Truth-conditions and conditions of justification in the structure of linguistic meaning
Abstract. The development of philosophy of language in the XX century has resulted in the general acceptance of the point of view according to which a theory of meaning for a given language assigns meanings first of all to sentences in their assertoric use. Therefore, meaning is understood primarily as conditions of truth of the sentence. However, to receive an adequate theory of meaning, it is necessary to explain carefully the concept of recognizing a sentence as true.
For the proponents of the theory of meaning in terms of truth-conditions, establishing a sentence as true and being ready to act in accordance with that sentence, do not determine its meaning as such — as some independent entity, but rather allow to identify the truth-conditions which constitute the meaning of this sentence. Thus, here we deal with different complementary and reinforcing ways of validating a theory of meaning formulated in terms of a sentence’s being true.
If a the theory of meaning takes this into account, it should proceed from the following: the meaning of a sentence is determined by both its truth-conditions and justification-conditions and depends also on the pragmatic consequences of its acceptance as true. Besides, the understanding of meaning means involves the specific set of procedures as its justification and the specific set of its direct consequences.
It is clear that this requirement excludes as philosophically useless all theories of meaning that propose to characterize meanings of sentences of a given natural language by translating these sentences into another, more familiar language (or models involving, in the style of Chomsky, application of the so-called "languages-intermediaries" or languages of sense, which results in the additional step in the translation: "the source language of the original - language of sense - language of translation"). Theories of such kind proceed from an assumption about implicit grasping of a concept of meaning, instead of trying to elucidate this grasping. But in fact, to determine how expressions of natural language have meanings, it is necessary to know how to provide a correct interpretation of such language without any appeal to the concept of meaning, and without attributing to the speakers of that language the prior and further unexplicable grasp of the concepts those words express.
Such interpretation should consist mainly in singling out and characterizing those properties of linguistic expressions which constitute their meaning. And we cannot arbitrarily stipulate such interpretation since it is the theory of meaning for the given natural language — we have to give an account of how it is actually interpreted by its competent users. In other words, it is necessary to explain how expressions of this language may be understood and in what this understanding consists. But how to assess whether such theory of meaning is correct? It would be pointless to ask competent speakers about it — they may have excellent command of this language, but still be unable to estimate this or that theory of meaning as a correct one.
However, such a theory will face its own difficulties. At least three basic problems (or groups of problems) can be mentioned. First two harks back to the well-known criticism of Chomsky’s transformational grammar, made three decades ago by P.F. Strawson (1971); a great attention is given to them by Dummett; the third one is metametodological for the discussed theme.
1. The first problem is connected with the assumption that in giving an account of meaning in terms of justification one should not repeat the old errors, usually ascribed to logical positivists, of taking sentences in isolation and making useless attempts to determine their meanings one by one. Meanings of many sentences are determined by context, i.e. meanings are included into some groups, and their conditions of justification are mutually dependent. This makes circularity in justification quite a serious danger (in a boundary case similar to a hermeneutic circle). In other words, it is probable that one will have to provide an account of the meaning of some sentence A in terms of the meaning of some other sentence B, and then — sooner or later — the meaning of the sentence B in terms of the meaning of the sentence A, or at least in terms of the meaning of a sentence presupposing the meaning of the sentence A.
Ways of decision. Dummett suggests that sentences which meanings are determined in terms of justification, may be ordered in such a manner that the meaning of a given sentence A may be given in terms of only those justification-conditions that presuppose the meanings of sentences of lower complexity than the complexity of the sentence in question. Under that assumption a grasp of a sentence will involve a grasp of some fragment of the language to which the sentence belongs, but an explanation of the language as a whole could be constructed without circularity by starting with sentences of minimal complexity (the observation sentences) and completing the explanation of sentences of any degree of complexity before proceeding to the explanation of those of the next degree (Dummett 1993, p. 139).
A similar strategy of avoiding circularity may be proposed for an account of meaning in terms of the consequences of a sentence’s acceptance: relative to suitable assignments of degrees of complexity, an explanation of the meaning of any sentence can presuppose the meanings only of sentences of lower complexity, and can be given simultaneously only with the meanings of those of the same complexity (Dummett 1993, p. 141). It concerns all acceptable assignments of degrees of complexity.
The most crucial thing for that strategy is the proper and accurate assignment of degrees of complexity for the sentences of the language under consideration. Formal or superficial (syntactic) complexity will not necessarily meet the semantic one, and this is an important reason for insisting that such theory nevertheless does not allow to get rid of the necessity in previous intuitive grasping of meanings.
However, we can think of such modifications of the theory which will answer this argument and will allow to estimate the complexity of sentences without prior grasp of their meanings. They may start with the rejection of the idea that relations of justification assume the linear, asymmetric order of dependence among sentences in question. Instead of it we can assume that the justification is in the long run holistic and non-linear in character. It implies two circumstances.
a. From such point of view, all sentences in the text stand in the relations of mutual support. Thus, the circularity can be avoided, since we consider as an initial unit of justification the text itself and not the sentences which constitute it. Sentences are justified only derivationally, on the basis of their entry in this text.
b. Definition of complexity, as well as justification, may be carried out repeatedly, from different positions, regarding various texts or other linguistic unities, i.e. proceeding from various linguistic experience. The result, from such point of view, should be regarded as subject to permanent re-specification and will represent the intersection of different resulting sets of features. This dynamic model will correspond more fully to the actual situation of functioning of the natural language in the linguistic community.
2. The second problem is similar to the first one, but on other reasons. It arises because if the meaning of a sentence is given in terms of conditions of its justification, then we should distinguish between direct or canonical means of justification which are constitutive to meaning, and indirect or non-canonical ways of justification which assume that the meaning of the sentence in question is already known.
Ways of decision. Dummett argues that the direct justification may be described as such justification “which corresponds step by step with the way in which the sentence is built up out of its constituents, and so with the way in which the truth-value of the sentence is represented by the theory of meaning as being determined in accordance with its composition” (1993, p. 142). The analogous distinction and description holds good for an account of meaning in terms of consequences of its acceptance as true, since only the most direct consequences constitute the meaning of a given sentence. But if one takes that line, the following question becomes pressing: how is it possible to find out which justification and consequences of a sentence are direct without prior understanding of that sentence, however approximate?
It can be argued that we will do better here accepting the causal interpretation of justification, according to which we may consider a sentence justified when we have some explicit or implicit knowledge of reasons on which we accept and hold (or challenge, deny etc.) the belief expressed by this sentence. In view of that, we know the meaning of a sentence when we possess a belief expressed by this sentence by virtue of some relevant reasons to which we have access. Then the directness or indirectness of consequences will depend on the interpretation of causality which we accept, thus the theory of linguistic meaning becomes closer to the philosophy of science. On the other hand, having accepted such position, we cannot claim any more that only direct consequences are constitutive for meaning, since the causal justification is not so necessarily reduced to the establishment of truth, but may be considered as a property which is truth-independent.
3. The third problem consists in the following. So, proponents of the justificationist and pragmatic theory of meaning are tending to claim that the independent concept of truth is not necessary for the theory of meaning. Two concepts actually are required: the concept of the establishment of truth of the sentence and the concept of acting by virtue of the truth of the sentence. Nevertheless it is obvious, that some features of our linguistic practice, especially some forms of inference give sentences which meanings cannot be given neither in terms of their conditions of justification, even direct, nor in terms of their direct consequences. Therefore we must admit that at least in some cases the meanings of our sentences should be explained in terms of relevant conditions of the truth of these sentences.
Ways of decision. We should acknowledge that our understanding of sentences (at least, of the statements about the past) includes not merely the knowledge of our foundations for these statements, but the grasping of the way in which they represent the reality — i.e. of how their acceptance contribute to our picture of the world in which we live and with which we interact. Therefore the concept of truth may be considered as redundant for the theory of meaning only in case when we identify justification with the procedure of the establishment of truth — a position based on the logic tradition, ascending, at least, to Leibniz. However, if we do distinguish, in the spirit of the modern epistemology, the truth and the justification of sentences, it is possible to show that justification-conditions and truth-conditions do not compete in the theory of meaning even when the concepts which they determine may be considered as coextensional.
So, next goals of the theory are:
· the explication of the ratio of truth-conditions and conditions of justification in the structure of meaning;
· elucidating of how the justificationist theory of meaning may correspond to some theory of reference;
· more precise definition (with this regard) of the pragmatic factor of understanding of linguistic expressions.
Maxim Lebedev
Institute of Philosophy
of the Russian Academy of Sciences
lebedev@philosophy.ru
References
Dummett, M. 1993: The Seas of Language, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 117-146.
Strawson, P.F. 1971: “Grammar and Philosophy”, in his: Logico-Linguistic Papers, London: Methuen, p. 130-148.