Abstract

Arguments directed against conceptions of communication which 'privatise' content are familiar. But such arguments tend not to explore the more general idea that communication involves the attempt by one subject to transmit a sense to another subject. In this paper I argue that there is a distinctive misinterpretation of this more general idea which, in a certain way, belongs to philosophy, and concerning which the 'privacy' interpretation is only an inflection. The paper develops an argument against that interpretation and the attempt is made to draw the full implications of the 'publicness' of the structure of language.