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Dumb persons, in the use of their sign language, make themselves
understood to a considerable extent even by those who do not
know the language. Merchants, traveling in countries whose lan-
guage they do not know, find that they can buy and sell, and ask
and refuse, and show a friendly or hostile disposition by natural
signs (EIP VI, v [450a]).5 Actors communicate as much by tone
and gesture as by words; and pantomimes communicate with no
words at all.
These considerations, though weighty, are not for Reid the
decisive consideration. That is this:
When we see the sign, and see the thing signified always conjoined with
it, experience may be the instructor, and teach us how that sign is to be
interpreted. But how shall experience instruct us when we see the sign
only, when the thing signified is invisible? Now is this the case here; the
thoughts and passions of the mind, as well as the mind itself, are invisi-
ble, and therefore their connection with any sensible sign cannot be
first discovered by experience; there must be some earlier source of this
knowledge. (EIP VI, v [449b 450a]; see also EIP VI, vi [460a])
The analogy between the workings of our natural language, on
the one hand, and perception on the standard schema, on the
other, are thus very close indeed. When I grasp an ivory ball in
my hand, I feel a certain sensation of touch. In the sensation,
there is nothing external, nothing corporeal. The sensation is
neither round nor hard. . . . But, by the constitution of my nature,
the sensation carries along with it the conception and belief of a
5
There are fascinating examples of this in Stephen E. Ambrose s narration of the Lewis
and Clark expedition: Undaunted Courage (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).
The Epistemology of Testimony 169
round hard body really existing in my hand. Similarly, when I
see the features of an expressive face, I see only figure and colour
variously modified. But, by the constitution of my nature, the
visible object brings along with it the conception and belief of a
certain passion or sentiment in the mind of the person. In short:
In the former case, a sensation of touch is the sign, and the
hardness and roundness of the body I grasp, is signified by that
sensation. In the latter case, the features of the person is the sign,
and the passion or sentiment is signified by it (EIP VI, v [450a]).6
There s much, indeed, that s provocative and suggestive in these
claims; but since it is testimony delivered in artificial language
that is our topic in this chapter, we must move on.
why do we believe testimony?
Let s begin by having before us Reid s own brief statement of the
analogy between natural and artificial language:
In artificial language, the signs are articulate sounds, whose connection
with the things signified by them is established by the will of men; and
in learning our mother tongue, we discover this connection by experi-
ence; but not without the aid of natural language, or of what we had
before attained of artificial language. And after this connection is
discovered, the sign, as in natural language, always suggests the things
signified, and creates the belief of it. (IHM VI, xxiv [195a b; B 191])
Some points of obscurity in this passage have to be illuminated
before we can see what Reid is up to. Begin with this: What is it
that Reid understands as signified by the signs of language?
What is it that gets connected to the articulate sounds of lan-
guage by the will of men ? If one thinks of language along the
lines of speech act theory, the answer would be that it is illocu-
tionary actions to use J. L. Austin s terminology that get con-
nected to articulate sounds: actions such as asserting something,
issuing some command to someone, asking someone something,
and so forth.
I see nothing in Reid s thought that would lead him to reject
this approach to language; on the contrary, though Reid is not
6
The fact that we interpret facial expressions, vocal modulations, and bodily gestures, as
signs of mental life, presupposes, obviously, that we construe those expressions, modu-
lations, and gestures, as the actions of a person. Reid has a brief discussion of what
accounts for such belief in other minds at EIP VI, v [448b 449a].
170 Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology
developing a theory of language, and that s important to realize,
he does seem to have assumed something along the general lines
of speech act theory. Nonetheless, that s not the aspect of lan-
guage on which he has his eye. For the connection between the
words we utter and the speech acts we thereby perform is not a
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