Abstract

Call the view that meaning is an intrinsically normative notion, Normativism. Facts about meaning, on this account, are inherently action-guiding or prescriptive; they are connected to what a subject may (not) or ought (not) do. Wittgenstein appears to accept Normativism. 'That’, he tells us, ‘is why there exists a correspondence between the concepts “rule” and “meaning”' (On Certainty §62). Normativism informs Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy as an investigation of grammar, the arbitrary rules which lay down the standards for the correct use of expressions. More generally, Normativism bears on the prospects of providing an account of meaning in the terms available to the natural sciences. In turn, since linguistic behaviour is inextricably bound up with both non-linguistic behaviour and the psychological attitudes informing it, Normativism would seem to pose a serious challenge to the project of accommodating creatures such as ourselves within the worldview the natural sciences afford. In this paper, I shall not focus on such heady themes but, rather, address the prior issue of whether or not one should, with Wittgenstein, accept Normativism. In a recent article, Anandi Hattiangadi and Alex Miller raise several objections to an earlier attempt I made to defend Normativism. In this paper, I hope to show that, while Hattiangadi and Miller make some important points that that one must accommodate, Normativism withstands this further assault.