Dummett

Dummett

Philosophy of Language

Karen Green

Polity

Copyright © Karen Green 2001

The right of Karen Green to be identified as author of this work has beenasserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2001 by Polity Press in association with BlackwellPublishers Ltd.

Editorial office:Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Marketing and production:Blackwell Publishers Ltd108 Cowley RoadOxford OX4 1JF, UK

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for thepurposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may bereproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form orby any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording orotherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to thecondition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold,hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consentin any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is publishedand without a similar condition including this condition being imposedon the subsequent purchaser.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataGreen, Karen, 1951–

Dummett: philosophy of language/Karen Green.p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 0–7456–2294–1 — ISBN 0–7456–2295–X (pbk.)1. Dummett, Michael A. E.—Contributions in philosophy of language.

2. Language and languages—Philosophy. I. Title.B1626.D854 G74 2001121¢.68¢092—dc21

2001021061

Typeset in 101–2 on 12 pt Palatino by Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong KongPrinted in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Key Contemporary Thinkers

Published

Jeremy Ahearne, Michel de Certeau: Interpretation and its OtherPeter Burke, The French Historical Revolution: The Annales School

1929–1989Michael Caesar, Umberto Eco: Philosophy, Semiotics and the Work of

FictionColin Davis, Levinas: An IntroductionSimon Evnine, Donald DavidsonEdward Fullbrook and Kate Fullbrook, Simone de Beauvoir: A

Critical IntroductionAndrew Gamble, Hayek: The Iron Cage of LibertyKaren Green, Dummett: Philosophy of LanguagePhillip Hansen, Hannah Arendt: Politics, History and CitizenshipSean Homer, Fredric Jameson: Marxism, Hermeneutics,

PostmodernismChristopher Hookway, Quine: Language, Experience and RealityChristina Howells, Derrida: Deconstruction from Phenomenology to

EthicsFred Inglis, Clifford Geertz: Culture, Custom and EthicsSimon Jarvis, Adorno: A Critical IntroductionDouglas Kellner, Jean Baudrillard: From Marxism to Post-Modernism

and BeyondValerie Kennedy, Edward Said: A Critical IntroductionChandran Kukathas and Philip Pettit, Rawls: A Theory of Justice

and its CriticsJames McGilvray, Chomsky: Language, Mind, and PoliticsLois McNay, Foucault: A Critical IntroductionPhilip Manning, Erving Goffman and Modern SociologyMichael Moriarty, Roland BarthesHarold W. Noonan, Frege: A Critical IntroductionWilliam Outhwaite, Habermas: A Critical IntroductionJohn Preston, Feyerabend: Philosophy, Science and SocietySusan Sellers, Hélène Cixous: Authorship, Autobiography and LoveDavid Silverman, Harvey Sacks: Social Science and Conversation

AnalysisDennis Smith, Zygmunt Bauman: Prophet of PostmodernityGeoffrey Stokes, Popper: Philosophy, Politics and Scientific MethodGeorgia Warnke, Gadamer: Hermeneutics, Tradition and ReasonJames Williams, Lyotard: Towards a Postmodern Philosophy

Jonathan Wolff, Robert Nozick: Property, Justice and the MinimalState

Forthcoming

Maria Baghramian, Hilary PutnamSara Beardsworth, KristevaMark Cain, Fodor: Language, Mind and PhilosophyJames Carey, Innis and McLuhanRosemary Cowan, Cornell West: The Politics of RedemptionGeorge Crowder, Isaiah Berlin: Liberty, Pluralism and LiberalismThomas D’Andrea, Alasdair MacIntyreEric Dunning, Norbert EliasJocelyn Dunphy, Paul RicoeurMatthew Elton, Daniel DennettNigel Gibson, Frantz FanonGraeme Gilloch, Walter BenjaminEspen Hammer, Stanley CavellKeith Hart, C. L. R. JamesSarah Kay, Zizek: A Critical IntroductionPaul Kelly, Ronald DworkinCarl Levy, Antonio GramsciMoya Lloyd, Judith ButlerDermot Moran, Edmund HusserlSteve Redhead, Paul Virilio: Theorist for an Accelerated CultureChris Rojek, Stuart Hall and Cultural StudiesWes Sharrock and Rupert Read, KuhnNick Smith, Charles TaylorNicholas Walker, Heidegger

Contents

Preface ix

Introduction 1

1 Fregean Foundations 12

Sense and Reference in Frege and Dummett 13Truth, Assertion and the Central Argument against

Bivalence 24Frege’s Platonism 30Frege’s Kantian Connections 36The Context Principle 40

2 Wittgenstein and Quine 53

The Manifestability Constraint and Rejection of Mentalism 56

Dummett and Quine 63Two Challenges: Holism and Strict Finitism 65The Manifestability Constraint and the Priority of

Language 69How do Anti-Mentalism and Anti-Psychologism Stand

to Each Other? 73

3 The Influence of Intuitionism 87

Brouwer’s Intuitionism 89The Intuitionist’s Case against Bivalence 95

Metaphysical Debates and the Theory of Meaning 105The Traditional Case for Nominalism and Subjective

Idealism 108Moderate Idealism and the Denial of Bivalence 117The Case against Strict Finitism 124Pure vs Mediated Constructivism, Truth Theories and

Semantics 128A Common-Sense Realist Appropriation of the

Argument against Bivalence 130

4 The Reality of the Past 133

Anti-Realism with Respect to the Past 134Anti-Realism with Respect to the Future 145

5 What do we Know when we Know a Language? 149

Languages and Idiolects 150Davidson on Malapropism and the Social Character of

Meaning 163

6 Psychologism, Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind 176

On the Relationship of Phenomenology to Analytic Philosophy 179

How Close are Frege and Husserl on Sense and Reference? 183

Wittgenstein and Intentionality 194

Conclusion 201

Notes 206References and Bibliography 217Index 231

viii Contents

Preface

In the latter part of the twentieth century Michael Dummett’s namehas epitomized the debate between realists and anti-realists, and hisformulation of this issue has exerted a profound influence withinthe analytic tradition. This has been particularly true in Oxford,where he taught for much of the period, and from this centre his influence has spread to both the United States and Europe. Many of the foremost contemporary British analytic philosophers have been influenced by him, including Simon Blackburn, JohnMcDowell, Christopher Peacocke, Timothy Williamson, CrispinWright and the late Gareth Evans.1 Yet none of these thinkers couldbe classed as his disciples.

It is difficult to exactly define the scope of Dummett’s influence.He is often, slightly inaccurately, thought of as a determined advocate of an original brand of anti-realism which involves therejection of classical bivalent logic and the adoption of intui-tionist styles of reasoning. When his philosophy is characterized in this fashion, it has seemed to some that, despite a prolific output, he has been rather ineffectual in stating his case.2 Moreover,the sheer bulk of this output and the complexity of many of the issues addressed mean that it is difficult for younger philoso-phers to come to grips with his work, with the result that it is indanger of being read less than it deserves. In a philosophical climate in which a high priority is placed on quick publication, it is more profitable for young philosophers to concentrate on more manageable authors, whose positions can easily be stated and criticized. Those of us who have always been impressed by

the integrity and seriousness of Dummett’s philosophy find thisunfortunate.

Dummett’s project involves an attempt to understand whatunderstanding a language consists in. Our capacity to reason, com-municate and represent reality through language remains difficultto comprehend. Perhaps this is inevitable, for at some level the pre-condition of the possibility of understanding a language may resistcapture within language. Those influenced by Wittgenstein and byvarious forms of holism will be inclined to say that at some pointthe explanation of understanding must stop. We can do no morethan say that that is how we go on. Dummett, by contrast, believesthat we should aim to do more than this. But the account of whatunderstanding consists in that he provides comes at a price; for itsuggests that we will have to acknowledge that there are some fea-tures of our current linguistic practice which cannot be justified ormade genuinely comprehensible. In particular, the general accep-tance of the principle of bivalence (which says that every meaning-ful sentence is either true or false) is difficult to justify from theperspective of this account. Dummett equates acceptance of thisprinciple with realism, and the denial of bivalence with anti-realism. For the time being I will follow this usage, though later inthe book I will argue that the denial of bivalence brings with it onlya very attenuated form of anti-realism.

The aim of this book is to make Dummett’s thought more acces-sible, by providing an overview to orientate senior students of philosophy and a resource for those interested in following theimplications of his thought further. Inevitably, the overview reflectsmy own preoccupations, but I have attempted to make the exposi-tion as faithful to Dummett’s own position as possible, and I amgrateful to him for having generously read and commented on someof the draft material for the book.

Barry Taylor, Greg Currie, Sam Butchart, Helen Prosser, MarkEnglish and Stephen Barker also deserve thanks for having read andcommented on drafts of various stages of the book. Obviously theyare not responsible for any flaws which remain. I would like tothank Denis Robinson who has been a generous source of encour-agement for my philosophical efforts over many years. MichaelDevitt should be credited with having provided the immediatestimulus which led me to write this book. Many years ago he super-vised my Ph.D. thesis on Dummett and Frege, even though he didnot share my enthusiasm for Dummett’s thought. The naturalisticslant which I have brought to my reading of Dummett is no doubt

x Preface

due to him, and many of the arguments in this work implicitlyrespond to his challenges. Even earlier in my philosophical career,Christopher Peacocke, Crispin Wright, David Bostock and SimonBlackburn pulled apart my first efforts at dealing with some of theissues addressed here, when they were my tutors at Oxford in themid-1970s. It was Michael Woods who was responsible for sendingme to such an interesting selection of tutors to read for the variouspapers in the B.Phil. It is, perhaps most importantly, thanks toAubrey Townsend that, as a fourth-year student, at Monash, in1973, I acquired a copy of Michael Dummett’s Frege: Philosophy ofLanguage and began a lifetime’s fascination with Dummett, Fregeand the philosophy of language.

Preface xi

Introduction

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century philosophytook a linguistic turn. The linguistic tradition of analytic philosophyowes much to Frege, and Dummett’s thought belongs firmly withinit. As characterized by Dummett, two beliefs distinguish the analyti-cal school of philosophy: ‘that a philosophical account of thoughtcan be obtained through a philosophical account of language, and, . . . that a comprehensive account can only be so obtained’(Dummett 1975a/78c, p. 442; 1993b, p. 4).1 We will call this the ‘lin-guistic priority thesis’. It is, Dummett says, with the introduction ofthe context principle that Frege shows his commitment to the first ofthese beliefs. This principle, which states that it is only in the contextof a sentence that a word has meaning, encapsulates Frege’s insightthat an adequate account of the meaning of words depends on theproper analysis of the syntactic structure of sentences. It makes sentences primary in the account of meaning, and, as we will see, itturns out to be central to Dummett’s initial characterization of thedispute between realists and anti-realists.

Indeed, for Dummett the context principle is the pivot aroundwhich philosophy made its linguistic turn; so the analytic approachto language depends ultimately on the plausibility and interpreta-tion of this principle. When Frege recognized that a way to give anaccount of our understanding of number words was available if we begin with sentences, he was able to avoid the twin perils ofmentalism, which makes meanings ideas in the mind, and of un-satisfactory forms of Platonism, which take the meanings of numberwords to be obscure denizens of an ideal realm, which are unrelated