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Objectivity

DOI
10.4324/9780415249126-N074-1
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DOI: 10.4324/9780415249126-N074-1
Version: v1,  Published online: 1998
Retrieved March 28, 2024, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/objectivity/v-1

3. Objectivity of meaning and quietism

The main danger for the anti-realist story about objectivity comes from Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations (RFC). According to Wright, the RFC endanger the objectivity of meaning. This is the view that ‘the meaning of a statement is a real constraint, to which we are bound… by contract, and to which verdicts about its truth-value may objectively conform, quite independently of our considered opinion on the matter’ (Wright 1986: 5). The meaning of a statement imposes requirements on what counts as correct use of the statement, which determine what uses are correct and incorrect independently of any opinions we may subsequently form. The problem is that if the RFC destroy the idea that meanings are objective in this sense, they thereby threaten the various ways in which anti-realists attempt to draw comparisons concerning objectivity. For example, Wright believes that objectivity of truth implies objectivity of meaning. If the RFC force us to reject objectivity of meaning, they also force us to reject objectivity of truth. And if no discourses possess objectivity of truth, appealing to failure of objectivity of truth will be useless for drawing comparisons between discourses. Likewise, since the truth of any statement is a function of its meaning together with facts about the world, rejection of objectivity of meaning may entail that all qualities are secondary. The possibility of appealing to the primary–secondary distinction in order to draw a contrast will be endangered. In short, the RFC seem to threaten us with quietism about objectivity: the view that no principled, metaphysically interesting contrasts concerning objectivity can be drawn.

Anti-realists try to find ways of avoiding quietism, while retaining their interpretation of the RFC (Wright 1992: Ch. 6). Note that some philosophers, such as McDowell (1995), think that there is a different way in which quietism about objectivity can open up. McDowell does not view the RFC as threatening the objectivity of meaning. So the relevance of the primary–secondary distinction and evidence-transcendent truth is not threatened in the direct manner envisaged in the previous paragraph. The distinctions the anti-realist wishes to draw can still be drawn: instead, what the RFC threaten is the idea that there is any interesting metaphysical point to be made by appealing to the distinctions in the first place. For example, it might be argued that the thought that the anti-realist primary–secondary distinction is of metaphysical relevance depends upon a conception of detecting or tracking facts that the RFC display to be untenable.

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Citing this article:
Miller, Alexander. Objectivity of meaning and quietism. Objectivity, 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-N074-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/objectivity/v-1/sections/antirealist-views-of-objectivity.
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