Michael Dummett and the Theory of Meaning

Darryl Gunson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429839894
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Language in Philosophy

Published in 1998, this book argues that in recent decades, Anglo-American philosophy of language has been captivated by the idea that the key to progress in this area of philosophy lies in investigating the possibility of constructing a theory of meaning. This text provides an in-depth critique of the Davidsonian suggestion that Tarski's work on formal definitions of truth is an important element in allowing us to understand the form that the theory of meaning should take.

1 The Background

1. Introduction

My starting point is to describe the background assumptions operating throughout this work. This background, concerns what has come to be known as the truth conditional theory of meaning. Here I explain what such a theory is, and provide some of the reasons why it has been thought to be a legitimate approach to questions concerning meaning. In particular, I outline the connection between meaning and truth and the way in which Tarski’s truth definition for formal languages has been recruited by Donald Davidson as the basis upon which issues to do with the form of the theory of meaning may be pursued.

2. Meaning and Truth

A formal theory is a collection of axioms and rules of inference from which certain theorems may be generated. Since Davidson’s early work (collected in his 1984), theories of meaning for natural languages have been thought of in this way. Roughly, the axioms of the theory specify the semantic properties of subsentential terms, the rules say how these properties combine with each other and the theorems are thought to ‘capture’ the meaning of whole sentences. Although there is no general reason why such a theory could not have an infinite number of axioms, each one giving the meaning of one of the potentially infinite sentences in the language, it is generally agreed that the number of axioms should in fact be finite. The theory, composed of a finite number of axioms, would give the semantic properties of the words and subsentential expressions of the language and be capable of generating a potential infinity of theorems, thereby capturing the semantic effects of their permissible modes of combination. The general motivation behind such a restriction is the thought that the theory of meaning should, somehow, connect with speakers’ actual competence with their language.

One of the most important aspects of speakers’ linguistic competence for our purposes concerns the ability that competent speakers have to generate and to understand an indefinitely large number of novel utterances. That is, on acquiring mastery of a language with a finite vocabulary (and a finite grammatical base), speakers can and do produce and understand novel sentences which they have neither heard nor spoken before. Davidson remarks:

When we can regard the meaning of each sentence as a function of a finite number of features of the sentence, we have an insight not only into what there is to be learned; we also understand how an infinite aptitude can be encompassed by finite accomplishments (1984, pp.8–9).

This suggests a picture of language, consisting of the set of meaningful sentences that could be constructed in that language. The language has a finite base which is able, somehow, to generate sentences without limit. But, as Platts (1979, p.44) points out, “languages are abstractions from linguistic behaviour; so [this picture] must somehow be realised in the competent speaker, must somehow be exhibited in his understanding”. The unlimited number of sentences may be realised in speakers’ general ability to understand and produce just this potential infinity of sentences, though what the realisation of the finiteness of the base in speakers’ understanding amounts to is not clear. Still, the connection between the theory and speakers’ capacities requires that one provide a description of speakers’ capacities and this will at least necessitate a description of what exactly the speaker is supposed to have a grasp of, namely, the meanings of the sentences that the speaker is thought to be able to understand. But this thought provides one reason for supposing that the theory should be finitely axiomatised. The limitless number of the sentences and the boundlessness of the grasp that speakers demonstrate precludes merely providing a list for those sentences, of sentences in the language of the theory which give their meaning.

Furthermore, Davidson’s remark suggests another reason why the theory should not take the form of a list. That is because finite axiomatisation would go some way to explaining how speakers are able to understand and produce novel utterances. The theory then will have a finite number of axioms which, together with rules of combination, are capable of generating a theorem which specifies the meaning of each potential sentence of the language. On the assumption that this describes what speakers grasp when they have mastered a language, it would also contribute to an explanation of the competence that speakers manifest.

This basic idea is that the theory of meaning should not take the form of an infinite number of axioms, but should have only a finite number of axioms, which specify the semantic properties of the finite number of words and subsentential expressions of the language for which it is a theory. This, together with certain rules for modes of combination the theory, would yield a theorem giving the meaning of any of the infinite number of possible sentences in the language. This restriction on the form of the theory is still somewhat vague and requires further clarification, but the general point remains that the form of a theory of meaning is to be constrained by considerations to do with the nature of speakers’ mastery of their language. The question as to what, exactly, this amounts to will be addressed in subsequent chapters.

Still, for the purpose of exposition we need to know what the semantic properties mentioned above are. One way to answer this question is to look at the theorems that the theory is supposed to deliver. One suggestion for our theorems is something like this: s means p, where s is a metalinguistic name of an object-language sentence and p is a sentence of the metalanguage which gives the meaning of the named object-language sentence. So for example, if the object-language is German and the metalanguage is English, one theorem would be ‘‘schnee ist weiss’ means that snow is white’. Here meaning would be the basic concept in the theory of meaning. This natural suggestion does however run into serious problems.

The first of these problems is that it is doubtful whether the concept of meaning as it appears in natural languages such as English, is actually suitable for axiomatisation. The reason is that the concept seems too broad in its application. In sentences such as ‘Dark clouds mean rain’, for example, it may be employed in contexts where there is no linguistic element at all. And even when there does seem to be a linguistic element – as in ‘His telling you the story means he likes you’ – the role of ‘means that…’ seems less to do with the meanings of the words and more to do with the motivation of the speaker referred to. What is required is a notion of literal meaning. One that, can serve to distinguish between word meaning and other senses of meaning which, intuitively, we think should be respected.

However, even if a notion of literal meaning is forthcoming, it faces other problems in the context of a theory of meaning. To see this we have to make a distinction between two different types of properties that linguistic expressions possess. This is the distinction between intensions (meanings) and extensions (referents). The extension of an expression is the thing(s) in the world to which it applies. Thus for the sentence ‘John was born in Paisley’ the extension of ‘John’ is John and the extension of ‘Paisley’ is Paisley. Similarly, the extension of ‘was born in’ is the set of ordered pairs (pairs in a specific order) such that the first member of the pair was born in the second. The extension of a complex expression is a function of the extensions of its constituent parts and the extension of an expression remains constant if we substitute any of its constituents for a term with which it is co-extensive. The truth-value of a sentence is not affected by co-referential substitutions. Any two sentences which have the same truth-value will have the same extension. But there are clear differences between sentences which have the same extension. For example, ‘John was born in Paisley’ and ‘Grass is green’ do have the same truth-value, but there is a clear semantic difference between the two. One way to account for this difference is to assign to sentences another property as well as an extension, namely an intension. An intension is the thought expressed by a sentence. Two sentences express the same thought if it is impossible for a thinker who knows the language in which they are expressed to take different cognitive attitudes to them. Thus, because one could know that ‘John was born in Paisley’ is true, and yet not know that ‘The father of John junior was born in Paisley’ is true, despite the fact that ‘John’ and ‘The father of John junior’ refer to the same man, the two sentences are said to have different intensions.

To do justice to our intuitions about the ‘means that…’ operator intensions are invoked. But, ‘means that…’ does not allow the substitution of co-extensive terms without affecting truth-value. From,

(1) ‘snow is white’ means that snow is white, and

(2) ‘snow is white’ and ‘Grass is green’ have the same truth-value. We cannot deduce

(3) ‘snow is white’ means that grass is green (see Platts, 1979, p.53).

The operator ‘means that…’ is sensitive not only to the extensions of the terms that follow it but also to their intensions. That is, it creates an intensional context. The general explanation of intensional contexts requires reference to meanings, and the explanation of the properties of any intensional construction will require reference to the meanings of the particular expressions occurring in it.

The problem then is that it is hard to see how to explain intensional contexts without reference to meanings. But, it is meaning (‘means that…’) which gives rise to those contexts in the first place and if this is accurate, “there is no point to the employment of intensional idioms within the systematic, axiomatic component of a theory of meaning.” (Platts, 1979, p.53). A distaste for the intensional is not, however, sufficient reason for rejecting a place for meanings in the theory of meaning and the fact that an ontology of meanings is notoriously difficult to identify and individuate is still not sufficient to show that meanings may not be part of the ontology of such a theory. Nevertheless, it was Davidson’s radical suggestion that we can get along just fine without the intensional, without meanings. He provided a simple and radical alternative to ‘means that’ as the connective in the theorems of the theory of meaning:

Anxiety that we are enmeshed in the intensional springs from using the words ‘means that’ as a filling between description of sentence and sentence, but it may be that the success of our venture depends not on the filling but on what it fills. The theory will have done its wor...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Chapter One: The Background
• Chapter Two: What is a Theory of Meaning?
• Chapter Three: Full-bloodedness or Modesty?
• Chapter Four: Explanation or Description?
• Chapter Five: Dispositions, Causal Bases and Tacit Knowledge
• Chapter Six: Tacit Knowledge, Belief and Intentionality
• Chapter Seven: Concluding Comments
• Bibliography