Normativity of Meaning Contextualised: A Davidsonian Account

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel contextualist account of the normativity of meaning, grounded in Davidsonian metasemantics. It presents the view that the normativity of meaning can arise not from global conventions or prescriptive rules, but from the local evidence-based practice under the constitutive ideal of rationality. By analysing how we achieve what Davidson called ‘first’ meaning, the paper demonstrates how context-local standards emerge within the boundaries set by the principle of charity. This framework preserves semantic systematicity and stability, and explains phenomena such as idiosyncrasy and linguistic mistakes without appealing to conventionalism, thereby breaking out of the dilemma between weak ‘correctness’ and overly strong ‘prescriptive’ construals of the normativity of meaning. The result is a robustly normative, yet moderately anti-conventionalist theory of meaning, which does not rule out the existence of linguistic conventions but rather takes their role to be far less significant.