ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter, we outlined Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s sceptical conclusion: there are no facts in virtue of which ascriptions of meaning, such as “Jones means addition by ‘+’ ”, are either true or false. We saw that this conclusion threatened us with a sceptical paradox to the effect that no-one ever means anything by any linguistic expression, and also that KW’s own attempt at rehabilitating meaning in the face of this conclusion – the sceptical solution – faces severe difficulties. We now look at a number of attempted “straight” solutions to the sceptical argument, solutions which try to meet the sceptic head-on by giving an account of the facts which constitute meaning. In §6.2 and §6.3 we look at attempts to defend the sort of dispositionalist theories of meaning which we saw KW attacking in §5.1. In §6.4 we look at Jerry Fodor’s “asymmetric dependency” account of meaning. In §6.5 we look at Colin McGinn’s attempt to construe meaning and understanding in terms of the possession of abilities or capacities. In §6.6 we outline Crispin Wright’s attempt to respond to the sceptical argument by claiming that facts about meaning are “judgement-dependent”.
