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Devitt on the Epistemic Authority of Linguistic Intuitions

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Abstract

Michael Devitt has argued that a satisfactory explanation of the authority of linguistic intuitions need not assume that they are derived from tacit knowledge of principles of grammar. Devitt’s Modest Explanation is based on a controversial construal of linguistic intuitions as meta-linguistic central-processor judgements. I will argue that there are non-judgemental responses to linguistic strings, linguistic seemings, which are evidence for linguistic theories. Devitt cannot account for their epistemic authority. This spoils his ‘modest explanation’. Devitt’s opponent, the Voice of Competence View, is back in business.

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Notes

  1. See, for example, Devitt (2006a, 482 and 488).

  2. See, for example, Dwyer and Pietroski (1996) for a detailed proposal.

  3. See Helm (2002), Sect. 2.

  4. See, for example, Williamson (2007, 217f).

  5. The example is used by Siegel (2005, 490) and Peacocke (1992, 87).

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Acknowledgements

I presented an earlier version of this paper at a workshop on Devitt’s Ignorance of Meaning at the University of Nottingham in March 2007. I am grateful to the audience for their feedback and to Michael Devitt for discussion and written comments. I also want to thank Guy Longworth for comments on the original version. I am grateful to two anonymous referees for drawing me out on crucial points and to Gabriel Segal and Jessica Leech for comments on the revised version.

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Correspondence to Mark Textor.

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Textor, M. Devitt on the Epistemic Authority of Linguistic Intuitions. Erkenn 71, 395–405 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-009-9176-8

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