Meaning,ThruthandEthicalValue

Meaning,ThruthandEthicalValue

byRajniKothari

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Source: PRAXISInternational(PRAXISInternational),issue:3/1985,pages:225246,onwww.ceeol.com.

PHILOSOPHY IN DEB A TE

MEANING, TRUTH AND ETHICAL-VALUE*

Peter Murphy
This inquiry is, in at least one crucial respect, archaeological. It addresses a proposalHabermas theory of universal pragmaticswhich its author, in more recent times, has more or less laid to rest (even if he has not explicitly repudiated it). In order to fulfill his guiding intention of showing that moral-practical assertions can be validated, we have seen Habermas move away from the theory of speech acts which he put forward in the essay What is Universal Pragmatics? towards a theory of moral-practical argumentation which dominates the whole tenor and direction of his discussion in The Theory of Communicative Action. Yet, despite this shift, the interest in Habermas proposal for a universal pragmatics should not be regarded as purely antiquarian, for three reasons: (i) It represents one of two substantive solutions to his paradigm-guiding question: can moral-practical utterances be subjected to tests of validity? And, as an interesting (if ultimately unsatisfactory) solution to this question, it deserves attention in its own right, and consideration of its plausibility and fruitfulness as one of a number of possible theoretical solutions. (ii) The proposal for a universal pragmatics represents itself as much as a theory of meaning as a theory of truth; in doing so it introduces a form of truth-conditional semantics, which has been carried over, and indeed made even more explicit, in Habermas later work. In this respect there is absolutely no discontinuity in Habermas approach between Communication and the Evolution of Society and The Theory of Communicative Action. He adopts what is essentially the received view of philosophical semanticswhich discusses the operation of understanding utterances in terms of being able to judge the truth of what is said. Although insisting on the extension of the received view to moralpractical assertions, Habermas maintains its intrinsic reductiveness, in particular its depriving semantical questions of their proper autonomy. (iii) Finally, we must ask whether Habermas move away from the ordinary language approach of a universal pragmatics towards a theory of moral-practical reasoning necessarily represents theoretical progress. If we define progress as gain without accompanying losses, then I would say that the step in fact does not represent theoretical progress in this strong sense. Yet there is a gain. There are substantive issues which Habermas can explain with a theory of argumentation which cannot be explained by the proposal for a universal pragmatics because of its ordinary language presuppositions. Because the ordinary language approach is rooted in the familiarity of everyday life, what it
* This is the first part of a two-part article. The second part will appear in a future issue of Praxis International.
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comprehends poorly is the defamiliarizing effect of practical discourses: the way in which they shatter (or result from the shattering of ) the taken-forgrantedness of the normative structures of everyday life. Discourse theory is much better equipped to explain this. But what is gained in explanatory scope, by turning toward discourse theory, is accompanied by a crucial loss in explanatory depth. Whereas the familiar normative frameworks of everyday life provide a yardstick or criterion to judge moral-practical assertions, as soon as the self-evidentness of this framework is dissolved, the question is opened up: what types of reasons can provide a basis for judging the validity of normative frameworks which have been brought-into-question? Habermas answers this question only in the negative. For us today he can say that mythical and metaphysical/theological clusters of reasons cannot serve as good reasons for the validation or criticism of norms. With this I would not quarrel. But what clusters of reasons can or do serve in a positive sense to justify or devalidate norms which have lost their self-evidentness? This Habermas theory does not address. The theory avoids the question by appealing to the normative procedures or presuppositions of discourses, while resolutely refusing to indicate the substantive grounds that can and should be used in rationally redeeming or criticising norms which have been defamiliarized. This failure represents a loss in comparison with the theory of speech acts. The ordinary language theory could show how (in everyday life) we judge moral-practical assertions in terms of familiar norms. The theory of discourse, on the other hand, fails to indicate what kinds of substantive grounds discourse partners have recourse to when judging the validity of higher-order assertions (viz. the norms themselves) when they lose their taken-for-granted character. The Consensus Theory of Truth The ordinary language approach which most influenced Habermas proposal for a universal pragmatics was originally introduced by J.L. Austin. But it was not from Austin so much as from John Searle (who adapted and developed Austins ideas in the direction of a more formalized model) that Habermas took over the foundations upon which he proceeded to build up his own distinctive theory of speech acts. Following Searles lead, Habermas, in his essay on universal pragmatics, rejects the idea that there is a special class of utterance (prescriptions) that speakers use to generate interpersonal relationships, while another class (descriptions) is concerned with representing states of affairs in the world. Habermas accepts Searles view that all explicit (nonelliptical) speech acts may be divided into two components: the illocutionary and the propositional. That, in other words, all utterances can be re-written in the form F(R P). Habermas calls this the double structure of speech acts. Habermas develops this idea in the following way.1 In explicit speech acts, speaker-listeners communicate on two levels simultaneously: (1) On the level of intersubjectivity. Through illocutionary acts, speakers and hearers establish the relations that permit them to come to an understanding with one another.

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(2) On the level of objects or states of affairs about which they reach an understanding. Speech acts are composed of a performative (or illocutionary) clause and a dependent clause with a propositional content. These clauses correlate with the two levels of communication. The main clause contains a personal pronoun in the first person as its subject expression, a personal pronoun in the second person as its object expression and a predicate that is formed by means of a performative expression in the present tense (I promise you that . . .). The dependent clause contains a noun or referring expression as a subject expression that denotes an object and a predicate expression for the universal attribute that is asserted or denied of the object. Habermas also specifies the difference between the two components of speech acts in terms of different systems of reference specific to illocutionary and propositional clauses. In the case of propositional clauses, referring expressions are used to denote objects (and their spatio-temporal co-ordinates) in the world about which speaker-listeners converse. In the case of iilocutionary clauses, referring expressions are used to denote speakers and listeners (or potential speakers). Speakers can refer to themselves as I (I order . . ., I say . . ., I promise . . . etc.) and identify others they wish to enter into a communication relationship with as You (I order you. . ., I say to you . . ., I promise you . . . etc.). The function of the propositional or dependent clause is to pick out some person or act, thing or event and ascribe a characteristic to that object, while the performative clause functions to identify the speaker(s) and addressee(s) in order for a communicative relationship to be established between them. The propositional clause of a speech act is characterised as being dependent on the illocutionary clause in so far as the illocutionary clause (or more specifically the performative verb contained in the clause) indicates the way in which the content of the propositional clause is to be understood. Habermas point can be illustrated with reference to the following example: The sentence John will close the door (A) ascribes (prospectively) an act to a person. It can be used to express a proposition. But in every case of this sentence being uttered it must always be conjoined (explicitly or implicitly) with a performative clause. The uttering of the sentence necessarily entails the performing of a speech act. But, as Austin showed in his discussion of illocutionary acts, speakers do not always make explicit, that is bring to the level of articulateness, the act they nevertheless perform.2 Such utterances, however, can be subsequently rewritten to show the performative clause that was unasserted, but tacitly employed, by the speaker in uttering the sentence, viz. in the case of (A), (I am telling you) John will close the door. But Habermas is not just saying that a speaker in uttering sentence (A) is doing something, performing a speech action which can be identified (viz. making a prophecy or prediction) and made explicit. He goes further than this. What he suggests is that not only must a sentence with propositional content be conjoined with a performative clause in order to be uttered, but that the same propositional content may be combined with a variety of different performatives, so that a speaker might not only predict or prophesize (constate) such a content, but may also wish or command (etc.) the same propositional content (such as Johns anticipated closing of the

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door). We can hold a prepositional content invariant vis-a-vis the different types of speech acts in which it appears.3 We have already encountered this sort of argument in Searle. Habermas draws a firm distinction between prepositional content and propositional sentences. It is Habermas view that in all speech acts, except the constative type, propositional content is (normally) unasserted; that is to say, it is merely mentioned rather than spelt out in an explicit propositional sentence. But that in every case where propositional content is mentioned, it can be transposed into an explicit propositional sentence.4 To use Searles terminology, the sentence employed by the speaker can be re-written to make into a sentence the propositional content mentioned but not asserted explicitly in the utterance. Thus, a cluster of sentences used by speakers such as John, close the door, If only John would close the door, John will close the door, can be re-written not only to bring into focus the unasserted performative clause (Austin), but in the case of non-constative utterances to identify and re-formulate the propositional content (common to the utterances) as a propositional sentence. The re-writing procedure performed, the cluster of sentences will have the form: F I say to you I order you I express a wish to you P Propositional sentence that John will close the door. It is Habermas view, then, that all classes of utterances (constative and non-constative) contain a clause with propositional contentin which an object is referred to and a predicate asserted or denied of the object (e.g., ascribed to John (R) is his closing of the door (P)). This, of course, is central to the argument that all utterances have a double (performative/propositlonal) structure. Searle, as weve seen, argues that the performative clause modifies the relationship between R and Pso that the relationship of ascription pertains only in the case where the performative clause includes a constative verb. Where a non-constative verb is present, the relationship will be otherwise. For example, where a wish or command is performed his closing of the door is desired of John is ordered rather than asserted of John. Habermas similarly suggests that the performative clause fixes the sense in which the propositional content is to be taken. At the level of the performative clause, the speaker chooses the illocutionary role in which the propositional content is to be used.5 Habermas elsewhere says that the performative verbs express the meaning of the particular mode in which the propositional clause is being employedthat is, whether the sentence with propositional content is

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used in the sense of a constative, expressive or regulative.6 Whereas the double structure of speech thesis allowed Searle to argue that ought-statements may be true or false because, in common with all other utterances, they contain a propositional content (a thesis incidentally not contradicted by Habermas), Habermas, on the other hand, radicalises this problem of verification. In the first place Habermas proposes that truthjudgements are only one example of a broader class of validity-judgements. Habennas puts forward the thesis that any human agent performing a speech act cannot avoid raising four separate validity claimsclaims that what is uttered by the speaker is valid. These claims are universally built into the structure of speech.7 And in every speech act performed they are all raised simultaneously.8 The validity claims connected with speech acts are those of:9 (i) Comprehensibility. The claim that each sentence the speaker employs in a speech act is well-formed in accordance with the grammatical rules of the speakers natural language and thus when employed in a situation of possible understanding can be comprehended by all those who have mastered these grammatical rules. (ii) Truth. The claim that the speaker communicates a true proposition representing a state of affairs so that the hearer can share the knowledge of the speaker about something or some event in the world.* (iii) Truthfulness. The claim that the speaker expresses her or his intentions truthfully so that the hearer can trust the speaker or that the speaker expresses feelings, desires, etc., so that these avowals actually correspond with the speakers inner nature. It is the claim that, when the speaker represents an inner state (to which s/he has privileged access) publicly to others, the speaker does so authentically. (iv) Normative Correctness. The claim that the utterance of the speaker and more specifically the illocutionary component of that utterance, in raising the prospect of an interpersonal relationship with a hearer, conforms to a mutually recognised normative background. The validity claim of rightness is that the speech act was performed in conformity with this normative background (or that the normative context that the speech act is supposed to satisfy is itself legitimate). Habermas agrees with the Searlian view that an ought-statement can be true or false on the grounds that it contains a propositional content (a universal characteristic of speech acts) but suggests that, as well as this, ought-statements (not as a special case, but in common with all other types of utterance) may succeed or fail as sentences in a natural language, they may be
* This notion of truth, however, is inapplicable to those propositional contents which do not describe, but which explain (either in a commonsense or a theoretical way) actions or events. Habermas simply does not discuss in what ways explanations (causal, motivational, etc.) can be judged for their validityor the questions of validity that arise in connection with using certain explanatory categories in respect of certain explanandums (e.g., using the category of final causes to explain events in the physical world)or indeed even whether the validity judgements of explanations are the same as or different from the validity judgements of descriptions. For illuminating discussions of the possible ways in which theoretical explanations in the social and physical sciences can be evaluated, see Agnes Heller, A Theory of History (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982) and Thomas Kuhn, Objectivity, Value Judgement and Theory Choice, The Essential Tension (University of Chicago Press, 1977).

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made honestly or with the intention to deceive or mislead a communication partner, and they contain an illocutionary component which may or may not bring actors into a relationship intended by the speaker, depending on the conformity of the illocutionary act to a shared normative background. If we can consider truth as concerned with the relationship of an utterance to the external world, correspondingly argues Habermas, the relationship of an utterance to the social world of norms and the inner world of intentions, feelings and desires also raises questions of validity.10 The second way in which Habermas radicalises the problems of verification is by moving away from the traditional emphasis of inquiries of this type. These inquiries usually concentrate attention on the content of (validity) judgements, substantially neglecting the illocutionary act in which the judgement is embedded. In judging (for example a constative true or false) an interlocutor makes an assessment of the utterance. But like any appraisal there must implicitly be a criterion applied in the making of the appraisaljust as when we appraise somebody as a good person we implicitly invoke certain criteria of goodness in making the assessment. The very implicitness of such criteria behind judgements furnishes a compelling puzzle. What explicitly are the criteria that interlocutors use in assessing a first-order utterance? And, then if we can identify such criteria, this in turn raises further questions. Can in fact, a first-order utterance fulfil such criteria made explicit and, moreover, are the criteria identified, in any case, sound ? The explicit criteria of assessment identified by theories of truth include: (1) Those which concern the relationship of word and object. Various theories postulate an ideal relationship between word and object. An utterance is required to stand in this relationship to the objective world. The criterion used to assess the utterance thus is whether or not the utterance stands in this relation to the external world. The relationship is variously defined (according to competing theories) as one of mirroring, resembling, picturing, corresponding to, uncovering, referring (and attributing characteristics which apply) to objects that exist in the world.* (2) Those which concern the relationship between word and word. Some theories of truth, often indifferent to the relationship of word and object, postulate an ideal relationship between the speakers utterance and other utterances. The requirement may be that a speakers utterance cohere with (not contradict) other statements the speaker makes or that the speakers utterance not be in contradiction with the utterances of a particular person (Prophet, Authority) or collectivity (Church, Party) represented as having a privileged access to the truthor that the speakers utterance not contradict a special class of indubitable (protocol) statements.
* When a proposition identifies some thing or person, act or event in the world, the reference is feature-less; it bears no characteristics. The object identified is simply acknowledged to exist. Those theories which take a relation of correspondence of word and object as the criterion of truth, treat the referring or identifying function of propositions as if it was their only function. To say that a proposition is true is to say that the fact to which it refers is or has being (Moore).11 Or, in Aristotles formulation, to say that what is, is or that what is not, is not, is true.12 But, as Strawson argued, in making a statement, we refer to an object in order to go on to characterise it (we indicate or refer in order to describe).13 The predicative expression contained in the proposition attributes characteristics, qualities, relations, etc., to the object identified. This characterisa-

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tion of objects is not a copying or duplication of those objects. Unlike in the case of copying, the speaker in describing an object orientates in a radically selective way toward the object. When a speaker says s is p, it is, as Schtz notes, never exclusively p, but many other things beside, including q, v, x, t, etc.14 Description involves the selective enumeration of the properties of an object. As Rickert points out one need only make an attempt to describe reality exactly as it is, i.e., try to achieve a conceptual representation of it faithful in all its details, to realise very soon how futile such an undertaking is.15 A person might say The table is brown . . . but it is also large, square, five foot high, positioned in the living room, near the window, opposite the door, owned by Jean, bought from a furniture store, and so on. In speech we cannot hope to reproduce the richness of detail about objects that the model or metaphor of copying suggests. The effort to do so is in vain. (Of course, even the best copy is unfaithful to the detail of the original in some respect. The forger who copies the work of a great artist or the printer who makes a colour plate reproduction of the same work will misgauge a brush-stroke or change a tone of colour in the original. But none the less what can be hoped for is to bring such copies closer to the original and a reproducer, whether the process of copying is mechanical or otherwise, can always improve the method of copying in order to more closely realise this aim.) As Rickert argues, empirical reality proves to be an immeasurable manifold which seems to become greater and greater the more deeply we delve into it and begin to analyse it and study its particular parts. [Even] the smallest part contains more than any mortal man has the power to describe. Indeed, the part of reality that man can include in his concepts and thus in his knowledge is almost infinitesimally small when compared with what he is meant to disregard. Accordingly, if in order to know reality we had to form a conceptual copy of it, we would be confronted with a problem that is essentially insoluble.16 In describing an object we make a selection from amongst the innumerable characteristics of the object, those characteristics which we regard as worthy of being brought to consciousness. We can never give a total or exhaustive description of objects in the world. Thus the criterion of the truth of a proposition cannot be its replicating of the object it refers to, but whether the characteristics attributed by the speaker apply to (or are possessed by) the object. Describing is also different from picturing. A picture is a visual, not a linguistic sign. And while pictures certainly selectively represent what is in the world, the discrimination of pictures is dissimilar from that of propositional speech. To picture, e.g., that the cat is on the mat is already to convey visually more information than we convey in saying The cat is on the matthe drawing tells us that the cat is fat, has its tail in the air, etc. The describing of an object is also different again from the uncovering of an object in the world. It was Heidegger who suggested that to say an assertion is true signifies that it uncovers an entity in the world.17 A true assertion lets the entity be seen in its uncoveredness. In other words, the ideal relationship of word and object is that the words bring objects out of their hiddenness. But is this the case? The term uncovering, I would argue, is more apt to define a relationship between speech and the internal world of feeling, desire and intention. In saying (truthfully) how we feel, what we want and how we intend to act, we uncover or reveal the contents of our inner nature because we have privileged access to those contents. But as the world of objects is not private or subjective in the same sense as the inner world, speakers do not have privileged access in relation to the external world and correspondingly to seek to understand what it means to say an assertion is true using the model of revelation is not illuminating. Incoherence on a speakers part only signifies that there is a problem of truth. It cannot, however, be effective as a criterion of truth. For a speaker to contradict his or her self or to make statements which are inconsistent (i.e., the entailment of one of these statements is in contradiction with the other) is analogous to the circumstances where a plurality of speakers conflict amongst themselves about the facts. Rather than different speakers, the same speaker has presented (either explicitly or inexplicitly) incompatible characterisations of an event, an act, a thing or a person. A criterion of truth, by contrast, provides a measure according to which a choice may be made between these conflicting characterisations. It should also be noted that the presence of coherence, equally, is not an indicator of the truth of a statement. For even if what a speaker says is internally consistent, any of that persons propositions may come into conflict with the presentations of other speakers. Incoherence on this level, of course, itself does not mean that what the speaker has said is false; it merely makes the truth of each incompatible statement an issue to be resolved. The identity of the authors of utterances, open to evaluation, provides a warrant of reliability. Appraisal of utterances proceeds on the assumption that certain categories or clusters of authorssharing common institutional affiliations, educational qualifications, or personal qualities, etc.,have a privileged access to the truth. What is seen as important in the appraisal of utterances is not the knowledge of the speaker, but the speaker who knows; not what is said, but who says it. According to this view, a statement can be judged true or false according to whether or not it agrees with a set of basic and unshakeable statements. Unlike the coherence thesis, the requirement is not simply that the

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propositions a speaker puts forward (in so far as they form a system or body) are not contradictory. Rather it is the requirement that the statement agrees with or is compatible with certain exceptional statements which the speaker makes. These are protocol statementswhich, if meaningful, are immune from doubt. Such a criterionwhich judges statements true or false according to whether or not they can be derived from one or more elementary and indubitable propositionsis modelled on the idea of rationalism. In the rationalist conception, statements are required to be compatible with and capable of being deduced from first principles which are true by definition. First principles define or explicate the meanings of words we use. But if the statements we want to subject to appraisal are synthetic, not analytic, then how does this model help us? In the case of empirical knowledge, the foundations of our knowledgethe first principles so to speak cannot be analytical, or at least not exclusively analytical. And if first principles are synthetic, they cannot be true by definition. We cannot measure their truth by whether or not they faithfully establish how we use or intend to use words. Or can we? Schlick argued that there was one exception to thisprotocol statements.18 Just as in the case of analytical statements, protocol statements are true by definition. Protocol statements are demonstrative expressions or, in Russells terminology, logically proper names.19 We make protocol statements when we say this, that, here, there, this here, etc. Russell argued that the meaning of such an expression is grasped by acquaintance with what the expression names.20 In other words, a person who puzzles over the meaning of a demonstrative can be brought to understanding by being familiarised with the object or location the expression refers to. Schlick took up this point, stressing that the speakers explication of what this or there, etc., meant could not be communicated by means of a verbal definition alone. Explanation of meaning, in this specific context, necessarily involved pointing or some other deictic gesture. Where it was unclear, the meaning of a demonstrative expression or protocol statement could be grasped by being acquaintedthrough pointing, etc.with the object or spatial location referred to. A speaker, in other words, cannot explain the meaning of a demonstrative expression he or she uses without invoking the presence of the referent. But in doing so, in defining or explicating what he or she meansby indicating the object which has been referred tothe speaker guarantees the truth of what has been said. In the case of a demonstrative or protocol statement, we cannot doubt that the object referred to exists without rendering the statement meaningless. Conversely, if the statement is meaningless, no object is present which corresponds to the demonstrative expression which is to say the statement is untrue. The major difficulty, however, with this theoryas Ayer pointed outis that a purely demonstrative expression does not convey a propositional content in the full sense of the word. Demonstratives are referring expressions; they perform no attributive or predicative functions. That is to say, they neither inform nor describe nor perform any similar roles. A sentence which consists of demonstrative symbols would not express a genuine proposition. It would be a mere ejaculation, in no way characterising that to which it was supposed to refer.21 Yet it is in connection with this function of characterisationattributing and denying predicate expressionsthat appraisals of truth and falsity are made.

Habermas, by contrast with these theories which concentrate on the judgement itself, draws particular attention to the communicative relationship that forms between speakers and hearers when interlocutors put forward truth judgements (or indeed validity judgements of any kind). In judging a particular statement to be true an interlocutor enters into a certain communicative relationship with the author of the statement. This is a relationship of consenting or agreeing, which may be contrasted, say, with the relationship of stating that the author entered into with the interlocutor. By placing the topic of assent at the centre of his theory Habermas displaces the focus of attention toward the illocutionary act involved in the verbalising of validity judgments and away from the content of the judgments which are embedded in these illocutionary acts. Such a consensus theory of truth is not without precedent. Wilhelm Windelband, for instance, in his Introduction to Philosophy suggests that a truth-judgment entails two component elements.22 The first or intellectual element involves the introduction of certain criteria which an utterance must fulfil in order not to be judged fallible. We . . . come to an agreement first . . .

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as to the form which ideas must have in the strict sense for us to receive them as true or reject them as false.23 The second or voluntarist element involves interlocutors in affirming or denying the connection of ideas which we verbally express as propositions.24 Strawson, in an early essay, also anticipates some of the ideas Habermas developed independently.25 In this essay Strawson suggests that an interlocutor in saying that a particular statement is true or false, performs a certain kind of speech act. What the person does is to assent to or dissent from the first-order utterance. The act performed is that of agreeing with or disagreeing with what another speaker has said. In saying your statement is true (A) the character of the interlocutors speech act is not made explicit, in the same way as a person in saying close the door (B) does not specify that the speech act is an order. In neither case is the act pre-fixed by an illocutionary force indicator. If a speaker was required to make explicit the force of the illocutionary act in (A), however, the most typical indicator the interlocutor would use would be I agree (your statement is true). Strawson specifically rejects those interpretations which construe that the speaker, in saying (A), is either making a statement or is engaging in the act of repeating what has been said previously. When we say that a statement is true, we are not making a statement about the statement nor are we repeating the statement that has been made. Speakers can, of course, make statements about statements. In doing so they predicate something of a statement that was made by some person. Speakers can also repeat statements. This is done when a speaker says The policeman stated that the accuseds fingerprints were present at the scene of the crime. But if we were to say the The policeman statement is true, we are neither describing the statement nor are we repeating it, rather we are agreeing with (confirming or underwriting) what has been said.26 The role of our utterance is not to repeat or give information about the first-order utterance, but to communicate assent concerning the prepositional contents of the statement. The illocutionary act thereby performed is not one of stating or repeating, but one of accepting or corroborating. (We can substitute I agree with the policemans statement or I confirm the policemans statement for the policemans statement is true.) In Habermas version of the consensus theory, the underwriting is not of the utterance as such, but of validity claims which are raised in connection with the speakers utterance. The exemplar of such claims is the claim to truth. The truth claim indicates the conviction of the speaker that the propositional content of their utterance could, if necessary, be defended with reasons or grounds against criticism.27 The hearer, in this circumstance, can either accept or reject the claim (or abstain)but if the hearer takes up a position in relation to the claim (i.e., if he or she agrees or disagrees) then that person must do so in the light of reasons or grounds.28 The truth claim (most often thematised in connection with assertoric utterances) is the claim that the utterance, in representing states of affairs, is well-grounded and as such qualifies for the assent of others. But the truth claim, Habermas argues, is not the only validity claim which is raised in connection with speakers utterances. Of particular interest is his suggestion that the claim of normative validity is also made. This claim, like the claim of truth, indicates the conviction of the speaker that the

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utterance (in some morally or practically significant respect) is well-grounded. If the claim is rejected, interlocutors have recourse to arguments or practical discourse to support their claim and establish or restore agreement or mutual understanding between communication partners.29 A normatively valid utterance is one which is, or could be, argumentatively substantiated. It is an utterance for which we can provide good reasons or groundsin circumstances where a communication partner doubts the speakers claim of normative validity. An argument connects reasons or grounds with a problematic validity claim in a systematic way. The role of the validity claim is, in effect, to indicate that the utterance could, if necessary, be groundedthat a skeptical interlocutor could be rationally motivated to recognise or accept the claim. This will not always be fulfilled in practice. For if a validity claim is brought into question, arguments can provide grounds not only for redeeming claims, but also for the rejection (and ultimately the dropping) of such claims. But even in the latter case, recourse to arguments hold out the promise of the formation of rational consensus or agreement between communication partners. In the case of practical discourses, however, there is considerable uncertainty about what Habermas means when he refers to the speakers normative validity claim. Even if we assume with Habermas that the rightness claim is the claim that a speakers utterance is a rational expression, is well-grounded, etc., the question remains: rational in what respect? An utterance can be justified only against a background of (normally implicit) standards or expectations. Justificatory discourses seek to show, at least by implication, that a contested utterance fulfils these expectations. The claim to rationality or validity entails not only the claim1 that the utterance is well-grounded but further that the claim2 that it is well-grounded in a particular respect. Habermas explains and then often only allusivelynormative validity claims2 differently in various places: (i) In the first formulation, the speakers claim2 is construed as the claim that the speakers action (qua agent, not just as speaker) can be justified with reference to an already existing normative background.30 The relevance of this, however, to the evaluation of utterances is highly suspect. This formulation seems partly the product of a Dilthey-style conflation of action and expression (the treatment of action as a form of expression which is meaningful, etc.). An existing normative background may tell us what counts as an acceptable action on the part of an agent. In saying I had to do itit was my duty to fine you, the speaker justifies an action by reference to an existing normative background. But this does not constitute the justification of an utterance. The reference in this case to a normative background does not allude to any yardstick or criterion of what counts as an acceptable moral utterance, so that we can, in turn, rationally demonstrate that the utterance we make fulfills this yardstick or criterion. This problem might have been avoided if Habermas had talked not in terms of the reasoned justification of actions, but of the justification of good statements which assess actions in terms of their norm-conformity. The validity of good-statements can be doubted or contested. In encountering a judgement, for example, that a person is avaricious we can question whether the action judged in fact failed to conform

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to the relevant norm. Good-statements involve a claim to truth. In saying that a person is avaricious, the utterer, in the course of judging, represents a certain state of affairs to be the caseviz. that the person whose actions are judged does stand in a relation of non-conformity with the norms of acquiring wealth or property. But even if the utterers claim can be redeemed or rejected through arguments, the arguments are connected with a truth claim, not a normative validity claim. Moreover, even if arguments have a role to play in deciding validity claims where interlocutors conflict in their assessments of actionsbecause they differ over whether the actions are norm-conformative or not; or to what degree they are norm-conformativethis still does not have any relevance for those situations in which the moral conflicts involve rival normsnot rival assessments based on different beliefs about normconformity. (ii) In the essay on universal pragmatics, Habermas suggests that the (rationally justifiable) claim2 is that the utterers speech act is right. In this version interlocutors can affirm or underwrite the validity claim made in respect of the illocutionary component of the speakers utterance. These claims concern the relationship of the speech act to a mutually recognised normative background. All utterances, in so far as they involve illocutionary acts, stand in relation to norms of communicative behaviour. These norms may be satisfied or violated by particular speech acts. In claiming an utterance is right (or normatively valid) the speaker claims the performance of the utterance satisfies certain (relevant) background norms.31 This claim may be affirmed or denied by interlocutors. So that if person A orders person B Get out of your car! person B may question the validity of the utterance. What right have you to order me about? The speaker then has the opportunity to refer back to a presupposed normative backgroundto demonstrate that the illocutionary act that was performed (the command) was norm-conformative. (I am a game warden and the Fisheries and Wildlife Act gives me the right to order you to vacate your car so it can be searched.) If A cannot refer to a relevant background norm then that person cannot uphold the validity claim. (iii) But what about the cases where there is no mutually recognised background normwhere one person refers to an underlying norm which the other person does not recognise as valid? Or where the matter in contention is not even about the regulation of speech action, but simply a matter of speakers (in the assessment of any type of action) appealing to fundamentally conflicting moral premisesto norms which stand in radical opposition. In such cases Habermas suggests the speakers claim that the underlying norm they appeal to is right.32 But this claim is emptybecause it does not carry with it any standard or expectation against which the norm could be evaluated. Unlike in the case of the second formulation, this validity claim does not carry with it any criterion of rightness. In the second formulation, the speech act is right because it satisfies the criterion of conforming with a mutually recognised normative background. There is no equivalent of this criterion offered to accompany the presentation of the third formulation. We might, of course, wish to treat Habermas suggestion that norms should give expression to the generalisable interests of those affected as a criterion of validity.33 But this is fraught with

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difficulty. Harbermas in a number of places alludes to the idea that only such norms as embody interests common to all those affected deserve the recognition or assent of agents. Habermas, however, also explicates the idea of generalisable interests as interests that can be communicatively sharedi.e., interests which all can agree toon the condition that, where there is initial disagreement, the assent of parties is not coerced or pressured, but obtained through arguments in which all have equal rights and equal chance to participate.34 Habermas, moreover, dismisses certain grounds as inadmissable in the justification of norms in a modern context: viz. mythological, religious, cosmological and metaphysical grounds. In place of material principles like Nature and God, that function as ultimate grounds of justification, he suggests that today it is rather the procedures and presuppositions of argumentation that can function plausibly as the fundamental principles of justification. But this retreat from material grounds and good reasons internal to arguments means that the putative criterion of validityexpressing generalisable interests becomes tied to the outcome of argumentative deliberation. This necessarily renders it unworkable as a criterion of validitysimply because criteria have a role within arguments. Specifically in moral-practical arguments, they provide grounds for choosing in the face of norm conflicts. Interlocutors most be able to say in the course of argument: This norm deserves recognition because it has these qualities . . . while that norm does not deserve recognition because it does not have such qualities. Speakers ground their utterance by giving reasons to show their utterance fulfills certain standards of rationality. Interlocutors cannot wait for the outcome of arguments before appealing to a criterion of choice. But if we are to interpret generalisable interests in the sense of communicatively shared interests, this is what interlocutors would be condemned to. At most they could say that a norm is right retrospectivelybecause it was agreed to under certain conditions (viz. conditions guaranteeing the freedom and equality of the discourse participants). But the interlocutors would have no grounds for judging between conflicting norms as participants in a discourse. Truth and Meaning Arguments, Habermas proposes, make it possible for communication partners, in cases where a background consensus has been disturbed, to restore that consensusthat is, to come to a mutual understanding. This term mutual understanding is used very frequently by Habermas. He treats the idea of consensus as equivalent to understanding between subjects. To reach agreement and to understand are synonymous concepts for Habermas. Correspondingly he equates the sharing of trust, cognition and will between subjects with the sharing of meaning. Where there is mutuality of trust, the sharing of knowledge and the accord of wills between communication partners, there is common understanding. This might be a completely innocuous notionafter all this conforms with the way we use the expression common understanding in everyday languageexcept that Habermas takes the metaphor of common understanding too literally. He comes too close at times to

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abolishing the difference between understanding qua understanding a speakers meaning and understanding qua agreeing with what a speaker says. Agreement in belief, etc., is regarded by Habermas literally as one person sharing the meaning of anothers words. Habermas calls the utterance meaning which is shared in these cases pragmaticas distinct from the linguistic meaning which is shared between subjects when a speaker produces a grammatical sentence in a natural language which is also known to a communication partner. (In the case of common linguistic understanding, satisfying the claim to comprehensibility is only possible where speakers have mastered the grammatical rules of the natural language. Chomsky called this mastery of rules linguistic competence. By analogy, Habermas argues that common pragmatic understanding is only possible where speakers have a communicative competence, that is, mastery of rules for placing well-formed sentences in relation to the objective, subjective and social worlds.)35 I will argue that much is open to criticism in Habermas move in identifying the notions of consensus and common understanding. In particular, Habermas overstretching of the metaphor of common understanding occludes real questions of pragmatic meaning. The discussion of pragmatic meaning cannot get started while the inquiry into the problem of truth masquerades in its place. But, in order to pursue this line of argument, it is necessary to first make more explicit some of the background issues involved in the distinction between linguistic and pragmatic meaning that Habermas introduces into his theory of truth. The term pragmatics has become increasingly used in the wake of developments in the theory of meaning (particularly stimulated by Wittgenstein) which have turned away from the purely linguistic considerations of grammarians to explore problems of meaning that arise when grammatically sound expressions are used in particular speech situations. Habermas defines pragmatic meaning in terms of the meaning that accrues to sentences, through their use 36 We can certainly distinguish the phenomenon of meaning that comes about through the employment of a sentence in an utterance from mere sentence meaning. We can speak in a pragmatic sense of the meaning of an utterance, as we do in a linguistic sense of the meaning of a sentence. Habermas singles out Austins concept of illocutionary force as being illuminating in this respectalthough he has some reservations about it. Austin, he suggests, reserved the concept of meaning for the meaning of sentences with prepositional content, while he used force only for the illocutionary act of uttering sentences with prepositional content.37 But, argues Habermas, such a distinction is unsatisfactory. If one introduces meaning only in a linguistic sense, as sentence meaning . . . the restriction to propositional contents of speech acts is not plausible, obviously their illocutionary components also have meaning in a linguistic sense.38 Correspondingly, a sentence with propositional content accrues meaning (in addition to its linguistic meaning) through its use by speakers in utterances. What Habermas is claiming is that Austin uses the term force to connote the meaning content that accrues to a sentence through its being usedbut that Austin is one-sided inasmuch as he restricts consideration of the pragmatic aspect of meaning to the illocutionary component and the linguistic aspect of meaning to the propositional

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component. However, Habermas construing of Austins text is not really accurate. Austin not only distinguishes the meaning of the propositional component (A) from the meaning or force of the illocutionary component (B), but also distinguishes both (A) and (B) from linguistic meaning. I will go on to show this in greater detail later. But before this, a word of caution: what is at stake here is not simply a matter of the splitting of hairs about the interpretation of Austins texts. Rather I am suggesting that if we return to look afresh at Austins analysis, and develop a number of suggestions introduced by Austin, this may throw a revealing light not only on Habermas theory of pragmatics but even more crucially on his theories regarding the structure of speech and the problem of truth. Saying something, Austin observed, is a complex business and the speaker in making a (sensible) utterance must co-ordinate a number of different elementsthe phonetic, the phatic, the rhetic and the illocutionary.39 The phonetic and the phatic acts carry linguistic meanings, while the rhetic and illocutionary acts are pragmatically significant. An utterance is in the first place, Austin suggested, a string of certain noises.40 This is the phonetic element in speaking. But just any sequence of sounds will not necessarily be understood by those who hear them.41 A necessary (though not sufficient) condition of a speakers utterance being understood is that it conforms to a certain vocabulary and grammar shared by speaker and listener.42 Austin terms the act of uttering which conforms in this way the phatic act. Lexicon and syntax impose a structure on the uttering of sounds. The lexicon designates certain phonetic units as words. As long as speakers are constrained only to use the repertory of words, the effect of the lexicon will be to limit the speech sounds that can be used in the act of uttering. Moreover, the lexicon is arranged as a systemand by virtue of its systemic character, it limits the possible meanings which may be attached to any given lexical entity.* Syntax, on the
* It was Saussures insight to conceive of the lexicon as a system. Signs by themselves, he argued, are arbitrary, particularly in the way in which meanings are attached to signifiers. Taken by itself, there is no reason why the meaning (concept or signified) attached to the signifier fortune, for example, could not be anything a language user liked it to be. (The signifier fortune could mean red connoting a colour term rather than a category of explanation.) What reduces this arbitrariness (idiosyncracy) is the belongingness of the sign to a system. The sign, as Saussure argued, is not an autonomous entity, but must be regarded as part of a systemand more particularly as part of an associative (paradigmatic) classa class whose members share certain characteristics (e.g., all are categories of explanation), yet are each different from the other. What makes a word linguistically meaningful is that it has systemic relations with other lexical entities. These relations are, Saussure argued, relations of opposition within a paradigmatic class. To know the meaning of fortune we must (within the class of explanatory categories) be able to distinguish between fortune and necessity, fortune and determinancy, fortune and certainty or between fortune and intention, fortune and calculation, fortune and deliberation. Each sign has linguistic meaning only by virtue of its difference from other signs belonging to a common class. Saussures account, however, ignores the fact that it is not only relations of opposition but also synonymic relations within paradigmatic classes that constrain the arbitrariness of the sign. Fortune, for example, has systemic-synonymic relations with lexemes such as accident, chance. Also missing from Saussures account is a recognition that a sign may belong to more than one paradigmatic class. Thus fortune may belong to the class of explanatory categories, but also to the class of terms to do with the magnitude of wealth or other extrinsic goods. In terms of this second class, fortune can be opposed to poverty, deprivation, but it also has synonymic relations with wealth, riches, prosperity. The fact that the same lexical unit can belong to more than one paradigmatic class, of course, is a rich source of ambiguity (double meanings).

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other hand, organises sequences of words into sentences. It limits the ways in which words can be combined together. The selectivity and systemic character of the lexicon and the regulation of syntax hold in check the arbitrariness of phonetic acts. The very limits they impose on the phonetic act means that elementary units of speech and the ways of combining those units become resources and rules which a community of speakers may have access to. And it is the public availability of these resources and ruleswhat de Saussure called the social side of speech (or language)43which in turn makes possible that what is spoken has not merely a private significance, which only the speaker can understand, but that there can be an identity of meaning for speaker and hearer alike. If a speaker says The rain out of come in, that is, produces a non-sentence, or produces a sentence (a phonetic sequence with a recognisable syntactic structure) using an admixture of private signs and lexical entities (Yibble in out of the oene) or simply produces a collection of signs which do not accord with syntactic rules or lexical restrictions (tid oee ged yit poen sutt) or used the word rain but means sunshine (placing systemic opposites or contrastives in a synonymic relation)what results will be meaningless for a communication partner. If there is understanding of what is said, at most it will only be subjective (meaningful for the speaker only), but not intersubjective (meaningful for speaker and hearer alike). Without the shared, public facility of language, the arbitrariness of individual efforts to communicate would make impossible common understanding between speakers and hearers. We can call the lack of comprehension which arises when speakers employ non-words or non-sentences (such as in the preceding examples) linguistic in character because it arises from the failure of the speaker to have mastered the rules and resources of a natural language and to have used them or followed them correctly. The absence of understanding between speakers and listeners in these sorts of cases is not tied to any specific occasion in which such aberrant signs or strings might be used. Irrespective of occasion, such utterances cannot be understood by others because the speaker has emitted a phonetic sequence outside the constraints of a language. But, even presuming a speaker puts forward an utterance which is lexically and syntactically sound, problems of meaning may affect what is said. In this case, however, what we utter will not be complete nonsense (that is, it will not be meaningless). The sentence uttered will have a linguistic sense. Rather, it can be the case that the meaning of what is said, or more particularly of what a speaker intended to say, will be impaired or faulty. The issues of meaning which arise in this connection are pragmatic ones. Austin is fairly careful to distinguish between questions of linguistic and pragmatic meaning. He is aware, in particular, that there are major semantic issues which cannot be explained in purely linguistic terms. Restricting himself just to a consideration of the referring components of sentences (naming words) used by speakers, Austin points out that, on the level of the rhetic act, the understanding between communication partners may become ruptured because the naming words used may be ambiguous or obscure.44 This is not a function of the speakers inadequate grasp of lexical resources or syntactical rules. Rather the problem of ambiguity is tied to the use of lexemes (or

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syntactical combinations) in concrete situations. We can illustrate how meaning-impairment can arise because of vagueness or obscurity on the part of the utterer with the following simple example: a person is threatened with eviction from a house and is seeking help. An acquaintance says: I advise you to go to the minister. Now the utterer in this case does not specify what sort of minister he or she is talking about (a minister of religion or a minister of state) and if this has not been established in the course of or from the context of the communication, then the utterer will have committed the fault of vagueness; the speakers meaning will be unclear or ambiguous. It will invite a response seeking clarification of the meaning of the word minister. The speakers utterance is not incomplete in the linguistic senseI advise you to go to the minister is not syntactically ill-formed and the words which make up the string do not belong to a private vocabulary. Rather the difficulty in meaning presented by the utterance is a consequence of the speakers lack of precision about the particular connotations of a word which has diverse connotations. Of course, a formal or linguistic semantics can describe rules that speakers intuitively employ for distinguishing ambiguous from non-ambiguous sentences (the sentence if conjoined with its own denial is not necessarily a contradiction). But once the hearer has recognised ambiguity, dissolution of ambiguity must proceed at a pragmatic level. The word minister can be used to convey different meanings. To isolate the correct meaning simply means to isolate the manner in which the speaker has used the lexeme on this specific occasion. Did the speaker use it in this instance intending to convey a secular or non-secular connotation? Ambiguity arises in such cases as this because of the polysemic character of words. Polysemy provides a counterpoint to the constraints of the lexicon. As weve seen, lexical structures are necessarily restrictive in character. They select from all the possible sounds a speaker could use in effecting communication a finite class of entities (lexemes). A speaker cannot use just any sounds s/he pleases in communicatingto do so would be to make an acoustic, not symbolic, contact with others. But in contrast to the constraints imposed by the lexicon a liberalising factor is presentwhile the words made available by a natural language for employment in speaking are relatively small in number (especially in comparison with the enormous variety of sounds and sound combinations that the human vocal organs are capable of generating) they are also polysemic in characterthat is, they are capable of carrying more than one meaning.45 Where there is not a one-to-one relationship between word and sense, the potential is there for a speaker to produce an utterance which is ambiguous or equivocal.46 An auditor may impute a sense not intended by the speaker or may identify more than one sense which may be attributed to the utterance. Whereas when a speaker produces a non-sentence, it will result in non-understanding on the part of auditorsexcept in the cases where the sentence is ill-formed but still acceptable for the hearer, that is, where the hearer guesses its linguistic structure such as in the example Car watch out!in the case of ambiguous speech there is either a surfeit of understanding or misunderstanding. In the case of misunderstanding, the hearer is in a position to assign a meaning to what has been said, but the meaning the auditor imputes is different from the meaning the speaker intended to convey.

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Where misunderstanding occurs, the non-identity of meaning between speaker and hearer will persist unless difficulties in making sense of subsequent utterances which presuppose the misunderstood utterance force a recognition on the part of the conversants of the non-identity. In the case where there is a surfeit of understanding, a communication partner recognises the ambiguity of what has been said, viz. that it can be taken in more than one sense. Where communication partners are co-present (where a continued communicative exchange between them is possible), then the auditor, who has recognised (but cannot decide between) plural meanings, can ask the speaker to explain what is meant. (Of course, when the speaker is not available to give an explanation then the communication partner must assume the burden of interpretation.) There are various ways in which a speaker can explain what he or she means (by giving a definition, illustrating with a visual equivalent, by making a gesture, etc.), but explanation normally entails the showing of the relation of the equivocal word (the source of ambiguity) to other words or other signs.47 And, in such cases, the interpretants of words, whether words themselves or bodily gestures or icons, can in turn have their meaning explained by other linguistic (or visual or bodily) expressions.48 The totality of these expressions form, if you like, the points of intersection of a semiotic network. For the explication of meaning, what is important is not the points themselves, but how they stand in relation to each other. Austin, it must be stressed, does not pursue the question of ambiguity or polysemantics in any depth at all. Moreover his treatment of the question is also limited in its scope. For example, there is no indication from Austin that polysemic ambiguity is not the only form, of ambiguity that may be present on a speech occasion. (He ignores, in particular, syntactical ambiguity.)49 But what matters most is that Austin, at least in raising the issue of the ambiguity of words touches upon a theme which goes to the very heart of any pragmatically orientated semantics. What is more confusing, however, is that Austin does not only treat pragmatic meaning in polysemic (polysemantic) terms. He also explicates pragmatic meaning impairment in terms of the failure of reference of naming words. Meaning impairment in this version is understood to occur where a referring expression or naming word makes a singular identification of an object which does not exist.50 In doing so, the expression fails to conform to certain conditions of validity which a speakers utterance must fulfil before we are warranted in accepting the utterance as true. In arguing that it is both the sense and the reference of the rhetic act which are equivalent to its meaning. Austin assimilates a theory of meaning descended both from Frege and the Logical Positivists.51 The key postulate of this semantic theory is that the utterance of a speaker can be understood if, and only if, the hearer knows how to verify the utterance. Utterances for which we do not know the truthconditions lack sense. Truth thus assumes a central role in the account we give of the meaning of expressions. In particular, to understand a constative utterance we have to know what conditions must be fulfilled for what is said to be true.52 This approach to the theory of meaning is, as we shall see, also taken up and elaborated by Habermas. I would argue, however, that this truthconditional theory of meaning is mistaken and misleadingthat it confuses the

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quite separate issues of understanding and validity and that it ultimately obscures the problem of meaning.
NOTES
1 Jrgen Habermas, What Is Universal Pragmatics? Communication and the Evolution of Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979), pp. 36, 41-44; Thoughts on the Foundation of Sociology in the Philosophy of Language, The Gauss Lectures, presented February-March 1971, Princeton University, Lectures 3 and 4. Habermas repeats this formulation in The Theory of Communicative Action (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), although it assumes a much diminished prominence. See pp. 306-307 in particular. J.L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), Lecture VI. Jrgen Habermas, What is Universal Pragmatics? op. cit., p. 41. Ibid., pp. 36, 52. Ibid., pp. 42-43. Jrgen Habermas, Thoughts on the Foundation of Sociology in the Philosophy of Language, op. cit.., Lecture 4, and Toward a Theory of Communicative Competence, Inquiry, no. 13, p. 367. Jrgen Habermas, What Is Universal Pragmatics? op. cit., p. 54. Ibid. Jrgen Habermas, Introduction, Theory and Practice (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973), p. 18; Thoughts on the Foundation of Sociology in the Philosophy of Language, op. cit., Lecture 3; What Is Universal Pragmatics? op. cit., p. 2; The Theory of Communicative Action, op. cit., pp. 15-22, 38-42, 99. Jrgen Habermas, A Reply to my Critics, in John Thompson and David Held, eds., Habermas: Critical Debates (London: Macmillan, 1982), pp. 270-271; The Theory of Communicative Action, op. cit., pp. 74-101. G.E. Moore, Some Main Problems of Philosophy (London: Allen and Unwin, 1953), chapter XIV. Aristotle, Metaphysica, in J.A. Smith and W.D. Ross, eds., The Works of Aristotle, vol. 8 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908), 1011626. P.F. Strawson, On Referring, Mind 59 (1950); Truth in G. Pitcher, ed., Truth (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1964). Alfred Schtz, Some Structures of the Life-World, in Thomas Luckmann, ed., Phenomenology and Sociology (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978), p. 266. H. Rickert, Science and History (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1962), p. 32. Ibid. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980), pp. 261-268. Moritz Schlick, The Foundation of Knowledge, in A.J. Ayer, ed., Logical Positivism, (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1959). Russells Logical Atomism, ed. David Pear (London: Collins, 1972), p. 65. Ibid., p. 57. A.J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971) p. 121. See also Ayer, The Problem of Knowledge (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1956), p. 53. Wilhelm Windelband, Introduction to Philosophy (London: Unwin, 1921), pp. 170-172. Ibid., p. 170. Ibid., pp. 170-171. P.F. Strawson, Truth, Analysis 9:6 (1949). Ibid., p. 92.

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Jrgen Habermas, Theories of Truth., English translation, unpublished, of Wahrheitstheorien, in H. Fahrenbach, ed., Wirklichkeit und Reflexion. Festschnft fr W. Schulz (Pfllingen, 1973); The Theory of Communicative Action, op. cit., pp. 9, 11, 17, 38. Jrgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, op. cit., p. 38. The validity claim of comprehensibility may also, if necessary, be argumentatively groundedin explicative discourses. Sincerity, on the other hand, cannot be grounded, only shown. If we doubt the sincerity of what somebody saysif we think that person is feigning the expression of some belief, attitude or desirethat persons professions of sincerity, honesty, etc., serve as a stronger restatement of their claim to authenticity, but do not serve to redeem the claim. It is only by acting consistently in line with the utterance that the aura of inauthenticity can be dispelled. Ibid., p. 41. Ibid., pp. 15-21, 19, 39. Habermas introduces the first and third formulations side-by-side on pp. 88-89. Jrgen Habermas, What Is Universal Pragmatics? op. cit., pp. 3, 28, 29, 35, 37-39. Jrgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1975), pp. 105, 107; A Reply to my Critics, op. cit., pp. 246-257; The Theory of Communicative Action, op. cit., pp. 88-89. Jrgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, op. cit., pp. 20, 89. Jrgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis, op. cit., p. 108. For Habermas insistence that it is only such procedural requirements (or presuppositions) of argumentsand not mythical, metaphysical, etc., groundswhich can serve as ultimate grounds of justification in modern societies, see Legitimation Problems In The Modern State, Communications and the Evolution of Society, op. cit., pp. 184-185. See also The Theory of Communicative Action, op. cit., p. 68. Jrgen Habermas, What Is Universal Pragmatics? op. cit., pp. 27-29. Ibid., p. 45. Ibid., p. 44. Ibid. J.L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words, op. cit., Lectures VII-IX. Ibid., p. 92. Bernard Harrison discusses this question in his An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language (London: Macmillan, 1979), chapter 1. J.L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words, op. cit., pp. 93, 98. F. de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), p. 14. J.L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words, op. cit., pp. 96-98. J. Lyons, Language, Meaning and Context (London: Collins, 1981), pp. 43-47; Paul Ricoeur, Creativity in Language, The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur (Boston: Beacon Press, 1978), pp. 124-127; Stephen Ullman, The Principles of Semantics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1957), pp. 92-96, 106-138, 174-177; Stephen Ullman, Semantics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962), chapter 7. Despite the polysemic character of lexemes, normally the utterances that a speaker makes will not be encountered as ambiguous nor misunderstood by hearers. One reason for this is that each utterance of a speaker is typically part of a larger whole which hearers can refer to in order to make clear the significance of the part. The hearer constantly moves (albeit below the level of consciousness) from the part to the whole of the communication, selecting the meaning of the part that fits or tallies with the verbal context in which it is embedded. To return to our example: if the person who has been evicted from the house has expressed an interest in charity, this pre-text could exclude the lexeme minister being used with secular connotations. If the same person, however, had expressed an interest in welfare (or of having the law of landlord and tenant changed), this pre-text could exclude minister being used with clerical connotations. An auditor may also use background information in interpreting a speakers utterance. A speaker, for example, might say: Jean got the papers from her

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bureau. The lexeme bureau is polysemic. The utterance could mean that the subject Jean retrieved the papers in question from a writing desk with drawers or from some departmental or official work-place. In imputing a meaning, an auditor may rely on what he or she knows about persons or circumstances mentioned in the utterance. If an auditor is aware that the subject Jean does not use or own a writing desk with drawers, but does work in a government office, the auditor may use this background information to decode the utterance. Drawing on a stock of knowledge about Jeans circumstances, the auditor is directed toward a particular interpretation option. In performing this sort of operation, if we reflect on it at all we infer from the stock of information available to us (relevant to the utterance) that the lexeme could not be used otherwise. But more than likely we do not even consider other options. We simply make a connection between our knowledge and an understandingwe pass directly from one to the other. The difficulty with this process, however, is that our background information may be wrongin that case we can make quite an erroneous imputation of the meaning. On the other hand, our background knowledge about matters mentioned in the utterance may be in order, but our interlocutor may be misinformed. To pursue our example further: our hypothetical speaker may believe that Jean got the papers from a writing desk. In other words, the speaker may intend using bureau to connote a desk, not an officewhile, because our knowledge of the subject Jean is better, we come to misunderstand the speaker. We (wrongly) select-out (or do not even consider) the writing desk option, because we know the subject Jean does not possess such an item. We read into the speakers utterance a meaning which conforms with our fore-knowledge, but which does not correspond with the meaning intended by the speaker. Spinoza in particular warned of the risks of interpreting what is said in the light of our fore-knowledgewe end up giving a charitable interpretation which fits our knowledge, but distorts the intended meaning of the utterer. (A Theologico-Political Treatise, New York, Dover, 1951, Chapter VII.) It is not, however, only the verbal context or background information which guides the auditors imputation of meaning where language exhibits a polysemic character. Even more basic than either of these is the semantic grammar of a speech community. For while lexemes available to speakers may carry more than one meaning, the range of alternative meanings is limited by the conventions which make up this semantic grammar. That is to say, the liberalisation of lexical constraint introduced by the polysemic character of the lexemes of a language should not be mistaken for anomie. For although a speaker may use the same lexeme to convey different meanings, the diversity of connotations which may attach to any word, the layers of meaning which may have accrued about a particular lexeme, is not unlimited in scope. The possible alternatives which an auditor has to choose between is correspondingly restricted. We might say with Wittgenstein that in employing poiysemic lexemes a speaker has to obey rules. These rules establish certain limits on the different ways in which the words can be used which if violated mean that speakers cross over into the domain of nonsense. The rules which govern the employment of polysemic words permit them to be used in certain ways, but not in others. Usage is pluralistic, but not indiscriminately plural. Liberalisation does not give way to unfettered licence. It is permissible to do this and this and this with the word, but not this and this and this. What the rule prohibits is explicit enough but by their very character (as being permissives) these rules necessarily embody a certain vagueness. (Indeed perhaps we can only say they function as rules only in so far as they prohibit.) Under the rules, this and this and this is a permissible useage (i.e., it is not prohibited by law) but beyond this the rule is not specific. When a speaker uses the word, has this person intended to use it in this way or this way or this way? When Wittgenstein asked his imaginary interlocutor what he understood by (the proper name) N, he got back a definition, but then the interlocutor was prepared to withdraw and alter it, to give him an alternative definition (Philosophical Investigations, Oxford, Blackwell,

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1967, Paragraphs 79 and 82). So, asked Wittgenstein, how am I to determine the rule by which he is proceeding? Is it perhaps that the imaginary interlocutor does not know the rule himself? Wittgenstein, however, pushes this latter course of inquiry asidehe suggests rather that a better question to ask is: what is the character of the rule being followed? The character of the rule is that it lets doubts creep in. A rule stands like a sign-postDoes the sign-post leave no doubt about the way I have to go? Does it show which direction I am to take when I have passed it; whether along the road or the foot-path or cross-country? (Ibid., Paragraph 85). Precisely because the sign-posts of our language games do embody a certain vaguenessbecause, despite what they do prohibit, they still allow us more than one way of moving onwe still face having to choose between alternative possible meanings. Yet, on the other hand, because these sign-posts do provide some definite direction, the choices we have to make are not impossibly difficult. 47 Lyons, in contrast, suggests that the meaning of an expression is always dependent on its relationship to other expressions (John Lyons, Language, Meaning and Context, op. cit., pp. 60-67.) Russell, however, argued that there are words which have meaning in isolation. In An Inquiry Into Meaning and Truth (London: Unwin, 1980), he preferred the view that we normally learn the meaning of a word by a definitioni.e., in terms of words which we already know the meaning of. But if we define wordsexplain their meaningsby means of other words, there must be some words of which we know their meaning without a verbal definition (p. 66). These Russell called object-words. The meaning of an object-word is learnt by hearing it pronounced in the presence of an object (p. 67). As soon as the association between object and word has been established, the word is understood in the absence of the object. Lyons in response argues that if we explain the meaning of a word this waye.g., to a child learning its first wordswe still have to point out the relationship of word and object. We have to use a gestural sign or demonstrative pronoun to draw the others attention to the connection of the word with a particular object. Thus Lyons suggests a condition of learning the meaning of an object-word is that we understand the meaning of the gesture or demonstrative used. And so therefore, he concludes, the meaning of individual words cannot be learnt independently of other words or signs. But this is unfair to Russell. The ostensive gesture or demonstrative pronoun are not the meaning of the object-word. They are not interpretants of the word. They draw attention to an association. It is the object which explains what the word means. 48 Umberto Eco, A Theory of Semiotics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979), pp. 66-72. 49 For a discussion and comparison of both polysemic and syntactic ambiguity, see J.G. Kooij, Ambiguity in Natural Language (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1971). Like the lexicon, syntax functions as one of the fundamental constraints of language, permitting speakers to move from the production of arbitrary sequences of lexemes to a situation where there are (shared intuitive) rules for the combination of lexemes. The corresponding reduction of arbitrariness in the process of verbalising facilitates the making accessible to others of the meaning of the speaker. Each lexeme of a language can be categorised according to one or more syntactic classification (or syntactic marker)for example, noun, verb, adjective, article, etc. Syntactical rules state the combination of these categories which make up a sentence (or grammatical string). The production of a string of lexemes in accord with the syntactical rules of a language guarantees that what is said will not absolutely be without meaning. A speaker who in making an utterance produces a sentence will on some level be comprehended by a communication partner (providing the partner shares the linguistic competence or the tacit stock of syntactic knowledge of the speaker). But such syntactic fidelity does not guarantee against the possible impairment of meaning. Consider the sentence (1) They are visiting firefighters. Such a sentence may be employed in a speech situation with the connotation either: (i) They are in the act of visiting firefighters or that (ii)

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They are flrefighters who are making a visit. The reason why it is possible to assign different interpretations to this sentence is that we can identify more than one syntactical sequence which the speaker could have followed in producing the sentencethat is, underlying the surface structure of the sentence we can identify two deep structures (cf. N. Chomsky, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, Massachusetts, M.I.T. Press, 1965.) The same string of lexemes thus may be produced in accordance with more than one rule of syntax. Where a sentence like this is used by a speaker on a particular occasion, that is, in a pragmatic setting, the speaker will normally intend one not both grammatical possibilities. Correspondingly, on different occasions, a speaker may use the same sentence (that is a sentence with an identical surface structure), but generate it in accordance with different syntactical combinations. On the other hand, an auditor must decide what the grammatical intention of the speaker is. To recognise a string as a sentence (that is, to recognise that it conforms with the rules of grammar) is a linguistic ability. But to successfully choose on particular occasions between different possible syntactical structures underlying a sentence, making a selection which corresponds with the meaning intended by the speaker, is a pragmatic ability. In such circumstances, because what is said is a sentence it will have a linguistic sense, yet the apprehension of its meaning may still be impaired where (given more than one possible underlying syntactic structure) an auditor wrongly identifies the grammatical intention of the speaker, or where an auditor hesitates in choosing or cannot choose between syntactic options, 50 J.L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words, op. cit., pp. 93, 96-98. 51 See, for example, A.J. Ayr, Language, Truth and Logic, Chapter 1; Michael Dummett, Freges Distinction Between Sense and Reference, Truth and Other Enigmas (London: Duckworth, 1978), pp. 116-144. 52 While the Fregean accountwhich probably influenced Austin as a translator of Frege most directlyinsists that (in Dummetts words) truth plays a crucial role in the account we give of the meaning of expressions, it none the less does allow for other ingredients of meaning apart from truth-conditions, such as the force attached to sentences. The mention of other ingredients is not evident, however, in the theory of meaning associated with the logical positivists. Cf. Dummett, Truth and Other Enigmas, pp. 117-118.

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