10.13135/2036-542X/7634
In diversi contributi John MacFarlane ha sostenuto che certe classi di asserzioni devono essere considerate vere relativamente a un contesto di valutazione (context of assessment) e false relativamente a un altro contesto di valutazione. Secondo Gareth Evans, tuttavia, si può affermare che se la verità di una proposizione diviene relativa, allora cessa di funzionare come norma dell’asserzione, in quanto non fornisce più una meta o un’intenzione stabile per le asserzioni. La risposta di MacFarlane consiste nel negare che l’orientamento alla verità sia una caratteristica necessaria per tutte le asserzioni. Questo saggio argomenta che MacFarlane non raccoglie la sfida correttamente lanciata da Evans, e ciò per due motivi: 1) non riesce a rendere conto delle norme di un’asserzione che non presupponga la norma della verità; 2) la sua spiegazione delle norme dell’asserzione rimane esposta a obiezioni del genere di quelle di Evans.
application/pdf
2036-542X
7634
1
en
Richard Hamilton
Trópos
asserzioni
Relativism and the Norm of Truth
Text.Serial.Journal
https://ojs.unito.it/index.php/tropos
3
Monografica
2011-03-01
2023-05-29
2011-03-01
2023-05-29
31-47
1
Richard Hamilton
2010
10.13135/2036-542X/7634
31
Trinity College Dublin
2036-542X
1
asserzioni
47
Relativism and the Norm of Truth
https://ojs.unito.it/index.php/tropos/article/download/7634/6366
3
 Relativism and the Norm of Truth
                                 Maria Baghramian
                                University College Dublin

                                 Richard Hamilton
                                 Trinity College Dublin




ABSTRACT: In diversi contributi John MacFarlane ha sostenuto che certe classi di asserzioni
  devono essere considerate vere relativamente a un contesto di valutazione (context of as-
  sessment) e false relativamente a un altro contesto di valutazione. Secondo Gareth Evans,
  tuttavia, si può affermare che se la verità di una proposizione diviene relativa, allora
  cessa di funzionare come norma dell’asserzione, in quanto non fornisce più una meta o
  un’intenzione stabile per le asserzioni. La risposta di MacFarlane consiste nel negare che
  l’orientamento alla verità sia una caratteristica necessaria per tutte le asserzioni. Que-
  sto saggio argomenta che MacFarlane non raccoglie la sfida correttamente lanciata da
  Evans, e ciò per due motivi: 1) non riesce a rendere conto delle norme di un’asserzione
  che non presupponga la norma della verità; 2) la sua spiegazione delle norme dell’asser-
  zione rimane esposta a obiezioni del genere di quelle di Evans.
  Keywords: relativismo, verità, John MacFarlane, Gareth Evans, norme, assserzioni.




Arguments for relativism about truth, or alethic relativism, are almost as old
as philosophy itself — and so are attempts to refute it. Yet, the doctrine re-
mains as seductive today as it was for Protagoras. Recent developments in
philosophy of language have revitalised this ancient topic by giving it a new,
specifically semantic, dimension.
    New relativism about truth, also sometimes known as truth–relativism,
was first articulated by David Lewis (Lewis 1979) who argued for a relativ-
istic account of first–person beliefs. According to Lewis, beliefs which are
expressed by using the first person pronouns ‘I’ and ‘me’ and such like, or as
Lewis calls them ‘de se beliefs’, can be true relative to one of its possessors
and false relative to another within a single possible world. The Lewisian
idea has been developed further by John MacFarlane, who in a large number
of papers has argued that certain classes of assertions, for instance assertions

                                            31
                                 WUySRN• numero 1 • 2010
                          Maria Baghramian, Richard Hamilton

about taste, knowledge or the future can be treated as true relative to one
«context of assessment» and false relative to another.
    According to MacFarlane’s influential formulation, the truth of sentences
or assertions is relative not just to contexts of use but also to contexts of as-
sessment. This sort of relativism is seen as useful for explaining away what
has become known, after Max Kölbel, as instances of faultless disagreement.
Faultless disagreement arises in situations where given a thinker A, a thinker
B, and a proposition (or content of judgement) p we face the scenario:

   (a) A believes (judges) p and B believes (judges) not p,
   (b) Neither A nor B has made a mistake (is at fault) (Kölbel 2004).

    Kölbel argues that two people disagree with each other on any occasion
when one of them asserts p and the other denies it (or asserts ¬p). But if
neither party has made a mistake in her assertions then, we have to say that
both party is correct and therefore both their beliefs p and ¬p must be true.
The truth–relativists’ way to deal with this scenario is to say that each belief
is true relative to a perspective or context of assessment.
    There has been a plethora of criticism of the idea of relativism about
truth, ranging from the famous self–refutation argument, first formulated
by Plato, to more detailed considerations regarding the formal semantic ma-
chinery needed to make sense of the proposal. This paper will focus solely
on one argument against truth–relativism: the argument from the normative
role of truth. Briefly stated we maintain:
    The distinction between correct and incorrect, and hence true and false,
instances of assertion is a necessary condition for coherent asserting. This
point is expressed by the claim that assertions are truth–directed, they aim at
truth. However, if truth is relative, then there is no single definite target for
any given assertion and therefore no way to make sense of assertions.


Truth and Normativity: Some Preliminaries

    That truth, justification and belief itself have normative dimensions is a philo-
sophical common place. Even the arch–naturalist Quine eventually conceded
that the project of naturalised epistemology does not amount to jettisoning all
traces of normativity and settling only for the indiscriminate descriptions of
our cognitive and epistemic episodes and processes. For him the «normative is a
branch of engineering. It is the technology of truth seeking», where truth is the
terminal parameter of the process of enquiry (Quine 1986: 664).

                                         32
                               WUySRN• numero 1 • 2010
                          Relativism and the Norm of Truth

    The normative character of truth can be characterized in at least two
distinct ways. Norms may be seen as standards of behaviour shared by the
members of a particular social group. In this sense, norms are generalizations
from what is typical of a group or a community; they are descriptive of what
is common to a given community of actors or believers. To say that truth,
like justification and knowledge, are normative in this sociological sense is
to allow for the possibility of alethic and epistemic relativism. For different
social groups may share different standards of behaviour and hence subscribe
to different norms. This is one possible reading of Wittgenstein’s comments
on rule–following and what it is to participate in a form of life — it is the
reading that turns Wittgenstein into a relativist.
    This interpretation of the normativity of truth is also implicit in Rich-
ard Rorty’s view. Rorty denies that truth should be seen a goal of enquiry
or that it should be given any substantive role in explanation. However, he
argues that we use the predicate ‘is true’ for commending beliefs and that, at
least in this sense, truth plays a normative role in our on–going ‘conversa-
tions’. Truth is simply a compliment paid to sentences we cherish at a given
time, just as knowledge is «a compliment paid to the beliefs which we think
so well justified that, for the moment, further justification is not needed»
(Rorty 1991: 24). The view facilitates relativism about truth because of the
link it forges between truth and descriptions of community–wide epistemic
practices, practices which can vary with time and place.
    A second way of looking at norms is to see them as tools or means of
evaluation where a normative judgment «pronounces something good or bad,
right or wrong, proper or improper, and the like» (Goldman 1986: 20). In this
prescriptive sense, to call truth normative is to say that it shows how and what
we ought to believe as well as describing what we do believe. Most discussions
of alethic normativity are conducted under this prescriptive rubric. And it is
this particular sense of the normativity of truth that comes into conflict with
relativism about truth in general and new relativism in particular.
    Truth plays a normative role in assertoric speech acts because it acts as the
aim or goal of an assertion.To put it slightly differently, something counts as an
assertion, when uttered sincerely and with intent to inform, if it aims at truth.
Truth then should be seen as constitutive of what counts as an assertion.
    An explicit statement of this point was first made by Peirce who argued
that assertions have an essentially normative ingredient: «This ingredient, the
assuming of responsibility, which is so prominent in solemn assertion, must
be present in every genuine assertion» (Peirce 1934: 386). Peirce’s insight has
been restated in a variety of ways, but the basic idea behind them all is that
in asserting a proposition p, a sincere speaker who wishes to be informative

                                        33
                             WUySRN• numero 1 • 2010
                               Maria Baghramian, Richard Hamilton

commits himself to its truth and takes responsibility for it. Philosophers fol-
lowing Peirce have seen truth–directedness as the paramount norm govern-
ing assertions1. Crispin Wright, for instance lists it as one of the platitudes
about truth. According to him, to assert a proposition is to claim that it is
true and this platitude is «partly constitutive» of the concepts of assertion
and truth (Wright 1992: 23–24). Searle, along similar lines, argues, «asserting
commits the speaker to the truth of the proposition asserted» (Searle 2001:
147). For Searle, the norm of truth is constitutive of assertion in the sense
that principles such as ‘you ought to tell the truth’, ‘you ought not to lie’, or
‘you ought to be consistent in your assertion’ are internal to the notion of
assertion. «You do not need any external moral principle to have the relevant
commitments. The commitment to truth is built into the structure of the
intentionality of the assertion» (Searle 2001: 181).
    ‘True’ and ‘false’ are used to evaluate beliefs as correct and incorrect. In
other words, a true belief is also a correct belief, and false beliefs are incor-
rect. Correctness is a normative notion or concept.We commend people for
having correct beliefs and condemn them for their false or incorrect beliefs,
just as we commend and condemn their actions for being right or wrong.
Truth then is intrinsically normative; it is a value, just as beauty and good-
ness are and furthermore it transcends the boundaries between epistemic
and moral values, truth is simultaneously an epistemic and ethical virtue.
As Bernard Williams puts it «the falsity of a belief is a terminal objection to
holding it» and therefore speakers would be both morally and epistemically
culpable if they did not adhere to the norm of truth telling and truth–seek-
ing. Moreover, the imperative of truth–seeking is categorical — not contin-
gent on wishes, desires or other mental states. If this is correct, then truth
telling is a constitutive presupposition of intelligible discourse. For language
to function at all, speakers have to abide by the norm of truth telling most of
the time. Truthfulness, simultaneously, is a moral obligation presupposed by
many other thick moral norms such as honesty, integrity, sincerity, etc.
    In the remainder of this paper we defend the view that relativism about
truth, in MacFarlane’s version (MacFarlane 2003; 2005a; 2005b; 2007a; 2007b;
2008) violates the normative requirements of discourse. The criticism is not
new, it was voiced by Gareth Evans in relation to tense logic (Evans 1996).
According to Evans, once the truth of a proposition is made relative to some
shiftable factor, then truth ceases to function as a norm of assertion because it
   1
       Over the last few years several alternative accounts of the norms governing assertions have been
developed. Tim Williamson, for instance, has put forward an influential position arguing that knowled-
ge is the norm of assertion. Alternative positions include the sincerity norm, according to which one
should not say what one does not believe and various versions of the rationality or justification norm,
according to which one shouldn’t say something in the absence of good reasons or justification.

                                                 34
                                     WUySRN• numero 1 • 2010
                                   Relativism and the Norm of Truth

no longer provides a stable goal or aim for assertions. MacFarlane’s response
is to deny that truth guidedness is a necessary feature of all assertions (Mac-
Farlane 2003: 332).We will argue that MacFarlane fails to meet the challenge
posed by Evans adequately.


MacFarlane’s version of truth–relativism

   Taking a broadly Kaplanian approach, MacFarlane relativises the truth of
sentences and utterances to a variety of contexts.The following passage from
Relativism and Disagreement gives a good flavour of his approach.

      The relativist might envision contents that are «sense–of–humor neutral» or «stan-
      dard–of–taste neutral» or «epistemic–state neutral», and circumstances of evaluation
      that include parameters for a sense of humour, a standard of taste, or an epistemic
      state. This move would open up room for the truth–value of a proposition to vary
      with these «subjective» factors in much the same way that it varies with the world
      of evaluation. The very same proposition — say, that apples are delicious — could be
      true with respect to one standard of taste, false with respect to another (MacFarlane
      2007a: 21–22).

   As MacFarlane himself points out, in this approach, relativism in effect
«amounts to recognising a new kind of linguistic context–sensitivity» (Mac-
Farlane 2003: 332) where sentence–truth is doubly relativised, to a context of
utterance and a context of assessment (MacFarlane 2003: 330).
   One prominent and much discussed instance of this approach is Mac-
Farlane’s treatment of future contingents. Aristotle in De Interpretatione fa-
mously asked: «Do assertions concerning contingent events in the future
have a truth value now?» The worry is how to reconcile the absolutist view
of truth, which claims that every assertion is either true or false, with the
metaphysical position that the future is genuinely open or contingent. In
Future Contingents and Relative Truth John MacFarlane attempts to make
sense of our talk and thought about the future while respecting the branch-
ing worlds picture of reality. Like Aristotle, MacFarlane is torn between two
intuitions; moreover, he believes that such ambivalence is philosophically
justified. The first intuition drives us to the conclusion that the future is
genuinely (not just in an epistemic sense) open, i.e. it is genuinely inde-
terminate whether tomorrow a sea battle would take place or not 2. The
second intuition relies on a classical view of truth (and falsity) where truth
  2
       The discussion of the sea battle is at On Interpretation, IX (Aristotle 1949).

                                                    35
                                       WUySRN• numero 1 • 2010
                           Maria Baghramian, Richard Hamilton

is seen both as timeless and bivalent, so that if tomorrow it is true to say
that ‘there is a sea battle now’, then today it should be true to say that ‘there
will be a sea battle tomorrow’.
    MacFarlane motivates the indeterminacy intuition on semantic and not
metaphysical or empirical grounds. He thinks that abandoning the belief that
the future is genuinely indeterminate would jeopardise the coherence of our
talk about future events. He writes:

   Whether the world is objectively indeterministic in this sense is, of course, a sub-
   stantive scientific (and perhaps metaphysical) question. I do not here presuppose
   an affirmative answer to this question. All I am presupposing is that talk about the
   future would not be incoherent in an objectively indeterministic world. Determin-
   ism may be true, but it is not for the semanticist to say so (MacFarlane 2003: 323).

   The motivation for indeterminacy could be made by using the figure
below, representing branching histories, taken from MacFarlane 2003:




    This is a picture of the future, given objective indeterminacy. Our intu-
ition should be that the utterance at moment m0 referring to an event at
m1 should be neither true nor false, since m0 is on two objectively possible
future histories, h1 and h2. On h1 the utterance is true. On h2 it is false. Thus
the utterance at m0 is neither true nor false.
    The motivation for the opposite intuition is a very simple argument,
made at m1. Imagine an observer, watching the sea battle at m1 saying:
    Jake asserted yesterday that there would be a sea battle today
    There is a sea battle today
    So Jake’s assertion was true (MacFarlane 2003: 325).
    MacFarlane finds the reasoning «unimpeachable». But then our two intu-
itions lead us to the conclusion that the utterance at m0 is neither true nor
false and that it is simultaneously true.
    If we assign only a single context to the utterance, when the context of
utterance is m0, the sentence «there will be a sea battle tomorrow» is true on

                                           36
                                WUySRN• numero 1 • 2010
                                Relativism and the Norm of Truth

history 1 and false on history 2. If the context of utterance is m1 however,
the utterance turns out to be true. This contradiction is what MacFarlane
aims to solve. He argues that if we introduce a second context, a context of
assessment Ca as well as Cu, then instead of saying «sentence S is true at Cu»,
which generates our initial difficulty, we say, «sentence S is true at Cu, Ca».
This means that the model of double contextuality yields the following re-
sult, which is exactly what MacFarlane is looking for:
   At u = m0 and a = m0 s is neither true nor false (because we must look at
both points, m0/h1 and m0/h2).
   At u = m0 and a = m1, s is true (because we look only at m0/h1)
   At u = m0 and a = h1, s is false (because we look only at m0/h2) (MacFar-
lane 2003: 332).
   Introducing the second context then, gives us what we need to preserve
both the indeterminacy and the determinacy intuitions. In this model, the
very same assertion is neither true nor false the day before the battle, but true
on the day of the battle, because the context of assessment is different, and
thus provides the extra parameter needed to give us relativism. The guiding
thought is: an adequate account of truth concerning future contingents, as
in other cases, should respect and preserve our intuitions. According to Mac-
Farlane, classical views of truth fail to do so, his account, which relativises the
truth of utterances to a context of assessment can preserve both intuitions.
Therefore, a detailed examination of conflicting intuitions about future con-
tingents forces truth–relativism on us. The bonus is that truth–relativism can
be used to «liberate» us from various conceptual bonds elsewhere. For in-
stance, it can help us with problems arising from the assessment sensitivity
of knowledge attributions (MacFarlane 2005a), faultless disagreement (Mac-
Farlane 2007a), and epistemic modals (MacFarlane forthcoming). The payoff
of solving all of these philosophical problems — «a small price to pay for an
adequate account of future contingents» (MacFarlane 2003: 332) — is that
we are forced to abandon «the absoluteness assumption», that is, «the ortho-
dox assumption that truth for utterances is non–relative» (MacFarlane 2003:
322)3. But this cost, he maintains, is justified by the gains.


The Cost of Truth–Relativism

   In his paper Does Tense Logic Rest upon a Mistake? (1996: 343) Evans in-
troduces a challenge to tensed logic and more generally to the idea that
   3
      On the absolutist model, once we fix various matters of context etc., we can reach the content
of an utterance, whose truth value ought to be separate from contexts and circumstances.

                                                37
                                    WUySRN• numero 1 • 2010
                            Maria Baghramian, Richard Hamilton

time itself might be a context. The challenge, as MacFarlane notes, is broad
enough to apply to truth–relativism and double contextuality. In MacFar-
lane’s proposal the context of assessment introduces a second time–frame, the
moment of assessment, to which the truth of an assertion is to be relativised.
Evans had argued that such an attempt at relativisation is unintelligible for it
cannot provide us with a general criterion of truth.
    Evans’ target is the tense–logic inaugurated by Arthur N. Prior, whose
fundamental contention is that the past or future tense verb is ‘out of the
same box as’ such terms as ‘not’, ‘not the case that’, and ‘possible’. Thus for
Prior, talking about ‘truth at time t’ is parallel to talking about ‘truth with
respect to possible world w’. He criticises the view that the «evaluation of
an utterance as correct or incorrect depends upon the time the evaluation
is made». Evans’ particular target is the view that Geach attributes to the
Stoics and Scholastics in his review of Benson Mates’ Stoic Logic. The at-
tributed view is that, an untensed proposition such as «Socrates is sitting» is
a complete proposition, which is sometimes true and sometimes false, «not
an incomplete expression requiring a further phrase like ‘at time t’ to make
it into an assertion» (Geach 1955). According to Evans, such assertion would
not admit of a stable evaluation as correct or incorrect; if we are to speak of
correctness or incorrectness at all we must say that the assertion is correct at
some times and not at others. He adds:

   Such a conception of assertion is not coherent. In the first place, I do not under-
   stand the use of our ordinary word ‘correct’ to apply to one and the same historical
   act at some times and not at others, according to the state of the weather. Just as we
   use the terms ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘obligatory’ and ‘permitted’ to make an assessment,
   once and for all, of non–linguistic actions, so we use the term ‘correct’ to make a
   once–and–for–all assessment of speech acts. Secondly, even if we strain to under-
   stand the notion ‘correct–at–t’, it is clear that a theory of meaning which states
   the semantic values of particular utterances solely by the use of it cannot serve as
   a theory of sense. If a theory of reference permits a subject to deduce merely that
   a particular utterance is now correct, but later will be incorrect, it cannot assist the
   subject in deciding what to say, nor in interpreting the remarks of others. What
   should he aim at, or take the others to be aiming at? Maximum correctness? But
   of course, if he knew an answer to this question, it would necessarily generate a
   once–and–for–all assessment of utterances, according to whether or not they meet
   whatever condition the answer gave. In fact, we know what he should do; he should
   utter sentence types true at the time of utterance. One who utters the sentence type
   «it is raining» rules out dry weather only at the time of utterance; he does not rule
   out later dryness, and hence there can be no argument from the later state of the
   weather to a reappraisal of his utterance. Utterances have to be evaluated according


                                             38
                                 WUySRN• numero 1 • 2010
                              Relativism and the Norm of Truth

   to what they rule out, and so different utterances of the same tensed sentences made
   at different times may have to be evaluated (once and for all) differently. They can-
   not therefore all be assigned the same semantic value (Evans 1996: 349–50).

    MacFarlane thinks that although the view proposed by the Stoic logic
that is being criticised is «manifestly implausible», the criticism is general
enough to pose potential problems for «any view on which the truth of
utterances is relativised to a context of assessment» (MacFarlane 2003: 332).
Rephrasing Evans, he puts the objection in the following way: we aim to
make sincere assertions, and this is tantamount to aiming to speak the truth.
In cases of contextual sentences, there is no non–relativised fact of the mat-
ter as to whether our assertion is true or not, true relative to some contexts,
untrue relative to others. How can we aim to speak the truth then? At best
we can aim to speak the truth as assessed from such and such a context. But
since the context of utterance does not pick out a uniquely relevant context
of assessment, for if it did we would not need to relativise truth to a context
of assessment at all, the context of utterance would provide all the informa-
tion we needed to get the truth value. If truth is to be relative to a context
of assessment, which in principle could be different every single time, then
truth becomes entirely particular, and loses its overarching normative role.
Evans’ objection then, as MacFarlane understands it, is that once we give up
the uniqueness of truth, once we allow for truth to multiply into ‘truth rela-
tive to…’ then we also lose the peculiar sense of truth as the norm of our
assertive thought and talk.
    Max Kölbel restates Evans’ challenge even more perspicuously:

   The difficulty Evans sees is this: we must, in making and interpreting assertions,
   be able to make sense of the idea that the assertion is correct, so that we can aim
   to assert correctly (as speakers) or expect an assertion to be correct (as audience).
   However, if it is relative to perspectives whether the content expressed by an asser-
   toric utterance is true, then there seems to be no sense in which the utterance can
   be correct or incorrect. The only way it could would be either in relation to some
   particular perspective or in relation to some, most or all perspectives. But if we were
   aiming for correctness in relation to some specific perspective p1, perhaps because
   it is related in some way to the context of utterance, then correctness would no
   longer be relative to perspectives because an utterance would be absolutely correct
   just if it is correct in relation to p1. The same goes for the quantificational options:
   if we were aiming for correctness in relation to some (most, every) perspective, then
   we would after all have an absolute correctness condition: an utterance is absolutely
   correct just if it is correct in relation to some (most, every) perspective. Thus, the



                                             39
                                 WUySRN• numero 1 • 2010
                            Maria Baghramian, Richard Hamilton

   idea of contents of assertion that have relative correctness (or truth) conditions is
   incoherent (Kölbel 2004: 308).

   The difficulty then is: if MacFarlane is correct, and particular classes of
assertions could be given both true and false values depending on varying
contexts, then such context–relative truth cannot play a normative role in as-
sertive speech acts, because a shifting, indeterminate relativised truth cannot
be the aim and hence the norm of assertion. MacFarlane’s scenario is similar
to an archery contest where contestants are faced with several possible tar-
gets and can only find out after the contest if they aimed at (let alone hit)
the correct target. It is not clear whether such an event would count as an
archery contest as it is currently understood.
   The converse of the argument also applies. If truth is the goal and hence
the norm of an assertion, then it cannot be relative. As Kölbel points out, if
an assertion is true relative to a perspective then the assertion is correct or
incorrect in relation to one, some or maybe all perspectives. But once we
specify the perspective in relation to which it is correct then we would no
longer have relative truth, but absolute truth (for that perspective). We face
the paradox that once we accept the normative role of truth, then we inevi-
tably fall back on an absolute notion of truth.
   MacFarlane’s response to the challenge is to accept Evans’ argument, but
to question the underlying thinking about assertions and the norms govern-
ing them. He says:

   It is not obvious that ‘aiming at the truth’ should play any part in an account of as-
   sertion. If we aim at anything in making assertions, it is to have an effect on people:
   to inform them, to persuade them, amuse them, encourage them, insult them, or
   (often enough) mislead them. Even if we limit ourselves to sincere assertions, truth
   is only our indirect aim: we aim to show others what we believe, and we aim to
   believe what is true. If we misrepresent our beliefs but hit the truth anyway (because
   our beliefs are false), we have failed to make a sincere assertion, while if we miss the
   truth but accurately represent our beliefs, we have succeeded in making one. Per-
   haps belief or judgment constitutively aims at truth; assertion does not (2003: 334).

   MacFarlane (2003, 2005a, 2005b) maintains that his version of relativism is
indeed committed to the normative features of assertion because in making
an assertion «one is committed to producing a justification, that is, giving ad-
equate reasons for thinking that the sentence is true» (MacFarlane 2003: 334).
This form of allegiance to the idea of normativity is based on Brandom’s
score keeping account, where making an assertion is logically linked with
asking for reasons, providing justifications and withdrawing the assertion if

                                             40
                                 WUySRN• numero 1 • 2010
                              Relativism and the Norm of Truth

an adequate defence has not been provided. Such a process, according to
MacFarlane, involves commitment to three norms:

   (W) Commitment to withdraw the assertion if and when it is shown to
       have been untrue.
   (J) Commitment to justify the assertion (provide grounds for its truth)
       if and when it is appropriately challenged.
   (R) Commitment to be held responsible if someone else acts on or rea-
       sons from what is asserted, and it proves to have been untrue (Mac-
       Farlane 2005b: 318).

   The relativistic version of this commitment based view runs as follows:

   In asserting that p at a context cu, one commits oneself to providing adequate
   grounds for the truth of p (relative to cu and one’s current context of assessment), in
   response to any appropriate challenge […]. One can be released from this commit-
   ment only by withdrawing the assertion (2005a).

    It’s important to note that MacFarlane, unlike Crispin Wright and Searle
who see truth as the norm and goal of assertion, does not think that the
epistemic norms of assertion obligate a speaker to withdraw an assertion she
believes or knows to be false, for «one can lie without violating the constitu-
tive norms of assertion» (MacFarlane 2003: 335).


Assessing the dispute

    To recap, Evans’ argument against relativism about truth runs something
like this: coherent thought and intelligible assertions presuppose stability
both in the goal or target of enquiry and its objects of reference. It simply
does not make sense to think of truth as the normative force necessarily
governing assertions, unless we can give some generality and stability to that
force. The relativist fails to do that. If what is true can shift depending on
context, then we cannot claim that truth is necessarily the goal of assertion.
    MacFarlane makes two connected arguments against Evans. Firstly, as
we saw, he disputes the view that truth, in any obvious way, is the aim of
an assertion. Assertions have more tangible goals, among them informing,
persuading, amusing, encouraging, and even misleading one’s interlocutors.
However, truth, he admits, could be the aim of belief and thus indirectly the
goal of a sincere assertion. But it is this second, weaker position that is de-

                                             41
                                 WUySRN• numero 1 • 2010
                         Maria Baghramian, Richard Hamilton

fended by philosophers who believe truth to be a guiding norm of an asser-
tion. Truth becomes a constitutive norm of an assertion where by ‘assertion’
we mean speech actions that are performed with the aim of informing and
with sincerity, hence MacFarlane’s rejection of a much stronger version of
the view misses the real target of the argument. We’ll argue that MacFarlane
does not succeed in showing that truth is an aim of assertions in this weaker
sense.
    MacFarlane’s second move is to offer an alternative account of the sources
of normativity. However, we should remember that Evans points to the inco-
herence of aiming at something unstable, rather than simply having truth as
the aim of assertion.Thus it is not sufficient for MacFarlane to counter Evans
through the argument that there are norms other than truth that could gov-
ern assertions. He also needs to show that these other aims don’t create the
type of instability that relativised truth does. And we believe that MacFarlane
fails at this task as well.
    On MacFarlane’s model of assertion, when we talk about being commit-
ted to the truth of an assessment sensitive proposition we aim at saying things
that are governed by the principles (W), (J) and (R). If Evans’ argument re-
garding the need for stability of goals of assertion is correct, then MacFarlane
has to show that (W), (J), and (R) are not susceptible to Evans’ argument.
    Let’s take each one in turn. (W) states that it is a normative commitment
to withdraw an assertion if and when it is shown to have been untrue. Mac-
Farlane in effect replaces the idea of goal directedness, where truth is the
goal, with that of commitment, where speakers are committed to the truth
of their assertions. For how could we make sense of the normative injunc-
tion to try and avoid falsehoods other than a desire to maximise the stock of
our true beliefs? Why would one be committed to withdrawing assertions
when they are shown to have been untrue, unless asserting true propositions
is the goal we are pursuing? It seems difficult, here and elsewhere, to main-
tain the epistemic normative position that MacFarlane wishes to maintain
without reintroducing truth as the primary norm of assertion. MacFarlane
may point out that his use of the epistemic norm of commitment marks a
major departure from the goal directed position he is rejecting. But then
MacFarlane’s proposal is still vulnerable to Evans type criticisms of instability.
For there are strong analogies between committing to x and aiming at x; for
one thing they are both targeted actions. Commitment, MacFarlane admits,
should be understood in behavioural terms. To be committed to x involves
commitment to doing something, performing certain acts regarding x, etc.
If, as argued, sincere assertions aim at informing then commitment to an as-
sertion is a commitment to being informative, or a commitment to provide

                                        42
                              WUySRN• numero 1 • 2010
                          Relativism and the Norm of Truth

correct (hence true) information. Because of these parallels, the very prob-
lems that truth–relativism poses for the idea of truth as the norm of an assertion
resurface for the proposed idea of commitment. Just as it seems odd to aim at
something that is not yet fixed or defined, it seems strange to describe your
attitude towards something as one of commitment, if it is as yet unfixed and
not quite known what it is that you are committed to. MacFarlane disagrees
and provides several analogies to make his point.
    The pitcher argument: according to MacFarlane, to commit oneself to a
context sensitive, and hence shifting truth, is logically no more complex than
a commitment to refill a pitcher (at any future time t2) when it is known that
the pitcher is empty (at t1) (MacFarlane 2005b). The analogy, however, does
not do the work assigned to it because of the differences between commit-
ting oneself to a relativised truth and committing oneself to fill an empty
pitcher. I know what it means for a pitcher to be empty; the only thing I
don’t know very precisely is when this state will obtain. But with (W), I don’t
know if or when my assertion will be shown to be untrue nor do I know
what context of assessment its untruth will be relative to. A closer analogy is
to commit oneself to refill the pitcher if and when it becomes empty, but not
knowing what or who exactly determines emptiness. But could we logically
commit ourselves to such an indeterminate action? We think not. Contrary
to MacFarlane’s arguments, the pitcher example provides a good analogy for
truth being the aim of an assertion: to commit oneself to fill a pitcher is to
aim to have a full pitcher.
    MacFarlane may counter that we can indeed have an idea of what a com-
mitment to a variable or indeterminate goal is. Suppose I undertake the fol-
lowing commitment — each time somebody walks through that door, I will
endeavour to greet him or her in their native language. Now, I don’t know
who will come through the door, and hence I don’t know what language
they will speak, so we cannot make it a specific commitment like «I will
greet the next person through the door in German». The success conditions
of my commitment are subject to an as yet undetermined context of assess-
ment, and yet, the commitment is not nonsensical. But this analogy is not
convincing either, for the setting almost inevitably presupposes a degree of
success. For one thing, our linguistic greeter already possesses the informa-
tion that he is supposed to greet people verbally, and knows what the condi-
tions for fulfilling this task are. If we were to take seriously the idea that a
context of assessment might be rich and various, and unknown in advance,
then in this supposedly parallel case our greeter’s commitments should not
be fully determined. For example, it should be something along the lines of,
«I undertake to react appropriately to whoever comes through that door»,

                                        43
                             WUySRN• numero 1 • 2010
                              Maria Baghramian, Richard Hamilton

where the greeter does not know what exactly would count as an appropri-
ate behaviour, smile, formal handshake, a hug, a formal bow, stiff indifference,
etc. ‘Appropriate behaviour’ in this case is a placeholder for an indeterminate
type and number of actions and hence cannot be seen either as aim of be-
haviour, nor would it provide coherent content of a definite commitment.
Just like the pitcher analogy, our commitment has become an undertaking so
vague as to lack any content, and hence not qualify as a commitment.
   In Future Contingents and Relative Truth, MacFarlane provides yet another
example in support of his position. Accepting the Evans view that a–contex-
tuality does not provide us with a suitable candidate for a targeted assertion,
we are asked to consider an alternative, illustrated by a multiplayer game:

   When I was young, my friends and I used to play multi–player Rochambeau 4. In
   this game, whether a move counts as winning varies from opponent to opponent.
   A play of ‘rock’ will win with respect to an opponent who plays ‘scissors’, but lose
   to one who plays ‘paper’. Though one cannot aim to win simpliciter, the game is
   not incoherent. It is just different from games in which winning is not relativised
   to opponents. Similarly, I suggest, assertions of a–contextual sentences, whose truth
   varies from one context of assessment to another, are not incoherent: they are just
   different from assertions of non–a–contextual sentences (MacFarlane 2003: 334).

    In Evans’ picture of assertion one can aim to win simpliciter, with a–con-
textuality one cannot. But just as a player of Rochambeau can win or lose
depending on the moves made by the other players, the players of our rela-
tivised language game can also aim to conform generally to the principles
(W), (J) and (R), even though they don’t now know the exact circumstances
in which one or more of these principle would be invoked, nor the exact
contexts of assessment relative to which their assertions will be held to be
true or untrue.
    Once again, MacFarlane does not provide us with a convincing analogy
and hence does not quite manage to undermine the case for the truth direct-
edness of assertions. The players of Rochambeau, as in all other competitive
games, aim at winning the game, the contention is that they cannot aim to
win or lose simpliciter, but only relative to other players at the game. With
each move of the game a player’s status as a winner or loser would depend
on and vary with what each of the other players does, and hence it could be
characterised only relativistically. She will be making decisions based on the
context of the game and whether these decisions lead to a win or not would
depend on and vary relative to the actions of other players in the game.

  4
      Also known as «Rock, Paper, Scissors».

                                               44
                                    WUySRN• numero 1 • 2010
                           Relativism and the Norm of Truth

    The analogy does not quite work, because the scenario does not have
relativistic consequences MacFarlane attributes to it. There are two prob-
lems, firstly the overall strategy of the game is not necessarily relativistic in
the sense outlined by truth–relativists, and second, the relationship between
truth and assertion is different from the relationship between games and
winning.
    On the game side of the disanalogy, a rational player of Rochambeau will
be aiming at a winning strategy — maximally from all other players and min-
imally at least from one — and would decide on her strategies accordingly.
For instance, she may work out that in a 4–player game it is easier to focus
on two of the players only (for instance by concentrating on their body lan-
guage and overall gaming strategies) and hence maximise one’s wins in this
manner. Such a game, if played well, would increase the chances of an overall
win, even if our rational contestant loses the game relative to one of the other
three players. In such a scenario, the players aim or commitment to winning
and the condition for achieving an overall win are a stable unmoving target,
but the specific strategic decisions are of course contextual. A commitment
to a relatively true assertion does not have this level of specificity.
    Similar criticisms could be levelled against MacFarlane’s other norms
of assertions. (J) involves commitment to justifying an assertion (provide
grounds for its truth) if and when it is appropriately challenged. However, as
Rorty suggests, «justification is relative to an audience and [...] we can never
exclude the possibility that some better audience might exist, or come to
exist, to whom a belief that is justifiable to us would not be justified [...]. For
any audience one can imagine a better–informed audience and also a more
imaginative one — an audience that has thought up hitherto undreamt–of
alternatives to the proposed belief. The limits of justification would be the
limits of language, but language (like imagination) has no limits» (Rorty
1998: 18). If this is true, then MacFarlane’s norms of assertion involve a rela-
tivised notion of commitment, which poses problems similar to that of aim-
ing at an unstable target. More importantly, despite MacFarlane’s disavowal,
(J) goes to reaffirm the central role of truth in the assertoric speech act. Why
should one aim to justify one’s assertions, to provide grounds for them, unless
one is aiming to make true assertions? (J) becomes a norm of assertion only
with the implicit assumption that we are aiming to make true statements.
Now, if truth is relative, as MacFarlane claims, we end up facing the very
dilemma that Evans sketched and MacFarlane is attempting to avoid.
    Finally, principle (R) involves the commitment to be held responsible if
someone else acts on or reasons from what is asserted, and it proves to have
been untrue. (MacFarlane 2005b: 318). MacFarlane maintains that «asserting

                                         45
                              WUySRN• numero 1 • 2010
                            Maria Baghramian, Richard Hamilton

is a bit like giving one’s word that something is so, and our reactions to asser-
tions that turn out to have been untrue can resemble our reactions to broken
promises. We feel a legitimate sense of grievance, especially if we have acted
on what we were told» (MacFarlane 2005b: 316).
    Criticisms parallel to the ones leveled against (W) and (J) apply here. For
one thing, to be responsible for x, is to know what one is responsible for.
The analogy with aiming is quite clear. However, if truth is relative then it is
not at all clear where the responsibility of the asserter lies. Secondly, as in the
previous two instances, the link between the norm of being responsible and
norm of truth seems unbreakable. How are we to understand MacFarlane’s
suggestion that «asserting is a bit like giving one’s word that something is so»
other than «asserting involves a commitment that one is aiming to say what
is the case, to make correct statements, or to speak the truth»? If this is right,
(R) like (W) and (J), ultimately links assertions to truth, so MacFarlane’s at-
tempts distancing the necessary connection between truth and assertion fails.
Davidson wrote that «Relativism about truth is perhaps always a symptom
of infection by the epistemological virus» (Davidson 1990: 298), in this par-
ticular case however, the infection works both ways and shows MacFarlane’s
vulnerability to Evans–type criticisms.


Conclusion

   To conclude, in MacFarlane’s version of the principles governing as-
sertions (W), (J) and (R), commitment to the norms of justification, not
truth, has the leading role. However, as we have seen, these commitments
themselves involve the norm of truth. We have also argued that the idea of
commitment to a normative principle comes very close to aiming at that
principle. If we agree with Evans that, due to its instability, relative truth
cannot be aimed at, it is hard to see what work the idea of truth is doing in
MacFarlane’s principles. Furthermore, his version of truth–relativism makes
the targets of commitments in (W), (J) and (R) unstable and hence fails to
meet Evans’ objection 5.

                                                                maria.baghramian@ucd.ie
                                                                          rhamilt@tcd.ie



   5
      We would like to thank Dr. Paul O’Grady (Trinity College Dublin) for comments on earlier
drafts of this paper.

                                             46
                                  WUySRN• numero 1 • 2010
                             Relativism and the Norm of Truth


Bibliography

Aristotle, 1949: Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Cambridge (Mass.),
   London, Harvard University Press.
Davidson, D., 1990: The Structure and Content of Truth, «Journal of Philosophy», 87,
   n. 6 (June 1990).
Evans, G., 1996: Collected Papers, Oxford, Clarendon Press.
Geach, P.T., 1955: Review of B. Mates «Stoic Logic», «Philosophical Review», 64.
Goldman, A., 1986: Epistemology and Cognition, Cambridge (Mass.), London, Har-
   vard University Press.
Kölbel, M., 2004: Faultless Disagreement, «Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society»,
   104 (1).
Lewis, D., 1979: Attitudes De Dicto and De Se, «Philosophical Review» 88
   (4).
MacFarlane, J., 2003: Future Contingents and Relative Truth, «The Philosophical
   Quarterly», 53 (212), pp. 321–36.
MacFarlane, J., 2005a: The Assessment Sensitivity of Knowledge Attributions, «Oxford
   Studies in Epistemology», 1, pp. 197–233.
MacFarlane, J., 2005b: Making Sense of Relative Truth, «Proceedings of the Aristote-
   lian Society», 105, pp. 305–23.
MacFarlane, J., 2007a: Relativism and Disagreement, «Philosophical Studies», 132,
   pp. 17–31.
MacFarlane, J., 2007b: Semantic Minimalism and Nonindexical Contextualism, in G.
   Preyer and G. Peter (ed.), Context–Sensitivity and Semantic Minimalism. New Es-
   says on Semantics and Pragmatics, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 240–50.
MacFarlane, J., 2008: Truth in the Garden of Forking Paths, in M. Kölbel and M. Gar-
   cía Carpintero (ed.), Relative Truth, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 81–102.
MacFarlane, J., (forthcoming): Epistemic Modals Are Assessment–Sensitive, in B.
   Weatherson and A. Egan (ed.), Epistemic Modality, Oxford, Oxford University
   Press.
Peirce, C.S., 1934: Pragmatism and pragmaticism, Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard Uni-
   versity Press.
Quine,W.V.O., 1986: Reply to Morton White, in L.E. Hahn, P.A. Schilpp, The Philoso-
   phy of W.V. Quine, La Salle, Open Court, pp. 663–65.
Rorty, R., 1991: Objectivity, Relativism and Truth, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Rorty, R., 1998: Truth and progress, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Searle, J., 2001: Rationality in action, Cambridge (Mass.), London, MIT Press.
Wright, C., 1992: Truth and objectivity, Cambridge (Mass.), London, Harvard Uni-
   versity Press.

                                           47
                                WUySRN• numero 1 • 2010
