A Short Piece on Dummett’s Theory of Meaning

What, exactly, did Michael Dummett mean by “a theory of meaning”?

Firstly, it concerns the “implicit knowledge we have of our language”. Dummett says:

“It must issue in principles which will make explicit the implicit knowledge we have of the language we use, the knowledge we display in our practice, in such a way as to show that these principles do adequately reflect that practice.” (78)

This is not, then, unlike Chomsky’s enterprise of showing us the “implicit knowledge” we must have in order to generate an infinite possibility of grammatical sentences from a limited stock of linguistic material. This is accounted for, in Chomsky’s theory, by our “language faculty” which is built into our brains and thus also our minds.

Dummett is clearly doing something similar in his theory of meaning. Indeed we must have implicit knowledge of “the language we use” in order to account for that use. After all, not many non-philosophers know about truth-conditions, sense, reference, proper names and so on. Dummett must be arguing that we do have implicit knowledge of such things; just as Chomsky argues that we must have implicit knowledge of what he calls “universal grammar” and the “universals” contained in that grammar. This knowledge of truth-conditions, sense, etc. “we display in our practice” (78). Again, we wouldn’t display what we do display without such implicit or tacit knowledge.

These “principles”, however, must “adequately reflect that practice” (78) because Dummett isn't carrying out a normative or revisionary project. He is uncovering what we must actually know – even if only implicitly. Thus he mustn't “ascribe to us knowledge we could not possibly have” (78).

Many philosophers (for example Gilbert Ryle) have also distinguished “knowing how” from “knowing that”. The former is non-propositional or non-theoretical, unlike the latter.

Is our implicit knowledge of language a case of knowing how or of knowing that? Passmore writes that

“we have an implicit knowledge, for example, of the physical principles which are manifested in our capacity to ride a bike”. (78)

Didn’t Ryle and others argue that we couldn't even express or formulate our implicit knowledge of how we can ride a bike even if we were asked to? In that case, would knowing how actually be a case of implicit knowledge at all? Or perhaps we have implicit knowledge without being able to express of formulate it.

In Dummett’s case, does he think, or expect, the layperson to express or formulate his implicit knowledge about his language or does he still have such knowledge even when he or she can't do so? In that case, is implicit knowledge, as it were, mechanical and non-propositional (or non-theoretical)? If that's the case, again, why is it knowledge at all and not something else? Does it matter to Dummett whether or not we can express or formulate our implicit knowledge?

Passmore reiterates Dummett’s position by talking in terms of our understanding. He writes:

“A good theory of meaning, then, will be a theory of what it is to understand, of what one knows when one knows a language, so that, for example, ‘Meaning is use’ could serve as a thesis in such theory only if to know the meaning is to know the use – implicitly or explicitly.” (78)

To put this simply. Why and how is it that we understand what it is we understand when we hear or read examples of our own language? What enables us to understand such examples of our language? Another way of putting this is to ask, “what one knows when one knows a language” (78). After all, we must know something about our language and its sentences and words otherwise we wouldn’t understand our language. And what we know must be more than what we've learned at school. What we know, in a sense, must have come before our formal training (or our adult training) otherwise perhaps we couldn’t have even learned the basics in the first place (never mind the higher levels of grammar and vocabulary).

Interestingly enough, Passmore writes that the “meaning is use” thesis could be a part of Dummett’s overall theory of meaning. However, that would only be the case if “to know the meaning is to know the use – implicitly or explicitly” (78). That is, it's still about our knowledge or understanding of meaning. In this case, what we know is how we use words and sentences. These uses of words and sentences provide us with their meanings. Thus use-theory can become a part of Dummett’s general theory of meaning – that is, if he were to accept it in the first place.

Michael Dummett on Frege’s Attempt at a Perfect Language

 

Why was Gottlob Frege so concerned with the determinacy of sense and its objectivity as well and the precise and explicit explication of what it is that makes a true sentence true?

For a start, this particular enterprise was part of a larger enterprise – that of creating a perfect language. Dummett explains:

“… I think that Frege dreamt of a perfect language in which such difficulties could never arise. There’d be no ambiguity, no vagueness, no need for interpretation.” (221)

One suspects, at least provisionally, that this is what Dummett wanted too. After all, why would he have invested so much energy on Frege if this were not the case? I would suggest the idea of ‘interpretation’ when it comes to making our utterances and sentences explicit creates problems for the idea of (Fregean) thoughts and propositions in that we may choose different interpretations of the same proposition or simply get it completely wrong in the first place. That is no doubt why Frege tried to create a semantics in which there would be “no need for interpretation” at all.

Is it even a possibility that Frege, or anyone else for that matter, could have created a language that is free from ambiguity, vagueness, and the rest? Perhaps one can create such an artificial language. However, as many philosophers later found, such languages were woefully inadequate when it came to clarifying and precisyfying natural languages and indeed any kind of language. Perhaps the creation of a language with no vagueness and ambiguity would be an indefinite – perhaps infinite – task. Perhaps even if it could be achieved no one, except perhaps its creator, would understand it.

In any case, Dummett himself realises that the idea of an ideal language is futile:

“Well that’s a dream. We don’t have such a language and I don’t think we could have such a language.” (221)

Despite saying that, Dummett goes on to say that that “doesn’t inhibit the communication of thoughts”. He continues:

“It just requires communication to be something which engages the intelligence of the hearer as well as the speaker.” (221)

With this statement Dummett moves into the second half of the 20th century and perhaps even commits himself to something like Grice’s theory of ‘speech acts’.

Additionally, just as the indeterminacy of meaning doesn't “inhibit the communication thought” (i.e. non-Fregean thoughts!), so a lack of a perfect or ideal language doesn’t inhibit communication. What matters, and what Frege failed to realise, is that the hearer, as well as the speaker, must be brought into the equation. We can't ever have a perfect language or sentence which even an ideal hearer will not be required to interpret in some way. There could never be some kind of algorithmic relation between an utterance or a sentence and our understanding of it as if its meaning (or the thought contained in it) simply passed from the utterance (or sentence) into our minds without picking up at least some dead wood along the way.

The hearer is as much part of the relation as is the speaker. The former must work as hard at understanding as the latter does at correctly communicating what it is he wants to communicate. Perhaps also the speaker or writer is required to assume certain things about the hearer or reader. Similarly, the context of the utterance as well as how it is articulated and stressed may also come into the picture when it comes to understanding an utterance or a sentence. More concretely, perhaps the speaker has to apply the “principle of charity” to the hearer and similarly the hearer has to apply the principle of charity to the speaker. Only then will both get something out of an individual act of communication.

Michael Dummett on Donald Davidson's Radical Interpretation

 

The way Michael Dummett puts Davidsonian ‘interpretation’ makes it sound far too complex and even ludicrous.

“I’m not using 'interpretation' is the way that Davidson does. For Davidson, the hearer’ interpretation is constructing a whole theory of meaning for the speaker, selecting between the possible interpretations, the interpretations which language leaves us to do on the basis of probability and so on.” (222)

Fancy being required to “construct a whole theory of meaning” before one could possibly understand what it was the speaker actually said.

Wasn’t Donald Davidson primarily talking interpretation as it occurs between a member of the home language and that of an alien language of some kind? In that case, it's a feasible and believable idea that one would be required to construct a whole theory of meaning for the utterances of the alien speaker. If it's only about understanding our fellow English speakers, on the other hand, this can’t be the case.

It's of course the case that even in the case of our fellow English speakers that there may be many possible interpretations we can adopt of what it is the English speaker is saying. This too seems to reinforce the other position of the “indeterminacy of meaning”; though that may not be that directly connected to that thesis.

In addition, Dummett talks says that in Davidson the interpretation we choose is found on the “basis of probability”. That is, the probability that the speaker was saying x rather than y. And, according to Davidson’s ‘principle of charity’, we are much more likely to choose x rather than y if our interpretation y commits us the belief that the speaker is, say, irrational or speaking about something that's obviously false.

The implication again seems to be that the existence of abstract thoughts or propositions will get us out of this Davidsonian bind in that if such things exist, then this will severely limit the number and type of interpretations available to us or which we will choose. Perhaps it follows from this that if Davidson didn't believe in propositions or thoughts, then it is bound to be the case that we will have many possible ways of interpreting what it is the speaker has said. However, this can also applied to Dummett’s position even though he believes in thoughts or propositions. Dummett himself concedes this point. That is, even if abstract thoughts or propositions do in fact exist, their existence alone doesn't guarantee the fact that we will get them right or interpret their linguistic expressions correctly.

Dummett then goes on to offer his own alternative to Davidson’s position:

“That’s not at all what I mean. He would be very silly if he were saying that, you realise. You do so without thinking, you rule out interpretations which would make someone else’s remarks just silly.”

It's a very strong claim to say that non-Davidsonian interpretation occurs “without thinking”. Really? How would that work? How can one interpret a speaker without thinking? Does he mean this literally? If he does, then it doesn't seem to make sense at all. Perhaps any thinking that does go on in interpretation is ‘tacit’ or ‘implicit’ thinking; though thinking nonetheless. Interpretation is, after all, an act of thinking or of thought.

Dummett also seems to borrow Davidson’s ‘principle of charity’ when he says that “you rule out interpretations which would make someone else’s remarks just silly” (222). That is, we may initially think that the speaker has indeed made a “silly remark”. However, we come to realise, quite quickly, that he or she simply couldn’t have said or meant what we thought he or she said or meant. Clearly this would apply to a sentence such as “I’m going to swallow the colour blue”. However, things aren't quite that simple with sentences such as “I die every day” or sentences which contain other metaphors or poeticisms. We interpret such utterances both routinely and easily without even for a second believing that the speaker really thinks that he dies every day. There are of course locutions that are even more subtle and difficult than that. For example, “I can’t do that!” Does the speaker really mean that he can’t do something; or, say, that he simply doesn't want to do something (perhaps breaking a law).

A Fragment on Jean-Paul Sartre's Positions on Free Will

It's strange how a philosopher who was - and still is - popular in leftwing circles (as well as among “radicals”) should have enunciated a position on free will that's very similar to that which is advanced by conservatives and religious people (both in history and still today). That is Jean-Paul Sartre's belief (at least in his existentialist phase) that we have total (or complete) freedom of will.

That position can be summed up by Sartre's own phrase: “There are no excuses.”

However, it can be said that the act of “rejecting our own freedom” is itself an act of free will. After all, a negative choice is still a choice. Even when you choose to submit to a dictator, that may still be an act of free choice (if not freedom).

All this may be explained by Eric Fromm's phrase (as well as his book title): “The fear of freedom.” And that's basically a version of Sartre's own “bad faith”.

Are we as free as Sartre claimed? 

Well, Sartre himself rejected his earlier “existentialist position” when he embraced Marxism in the 1960s. He once said that his earlier views were a “disgrace”. He did try to fuse existentialism with what he called “humanism” and Marxism; though Marxism seems to have come out on top.

In any case, Sartre came to believe that “economic reality” (or the “class nature of society”) was not only a major restriction of freedom: it also effectively negated free will in that many people have what Marxists calls “false consciousness”. Therefore they couldn't make "genuine choices".

The fact is that all sorts of things determine our “wills”, minds or selves, not just economic realities: genes, upbringings, culture, etc. So is there any free will (or freedom of the will) left after all that?

What is the Meaning of “What is the meaning of Life?”?

If the question “What is the purpose of life?” is fundamental and important, surely it begs two questions.

i) Why assume that there's a purpose of life (or a purpose to life) at all?

ii) Why should there only be one purpose (one meaning) to life?

Usually, when people ask this question it's because they think they believe that they already know the answer. Such people are really asking the following question:

“Do you want to know what the purpose [meaning] of life is?”

And the answer will usually be a religious one; though sometimes it may be “spiritual” or have something to do with what the questioner himself thinks the purpose/meaning of life is.

People may have their own views as to what the purposes of their own lives may be for themselves. Though what they believe doesn't depend on their also believing that there's a single purpose to/of life which they must somehow discover. (Or that they need to be told what it is by someone else.)

That still wouldn't be the purpose/meaning of life. It would be a purpose of life for a single individual. What one person sees as his purpose to/in life isn't the purpose of life. It's the main purpose of his life. Nothing more.

Basically, when most people ask “What is the purpose/meaning of life?” they believe that this purpose/meaning exists separately from human minds.

Of course such a belief can become more metaphysical or complex than the way I've expressed it.

For example, physically it can be said: 

There must be a primary thing from which everything else owes its existence. 

However, where does purpose or meaning fit into that belief? We could all owe our physical existence to the First Cause or to the Big Bang. However, there's no built-in purpose or meaning here unless it's argued for; rather than simply assumed. (Most biological things owe their existence to air and water – are they “primary things”? Is the purpose/meaning of life air and water?)