Abstract

A condition of adequacy on a theory meaning is to account for the normative dimension of language use---that given what a word means one ought to use it in some ways and not in others. I distinguish five issues pertaining to meaning normativity: its reality, source, sense, scope and funding. Since accounting for normativity is a criterion for an acceptable account of meaning, I argue that the normative dimension is indeed real and thereby reject eliminative naturalistic accounts such as Quine's. ;Following Wittgenstein and Davidson, I defend the view that some meaning norms have a strong, objective sense of correctness rather than a weak, pragmatic one. Also I follow them in holding that strong normative correctness does not just reside in logical vocabulary but extends to some empirical terms as well. ;Because of the threat of naturalistic fallacy, meaning normativity may seem to require meaning platonism. I argue that a middle, "neo-Kantian" road between eliminative naturalism and meaning platonism is both possible and desirable. This involves reconceiving actual use: use understood not as observable regularities in the linguistic behaviour of individuals or groups, but as including the normative-reflective dimensions of instruction, evaluation, criticism, correction, etc., among language users. Thus strong normativity can be funded internally from normatively rich, socially constituted actual practices of usage. ;Two main problems confront such a view: explanatory circularity and relativism. To a degree the first problem is conceded: it is the price of anti-reductionism . To avoid relativism, I propose to recover objective correctness as a regulative idea governing actual social practices of use. Its regulative character ensures that objective correctness is never identified with any actual usage but is always ongoingly achieved and revisable . Furthermore it clarifies how de facto social practices have to be structured in order to fund objective norms. Hence social practice oriented by the regulative idea of the correct way to use terms can provide an account of meaning normativity which is anti-platonic, non-reductive, anti-relativistic, and explanatorily informative