The Background Theory 5

4 Philosophical Introduction
theory [of meaning] . . . only to the extent that it is required for the
derivation of theorems the ascription of an implicit knowledge of which
to a speaker is explained in terms of specific abilities which manifest that
knowledge” (1993b: 38; my emphasis).
I don’t know for sure why Dummett believes that, but I darkly suspect
that he’s the victim of atavistic sceptical anxieties about communication.
Passages like the following recur in his writings:
What . . . constitutes a subject’s understanding the sentences of a language . . .?
[I]s it his having internalized a certain theory of meaning for that language? . . .
then indeed his behaviour when he takes part in linguistic interchange can at best
be strong but fallible evidence for the internalized theory. In that case, however, the
hearer’s presumption that he has understood the speaker can never be definitively
refuted or confirmed. (1993c: 180; notice how much work the word ‘definitively’
is doing here.)
So, apparently, the idea is that theories about linguistic content should
reduce to theories about language use; and theories about language use
should reduce to theories about the speaker’s linguistic capacities; and
theories about the speaker’s linguistic capacities are constrained by the
requirement that any capacity that is constitutive of the knowledge of a
language is one that the speaker’s use of the language can overtly and
specifically manifest. All this must be in aid of devising a bullet-proof antiscepticism
about communication, since it would seem that for purposes
other than refuting sceptics, all the theory of communication requires is
that a speaker’s utterances reliably cause certain ‘inner processes’ in the
hearer; specifically, mental processes which eventuate in the hearer having
the thought that the speaker intended him to have.
If, however, scepticism really is the skeleton in Dummett’s closet, the
worry seems to me to be doubly misplaced: first because the questions
with which theories of meaning are primarily concerned are metaphysical
rather than epistemic. This is as it should be; understanding what a thing
is, is invariably prior to understanding how we know what it is. And,
secondly, because there is no obvious reason why behaviourally grounded
inferences to attributions of concepts, meanings, mental processes,
communicative intentions, and the like should be freer from normal
inductive risk than, as it might be, perceptually grounded attributions of
tails to cats. The best we get in either case is “strong but fallible evidence”.
Contingent truths are like that as, indeed, Hume taught us some while
back. This is, no doubt, the very attitude that Dummett means to reject as
inadequate to the purposes for which we “philosophically” require a
theory of meaning. So much the worse, perhaps, for the likelihood that
philosophers will get from a theory of meaning what Dummett says that
The Background Theory 5
they require. I, for one, would not expect a good account of what concepts
are to refute scepticism about other minds any more than I’d expect a good
account of what cats are to refute scepticism about other bodies. In both
cases, I am quite prepared to settle for theories that are merely true.
Methodological inhibitions flung to the wind, then, here is how I
propose to organize our trip. Very roughly, concepts are constituents of
mental states. Thus, for example, believing that cats are animals is a
paradigmatic mental state, and the concept ANIMAL is a constituent of
the belief that cats are animals (and of the belief that animals sometimes
bite; etc. I’m leaving it open whether the concept ANIMAL is likewise a
constituent of the belief that some cats bite; we’ll raise that question
presently). So the natural home of a theory of concepts is as part of a
theory of mental states. I shall suppose throughout this book that RTM
is the right theory of (cognitive) mental states. So, I’m going to start with
an exposition of RTM: which is to say, with an exposition of a theory
about what mental states and processes are. It will turn out that mental
states and processes are typically species of relations to mental
representations, of which latter concepts are typically the parts.
To follow this course is, in effect, to assume that it’s OK for theorizing
about the nature of concepts to precede theorizing about concept
possession. As we’ve been seeing, barring a metaphysical subtext, that
assumption should be harmless; individuation theories and possession
theories are trivially intertranslatable. Once we’ve got RTM in place,
however, I’m going to argue for a very strong version of psychological
atomism; one according to which what concepts you have is conceptually
and metaphysically independent of what epistemic capacities you have. If
this is so, then patently concepts couldn’t be epistemic capacities.
I hope not to beg any questions by proceeding in this way; or at least not
to get caught begging any. But I do agree that if there is a knock-down, a
priori argument that concepts are logical constructs out of capacities, then
my view about their ontology can’t be right and I shall have to give up my
kind of cognitive science. Oh, well. If there’s a knock-down, a priori
argument that cats are logical constructs out of sensations, then my views
about their ontology can’t be right either, and I shall have to give up my
kind of biology. Neither possibility actually worries me a lot.
So, then, to begin at last:
RTM
RTM is really a loose confederation of theses; it lacks, to put it mildly, a
canonical formulation. For present purposes, let it be the conjunction of
the following:
6 Philosophical Introduction
First Thesis: Psychological explanation is typically nomic and is
intentional through and through. The laws that psychological explanations
invoke typically express causal relations among mental states
that are specified under intentional description; viz. among mental
states that are picked out by reference to their contents. Laws about
causal relations among beliefs, desires, and actions are the paradigms.
I’m aware there are those (mostly in Southern California, of course) who
think that intentional explanation is all at best pro tem, and that theories
of mind will (or anyhow should) eventually be couched in the putatively
purely extensional idiom of neuroscience. But there isn’t any reason in the
world to take that idea seriously and, in what follows, I don’t.
There are also those who, though they are enthusiasts for intentional
explanation, deny the metaphysical possibility of laws about intentional
states. I don’t propose to take that seriously in what follows either. For
one thing, I find the arguments that are said to show that there can’t be
intentional laws very hard to follow. For another thing, if there are no
intentional laws, then you can’t make science out of intentional explanations;
in which case, I don’t understand how intentional explanation could
be better than merely pro tem. Over the years, a number of philosophers
have kindly undertaken to explain to me what non-nomic intentional
explanations would be good for. Apparently it has to do with the
intentional realm (or perhaps it’s the rational realm) being autonomous.
But I’m afraid I find all that realm talk very hard to follow too.What is the
matter with me, I wonder?3
Second Thesis: ‘Mental representations’ are the primitive bearers of
intentional content.
Both ontologically and in order of explanation, the intentionality of the
propositional attitudes is prior to the intentionality of natural languages;
and, both ontologically and in order of explanation, the intentionality of
mental representations is prior to the intentionality of propositional
attitudes.
Just for purposes of building intuitions, think of mental representations
on the model of what Empiricist philosophers sometimes called ‘Ideas’.
That is, think of them as mental particulars endowed with causal powers
and susceptible of semantic evaluation. So, there’s the Idea DOG. It’s
satisfied by all and only dogs, and it has associative-cum-causal relations
to, for example, the Idea CAT. So DOG has conditions of semantic
evaluation and it has causal powers, as Ideas are required to do.
The Background Theory 7
3 The trouble may well have to do with my being a Hairy Realist. See Fodor 1995b.