The Philosophy of Michael Dummett

977 Pages·2007·34.788 MB·English

by  Randall E. Auxier, Lewis Edwin Hahn

THE LIBRARY OF LIVING PHILOSOPHERS

THE PHILOSOPHY OF
MICHAEL DUMMETT
THE LIBRARY OF LIVING PHILOSOPHERS
PAUL ARTHUR SCHILPP, FOUNDER AND EDITOR 1939-1981
LEWIS EDWIN HAHN, EDITOR 1981-2001
RANDALL E. AUXIER, EDITOR 2001-
Paul Arthur Schilpp, Editor
THE PHILOSOPHY OF JOHN DEWEY (1939, 1971, 1989)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF GEORGE SANTAYANA (1940, 1951)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD (1941, 1951)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF G E. MOORE (1942, 1971)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF BERTRAND RUSSELL (1944, 1971)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF ERNST CASSIRER (1949)
ALBERT EINSTEIN: PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST (1949, 1970)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF SARVEPALLI RADHAKRISHNAN (1952)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF KARL JASPERS (1957; AUG ED., 1981)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF C. D. BROAD (1959)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RUDOLF CARNAP (1963)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF C. I. LEWIS (1968)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF KARL POPPER (1974)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF BRAND BLANSHARD (1980)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF JEAN-PAUL SARTRE (1981)
Paul Arthur Schilpp and Maurice Friedman, Editors
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MARTIN BUBER (1967)
Paul Arthur Schilpp and Lewis Edwin Hahn, Editors
THE PHILOSOPHY OF GABRIEL MARCEL (1984)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF W. V. QUINE (1986, AUG ED., 1998)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF GEORG HENRIK VON WRIGHT (1989)
Lewis Edwin Hahn, Editor
THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHARLES HARTSHORNE (1991)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF A. J. AYER (1992)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PAUL RICOEUR (1995)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PAUL WEISS (1995)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF HANS-GEORG GADAMER (1997)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RODERICK M. CHISHOLM (1997)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF P. F. STRAWSON (1998)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF DONALD DAVIDSON (1999)
Lewis Edwin Hahn, Randall E. Auxier and Lucian W. Stone, Jr, Editors
THE PHILOSOPHY OF SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR (2001)
Randall E. Auxier and Lewis Edwin Hahn, Editors
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MARJORIE GRENE (2002)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF JAAKKO HINTIKKA (2006)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MICHAEL DUMMETT (2007)
In Preparation:
THE PHILOSOPHY OF ARTHUR C. DANTO
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MARTHA NUSSBAUM
a

THE LIBRARY OF LIVING PHILOSOPHERS
VOLUME XXXI

THE PHILOSOPHY OF
MICHAEL DUMMETT
EDITED BY
RANDALL E. AUXIER
AND
LEWIS EDWIN HAHN
SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY CARBONDALE

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF MICHAEL DUMMETT
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Copyright © 2007 by The Library of Living Philosophers
First printing 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
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Printed and bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The philosophy of Michael Dummett / edited by Randall E. Auxier and Lewis Edwin Hahn.
p.cm. -- (The library of living philosophers ; v. 31}
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8126-9621-9 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8 126-9612-2 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8 126-9622-6 (trade paper : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8126-9622-0 (trade paper : alk. paper) 1. Dummett, Michael A.
E. I. Auxier, Randall E., 1961- II. Hahn, Lewis Edwin, 1908-
B1626.D854P49 2007
192--de22
2007019943
The Library of Living Philosophers is published under the sponsorship of Southern Illinois
University Carbondale.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
TO
THE LIBRARY OF LIVING PHILOSOPHERS
Since its founding in 1938 by Paul Arthur Schilpp, the Library of Living
Philosophers has been devoted to critical analysis and discussion of some
of the world’s greatest living philosophers. The format for the series
provides for creating in each volume a dialogue between the critics and the
great philosopher. The aim is not refutation or confrontation but rather
fruitful joining of issues and improved understanding of the positions and
issues involved. That is, the goal is not overcoming those who differ from
us philosophically but interacting creatively with them.
The basic idea for the series, according to Professor Schilpp’s general
introduction to the earlier volumes, came from the late F.C.S. Schiller’s
essay “Must Philosophers Disagree?” While Schiller may have been overly
optimistic about ending “interminable controversies” in this way, it seems
clear that directing searching questions to great philosophers about what
they really mean or how they might resolve or address difficulties in their
philosophies can produce far greater clarity of understanding and more
fruitful philosophizing than would otherwise exist.
To Paul Arthur Schilpp’s undying credit, he acted on this basic thought
in launching the Library of Living Philosophers. The general plan for the
volumes has sometimes been altered to fit circumstances, but in ways that
have well served the mission of the series. The intellectual autobiographies,
or, in a few cases, the biographies, shed a great deal of light on both how
the philosophies of the great thinkers developed and the major philosophical
movements and issues of their time; and many of our great philosophers
seek to orient their outlook not merely to their contemporaries but also to
what they find most important in earlier philosophers. The critical
perspectives of our distinguished contributors have often stood on their own
as landmark studies, widely cited and familiar not only to subsequent
specialists, but frequently discussed in their own right as pieces of great
philosophy. The bibliography helps to provide ready access to the featured
scholar’s writings and thought.
There is no reason to alter our historical format or mission for the
present century. We are pleased that the success of the Library of Living
vill GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Philosophers has led to a wider appreciation of the need for dialogue of the
type our format creates. We respect the efforts of other academic publishers
to employ versions of our format to facilitate pluralistic, meaningful, sharp,
constructive, and respectful exchange in philosophical ideas. We are
fortunate to have such support from the Open Court Publishing Company,
the Edward C. Hegeler Foundation, and the Board of Trustees, College of
Liberal Arts, and the Department of Philosophy of Southern Illinois
University Carbondale, as to permit us to carry out our purpose with a
degree of deliberate thoroughness and comprehensiveness not available to
other academic publishers, and we have rededicated ourselves to maintain-
ing the highest standards in scholarship and accuracy anywhere to be found
in academic publishing. In recognition of the permanent value that has been
accorded our previous volumes, we are committed to keeping our volumes
in print and available, and to maintaining our sense of the long-term
importance of providing the most reliable source for scholarly analysis by
the most distinguished voices of our day about the most important
philosophical contributions of the greatest living thinkers.
The Library of Living Philosophers has never construed “philosophy”
in anarrow and strictly academic sense. Past volumes have been dedicated
both to the leading academic philosophers and to the most visible and
influential public philosophers. We renew with each volume our historical
orientation to the practice of philosophy as a quest for truth, beauty, and the
best life, and we affirm that this quest is a public activity and its results a
public possession, both for the present generation and in the future. We
seek, with the sober judgment of our Advisory Board, to bring forth
volumes on the thought of figures whose ideas have made a genuine
difference to the lives of people everywhere. Ideas truly do have conse-
quences, and many of the ideas that have had the broadest impact were
indeed best articulated by the figures to whom we have dedicated past
volumes. The selfless work of Paul Arthur Schilpp and Lewis Edwin Hahn
in realizing this mission stands among the most important scholarly
contributions to twentieth-century philosophy. Their judgment regarding
how best to pursue the purposes of the Library of Living Philosophers has
found constant and continuous confirmation in the reception and ongoing
importance accorded this series. Let us continue in their footsteps as well
as we may.
RANDALL E. AUXIER
DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY
SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY CARBONDALE
FOUNDER’S GENERAL INTRODUCTION’
TO
THE LIBRARY OF LIVING PHILOSOPHERS
According to the late F.C.S. Schiller, the greatest obstacle to fruitful
discussion in philosophy is “the curious etiquette which apparently taboos
the asking of questions about a philosopher’s meaning while he is alive.”
The “interminable controversies which fill the histories of philosophy,” he
goes on to say, “could have been ended at once by asking the living
philosophers a few searching questions.”
The confident optimism of this last remark undoubtedly goes too far.
Living thinkers have often been asked “a few searching questions,” but their
answers have not stopped “interminable controversies” about their real
meaning. It is nonetheless true that there would be far greater clarity of
understanding than is now often the case if more such searching questions
had been directed to great thinkers while they were still alive.
This, at any rate, is the basic thought behind the present undertaking.
The volumes of the Library of Living Philosophers can in no sense take the
place of the major writings of great and original thinkers. Students who
would know the philosophies of such men as John Dewey, George
Santayana, Alfred North Whitehead, G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, Ernst
Cassirer, Karl Jaspers, Rudolf Carnap, Martin Buber, et al., will still need
to read the writings of these men. There is no substitute for first-hand
contact with the original thought of the philosopher himself. Least of all
does this Library pretend to be such a substitute. The Library in fact will
spare neither effort nor expense in offering to the student the best possible
guide to the published writings of a given thinker. We shall attempt to meet
this aim by providing at the end of each volume in our series as nearly
complete a bibliography of the published work of the philosopher in

*This General Introduction sets forth in the founder’s words the underlying
conception of the Library. L.E.H.
x FOUNDER’S GENERAL INTRODUCTION
question as possible. Nor should one overlook the fact that essays in each
volume cannot but finally lead to this same goal. The interpretive and
critical discussions of the various phases of a great thinker’s work and, most
of all, the reply of the thinker himself, are bound to lead the reader to the
works of the philosopher himself.
At the same time, there is no denying that different experts find
different ideas in the writings of the same philosopher. This is as true of the
appreciative interpreter and grateful disciple as it is of the critical opponent.
Nor can it be denied that such differences of reading and of interpretation
on the part of other experts often leave the neophyte aghast before the
whole maze of widely varying and even opposing interpretations. Who is
right and whose interpretation shall he accept? When the doctors disagree
among themselves, what is the poor student to do? If, in desperation, he
decides that all of the interpreters are probably wrong and that the only
thing for him to do is to go back to the original writings of the philosopher
himself and then make his own decision—uninfluenced (as if this were
possible) by the interpretation of anyone else—the result is not that he has
actually come to the meaning of the original philosopher himself, but rather
that he has set up one more interpretation, which may differ to a greater or
lesser degree from the interpretations already existing. It is clear that in this
direction lies chaos, just the kind of chaos which Schiller has so graphically
and inimitably described.”
It is curious that until now no way of escaping this difficulty has been
seriously considered. It has not occurred to students of philosophy that one
effective way of meeting the problem at least partially is to put these
varying interpretations and critiques before the philosopher while he is still
alive and to ask him to act at one and the same time as both defendant and
judge. If the world’s greatest living philosophers can be induced to
cooperate in an enterprise whereby their own work can, at least to some
extent, be saved from becoming merely “desiccated lecture-fodder,” which
on the one hand “provides innocuous sustenance for ruminant professors,”
and on the other hand gives an opportunity to such ruminants and their
understudies to “speculate safely, endlessly, and fruitlessly, about what a
philosopher must have meant” (Schiller), they will have taken a long step
toward making their intentions more clearly comprehensible.
With this in mind, the Library of Living Philosophers expects to publish
at more or less regular intervals a volume on each of the greater among the

** In his essay “Must Philosophers Disagree?” in the volume of the same title
(London: Macmillan, 1934), from which the above quotations were taken.