Essays after Wittgenstein by J. F. M. Hunter

Author:J. F. M. Hunter [Hunter J.F.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 1973-04-11T05:00:00+00:00

IV SOME QUESTIONS OF MEANING AND TRUTH

There will, I think, be quite an inclination to say that even if, as I have been maintaining, tellings of the kind we have been discussing have no specifiable basis in the history of the teller, and normally flow from a competent language-user without machination of any kind, still there must be some way of knowing whether what he says is true; and, further, a way of specifying what we believe when we believe it. For we do regard these things that people say as being true or false. We do not regard the mere fact that a person has told us something as showing that what he says is true, nor do we always believe him; but we believe him in some cases and not in others, and we react differently depending on whether we believe. What ways then, if any, are there of knowing whether tellings are true, and what do we then know?

The first point I would like to make about such questions is that it is not always, or even generally the case that we believe or disbelieve tellings. Most often the question of truth simply does not arise, but a person says something, and we go right on from there. If someone later asks whether we believed what we were told, we will be likely to say ‘Of course’; but all this will generally mean is that the question of the teller’s veracity simply did not arise. One says ‘Of course’ because some answer to the question whether one believed has to be given, and not either because the case is at all like, for example, that in which one is told a fantastic story and yet believes it, or because the teller’s veracity is so impeccable that one would not dream of disbelieving him.

Secondly, I suggest that many of the cases in which a doubt is raised can be seen, not as cases in which we attempt to ascertain whether what the speaker said is true or false, but as cases of ascertaining more exactly what move he is making. If I tell my wife that I have been thinking of quitting my job and she says ‘You surely don’t mean that’ and I assure her that I do, she does not then know that I have indeed been thinking that. My assurance settles no more as to whether perhaps I was spoofing than did my opening remark. The upshot is rather that she knows in what way to continue the conversation: whether to treat what I said as a prelude to an amusing evening’s chit-chat about how we might otherwise live, or as a probe of her reaction and an opener in a deep discussion of an important step. Her question is like the question ‘What game are we playing?’; and if I answer ‘Poker,’ all she can do is play it that way. If I later start to snicker and smile at her agony, and chide her for taking me so seriously, it will not be she who has misplayed the game.

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