Ordinary Language, Conventionalism and a priori Knowledge

This paper examines popular ‘conventionalist’explanations of why philosophers need not back up their claims about how ‘we’use our words with empirical studies of actual usage. It argues that such explanations are incompatible with a number of currently popular and plausible assumptions about language’s ‘social’ character. Alternate explanations of the philosopher’s purported entitlement to make a priori claims about ‘our’ usage are then suggested. While these alternate explanations would, unlike the conventionalist ones, be compatible with the more social picture of language, they are each shown to face serious problems of their own. In his essay “On the verification of statements about ordinary language,” Benson Mates argues that the evidence philosophers typically have for their claims about how ‘we’ use our words (armchair introspection) is of suspect quality (Mates 1958, 124-5). This paper will examine an influential ‘conventionalist’ response to Mates’ challenge, and argue that it is incompatible with the assumption that we share a language in any robust sense. It will then suggest a number of alternative accounts of how philosophers could be entitled to such a priori knowledge of how ‘we’use our terms. Finally, it will raise some questions about the applicability of these alternative accounts to the sorts of philosophically disputed cases for which such a priori intuitions are typically brought to bear. In response to Mates’ suggestion that ordinary language philosophers should engage in the empirical study of actual usage, Stanley Cavell made three claims about statements such as “When we ask whether an action is voluntary we imply that the action is fishy” (hereafter “S”) that generated considerable interest and controversy. Such “categorical declaratives” were, according to Cavell, (1) necessarily true, (2) knowable a priori, and (3) neither analytic nor synthetic (Cavell 1958, 13). Many philosophers simply † York University, Department of Philosophy, S428 Ross Building, 4700 Keele Street, M3J 1P3 Toronto, Canada. Dialectica Vol. 55, N o 4 (2001), pp. 315-325