A MODO DE CIERRE

As we noted in section 3.2, Horwich argues that word meanings are use properties. By use properties he means law-like regularities of use. These law-like regularities are not explicit rules we are aware of, but rather implicit ones, as noted in section 3.2. To call them implicit doesn’t amount to saying that we unconsciously follow them either (as we could be unconsciously following explicit rules): rather “no formulation of the rule is directly

operative.” (Horwich 2010b: 115) So here the following problem arises: since there is no formulation of the rule, it is difficult to see what the facts might be in virtue of which someone would be implicitly following a given rule. We don’t see what would count as a violation of the rule. This problem is not specific to language: there are rules that have nothing to do with word meanings (e.g. the amount of distance to maintain while talking to someone). Even within language – there are various kinds of rules: meaning determining rules of use, those instructing us to conform our meanings with the community, rules of epistemic justification, rules dictating that we try to accept only those sentences that are true. (Horwich 2010b)

Horwich suggests that a person S implicitly follows a rule R if and only if G1. S’s activity is governed by the ideal law R

G2. There is some tendency for S to correct instances of non-conformity (i.e. to react against his initial inclinations)

He notes (Horwich 2010a) that it’s far from obvious that each of us knows, independently of any sophisticated empirical research, which rules we are implicitly following. The most we can be expected to detect through introspection are occasional inclinations and disinclinations to do this or that particular thing. The underlying rule is available to us only via objective methods of inquiry that are equally open to everyone else. Thus the isolation of the explanatorily basic rule of use is a matter of empirical enquiry. So objection F1 and F4 above are taken care of: as he argues that the meaning constituting property is one which explains these acceptance phenomena – the words’ basic rule of use. But it is an empirical discovery, often quite hard to make, which particular rule is the explanatorily basic one for the use of any given word. The second part of objection 1 is directly answered as he claims that ‘meanings=concepts=properties’ (Horwich 1998:4).

The question raised in F2 (what does ‘underived propensity to accept’ mean, or what does Horwich mean when he says that these use-properties are accepted underived) is diluted when we take into account his distinction between explicit and implicit definitions as noted above. So these use-properties do have the nature of a definition, but they are implicit definitions rather than explicit ones. In case of explicit definitions, we can raise the question, how do we come to acquire or accept that particular definition, but in the case of implicit definitions, this question does not arise, as it is a matter of empirical inquiry which sentence (or rule) we accept as the implicit definition. It may be argued that empirical inquiry will then ask how we acquire this sort of behaviour, so that the question seems to arise all over again. In other words, we may ask: how is it that we come to accept an implicit definition? How far can

this question be answered by claiming that it is a matter of empirical inquiry? It may be a matter of empirical inquiry which particular sentence we come to accept as the implicit definition, but saying that still does not explain why we come to accept it at all. As we will note later, saying that we do in fact accept certain sentences underived does not explain why we do so; and it is such behavior that we need to explain in case we want an explanatorily adequate theory. Further, he notes that if rule following is involved in the constitution of meaning, then it is plausibly always a matter of implicit rule following. This avoids the regress that would result if we accept that some terms are a case of explicit rule following: we would not know how to account for which are basic. Regarding objection F3, he argues that “one should not expect to be able to derive a word’s extension directly from its meaning constituting property… Because of the plausibility of the deflationary view of the truth theoretic notions, ‘true’, ‘refers’ and ‘true of’.” (Horwich 2010: 131) Horwich does not deny that a word’s meaning constituting property fixes its extension but argues that it does so only because it first fixes the word’s meaning. In F3, we had raised the point that we need an account of how to sort which word into which kind of meaning property, in order to fix its reference or extension. Here, however, we are pointing out with Horwich, that the way the use property fixes a word’s extension is by first fixing its meaning. Whatever the kind of extension a word has, whether it is a law of logic, a visual property etc., we obtain such information through the word’s meaning. Meaning, thus, comes before reference. It may be argued however, that for Horwich meaning is inherently dependent upon what uses of expressions people accept and what they regard as true. So if we do not have a notion of meaning independently of this, then isn’t truth or extension fixing the meaning? But as Horwich points out, the difference between what people accept as true and truth itself is important to note here. We need to distinguish a disposition (to accept a certain statement) from an occurrence (Fodor and Lepore 2001) or acceptance from truth. To say for instance that we have a disposition to accept the equivalence schema is not to say that the equivalence schema is true. However, simply to stop at the claim that we have a certain disposition is to ignore interesting and perhaps significant questions as to why that is so.

Another objection we mentioned in F4 raised by Collins (2001), regarding examples such as male nurse, can now be analyzed in light of Horwich’s whole theory. If we keep in mind the difference in the way in which we arrive at word meanings and sentence meanings, examples like this would not be a problem. This is because male nurse is a compositional structure, the meaning of which would be determined according to the particular schemata as well as the meaning of the individual words. The problem with male nurse was that it does not

fall within the paradigm associated with either ‘nurse’ or ‘male’, but as we already noted, Horwich distances himself from the prototype theory. Further, in light of how Horwich explains sentence meaning, it is clear that the meaning of the compound would be determined in accordance with the relevant schema, and the meanings of the words (whether use properties, paradigms, referents or whatever else) can then be inserted. There would, in this case, be no problem as ‘male nurse’ need not have a paradigm, and the meaning of the compound would simply be compositionally determined. But the problem for Collins was that here (and in Horwich’s theory in general) what constitutes the meaning of the complex does not express what constitutes the meaning of its parts, and thus we do not get the meaning of the sentence in terms of its parts. For Collins, it is compositionality that needs explanation. In the next sub- section, 5.2, we will consider in greater detail Horwich’s stance on compositionality.