Travis - Taking Thought - Travis on McDowell Review

7/31/2019 Travis - Taking Thought - Travis on McDowell Review

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Mind, Vol. 109 . 435 . July 2000 Oxford University Press 2000

TAKING THOUGHT

CHARLES TRAVIS

Mind, Value and Reality by John McDowell. Cambridge, Massachusetts.Harvard University Press, 1998. Pp. ix + 400. H/b. 21.95. Meaning,Knowledge and Reality

by John McDowell. Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Harvard University Press, 1998. Pp. ix + 462. H/b. 25.95.

These two collections of essays (henceforth MVR and MKR respectively)

are major additions to the literature. They are no mere convenience. The

essays, though stunningly lucid, benefit by juxtaposition. In the context of

the whole, each individual point assumes its proper place within an over-

all view of first importance. The result shows McDowell as first rate in asense in which there are but a few first rate philosophers per century.

These collections, read as wholes, are the best introduction to McDowells

work.

There is no hope of summarizing the essays here. To give an inkling of

their riches, I will do two things. First, I will mention three pervasive

influences. These are one organizing factor in his view. Second, I will dis-

cuss four specific, somewhat arbitrarily chosen, topics. I hope to hint at

the flavour of the work. But there is a far richer lode here than the illustra-

tions can suggest.

1. Influences

The work of an important philosopher is not reducible to a few ideas or

sources. But seeing influences may help. I will mention three ideas, iden-

tifiable as, respectively, Austinian, Wittgensteinian and Davidsonian. The

first two are fruitful. My own view is that McDowell would be better off

without the third.

Austin

McDowells grasp of Austin, and of the tradition to which he belonged,

distinguishes him from nearly all his Oxford contemporaries. The Austin-

ian idea at issue here is best expressed in Sense and Sensibilia

. There Aus-tin says, for example,


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534 Charles Travis

[T]hough the phrase deceived by our senses is a common met-aphor, it

is

a metaphor ... In fact, of course, our senses are dumb

though Descartes and others speak of the testimony of the sens-es, our senses do not tell us anything, true or false. (Austin 1962,p. 11)

And later,

To give a verdict on evidence is precisely to pronounce on somematter on which one is not a first-hand authority. So to say thatstatements about material things are in general like verdicts isto imply that we are never, that we cant be, in the best positionto make themthat, so to speak, there is no such thing as beingan eye-witness of what goes on in the material world, we canonly get evidence. But to put the case in this way is to make itseem quite reasonable to suggest that we can never know, we cannever be certain, of the truth of anything we say about material

things; for after all, it appears, we have nothing but the evidenceto go on, we have no direct access to what is really going on, andverdicts of course are notoriously fallible. But how absurd it is,really, to suggest that I am giving a verdict when I say what is go-ing on under my own nose! (Austin 1962, p.142)

Perception, Austin insists, is a binary relation between a perceiver and his

surroundings, or specific features of them. It is awareness, of particular

sorts, of how things are around one, including, in specific cases, aware-

ness of things being various specific ways they are. Seeing the pig before

one may be, or include, awareness of the fact of ambient porcine presence.

It may be a way of knowing there is a pig there. That is a different thing

from, and not effected by, seeing, or having, evidence of a pig before one.

It is equally different from, and does not involve, having your surround-

ings represented to you as with a pig before you, or confronting some rep-resentation according to which that is so. Perception is neither of those

sorts of relations to the facts, or things, perceived. Neither it, nor its

objects (unless texts) represents the world as being thus and so at all. For

one thing, representations would not provide us with the sorts of reasons

perception does. There is no such thing as the way things are according

to the senses, though there is such a thing as seeing how things are. Per-

ception is access to the world by means which are themselves, as Austin

puts it, dumb.

Wittgenstein

The Wittgensteinian idea I have in mind is an idea I find inInvestigations

136. I do not claim McDowell finds it there. I see it in this remark:And what a proposition (

Satz

) is is in one sense determined by therules of sentence construction (in German, for example), and inanother sense by the use of the sign in the language game. Andthe use of the words true and false may be among the constit-


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Taking Thought 535

uent parts of this game; and if so it belongs to our concept prop-osition but does not fit it. As we might also say, check belongs

to our concept of the king in chess. ... To say that check did notfit our concept of the pawns would mean that a game in whichpawns were checked, in which, say, the players who lost theirpawns lost, would be uninteresting or stupid or too complicatedor something of the kind.

Discourse may at least have its pretensions. It may, inter alia

, at least pur-

port to be about how things areso, where it says how things are, true,

where it says things to be other than they are, false. It may, say, contain

some expression,F, which purports to speak of a way an item might be,

F; so, perhaps, a way some items are and others are not. It may also have

a complex of pretensions as to what sort of thing being F is: what one may

expect of something that is F; when an item would rightly be describable

as F. We might think of the discourse as operating with a certain concep-

tion of being F. If, for example,F pretends to speak of a way for an

object to be coloured, then it purports to speak of what is, in certain

respects, a stable way for an item to be: there are certain ways to change

an items colour; an item that is, or is not, F remains so unless changed in

some such way.

Suppose it is not too embarrassing for us to operate with the pretensions

of the discourseto purport to do what it purports toin this sense: were

we so to operate, we would not feel at sea, as if we were only pretending

to know when, within the discourse, one might say what, when a bit of dis-

course should be questioned, or rejected, and so on. Suppose, more spe-

cifically, that we may reasonably suppose that it is determinate enough

when something would be describable as F, or as not F, given that the dis-

courses pretensions to fact-stating are correct; given, that is, that there is

at least a genuine distinction between what, by the standards of that dis-

courseby its own ideas as to how it is to operateought to be called F,

and what not. Then, Wittgensteins idea is, there is no further standard the

discourse must meet to be genuinely fact-stating.

The pretensions of any discourse are always open to scrutiny. Discourse

cannot make itself fact-stating by decree. In an extreme case it might be

shown that those engaging in the discourse were only under an illusion of

knowing their way about in itof knowing how to use it if it were what

it purported to be. In a less extreme, and more familiar, case, it might be

shown that, while there may be such a thing as being F, it cannot be all of

what was pretended; that the discourse operated with a conception that

does not, in its entirety, fit anything. All that, though, is criticism from

within, appealing to our own sense of when, where and how we can sen-

sibly suppose ourselves to be marking distinctions. The point is that it is

the only sort of criticism that tells.


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536 Charles Travis

Concepts are autonomous: each sort of concept finds its own shape in

reality; the legitimacy of given concepts does not derive from a grounding

in concepts of some other sort. The concept of being F, to mark a genuinedistinction, need not mark one drawable in other terms. Discourse, to be

genuinely fact-stating, need not really be about something other than

what it purports to be about. There is no such test for genuine engagement

with the notions of truth and falsity; none beyond our ordinary ways of

telling when we are distinguishing between two sorts of case.

Davidson

The third influence is an idea of Donald Davidsons. It is that a theory of

what the expressions of a language mean might take (roughly) the form of

a Tarski-style truth definition for a formalized language. That is to sup-

pose, for example, that an English predicateis snow, sayhas a stat-

able satisfaction condition: one can say when the predicate would be trueof something. If Davidson is right, one could say that, for is snow, this

way: just in case that thing is snow. Equivalently, to suppose what

Davidson does is to suppose thatexcept in cases where what an expres-

sion means makes its reference depend, in some systematic and statable

way, on an occasion of its utterancewhat words mean determines what

(if anything) would be stated in speaking them assertively. In fact, David-

son nearly enough identifies what a sentence means with what it would

assert (of given referents, where relevant).

The appeal of Davidsons idea for McDowell, I think, lies in the fact

that it saves semanticians, apparently, from fruitless exercises in concep-

tual analysis. But I think Davidson is wrong about what meaning does;

and that wrong idea blocks McDowells Austinian and Wittgensteinianideas from finding their optimal expression. I will try to elaborate in what

follows.

These three ideas are at work in McDowells treatment of a wide range

of issuesamong others, virtue, personal identity, and the nature of

inner mental life, as well as the examples below. The Wittgensteinian

idea, for example, is evident in McDowells persistent resistance to any

form of reductionism.

A note. Though McDowell clearly follows Austin on the nature and

epistemic worth of our perceptual relations to the world, his commitment

to the idea, crucial for Austin, that the senses are dumb (that perception

does not represent the world as thus and so) may be obscured for some by

his occasional talk of the content of experience. Some of us may betrained to hear content as referring exclusively to a feature of a repre-

sentation: how things are according to it; in which case experience could

have content only by furnishing us with representations. But in a number

of places, includingMind and World (McDowell 1994, notably p. 4), and


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Taking Thought 537

The Content of Experience (MVR)a brilliant attack on one line of

thought that would make perception representationalhe makes it clear

that that is not the notion of content he has in mind. For him, the variousforms of perception are modes of openness to the features of [the] envi-

ronment. (MVR, p.354) That makes the content of perceptual experience

nothing other than the tract of the environment that is present to con-

sciousness. (MVR, p.342) The content of experience, in the intended

sense, is just that which is experiencedfeatures of the world. It is not a

representations burden.

2. Two Views of Meaning

What is it that wordsEnglish expressions, saydo, or are, in meaningwhat they do? On one view, bracketing ambiguity and systematic fixing

of reference by context, a declarative sentence is a means for stating some

one particular thing; for expressing some one thought. It is part and parcel

of that view that expressions of a language effect categorizations of the

world, and of the ways it might be. For a predicate, such as is white,

there is that of which it is, or would be, true. For a sentence, such as Snow

is white, there are those arrangements of the world that would constitute

the worlds being as the sentence says, and those that would not. (It need

not be decidable of every arrangement which it is.) There is, on this view,

a particular way the world would be if it were as the sentence says, and

we can say what way that is. For example, invoking the notion of truth, we

could say it for the sentence La neige est blanche by saying that thatsentence is true just in case snow is white.

That idea of the sorts of properties meaningful expressions have finds

one expression in, and is required by, Davidsons idea of what a semantic

theory might be. McDowell endorses it in saying, for example,

[T]o specify what would be asserted in the assertoric utterance ofa sentence apt for such use, is to specify a condition under whichthe sentence (as thus uttered) would be true. The truth-conditionalconception of meaning embodies a conception of truth that makesthat thought truistic. (In Defence of Modesty, MKR, p. 88.)

The first six essays of MKR are devoted to defending this idea.

This picture of meaning is an expression of a certain platonism that

entered current philosophy with a reasonable research strategy, encapsu-lated in Freges injunction always to separate the logical from the psycho-

logical. It stands in direct opposition to another picture, drawn clearly by

J. L. Austin, and equally present in, and central to, theInvestigations

. One

expression of that opposing view is in Austins insistence that an English


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538 Charles Travis

sentence is the wrong sort of thing to be true or false. It is easy, it seems,

to hear that as a trivial grammatical remark: a sentence says something

only in the sense that a vacuum cleaner picks up dirt. Any actual dirt that

gets picked up is picked up by some person using the vacuum cleaner on

an occasion. Similarly, where saying (stating) something is committing

oneself, only speakers of a language actually say things. So, perhaps, only

their utterances, or statements, can be strictly speaking either true or false.

The grammatical insight would be: only commitments are right or

wrong in that way; and words of a language, as such, make none.

The point will seem trivial as long as we continue to think that what

commitment a speaker will make in using a given sentence assertively

what he will state, what there will be for him to be right or wrong about

is wholly predictable from the meanings of the words he uses (again

bracketing ambiguity, indexicality and the like). But it is just that that

Austin means to deny. Austin insists,

If you just take a bunch of sentences ... there can be no questionof sorting them out into those that are true and those that are false;for ... the question of truth and falsehood does not turn only onwhat a sentence is, nor yet on what it means, but on, speakingvery broadly, the circumstances in which it is uttered. Sentencesare not as such either true or false. (Austin 1962, pp. 110111)

The picture here is, in contrast to Davidsons, that expressions of a lan-

guageand notably its sentencesare tools we may exploit, on one

occasion or another, for stating any of indefinitely many different, or dis-

tinguishable, things. (The tools do not dictate their uses as an indexical

might be thought to dictate its content on a use.) What we say in given

words with given meanings depends on how we exploit them; which

depends, in turn, on the opportunities and needs for exploitation that par-

ticular circumstances offer. We may exploit a scales in any of indefinitely

many ways. We may weigh people just after heavy eating, or heavy exer-

cise, dressed and soaking wet or stripped and dry, many times, averaging

the results, and so on. Different schemes of exploitation give us different

ways of classifying people by weight, each with its own result as to who

fits in the category of the two-hundred-pounders. Similarly, the idea is, we

may exploit a given descriptionsay, that which words with given mean-

ings providein any of indefinitely many ways, and will say any of indef-

initely many different things (and different things to be so) accordingly.

(Circumstances must show how words, in them, in fact were exploited.) If

that is how meaning works, then there is, across the board, no such thing

as that which the sentence such and such would state, a fortiori

no such

thing as the condition under which that would be true. Semantics must

trade in other sorts of properties.


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Taking Thought 539

I think, but will not argue here, that Austins picture, and not David-

sons, is right.

1

In any case the point is no mere grammatical nicety. And,

as Austin clearly states, it is absolutely central to his epistemology. So itshould be unsurprising if endorsement of Davidsons idea keeps McDow-

ells Austinian idea from taking its optimal form. McDowell, I suggest,

would be better off without it.

3. Singular Thoughts

If there are genuine instances of existential generalizationcorrect infer-

ences to a conclusion that there is something that is thus and so from the

fact that, anyway, such and such isthen there are singular thoughts.

Some thoughts would be true provided only that there are objects whichare the ways which, according to that thought, some objects are. By con-

trast, for a singular thought, there is some object such that for things to be

as they are according to that thought is for that object to be thus and so:

under no circumstances would any other objects being any way of itself

make that thought true. So for each individual thought there is some object

such that had it not existed there would have been no such thing to think.

Plausibly, there are singular thoughts and we can sometimes think them.

Equally plausibly, at least sometimes we can say what we thus think.

Many ordinary statements purport to express such thoughts. An appeal-

ing view is that where words are to be understood as so aiming, that is

what they do, provided only that there is a singular thought for them to

have expressed. To which one might add: words so to be understoodexpress, either a singular thought, or no thought at all. Words cannot say

something as different from what they purport to say as such words would

if they expressed some other sort of thought.

That plausible view is McDowells. Essays 7-13 of MKR are devoted

to defending it and elaborating its implications. One main aim is to recon-

cile the view with the idea that there may be different singular thoughts,

of a given object, that it is thus and so: a way of thinking of the object may

matter to what thought one thus thinks. Another aim is to insist that a sin-

gular thought cannot consist in a general thought, thought in an environ-

ment that somehow makes it singular. That is the wrong idea of how an

environment can contribute to fixing what is thought.

Seeing words as an expression of some given singular thought is, interalia

, seeing them as about some item in the way a singular thought isa

way there would not be without that item. Someone might understand

1 For some

argument see Travis 1997.


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540 Charles Travis

some McDowell, in some McDowell is bearded, as speaking of

McDowell; an understanding he could not have were there not McDowell.

That would be a way of seeing that whole as expressing a given singular

thought. What would not be such a way would be an understanding as to

who, according to that whole, is bearded that one could have had without

thereby thinking of McDowell, or which could have been correct even if

those words did not speak of him. There is no singular thought such that

to see the words in that way is to see them as expressing it.

It follows that words that purport to express a singular thought must

purport to afford, and demand, an understanding as to who, or what, they

speak of, of the former kind. For if they do what they purport to, there is

no identifying what it is they saywhat, according to them, one is to

thinkwithout such an understanding. Without such an understanding,

one would not understand them as saying any such thing. So if they dowhat they purport, then some such understanding is an irreducible part of

taking them to express the thought they do.

Generalizing, taking a singular fact for a factor mistaking what

would be a singular fact if it were so for a factare ways we may count

as relating to the world. One may know that McDowell is bearded, or mis-

takenly suppose him to be smooth-shaven. One so relates to such a singu-

lar factor, as it were, unfactonly in thinking of a certain person as

bearded (or as not) in a way one could not be thinking of someone were it

not that there is that person to think of. Again, that is an irreducible part

of what one is credited with in being credited with thinking some given

singular thought.

I am able to think of McDowell in such a way, and thus to think of himas bearded. In fact, I know he is. That exhibits one way of grasping a sin-

gular fact. Someone else, to whom he is a stranger, may, staring at

McDowells back, rightly guess that he is bearded. That, too, is a way of

thinking a singular thought. There is no need to count those ways of think-

ing of McDowell one way. Nor must we think of me and the stranger as

thinking the same thing there is to think (though there is sometimes cause

to do so).

The above is the core view, though there is also a powerful argument

that, for example, understanding some McDowell to mean McDowell is

not factorable into understanding it to speak of someone in a way words

might have done (under some conditions) in speaking of someone else, or

of no one, plus the mere fact, whether recognized or not, that it is McDow-

ell one would speak of in that way. The influences of Austin and Wittgen-

stein in this view are clear. They stand out when one reflects on the

distance here between McDowell and Russell.


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Taking Thought 541

Russells epistemology supplied special items for singular thoughts to

be about; and seemed to require genuine singular thoughts to be about

those special things. One Russellian idea is: if one is thinking in a waysuch that, conceivably, one might be thinking, so far as one could tell, in

just that way where there was no singular thought one could be thinking,

then one is not, in fact, thinking a singular thought. I may think that

Socrates was strange. But things might seem the same to me were

Socrates a well-done fiction. So, by Russells lights, to think Socrates

strange could not be to think a singular thought. Against that, Austin

showed how to be rightly unimpressed, in just the way McDowell is, by

possibilities for ringers (mock-pigs, say). That things might seem the

same were Socrates a fiction is not enough to show that as things stand I

am not thinking about Socrates, and thinking singular thoughts about him.

Socrates was the sort of thinga human beingthat one might see. The

sort of thing one might thus be aware of is the sort of thing one might thinksingular thoughts about.

Russell also seems to have thought that there could be discourse of a

certain formgenuine expressions of thoughts about such items as Picca-

dilly and Augustus John (or any re-encounterable item)only if that dis-

course were analyzable in other terms: for any genuinely fact-stating

John painted, there would have to be a criterion for being the one that

John spoke of, expressible without presupposing an ability to say A and

mean John, and in terms of which that John was to be understood (by

which, in fact, it was to be governed). But such a criterion, Russell plau-

sibly held, would make John painted an expression of a general thought.

Investigations

79 is an attack on that idea of the need for a criterion. It is

one expression of the idea that discourse may be what it purports to bein this case, apparent expressions of singular thoughtsif, supposing so,

we know our way about within that discourse well enough. That general

idea, applied, too, to our perceptions of the facts as to what we think, and

recognize, about the world, is central to McDowells view.

McDowells brief concerns singular thoughts. But for him three notions

converge closely: meaning; sense (roughly, the understanding given

words bear or bore); and thought (something there is to think). The first

and third are brought close by the Davidsonian idea: bracketing ambiguity

and systematic (or quasi-systematic) variation in referents across uses, for

(suitable

2

) words to mean what they do is for such and such to be that

which would be asserted in using them (assertorically), that is, for such

and such to be the thought they express.

3

The second and third come

2 I assume the usual moves about sub-sentential parts.

3 Hearing the aspect here as one would in a claim that a certain wrench tightenshex nuts.


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together because McDowell follows one strand in Frege in identifying

thoughts with senses of certain sorts. This brings the first and second

together: words, in meaning what they do, have a certain (Fregean)

sensea move worth questioning in its own right.

One would resist the first identification if, following the Frege of On

Concept and Object, one held that the same thought could be given many

diverse linguistic garbs, so that it had a given structure only relative to a

given analysis. Sense, anchored as it is in understandings words bear, is,

plausibly, much less flexible in that respect.

Following Austin, one would reject the second identification. One

would distinguish, generally, between words meaning what they do (in

their language) and there being some thought which is the one they would

express (of given referents); so between what words mean and any partic-

ular thoughtperhaps what would be expressed by those words as used

on some occasion. On this view, how an expression of some language is

to be understoodhow it is to be used in speaking that languageis one

thing, and a thought of such and such being sosomething either so or

notquite another. The former is but one guide to what would be said so

(of given objects, times, places, etc.) on a particular speaking of the

expression, and does not, alone, determine it.

The crucial difference between Austins view of content and David-

sons concerns the behaviour of predicates, and the nature of what they

speak of. The virtues of the one view over the other are least evident in

matters of singular reference. Still, difference in conception matters. If

someone says such a thing as Beardsley drew, we feel he has spoken

intelligibly. We also think it conceivable, even if most unlikely, that therereally was no Beardsleythe whole thing was a hoax. We also feel that

such a discovery, if made, would not change our view that the above

words, though, as it turns out, about no one, were, for all that, perfectly

intelligible. Intuitions of that stripe are too robust and pervasive to dismiss

en masse

. For some, they have proved an obstacle to accepting McDow-

ells view. The Davidsonian picture of meaning conspires to make them

that. For that picture encourages us to conflate speaking intelligibly with

expressing a thought (that is, saying something to be so). It leaves too little

room for a distinction between the first and second thing: between speak-

ing coherent, perfectly understandable, words of which we have at least

some definite conception of what it would be like for them to have said

something true, or something falsewords made thus intelligible in

meaning what they do; and, on the other hand, the further accomplishment

of saying something to be so that is so, or, casu quo

, is not so. The Aus-

tinian picture, with its wide cleft between the one thing and the other,

tempts us to no such conflation.


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Taking Thought 543

4. Knowledge

Knowledge may seem to come in two varieties. In one sort of case we are

in a position, manifest to us, such that being in it entails what we thus

know. We see the pig before us, which entails that there is one. In the con-

trasting case, our grounds are not quite that good. We have evidence for

what we take to be so, or something like evidence in this respect: for all

that it is so, it is still possible, even if just barely, for what we suppose so

not to be so. The idea is: having evidence, or evidence-like grounds, up to

a certain standard counts as knowledge. (Some would say that our empir-

ical knowledge, or some important class of it, is only of this second sort.)

In recent years this idea has received a thoroughly modern twist, alleg-

edly due to Wittgenstein. The idea is that there are special cases of this

second variety of knowledge (perhaps the only true cases). In these cases,that ones grounds are good enough follows from the meanings of the

words that would state what one thus knows, or from the concepts they

express. It is part of the concept of a pens being on the table, say, that

under normal conditions (where normality admits of spelling out), if

you are looking at the table and it looks to you as if there is a pen there,

then you are right to take it that there is one there. Such epistemic status

is what we call knowing that there is a pen on the table. Or so goes the

idea.

Ones grounds for saying (or thinking) so in such a case are sometimes

labelled the satisfaction of criteria. So its looking to you, in normal cir-

cumstances, as if there is a pen on the table is, on the above sample view,

a criterion for there being one there. Criteria for its being so thatp

are saidto be defeasible: for all that they obtain, it is still possible that not-

p

. They

are, in that respect, evidence-like. Unlike mere evidence, though, they

owe their status, not to the way the world is arranged, but to the natures of

relevant conceptsthat, say, of there being a pen on a table. Where a cri-

terion is defeated, one does not have knowledge, despite its manifest sat-

isfaction. But whether it is defeated or not need not be something within

ones ken. Perhaps, too, special circumstances can block knowledge

despite the satisfaction of criteria. (Someone has been leaving dummy

pens on tables.)

In an important series of articlesmost notably, Criteria, Defeasibil-

ity and Knowledge and Knowledge and the Internal (both in MKR)

McDowell has argued (as I read him) against the idea that there is such asecond variety of knowledgethat that envisioned status could be knowl-

edgeand against the idea of that special case of it that criteria purport to

be. The main argument for the wider denial is simple. Suppose that all you

have is evidence (or something evidence-like) thatp

. Then for all that,


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544 Charles Travis

there is a possibility that not-

p

. Since this evidence (or etc.) is all you

have, for all you know, it might be that not-

p

. So you might be wrong as

to whetherp

. But if you might be wrong, then you do not know thatp

.

The positive view that goes with that denial is this. When you know,

then you have proof (which might just consist in the facts being manifest

to youas that your name is __, say). Proof that

p

rules out all possibility

that not-

p

. So, where you know, it is not the case that, for all your grounds,

it might be that not-

p

. I plainly see the pig. Where that is how I know there

is one, it is not so that, for all I can see or tell, there could, conceivably, be

none.

McDowell offers an additional argument against the idea of knowledge

by criteria. The core idea is that knowledge has implications for action,

and for policiesfor how one ought to conduct oneself (and, recognizing

the facts, would willingly). If you do not know whether you turned off the

gas, then, quite possibly, you should go back and check. If you do know,

you need not go back. It would be pointless. The question is settled. (And

if you did go back, whatever you did could not be genuine checking.) So

for any (putative) grounds for taking it that p

, one can always examine

their credentials by asking how one ought to act in light of them. Would

we be prepared, given them, to regulate our conduct as a knower would?

And the point is that how one ought to act, or conduct oneself, cannot be

settled by the fact that something is criterial. It cannot be settled, that is,

by convention, or by the natures of the concepts involved in expressing

what one knows. Let it be part of the concept of a pens being on the table

that you ought to conduct yourself as if it is settled that there is one there

when it looks to you as if there is one there (in normal circumstances).

Still, it makes sense to ask, But, for all that, should I so conduct myself?

(We can even imagine circumstances in which the answer would be no.)

We will not allow issues about our conduct to be settled in that way. The

very fact that the question makes sense shows that the mere satisfaction of

criteria cannot make for knowledge.

The above argument is not just simple, but familiar. If it has not always

been convincing, that may be because in the wrong setting it can look like

scepticism, so like what must be wrong. Much of the value of McDowells

work is in allowing this argument to appear in (much more nearly) the

right setting. The wrong setting would be one in which it looks as if you

always might be wrong; any other sort of status is unobtainable. No matter

how good a cognitive position I get myself into, for all that, unbeknownst

to me, there might not be a pig. In that case, If you might be wrong, then

you dont know means You never know. And if it means that, then we

had better reject the principle. But, as Austin reminds us, and as McDow-

ell insists, that is the wrong setting. As Austin puts it, You might be


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Taking Thought 545

wrong does not, or need not (normally) mean merely that you are a fal-

lible human being, or that outrages of nature are conceivable. It means that

there is some concrete reason for doubting whetherp

.

In an equally Austinian vein, the simple argument might be acceptable

if we were often enough in a position to enjoy knowledge of the first vari-

ety. But, Austin, and equally McDowell, insist, so we are. We are the sorts

of being equipped to see such things as that the pig is wallowing. So we

may know in the first way that the pig is wallowing. As McDowell also

emphasizes, we are also the sorts of beings who can sometimes see that

someone else is suffering, or hear someone state that the picnic is post-

poned, or express belief that the heat wave will end soon. So, accepting

the simple argument, we are the sorts of being who may know, in the first

way, what someone feels, or think, or says. There are, of course conceiv-

able cases where what we saw was not a pig wallowing; we only thought

we saw that. (Someone had had a particularly trying fancy dress ball, say.)As Austin and McDowell insist, that is no reason for denying that there

are cases of the mentioned kind.

The points so far are pure Austin. One would expect that Austinian epis-

temology can assume its proper form only when Davidson is left behind.

For Austins view of meaning is integral to his view of knowledge. His

remark, above, about sorting sentences by truth-value continues,

But it is really equally clear, ... that for much the same reasonsthere could be no question of picking out from ones bunch ofsentences those that are evidence for others, those that are test-able, or those that are incorrigible. (Austin 1962, p.111)

If Austins view of meaning is in play here, it matters that it is the polar

opposite of Davidsons.

Epistemological notions, Austin insists, are not means for sorting sen-

tences. Specifically, we cannot sort sentences into those that state what

Jones knows and those that do not. Nor, he is clear, could we even sort

statements into those that state what Jones knows and those that do not.

Jones himself, and the way he is, do not separate the facts into those he

knows and those he does not. There is no such division to make.

There is a shallow reading of Austins point about sentences: whether

the sentence Clinton is president expresses (in 2000) something Jones

knows of course does not depend just on what the sentence means, nor on

(the rest of) Joness condition (what else she knows, can see, thinks, and

so on), but also on how the world is. If the senate trial is drawing to aclose, the idea is, then knowing that Clinton is (still) president is one sort

of accomplishment; where no trial is on the cards, that knowledge is a dif-

ferent accomplishment. A sign that that is not Austins point is that it is

something a Davidsonian might equally well say; whereas Austin takes


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546 Charles Travis

his point to be of a piece with his view of meaning, which a Davidsonian

must reject. More importantly, the point, read shallowly, does not still the

qualms we naturally feel about doing away with second-grade knowledge

as McDowell and Austin suggest.

For example, McDowell insistsI think rightlythat there is the fol-

lowing sort of case. If Pia keeps up on things as many of us do, she may

count as knowing that Helsinki is the capital of Finland, or that Clinton is

president, even though since last she listened to the news it would have

been possible for Clinton to have resigned, or for the Finns to have moved

their capital to Turku, or to Faro (a literally unbounded hedonism). (See

Knowledge by Hearsay, MKR.) It is easy to feel that McDowell is right:

there is that kind of case; we do talk that way. But it is also easy to find

oneself with pangs of conscience, and suspicions that the view is mere

fashion. For once we allow that kind of case, just where do we draw the

line? How many (or which) opportunities to surprise Pia can we grant the

world, while still insisting that what she has is knowledge? Does she know

the Toad and Stoat

serves Guinness

when some pubs have been switching

to other stouts, and her last visit was a week ago? Does she still know

Clinton is president if we have heard a rumour that something has just

happened at the White House?

Austins advice is not to draw a line; for what we say in saying Pia to

know, say, that Clinton is president depends, not just on the fact that we

are saying her to know something, and the fact that it is that Clinton is

president that we are saying her to know, nor just on that and the way that

Pia is, but also on the circumstances of our saying it. Let Washington be

as it is, and Pia as she is. Then there are many different things to say, some

true, some false, in saying her to know that. We would say different such

things on different occasions for describing her, the circumstances of a

describing deciding (if anything does) what knowing that Clinton was

president might, in them, come to. That is the key to our natural qualms.

Suppose we must classify Pia as knowing, or not, that Clinton is president,

with no knowledge of the circumstances in which, or reasons for which,

we are to do so. It is easy to imagine circumstances in which we would so

class her. But it is not as if we would be prepared to do so no matter what

the occasion for it. So we cannot classify her at all without the feeling that

we are doing something not quite righta correct feeling if the content of

knowledge ascriptions is occasion-dependent in the way Austin suggests.

McDowell uses the Sellarsian image of a space of reasons to cast his

points: knowledge is a genuine standing in the space of reasonsthat is,

a status we may actually enjoy; it contrasts with other positions in the

space, notably, with merely having evidence; and it is not constructed out

of rightly, or reasonably, thinking so plus some fact perhaps beyond the


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Taking Thought 547

knowers kenthe space is not so structured. The Davidsonian idea

makes that image take on a certain shape. With it, the space of reasons

effects a determinate categorization of the world, and of its thinkers. Itimposes a definite shape on the facts. For a thinker at a time, there is that

which he knows, that for which he merely has evidence, for which his evi-

dence is weak, or strong, for which he has no evidence, and so on. For any

concept, after all, there are the conditions under which it is satisfied by

such and such; and these identify what satisfies it. So read the image takes

a shape one might understandably shy from.

Austin makes the image take a different shape. The space of reasons,

viewed through his idea, is a system for organizing thought, available for

applying on occasion. Certain things are built into itknowing, for exam-

ple, is distinct from having evidence, and a status one may enjoy. But what

structure the system gives to reasons, and to thinkers epistemic sta-

tuseswhat, within it, is reason (and of what sort) for whatmust befixed by the occasion for applying it. (And occasions structure reasons

locally, just where, on them, structure has some point.) What counts as

evidence forp

on some occasions for asking need not so count on all.

Whether Pia counts as knowing that Jones is at home, or as just supposing

so, may depend on the occasion on which she is so to count. That shape

what a sane epistemology anyway requiresmakes the image of a space

of reasons benign.

5. Antirealism

The antirealism at issue here insists there is a certain constraint on any

genuine fact-stating discourse, and that the constraint bites: wide stretches

of ordinary discourse cannot be merely what, on their face, they purport

to be; to say that S

, in such cases, must be (just) to say (do) something

specifiable in terms other than those manifestly part of saying so. Clearly

McDowell must reject the view, since it clashes with his Wittgensteinian

idea: there can be no substantive constraint on fact-stating discourse other

than that we do not find it too embarrassing, stupid, or the like, to go in

for its pretensions. So either there is no such constraint, or it has no bite.

That brief occupies three essays in MKR. The impression of a constraint

with bite McDowell chalks up to bad epistemology. If the issue has this

structure, antirealism cannot have the Wittgensteinian pedigree some-

times claimed for it.

Here is antirealism in five steps.

1. There is this constraint on meaning, and on content: an expression

can only mean something grasp of which is fully manifestable, and its


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548 Charles Travis

meaning which is fully manifestable in its use. Similarly for statements

and their content.

2. If a statement is undecidable, grasp of when things would be the way

it says is not fully manifestable. A statement is undecidable, in the present

special sense, if it speaks of an undecidable way for things to be. A way

for things to be is undecidable in the present sense if there is no specifiable

procedure always (on any occasion for applying it) guaranteed to yield, in

a finite time, either proof that things are that way, or proof that they are

not.

3. Many ordinary statements, if genuinely that, are undecidable. For

example, statements about the dim past (Caesar had precisely eleven

moles on his back, henceforthCaesar had moles), or statements about

other minds (Pia is unhappy). Pia might, perhaps, exude happiness. But,

as Austin said, it may be difficult to divine the thoughts of fakirs, Wyke-

hamists and simple eccentrics. Pia could have been like one of those. So

there is no procedure guaranteed to yield proof as to her happiness, no

matter what the situation.

4. Nonetheless such are genuine statements. Historical discourse, for

example, is not just nonsense.

5. Hence such discourse must be something other (or more, or less) than

what it pretends to be.

Step 5 needs filling in; not an easy task. (Though it is usual to mention

truth at this juncture, it will be better not to.) There are two things one

might try. The most straightforward is to deny that we (fully) grasp what

it is for Caesar to have had moleswhat way for things to be that is. But

that fits ill with 4. By 4, we do, or can, understand Caesar had moles. To

do that is to grasp what way it says things to be. To do that is to grasp what

way for things to be Caesars having had moles is. Where we make intel-

ligible statements, we at least can know whereof we speak.

The second option is to play with the notion of obtaining. Perhaps we

might make sense of the idea that, while we know what it is for Caesar to

have had moles, we do not (fully) grasp what it would be for that to

obtain. Perhaps it is only an illusion that the notion of obtaining (full stop)

makes sense.

So we must eschew the notion of obtaining (equally that of truth) in

saying what it is that statements state, or what expressions mean. What,

then, can we say about a statement? There is a plethora of possibilities.

But we need consider only one forking of our path. By antirealism wemust say about a statement what an understander might manifestly know

about it. But the antirealist allows that we might manifestly know when

things decidably obtain. So, if we are speaking of intelligible statements,

we might just scrap the notion of obtaining in favour of that of decidably


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Taking Thought 549

obtaining. The result would look like this: The (a) statement, Caesar had

moles states what is decidably so just in case it is decidably so that Caesar

had moles. That is the first fork.

On this fork we deal only in notions grasp of which, by antirealist

lights, is fully manifestable. There is a possible source of dissatisfaction

with this move in that there is nothing here to which a Davidsonian need

dissent. Davidson insists that the important thing in semantics is to make

the right connections between statements, or expressions, and the things

of which they speak. In more Davidsonian terms, suppose a semantic the-

ory generates statements of the form _ S _ F _. Then as long as it con-

nects the substitutes for S with the right substitutes for F, and generates

truth, it does not matter what fills the blanks. If, by those standards, is

true iff will do, then so, plausibly, will says what is decidably so iff it is

decidably so that. If the latter filling lets someone sleep better, so be it.

In less Davidsonian terms, the aim of a semantic theory of a language,

in re

sentences, is, for each sentence of the language, to say something

true of it that would be true of a sentence just in case it meant what that

one does. If it is true that the sentence Snow is white is true iff snow is

white, then, plausibly, it is equally true that the sentence says what is

decidably so just in case it is decidably so that snow is white. And it is

equally plausible of both features that they are ones a sentence would have

iff it meant what Snow is white does.

The point may reverse. Suppose someone would sleep better if he took

the antirealists semantics, as above, and struck out every occurrence of

decidably, thus speaking, throughout, of obtaining full stop. He pre-

serves the right connections. Given the anti-Austinian assumptions that

Davidson and the antirealist share, it is difficult to see why he should have

converted any truth to a falsehood. It is now hard to see what principled

objection there could be to his style of doing things, or to the correlative

idea that our competence with the language just does (fully) manifest

grasp of the notion of obtaining.

Perhaps for this reason the fork just scouted is little taken. On the sec-

ond fork, we substitute for the notion of obtaining a notion of a different

sort. The most popular candidate is some notion of being warranted, or

warrantedly assertible. We would thus state things like The statement

Caesar had moles is warranted iff _, where what filled the blank would

describe a decidable state of affairs, thus one other than that of Caesars

having had moles (and thus one we may freely speak of as obtaining tout

court

or not).

This move achieves clear distance from Davidson. For by his lights we

are now pairing the wrong things with the wrong things. One might also

see a departure here from Saul Kripkes Bishop Butler: one thing (Cae-


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550 Charles Travis

sars having moles) is beginning to be made to look like something else.

So far, though, that charge might be denied on grounds that warrant is

defeasible: it makes sense to suppose that one is warranted in assertingthat Caesar had moles, though he did not.

Warrant seems an epistemic notion. To be warranted in asserting thatp

is to have right to represent oneself as in a position to say so; as conveying

information that one has (or rightly takes oneself to have). In that case,

this fork of antirealism is at odds with Austinian epistemology, which

holds that whether one counts as in such a position depends, not just on

what the words of an assertion mean, nor on what was asserted, but on the

circumstances in which one is to count as enjoying, or not, that epistemic

status. By Austins lights there can be no question of correlating mean-

ings, or assertoric content, with specifiable circumstances that would, as

such, warrant asserting that. The biggest problem with this antirealist

fork, in my view, is that Austin was right. One might refer here, once

again, to McDowells case against criteria. And one might lament that,

apart from McDowell, this most important strand of Oxford philosophy

has been so conspicuously lost.

By now it should be clear what the main lines of McDowells response

to antirealism will be; for antirealism is anti-Austinian and anti-Wittgen-

steinian at just the crucial points. It may help to add that McDowell agrees

with the antirealist that facts about meaning and content must be manifest

in use, and grasp of such things manifestable. Much of his case concerns

what it is that can be manifest to uswhat we encounter in experience

and what we thus might manifest.

One main objection McDowell makes is to the deployment, in the

above story, of a rather special notion of decidability. If I state that Pia is

happy, then, on this notion, I have made an undecidable statement. But

that Pia is happy is something I might be able to see. So it is the sort of

thing for which, in favourable cases, I might have proof. What makes it

undecidable, in this special sense, is that there is room for unfavourable

cases, as well as for favourable ones. Similarly, that something happened

in the (recent) past is, McDowell convincingly argues, sometimes some-

thing we may observe. We feel the plonk we drank last night, and recall

all too vividly doing so. Seeing things to be a given way is one sort of case

of grasping what way for things to be that is. It may be part of what that

way is that it is a way things may sometimes undecidably be. In that case,

in grasping what the way is, we grasp, manifestably, what it is for things

to be undecidably that way.

McDowells points about the scope of our experience are pure Austin,

defended powerfully case by case. Here he places emphasis on forestall-

ing the idea, which he finds in Dummett, that grasp of such and suchof


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Taking Thought 551

someones being happy, saymust be explicable in terms of grasping

something else (as if a decent scientific attitude required that), so that, cor-

relatively, experiencing such things must be understandable as experienc-

ing something else (behaviour, say). His case is the Wittgensteinian

idea, effectively applied.

An antirealist might think McDowells point here beside the point. The

rough idea, I take it, would be this. Suppose there is a way for things to be

such that, in certain cases, things would be decidably that way (we just see

it), in other cases, decidably not, and in yet others the matter is undecid-

able. If there is one such way, then there are many, all agreeing on the

decidable cases. So one could not fully manifest grasp of words as saying

(or of someone as judging) things to be some one of these ways as

opposed to any of the others.

Here is an analogy. A man is locked in a room with a bunch of objectswhich we get him to sort, as it were, by colour. He puts the red ones in one

pile, the blue ones in another, and so on. But beyond the room there is a

world of novel objects. Many different principles for sorting them might

agree on the objects in the room. So his performance in the room cannot

fully manifest grasp of some one of these principlesof what an objects

being red is, sayas opposed to any other. The analogy indicates how

seriously this line should be taken. (Not very.)

Such a qualm misses the force of McDowells point (equally of the

Wittgensteinian, and of the Austinian idea). The sort of thing we may

observe, by that point, is that Pia is happy, that last night we drank plonk,

or played the fool, and so on. It is part of what it is for someone to be

happy, or to have drunk plonk, that these are things that might be unde-cidably so. (Who knows what Caesar drank?) But, if we can see such

things to be so, then it is what it is for things to be those ways that we

thus manifestly grasp. Allow the point about what we can see, and it is

too late to raise those sorts of qualms.

4

That is one face of the Wittgensteinian idea. McDowell drives the point

home by insisting on another face. We may be privy to a practice, for

whatever that practice is worth: we can talk about peoples moods, or

about past events, with the best of themfor what that is worth. Such

competence opens up new avenues for manifesting grasp of certain ways

for things to beand of words that speak of them as doing that. Namely,

it offers ways of manifesting grasp of what the relevant discourse speaks

of. In fact, mastering the discoursespeaking with the best of themjust

is manifesting such grasp. And if the discourse is not too stupid or embar-

4 The point stands even without the idea that happiness may be literally seen aslong as that Pia is happy is something that may

sometimes be manifest to us.


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552 Charles Travis

rassing, or something of the sort, there is no further question as to whether

what it speaks of is the sort of thing that it purports tothe past, say.

6. Psychologism

McDowell opposes, emphatically, and often, something he calls psy-

chologism. He offers two ideas as to what that is. On one, it is manifest in

a conception according to which the significance of others utter-ances is a subject for guesswork or speculation as to how thingsare in a private sphere concealed behind their behaviour. (MKRp. 314.)

It is nothing hidden, or inexpressible, that gives our words their life.

The second idea concerns mechanisms.There is no merit in a conception of the mind that permits us tospeculate about its states, conceived as states of a hypothesizedmechanism, with a breezy lack of concern for facts about explicitawareness. (On the Sense and Reference of a Proper Name,MKR, p. 180.)

McDowell associates the bad idea here with one about implicit knowl-

edge. So he says,

the idea that linguistic behaviour is guided by implicit knowledge... is nothing but a version of the psychologism that Frege de-nounced and Dummett officially disclaims. (MKR p. 195.)

As is evident here, and explicit elsewhere, he takes his opposition to these

ideas to be one with Freges insistence on separat[ing] sharply the logicalfrom the psychological, the subjective from the objective. (Frege 1884,

p.x)

It is unclear (to me) just how McDowells ideas are linked to Freges. I

also do not fully understand the ideas themselves, though I sympathize, to

a point, with what I think I see there. I am also puzzled by what seems to

me occasional psychologismby his own lightson McDowells part. I

will explain my puzzlements one by one.

Freges point was to insist that psychology has no place in logic. That

is a point about the special content of what he called laws of truth: psy-

chology does not investigatethough it is bound bythe ways such laws

say things to be. Part of his point was that the principles of logic are

obscured if the logician allows his attention to be distracted by grammar.For grammar, by contrast, is a mixture of the logical and the psycholog-

ical. (Frege 1897, p.142) Logic, for Frege, concerns intrinsic relations

between thoughts, which thus must be studied in splendid isolation both

from language and from thinkers.


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Taking Thought 553

That very limited anti-psychologism (if it is that) is not McDowells.

Even if thoughts may be studied in splendid isolation, they are also what

we may think and express. There comes a time for considering what mightbe said about how, or why, our thought thus connects with the particular

thoughts it does. In virtue of what, one might ask, did given words express

the thought they did? Whatever one thinks might, or could not, be said

about that, a mere injunction to separate the logical from the psychologi-

cal seems to rule out nothing. If McDowell thinks otherwise, I wish he had

said more about why.

The idea that words are not animated by hidden goings-on might put

one in mind of several different things, all of which seem right. One is

Wittgensteins idea that when we explain what words mean, or said, or

what being such and such is, we explain no less than we know ourselves.

(Every explanation I can give myself I can give another.) That is consis-

tent with the idea that what someone said in given words is a function of

sayhis intentions, though, of course, of fully manifestable ones. But

intentions cannot play that role on a second right idea as to where words

get their life: from the activities they are part of. On that idea, a state-

ments content is fixed by what one might have reasonably expected to be

able to do with it, given where and how it occurred. Whatever a speakers

intentions, beliefs and so on, might suggest might thus be cancelled by the

way his words fit into our lives. That is another correct take on the idea

that words are not animated by hidden goings-on.

I also sympathize with McDowells opposition to philosophical posit-

ing of mechanisms, or processes, or recipes for using language, or any

attempt at explanation of a sort such a mechanism, or etc., might provide.

A philosopher who tried that would be out of his field, and out of his

depth. What I do not understand is how any of that bears on postulation of

implicit knowledge, or why such postulations should be seen as showing

breezy unconcern for what we are explicitly aware of.

To see how philosophers might, and might not, be legitimately inter-

ested in the mind, or in human minds, it will help, following Chomsky, to

distinguish various goals a theory might have. Notably, for a given phe-

nomenonmeaning, sayit is useful to distinguish between theories of

performance, recognition theories (of two sorts), and generative theories

of the target phenomenon.

A performance theory, la B. F. Skinner, would make predictions about

what (relevant) people will in fact do. So it must identify, non-trivially,

conditions in the world such that, when they are satisfied, a given speaker

will say Pass the salt, and so on for the other things the speaker might

say. A variant on such a performance theory would be a theory of how to

performwhat McDowell seems to accuse Dummett of hankering for.


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554 Charles Travis

Such a theory would, similarly, make non-trivial predictions about what a

speaker ought to do, or may do: when such and such conditions are satis-

fied, the/a right (appropriate thing to say is Pass the salt (or that is an

appropriate thing to say only when such and such conditions are satisfied).

Such theories bank, of course, on there being non-trivial conditions under

which someone will, or may, or should, say such and such.

A recognition theory deals with, on the one hand, some well-defined

phenomenon, and, on the other, some other sort of fact. It aims to identify,

in terms of that other sort of fact, the conditions under which there would

be (an instance of) that phenomenon. So, for example, the phenomenon

might be being a French sentence, or a sentence meaning pigs grunt. The

other sort of fact might be the attitudes of speakers of some relevant com-

munity. Such a theory might predict that such and such form is a French

sentence, or means pigs grunt, just in case relevant speakers take such and

such attitude towards it, or that such and such concrete marks are an

instance of a French sentence, or of such and such one, just in case rele-

vant speakers take such and such attitude towards those marks, or towards

marks of that sort. A special sort of recognition theorycall it proce-

duralwould link its target phenomenon to its chosen other facts by stat-

ing rules by following which one could determine, given sufficient access

to the other facts, whether such and such was a French sentence, or means

pigs gruntor, perhaps, work out what it does mean. The aim would be

effective means for telling, within a given domain, what was what.

A generative theory aims for none of the above. Such a theory aims to

describe, systematically and exactly, what it is that we are prepared to rec-

ognize in some given areathe sorts of things for which a recognition

theory, if possible, would provide conditions. A generative theory consists

of principles that generate some well-defined set of descriptions. It is sub-

ject to these two general demands. First, for each item in its subject-

domain, it must generate some (true) description of it. Second, for each

description it generates, there must be some item in the domain such that

whatever fits that description is that item. So, for example, a generative

theory might undertake to characterize the (or some) sentence/non-sen-

tence distinction for English. It would do that by generating, for each

English sentence, a description of it, subject to the above demands. Set-

ting a higher goal, it might aim to assign each English sentence just that

syntactic structure we competent English speakers are prepared to see in

it. Its domain would then be the syntactic structures of English. Again, one

might aim for a generative semantic theory of English (not necessarily so-

called generative semantics). Bracketing ambiguity, such a theory

would aim to assign each English expression, E, some property that E has,

and that an expression would have just in case it meant what E does.


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Taking Thought 555

(Davidson, we have seen, has his hunch as to what such properties might

be.)

Performance theories are neither the business of philosophy nor likely

prospects anywhere. Nor, for many domains, are recognition theories

promising. Performance theories might well postulate mechanisms where

philosophy would have no right to. But it is unclear why McDowell, or

anyone, should object to generative theories, even where the theorist is a

philosopher. (Quine has qualms; but for reasons that should leave

McDowell cold.) Whether a given domain admits of a generative theory

depends on the nature of the domain, and not on any general thought about

psychologism. (I think, for example, that there could be generative theo-

ries of what expressions mean, but not of the content, or sense, of state-

ments.)

A generative theory is guided by what relevant people are prepared to

recognize. It is thus psychological. By the same token, it can hardly have

breezy unconcern for what we are, or can come to be, aware of. It may

well attribute implicit, or tacit, knowledge. For coming to be aware of

what we can be may be no easy business. We (English speakers) are all

prepared to recognize the ambiguity in recognize, or the non-evaluative

use of progress, though it may take several moments of reflection, or the

right surroundings, to see the point. Such knowledge informs the sort of

understanding we would have of given words. And one might say cor-

rectly: we are able to understand such words because we have such under-

standings to give themthe fruits of knowing what expressions mean.

Such knowledge is not knowledge of how to determine, of encountered

speech, say, what it means. Nor does positing such knowledgeeven

where the knowledge needs to be elicitedamount to positing a mecha-

nism for determining such things.

We perceive English, and, more generally, human language, in certain

ways, which a grammarian hopes to specify. Chomsky proposes that in

certain respects we perceive those things because of the sort of organism

we are. To put things in McDowells terms, these are not things we should

expect a cosmic exile could be brought, by perception of other things, and

reason alone, to see. Chomskys idea is, in some sense, psychologistic.

But, as already hinted, I do not see how McDowell could get along with-

out it. To speak as he does of the cosmic exile (Antirealism and the Epis-

temology of Understanding, MKR), unable to construct assertion from

purely other material, if entirely bereft of the capacity to see people as

asserting things, just is to make some of our perceptual capacity specific

features of our human design. That Pia is happy is the sort of thing a nor-

mal mature human is sometimes able to see. An organism not naturally

equipped to see the world in those terms, or to see such aspects of it,


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556 Charles Travis

should not expect to gain access to them by learning some recipe for

deriving them from other features of things. That is just Wittgensteins

idea in psychological dress. It is unclear why McDowell should resist it.

Finally, I turn to McDowells own suspect psychologism. In On The

Sense and Reference of a Proper Name, McDowell contrasts someone

fully ignorant of English with someone fully competent in it. Where

English is spoken, the former hears just noise. The latter hears particular

sentences spoken, and particular things thereby said. A theory of sense,

McDowell tells us, must characterize the difference. (Given Davidson, a

theory of sense is, as near as matters here, a semantic theory.) To succeed

at that, he holds, it must do this:

Such a theory, then, would have the following deductive power:given a suitable formulation of the information available to both

the possessor and the non-possessor of the state of understandingon any of the relevant potential occasions, it would permit deri-vation of the information that the possessor of the state would bedistinguished by having. The ability to comprehend heard speechis an information-processing capacity, and the theory would de-scribe it by articulating in detail the relation, which defines the ca-pacity, between input information and output information. (MKRp. 179.)

Such a theory would be a recognition theory for assertions made in

English; in fact, a procedural one. Here are a few of the things it would

do. For utterances of Flying planes can be dangerous, it would identify

the conditions (perceivable equally by the non-English speaker) under

which something would be said as to the danger of the activity of flying

planes, and those under which something would be said as to the danger-ousness of planes when flying. For utterances of That guy did it, it will

identify the conditions that determine who, if anyone, was thus spoken of.

For utterances of This blood is red, it will identify the conditions under

which something will have been said that is true of venous blood, those

under which something false of such blood will have been said, and so on.

In each case there is the supposition that there are such conditions.

Perhaps McDowell thinks that there could actually be a theory like that.

I do not. Knowledge of a language consists, I think, in knowledge of such

things as what particular expressions in it mean. The leap from there to

understanding what is said requires humanity and intelligence, in suffi-

cient degrees, and well enough applied. There is, I think, no recipe whose

unequivocal results are just what those capacities enable those who have

them to achieve. To think that there must be such a recipeif McDowell

really does think thatis to engage in a sort of a priorism about the mind

that is psychologistic in an objectionable way. That sort of psychologism


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Taking Thought 557

is clear in Davidson. (See Davidson 1986) It does not fit with McDowells

thought.

7. Conclusion

Once again, philosophy of McDowells calibre does not reduce to a few

simple ideas. But I hope to have exhibited one pattern in it. My plan has

made for casualties. I have been unable to convey the richness of these

essays. I have left undiscussed many important topics. The most impor-

tant of these, of course, is McDowells work on ethics, which is

continuous with his other work in fascinating ways, and whichamong

other thingsilluminates it. I deeply regret that omission. I have also

omitted any discussion of McDowell on Wittgensteins philosophy ofmind, on personal identity, and on the nature of perception, to mention

just a few. As for the topics I have discussed, McDowells treatment of

them is far more subtle and complex than I have given any inkling of. For

those who have not read these essays, I know but one corrective: read

them. If possible, read both volumes straight through. It is exciting read-

ing. You will be confronted throughout with a first-rate mind at work.

5

Department of Philosophy

CHARLES TRAVIS

University of StirlingStirlingFK9 4LA

REFERENCES

Austin, J. L. 1962: Sense and Sensibilia

. Oxford: Oxford University

Press.

Davidson, D 1986: A nice Derangement of Epitaphs, in Truth and

Interpretation: Perspectives in the Philosophy of Donald Davidson

,

E. Le Pore (ed). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Frege, G. 1884: The Foundations of Arithmetic

, translated by J. L. Austin.

Oxford: Basil Blackwell (1950).

Frege, G. 1897: Logic, Posthumous Writings

. Oxford: Basil Blackwell

(1979).

McDowell, J. 1994:Mind and World

. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Har-

vard University Press.

Travis, C 1997: Pragmatics, inA Companion to the Philosophy of Lan-

guage

, Crispin Wright and Bob Hale (eds) Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

5 I want to thank Joan Weiner and James Joyce for helpful comments on earlierdrafts.


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Documents

Travis - Taking Thought - Travis on McDowell Review