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On the Structure of Communicative Understanding ON THE STRUCTURE OF COMMUNICATIVE UNDERSTANDING by Endre Begby Cand. mag., Universitetet i Oslo, 1998 Cand. philol., Universitetet i Oslo, 2000 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts & Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2008 ii UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH Arts & Sciences This dissertation was presented by Endre Begby It was defended on 05/01/2008 and approved by Robert B. Brandom, Distinguished Service Professor, Department of Philosophy J.E. McGuire, Professor, Department of History and Philosophy of Science Thomas Ricketts, Professor, Department of Philosophy Kieran Setiya, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy Dissertation Advisor: John McDowell, University Professor, Department of Philosophy iii Copyright © by Endre Begby 2008 iv ON THE STRUCTURE OF COMMUNICATIVE UNDERSTANDING Endre Begby, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2008 Meaningfulness in human affairs manifests itself in at least three ways: in thought, in speech, and in intentional action. In our day-to-day communicative interactions, we clearly presume to draw substantive, explanatory connections between these three: we hear what people say, we understand this as the expression of cognitive activity, and we see them engaging in intentional actions which, when all goes well, corroborate our attributions of specific cognitive states to them. I take this to embody rudimentary, though essentially correct, model of communicative understanding. My dissertation seeks to contribute to our understanding of this model and the constraints it imposes on a philosophical theory of meaning. A comprehensive theory of meaning, I argue, should provide a satisfactory account of all three elements of the model and of the conceptual and epistemic relations between them. Minimally, any sketch of a theory of meaning, however partial, should show it capable of serving in implementations of such a model. The bulk of my dissertation takes the form a critical exploration of Tyler Burge’s anti- individualism. Anti-individualism trades on the idea that normatively infused conventionally established concepts, shared among speakers of a language, must play a crucial role in underwriting cognition and communication. My dissertation constitutes a sustained argument to the effect that this strategy will not work. Its prima facie plausibility notwithstanding, I argue that theories taking this idea as their starting point will fail to satisfy the constraints laid out in the basic model, and will, as a consequence, end up misrepresenting the basic pattern of our communicative interactions. v Table of Contents Preface .............................................................................................................................................vii Introduction ...............................................................................................................................................1 1. Introducing anti-individualism 1.1 Introductory ......................................................................................................................................6 1.2 Internalism, externalism, and anti-individualism.........................................................................8 1.3 The ‘arthritis’ thought-experiment...............................................................................................11 1.4 From anti-psychologism to anti-individualism (I): Frege ........................................................16 1.5 From anti-psychologism to anti-individualism (II): Putnam...................................................24 1.6 Burgean anti-individualism ...........................................................................................................29 2. Concepts: their alleged role in cognition and communication 2.1 Introductory ....................................................................................................................................37 2.2 A new look at the ‘arthritis’ thought-experiment......................................................................42 2.3 Two vital specifications .................................................................................................................45 2.4 Further observations on concept attribution.............................................................................50 2.5 The acquisition problem................................................................................................................54 2.6 Interlingual communication: a counter-thought-experiment ..................................................58 2.7 Conventional concepts do not explain communicative possibility ........................................62 Addendum.......................................................................................................................................67 3. Incomplete concept mastery 3.1 Introductory ....................................................................................................................................81 3.2 Incomplete concept mastery: the basics .....................................................................................85 3.3 Objection from de re attitudes.......................................................................................................87 3.4 Objection from indefiniteness of content..................................................................................90 3.5.0 Objection from variant concepts.................................................................................................92 3.5.1 No-retroactive-reinterpretation argument..................................................................................93 3.5.2 Shared belief argument..................................................................................................................96 3.5.3 Ad hoc argument..............................................................................................................................97 3.5.4 Not-true-to-the-evidence argument ..........................................................................................103 3.5.5 His-beliefs-aren’t-true-anyway argument..................................................................................107 3.6 Metalinguistic reinterpretation....................................................................................................113 3.7 Philosophical arguments for reinterpretation ..........................................................................122 vi 4. Cognitive perspective and self-knowledge 4.1 Introductory ..................................................................................................................................133 4.2 Burgean anti-individualism and cognitive perspective introduced.......................................138 4.3.0 The generic problem of externalism and self-knowledge ......................................................143 4.3.1 The challenge of incompatibilism..............................................................................................146 4.3.2 Resolving the achievement problem .........................................................................................149 4.3.3 Slow-switching ..............................................................................................................................150 4.3.4 Cogito-thoughts and basic self-knowledge.................................................................................152 4.3.5 Philosophical limitations of the cogito-argument ......................................................................158 4.4 The idea of critical reasoning and its connections with self-knowledge .............................160 4.5 Deflationary and substantive self-knowledge ..........................................................................165 4.6 Critical reasoning requires substantive self-knowledge..........................................................169 4.7 Two kinds of cases.......................................................................................................................173 4.8 Closing remarks ............................................................................................................................178 5. Normativity 5.1 Introductory ..................................................................................................................................181 5.2 Putnam on the division of linguistic labor ...............................................................................183 5.3 Normativity in “Individualism and the Mental”......................................................................185 5.4 Elms and beeches redux..............................................................................................................190 5.5 What is the explanatory force of linguistic norms?.................................................................193 5.6 Can a reinterpretivist account for the subject’s error?............................................................205 References .......................................................................................................................................... 215 vii PREFACE I must start by thanking the members of my dissertation committee, John McDowell, Bob Brandom, Ted McGuire, Tom Ricketts, and Kieran Setiya. Special thanks are, of course, due to John McDowell, who generously agreed to supervise my work at a time when he was already overbooked
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