Gibbard on Quasi-realism and Global Expressivism

Abstract

In recent work Allan Gibbard claims to be both a local quasi-realist, in Blackburn’s sense, and a global expressivist. His local quasi-realism rests on an argument that for naturalistic discourse but not ethical discourse, the semantic relation of denotation and the causal relation of tracking can and should be identified; that denoting simply is tracking, for naturalistic vocabulary. I argue that Gibbard’s case for this conclusion is unconvincing, and poorly motivated by his own expressivist standards. I also argue that even if it were successful, it is doubtful whether the resulting position would count as global expressivism, as Gibbard and I both use that term.