4.1 Three conditions for the normative question in semantics
4.1.1 Three perspectives
Now we get to the first point of Korsgaard’s examination of NQ. Should the question about the source of semantic normativity centered on the 1st–person as in the ethical case? Let us try to develop this further. Is it necessary to formulate the normative question in semantics from the 1st–person perspective? Is it sufficient? And how about the 2nd– or 3rd–person? Is it necessary to voice the question from that viewpoint? And is it sufficient?
First, let us make a short note about this distinction of perspectives. When Korsgaard refers to this issue, she strongly associates the 1st–person perspective with the practical formulation of NQ, while the 3rd
–person stance is related to a theoretical question, “a question about why a certain species of intelligent ani- mals behaves in a certain way.” (Korsgaard (1996), p.16) In the case of semantic justification, a 3rd
–person perspective need not be conflated with a theoretical formulation of the normative question. An external witness to a dialogue may interpret the expressions uttered in the conversation and regard his own action, his own act of interpretation, as standing in need of justification. And we further consider here the peculiar position of the 2nd–person stance, the direct interlocu- tor (either speaker or addressee) in a conversation. As a witness, his access to the history of the discourse in which an expression occurs bears a peculiar access that a casual witness may not be familiar with. Consider the following general formulations:
1. Is it right for me to use/interpret S to mean f?
2. Is it right for my interlocutor to use/interpret S to mean f?” 3. Is it right for X to use/interpretS to mean f?”
All the perspectives should be represented
To show why all the perspectives should be represented, let us develop a simple example. Lately Bea has had marital problems. Alf asks Bea how she is doing with that, and Bea replies. Alf is not very well-versed in English idioms.
Alf: So how is it going with Carl? Could you make it up to him? Bea: Well, it takes two to tango...
Alf: Oh, so are you taking him to take tango lessons?
Why can Bea say that Alf’s interpretation is wrong? How can she clarify the blunder? Bea can be somewhat puzzled but she may then explain Alf’s somewhat odd reaction: Alf does not know that “It takes two to tango” is used to refer to a two person conflict where both people are at fault. This also justifies Alf’s mistake: Alf mistakenly interpreted Bea literally. Alf as a peculiar 2nd–person does not see that his reaction is not appropriate. The situation could go on as follows:
Bea: Uhm, you got me wrong. I meant that it’s not only my fault... That is what “It takes two to tango” means.
Alf: Oh, I see. I’m sorry. I hope you will manage to sort it out.
Alf can be convinced that he misinterpreted Bea due to his ignorance of En- glish idioms. If Alf recognizes Bea as a competent speaker, a certain authority is attributed to Bea’s assertion which can settle the issue. The new use is adopted without further considerations, with this dialogue as the only known context for the expression. But suppose Alf is somewhat skeptical (or just overconfident about his own competence in English). What if Alf reacted instead thus?
Bea: Uhm, you got me wrong. I meant that it’s not only my fault... That is what “It takes two to tango” means.
Alf: Oh, really? Why?
What can Bea answer? If Bea knew about language history she could prob- ably describe how the expression became popularized, spread, etc. Could this description fail to be a justification for Alf? It seems that no engaging reason emerges from a chronicle of past uses. Bea could say a bit impatiently, trying to elicit the elided elements in the full sentence:
Bea: It takes two people to dance the tango.
Alf could understand at this point but maybe he could once again feel unsat- isfied. Bea could ask Alf whether he knows what “dance”, “tango”, “two” mean. If this were the case, then Bea could try to be even more explicit:
Bea: Just like a dance between two lovers — the tango —, one person might start the fight — the dance — but they both keep it going.
What else could Bea say if Alf is not convinced by the substitution-structure? It feels as though Bea were interacting with a stranger, someone apparently un- familiar with roles of partners in dances and quarrels. It seems that the kind of ignorance that is revealed is not semantic anymore. The lexical level has been reached and Alf is still not convinced.
The main point of this rather extended example is that Bea might still not be able to convince Alf about the right interpretation of “It takes two to tango”. The 1st– and 2nd–person viewpoints in this conversation do not have equal verdicts, and still we — as readers — do not hesitate to adjudicate the discussion in favour of Bea, provided our familiarity with English idioms permits this. An external perspective on the situation can yield a different picture from the 1st– and 2nd– person viewpoints. We don’t need to be direct participants of an interaction to notice a semantic mistake. However, this does not undermine the peculiar appreciation of the situation that Alf and Bea had above. Bea is sure of her own use of the expression at issue and Alf doubts. As readers, we are neither Bea himself nor Alf. And still our judgment agrees with Bea’s and disagrees with Alf’s. Our stance in the 3rd–person is different from the 1st– and 2nd–person viewpoints. None of them is reducible to the other(s) even if a single agent can stand in each of them.
Does a 1st–person centered answer always suffice?
In the case of ethical normativity, Korsgaard made sure that her 1st–person cen- tered answer also worked as a 3rd
–person one, since the appeal to autonomy, which guarantees that we should do only what can be universally taken as a maxim, what should be accepted as a justification for any deliberator. Her approach pri- oritized the 1st–person viewpoint but at the same time was able to involve the 3rd–person perspective.
The publicity requirement on reasons demands and guarantees that the rea- sons for any agent’s justification should be shareable. This implies that not only should the 1st–, 2nd– and 3rd–person standpoints be considered, but also the rea- sons have to be shareable between them. Are we guaranteed that a 1st
–person centered answer will explain and justify our use or interpretation of an expression when considered from the 2nd– or 3rd–person perspective? Are we guaranteed
that a 2nd– or 3rd–person centered answer will explain and justify when consid- ered with respect to the other stances?
Suppose that we conceive of communicative intentions as public entities. We could think that they are the suitable candidates to be reasons for judgments about use/interpretation. Suppose the source of such reasons lies in the speaker’s and interpreter’s joint awareness of such intentions. However, as we found in the example above, even when Bea made clear his communicative intention, Alf could still ask why Bea used a certain expression to convey that message. Moreover, as the examples found in slips of tongue suggest, sometimes the communicative intention can be clear and still a linguistic mistake is made. As for a 2nd– or 3rd–person centered answer, the risk with such attempts is that a failure for a deliberative agent to access the reasons which others might demand for her implies that her self-judgments may not give reasons for her uses/interpretations.
Thus, even though the source of semantic normativity should provide public reasons which hold across the 1st
–, 2nd
– and 3rd
–person perspective, not every proposed public sort of reasons holding for the 1st–person perspective might con- stitute sufficient or adequate support for judgments of semantic incorrectness. The same sort of disarticulation can arise with respect to the 2nd
– and 3rd
–person viewpoints and this establishes the non-priority of these perspectives.
As we have seen so far, a theory of semantic normativity has to cast light on the origin of justificatory and explanatory reasons for an agent considered in the various stances he can adopt as a linguistic actor. It is a fact, as we exemplified above, that semantic confusions, misinterpretations, or corrections can be found, alleged, and understood from the 1st–, 2nd– and 3rd–person stances. And as we have argued, no standpoint seems to guarantee that reasons will hold across these perspectives, a fact that endangers the soundness of a source framed exclusively in one of them. Therefore, although as in the ethical case reasons for semantic judgments should be valid in any possible perspective for the judge, no perspective entails that the normative question in the other stances will be satisfied.