THE SEAS OF LANGUAGE Michael Dummett CLARENDON PRESS » OXFORD 1993,Acknowledgements “The author is grateful to the following for permission to reprint copyright material ‘Oxford University Press for Essays 1 and 2 in this collection; Stockholms Universitet for Essay 3; Kluwer Academie Publishers for Essays 4, 11, and 13; Pergamon Press Ltd for Essay 5; Basil Blackwell Publishers for Essays 7,15, and 1! ‘Cambridge University Press for Essay 8; Macmillan India Ltd. for Essay 12; Macmillan London Lid. for Essay 16. What is a Theory of Meaning? @ According to one well-known view, the best method of formulating the philosophical problems surrounding the concept of meaning and related notions is by asking what form that should be taken by what iscalled a theory ‘of meaning’ for any one entice language; that i, a detailed specification ofthe ‘meanings ofall the words and sentence-forming operations ofthe language, yielding a specification ofthe meaning of every expression and sentence ofthe language. Its not thatthe construction ofa theory of meaning, in this sense, for any one language is viewed as a practical project; but it is thought that, when once we can enunciate the general principles in accordance with which such a construction could be carried out, we all have arrived ata solution of the problems concerning meaning by which philosophers are perplexed. share the belief that ths is the most fruitful approach to the problems within this area of philosophy, although I should not feel capable of giving a ‘demonstration that this was soto someone who deniedit: but wecan see some reasons for it if we contrast certain other cases, So far a8 I know, no one has ‘ever suggested a parallel approach to the problems of epistemology: no one has proposed that the right way to go about tackling the philosophical problems relating to the concept of knowledge would be by considering how fone might construct a theory of knowledge in the sense of a detailed specification of everything that any one individual, or community, can be said to know. The reason is, I think, that our grasp on the concept of knowledge is rather more secure than our graspon the concept of meaning. Wearein doubt about what ought to count as knowledge; we are even more in doubt about how to formulate the principles we tacitly apply for deciding whether or not ‘something is o count as knowledge; we also have some uncertainty about the semantic analysis of a sentence altibuting knowledge of something to somebody: but at least we are quite certain which are the sentences whose logical form and whose truth-conditions we are seeking to analyse. By ‘contrast, while most of us, myself included, would agree that the concept of ‘meaning isa fundamental and indispensable one, we are unclear even about the surface structure of statements involving that concept. What kind of sentence, of natural language, should be taken as the characteristic form for an Fit publ in Samuel Gutenplan (of), Mind and Language, Woon Lctares, 1974 (ontre)1975,2 What is a Theory of Meaning? (1) attibtion of particular meaning to sme given word or expression? Not nly do we not know te answer to hit: we donot even know whether tthe right question to ask, Perhaps it isimporibl, in generat state the meaning ofan expression: perhaps we ought, rater, to enguie by what linguist means, or poly even nonlingusie means, its possible To contey the meaning fon expression, otherwise than by exalt statngit Or perhaps ten hats wrong: perhaps the question shouldbe, not how we express hata particular exprstion hata clan meaning, but how we should analyse Sree wh ae te one of aig ae eres way. ely because i this ate of pllosophy, we know eve ss What ts that Weare taking about than we don othe areas, tha he proposal o approach bur problems by considering how we might attompt to specify the meanings of the expressions ofanenie language doesnot appear the waste of time that an nalogous proposal would scem tobe within epstemotog. Asis wellknown, some, pre-eminenly Quine, have pretered to circumvent this by ivesigating th principles underying the construction not of 2 theory of meaning fra language, bu ofa ansltion manual fom i ato some known language. The advange i that we know exacly what form a teanalation mana has o take, namely an fective set of ules for mapping sentences of he translated language nto sentences of the language ato which the tranlation is being made! we ean therlore concentrate ently upon the auestoeshow wesretosrrive al saysem of ransationasembodie ineuch a mnanval, and what conditions must be satifed for nich a system to be compile The disadvantage ls tha, wile the iteret of such an enquiry Imus iin the light hows o the concept of meaning, we are unable tobe Certain what consequences te results ofthe engi into tanlation do have forthe notion of meaning jst because they ae stated without ect ppeal ‘0 that notion. To grasp the meaning of an expression isto understand tole in the language’ a complete theory of meaning fora language therefore, a complet theory of how the language functions asa language. Our interest in ‘meaning st «general concept, thus, aninteresin how language work: a direct dseripion ofthe way 8 lsnguage works--o al that someone has to lear todo when be leans the language—-would, according) resolve ove Perplsits in away in which an indtet acount, by means of transation, annot. tw uie rightly be sak that the interest the enquiry inte translation attaches, not to the tasltion ise, butt the entra proposed for judging the accepablty ofa scheme of translation, and that these must, relate to what canbe observed ofthe working of thelanguage ob Wanslaed Tnded, it might plausibly be maintained that nothing shot of a complete sheory of meaning orth language —acomplete account of the way works could bean adequate basis for judging the correctness oa proposed scheme of {tanslation. shallot atempitoadjdiate the soundnes of tisclaan It sound, then the apparent advantage ofthe approach vi translation, rather What isa Theory of Meaning? (1) 3 than by asking outright what form a theory of meaning for the language should take, is wholly illusory. If itis unsound—and certainly the actual procedure of the principal practitioner of the approach via translation suggests that he takesit as unsound—then it follows that there is no immediate inference from results concerning translation to conclusions concerning ‘meaning. have said that iis the job ofa theory of meaning fora language to give an ‘account of how that language works, that is, of how its speakers communicate bby means of it: here “communicate” has no more precise signification than "do Whatever may be done by the utterance of one or more sentences of the language”. And here I will repeat what I have maintained elsewhere, that theory of meaning is a theory of understanding; that is, what a theory of ‘meaning has to give an account of is what itis that someone knows when he knows the language, that is, when he knows the meanings ofthe expressions ‘and sentences of the language. One question about the form which a theory of ‘meaning should take is whether it should issue in direct ascriptions of ‘meaning, that is, in propositions of the form “The meening of the word/sentence X's...” or of the form “The word/sentence X means..." Ifthe answer to this question is afirmative, then it may seem that such a theory of ‘meaning will have no need to advert explicitly to the notion of knowledge: if the theory allows us to say that the meaning ofa given word or sentence i something or other, say Q, then, presumably, we shal likewise want to say that someone knows the meaning ofthat word or sentence if he knows that Q is ‘hat that word or sentence means. We shall later sce reason to doubt this; but for the present let us suspend judgement. Ifthe theory of meaning allows us to derive such direct ascriptions of meaning, and if these direct ascriptions are such as to lea inthis simple way toa characterization of what tis to know the ‘meaning ofeach word or sentence the language, then, indeed, my claim that 8 theory of meaning must be a theoty of understanding is not intended in $0 strong. sense as to rule out such a theory, merely on the round that it did not itsef employ the notion of knowledge: it would be proper to accept such a theory as being a theory of understanding. If,on the other hand, although the theory of meaning allows the derivation of direct ascriptions of meaning, these ascriptions are so framed as not to permit an immediate characterization of what itis thata person knows when he knows the meaning of given word oF Sentence, then, by hypothesis, the theory is inadequate to account for one extremely important type of context in which we ae disposed to use the word “meaning”. If, however, the theory of meaning does not issue in such direct scriptions of meaning at all; and if futher, it does not contain within ise any overt account of what someone has to know in order to know or grasp the ‘meaning of each expression of the language, but merely provides an explanation of other contexts in which we use the word “meaning”, such as". ‘means the same as Y*or"/has a meaning": then itappears tome, it willagain