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Optimal Dispositions 23. The literature supplies what is, in effect, a set of variations on a basic theme: M is the property of: being a disposition to apply (an expression) in a certain type of situation.52 The idea behind such proposals is that there is a certain set of circumstances-call them optimality conditions'-under which subjects are, for one or another reason, incapable of mistaken judgements; hence, we may equate what they mean by a given (mental) expression with, the properties they are disposed to apply the expression to, under optimal conditions. Different proposals provide different characterizations of the conditions that are supposed to be optimal in this sense. Fred Dretske, for example, holds that optimal conditions are the conditions under which the meaning of the expression was first acquired. A number of other writers subscribe to some form or other of a teleological proposal: optimality conditions are those conditions-defined by evolutionary biologyunder which our cognitive mechanisms are functioning just as they are supposed to.13 Now, Kripke is very short with such possible elaborations of a dispositional theory. He briefly considers the suggestion that we attempt to define idealized dispositions and says thata little experimentation will reveal the futility of such an effort’.54 But, surely, this underestimates the complexity of the problems involved and fails to do justice to the influence that such proposals currently exert. What Kripke needs, if his rejection of dispositional accounts is to succeed, but does not really provide, is a set of principled considerations against the existence of non-semantically, non-intentionally specifiable optimality conditions. What I would like to do in the remainder of this section is to begin to sketch an argument for that conclusion. Several specific problems for specific versions of an optimality theory have received discussion in the literature.55 Here, however, I want to attempt an argument with a more general sweep: I want to argue that we have reason to believe that there could not be naturalistically specifiable conditions under which a subject will be disposed to apply an expression only to what it means; and, hence, that no attempt at specifying such conditions can hope to succeed.56 24. It will be worthwhile to lay the problem out with some care. Consider Neil and a particular expression, say, horse', in Neil's mental repertoire. And suppose that Neil is disposed to token that expressionin the belief mode’ both in respect of horses and in respect of deceptively horsey looking cows on dark nights. Let it be clear, furthermore, that horse' for Neil means horse, and that on those occasions when he applieshorse’ to cows, this amounts to his mistaking a cow for a horse. Now, the thought behind an optimality version of a dispositional theory is that there is a set of naturalistically specifiable conditions under which Neil cannot make mistakes in the identification of presented items.57 Under those conditions, then, he would believe that there is a horse in front of him only if there is one. But that in turn implies that, under those conditions, horse' will get tokened (in the belief mode) only in respect of the property it expresses. So, to figure out what any expression means: look at the properties Neil is disposed to apply the expression to, when conditions are in this sense optimal. The end result is a dispositional reconstruction of meaning facts: for Neil to mean horse byhorse’ is for Neil to be disposed to call only horses horse', when conditions are optimal. Clearly, two conditions must be satisfied: (i) the specified conditions must really be such as to preclude the possibility of error-otherwise, it will be false that under those conditionshorse’ will get applied only to what it means; (ii) the conditions must be specified purely naturalistically, without the use of any semantic or intentional materialsotherwise, the theory will have assumed the very properties it was supposed to provide a reconstruction of. What I propose to argue is that it is impossible to satisfy both of these conditions simultaneously.58 Optimal Dispositions and Objective Contents 25. The dispositionalist is after a non-semantically, non-intentionally specifiable set of conditions 0, which will be such as to yield true, a priori optimality equations of the form: (8) For any subject S and concept R: 0 (S judges Rx Rx). Could there be such a set of conditions? Notice, to begin with, that where R is the concept of an objective property, we ought not to expect optimality equations for R, even if 0 were not required to meet the rather stiff constraints imposed by a reductive disposition- alism-namely, specification in non-semantic and nonintentional terms. For, intuitively, the very idea of a wholly objective property (or object or relation) is the idea of a property (object, relation) whose nature is independent of any given person’s abilities or judgements: for such a property, in other words, there is no necessary function from a given person’s abilities and judgements to truths about that property.59 The contrast is with a class of contents for which there does exist a range of circumstances such that, appropriate subjects are necessarily authoritative about those contents under those circumstances. Philosophers disagree, of course, about what contents fall where, but it is typical to think of judgements about shape as wholly objective and of judgements about pain as representing an extreme example of the contrasting class. Let us call this a distinction between accessible versus inaccessible contents.60 We are now in a position to see, however, that a dispositional theory of meaning, by virtue of being committed to the existence of optimality equations for every concept, is committed thereby to treating every concept as if it were accessible. It is thus committed to obliterating the distinction between accessible and inaccessible contents. Of course, this objection will not impress anyone reluctant to countenance wholly objective, inaccessible contents in the first place. I turn, therefore, to arguing against the dispositional theory on neutral ground: for any concept, subjective or objective, it is impossible to satisfy dispositionalism’s basic requirement: the specification of a set of conditions 0, in non-semantic, and nonintentional terms, such that, under 0, subjects are immune from error about judgements involving that concept. Optimal Dispositions and Belief Holism 26. The basic difficulty derives from the holistic character of the processes which fix belief. The point is that, under normal circumstances, belief fixation is typically mediated by background theory-what contents a thinker is prepared to judge will depend upon what other contents he is prepared to judge. And this dependence is, again typically, arbitrarily robust: just about any stimulus can cause just about any belief, given a suitably mediating set of background assumptions. Thus, Neil may come to believe Lo, a magpie, as a result of seeing a currawong, because of his further belief that that is just what magpies look like; or because of his belief that the only birds in the immediate vicinity are magpies; or because of his belief that whatever the Pope says goes and his belief that the Pope says that this presented currawong is a magpie. And so on. The thought that something is a magpie can get triggered by a currawong in any of an indefinite number of ways, corresponding to the potentially indefinite number of background beliefs which could mediate the transition. Now, how does all this bear on the prospects for a dispositional theory of meaning? A dispositional theorist has to specify, without use of semantic or intentional materials, a situation in which a thinker will be disposed to think, Lo, a magpie only in respect of magpies. But the observation that beliefs are fixed holistically implies that a thinker will be disposed to think Lo, a magpie in respect of an indefinite number of non-magpies, provided only that the appropriate background beliefs are present. Specifying an optimality condition for magpie', therefore, will involve, at a minimum, specifying a situation characterized by the absence of all the beliefs which could potentially mediate the transition from non-magpies to magpie beliefs. Since, however, there looks to be a potential infinity of such mediating background clusters of belief, a non-semantically, non-intentionally specified optimality situation is a non-semantically, non-intentionally specified situation in which it is guaranteed that none of this potential infinity of background clusters of belief is present. But how is such a situation to be specified? What is needed is precisely what a dispositional theory was supposed to provide: namely, a set of naturalistic necessary and sufficient conditions for being a belief with a certain content. But, of course, if we had that we would already have a reductive theory of meaning-we would not need a dispositional theory! Which is to say that, if there is to be any sort of reductive story about meaning at all, it cannot take the form of a dispositional theory. VI. ANTI-REDUCTIONIST CONCEPTIONS OF MEANING An Argument from Queerness? 27. If these considerations are correct, there would appear to be plenty of reason to doubt the reducibility of content properties to naturalistic properties. But Kripke's sceptic does not merely draw an anti-reductionist conclusion; he concludes, far more radically, that there simply could not be any content properties. Suppose we grant the anti-reductionism; what justifies the content scepticism ? Not, of course, the anti-reductionism by itself. At a minimum one of two further things is needed. Either an independent argument to the effect that only naturalistic properties are real. Or, failing that, a frontal assault on the irreducible property in question, showing that it is, in Mackie's phrase, somehow inherentlyqueer’. The single greatest weakness in Kripke’s sceptical argument is that he fails to bring off either requirement. He does not even try to defend a reductionist principle about the intentional; and his brief attempt at a queerness' argument is half-hearted and unconvincing: Perhaps we may try to recoup, by arguing that meaning addition byplus’ is a state even more sui generis than we have argued before. Perhaps it is simply a primitive state, not to be assimilated to sensations or headaches or any qualitative' states, nor to be assimilated to dispositions, but a state of a unique kind of its own. Such a move may in a sense be irrefutable, and if it is taken in an appropriate way Wittgenstein may even accept it. But it seems desperate: it leaves the nature of this postulated primitive statethe primitive state ofmeaning addition by “plus”‘-completely mysterious. It is not supposed to be an introspectible state, yet we supposedly are aware of it with some fair degree of certainty whenever it occurs. For how else can each of us be confident that he does, at present, mean addition by plus'? Even more important is the logical difficulty implicit in Wittgenstein's sceptical argument. I think that Wittgenstein argues, not merely as we have said hitherto, that introspection shows that the allegedqualitative’ state of understanding is a chimera, but also that it is logically impossible (or at least that there is a considerable logical difficulty) for there to be a state of meaning addition by "plus"' at all. Such a state would have to be a finite object, contained in our finite minds. It does not consist in my explicitly thinking of each case of the addition table. ... Can we conceive of a finite state which could not be interpreted in a quus-like way? How could that be ?61 There are several problems with this passage. In the first place, it misconstrues the appropriate antireductionist suggestion. I take it that it really is not plausible that there areprimitive states’ of meaning public language expressions in certain ways, one state per expression. The process by which the inscriptions and vocables of a public language acquire meaning is a manifestly complex process-involving an enormous array of appropriate propositional attitudes-the outlines of which may arguably be found in the writings of Paul Grice and others.62 A plausible anti-reductionism about meaning would not wish to deny that there is an interesting story to be told about the relation between linguistic content and mental content; what it maintains, rather, is that there is no interesting reduction of mental content properties to physical/functional properties. According to anti-reductionism, in other words, at some appropriate level mental content properties must simply be taken for granted, without prospect of identification with properties otherwise described. Does Kripke manage to create a difficulty for this suggestion? The passage contains a couple of considerations that may be so construed. The first charge is that we would have no idea how to explain our ability to know our thoughts, if we endorsed a non-reductionist conception of their content. Now, no one who has contemplated the problem of self-knowledge can fail to be impressed by its difficulty. 63 But I think that we would be forgiven if, before we allowed this to drive us to a dubiously coherent irrealism about content, we required something on the order of a proof that no satisfactory epistemology was ultimately to be had. Kripke, however, provides no such proof. He merely notes that the nonphenomenal character of contentful states precludes an introspective account of their epistemology. And this is problematic for two reasons. First, because there may be non-introspective accounts of selfknowledge.64 And second, because it does not obviously follow from the fact that a mental state lacks an individuative phenomenology, that it is not introspectible.65 Kripke’s second objection to the anti-reductionist suggestion is that it is utterly mysterious how there could be a finite state, realized in a finite mind, that nevertheless contains information about the correct applicability of a sign in literally no end of distinct situations. But, again, this amounts merely to insisting that we find the idea of a contentful state problematic, without adducing any independent reason why we should. We know that mental states with general contents are states with infinitary normative characters; it is precisely with that observation that the entire discussion began. What Kripke needs, if he is to pull off an argument from queerness, is some substantive argument, distinct from his anti-reductionist considerations, why we should not countenance such states. But this he does not provide. None of this should be understood as suggesting that an anti-reductionism about content is unproblematic, for it is far from it. There are, for example, familiar, and serious, difficulties reconciling an anti-reductionism about content properties with a satisfying conception of their causal efficacy.66 But in the context of Kripke’s dialectic, the anti-reductionist suggestion emerges as a stable response to the sceptical conclusion, one that is seemingly untouched by all the considerations adduced in the latter’s favour. McDowell on Privacy and Community 28. If we endorse a non-reductionist conception of meaning, does that mean that the rule-following considerations disturb nothing in our ordinary conception of that notion? A number of writers who have found an anti-reductionist suggestion attractive have certainly not thought so; they have discerned in those considerations important lessons for the correct understanding of the possibility of meaning, while rejecting substantive reductive answers to the constitutive question: in virtue of what do expressions possess meaning? John McDowell, for example, has written that: By Wittgenstein’s lights, it is a mistake to think we can dig down to a level at which we no longer have application for normative notions (like following according to the rule' ).67 We have to resist the temptation, according to McDowell's Wittgenstein, to form a picture of 'bedrock'-'of how things are at the deepest level at which we may sensibly contemplate the place of [meaning] in the world'-which does not already employ the idea of the correct (or incorrect) use of an expression. Oddly, however, McDowell does not take this to commit him to a quietism about meaning, a position from which no substantive results about the conditions for the possibility of meaning can be gleaned. On the contrary, he claims that it is the discernible moral of the rule-following considerations that correctness, and hence meaning, can exist only in the context of a communal practice, thus precluding the possibility of a private language. He writes: Wittgenstein warns us not to try to dig belowbedrock’. But it is difficult, in reading him, to avoid acquiring a sense of what, as it were, lies down there: a web of facts about behavior and inner' episodes, describable without using the notion of meaning. One is likely to be struck by the sheer contingency of the resemblances between individuals on which, in this vision, the possibility of meaning seems to depend. ...61 And: It is true that a certain disorderliness belowbedrock’ would undermine the applicability of the notion of rule-following. So the underlying contingencies bear an intimate relation to the notion of rule-following. … 69 This is, of course, McDowell’s characterization of the familiar Wittgensteinian claim that a certain measure of agreement in communal responses is a precondition for meaning. But how is such a thesis to be motivated? How, in light of the rejection of substantive answers to the constitutive question, is it to be argued for? The claim that communal practice is necessary for meaning is a surprising claim; mere reflection on the concept of meaning does not reveal it. And what, short of a substantive constitutive account, could conceivably ground it? Consider the contrast with the communitarian view considered above. That view engages the constitutive question, offers a substantive answer to it, and generates, thereby, a straightforward argument for the necessity of a communal practice: since correctness is said to consist in conformity with one’s fellows, correctness, and with it meaning, are possible only where there are others with whom one may conform. But McDowell, rightly in my view, rejects the suggestion that correct application might be analysed in terms of communal dispositions. Indeed, as I have already noted, he rejects the very demand for a substantive account of correctness: norms are part of the bedrock', beneath which we must not dig. But if we are simply to be allowed to take the idea of correctness for granted, unreduced and without any prospect of reconstruction in terms of, say, actual and counterfactual truths about communal use, how is the necessity of anorderly communal’ practice to be defended? From what does the demand for orderliness flow? And from what the demand for community? McDowell’s paper contains no helpful answers.70