Groundwork for a Nonconcessive Expressivism

A reply to Paul Horwich’s “The Frege-Geach Point”, a talk presented to SOFIA XVI, Ought! Horwich denies that the Frege-Geach problem is a good objection and thus spends a lot of time diagnosing why theorists have been taken in by it. Whether or not it is a good objection depends on what its proper object is. In contrast to Horwich, I think that it is good objection to a natural form that expressivist accounts may take, and its enduring challenge to the expressivist is to give accounts of meaning that do not take this natural if problematic form. This might seem like a mere difference in emphasis, but it is a difference in emphasis that affects the dialectical situation: From Horwich’s perspective, it is natural to focus on establishing the possibility of a nonconcessive expressivism; from the perspective I recommend, it is natural instead to focus on actually giving these nonconcessive expressivist explanations. Indeed, subsequent discussion suggests that actually giving such explanations might be the only way of establishing their possibility.Conference talk