Conclusion

Abstract

In this book, the phenomenon of assertion has been discussed from a variety of perspectives, and the picture that emerges perhaps seems somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, I have come down in favour of analyses that view assertion as an act which is constituted by the utterance of a declarative sentence and the concomitant undertaking of a particular set of commitments, a view found in the work of Dummett, Brandom and Barker. According to this view, assertion is not to be explained in terms of the attitudes it expresses, but in terms of its practical and inferential consequences. By contrast, the view of assertion presented in the previous chapter could be viewed as a belief-expression account of the broadly Gricean type: the speaker has a thought and chooses a stimulus by which to communicate that thought to the hearer. In this conclusion, I want to suggest that these two positions are not incompatible, but result from distinct perspectives being taken.