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IV. IRREALIST CONCEPTIONS OF MEANING 14. The argument against solitary language was supposed to flow from the adjusted understanding of sentence significance forced by the sceptical conclusion. The sceptical conclusion has it that it cannot literally be true of any symbol that it expresses a particular meaning: there is no appropriate fact for a meaning-attributing sentence to report. The sceptical solution’s recommendation is that we blunt the force of this result by refusing to think of sentence significance in terms of possession of truth conditions, or a capacity to state facts. We should think of it, rather, in terms of possession of assertibility conditions. But is this solution forced? Are there not, perhaps, other ways of accommodating the sceptical conclusion? The solution on offer is bound to strike one as an overreaction, at least at first blush, in two possible respects. First, in that it opts for a form of non-factualism, as opposed to an error theory; and second, in that the recommended non-factualism is global, rather than restricted solely to the region of discourse-meaning talk-that is directly affected by the sceptical result it seeks to accommodate. Semantically speaking, the most conservative reaction to the news that nothing has the property of being a witch is not to adopt a non-factualist conception of witch talk, it is to offer an error conception of such talk. An error conception of a given region of discourse conserves the region's semantical appearances-predicates are still understood to express properties, declarative sentences to possess truth conditions; the ontological discovery is taken to exhibit-merely-the systematic falsity of the region's (positive, atomic) sentences.30 Could not the moral of the sceptical argument be understood to consist in an error conception of meaning discourse? It could not, for an error conception of such discourse, in contrast with error conceptions of other regions, is of doubtful coherence. The view in question would consist in the claim that all meaning-attributions are false: (1) For any S, p: 1S’ means that pl is false. But the disquotational properties of the truth predicate guarantee that (1) entails (2) For any S : S has no meaning. (1) implies, that is, that no sentence whatever possesses a meaning. Since, however, a sentence cannot be false unless it is meaningful to begin with, this in turn implies that (1) cannot be true: for what (1) says is that some sentences-namely meaning-attributing sentences-are false.31 So it appears that Kripke was right to avoid an error conception of meaning discourse. But does his non factualist conception fare any better? 15. The canonical formulation of a non-factualist view-and the one that Kripke himself favourshas it that some targeted declarative sentence is not genuinely truth-conditional. A non-factualism about meaning consists, that is, in the view that (3) For any S, p: 1S' means that pl is not truth-conditional. As I noted above, however, the projectivism recommended by the sceptical solution is intended to apply globally: it is not confined solely to meaningattributing sentences. Thus, (4) For any S: S is not truth conditional. Why does Kripke adopt so extreme a view? Why does he not suggest merely that we abandon a truth-conditional model for semantic discourse, while preserving it, as seems natural, for at least some regions of the rest of language? Kripke does not say. But it may be that he glimpsed that the global character of the projectivism is in fact forced in the present case.32 For consider a nonfactualism solely about meaning-the view that, since there is no such property as a word's meaning something, and hence no such fact, no meaning-attributing sentence can be truthconditional. Since the truth condition of any sentence S is (in part, anyway) a function of its meaning, a non-factualism about meaning will enjoin a non-factualism about truth conditions: what truth condition S possesses could hardly be a factual matter if that in virtue of which it has a particular truth condition is not itself a factual matter. And so we have it that (3) entails: (5) For all S, p: 1S’ has the truth condition that pl is not truth-conditional. However, since, courtesy of the disquotational properties of the truth predicate, all instances of the form ” S' has the truth-condition that p" is true if and only if S has the truth condition that p are true, and since (5) has it that no instance of the formS’ has the truth condition that p is true, it follows that (4) For any S : S is not truth-conditional just as predicted. It is, then, a fascinating consequence of a non-factualism about meaning, that it entails a global non-factualism; in this respect, if no other, a non-factualism about meaning distinguishes itself from a similar thesis about any other subject matter. Crispin Wright has suggested that it also renders it irremediably problematic: it is doubtful that it is coherent to suppose that projectivist views could be applied quite globally. For, however exactly the distinction be drawn between fact-stating and non-fact-stating discourse, the projectivist will presumably want it to come by way of a discovery that certain statements fail to qualify for the former class; a statement of the conclusion of the skeptical argument, for instance, is not itself to be projective.33 It is hard not to sympathize with Wright’s suggestion that there must be something unstable about a projectivist thesis that is itself within the scope of the projectivism it recommends. But it is also not entirely clear to me in what the instability consists. To be sure, a global projectivism would have to admit that it is no more than assertible that no sentence possesses a truth condition. But what is wrong with that? If there is an instability here, it is not a transparent one. 16. In fact, however, I do believe that a non-factualism about meaning is unstable, but not because of its global character. Rather, the reasons have to do with the clash between what you have to suppose about truth in order to frame a non-factualist thesis about anything, and what you have to suppose about truth as a result of accepting a non-factualism about meaning. I have developed the argument for this in some detail elsewhere;34 here I have space only to sketch its outlines. Consider a non-factualist thesis about, say, the good: (7) All sentences of the form Ix is good] are not truth-conditional. The point that needs to be kept in focus is that the sentence of which truth conditions are being denied is a significant declarative sentence. For this fact immediately implies that the concept of truth in terms of which the non-factualist thesis is framed cannot be the deflationary concept that A. J. Ayer succinctly described as follows: … to say that p is true is simply a way of asserting p. … The traditional conception of truth as a real quality' or areal relation’ is due, like most philosophical mistakes, to a failure to analyze sentences correctly. … There are sentences in which the word truth' seems to stand for something real ... [but] our analysis has shown that the wordtruth’ does not stand for anything.35 If the concept of truth were, as Ayer claims in this passage, merely the concept of a device for semantic ascent, and not the concept of some genuine property-some real relation'-that a sentence (or thought) may enjoy, then nonfactualism is nowhere a coherent option. For on a deflationary understanding of truth, a sentence will be truth-conditional provided only that it is apt for semantic ascent; and it will be apt for semantic ascent provided only that it is a significant, declarative sentence. But it is constitutive of a non-factualist thesis precisely that it denies, of some targeted, significant, declarative sentence, that it is truth-conditional. It follows, therefore, that a nonfactualism about any subject matter presupposes a conception of truth richer than the deflationary: it is committed to holding that the predicatetrue’ stands for some sort of languageindependent property, eligibility for which will not be certified purely by the fact that a sentence is declarative and significant. Otherwise, there will be no understanding its claim that a significant sentence, declarative in form, fails to possess truth conditions. So we have it that any non-factualist thesis presupposes that truth is, as I shall henceforth put it, robust. But, now, notice that judgements about whether an object possesses a robust property could hardly fail to be factual. If P is some genuinely robust property, then it is hard to see how there could fail to be a fact of the matter about whether an object has P. It does not matter if P is subjective or otherwise dependent upon our responses. So long as it is a genuine, language-independent property, judgements about it will have to be factual, will have to be possessed of robust truth conditions. In particular, if truth is a robust property, then judgements about a sentence’s truth value must themselves be factual. But we saw earlier-see (5) above-that a nonfactualist thesis about meaning implies that judgements about a sentence’s truth cannot be factual: whether a certain sentence is true cannot be a factual matter if its meaning is not. And this exposes the contradiction we have been stalking: a non-factualism about meaning implies both that truth is robust and that it is not. 17. It is hard to do justice to the issues involved within the confines of the present essay.3~’ I do hope, however, that the preceding discussion has succeeded in sowing some doubts about the cogency of irrealist conceptions of meaning-whether in the form of a non-factualism about meaning, as in the sceptical solution, or an error theory, as suggested, for instance, by Churchland. The uncompromising strength of the claim is bound to arouse suspicion. Irrealist conceptions of other domains may not be particularly appealing or plausible, but they are not incoherent. Why should matters stand differently with meaning discourse? The source of the asymmetry is actually not that hard to track down. It consists in the fact that error and non-factualist theories about any subject matter presuppose certain claims about truth and truth-conditions, that an error or nonfactualist conception directed precisely at our talk of meaning itself ends up denying. Not surprisingly the ensuing result is unstable. Thus, an error thesis about any subject matter presupposes that the target sentences are truthconditional. But an error thesis directed precisely at our talk about meaning entails the denial of that presupposition. Thus, also, a nonfactualism about any subject matter presupposes a robust conception of truth. But a non-factualism directed precisely at our talk about meaning entails the denial of that presupposition. If these considerations are correct, then, they would show that the sceptical conclusion cannot be sustained: there appears to be no stable way of accommodating the claim that there are no truths about meaning. Something must be wrong, therefore, with the argument that appeared to lead us to it. What could it be? V. REDUCTIVE ACCOUNTS OF MEANING 18. The sceptical argument has been faulted on a number of grounds, the most important being: That its arguments against dispositional accounts of meaning do not work. That it neglects to consider all the available naturalistic facts. That its conclusion depends on an unargued reductionism. The first two objections issue from a naturalistic perspective: they claim that the sceptical argument fails to establish its thesis, even granted a restriction to naturalistic facts and properties. The final objection concedes the failure of naturalism, but charges that the sceptical argument is powerless against an appropriately anti-reductionist construal of meaning. In this part I shall examine the naturalistic objections, and in the next the anti-reductionist suggestion. I should say at the outset, however, that I see no merit to objections of the second kind and will not discuss them in any detail here. All the suggestions that I have seen to the effect that Kripke ignores various viable reduction bases for meaning facts seem to me to rest on misunderstanding. Colin McGinn, for example, claims that Kripke neglects to consider the possibility that possession of a concept might consist in possession of a certain sort of capacity. Capacities, McGinn explains, are distinct from dispositions and are better suited to meet the normativity constraint.37 This rests on the misunderstanding of normativity outlined above. Warren Goldfarb charges that Kripke neglects to consider causal/informational accounts of the determination of meaning.38 This derives from a failure to see that, in all essential respects, a causal theory of meaning is simply one species of a dispositional theory of meaning, an account that is, of course, extensively discussed by Kripke. It is unfortunate that this connection is obscured in Kripke’s discussion. Because Kripke illustrates the sceptical problem through the use of an arithmetical example, he tends, understandably, to focus on conceptual role versions of a dispositional account of meaning, rather than on causal/informational versions. This has given rise to the impression that his discussion of dispositionalism does not cover causal theories. But the impression is misleading. For the root form of a causal/informational theory may be given by the following basic formula: O means (property) P by predicate S iff (it is a counterfactual supporting generalization that) 0 is disposed to apply S to P. Dispositions and Meaning: Finitude 19. The single most important strand in the sceptical argument consists in the considerations against dispositional theories of meaning. It would be hard to exaggerate the importance of such theories for contemporary philosophy of mind and semantics: as I have just indicated, the most influential contemporary theories of content-determination-informational' theories andconceptual-role’ theories-are both forms of a dispositional account.39 In my discussion I shall tend to concentrate, for the sake of concreteness, on informational theories of the content of mental symbols; but the issues that arise are general and apply to any dispositional theory whatever. The root form of an information-style dispositional theory is this: My mental symbol horse' expresses whatever property I am disposed to apply it to. Kripke's first objection amounts, in effect, to suggesting that there will always be a serious indeterminacy in what my dispositions are, thus rendering dispositional properties an inappropriate reduction base for meaning properties. For, Kripke argues, if it is indeed the property horse that I am disposed to apply the term to, then I should be disposed to apply it to all horses, including horses so far away and so far in the past that it would be nonsense to suppose I could ever get into causal contact with them. Otherwise, what is to say that my disposition is not a disposition to apply the term to the property nearby horse, or some such? But no one can have a disposition to call all horseshorse’, for no one can have a disposition with respect to inaccessible objects. The argument does not convince. Of course, the counterfactual If I were now to go to Alpha Centauri, I would call the horses there horse', is false. If I were now to go to Alpha Centauri, I probably would not be in any position to call anything by any name, for I would probably die before I got there. But that by itself need not pose an insuperable obstacle to ascribing the disposition to me. All dispositional properties are such that their exercise-the holding of the relevant counterfactual truth-is contingent on the absence of interfering conditions, or equivalently, on the presence of ideal conditions. And it certainly seems conceivable that a suitable idealization of my biological properties will render the counterfactual about my behaviour on Alpha Centauri true. Kripke considers such a response and complains: But how can we have any confidence in this? How in the world can I tell what would happen if my brain were stuffed with extra brain matter? ... Surely such speculation should be left to science fiction writers and futurologists. 40 If the point is supposed to be, however, that one can have no reason for accepting a generalization defined over ideal conditions unless one knows exactly which counterfactuals would be true if the ideal conditions obtained, then, as Jerry Fodor has pointed out, it seems completely unacceptable. 41 For example, no one can claim to know all of what would be true if molecules and containers actually satisfied the conditions over which the ideal gas laws are defined; but that does not prevent us from claiming to know that, if there were ideal gases, their volume would vary inversely with the pressure on them. Similarly, no one can claim to know all of what would be true if I were so modified as to survive a trip to Alpha Centauri; but that need not prevent us from claiming to know that, if I were to survive such a trip, I would call the horses there 'horse'. 42 Still, it is one thing to dispel an objection to a thesis, it is another to prove the thesis true. And we are certainly in no position now to show that we do have infinitary dispositions. The trouble is that not every true counterfactual of the form: If conditions were ideal, then, if C, S would do A can be used to attribute to S the disposition to do A in C. For example, one can hardly credit a tortoise with the ability to overtake a hare, by pointing out that if conditions were ideal for the tortoise-if, for example, it were much bigger and faster-then it would overtake it. Obviously, only certain idealizations are permissible; and also obviously, we do not now know which idealizations those are. The set of permissible counterfactuals is constrained by criteria of which we currently lack a systematic account. In the absence of such an account, we cannot be completely confident that ascriptions of infinitary dispositions are acceptable, because we cannot be completely confident that the idealized counterfactuals needed to support such ascriptions are licit. But I think it is fair to say that the burden of proof here lies squarely on Kripke's shoulders: it is up to him to show that the relevant idealizations would be of the impermissible variety. And this he has not done. Dispositions and Meaning: Normativity 20. Few aspects of Kripke's argument have been more widely misunderstood than his discussion of thenormativity’ of meaning and his associated criticism of dispositional theories. This is unsurprising given the difficulty and delicacy of the issues involved. In what sense is meaning a normative notion? Kripke writes: Suppose I do mean addition by +'. What is the relation of this supposition to the question how I will respond to the problem68 + 57′? The dispositionalist gives a descriptive account of this relation: if +' meant addition, then I will answer125′. But this is not the right account of the relation, which is normative, not descriptive. The point is not that, if I meant addition by +', I will answer125′, but that, if I intend to accord with my past meaning of +', I should answer125′. Computational error, finiteness of my capacity, and other disturbing factors may lead me not to be disposed to respond as I should, but if so, I have not acted in accordance with my intentions. The relation of meaning and intention to future action is normative, not descriptive. 43 The fact that I mean something by an expression, Kripke says, implies truths about how I ought to use that expression, truths about how it would be correct for me to use it. This much, of course, is incontestable. The fact that horse' means horse implies thathorse’ is correctly applied to all and only horses: the notion of the extension of an expression just is the notion of what it is correct to apply the expression to. It is also true that to say that a given expression has a given extension is not to make any sort of simple descriptive remark about it. In particular, of course, it is not to say that, as a matter of fact, the expression will be applied only to those things which are in its extension. Kripke seems to think, however, that these observations by themselves ought to be enough to show that no dispositional theory of meaning can work. And here matters are not so straightforward. Let us begin with the very crude dispositional theory mentioned above: horse' means whatever property I am disposed to apply it to. This is a hopeless theory, of course, but the reasons are instructive. There are two of them, and they are closely related. The first difficulty is that the theory is bound to get the extension ofhorse’ wrong. Suppose I mean horse by it. Then, presumably, I have a disposition to call horses horse'. But it will also be true that there are certain circumstancessufficiently dark nights-and certain cows-sufficiently horsey looking ones-such that, I am disposed, under those circumstances, to call those cowshorse’ too. Intuitively, this is a disposition to make a mistake, that is, to apply the expression to something not in its extension. But our crude dispositional theory, given that it identifies the property I mean by an expression with the property I am disposed to apply the expression to, lacks the resources by which to effect the requisite distinction between correct and incorrect dispositions. If what I mean by an expression is identified with whatever I am disposed to apply the expression to, then everything I am disposed to apply the expression to is, ipso facto, in the extension of that expression. But this leads to the unacceptable conclusion that horse' does not express the property horse but rather the disjunctive property horse or cow. There is a related conceptual difficulty. Any theory which, like the crude dispositional theory currently under consideration, simply equates how it would be correct for me to use a certain expression with how I am disposed to use it, would have ruled out, as a matter of definition, the very possibility of error. And as Wittgenstein was fond of remarking, if the idea of correctness is to make sense at all, then it cannot be that whatever seems right to me is (by definition) right. One would have thought these points too crucial to miss; but it is surprising how little they are appreciated. In a recent, comprehensive treatment of conceptual role theories, Ned Block has written of a choice that must be made by [conceptual role semantics] theorists, one that has had no discussion (as far as I know): namely, should conceptual role be understood in ideal or normative terms, or should it be tied to what people actually do? ... I prefer not to comment on this matter ... because I'm not sure what to say ...44 This ought to seem odd. If conceptual role is supposed to determine meaning, then there can be no question, on pain of falling prey to Kripke's objection, of identifying an expression's conceptual role with a subject's actual dispositions with respect to that expression. 21. The objections from normativity show, then, that no dispositional theory that assumes the simple form of identifying the property I mean byhorse’ with the property I am disposed to call horse', can hope to succeed. But what if a dispositional theory did not assume this simple form? What if, instead of identifying what I mean byhorse’ with the entire range of my dispositions in respect of horse', it identified it only with certain select dispositions. Provided the theory specified a principle of selection that picked out only the extensiontracking dispositions; and provided also that it specified that principle in terms that did not presuppose the notion of meaning or extension, would it not then be true that the objections from normativity had been disarmed? Let us try to put matters a little more precisely. If a dispositional theory is to have any prospect of succeeding, it must select from among the dispositions I have forhorse’, those dispositions which are meaning-determining. In other words, it must characterize, in non-intentional and nonsemantic terms, a property M such that: possession of M is necessary and sufficient for being a disposition to apply an expression in accord with its correctness conditions.45 Given such a property, however, could we not then safely equate meaning something by an expression with: the set of dispositions with respect to that expression that possess M? For, since dispositions with that property will be guaranteed to be dispositions to apply the expression correctly, both of the objections from normativity canvassed so far would appear to have been met. There will be no fear that the equation will issue in false verdicts about what the expression means. And, since it is only M-dispositions that are guaranteed to be correct, it will no longer follow that whatever seems right is right: those dispositions not possessing M will not be dispositions to apply the expression to what it means and will be free, therefore, to constitute dispositions to apply the expression falsely. At this point two questions arise. First, is there really such a property M? And, second, supposing there were, is there really no more to capturing the normativity of meaning than specifying such a property? Now, Kripke is clearly sceptical about the existence of an appropriate Mproperty. I will consider that question below. But more than this, Kripke seems to think that even if there were a suitably selected disposition that captured the extension of an expression accurately, that disposition could still not be identified with the fact of meaning, because it still remains true that the concept of a disposition is descriptive whereas the concept of meaning is not. In other words, according to Kripke, even if there were a dispositional predicate that logically covaried with a meaning predicate, the one fact could still not be identified with the other, for they are facts of distinct sorts. A number of writers have been inclined to follow him in this. Simon Blackburn, for instance, has written: I share Kripke’s view that whatever dispositions we succeed in identifying they could at most give us standards for selection of a function which we mean. They couldn’t provide us with an account of what it is to be faithful to a previous rule. It is just that, unlike Kripke, I do not think dispositions are inadequate to the task of providing standards. Indeed, I think they must be.46 Blackburn here is explicitly envisaging the successful, substantive specification of dispositions that mirror the extensions of expressions correctly. But he cites the normative character of facts about meaning as grounds for denying a dispositional reduction. But what precisely has been left over, once the extensions have been specified correctly? One might have a thought like this. A proper reduction of the meaning of an expression would not merely specify its extension correctly, it would also reveal that what it is specifying is an extension-namely, a correctness condition. And this is what a dispositional theory cannot do. There might be dispositions that logically covary with the extensions of expressions; so that one could read off the dispositions in question the expressions’ correctness conditions. But the dispositional fact does not amount to the meaning fact, because it never follows from the mere attribution of any disposition, however selectively specified, that there are facts concerning correct use; whereas this does follow from the attribution of an extension. To be told that horse' means horse implies that a speaker ought to be motivated to apply the expression only to horses; whereas to be told, for instance, that there are certain select circumstances under which a speaker is disposed to apply the expression only to horses, seems to carry no such implication.47 It is not clear that this is in general true. Perhaps the M-dispositions are those dispositions that a person would have when his cognitive mechanisms are in a certain state; and perhaps it can be non-question-beggingly certified that that state corresponds to a state of the proper functioning of those mechanisms. If so, it is conceivable that that would amount to a non-circular specification of how the person would ideally respond, as compared with how he actually responds; and, hence, that it would suffice for capturing the normative force of an ascription of meaning. There is clearly no way to settle the matter in advance of the consideration of particular dispositional proposals. What we are in a position to do, however, is state conditions on an adequate dispositional theory. First, any such theory must specify, without presupposing any semantic or intentional materials, property M. This would ensure the theory's extensional correctness. Second, it must show how possession of an M-disposition could amount to something that deserves to be called a correctness condition, something we would be inherently motivated to satisfy. This would ensure the intensional equivalence of the two properties in question, thus paving the way for an outright reduction of meaning to dispositions. What property might M be? There are, in effect, two sorts of proposal: one, long associated with Wittgenstein himself, seeks to specify M by exploiting the notion of a community; the other, of more recent provenance, attempts to define M in terms of the notion of an optimality condition. I shall begin with the communitarian account. The Communitarian Account 22. The idea that correctness consists in agreement with one's fellows has a distinguished history in the study of Wittgenstein. Even before the current concern with arule-following problem’, many commentators-whether rightly or wrongly-identified communitarianism as a central thesis of the later writings. As a response to the problem about meaning, it found its most sustained treatment in Wright’s Wittgenstein on the Foundations of Mathematics. 411 Which of the many dispositions a speaker may have with respect to a given expression determine its meaning? Or, equivalently, which of the many dispositions a speaker may have with respect to an expression are dispositions to use it correctly? Wright’s communitarian account furnishes the following answer: … it is a community of assent which supplies the essential background against which alone it makes sense to think of individuals’ responses as correct or incorrect…. None of us can unilaterally make sense of correct employment of language save by reference to the authority of communal assent on the matter; and for the community itself there is no authority, so no standard to meet.49 It is important to understand that, according to the proposal on offer, the correct application of a term is determined by the totality of the community’s actual dispositions in respect of that term. The theory does not attempt, in specifying the communal dispositions that are to serve as the constitutive arbiters of correctness, to select from among the community’s actual dispositions a privileged subset. There is a reason for this. Communitarianism is a response to the perceived inability to define a distinction, at the level of the individual, between correct and incorrect dispositions. The suggestion that correctness consists in agreement with the dispositions of one’s community is designed to meet this need. The proposal will not serve its purpose, however, if the problem at the level of the individual is now merely to be replayed at the level of the community. A communitarian does not want it to be a further question whether a given actual communal disposition is itself correct. The proposal must be understood, therefore, as offering the following characterization of M: M is the property of agreeing with the actual dispositions of the community. How does the proposal fare with respect to the outlined adequacy conditions on dispositional theories? Consider first the intensional' requirement, that possession of the favoured M-property appear intuitively to resemble possession of a correctness condition. Does communal consensus command the sort of response characteristic of truth? A number of critics have complained against communitarianism that communal consensus is simply not the same property as truth, that there is no incoherence in the suggestion that all the members of a linguistic community have gone collectively, but non-collusively, off-track in the application of a given predicate.50 This is, of course, undeniable. But the communitarian is not best read as offering an analysis of the ordinary notion of truth, but a displacement of it. His thought is that the emaciated notion of truth yielded by communitarianism is the best we can hope to expect in light of the rule-following considerations. The crucial question, then, is not whether communitarianism captures our ordinary notion of truth, for it quite clearly does not; it is, rather, whether communitarianism offers any concept deserving of that name. This is a large question on which I do not propose to spend a lot of time.51 Although there are subtle questions about how much of logic will be recoverable from such a view, and whether it can be suitably non-reductively articulated (cannon-collusive agreement’ be defined without the use of intentional materials?), I am prepared to grant, for the sake of argument, that the proposal does not fare all that badly in connection with the intensional' requirement. Non-collusive communal agreement on a judgement does usually provide one with some sort of reason for embracing the judgement (even if, unlike truth, not with a decisive one); it thus mimics to some degree the sort of response that is essential to truth. Where communitarianism fails, it seems to me, is not so much here as with the extensional requirement. Consider the termhorse’. What dispositions do I have in respect of this expression? To be sure, I have a disposition to apply it to horses. But I also have a disposition, on sufficiently dark nights, to apply it to deceptively horsey looking cows. Intuitively, the facts are clear. Horse' means horse and my disposition to apply it to cows on dark nights is mistaken. The problem is to come up with a theory that delivers this result systematically and in purely dispositional terms. The communitarian's idea is that the correct dispositions are constitutively those which agree with the community's. What, then, are the community's dispositions likely to be? The community, I submit, however exactly specified, is bound to exhibit precisely the same duality of dispositions that I do: it too will be disposed to call both horses and deceptively horsey looking cows on dark nightshorse’. After all, if I can be taken in by a deceptively horsey looking cow on a dark night, what is to prevent 17,000 people just like me from being taken in by the same, admittedly effective, impostor? The point is that many of the mistakes we make are systematic: they arise because of the presence of features-bad lighting, effective disguises, and so forth-that have a generalizable and predictable effect on creatures with similar cognitive endowments. (This is presumably what makes magicians' possible.) But, then, any of my dispositions that are in this sense systematically mistaken, are bound to be duplicated at the level of the community. The communitarian, however, cannot call them mistakes, for they are the community's dispositions. He must insist, then, firm conviction to the contrary notwithstanding, thathorse’ means not horse but, rather, horse or cow. The problem, of course, is general. There are countless possible impostors under countless possible conditions; and there is nothing special about the term `horse’. The upshot would appear to be that, according to communitarianism, none of our predicates have the extensions we take them to have, but mean something wildly disjunctive instead. Which is to say that communitarianism is bound to issue in false verdicts about the meanings of most expressions, thus failing the first requirement on an adequate dispositional theory. It seems to me that we have no option but to reject a pure communitarianism. If we are to have any prospect of identifying the extensions of our expressions correctly, it will simply not do to identify truth with communal consensus. Even from among the community’s dispositions, we have to select those which may be considered meaning-determining, if we are to have a plausible theory of meaning. Which is to say that we are still lacking what communitarianism was supposed to provide: the specification of a property M such that, possession of M by a disposition is necessary and sufficient for that disposition’s correctness. Of course, once we have abandoned communitarianism, we lack any motive for defining M over communal dispositions; nothing-at least nothing obvious-tells against defining M directly over an individual’s dispositions. Which is precisely the way the voluminous literature on this topic approaches the problem and to a discussion of which I now propose to turn.