{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.029885057471264367, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0038314176245210726, 'mean_word_length': 4.853512705530643, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 1, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Idiolect and Context I. the Idiolect Problem

In this paper I will compare some of Dummett and Davidson’s claims on the problem of communication and idiolects: how can we understand each other if we use different idiolects? First I define the problem, giving the alternative theses of (I) the priority of language over idiolects and (II) the priority of idiolects over language. I then present Dummett's claims supporting (I) and Davidson's claims supporting (II). In the first three paragraphs, I will provide a reconstruction of the debate between Dummett and Davidson, showing some weaknesses in both programs. In the remaining two paragraphs, I will work on the concept of “convergence”. I will try to show that the process of convergence, which is basic in Davidson’s theory, needs a level of (formal) analysis of what I call “contextual competence”. The main point of the paper is to show a blindspot in Davidson and Dummett, and to fill the gap. In short, to explain communication, Dummett asks for too much sharing among speakers, and Davidson asks for too little. Even if proposed, for the sake of argument, as a possible supplementation of Davidson’s idea of convergence, the suggestion of contextual competence may be used as an extension of Dummett’s molecularism. I. THE IDIOLECT PROBLEM According to Frege, in everyday language people often attach different senses to the same expression: "In the case of an actual proper name such as 'Aristotle' opinions as to the sense may differ. It might, for instance, be taken to be the following: the pupil of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. Anybody who does this will attach another sense to the sentence 'Aristotle was born in Stagira' than will someone who takes as the sense of the name: the teacher of Alexander the Great who was born Stagira. So long as the reference remains the same, such variations of sense may be tolerated, although they are to be avoided in the theoretical structure of a demonstrative science, and ought not to occur in a perfect language" We may call this problem "the idiolect problem": How can we understand each other if we attach different senses to the same words, as if each of us had his own idiolect? By “idiolect” we normally intend “a person’s individual speech patterns”, but when we look for a better clarification of the term we encounter a difficulty, given the alternative of two claims about the relation between idiolects and language: 1 I thank Cesare Cozzo, Marco Santambrogio and Stefano Predelli for comments on an earlier version of the paper. I have given different versions of the paper at University of Genoa, at Columbia University, at King’s College (London) and at the ESAP meeting in Lund. Additional thanks to the audience for their comments; thanks to Marcello Frixione, Gurpreet Rattan, Achille Varzi, Mary Margaret McCabe and Alberto Voltolini for particular comments. Other suggestions came from Cristina Amoretti, Claudia Bianchi, Paolo Bouquet, Mario De Caro and Massimiliano Vignolo on various points of the paper. Last but not least, I thank Diego Marconi and Mark Sainsbury for very useful comments on one of the last versions of the paper. 2 Frege 1892, footnote B. 3 The problem can be reframed in a direct reference setting: how can people understand each other if, even using the same causal chain, they give different critera of identification to the same name? The problem apparently becomes even more puzzling when predicates are concerned. 4 Definition from Webster’s College Dictionary. If we take a naturalistic point of view, we may consider idiolects, like human faces or bodies, individual variations on a structure. Each speaker has its own unique idiolect, made up by her vocabulary, rules for sentence formation, accepted inferences. For a confrontation between Chomsky’s view of idiolects and Dummett’s idea of language as a social entity see Green 2001, p.150ff.