in all cases in which the condition for its

truth can be recognised as obtaining will fall short of being a full

manifestation of the knowledge of the condition for its truth ....

(xii) The [realistic] theory of meaning cannot be a theory in which meaning is fully determined by use. (Dummett 1978, 216-225)

I shall call the argument expressed in these claims the argument for anti

realism.

The following account of the overall structure of this argument is, I

think, all but indisputable. To begin with, it divides into three parts. The

first two parts, claims (i)-(iii) and (iv)-(viii) constitute two sub-arguments for precisely the manifestation thesis. The first sub-argument, (i)-(iii), is

based on two claims: that meaning is essentially communicable, and that

communication requires that the meanings associated by a speaker with

sentences be manifest in her use of these sentences. I will call this sub

argument the essential communicability of meaning argument. The second

sub-argument, (iv)-(vii) is also based on two claims: that linguistic knowl

edge must be at least partly implicit, and that the ascription of implicit

knowledge to a subject requires an account of how she manifests that

knowledge. I will call this sub-argument the argument from the implic itness of linguistic knowledge. The final sub-argument, (ix)-(xii), attempts to show that the realist conception of meaning does not satisfy the man




ifestation thesis. Here Dummett employs the notion of an 'undecidable'

sentence, which he explains only by the claim that

(5) If one attributes realist truth conditions to 'undecidable' sen

tences, then these conditions are not ones "we are capable of

recognizing whenever [they] obtain".

The argument seems to go as follows. Firstly, a subject's behavior can only

display "a capacity for acknowledging sentence[s] as ... true in all cases

in which the conditions] for [their] truth can be recognised as obtaining".

Secondly, given the feature of 'undecidable' sentences described by (5), if the truth condition of such a sentence is realist, no subject's behavior can

be "a full manifestation" of her knowledge of that truth condition. Hence,

finally, the identification of the meanings of 'undecidable' sentences with

realist truth conditions violates the manifestation thesis. There seems to be

a tacit premise here, which might be expressed as follows:

(6) A subject's use of a statement consists of those aspects of her

behavior that display a capacity for acknowledging the truth

of the sentence used to make that statement whenever its truth

condition can be recognised as obtaining

I will call this last sub-argument the argument against realist truth condi

tions.

Given this account of the overall structure of the argument for anti

realism, it is clear why an understanding of what the manifestation thesis

means is critical for understanding the argument for anti-realism. If we

knew

why knowledge of meaning has to be 'manifested' in 'use', in the sense

of (6), and

why (5) implies that the 'uses' of 'undecidable' sentences fail to 'man

ifest' knowledge of their meanings,

then we would see how the argument is supposed to work.

I turn now to present the standard interpretation proper. Until further

notice, I speak on its behalf. The starting point of this interpretation is a

natural assumption about what Dummett means by 'manifestation'. Con

sider the first definition of the transitive verb 'to manifest' in The Oxford

English Dictionary: "To make evident to the eye or to the understanding; to show plainly, disclose, reveal". One way to understand this definition

stresses the phrase, 'make evident'. That is, one sense of 'to manifest' is

that what manifests something is evidence for its presence. This is the sense



38 SANFORD SHIEH

of "manifest" that the standard interpretation attributes to Dummett. Thus, on this interpretation, the manifestation thesis means:

(7) There must be evidence, in the form of a subject's 'use' of a

statement, for her grasp of its meaning.

And the critical claim for the argument for anti-realism is:

(8) A subject's 'use' of an 'undecidable' sentence cannot provide evidence for her knowledge of its realist truth condition.

Note that there clearly is support in Dummett's text for this interpretation of 'manifestation'. For example, in claim (ii) Dummett writes, "An indi

vidual cannot communicate what he cannot be observed to communicate".

This seems to say that, if someone is to communicate something, then

her audience must have observational evidence for what she communi

cates. Also, in claim (vii) Dummett writes, "there must be an observable

difference between the behaviour or capacities of someone who [has im

plicit] knowledge and someone who ... lack[s] it". Again, this suggests that Dummett is insisting on observational evidence for the possession of

implicit knowledge. Now that we have seen the standard interpretation of 'manifestation', I

turn to present the standard interpretation of the argument for anti-realism.

I will begin with the argument against realist truth conditions. Here I fol

low John McDowell and Colin McGinn.3 On their reading, in order to

make sense of this argument, Dummett's notion of the 'use' of a state

ment, which we have partially characterized with (6), must be understood

as really the Quinean notion of physicalistically describable dispositions to assent to or to dissent from sentences under suitable prompting. Their

reconstruction of Dummett's argument goes as follows. Given this account

of 'use', and given the identification of meaning with truth conditions, the

manifestation thesis means that the evidence for someone's knowledge of the truth condition of a sentence must be restricted to her (Quinean)

dispositions to verbal behavior. But, what behavioral dispositions would

be evidence for someone's knowledge of the truth condition of a sentence?

It is hard to see that they could be anything other than dispositions to assent

to and to dissent from that sentence, when its truth condition obtains, or

fails to do so. But, now, if we can't recognize the obtaining of the truth

condition of a sentence, then we surely wouldn't have these dispositions.4 But the truth conditions of 'undecidable' sentences precisely could obtain

without our being able to recognize that they do so. So, it impossible that

there are no behavioral dispositions to serve as evidence for a speaker's




association of realist truth conditions with these sentences. Hence realist

truth conditions are not necessarily manifestable.

Now I turn to the standard interpretation of the essential communica

bility of meaning argument. Here again I follow McDowell (1981). The

argument has two explicitly stated premises. The first premise, expressed

by claim (ii), is that the meaning of a statement is nothing over and above

what can be communicated by one speaker to another. The second premise,

expressed by claim (iii), is that communication requires one speaker to

know what meaning another speaker associates with the statements the

latter makes. Now, it is perhaps uncontroversial that knowledge requires

justification; and it is perhaps also relatively plausible that such justifi cation requires evidence. So, the two explicit premises imply that there

must be evidence for someone's associating a meaning with a statement.

But they do not by themselves imply the manifestation thesis, i.e., they do

not show that the evidence should be restricted to Quinean verbal behav

ioral dispositions. Now, on McDowell's view, what the explicit statement

of the argument leaves out is the fact that Dummett is an old-fashioned

epistemological foundationalist. That is, Dummett assumes that, to count

as knowledge, a claim must be based on other evidentiary claims that are

certain, or at least epistemically less problematic. This foundationalist as

sumption, together with the premise that claims about (physicalistically

describable) verbal dispositions are epistemically less problematic than

claims about meaning, complete the essential communicability of meaning

argument.5

Finally, I will discuss the standard interpretation of the argument from

the implicitness of linguistic knowledge. Here I follow Alexander George

(1987). On George's view, this argument is motivated by worries about

the methodology of linguistic theorizing. In particular, he takes

Dummett's fundamental project to be to explain verbal behavior by at

tributing knowledge of theories of meaning to speakers of a language. However, Dummett also argues (claim (v)) that knowledge of a theory of

meaning must be, at least in part, tacit knowledge. The reason Dummett

gives is that if all knowledge of the meanings of expressions consists of

abilities to state these meanings, then it is not possible to learn a language without already knowing a language. So, in the present context, a subject's

possessing implicit knowledge of a theory of meaning means that if we ask

her whether she knows the part of the theory of meaning that we claim she

knows, she won't be able to answer either way. Hence, we can't rely on

her testimony to decide whether our attributions of knowledge are correct.

This leads Dummett to raise the question, what reason can we have to

think that an attribution of implicit knowledge is correct? Another way of



40 SANFORD SHIEH

putting this question is, how do know that it is tacit knowledge that explains the linguistic behavior? Note that this shows that, according to George,

Dummett is primarily interested in questions about the epistemology of

tacit knowledge attributions. Claim (vii) expresses Dummett's answer to

these questions. It means that we can know whether an attribution of tacit

knowledge is correct only by appealing to evidence in the form of verbal

behavioral dispositions that are independent of the verbal behavior which

the tacit knowledge is supposed to explain.

Now, George's interpretation finishes at this point, but this argument

clearly does not suffice to reach the manifestation thesis, because nothing so far commits Dummett to a Quinean conception of linguistic behavior.

So this indicates the existence of some gaps in George's account of the

argument from the implicitness of linguistic knowledge. But one can sup

plement George's account with precisely the premises that McDowell adds

to the text of the essential communicability of meaning argument. That

is, one can attribute to Dummett the following line of thought. Correct

attributions of tacit knowledge are obviously items of knowledge about

speakers. Thus, given Dummett's epistemological foundationalism, such

attributions must rest on claims about Quinean behavioral dispositions, in

order to be correct.

To sum up, the standard interpretation of Dummett's argument for anti

realism is as follows:

(I) The essential communicability of meaning argument.

Premises:

1. The meaning of a statement is nothing over and above what can be

communicated by one speaker to another.

2. Communication requires one speaker to know what meaning another

speaker associates with the statements the latter makes by uttering sentences.

3. To count as knowledge, a claim must be based on other evidentiary claims that are certain, or at least epistemically less problematic.

4. Claims about physicalistically describable verbal dispositions are epis

temically less problematic than claims about meaning.

Conclusion:

5. If someone associates some meaning with a sentence, there must be

evidence, in the form of her physicalistically describable dispositions to verbal behavior, for this association.




(II) Argument from the implicitness of linguistic knowledge.

Premises:

1. One aim of linguistic theory is to explain speakers' verbal behavior by

attributing to them knowledge of a theory of meaning. 2. If all knowledge of the meanings of expressions consists in abilities to

state these meanings, then it is not possible to learn a language without

already knowing a language. 3. Hence a speaker's knowledge of a theory of meaning must be at least

partly tacit; that is, her testimony does not suffice to decide whether an

attribution of knowledge of a theory of meaning is correct.

4. The correctness of an attribution of tacit knowledge can be judged only

by appealing to evidence in the form of verbal behavior that is inde

pendent of the verbal behavior which the tacit knowledge is supposed to explain.

5. A correct attribution of tacit knowledge is an item of knowledge about

speakers.

Conclusion:

6. Hence, by steps 2 and 3 above, there must be evidence for attribu

tions of tacit knowledge of meaning to a speaker in the form of her

physicalistically describable dispositions to verbal behavior.

(III) The argument against realist truth conditions:

Premises:

1. Legitimate evidence for judgements about what a speaker means is

restricted to her dispositions to verbal behavior, construed physicalis

tically. 2. The only behavioral dispositions that are evidence for someone's as

sociating certain truth conditions with a statement are dispositions to

assent to and to dissent from sentences, when their truth conditions

obtain, or fail to obtain.

3. If an 'undecidable' sentence has realist truth conditions, these con

ditions could obtain without our being able to recognize that they do.

4. If this possibility is realized for an 'undecidable' sentence, no one

would be disposed to assent to it even when its truth conditions obtain.



42 SANFORD SHIEH

5. Hence, there are no behavioral dispositions to serve as evidence for a

speaker's association of realist truth conditions with an 'undecidable'

sentence.

Conclusion:

6. Realist truth conditions are not manifestable, and the realist conception of meaning is not a possible conception of meaning.

This concludes my account of the standard interpretation. Before con

tinuing, I want to point out that it has two essential features. Firstly, what

justifies the manifestation thesis are epistemological constraints, in the

following sense. The fundamental idea underlying this thesis is that if

something is the meaning of a statement, it must be possible to know

that a speaker associates it with the statement. Hence, the right account

of the meanings of statements must depend on our view of what is le

gitimate evidence for a speaker's association of meanings with sentences.

So, an account of meaning must depend on epistemological claims about

evidence for this association. Secondly, the standard view is that, for Dum

mett, the use of a linguistic expression is just a set of Quinean dispositions to exhibit verbal behavior, and so the manifestation thesis is a Quinean behaviorist restriction on allowable evidence for what someone means by the sentences she produces. The justification for this notion of 'use' is,

again, epistemological; it is a foundationalist epistemology. I turn now to show why the standard interpretation is problematic as an

interpretation of Dummett. The reason is simply that the two defining fea

tures of this interpretation are, or seem to be, inconsistent with Dummett's

views about meaning. To begin with, consider the following passage, in which Dummett char

acterizes Frege's fundamental innovation in philosophy:

Because philosophy has, as its first if not its only task, the analysis of meanings, ...

the theory of meaning ... is the foundation of all philosophy, and not epistemology as

Descartes misled us into believing. Frege's greatness consists, in the first place, in his

having perceived this. He ... starts from meaning by taking the theory of meaning as the

only part of philosophy whose results do not depend upon those of any other part, but

which underlies all the rest. (Dummett 1981a, 659, emphasis mine)

On the assumption that Dummett accepts Frege's innovation in philoso

phy, this text goes against the standard interpretation's assumption that

Dummett's account of language depends on epistemological 'results'.

Secondly, throughout Dummett's writings on Quine, he is highly crit

ical precisely Quine's restriction of evidence for meaning to behavioral




dispositions. I cite a characteristic expression of this criticism. Here Dum

mett is objecting to Quine's claim that we cannot distinguish the influence

of meaning from that of collateral information on our dispositions to assent

to sentences:

It is scarcely to be denied that it is an integral part of what we learn when we learn to use

language that we should acquire the practices of giving reasons for our own assertions....

Quine is attempting to characterize the working of language entirely in terms of speakers'

dispositions to assent to and dissent from sentences under certain sensory stimulations ...

. It may be that there really is an obstacle in principle to distinguishing, in respect of status,

between different stimulus-analytic statements on the basis of evidence of this kind. But

that hardly implies that such distinctions are spurious: for there is a great deal more to the

use of language than merely the registering of assent and dissent in response to appropriate

sensory stimuli.... (Dummett 1981a, 614; emphases mine)

Dummett here clearly rejects the identification of 'use' with Quinean ver

bal dispositions. Two isolated passages from Dummett's substantial output do not, obvi

ously, constitute a decisive refutation of any interpretation. Dummett may

simply be inconsistent. But, to adopt the standard interpretation, given the

tensions just outlined, is to attribute to Dummett an argument that relies

on premises he himself rejects, and that seems to go against his view of

the foundational status of the theory of meaning. So, if one accepts this

interpretation, it must seem at least somewhat odd that Dummett is an anti

realist. To my mind, this shows that if our interest is in understanding, as

opposed to polemic, we now have reason to look for a way of understand

ing the argument for anti-realism that makes overall sense of Dummett's

writings. This is precisely what I will do in the next section. Specifically, I will

attempt to develop an interpretation of the essential communicability of

meaning argument that coheres with the aspects of Dummett's view of

meaning that I have just presented.

II. THE MANIFESTATION OF MEANING

I'll begin my reading of the essential communicability of meaning argu ment by taking a closer look at the structure of Dummett's text.

It is clear that claim (i) states two versions of the conclusion to be

reached:

(a) "The meaning of... a statement cannot be ... anything ... not

manifest in the use made of it",



44 SANFORD SHIEH

and,

(b) "if two individuals agree completely about the use to be made

of the statement, then they agree about its meaning".

On the standard interpretation, the second formulation of the conclusion

must be taken as the claim that if two speakers have the same dispositions to assent to or to dissent from a sentence, then they associate the same

meaning with it. However, it is not clear that this is Dummett's actual

conception of 'use'. Consider the passage containing Dummett's criticism

of Quine I cited in the last section. Its first sentence suggests an account

of what Dummett means by 'use': "it is an integral part of what we learn

when we learn to use language that we should acquire the practices of

giving reasons for our own assertions". The suggestion is that Dummett

takes a central part of the 'use' of language to be giving reasons for our

own assertions, or, as I shall put it, justifying our assertions.6 I want to cite

another text of Dummett's that confirms this account of use: "In general, the understanding of a sentence will involve, as intrinsic to that understand

ing and not merely consequent on it, the ability to recognise the validity of

arguments leading to that sentence as conclusion" (Dummett 1979, 380,

emphasis mine). Since Dummett identifies understanding a sentence with

knowing its meaning, I read this text as claiming that knowledge of the

meaning of a sentence requires being able to recognize what justifies an

assertion of it.

So, a provisional interpretation of version (b) of the conclusion that fits

with this conception of use is:

(9) If two speakers agree in what they would recognize as justifi cations for a statement, then they attach the same meaning to

it.

For the moment, I shall take (9) to express my understanding of the require ment that meaning be manifested in use. The reason why this interpretation of the conclusion is provisional is that what the phrase 'would recognize' amounts to needs to be made clearer, and this is not possible until we have

gone some way into my reconstruction of the argument. Claim (ii) of Dummett's text begins with the phrase, "The reason is",

suggesting that it gives the grounds for the conclusion. But it is not entirely

clear whether these grounds are given solely by (ii), or by (ii) and (iii)

together; nor is it clear whether these claims are independent. The standard

interpretation must, I think, take (ii) and (iii) to be independent claims. The

reason is, its assumption about what Dummett means by 'manifestation'

receives no support in the text until (iii). That claim seems to express the




idea that observation is necessary to communication, thereby suggesting that Dummett is invoking the notion of evidence. Thus the standard inter

pretation must see (ii) as relating meaning with communication, while (iii)

brings in the independent requirement of evidence, or manifestation, on

communication.

But this reading does not account for the following feature of (ii). In

this claim Dummett states that "the meaning of a statement consists solely in its r?le as an instrument of communication between individuals", and,

then, he goes on to draw an analogy between this claim and the claim that

"the powers of a chess piece consist solely in its r?le in the game according to the rules". This surely suggests that the analogy is supposed to shed light on what it means to claim that "the meaning of a statement consists solely in its r?le as an instrument of communication".

This analogy is the point of departure for my interpretation. I shall

develop the interpretation in four stages. In II. 1, I shall try to spell out

the analogy between the meaning of a statement and the powers of a chess

piece. In II.2, I shall give an account of certain features of the linguistic

practice of assertion; or, rather, features of one aspect of the practice of

assertion. In II.3, I shall give a reconstruction of the essential communi

cability of meaning argument. On this reconstruction the argument has, as premises, the features of assertion identified in the second stage, and, as conclusion, the claim that, if two speakers agree in what they would

recognize as justifications for a statement, then they attach the same mean

ing to it. In II.5, I'll come back to the text, and show, on the basis of the

reconstruction of the argument indicated in the third stage, how the relation

between (ii) and (iii) should be understood. (I note here, for the sake of

completeness, that in II.4 I discuss some potential misunderstandings of

the reconstruction of II.3, and in II.6 the salient differences between my

interpretation and the standard one.)

II. 1

The first task, in spelling out the analogy between language and chess, is

surely to understand the sense in which the powers of a chess piece consist

solely in its role in the game according to the rules. In order to do this, let

us ask: what is the role of a chess piece in the game? A plausible answer, I

think, is that its role is specified by the ways in which a player is allowed,

by the rules of chess, to move the piece. This answer explains why the

powers of a chess piece consist solely in its role in the game. Given the

specification of the rules, any object may serve as the piece in question; the intrinsic nature of what serves as the piece does not matter. Put in

another way: an object counts a chess piece in virtue of the rules, not of



46 SANFORD SHIEH

its intrinsic properties. And so the power of a chess piece is not a property intrinsic to the object; rather, it depends entirely on the specification of the

role of the piece in the game. Thus, I read the analogy between meaning and the powers of chess pieces as follows. The meaning of a statement is

not a property intrinsic to the objects used to make that statement. Rather, this meaning depends entirely on the rules of communication.

To go any further here, it seems that we have to say something in detail

about the rules of communication. But this seems a daunting task. Which, of the innumerable linguistic actions we perform, belongs to communica

tion? What rules, if any, govern these actions? Does Dummett take it that

the meaning of a statement is to be specified by the rules governing all the

actions we can perform with it in communication?

Fortunately, it is not necessary, I believe, to address the full range of

complexities these questions open up. The reason is that, as we have seen,

for Dummett a central part of the 'use' of statements is the justification of

assertions made with statements. Hence, I take it that, for Dummett, the

communicative actions central to an account of meaning are the making of

assertions. So the claim is that the meaning of a statement depends entirely on the ways in which we are allowed, by the rules governing assertion, to

make an assertion with the statement.7

But what exactly are we to make of this claim? It might seem that, in

order to get anywhere, we now have to give a detailed account of the rules

governing the linguistic practice of assertion. This may well appear to be

an equally hopeless task. One might think that there is no one practice of

assertion in which we engage, with its own precise rules. What assertion

requires depends to a large extent on the context in which the notion is

deployed. There are contexts in which it makes sense to say that one is

required to make an assertion even though one did not believe that it is

true. There are situations in which, to be entitled to make an assertion, one

would have to rule out certain possibilities, and others in which the same

assertion could be made without having to do so. There are situations in

which saying something true does not amount to making an assertion. And

so on.

I take these points to be indisputable. But I don't think that a detailed

account of the rules governing assertion is required for an interpretation of Dummett's argument. I hold, rather, that the significance of taking the

meaning of statements to depend on the rules of assertion is this: one aspect of our conception of meaning depends on features of certain contexts that

we count as contexts in which an assertion is made. Specifically, these

contexts are ones in which it makes sense to take individuals to intend

to say something true, and so it makes sense to inquire after the truth




of what we say, whether or not it matters to us to decide that question. That these are the situations which matter to the argument is suggested

by Dummett's account of assertion as an activity subject to "a general convention whereby the utterance of a sentence, except in special contexts,

is understood as being carried out with the intention of uttering a true

sentence'. (Dummett 1981a, 298) I shall henceforth speak of "our practice of assertion" to indicate these occasions.8 This concludes the first stage of

my interpretation.

II.2

I shall now identify two general characteristics of our practice of assertion.

The first is the fact that there are certain normative conditions attached

to the making of an assertion, such that an action cannot count as an as

sertion unless the conditions apply. Dummett formulates the conditions

in question thus: "the convention governing the making of [assertions] involves a classification of such linguistic acts as correct and incorrect:

an assertion ... requires justification". (Dummett 1981a, 357).9 A more

intuitive formulation, due to Thomas Ricketts, is this: "We cannot take

someone to be making assertions in complete disregard of the correctness

of what he asserts; such a person would be understood to be play acting or

perhaps merely mouthing words". (Ricketts 1982, 78) This condition on assertion may be more precisely formulated thus:

in order to count as having made an assertion, a speaker must recognize the legitimacy of a request to produce grounds for the truth of the state

ment asserted, and be prepared to withdraw the assertion, should she be

presented with considerations which she recognizes as showing that there

are not sufficient grounds for taking the statement as true, or that there

are actually grounds for taking the statement to be false.10 Another way of putting it is that, to be taken as making an assertion, a speaker must

take what she says to be subject to assessment as correct or incorrect, by reference to what she would count as justifying it.11'12

Since this characteristic of assertion is central to what follows, I want

to make six points in elaboration.

First, the condition on assertion does not require that the speaker actu

ally possess a justification for what she asserts. If that were required, too

many of our ungrounded assertions would, implausibly, cease to count as

assertions. The condition merely requires that the speaker display certain

sensitivities to the justification of her assertions.

Second, the claim about assertion made in the characterization is not

that to be able to use a sentence in making assertions is no more than to

know the conditions under which those assertions are justified. So far the



48 SANFORD SHIEH

claim is only that //"someone is (i.e., counts as) using sentences in asser

tions, then she must acknowledge that conditions of justification apply to

it. That is, the claim is only that this acknowledgment is one necessary condition of assertion; I've left it open whether there are others. For this

reason, I believe the starting point of this argument doesn't beg the ques tion against any position which insists on other necessary conditions for

assertion, e.g., knowledge of the truth conditions of the sentences used in

making assertions. Of course, it may turn out that these other conditions

are incompatible with the present condition.13

Third, I would also claim that this condition on assertion is indepen dent of any particular theory of justification, of what kinds of evidence

or arguments are required to justify which sorts of statements, or of the

nature of the relation between evidence and what it justifies. At this point the content of this claim cannot be fully clear, for exactly what role the

notion of justification plays in my interpretation cannot be specified until

the ensuing argument has been presented. Note that all of these last three points concern what I have not claimed.

Fourth, the intuition which underlies this conception of assertion as sub

ject to normative conditions is connected with Dummett's characterization

of the convention of assertion: "assertions are distinguished from other

utterances in ... being governed by the convention that we should try to

utter only those whose descriptive content holds good". (Dummett 1981a,

356) I understand this as the claim that assertion is, as it were, doubly

intentional, or doubly normative:

(10) In order to make an assertion, one has to accept or acknowl

edge that one ought to be aiming at saying something correct or

true,14 regardless of whether one is in fact aiming at it.15

The intuition is this: if someone is really trying to say something cor

rect, then it ought to matter to her whether what she says is indeed correct; so it ought to matter to her whether there are reasons to think that what

she says is correct. Just as, if I am trying to go to Boston, then it ought to matter to me whether what I'm doing will take me to Boston. This, I

take it, is behind the thought that if someone can be taken to be making an assertion, then she ought to acknowledge the legitimacy of a request to

produce grounds for what she says. If she fails to acknowledge this, then

it is unclear that she takes reasons to think that what she says is correct to

have anything to do with what she is saying. And then it's unclear that she

acknowledges that she should be trying to say something correct. Similarly, if she is given reason to think what she says to be incorrect, but she doesn't

acknowledge this to be aprima facie reason to 'take back' what she says,




it is equally difficult to discern in her the acceptance of a concern with the

correctness of what she says.

Fifth, the notion of reasons for believing that what one says to be correct

is explained in terms of the notion of what is, or what counts as, a reason

for someone. The latter notion can be characterized as follows: the norma

tive conditions we have just given apply only to reasons that the subject would recognize as reasons. If someone gives reasons for thinking that an

individual's assertion isn't correct, then the latter ought to withdraw her

assertion only if she would acknowledge these as reasons against the truth

of what she says. The analogy here is that if I intend to go to Boston, but

have also decided to do so by foot, then the claim that the subway is on

strike would be irrelevant to my intention, and wouldn't be a reason for me

to change what I'm doing.

Now, it may be thought that what counts as a reason for a speaker, cannot be the right concept to employ in an account of assertion, be

cause it fails to do justice to the distinction between speaker's meaning and linguistic meaning. Clearly a speaker may hold herself responsible to

conventional norms for using a language, without appreciating what these

norms require in some particular circumstance, and hence without in fact

using the language in accordance to those requirements. But nothing in the

idea of "what a speaker would accept" precludes this: having made such

a commitment, the speaker certainly would accept what conventionally counts as a reason, in preference to what she in fact accepts as a reason, if

it were made clear to her that there is a divergence. One might summarize these intuitive ideas thus: we conceive of asser

tion as a species of rational action.16

Sixth, the notion of what counts as a reason for the truth of a statement

must be distinguished from the notion of having, or being given reason to

believe it true. Clearly one can't have an argument, or be given an argument that one takes to be a reason for believing a statement to be true, without

counting it as such a reason. But for Dummett the converse fails. For, as he

interprets Frege, the latter counts the following as a proof of a statement of

the form 'VxFx\ where 4F' is a decidable number theoretic predicate: a

proof, for every numeral n, of rFnn. But this is a proof which, according to Dummett, we cannot, even in principle, either carry out or recognize as

such.17 Hence Dummett's Frege would count an argument that we cannot

in principle give or recognize as a justification of a statement.

I can now make clear the problem with the provisional characterization

of the manifestation thesis ((9) above). The question is, what exactly does

the claim that a subject 'would recognize' something as a justification of a statement amount to? Given the distinction just made here between



50 SANFORD SHIEH

counting something as a justification and being given a justification, it is

clear that (9) should be understood in the following way. The claim that

a subject would recognize something as a justification is the claim that

she would count it as a justification, and not the claim that if she is given an appropriate argument, she would accept it as a justification. Hence the

manifestation thesis should be formulated as:

(11) If two speakers agree in what they would count as justifications for a statement, then they attach the same meaning to it.

The second feature of assertion is that there are at least two ways in

which an assertion may be disagreed with. What I have in mind here is the

(perhaps quite obvious) fact that there are (at least) two categories of dis

agreements. There are occasions when a disagreement would be described

as merely verbal, and others when it would be described as genuine or

substantive.

The features of a merely verbal disagreement may be brought out by the

example of the so-called 'paradigm-case' argument against skepticism. (I should say immediately, to forestall any confusion, that I don't endorse

this argument.) This argument tries to show that when a skeptic seems to

claim, say, that we don't know that there are any physical objects, what

she claims does not constitute a genuine disagreement with what the so

called 'ordinary man' believes; and therefore, the skeptic's claim does not

pose a genuine threat to knowledge. The basis for this argument is that

the skeptic means something else by the word 'knowledge' than does the

ordinary person. This argument is not based on showing that the skeptical claim isn ft justified. Indeed, it insists that the skeptical claim is justified, but only given the meaning the skeptic assigns to the word 'knowledge'. For example, in the familiar skeptical recital of Descartes, the claim is

that, say, one doesn't know that one is sitting in front of a fire, because

one can't rule out the possibility that one is dreaming. The reply would

be that what we ordinarily mean by 'know' does not require ruling out

the possibility of dreaming. We might mark this by saying that what the

skeptic has shown is that we don't know* that we're sitting in front of the

fire; but we can still (cheerfully, it is usually said) justifiably claim that we

know that we're sitting in front of the fire. Since the ordinary person means

something else by this word, for her, the claim expressed by the sentence

the skeptic uses is not justified. The fact that the skeptic's claim is justified does not conflict with the ordinary person's taking the claim expressed by the skeptic's sentence not to be justified.

I take this example to show three things. First of all, it is clear that the

basis for claiming that the skeptic and the ordinary person don't genuinely




disagree is that there is a difference in what they mean by the sentence in

question.

Second, it seems that what this lack of genuine disagreement comes to

in the example is that each party to the (verbal) disagreement is justified in the attitude she adopts toward the claim that she takes to be expressed

by the sentence under (apparent) dispute, even though these attitudes are

contrary. What I mean by 'contrary attitudes' is this. If one person takes

an assertion made with a sentence to be justified, or correct, and another

denies that the assertion she takes to be made with that very same sentence

is correct or justified, then they have contrary attitudes to the assertion each

takes to be made with a sentence.18 Note that the reason of the second

for denying that such an assertion is correct could, but doesn't necessarily have to, be that she takes the assertion of the negation of the sentence to

be justified. The important point is that, by using the notion of contrary attitudes I want to avoid prejudging whether two subjects are genuinely

disagreeing or not.19 Let's provisionally generalize this to the following claim: if two individuals associate different meanings with a sentence,

then it is not ruled out that a situation could occur in which they are, in

exactly the same circumstances, justified in holding contrary attitudes to

an assertion made with that sentence.

The third point is only implicit in the example. It is that not only is it the

case that a difference in meaning in an alleged disagreement could result

in both individuals being justified, but these individuals could recognize that each is justified in holding the attitude she holds. This is important for anyone advancing the paradigm case argument: if she is to engage the skeptic, she must take her grounds for maintaining what the ordinary

person asserts, in face of the skeptic's apparent denial, to be something the

skeptic counts as grounds. From this it seems to follow that one could cite

a difference in meaning alone as a ground for continuing to maintain an

assertion in the face of a disagreement. Before continuing, I summarize the two features of assertion just iden

tified:

(12) To be taken as making an assertion, a speaker must acknowl

edges that the statement she is making is subject to assessment

as correct or incorrect, by reference to what she would count as

justifying it.



52 SANFORD SHIEH

(13) If two individuals mean different things by a sentence, then a

situation could occur in which

i. they hold contrary attitudes to an assertion made with that

sentence,

ii. each is justified in holding the attitude she holds toward that

assertion,

and

iii. they can come to recognize that each is justified in holding the attitude she holds.

II.3

I turn now to a reconstruction of the argument for the manifestation thesis.

I begin with one last reformulation of the thesis:

(14) It is not possible for two subjects to agree in what they would

count as justifications for a statement while attaching different

meanings to it.

This slightly weaker version is implied by the previous version ((11) above); but does not intuitionistically imply it.20

The general form of the ensuing argument is this. First I argue for the

joint incompatibility of three claims: (12) and (13) (the two features of

assertion), and the claim that

(15) Two subjects agree in what they would count as justifications for a statement but attach different meanings to it.

Let's call the claim that (15) represents a genuine possibility the justi

fication-independent conception of meaning. (Note that (14) is just the

negation of (15).) From this incompatibility claim it then follows that, if we

accept (12) and (13), the justification-independent conception of meaning is incoherent; from this (14) follows.21

A strategy for establishing the incompatibility claim consists of the

following steps.

First, show that if

two speakers agree in what count as justifications for an assertion

(from (15)),

and,

in order to make an assertion, one must take the statement one is mak

ing to be subject to assessment as correct or incorrect, by reference to

what one would count as justifying it (from 12)),



ON THE CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS OF ANTI-REALISM 5 3

then

the speakers in question share standards for assessing the correctness

of what they say.

Secondly, if

two speakers share standards for assessing the correctness of what they

say,

then

in every case of an alleged disagreement, they can come to see that at

most one of them is right in holding the attitude she holds with respect to the assertion or assertions involved in the disagreement.

Thirdly, from (13),

if two individuals mean different things by a sentence, then a situa

tion of apparent disagreement could occur in which they can come to

recognize that both are right in holding the attitude she holds in the

disagreement.

But this contradicts the conclusion of the second step.

So, the underlying idea of this strategy is to use the features of assertion

to pull the two components of the justification independent conception of

meaning in opposite directions.

Clearly the most difficult part of carrying out such a strategy is the

execution of the second step. Indeed, what I shall offer in the sequel does

not amount to a proof of this second step. Rather, I will consider a number

of cases of apparent disagreements, in order to show that a rational inves

tigation of the sources of the disagreement would not have as an outcome

that both parties to the disagreement are right.22 (Naturally this proceeds on the assumption of complete agreement in what would be counted as

justifications for the assertion or assertions at issue.) Thus, the argument I offer is not a proof of incompatibility among (12), (13) and (15); rather, it tries to show that we do not have a clear conception of how they can

be compatible. Thus, the case for the justification independent conception of meaning has yet to be made. A fortiori, I do not claim that the ensuing

argument is a demonstration of the manifestation thesis. My aim is to es

tablish that the thesis is the default option; so that the burden of proof rests

with its denial. Corresponding to these relatively modest aims, although I

have tried to be comprehensive in my selection of cases, I will not try to

argue that no relevant case has been left out.

One final prefatory note. The ensuing account of the manifestation ar

gument is rather abstract, and thus misses much of its intuitive attraction.



54 SANFORD SHIEH

But, in II.4 I hope to remedy this with a more intuitive account of the

argument.

Finally I come to the argument proper. Let us consider two individuals, call them A and B, who agree com

pletely in what they would count as justifying an assertion made with a

sentence, S but mean different things by S. And consider a situation in

which A and B disagree over an assertion made with S, in the sense that

they hold contrary attitudes to that assertion; for the sake of definiteness, let's say that A makes an assertion with S, and B denies that that assertion

is justified.

By the first characteristic of assertion, A and B, to be taken to be making

assertions, must take the statements they are making to be subject to as

sessment as correct or incorrect, by reference to what they would count as

justifying them. On the possibility we're attempting to entertain, these two

individuals agree completely in what they would count as justifications for

a statement. It follows that A and B possess in common a set of standards

for assessing whether the assertion of what S expresses is justified. Consider now what would happen if A and B tried to assess their ap

parent difference, assuming for the moment that it hasn't come to light that they mean different things by S. The following are some possible

developments of their dialogue. One possibility is that A gives, as grounds for her assertion of S, a

deductive argument, n, and B gives as her grounds for denying that S, that

n is deductively invalid. The assumption is that A and B agree completely on which arguments they would count as justifying S. On the assumption that a sound deductive argument for S counts as a justification for S, A

and B must agree on a criterion for validity; otherwise, like classical and

intuitionistic mathematicians, they may disagree over the soundness of de

ductions of S and therefore over what justifies S. (This is, of course, not to

claim that they have a decision procedure for validity; it is only to claim

that they agree, say, on certain canonical inferences as valid.) So, now, if

either A can show that n is valid, or B that it is invalid, by reference to this

criterion, then it's clear that they would recognize one of their assertions

as justified, and the other not. In these cases, the situation is that one of

A or B comes to realize that she was mistaken about the validity of FL If

neither can demonstrate or refute the validity of n, then it seems that S is

not justified in her denial of S, so, again, not both A and B are justified. A possibility parallel to this is where A's ground for S is an induc

tive argument. Again let's assume that there's no disagreement over the

premises, i.e., the evidence, on which the argument is based. Then it seems

that the remaining possibilities of explaining the disagreement are: A or




B made a mistake in applying the methods of inductive confirmation, or,

the criteria for inductive confirmation leave open whether S is assertible.

I shall leave the second case for later. The first case, it seems clear, is a

possibility exactly parallel to the last case.

Another possibility is that either A or B had access to evidence for S

which the other hadn't. Here the basis of the criticism made by one of A

or B of the other is not the other's reasoning, but rather the evidence she

had. By assumption they agree on the bearing of evidence on S. Hence,

here, once the evidence comes to light, they would come to see that one

of them is justified and the other not. But one might also say that if, e.g., B's objection to A arises because B has access to evidence which A, in

making her judgment about S, didn't have, then A was, in absence of this

evidence, justified in asserting S. And so it seems that both A and B can

be justified in her assertion. But, even though A might say that she was

justified in asserting S, now that the evidence has come to light, she no

longer can claim that she would be justified if she now asserts S. And so,

given a sense of justification relative to the standards and evidence shared

by the parties to the dispute, and not relative to what is available to only one of them, only one of A and B can be justified.

Another possibility is that A's grounds for S is an argument, n, relying on some set of claims E. B on the other hand, agrees that if all of E

were justified, then n justifies S, but claims that some of ? is not well

supported. A, on the other hand, takes these claims to be fully justified. In

this case, in general, the investigation would proceed to these other claims, where the same process of inquiry as in the case of the original statement

could be conducted. So this possibility reduces to the others mentioned

here. But one might imagine that this process could potentially never come

to an end; in investigating one disagreement, A and B are always led to

another. Here it seems that, at each point, neither A nor B can take her

original claims to be justified tout court; rather, all they can say is that

they are justified, conditional on a decision to their favor on the current

disagreement. Another possibility is where the statement under dispute is observa

tional. For example, suppose A and B disagree over the statement, "Dr.

Gustav Lauben's hair is black". Suppose they agree on who Dr. Lauben is

(i.e., share criteria for identifying Lauben), and agree that in order to tell

whether his hair is black one has to see it, and, moreover, can see Lauben

at the moment of the exchange. Let's suppose also that they are agreed that the conditions for perception are optimal and that their perceptual

organs are not malfunctioning. Then they agree completely on what they would count as justifying the statement; yet, while A looks at Lauben's



56 SANFORD SHIEH

hair and pronounces that it's black, B does so and claims that it's not

black. The standards they share for assessing claims would hold both of

them to be justified in their claim, because we take someone's perceptually based judgment to be justified if she perceived the object in question, and

here we're assuming that nothing prevented A and B from perceiving, as

opposed to seeming to perceive, Lauben's hair.

Another possibility is where A and B give different arguments for their

claims, agree that the arguments justify, respectively, S and its denial,

and agree on all the claims on which the arguments are based. The case

might be described as one in which the evidence to which both disputants have access is conflicting. And one might say that they would come to the

conclusion that they're both justified in their claims. But, again, if we're

considering the question relative to the common evidence, we would more

likely say that since the evidence is not sufficient to decide the question, neither is justified. So, again, it is recognized that not both are justified.

One final possibility is where A, say, bases her assertion on plausible

reasoning, and where B disagrees that the argument A gives is plausi

ble, without being able to demonstrate that A is false, or give reasons for

finding it unlikely. One way of summarizing the upshot of the examination of the possibil

ities is: if there is an apparent disagreement over an assertion made with

a sentence, 5 between two individuals who would count exactly the same

arguments as justifying such an assertion, then they will be able, in the

course of an analysis of their disagreement, to arrive at the recognition that

not both of the assertions is correct, except if

(a) there is a brute disagreement over evidence,

(b) the canons of induction leave it open whether S is legitimately assert

ible, or,

(c) the assertions are based on plausible reasoning, and their criteria of

plausibility diverge.

But I would claim that the notion of what counts as justifying a statement

includes not only arguments which demonstrate the truth of the statement

and arguments which inductively confirm it, but also criteria for what

counts as plausible support for a statement, and judgments about whether

inductive evidence legitimates an assertion. Thus (b) and (c) don't repre sent cases in which the subjects agree completely in what they count as

justifying a statement.

Note that the notion of justification I just used might be described in this

way: whatever justifies an assertion provides adequate reasons for making the assertion; it is left open how precisely this adequacy is characterized.




This is the answer to the question raised above in discussing my account

of the first feature of assertion: what role does the notion of justification

play in the account? We see now that all that is required of the notion of

justification is that it be a placeholder for whatever puts one in a position to

make an assertion. Note also that what I have tried to do in this argument is to sketch the place of our conception of justification (understood as

above) in our ordinary practices. I have not, obviously, provided a detailed

investigation of this place. The reason is that I'm not trying to defend the

essential communicability of meaning argument, just sketch their roots in

our practices. Now, the upshot of the examination of cases can be put in this way:

(15) When there is an apparent disagreement over an assertion made

with a sentence, S between two individuals who would count

exactly the same arguments as justifying such an assertion, then they will be able, in the course of an analysis of their

disagreement, to arrive at the recognition that not both of the

assertions are correct, except if there is a brute disagreement over evidence.

The question now is, is it possible that, in these cases, A and B mean dif

ferent things by 5? As I've described the second characteristic of assertion,

when there is a difference in meaning, when the dispute is merely verbal,

the speakers in question would be able to come to recognize that both of

them are justified in their attitudes toward the assertion made with S. It

seems, then, that the possibility of a difference in meaning is compatible with agreement over what justifies S only if there is a brute disagreement over evidence. Which, it seems, is as it should be; for, in the case of the

observations of Dr. Lauben's hair, it seems natural to say that the people in

question don't mean the same thing by 'black'.

This concludes my reconstruction of the essential communicability of

meaning argument.23'24

II.4

I turn now to a more intuitive version of the argument. Recall the discussion of the intuition underlying the conception of as

sertion as subject to normative conditions: the idea is that someone could

n't be taken to be trying to say something true unless she takes what she is

saying to be responsive to reasons for thinking that it is true. Thus, if there

is a disagreement consisting of contrary assertions, it ought to matter to the

parties involved to determine, on the basis of reasons they would accept, who is right. Now it seems plausible that in an exchange to determine who



58 SANFORD SHIEH

is right, the parties involved would put forth reasons for their claims; and, either they would come upon some consideration which one side accepts but the other doesn't, or they will reach a point where they find that they agree completely about what justifies the statement under dispute. In the

latter situation, as I urged above, they would come to see, either that one of

them is justified, or that neither is. If neither is justified, nevertheless each

might have reasons which legitimate her assertion. However, imagine that

this is not the case. Then, it seems, one or both would acknowledge that she

is required to withdraw her assertion. But if the justification independent

conception of meaning is right, in such a situation these individuals may mean different things by the sentence in question. Hence, the one (or one

of the ones) who would be required to withdraw her assertion could cite a

difference in meaning as a basis for continuing to maintain her assertion, and be perfectly right in doing so. The effect of this seems to be that,

whereas, by the standards of our practice of assertion, this speaker cannot

be taken to be making an assertion at all, by the lights of this conception of

meaning she would still fall within the practice of assertion; hence there's

a tension between this conception and our conception of assertion.

I will now try to illustrate this tension in terms of an example designed to make the counter-intuitive consequences of this possibility vivid.25

Consider the following story. There are two friends, called Isabel Archer

and Kate Croy. One day, Archer says to Croy, "Ralph Touchett lives on Elm

Street", and Croy disagreed, or seemed to disagree. But, being friends, they talk about this (apparent) disagreement. In the course of the discussion, it

turns out that Archer's reason for saying what she said is that she had

seen letters sent to Touchett at this address, and had also seen, a number

of times, Touchett going into an apartment building on Elm Street at night and leaving it on the following morning. Croy disagreed, on the other hand, because she heard from Touchett himself that he had just moved to Church

Street.

Now we all know that a true friend is another self; thus, being true

friends, Archer and Croy agree completely in what they would count as

reasons for and against saying, "Touchett lives on Elm Street". But, even

given this fact, we can, it seems, imagine various distinct ways in which

the conversation between Archer and Croy could continue. For example,

they might give more weight to what Touchett himself says than to what

they observe. And, so, at this point, they might arrive at the plausible conclusion that Archer had insufficient reasons for saying, "Touchett lives

on Elm Street", while Croy's basis for disagreeing is sufficient to show

that the sentence is not justified. Alternatively, one could also imagine Archer responding, "But I know that Touchett lies. He told Newman that




he spent last year in Paris, when in fact he was in Berlin"; and one could

imagine that for these two, this fact outweighs what Touchett says. For the

sake of definiteness, let us settle on the first of these continuations of their

conversation.

Suppose we assume, even given all we know about the situation so

far, that Archer and Croy still could mean different things by the sentence

"Touchett lives on Elm Street". Then, it seems, we must think that the

following is a possible continuation of this tale. Archer agrees that her

reasons for asserting the sentence are not enough to justify it. But, she

says, "Nevertheless Touchett does live on Elm Street". Now, Croy, in as

tonishment, asks her, "Why? Didn't we just agree that what you're going on is not enough to show that Touchett lives on Elm Street?". Archer says, in return, "Yes, we agreed on that. And I still do agree with it. I don't have

sufficient reason to say that Touchett lives on Elm Street But he does. You

see, I don't mean the same thing as you do when I say, 'Touchett lives on

Elm Street' ".

Part of the intuition underlying the essential communicability of mean

ing argument is that there is something unsatisfactory about the story, if

we left it at this point. Rather, we feel that some further continuation of the

story such as the following is required. How do we imagine Croy respond

ing to the last thing that Archer said? Wouldn't she naturally ask, "What

do you mean, then, when you say 'Touchett lives on Elm Street'? Is it that

you mean someone else by 'Touchett'? Or by 'Elm Street'? Or by 'live'?"

What do we think Archer would naturally say? Suppose she said, "Oh,

well, by 'live' I mean projecting oneself into one's existential horizon, and

you, I think, mean just physically occupying a dwelling". How would we

think the conversation would proceed from here? We know that Archer and

Croy agree completely in what they take to justify the things they say. So

here's a plausible continuation. Croy says, "I see. Well, if you mean that

by 'live', then, of course I agree that Touchett lives on Elm Street It is only on that street that he projects himself into his existential horizon. But look, we are not really disagreeing, then, are we? We're both right. In fact, don't

you agree that if, by 'live', you mean what I do, then you would be wrong and I would be right?"

There are two points about this continuation worth noting.

First, if it is natural, then we see that we have failed to imagine the

possibility of these two people assigning different meanings to a sentence

while agreeing completely about what would justify it. The intuition un

derlying the essential communicability of meaning argument is precisely that our imagination would similarly fail if we imagined Archer as giving

any other answer to Croy's request to specify her meaning.



60 SANFORD SHIEH

Second, let us consider more closely why we take this continuation of

the story to be intuitively compelling. Suppose Archer hadn't said that she

didn't mean the same thing as Croy does by the sentence "Touchett lives

on Elm Street". That is, suppose Archer simply agreed that she hadn't

sufficient reason to say that Touchett lives on Elm Street, but also insisted

that he does, without giving any grounds. In this case, Archer seems to

have conceded that Croy's grounds for disagreement gives Archer reasons

for her to withdraw her assertion. So, unless she can come up with a ground for doubting Croy's basis, or give a stronger reason for her assertion than

Croy's basis for doubting it, she ought to withdraw her assertion. And if

she doesn't, then she seems to be acting irrationally. Now, in the case we have been thinking about, Archer cites a difference

in meaning as a reason for continuing to make the assertion she does. Our

sense that this is not a satisfactory ending derives, I think, from the fol

lowing fact. We don't think that, simply by saying that she has a different

meaning in mind, Archer succeeds in having a different meaning in mind.

It seems possible that Archer's plea that she has a different meaning in

mind derives merely from wanting to escape having to withdraw her asser

tion. So the question is, what distinguishes the case in which Archer does

have a different meaning in mind from the one in which she doesn't? It is

hard to see how the distinction could be specified except along something like the following lines: Archer genuinely means something different only if she can make explicit how the difference in meaning that she cites counts

as a reason for the assertion. But we see now that there is a problem, since

we have been assuming that Archer and Croy agree completely in what

they count as reasons for and against their assertions.

I take the significance of the argument to be this. Our concepts of mean

ing and of justification imply that a difference in meaning could result in a

difference in being justified. In other words, a difference in meaning pro vides a standard of being justified. But our concept of assertion, deriving from the picture of rationality in discourse, implies that being justified in

an assertion is to be assessed in terms of the standards set by what we

would count as justifications of it - otherwise we can make no sense of

the idea that we have reasons for what we say. Hence, we have difficulty

forming a clearly coherent conception of a difference in meaning in the

absence of a difference in what is counted as justification. And, the coher

ence in question is coherence with our practice of assertion. Thus what the

argument shows about the justification independent conception of meaning is not, as the standard interpretation would have it, that we can't explain how we can know what another speaker means. Rather, the complaint is




that, given our practice of assertion, we cannot form a coherent conception of this meaning.

II.5

I want, finally, to note some differences between my interpretation and the

standard one. First, the two interpretations see the argument as addressing different philosophical issues. On the standard interpretation, the issue is, what are the conditions under which we know what a speaker means by a

sentence? On my interpretation, the issue is: what are the conditions under

which a speaker associates any distinctive meaning at all with a sentence?

The difference can be put more sharply. Given my view of this, namely, that the conditions in question are set by the arguments the subject counts

as justifying the sentence, we can still ask, what are the conditions under

which we know that a subject counts certain arguments as justifying the

sentence?

Another way of bringing out the difference between the present inter

pretation and the standard interpretation is this. On the latter, we think that

we have a clear conception of what it is for someone to mean something

by a statement; but, if meaning were not manifested, it would not be ac

cessible to us; we could not be justified in thinking that we knew what

someone meant. To borrow an image from Cora Diamond, it is as if the

interpretation conceives of this meaning as hidden behind a line, the line

of verbal behavior; but we take ourselves to know quite well that it is some

meaning or the other that is behind the line, and our task is only to devise a

means of getting behind it, to find out what precisely is the meaning hidden

there.26 On the present interpretation, the claim is that we have no coherent

conception of there being such a thing as the meaning someone associates

with a statement, unless she manifests it in what she counts as justifying the statement. The philosophical basis of the essential communicability of

meaning argument can now be seen as antecedent to the epistemology of

meaning; until we have an account of how meaning is manifested, we have

no means of even raising the question of evidence for meaning, for we

would have no conception of that for which we're demanding evidence.

I want to make one final remark. Consider again the first definition of

'to manifest' in The Oxford English Dictionary: "To make evident to the

eye or the understanding". The account of manifestation that I have given can be seen as tacitly putting the emphasis on understanding. That is, on

my view, the manifestation of meaning is (part of) what makes clear the

coherent application of our concept of meaning.



62 SANFORD SHIEH

III. IN PLACE OF A CONCLUSION

In this section I will comment, very briefly, on the relation between my account of manifestation and the argument against realist truth conditions.

As we have seen in section I, this argument aims to establish a problem for the manifestation of the truth conditions of 'undecidable' sentences, if

truth is taken to be realist. In order to make any headway at all in under

standing this argument, one must first give an account of Dummett's notion

of 'undecidability'. Now, Dummettian 'undecidability' is notoriously dif

ficult concept to pin down, and I'm agnostic about whether, in the end, it can be given a coherent explanation. But, for present purposes, I shall

simply claim, without argument, that for Dummett

(16) A sentence is 'undecidable' if we don't know whether, or have

no reason to think that, we can justify it, and we don't know

whether, or have no reason to think that, we can falsify it.

I will call sentences that satisfy (16) 'Undecidable'. The remainder of this

section should be understood as provisional on the assumption that this

account of Undecidability is coherent.

There are three important points about Undecidability to be noted. First, Undecidable sentences are not ones that we know we cannot either justify or falsify. Second, from the definition of undecidability it follows that we

don't know whether we have the capacity to recognize that an Undecidable

sentence is true, and we don't know whether we have the capacity to recog nize that it is not true. Third, the conception of the recognitional capacities we have with respect to Undecidable sentences is meant by Dummett to be common ground between realism and anti-realism. Thus, the difference

between realism and anti-realism, as far as the truth conditions of Un

decidable sentences are concerned, is this. Realism holds that these truth

conditions, like the truth condition of any sentence, either obtains or fails

to obtain. Hence the following is possible, for all we know: we cannot

recognize the sentence to be true and we cannot recognize it to be not true,

but, yet, the sentence is either true or not true. Anti-realism, on the other

hand, holds that, given the capacities we have, it is not legitimate to assume

that these conditions either obtain or fail to obtain.

Given this account of the difference between realism and anti-realism over truth conditions, it follows that Dummett must take manifestation of

knowledge of truth conditions to be given in terms of recognitional capac




ities. Specifically, he must take what is problematic about the realist view

to be this:

(17) It is unclear how the recognitional capacities we have with re

spect to an Undecidable sentence can be used in an account of

the concept of knowledge of the realist truth conditions of that

sentence.

And this suggests that, in order for a set of capacities to manifest knowl

edge of the truth condition of a sentence, the following requirement must

be satisfied:

(18) We must be capable of recognizing that the condition obtains

(or fails to do so) whenever it does (or fails to do so).

Given my opposition to the standard interpretation, I clearly would not

accept the following construal of the manifestation of truth conditions: a

subject's having capacities satisfying (18) is required to account for how

we can know we can know that she knows the realist truth condition of a

sentence.

But, in addition, I also hold that the argument against realist truth condi

tions cannot be derived by a straightforward application of the manifesta

tion thesis established in the last section. The reason is this. What I argued for in the last section is that if two subjects associate different meanings

with a sentence, then they cannot count exactly the same arguments as

justifying an assertion made with that sentence. Now, given an identifica

tion of meaning with truth conditions, this thesis must imply the following thesis about truth conditions:

(19) If two subjects associate different truth conditions with a sen

tence, then they cannot count the same arguments as justifying an assertion made with that sentence.

The account of truth conditions needed to get to (18), however, requires a

connection between association of truth conditions and capacity to recog nize the obtaining of truth conditions. It is plausible that this connection

requires, in addition to (19), also

(20) Counting different arguments as justifying an assertion requires

having different recognitional capacities.

If (20) is accepted, then we can argue against the manifestability of real

ist truth conditions as follows. Consider an Undecidable sentence to which

one subject associates realist truth conditions and another anti-realist truth



64 SANFORD SHIEH

conditions. Now assume, what is common ground for the two positions, that these subjects possess identical recognitional capacities with respect to this sentence. Since they associate distinct truth conditions with the

sentence, they mean different things by it. Now if, in order to count dif

ferent arguments as justifications of an assertion made with this sentence, the subject must have different recognitional capacities with respect to it, our assumption implies that they count the same arguments as justifying the assertion in question. Hence, they can't mean different things by the

sentence, and we get a contradiction. But there are two problems with this

argument.

One is that (20) is far from obvious. Recall the Fregean conception of

justification I sketched in the last section: a proof that includes a proof, for

every numeral n, of rFnn, counts as a proof of rVxFjcn. This would not

count as a proof for an anti-realist, so there is a difference between what

the realist and the anti-realist counts as an argument for this Undecidable

sentence, and yet their recognitional capacities with respect to it are the same.

The other problem is that this argument seems to show no more than

that there cannot be a difference in the truth conditions that the realist

and the anti-realist associate with an Undecidable sentence. But it doesn't

tell us anything about what these truth conditions are, whether they're the

realist ones or the anti-realist ones. So it doesn't show that there is anything

problematic about the notion of realist truth conditions.

These difficulties with the argument sketched above show, I hold, that

the problem that Dummett discerns in the manifestation of truth conditions

does not derive solely from the general constraint on meaning that is the

manifestation thesis.27 So what, then, is the relation between the notion

of manifestation of the manifestation thesis and the manifestation of truth

conditions? I claim that the answer comes from reflecting on the general idea of manifestation deriving from my account of the manifestation thesis.

Meaning has to be manifested in use in the sense that

(21) The conditions of application of the concept of meaning must

be given in terms of concepts applying to the use of language.

The essential communicability argument shows that the condition of

application of the notions, associating the same, or different, meanings with a sentence, is given in terms of the notion, counting an argument as a

justification of an assertion. I would claim hat what underlies the argument

against realist truth conditions is an argument attempting to show that the

conditions of application of the notion, knowing the truth condition of a

sentence, can be given in terms of the notion, recognizing something as

showing that that truth condition obtains.




Note that I claim that the conditions can be given in terms of recogni tional capacities, not that they must be. The reason is that the argument, I hold, does not in fact show that realist truth conditions fail to be mani

festable. This in fact fits, I would claim, with the wording of the conclusion

of the argument against realist truth conditions: "it is quite obscure in

what the knowledge of the condition under which a sentence is true can

consist, when that condition is not one which is always capable of being

recognised as obtaining". And it fits with the terms in which Dummett

recently characterizes anti-realism:

there is a challenge which ... the anti-realist issues to the realist. The realist claims to be

in possession of a certain conception of the condition for the truth of an [Undecidable]

statement.... The anti-realist's challenge to him is to vindicate this claim by explaining

in what possessing that conception consists. (Dummett 1987, 223)

These texts do not obviously claim that realism is mistaken. Rather, they

suggest precisely the conclusion of the argument that, I hold, underlies the

argument against realist truth conditions: the burden of proof is on realism,

to produce a satisfactory account of the concept of knowing realist truth

conditions.

NOTES

* I wish to thank all those on whom I have inflicted earlier incarnations of this essay; I

am particularly grateful to the comments and discussion of Nuel Belnap, William Bracken,

Daniel Dennett, Michael Dummett, Gary Ebbs, Juliet Floyd, Warren Goldfarb, Carsten

Hansen, Richard Heck, Daniel Isaacson, Gerald Massey, John McDowell, Charles Par

sons, Ofra Rechter, Jason Stanley and an anonymous referee for Synthese. Special thanks

are due to Neil Tennant, who generously made available to me unpublished material that

substantially improved the present paper. Finally, I must single out Michael Glanzberg for

his thorough and, to my mind, superhumanly patient, help at all phases of this project. 1

Some of the sources from which this interpretation is compiled are: Appiah 1985

and 1986; Burgess 1984; Campbell 1982; Devitt 1983; Edginton, 1985; George 1984; McDowell 1981; McGinn 1980; Tennant 1987; Weir 1985; Wright 1993, esp. 13-23.

2 For a representative statement of this interpretation of realism see Michael Dummett,

'Realism', in his 1978, 145-165. 3 McDowell 1981 and McGinn 1980. The former is perhaps the fullest statement of the standard interpretation. 4

It should be noted that the last two steps of this argument does not depend on attributing

to Dummett the requirement that, for a speaker to know the meaning of a mathematical

sentence, she has to be able, whenever the truth condition of that sentence obtains, to find

a proof of that sentence, and, whenever the condition fails to obtain, to find a refutation

of it. Rather, the argument is consistent with taking Dummett to require of a speaker only

that she be able to recognize a proof or refutation as such when she is 'presented' with

one. On this view, the 'presentation' of the proof or disproof is the stimulus that prompts



66 SANFORD SHIEH

her behavioral response of assent or dissent, through her recognition that she is 'presented' with the proof or refutation. Moreover, on this view, one of the reasons why we may not

be able to recognize the satisfaction (or otherwise) of the truth conditions of 'undecidable'

sentences is that their proofs may be infinitary, and so it might not be possible for a finite

creature to be 'presented' with their proofs. 5

I take Quine's motivations to be quite different. My understanding of these motivations

derives from Ricketts 1982. Whether Quine's motivations are epistemological at all de

pends on whether one takes his demand, of Carnap, for what Ricketts calls "a criterion of

analyticity" (at p. 124) as an epistemological demand. 6

Those who are familiar with Dummett's writings will note that I have failed to men

tion an entire dimension of use that he discusses: the drawing of consequences from the

acceptance of an assertion. I have two reasons for concentrating on justification rather

than consequence. First, since I hold that an argument for the manifestation thesis can be

given on the basis of either notion of use, I have chosen to focus on the notion that lends

itself to a relatively more straightforward argument. Secondly, since most of the issues that

arise from the interaction between these two aspects of use do not directly concern the

manifestation thesis, I have decided not to further complicate an argument that is probably too complicated as it stands. 7

The centrality of assertion for an account of meaning is explicitly stated in Dummett

1976, at section IV, Dummett 1981a, chapter 5, Dummett 1981b, chapters 1 and 2, and,

especially, Dummett 1993a, at pp. 11-13. 8 I note that I take this characterization of assertion to deny nothing of the insistence,

by philosophers proceeding from ordinary language, that saying something true does not,

by itself, constitute an assertion. The occasions on which I concentrate are those in which

the conditions for making an assertion are satisfied; the issues I want to explore depend on

what we would say about these situations. 9

It should be noted that Dummett in this passage is characterizing the class of linguistic acts he calls "quasi-assertions", a class that includes assertions as a sub-class. 10

It may be wondered whether "recognition of the legitimacy of a request to produce

grounds" could really be essential to the making of assertions.

For example, consider the position that there might be no grounds for perceptually based assertions. Is such a position inconsistent? This depends on how one understands

what is involved in the legitimacy of requests for grounds. Suppose someone said, during the intermission of a concert, "The second violins were all a semitone flat in the beginning of the rallentando passage". And she is asked, "What makes you say that?" Does the posi tion under consideration imply that if the first speaker responds, "I don't understand what

you're asking. I said what I said for no reason at all", it still makes perfect sense to take her

to have made an assertion? Surely not. It seems to me that on any reasonable construal, the

position would imply no more than that the following is a legitimate response by the first

speaker: "Well, that's what I heard". That is to say, on my account, having grounds for an

assertion amounts to no more than not saying something for no reason at all. This does not

rule out the claim that the reason in question can be perceptual interaction or experience.

Another, more interesting, case is that of a highly pugnacious speaker who says, "If

your father (an officer) asserts something, you just believe it. It's not for you to ask for

grounds". Is he saying something inconsistent? It seems to me not. For, a plausible inter

pretation of the case is that the speaker is saying that the person whom he is addressing

is not in the appropriate (social) position to request grounds, rather than that any request

for grounds is illegitimate. Would the speaker say the same thing to his father, or superior




officer? What about himself? Does it make sense for him to think, "If I asserted anything, then I must just believe it. It's not for me to consider whether I might have been wrong".

My intuition is that here we have gone beyond the limits of mere pugnacity. 11

There is a way in which this characteristic of assertion can be misconstrued. The

conditions on assertion merely require that the speaker display certain sensitivities to the

justification of her assertions; they do not amount to the claim that to know the use of a

statement in assertion is no more than to know the conditions under which it is justified. 12

This feature of assertion should be thought of as constitutive of the practice of assertion.

Thus, if one takes it to be a norm of this practice, then it is rather different from certain other

norms. For example, if wearing a tie at dinner is required by etiquette, one can perform an

action of the kind to which the norm relates while breaching the norm, by going to dinner

tieless. In contrast, lacking the requisite sensitivities to justification disqualifies one from

making an assertion altogether. Whether the notion of constitutive norm is ultimately coherent is a large topic that I

cannot go into here. But see Cavell 1969, 21-31, and passim, for a compelling defense. 13

I'm grateful to Gary Ebbs for discussion leading to this clarification of my account of

assertion. 14

I use 'true' and 'correct' interchangeably here, because, at this point in the characteri

zation of assertion, Dummett does not distinguish between them. For his account of how

the distinction arises, see Dummett 1993b, 188-201. 5

This formulation clearly allows the possibility of lying. Moreover, it explains why it

is natural to characterize assertion as (a) requiring a commitment to its truth, or as (b)

requiring that one represent oneself as telling the truth. The commitment follows from

accepting that one ought to be aiming at correctness, and if one doesn't even represent

oneself as telling the truth, it is not clear how one could have accepted this commitment.

The account of assertion given so far is, I believe, consistent with the subtle and com

plex theory of assertion that Robert Brandom has been developing over many years. See,

in particular, Brandom 1976, 1983, and 1994. 17

See Dummett 1981a, 512-518, and 589ff, for more details. It is plausible that, on some

interpretations of realism, we can in principle carry out the infinitary proofs described in

the text. But this does not, I would claim, affect the point that there is a distinction between

what counts as a reason for the truth of a statement, and having a reason for taking it to be

true. 18

I reached the present formulation of the notion of 'contrary attitudes' as a result of

comments by Neil Tennant. 19

This formulation is perhaps liable to misunderstanding. I want to emphasize that it does

not rule out the possibility that there be circumstances in which two speakers meaning different things by a statement would, in accordance to the meanings they assigned to the

statement, not be justified in holding contrary attitudes to it. This might happen if under both assignments of meaning the statement expressed a theoretical claim (different ones for

each assignment, of course), for which, in some situation, according to the two meanings, there isn't enough evidence to warrant either the assertion or the denial of the claim. My claim is the much more modest one that it could happen, when there is a difference in

meaning, that two speakers are justified in holding contrary attitudes, not that it must

happen. 20 I owe this point, and the impetus for the final reformulation, to Neil Tennant. 21

Note that the argument just sketched consists, formally, of reducing the conjunction of the three claims to absurdity, and concluding the conditional whose antecedent is the



68 SANFORD SHIEH

conjunction of two of the conjuncts, and whose consequent is the negation of the other

conjunct. It is thus an intuitionistically valid argument. It would not be, if the penultimate version of the manifestation thesis were the conclusion. Again I am grateful to Neil Tennant

for pointing this out.

This may be the place to note that I will not be trying to show that there is never any gap between a speaker's grasp of the justification conditions of an assertion and her judgements about whether any given fact or argument satisfies these conditions. It is certainly plausible that two speakers may count the same things as justifying an assertion without in fact

agreeing on whether a given set of reasons does justify it. The point of the argument is to

detail what would result from rational investigations of these disagreements. The force of

the argument then rests on the examination of the individual cases. 23

Gary Ebbs has suggested to me the following objection to the foregoing argument. One

might think that it shows only that knowing the meaning of a statement, in a sense in which

it is independent of justification, is not sufficient for knowledge of the conditions under

which it is justified. And that doesn't show that there is anything wrong with this concep tion of meaning. For a realist, grasp of meaning would have to be supplemented by a theory of justification before the justification of the statement can be specified. So two speakers

may have different theories of justification and thereby associate different conditions of

justification with a statement to which they attach the same meaning. Moreover, Daniel

Isaacson has pointed out to me that one might think that if knowledge of the meaning of a statement did determine completely what is taken to justify it, then we would be

committed to the following implausible claim. Consider an expert on, say, carbon-dating. She would justify a statement about the past differently from a non-expert, and so the thesis

would commit us to claiming that she means something different by this statement than the

non-expert does. And that is surely a counterintuitive result.

However, this view of the argument derives from a misunderstanding. The target of

the argument is the view that a difference in meaning is compatible with agreement on

what would be counted as justification conditions. This view is independent of the position one takes on whether identity of meaning is compatible with a difference in what would

be counted as justification conditions. This is clear if we formulate the two claims in the

following way: the thesis which we just argued for is that a difference in meaning implies a difference in justification, but nothing is shown about the converse of this; on the other

hand, the thesis which the objection takes the argument to be aimed at is the converse claim

that identity in meaning implies identity in justification. A difference in what would be

counted as justification, according to the present argument, is only a necessary condition

of a coherent conception of a difference in meaning. It has not been claimed that it's a

sufficient condition. 24

It is worth considering how the text of the essential communicability of meaning argu ment should be read, in light of the reconstruction I've just given. The main question is,

how do we understand claim (iii), which seems to say that unless meaning is manifested in

use, the audience of an attempt at communication cannot know what meaning the speaker is trying to convey. I suggest the following interpretation. Since we only have a conception of what someone means by a statement in virtue of having a conception of what she would

count as justifying it, independently of the latter conception, we have no coherent idea of

any such thing as its possessing a meaning for the individual in question. So the claim that

if one individual associated with a ... symbol or formula some mental content, where the

association did not lie in the use he made of [it], then he could not convey that content by




means of the symbol or formula, for his audience would be unaware of the association and

would have no means of becoming aware of it

should be taken in the following way. Where the purported association between mental

content and linguistic expression is not manifestable, we have no conception of any content

to be conveyed, and hence no conception of any association. The audience would have no

means of becoming aware of the association because it could have no coherent idea of

any association to become aware. Note, moreover, that since there is no coherent notion

of content to be communicated, there can be no such thing as evidence that this content is

what someone is trying to communicate. 25

The ensuing dialogues are clearly not meant to depict the inevitable course of any dis

cussion about a disagreement; so I'm clearly not trying to show that all such investigations

proceed as if on rails. The dialogues are meant to elicit intuitions about what a reasonable

course of investigation into a disagreement would be like. My claim is that these intuitions

dovetail with the connections among the concepts of meaning, assertion and justification

that I have tried to spell out in the more abstract accounts of possible disagreements. 26 In Diamond 1991, 210. Unfortunately Diamond appears to attribute this picture to

Dummett. I note that Diamond here also writes of the anti-realist's claim as the claim

that one can't form a conception of what is behind the veil; but she takes the claim to be

based on the inaccessibility of what is behind the veil. On the reading I'm advocating, the

unavailability of the conception is prior to inaccessibility of meaning. Indeed, the point is

close to a point which Diamond attributes to Wittgenstein. She sees Wittgenstein's rejoin

der to an anti-realist's (in her sense of anti-realist) claim that we have no conception of an

inaccessible past state of affairs as follows: "Wittgenstein's point is that the [anti-realist's]

picture [of a past state of affairs] does not at all make clear what is involved in having such

a conception". (212) 27

Of course all this is consistent with the possibility that an anti-realist can give an argu

ment, different from Dummett's, for the rejection of the principle of bivalence on the basis

only of the manifestation requirement.

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Department of Philosophy Wesleyan University

Middletown, CT 06459 USA

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1998 On the Conceptual Foundations of Anti-Realism

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