Bartosz Wultański
University of Warsaw
The slogan “meaning is normative” has spread widely across philosophy of language since Kripke’s reconstruction of Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations. Semantic normativists argue that meaning contains an intrinsic normative component, understood most commonly in terms of either (1) correctness conditions or (2) prescriptive rules of use. Both face a familiar dilemma: correctness conditions are too weak to establish genuine normativity, while prescriptive rules entail implausible obligations violating “”ought implies can.”” Both have faced significant challenges from anti-normativist positions.
In my talk, I develop an alternative normativist account grounded in Davidsonian metasemantics, arguing that normativity emerges not from global conventions but from context-local interpretive practice under the principle of charity. While anti-normativists read charity as a merely constitutive ideal, I contend that normativity operates within the constitutive framework. Normativity is needed locally, in specific contexts, to assess our prior theories of language and arrive at passing theories, which form the core of communication.
I argue that each interpretive context generates its own standard: the passing theory must maximise agreement between speaker and interpreter given specific circumstances. This standard, though not reducible to general meaning rules, nevertheless sustains normativity because: (1) interpretations can be better or worse relative to context; (2) interpreters exercise choice in weighing evidence and selecting among competing passing theories; (3) mistakes are possible – not against global correctness conditions, but against locally established interpretative standards.
This account preserves Davidson’s anti-conventionalism while addressing key objections. Systematicity is maintained through extrapolation across interpretive contexts, not through fixed semantic rules. Stability arises from regularity in action, not convention – though conventions may de facto facilitate interpretation. Idiosyncratic uses (malapropisms, linguistic inventions) are explicable precisely because they deviate from contextually established expectations.
Chair: tba
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SOPhiA 2026 