Abstract
It is commonly held that there are internal links between understanding and assent such that being semantically competent with an expression requires accepting certain sentences as true. The paper discusses a recent challenge to this conception of semantic competence, posed by Timothy Williamson (2007). According to Williamson there are no understanding-assent links of the suggested sort, no internal connection between semantic competence and belief. I suggest that Williamson is quite right to question the claim that being semantically competent with an expression e requires accepting a certain sentence S as true. However, Williamson does not merely wish to reject this version of the understanding-assent view, but the very idea that the connection with belief provides constitutive constraints on linguistic understanding and concept possession. This further move, I argue, is very problematic. Giving a plausible account of semantic competence requires accepting that there are constitutive links between understanding and assent, although these links should be construed holistically rather than atomistically.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Wikforss, Åsa
(2009)
"Are There Understanding-Assent Links?,"
Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication:
Vol. 5.
https://doi.org/10.4148/biyclc.v5i0.289
References
Boghossian, P. 1996. ‘Analyticity Reconsidered’. Noûs 30: 360–391.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2216275
Boghossian, P. 1997. ‘Analyticity’. In R. Hale & C. Wright (eds.) ‘A Companion to the Philosophy of Language’, Oxford: Blackwell.
Boghossian, P. forthcoming. ‘Williamson on the A Priori and the Analytic’. Forthcoming in Philosophy and Phenomenlogical Research.
Burge, T. 1979. ‘Individualism and the Mental’. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 4: 73–121.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4975.1979.tb00374.x
Burge, T. 1986. ‘Intellectual Norms and the Foundations of Mind’. Journal of Philosophy 83: 697–720.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2026694
Burge, T. 1993. ‘Concepts, Definitions, and meaning’. Metaphilosophy 24: 309–325.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9973.1993.tb00198.x
Davidson, D. 1984. ‘On Saying That’. In ‘Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation’, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Devitt, M. 2006. Ignorance of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/0199250960.001.0001
Eklund, M. 2002. ‘Inconsistent Languages’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64: 251–75.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2002.tb00001.x
Glüer, K. 2003. ‘Inconsistent Languages’. Analyticity and Implicit Definition 66: 37–60.
Grice, H. P. & Strawson, P. F. 1956. ‘In Defence of a Dogma’. Philosophical Review 65: 141–58.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2182828
Pagin, P. 1997. ‘Is Compositionality Compatible with Holism’. Mind and Language 12.
Putnam, H. 1975. ‘The Meaning of ‘Meaning”. In K. Gunderson (ed.) ‘Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science’, vol. 2, 215–271. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Å. Wikforss. 2001. ‘Social Externalism and Conceptual Errors’. Philosophical Quarterly 51: 217–31.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0031-8094.2001.00225.x
Å. Wikforss. 2008. ‘Self-Knowledge and Knowledge of Content’. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 38: 399–424.
Williamson, T. 2007. The Philosophy of Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470696675
Wittgenstein, L. 1969. On Certainty. Oxford: Blackwell.
