ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that things are really the other way around: It is because meaning cannot be reduced to anything non-semantic that it is in some serious sense normative. It explains the triangulation argument that meaning is essentially normative in two distinct ways. First, it is normative in the sense that, unless one has normative attitudes towards one's own and others' uses of words, that is, unless one distinguishes, on some occasions at least, between the correct and incorrect applications that one and others make of words, one cannot have a language and thoughts. The second sense in which meaning is essentially normative is also a consequence of the claim that meanings are in part a human product. In fact, it can be seen as a consequence of the previous way in which I take meaning to be essentially normative. Donald Davidson has always been a fierce non-conventionalist, and this hostility is reinforced by the triangulation argument.
