Global Expressivism Research Articles

Beyond ‘All or Some’: Reframing the Debate Between Local and Global Expressivists

AbstractLocal expressivism is the idea that some kinds of sentences express mental states other than beliefs. Global expressivism is the idea that all sentences are similarly expressive (of attitudes) instead of representational. They appear to disagree, but due to the vagueness of these big-picture ideas, the disagreement between them has not yet been clearly pinned down and has been suspected to be empty. This paper fixes this problem and shows not only how and where they disagree, but also that their disagreement is more profound than it has usually been conceived as. I first show that local and global expressivism have very different conceptual origins and thus that we should not think of them as carrying the same project to different extents. I then show their disagreement: global expressivists think that the meaning of all kinds of sentences is primarily inferential, and the meaningfulness of language is to be primarily explained by our trying to agree with our peers, while local expressivists think that the meaning of some kinds of sentences is primarily representational, and the meaningfulness of language is to be primarily explained by our trying to agree with the environment. An important upshot of this reframing of the debate is that global expressivists’ arguments to convince local expressivists are not successful.

Minimalism's continued creep: Subject matter

AbstractThe problem of creeping minimalism is the problem of drawing a principled distinction between expressivists and non‐expressivists. Explanationism is a popular strategy for solving the problem, but two of its forms—ontological explanationism and representational explanationism—have fatal problems. Christine Tiefensee and Matthew Simpson have recently, and independently, endorsed a third form: subject matter explanationism. But this form also fails. At bottom, the problem is that it does not note the existence of non‐reductive expressivist views, just as earlier forms of explanationism did not note the existence of error theories, or non‐naturalist realists, or realists who wanted to endorse deflationary views of truth and representation. The failure of this latest version of explanationism—one that does indeed avoid problems with earlier versions—strengthens the case that we may not actually want a solution to the problem of creeping minimalism after all. Rather, a form of global expressivism—neopragmatism—might be regarded as yielding a version of non‐naturalist normative realism.

Should expressivists go global?

AbstractMoral expressivists think that moral thoughts and sentences don’t represent or describe the world, at least not in any interesting sense. Global expressivists think that no thoughts or sentences represent the world; local expressivists think that some do and others don’t. Huw Price has influentially argued that local expressivism collapses into global expressivism, due both to the effects of minimalist theories of representation and similar concepts, and to an unappreciated consequence of the success of specific expressivist theories like moral expressivism. In this paper I argue that Price’s arguments don’t succeed. While they can be fixed, doing so makes them miss their intended target. Local expressivists should therefore not be worried by Price’s arguments.

Pragmatist quietism: A meta‐ethical system. By Andrew Sepielli, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 2022. vi + 231 pp. £55 (Hbk)

Pragmatist quietism: A meta‐ethical system. By Andrew Sepielli, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 2022. vi + 231 pp. £55 (Hbk)

Gibbard on Quasi-realism and Global Expressivism

In recent work Allan Gibbard claims to be both a local quasi-realist, in Blackburn’s sense, and a global expressivist. His local quasi-realism rests on an argument that for naturalistic discourse but not ethical discourse, the semantic relation of denotation and the causal relation of tracking can and should be identified; that denoting simply is tracking, for naturalistic vocabulary. I argue that Gibbard’s case for this conclusion is unconvincing, and poorly motivated by his own expressivist standards. I also argue that even if it were successful, it is doubtful whether the resulting position would count as global expressivism, as Gibbard and I both use that term.

Global expressivism as global subjectivism

Global expressivism as global subjectivism

Global Expressivism by the Method of Differences

AbstractIn this piece I characterise global expressivism, as I understand it, by contrasting it with five other views: the so-called Canberra Plan; Moorean non-naturalism and platonism; ‘relaxed realism’ and quietism; local expressivism; and response-dependent realism. Some other familiar positions, including fictionalism, error theories, and idealism, are also mentioned, but as sub-cases to one of these five.

Neo-Expressivism: (Self-)Knowledge, Meaning, and Truth

AbstractPhilosophers are often interested in explaining significant contrasts between ordinary descriptive discourses, on the one hand, and discourses – such as ethics, mathematics, or mentalistic discourse – that are thought to be more problematic in various ways. But certain strategies for ‘saving the differences’ can make it too difficult to preserve notable similarities across discourses. My own preference is for strategies that ‘save the differences’ without sacrificing logico-semantic continuities or committing to deflationism about truth, but also without embracing either truth-pluralism or global expressivism.I motivate my preference by examining, as a test case, mentalistic discourse. I begin by reconstructing three philosophical puzzles that have led philosophers to think of mentalistic discourse as problematic (Section 2). These puzzles concern the semantic, epistemological, and metaphysical status of contrasts between first-person present-tense attributions – ‘avowals’ – and all other ordinary contingent attributions. I then briefly present my own,neo-expressiviststrategy for addressing the puzzles (Section 3). Unlike traditional ‘simple expressivism’ (which is the analogue in the mentalistic realm of ethical emotivism), neo-expressivism is not committed to avowals’ being non-truth-apt or having non-propositional meanings. And yet it does not require embracing either deflationism about truth or global expressivism. It preserves continuities between mentalistic and other discourses while allowing us to capture discontinuities. Moreover, it is possible to apply the neo-expressivist framework in other areas where the notion of expression is deemed explanatorily useful, as illustrated by consideringethical neo-expressivism(Section 4). In the final section (5), I make more general comments on truth and meaning and tease out some of the commitments of the approach I advocate.

What is Global Expressivism?

Abstract Global expressivism is the radical view that we should never think of any of our language and thought as representing the world. While interesting, global expressivism has not yet been clearly formulated, and its defenders often use unexplained terms of art to characterise their view. I fix this problem by carefully and clearly exploring the different ways in which we can interpret globalism. I reject almost all of them either because they are implausible or because they are bad interpretations of actual globalist views. I then argue that the most promising version of globalism, which we can find in the work of Huw Price, turns out to be completely compatible with the view of so-called ‘local’ expressivists. The debate between globalists and localists is therefore empty: the real interest in this topic lies not in this debate but in whether globalism is true and if so what follows from it.

A Non-substantial Meta-semantics for Global Expressivism

Huw Price’s neo-pragmatist programme of global expressivism (see Huw Price Naturalism Without Mirrors (2011) and Expressivism, Pragmatism and Representationalism (2013)) faces a challenge—it is susceptible to the charge that the proposed combination of expressivism with a deflationary account of semantics leads to inconsistency. Expressivists about a particular discourse deny that it is representational. Global expressivists face the threat of inconsistency due to their attempts to generalise this denial to include the discourse of semantics. In this paper, I explicate two meta-semantic presuppositions of this charge. I argue that such an explication enables us to construct a consistent account of global expressivism. The key point is that global expressivists should adopt two truth predicates and treat meta-semantics as non-substantial. I argue that this framework provides us with a better grasp of Price’s response to the problem of inconsistency and enables global expressivists to accommodate the correspondence intuition.

Carnapian Voluntarism and Global Expressivism: Reply to Carus

Carnapian Voluntarism and Global Expressivism: Reply to Carus

From Global Expressivism to Global Pragmatism

AbstractIn the twentieth century, questions of meaning and representation played a central role in the development of pragmatism and analytic philosophy. Present‐day neopragmatism, such as Huw Price's “global expressivism,” is often framed in terms of a nonrepresentationalist theory of meaning. While some neopragmatists, such as Robert Brandom, advocate a more local approach, this article argues for taking Price's global expressivism to its next logical step: global pragmatism. Global pragmatism prioritizes the behavior‐guiding function of language and redefines representation in operational terms. This operational approach (“o‐representation”) stresses the action and conduct‐guiding role of language use, highlights the connection between meaning and action, and addresses issues facing Price's global expressivism.

On the Inconsistency of Naturalism and Global Expressivism

On the Inconsistency of Naturalism and Global Expressivism

Metaphysics — Low in Price, High in Value: A Critique of Global Expressivism

Pragmatism’s heartening recent revival (spearheaded by Richard Rorty’s bold intervention into analytic philosophy Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature) has coalesced into a distinctive philosophical movement frequently referred to as ‘neopragmatism’. This movement interprets the very meaning of pragmatism as rejection of metaphysical commitments: our words do not primarily serve to represent non-linguistic entities, but are tools to achieve a range of human purposes. A particularly thorough and consistent version of this position is Huw Price’s global expressivism.

Global expressivism and the flight from metaphysics

In recent work Huw Price has defended what he calls a global expressivist approach to understanding language (and/or thought) and its relation to the physical world. Global expressivism rejects a representationalist picture of the language-world relation and thereby, by intention at least, also a certain metaphysical conception of what are commonly known as placement problems: how entities of the everyday, common sense world like mental states, meanings, moral values, modalities and so on fit into the natural world. Global expressivism upholds a commitment to substantive enquiry into the naturalistic basis of thought about the world, but pursues this in a pragmatist or non-representationalist ’key’ (as Price often puts it), thereby rendering—as it sees things—traditional metaphysical questions otiose. I am in broad sympathy with many of Price’s arguments and ideas. However, I believe the specific sub-variety of non-representationalism he develops actually fails to secure the anti-metaphysical results he seeks. My arguments have their starting point in the Carnap-Quine debate. Given Price’s view of this, which I endorse, I think it can be made clear that Quine’s view, or something very close to it, presents us with a coherent example of a non-representationalist metaphysical placement project. Though one might reasonably doubt the rationality of or motivation for such a view, Price’s own strongly naturalistic assumptions, as these are evinced in his so-called ’subject’ naturalism, make that move dialectically unavailable to him. I end with a brief sketch of an alternative non-representationalist and anti-metaphysical position.

Radical Pragmatism: An Operator’s Guide

Huw Price has recently argued that representationalism – the notion that the primary function of statements is to represent the world – is an utter failure. In its place he proposes a “global expressivism” that instead links the meaning of statements to how they are used. This makes his global expressivism a kind of pragmatism: a linguistic pragmatism because it focuses on linguistic meaning; a radical pragmatism because it rejects representationalism across the board. Price also introduces a distinction between two types of representation: external representation, which he mostly rejects, and internal representation, which he champions. In this article I weigh the strengths of Price’s radical pragmatism. I conclude that radical pragmatism has significant benefits, especially if we supplement external and internal representation with a third variety that I call operational representation.

Expressivism About Reference and Quantification Over the Non-existent Without Meinongian Metaphysics

Can we believe that there are non-existent entities without commitment to Meinongian metaphysics? This paper argues we can. What leads us from quantification over non-existent beings to Meinongianism is a general metaphysical assumption about reality at large, and not merely quantification over the non-existent. Broadly speaking, the assumption is that every being we talk about must have a real definition. It’s this assumption that drives us to enquire into the nature of beings like Pegasus, and what our relationship as thinkers is to them. However, I argue this assumption only holds if you think your language, and in particular that aspect of it to do with referring to entities works in a specific way. This is the specific way generally assumed by the discipline called ‘Semantics’. I sketch out an alternative, call it global expressivism, in which talk of referring is given an expressivist, speech-act theoretic treatment. If we accept that our talk of the non-existent works as the global expressivist tells us it does, then the question of the metaphysical nature of non-existent entities is utterly void. You might say that Pegasus is empty of any metaphysical nature. Since the non-existent lacks any metaphysical nature, the metaphysics of the non-existent, Meinongianism, as a form of inquiry, lacks a subject matter, despite the fact that we talk happily, and indeed unavoidably, of the non-existent.

No pragmatism without realism

In a passage quoted in the present book (228), Simon Blackburn says that ‘‘there is a contemporary river that sometimes calls itself pragmatism, ...[which is] the denial of differences, the celebration of the seamless web of language, the soothing away of all distinctions, whether primary versus secondary, fact versus value, description versus expression, or of any other significant kind. What is left is a smooth, undifferentiated view of language, sometimes a nuanced kind of anthropomorphism or ‘‘internal’’ realism, sometimes the view that no view is possible: minimalism, deflationism, and quietism.’’ Huw Price belongs to the minority among Australian philosophers, since he is not a realist. But he does not belong to the brand of pragmatism which is Blackburn’s target. His own version of pragmatism is meant to respect Wittgenstein’s motto ‘‘I’ll teach you differences.’’ His style is argumentative and analytical, although it is resolutely metaphilosophical. The book is a collection of thirteen previously published essays spanning over 20 years, together with a new general introduction. The unifying theme of the book is a critical attack on realist metaphysics and semantics and a defense of a generalized version of quasi-realism which Price calls, alternatively, ‘‘pluralism,’’ ‘‘global expressivism,’’ ‘‘pragmatism,’’ and ‘‘naturalism without mirrors.’’ Some of the essays, such a ‘‘metaphysical pluralism’’ (1992) ‘‘Two paths to pragmatism’’ (1991), ‘‘How to stand up for noncognitivism’’ (1992), ‘‘Truth as convenient Friction’’ (2003), and ‘‘Metaphysics after Carnap: The Ghost who walks’’ (2009) have been widely read, others, like ‘‘Ramsey on Saying and Whistling’’ (2003) or ‘‘Pragmatism, quasi-realism, and the global challenge’’ (2007) are less well known. Two of the essays are co-authored (with John Hawthorne and Richard Holton). As the author acknowledges, there is a certain amount of unavoidable repetition and of overlap between the essays. Price’s strategy, in most of these essays, starts from both the metaphysical and the semantic ends of what we might represent as a tree with two main ramifying

Huw Price. Expressivism, Pragmatism and Representationalism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013. 214 pp. Cloth ISBN 978-1-107-00984-4. Paper ISBN 978-0-521-27906-2.

Huw Price. Expressivism, Pragmatism and Representationalism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013. 214 pp. Cloth ISBN 978-1-107-00984-4. Paper ISBN 978-0-521-27906-2.Near end of Expressivism, Pragmatism and Representationalism, Huw Price quotes an e-mail from Richard Rorty. In e-mail, from May 2006, Rorty writes:[A]s you might expect, my doubts are all about whether you are radical enough. I am not sure that it is worthwhile retaining lower-case representationalism by means of your notion of 'internal representations', just as I am unsure whether is was good strategy for Brandom to try to revivify representationalist notions within bosom of his inferentialism. (193)Despite Rorty's doubts, position Price defends is pretty darn radical. Like Rorty, he rejects representationalism across board - even in those areas where it seems to make most sense. Like Rorty, he blurs distinctions between different types of discourse. And, like Rorty, he proposes a pragmatic account of meaning in terms of use.Expressivism, Pragmatism and Representationalism is an important book that, along with essays collected in Price's 2011 Naturalism Without Mirrors, offers a compelling defense of hardcore linguistic pragmatism. Price's position is certainly radical. That's easy part. But in addition I think it is largely right - though whether Price has shown this (or even can show this) is another question.The book consists of three parts. The first section is Price's 2008 Descartes Lectures delivered at Tilburg Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science. The second section includes lengthy critiques by Simon Blackburn, Robert Brandom, Paul Horwich, and Michael Williams. The third section contains Price's response.Price's primary target is representationalism: the idea that function of statements is to 'represent' worldly states of affairs and that true statements succeed in doing so (24). This, by itself, is not such a surprising claim: many would agree with Price that there are some areas where representationalism just doesn't work very well. It's hard to give a representational account of moral discourse, for example, and there are similar problems for modal and mathematical areas of discourse. In these areas it can be hard to specify exactly what a particular statement represents, especially if one wants to avoid sketchy notions such as moral facts.As a result, one option is to be a local representationalist with regard to some areas while taking a different approach with regard to other areas. For example, one could be a representationalist when it comes to scientific discourse but be an expressivist with regard to moral discourse. One could, that is, claim that scientific claims describe or represent world while moral claims serve an expressive function.But this is not Price's approach. The problem with going local is that a line still has to be drawn somewhere and it isn't clear how to draw it. What is criterion for treating some areas of discourse as truly descriptive while treating other areas as expressive, say? In absence of such a criterion, Price argues instead for a global expressivism that rejects representationalism across board.Well, almost. Price does reject representationalism across board - he rejects idea that primary function of any area of discourse is to represent worldly states of affairs - but he distinguishes between two senses of representation, one of which is relatively benign. The less benign sense of he calls e-representation. This is in its usual sense where representation is a matter of tracking environment: hence, the function of a is to co-vary with some (typically) external environmental condition (36). The more benign sense of he calls i-representation. This sense gives priority to internal functional role of representation: something counts as a in virtue of its position or role in some cognitive or inferential architecture. …