ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the plausibility of Michael Dummett’s demand for full-bloodedness in the theory of meaning and assesses it against John McDowell’s claim that a more modest approach is all that is possible. It argues that the disagreement between the two positions has at its heart a concern to avoid the two extremes of behaviourism and psychologism and to steer a ‘middle path’ between the two. In the attempt to steer this intermediate course it is argued that both approaches accumulate problems. The chapter outlines an approach which, though far from being uncontroversial, does manage to avoid some of the difficulties that beset the full-blooded and modest stances. McDowell’s own positive contribution suggests that a meaning theory which employs the distinction between ‘use’ and ‘mention’, thereby giving the content of the mentioned expression by using that expression or its equivalent, is all that is required.
