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The Seas of Language

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There is no doubt that Dummett's main claim to fame rests on his contributions to the realism/anti-realism debate, and in particular to the major idea that runs through his most famous works; that a theory of meaning must underlie metaphysics and that a speaker's knowledge of her own language will determine what metaphysical questions can be answered (and how). This book certainly has a main focus on these questions, containing his seminal essays `What is a Theory of Meaning', several other essays on related topics and two essays directly targeting the nature of the realism/anti-realism debate - and they also provide an important perspective on Dummett's own approach to the issues which it is easy to miss; not so much as arguing a positive case for anti-realism, but rather as providing outstanding challenges to anyone who wants to embark on the development of a realist theory. Yet this volume also presents other sides of Dummett's work and contributions to topics that perhaps have a tendency to be a little overlooked.

Of course, no one reading Dummett will come around those arguments (or what might legitimately be called the Argument, with a capital `A', to the effect that realism might (with some qualifications) be considered equivalent to acceptance of bivalence, and the challenges that, Dummett argues, emerges from such a position) - and what should be striking is that, even today, no definite response has emerged. Philosophy as a discipline might have moved on and the questions may seem less pressing than they once were. No doubt the objections to putting epistemic constraints on truth contributes to that. But the problems are not really solved, and if anything this book should be a reminder of that. What one might be a little unsatisfied with, though, is that this book to so little extent gives us Dummett's involvement with his critics - if one just read through the book with no knowledge of the debates his arguments have spurred, one would conceivably be left with the suspicion that his work is somewhat insulated from the general debate. This is a problem in particular because the route from denial of bivalence to anti-realism is less than perfectly clear, and indeed there are gaps in Dummett's arguments where one might wish for an explanation or further analysis.

Of course, this is not exactly helped by the fact that Dummett's writing style is not the most transparent - it is often very hard to keep track of arguments, and often one is left to wonder whether a claim is part of the argument, a digression or an objection, unless one pays very close attention. But one should. This is an important book and anyone dealing with philosophy of language ought to - no, needs to - be acquainted with at least the most important articles collected here. That said, some of them seem less strikingly important (and one has to admit that the latter group includes, mostly, exactly those articles that don't directly deal with the Argument), and many of the important ones are rather easily available elsewhere. Still, in one way or another, they require your attention.