On skepticism about meaning, performative contradiction, and philosophy

In his recent article, “An Analysis of the Problem of Skepticism Regarding Meaning in the Categories of Linguistic Pragmatics,” M. Smirnov critically analyzes V. Ladov and E. Borisov's arguments against the skeptical position regarding meaning, based on reducing this position to a performative contradiction. According to Smirnov, the conclusion that the skeptic contradicts himself when he talks about the impossibility of making any true statements, particularly statements about meaning, is ill-founded. The underlying thesis of Smirnov's argument is that the skeptic's speech act, in the context of his communication, may have a different pragmatic character than the expression of statements about reality considered true. Therefore, there is no performative contradiction between the fact of his utterance and the content of that utterance. The thesis opposed to Smirnov's one in this article is that skepticism regarding meaning is not overcome by the skeptical position leading to a performative contradiction in the strict sense, as Ladov and Borisov argue, according to Smirnov's reconstruction of their views. Rather, it is overcome by the fact that it has consequences in the realm of pragmatics that normatively exclude the skeptic from the context of philosophy itself as a practice and immerse them in a qualitatively different context. The basic thesis of the article is that philosophical activity is inherently normative. It is governed by implicit conventions, one of which is the sharing of a specific communicative intention. By participating in a philosophical discussion, one commits to the pragmatic stance that one's statements will be understood as assertions that claim truth, and as such, these statements can be defended, questioned, and have consequences drawn from them, among other things - things we do with such assertions. Therefore, as one's opponents, we have the right to consider this stance, among other things. If, as Smirnov argues, we cannot attribute to the skeptic the intention to make a certain assertion, then we undermine not only the argument from Ladov and Borisov's performative contradiction, but also the discussion of skepticism itself. Even if we do not regard the skeptic's statements as nonsense, we are to recognize them as something external to the activity we engage in as philosophers. This renders philosophical polemics with the skeptic empty in a pragmatic sense. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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