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Sensitive Semantics

Nothing has had a greater impact on 20th-

century analytic philosophy than Freges

Sense/Reference (Sinn/Bedeuting) distinction. What has received less attention1, no doubt at

least in part due to Freges own disdain for natural language (Sprache), is his distinctionbetween that ofsinn (the context-neutral element of a sentence which orbits its referential

axis) and kraft(that which determines the contextual significance of that sentences being

uttered; the assertoric, imperative, interrogative and optativeforce which captures the

sentences mood). Whilst not wishing to sanction such a divide in principleI dont believe

it worksI do wish to sanction it in practice. First, as it serves as a useful tool for dividing

two approaches to the subject (there are those that endorse it; those that dont); second,

because it raises interesting questions about the subjects nature and future, for if Michael

Dummett is right, without it, philosophy2

has no future, at least not in any systematic sense3.

In essence, this dissertation can be seen as an attempt to rebut Dummetts claim. That a)

analytic philosophy has a future without the sense/force distinction and b) the distinction on

its own is no guarantee of future progress, entails that the division, so conceived, provides

neither necessary, nor sufficient grounds for the execution of the kind of project Dummett has

in mind and so should be jettisoned. The case will be argued on contextualist grounds. I

believe it to be both novel and important.

Contextualism, it will be argued, at least in its contemporary semantic form, has been most

clearly and radically articulated by Charles Travis. Nothing, however, as far as the following

polemic goes turns on this; it is enough that he is held to be the villain of the piece by the

relevant parties4

. That the current constellation of positions that endorse a context-neutralsemantics of one form or another

5renders his view unpopular, however, affords no grounds

for its being discarded for we are not, as Austin would put it, playing old Harry with the

underdog; the devil is in the detail alone. It will be argued, therefore, that whilst numerous

objections both can and should be raised for the case against, an abandonment of

contextualist principles would constitute, at best, a pyrrhic victory (or loss, as the case may

well be). As criticisms of this position are developed, we will put more flesh on the bones of

the view, or better, views of Travis. For the time being, let us start with Austin:

It seems to be fairly generally realized (sic.) nowadays that if you just take a bunch of

sentences...impeccably formulated in some language or other, there can be no

question of sorting them out into those that are true and those that are false; for

(leaving out of account so called analytic sentences) the question of truth and

falsehood does not turn only on what a sentence is, nor yet on what it means, but on,

1Dummett asides!

2Need to point out that this might refer to analytic philosophy, or philosophy tout court

3

Reference Dummett4Include protagonists here Charles and Lepore, Jerry Fodor and Tim Williamson

5Reference C&L, Davidson, minimalist & deflationist accounts Horwich etc.

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speaking very broadly, the circumstances in which it is uttered. Sentences are not as

such either true or false. (Austin 1962b, pp.110-111quoted in Travis 2008 p.26)

Travis grants Austin proved badly mistaken about the first point. Contemporary analytic

philosophy, he thinks, has taken a recent turn for the worse. We are told, nevertheless, thathe was right about the rest, and that rest constitutesthe core idea of occasion-sensitivity

(Ibid): viz that the illocutionary force of an utterance is determined by context alone, and that

this holds the key to determining that which is said by whom it is said of at the time of their

saying it (simpliciter, truth conditions).

Before continuing, let us first make clear both what is and is notat issue here: to wit, those

indexical sophistries the correct treatment of which both flexible and inflexible semanticists

would not contest, at least not in any significantway. That I am here is meaningful if and

only if the corresponding demands of modal saturation (most notably time, place and

identity) are satisfied is trivial, handled both sensitively and insensitively in a convergent

manner789

. Once token reflexivity is thrown into the medley, however, thought is tied less

loosely to the linguistic forms within which it is expressed: that the same thought manifests

itself within different sentential contexts10

combined with the fact that isomorphic sentential

expressions can express a multiplicity of thoughts11

is substantial and allows for an

unshadowing ofmentalese1213

which its antagonists cannot account for. If adaptability is

held to be a virtue, evolutionists notwithstanding, then clearly contextualism is not without its

charm. What is it, outside of context, for an object to be blue14

? What is it, for that matter,

for an object to be an object15

?

Earlier on, reference was made to contextualist semantics. In fact the position we find

ourselves in, should we take seriously the truths of which Travis so speaks, extends beyond

this. Occasion sensitivity, taking the former point as given, places extensive demands upon,

not just analytic philosophy, but also metaphysics, epistemology and cognitive science16

, the

likes of which cannot be met by much of the current work being undertaken in those fields.

That the world is not ontologically self-sufficient (it requires contextto do some work on its

behalf); that expanding and contracting contextual modalities force a reconsideration of our

basic conception of knowledge (post-Gettier); that the characteristic lack of systematicity

6Need to reference

7Reference Charles and Lepore leads to problems with their account (ultimately a moderate contextualism

rather than a semantic minimalism8

Insert Travis quote (pp2-3 OS)9

Davidson quote (there was an event (performed by Jones (at midnight) that was the buttering of the toast))

[symbolise] is this what we really mean?!10

Insert example11

Insert quote from Travis pigs grunting12

Of course in ruling out both rigid and flaccid identity designation and so too systematicity13

Need to add that antagonists might accept one side of the dichotomy, but only occasion sensitivity endorses

both hence unsystematic14

Rerference Travis?15Reference Austin S&S

16One could of course go on here

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vital to semantic flexibility both violates and invalidates the principle of compositionality

required to run both computational and connectionist models of mind (on at least two counts)

and more generally, that the inaccessibility of a context-neutral semantics vitiates against the

possibility of devising a coherent, deflationist or minimalist account of truth17

(parochialism, at the risk of equivocation, is anything but parochial) all pose a threat tomuch, if not most, of what is currently at stake in contemporary philosophy. But all of this,

of course, requires a level of demonstration that would be beyond the modest scope of this

proposal. Such points, nevertheless, will be touched upon as the work progresses.

There is a second, yet adjacent issue at play here concerning thepossibilia of progression in

philosophy; more precisely, how one moves forward in the subject given the absence of a

system which proceeds according to generally agreed methods of enquiry [of a special

sort]18 (TOE p. 455). I have hinted at and will develop one way in which such an obligation

may be met; one that both acknowledges Dummets general attitude that the philosophy of

language is the foundation of the rest of philosophy19 since it is only by the analysis of

language that we can analyse thought (TOE p. 442) but resists his inference that it is difficult

to see how a systematic theory of meaning for a language is possible without acknowledging

the distinction between sense and force20

. (TOE p. 450). Such a conception might comprise

a third way of handling progress21

which evades the constraints a commitment to

Dummetts general principle obliges whilst still preserving a progression of sorts. Whilst not

explicitin Travis there is, nevertheless, an implicit global commitment to the view that

occasion sensitivity pervades all areas of the discourse22

. That a) penumbral indeterminacy

and a rejection of sharp cut-offs present in AristotlesCondition (etal), insofar as it

precipitates a reconsideration of what we might call true; b) the extent to which theexpansion and contraction of modalpossibilia

23impinges upon the epistemic conditions

which legislate over factive meaning (bleats meaning sheep and the possibility of

ringer situations -A Sense of Occasion et al); c) the unshadowing of thought militates

against the compositional account of cognition required to construct a representational

model of mind (and the subsequent productivity and systematicity of thought which regiment

our conceptual repertoire and so manufacture the modal infinities of mentalese); but perhaps

most importantly, and simply, that d) meaning, in the traditional sense of the word, is far

more sensitive to occasion than we might otherwise imagine, indicates that the causal

influence exerted by radical contextualism is pervasive. As to the question of where next?,

as we shall see, far from being thwarted, the contextualist practitioner is actually spoilt for

choice.

17Insert Crispin Wright quote to show that the two are not synonymous

18Which will be de

19See note 2 of Grahamsit article WSUP

20For without systemacity, there can be, as we shall see, for Dummett, no progress

21

In relation to Dummets two conceptions of progress and systematicity (CAP) 22Reference Travis article on Philosophy in the 21

stCentury

23See for example Millar p. 342

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The second sense concerns Wittgensteins conception of philosophy; most notably the view

that philosophy is therapeutic through and through24

. For if the role of philosopher consists

in nothing more than shewing the fly the way out of the fly-bottle25

what form of progress,

if any, can be envisioned beyond the clarification of characteristic kinds ofintellectual

confusion the only remedy for which is extended and patient treatment (TOE p. 439)?Paradoxically, as I hope to show, Dummett argues that Wittgenstein offers a more robust

account than Austin, whosephilosophy is not a therapy, but an empirical study [of particular

words and their particular uses] incapable of systematisation (TOE p. 440). It will be

argued that this is perhaps not so, but that Wittgensteins contextualism does offer us a future

of sorts and that progress in philosophy more of a kind of work on oneself (PO p. 161),

whilst slow, can nevertheless be significant. I see no reason to view the above two positions

as divergent; proceeding in different directions, perhaps, but ultimately applying the same

method of criteria. Much of the above exposition, however, turns on earlier arguments

presented by Michael Dummett, and it is to these we now turn.

24reference

25reference