Dummett, Michael

"To understand a rule is to grasp what counts as following it correctly."

"Metaphysics survives only if it recognizes the linguistic dimensions of its problems."

"The verification principle was a useful corrective but no final criterion of meaning."

"Our conception of truth must be compatible with our understanding of language."

"Logic is neither purely formal nor purely empirical but a mixed discipline."

"The puzzle of reference arises when we ignore the pragmatic context of utterance."

"Philosophy's task is to clarify our concepts, not to supersede them with new ones."

"Tense and temporal becoming are features of our conceptual scheme, not reality itself."

"The meaning of a negation depends on the logical system within which it is embedded."

"To grasp a statement is to know its truth-conditions and when to assert it."

"Anti-realism about truth offers a more coherent and satisfying metaphysics."

"Language and thought grow together in the development of a human community."

"Philosophical progress consists in seeing how apparent contradictions dissolve."

"The laws of logic guide reasoning but do not determine unique rational conclusions."

"Meaning cannot reside in the mind of any individual speaker but only in community."

"To do philosophy responsibly, we must attend carefully to our ordinary language."

"Abstract objects are justified only if they serve a purpose in our theoretical framework."

"Understanding emerges from the practical and social embedding of language use."

"The correspondence theory of truth works best for observable statements about the world."

"A coherent metaphysics must integrate logic, semantics, and ontology as a unified whole."

"The meaning of a statement is given by its verification conditions."

"Metaphysics is not the study of being as such, but the study of what we can meaningfully say about being."

"A speaker knows the meaning of a sentence when he knows how to use it correctly."

"The notion of truth cannot be separated from the capacity to recognize it."

"Language is not a private affair; it is embedded in social practice."

"Understanding requires grasping the inferential connections between statements."

"The principle of bivalence assumes we can always determine truth or falsehood, but this is not always the case."

"Mathematical intuition is not a mysterious faculty but a way of understanding constructive proof."

"The past shapes our understanding, yet we continually reinterpret it."

"Anti-realism about truth acknowledges the limits of our cognitive grasp."