Dummett and Revisionism

Abstract

I want in this paper to single out the idea, recurrent throughout the writings in Truth and Other Engimas (hereafter: T&OE), that to abandon the realism with which we regard so many kinds of statement will involve us in abandoning the belief that classical logic holds valid for them.² There is no question that much of the interest which Dummett’s writings have excited is directly consequent on this notion: we are confronted by the prospect of being constrained by pure philosophical considerations to revise and modify not merely philosophical preconceptions which we hold, but substantial sections of our basic “first order” linguistic habits and practices. My concern here is thus not with the strengths or weaknesses of realism but with these putative revisionary implications of anti-realism: what, if any, outlets are open to someone who feels the force of the anti-realist arguments which Dummett has expounded, but who desires, for whatever reason, to conserve as much of our, apparently realism-inspired, linguistic practices as he can?

I am indebted to the late Gareth Evans, and to Christopher Peacocke and John Skorupski, for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.