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Meaning Diminished: Toward Metaphysically Modest Semantics

Kenneth A. Taylor

Print publication date: 2019

Print ISBN-13: 9780198803447

Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2019 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198803447.001.0001

Title Pages

Kenneth A. Taylor

(p.i) Meaning Diminished (p.ii) (p.iii) Meaning Diminished (p.iv) Copyright Page

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Meaning Diminished: Toward Metaphysically Modest Semantics

Kenneth A. Taylor

Print publication date: 2019

Print ISBN-13: 9780198803447

Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2019

DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198803447.001.0001

(p.v) Dedication

Kenneth A. Taylor

This book is dedicated to my amazing parents, Sam and Seretha Taylor, in abiding gratitude for their constant and loving affirmation (p.vi)

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Meaning Diminished: Toward Metaphysically Modest Semantics

Kenneth A. Taylor

Print publication date: 2019

Print ISBN-13: 9780198803447

Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2019

DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198803447.001.0001

(p.ix) Preface

Kenneth A. Taylor

This book was something of an accident. It began its life not as a book, but as one section of a medium-sized chapter in an entirely different book—my book in progress—A Natural History of Normative Consciousness. Gradually, it began to take on a life of its own. That is because my original ambition for this material was rather modest. I had hoped to briefly explain and justify the paucity of semantic theorizing about normative language and thought contained within A Natural History of Normative Consciousness. No doubt, the semantic analysis of normative thought and talk is a fascinating enough topic and very much worth exploring in its own right. It is certainly the focus of much meta-normative theorizing. But when pursued as a way of getting at the correct metaphysics of things normative, I confess that semantic analysis has always tended to leave me rather cold. Let the semantics of normative language be what it will, I have come to believe, that does very little to settle the correct metaphysics of things normative. I had hoped in part of an early chapter of A Natural History of Normative Consciousness to demonstrate that my aversion to what I saw as a misguided approach to the metaphysics of normativity is more than a matter of idiosyncratic personal philosophical taste, but is rooted in sound, defensible, and principled views about the nature and limits of semantic inquiry, especially in relation to metaphysical inquiry. Since my chief aim for the envisioned half chapter was not to have an elaborate and potentially distracting argument over philosophical methodology, but mainly to clear the ground for the task of getting on with the metaphysics of things normative, I had hoped to state my reasons for mostly ignoring semantic issues about normative thought and talk in rather short compass.

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For better or for worse, A Natural History of Normative Consciousness evolved into a rather large and unwieldy thing. Its projected (p.x) completion date is still somewhere in the indefinite future as of this writing. I was therefore delighted to be invited, a few years back, by my then colleague Alexis Burgess to write a free-standing essay on the topic of semantics and metaphysics for a volume on metasemantics that he was then putting together with Brett Sherman. It struck me as a great opportunity to state my case for what I had by then come to think of as metaphysical modesty in semantics on its own terms and in a way that was at least somewhat independent of the larger scale ambitions of A Natural History of Normative Consciousness. I eagerly accepted the chance to expand on the brief argument that I had originally envisioned. Of course, I still hoped to argue my case in a crisp and to the point manner. I envisioned the essay as a small side task and hoped to complete it in a few months—tops. But a funny thing happened. My appreciation of the argumentative and dialectical burdens that I had taken on began to deepen and sprawl. The horizon began to recede rather than to draw nearer. As time passed, Alexis and Brett grew more and more impatient with me. “Could you give us date certain when it will be completed?” they asked gently, but insistently. “Maybe in another month,” I replied, hopefully, but uncertainly. “That would be great,” they said. I am not sure they really believed me. It did feel as though they wanted to. I worked away, with fairly relentless determination, at the task of taming the argument. Despite my best efforts, however, the month came and went. I still had not managed to wrestle the argument to a close. When I informed Alexis and Brett of my failure, they responded with what seemed like sincere regret, but they told me that they really must move on without my essay. “I perfectly understand,” I said. “I am sure that I will be able to find a home for it somewhere when it is finally done.” That was not exactly a disingenuous statement on my part, but I could no longer even glimpse the horizon from where I now stood.

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I continued working on the manuscript for most of a sabbatical year during the 2014–15 academic year. I presented bits and pieces of it in front of various audiences, including at a conference in honor of my late dissertation advisor and mentor Leonard Linsky at the University of Chicago, and a departmental colloquium at the University (p.xi) of California San Diego. In addition, a nearly complete draft of the manuscript was presented as a series of lectures at the Institute for Philosophy and the Humanities, at the University of Campinas in Brazil. I am grateful to these audiences for the very valuable feedback I received. By the end of my sabbatical, I had finally managed to write what felt like a complete draft. But there was one small problem. What had originally been intended to be a short, crisp article had ballooned into a manuscript of about 40,000 words. It was almost certainly too long for most journals to publish as a standalone article. But I feared it was too short to be a book. I began to worry that the manuscript over which I labored so mightily would be an orphan, with no home to call its own. Frankly, I had no idea where to send it or who might be willing to publish such a thing. I did what any self-respecting philosopher in need of advice might think to do these days. I shared my conundrum with my philosophical peeps via Facebook. Some urged me to chop the manuscript up into separate articles. That seemed like the wrong thing for this material since the manuscript represented a single middle-sized thought, the overall force of which would simply be lost if it was chopped up into shorter bits. Others offered ideas of journals that might possibly publish such a long article. But frankly, they all seemed like long shots to me. And I could not bear the thought of enduring rejection after rejection mainly because of the length of the thing. Still, even though I had a gnawing fear that the manuscript might never see the light of day, I refused to let myself believe that I had simply wasted my time.

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Then the darkness began to dissipate. I had a lively philosophical discussion with a number of friends and colleagues about the importance of framing the manuscript in the right way. Consider two identical manuscripts, someone, I do not remember who, said to me. Let the one manuscript be marketed as a long article, while the other is marketed is a short book. Here is a prediction. The identical manuscript marketed as long article is less likely to be read than that very manuscript would be if it were marketed as a short book. That struck me as correct insight. And it convinced me to think of my manuscript not as an overly long and rambling article, but as a (p.xii) succinctly written and argued short book. Of course, the trick was getting a publisher to see it that way too. Fortunately for me, Peter Momtchiloff came to my rescue. He was very open to the idea of publishing a short and succinct book on the relationship between semantic and metaphysical inquiry. I happily sent it to him. He in turn sent it out to three anonymous referees. Two of the referees responded favorably not just to the content of the book, but to its length. To be sure, the third referee clearly wanted me to write a much longer book, one that dotted more i’s, crossed more t’s, and engaged in greater detail with a wider range of both opponents and fellow travelers. For many reasons, I have chosen not to write such a book. Chief among them is that such a book would be much longer and would probably still not be complete. And I really do want to get on with finishing The Natural History of Normative Consciousness from which the current book originally sprang.

Still, it is fair to say that the book that the three anonymous referees first read was rather shorter than this book finally turned out to be. That is mainly because the book expanded somewhat in response to their very sharp and helpful comments. I owe them considerable gratitude for those comments. I suppose the downside is that the book is no longer an extremely short book. It certainly is too long to be even a very long article. Still, it remains a pretty short book. There is certainly much more to say about these topics than I have said in this book. I have tried pretty hard to focus on the overall shape of the forest rather than on the fine structure of the many trees in the forest. As a consequence, my arguments tend to be pitched at a fairly highly level of abstraction and generality. Even when I do zoom closer in to focus on some particular tree in the forest, I pick my target carefully. I do not apologize for that choice, though it may leave some unsatisfied. I certainly could have written a book that aimed to be more comprehensive, more detailed. Again, that would have been a much longer book and a book of a rather different character. I have chosen not to write such a book.

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This book is intended to be a small contribution toward the reorientation of philosophy away from a priori conceptual and linguistic (p.xiii) analysis, especially when it comes to matters of ultimate metaphysics. I do not claim to be the first to engage in such a reorientation and I certainly hope not to be the last. On my view, the key to progress in metaphysics lies not with the interrogation of our language and/or concepts, but in the interrogation of reality itself. This is, in a sense, the opposite of Kant’s Copernican revolution, which sought to place the interrogation of our representations and representational capacities at the foundations of metaphysical inquiry. But that way, I believe, lies only philosophical darkness and error. I reject not just Kant’s Copernican revolution, but also the more recent, but still kindred, linguistic turn. Let us not interrogate our representations and concepts, I say. Let us rather interrogate the world. Of course, both the linguistic turn of the analytic philosopher and the Copernican turn of Kant were driven at least in part by the worry that we philosophers have no other choice, save to interrogate our representations if we wish to achieve metaphysical insight into matters of ultimate metaphysics. But I disagree. The key to achieving metaphysical insight into the ultimate structure of the Universe, I suggest, is to interrogate the deliverances of science in its sprawling totality. I do not mean to suggest that philosophy reduces to science. The claim is rather that we can successfully chart the vast and layered labyrinth of existence in its totality only with the aid of science in its totality. But the philosophical interrogation of the deliverances of total science is not just science by another name. I do not have in mind a crude scientism which reduces philosophy to science. What I have in mind is still a distinctively philosophical undertaking. And I take that undertaking to be tantamount to genuine metaphysics. It is just that on my view metaphysics should come “after” physics and science more generally, rather than before them. I am tempted to call this the Aristotelian ordering of science and metaphysics, since it was Aristotle who first placed metaphysics “after” physics. A metaphysics that follows upon rather than precedes science will necessarily be deeply intertwined with science, but it will still not simply be science. Now my goal in this book is not so much to do metaphysics in this Aristotelean vein, but to lay the necessary groundwork for future work in that direction. (p.xiv)

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Meaning Diminished: Toward Metaphysically Modest Semantics

Kenneth A. Taylor

Print publication date: 2019

Print ISBN-13: 9780198803447

Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2019

DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198803447.001.0001

Semantic Analysis and Metaphysical Inquiry

Kenneth A. Taylor

DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198803447.003.0001

Abstract and Keywords

This book is about the relationship between semantic analysis and metaphysical inquiry. Metaphysical theorizing is often bound up with semantic analyses of various target expressions, modes of discourse, forms of thought, or concepts. Semantic analyses of temporal language have played crucial dialectical roles in the debates over the metaphysics of time, while semantic analyses of belief and knowledge ascriptions have figured centrally in debates about the metaphysics of belief and knowledge. In this chapter, we take a brief initial tour of some of the ways in which semantic and conceptual analysis have been entangled with metaphysical inquiry throughout the history of philosophy. In the end, the very idea that semantic analysis can be expected to yield metaphysical insight is problematized by arguing that while semantic analysis may sometimes set the mood for metaphysics, it often raises metaphysical questions that it is powerless to answer.

Keywords: linguistic turn,Kripke,Quine,Davidson,functionalism,Hume,positivism,expressivist semantics,fact-stating discourse,first philosophy

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This book is about the relationship between semantic analysis and metaphysical inquiry.1 Metaphysical theorizing is often bound up with semantic analyses of various target expressions, modes of discourse, forms of thought, or concepts. Consider just a few prominent examples. In a landmark work both in the philosophy of language and in the metaphysics of natural kinds, Kripke (1980) urges us to believe that natural kinds are metaphysically constituted not by superficial (p.2) appearance properties but by internal essences. And he does so largely on the basis of the semantic analysis of natural kind terms. Davidson’s (1967) metaphysics of events turns heavily on his analysis of the logical form of action sentences. Semantic analyses of temporal language have played crucial dialectical roles in the debates over the metaphysics of time, while the semantic analyses of belief and knowledge ascriptions have figured centrally in debates about the metaphysics of belief and knowledge.2 From the metaphysics of modality to the metaphysics of morality, semantic analysis has been thought to be at least a key plank in building a correct metaphysics.

I do not deny that semantically infused metaphysical inquiry has a distinguished and honorable pedigree. In some form or other, it has been practiced in nearly every epoch of philosophy—from antiquity down to the present day. The entanglement of semantics and metaphysical inquiry reached a peak at various stages of the so-called linguistic turn in philosophy. Witness the proclivity of the positivists to dismiss metaphysical questions as mere pseudo questions—and this largely on the basis of certain views about the nature of linguistic meaning and/ or conceptual content. With the linguistic turn the study of linguistic meaning and/or conceptual content came to occupy center stage not just with respect to metaphysics but with respect to many other areas of philosophy as well. From metaphysics and epistemology, to ethics and aesthetics, many philosophical questions came to be seen as tantamount to—or at least to somehow turn on— questions about linguistic meaning and/or conceptual content. Some went so far as to herald the philosophical study of language as the new first philosophy— twentieth century philosophy’s answer to the metaphysics of the ancients and the epistemology of the moderns. This overweening exuberance for the study of language was no doubt (p.3) born of philosopher’s collective fascination with the sudden emergence of a new and powerful tool—the modern polyadic quantificational logic. Those must have been heady days indeed for philosophical students of language. The metaphysically inclined among them must have felt that by finally having the tools to uncover the logical forms hidden beneath the misleading surface grammar of language they were unraveling not just the mysteries of language but the hidden structure of thought and ultimately even of reality itself.

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Admittedly both semantic analysis and the philosophy of language more generally have descended from the lofty perch of first philosophy in the minds of most contemporary philosophers. No doubt this demotion has in part to do with a change in the focus of contemporary philosophical semantics. Those who first executed the linguistic turn were interested less in the languages of everyday life and more in certain pristine logical calculi—with language as it might have been, had it been invented by logicians or mathematicians, or perhaps even metaphysicians. Gradually, over time, philosophical semantics came to be more focused on languages as they actually stand. And once one has shifted focus away from languages understood as pristine logical calculi and toward natural languages as they actually stand, it is harder to see the language of everyday life as an idiom fit for “limning the true and ultimate structure of reality” Quine (1960). No doubt the temptation to elevate the philosophical study of language to the status of first philosophy is, as a consequence, greatly diminished.

Yet down to this very day, there remain many a semantically minded metaphysician and as well as many a metaphysically minded semanticist who still seem to believe that, at the very least, semantic analysis can serve as a decisive part of the evidence base of ultimate metaphysics. Nor is this an entirely unreasonable thought. Even if it is not rightly regarded as “first philosophy,” semantics has had a long and continuing history of purporting, at a minimum, to curb metaphysical pretensions. This tendency reached its zenith in the logical positivists, who were eager to consign metaphysics to the dustbin of gibberish. But the positivists were by no means the first to exhibit a semantically fueled hostility toward metaphysics. Remember Hume’s (p.4) admonition, based largely on what we would now see as semantic considerations, to consign certain books of abstruse metaphysics to the flames. Remember, too, the more metaphysically sanguine analytic functionalism of Smart (1959), Armstrong (1968), and Lewis (1972). Like Hume, the founding fathers of functionalism were no friends of extravagant metaphysical hypotheses about the mental. Their aim, however, was not to consign metaphysics to the flames, but the more modest one of showing that a priori semantic analysis of ordinary mentalistic vocabulary was insufficient to decisively settle metaphysical questions. Though a priori semantic analysis of mentalistic vocabulary certainly had an important role to play in the overall inquiry into the nature of the mental, decisively settling the metaphysics of mind was, on their view, a task better left to the advance of empirical inquiry writ large. I recount this brief and woefully inadequate history of the entanglement of semantics and metaphysics by way of acknowledging that there is no single or simple story to tell about the exact relationship between semantics and metaphysics. Semantics has played a multiplicity of dialectical roles, from the destructive to the constructive, with respect to metaphysical inquiry. No doubt, it will continue to do so for some time to come, whatever protestations I myself may offer to the contrary here.

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But there is a question well worth asking that is too seldom asked. Why exactly should semantics be expected to play any significant dialectical role in metaphysical inquiry at all? The aim of ultimate metaphysics is to produce a final and complete inventory of what there is, including accounts of the metaphysical nature of what there is.3 (p.5) The aim is not to produce merely a passing inventory of what we either tacitly or explicitly currently take there to be. Compare metaphysical inquiry with scientific inquiry in this regard. Science too seeks a final and complete inventory of what there is—at least of what there is in the natural order—which, I will concede, if just for the sake of argument, may or may not be the totality of what there is. But in clear contrast with much that goes on in metaphysics, science pays little, if any, explicit and self-conscious attention to either the semantic analysis of natural language or to conceptual analysis of the ordinary concepts we use natural language to express. With barely a pause along the way to analyze natural language or its expressed concepts and meanings, science has made astounding progress over the centuries on subjects ranging from the nature of life to the nature of matter to the nature of the space-time continuum. And it has done so mostly without casting even a sideward gaze in the direction of semantic or conceptual analysis.

For and only for the space of the current argument, I am willing to concede, if only begrudgingly, the bare possibility that physics and metaphysics may perhaps be thought to be entirely different undertakings, deploying entirely different methods in the pursuit of entirely different explanatory aims.4 That temporary, grudging, and (p.6) provisional concession leaves open the possibility that what is sauce for the physical goose may not be sauce for the metaphysical gander. Though I doubt that this is true—since I believe metaphysics to be broadly continuous with science—I will not stop to contest that point here—at least not directly. My aim is to look at matters the other way around—from the point of view of natural language semantics and what it might possibly contribute to the advancement of ultimate metaphysics. My question, in other words, is not so much what is ultimate metaphysics that it might learn from natural language semantics, but rather, what is natural language semantics that it might contribute to ultimate metaphysics.5 My answer will be that (p.7) natural language semantics has surprisingly little to add to debates over matters of ultimate metaphysics.6 I do not mean to suggest that we ought to stop doing either semantics or metaphysics. Semantics (p.8) and metaphysics are worthy enterprises. I long for neither the days when metaphysical questions were regarded as mere pseudo-questions devoid of cognitive content nor the days when all meaningful philosophical questions were taken to be questions about linguistic meaning or conceptual content. My ultimate claim is a rather modest one. It is just that the semantic analysis of natural language and, correlatively, the conceptual analysis of concepts have much less to teach us about the ultimate metaphysics of the world than a continuing stream of philosophers over the centuries have sometime seemed to imagine.

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At a bare minimum, it may be thought to be common ground among both metaphysically minded semanticists and semantically minded metaphysicians that semantic analysis might at least serve, (p.9) if nothing else, as a sort of propaedeutic to metaphysics proper. For example, semantic analysis might be thought to have the power to elucidate our ontological commitments. And one plausible path to discoveries in ultimate metaphysics is to start with an elucidation of our ontological commitments and then investigate whether those commitments can be made good. There is no doubt something to this thought. But it should be noted straightway that even if semantic analysis can successfully reveal our collective ontological “commitment” to the existence of x’s, that does not yet decisively show that x’s exist.7 Nor does it tell us about the ultimate nature of x’s—presuming that they do exist. Moreover, both determining whether our commitments can be made good and determining the nature of that to the existence of which we find ourselves committed would seem not to be tasks for semantic analysis but for scientific and/or metaphysical inquiry. We might somehow convince ourselves via semantic analysis of mathematical language and mathematical thought that as our practices go they commit us to the existence of numbers. But that on its own would not settle any substantive issues about either the actual existence or the ultimate natures of numbers. Determining whether numbers, if they exist, are abstract or concrete, to take just one worry, would seem to require more than semantic analysis of the language of mathematics on its own could possibly deliver. It would seem to require a straight-up metaphysics. But if that is right, (p.10) metaphysical inquiry into the nature of numbers would seem to begin precisely where semantic analysis of mathematical language might be thought to come to an end. The same goes for the bare existence of numbers.

Consider a case of a different kind. Suppose that one wants to know whether there are such things as objective moral facts and that one wants also to know where, if such facts do exist, they sit in the overall order of things. Might the objective moral facts, if there are any, be somehow determined by, or to use a more au courant phrase, “grounded in” the non-moral facts? Or would the putative moral facts, should they exist, be sui generis and irreducible? It would be surprising to be told that semantic analysis of moral thought and talk could, on its own, directly and decisively settle such deep metaphysical issues— especially since most philosophers have by now long since abandoned any attempt to show that moral language analytically reduces to non-moral language. But even if analytic reduction is no longer on the table, it is perhaps not entirely unreasonable to suppose that by finding out, via semantic or conceptual analysis, whether moral statements and the thoughts we express in making such statements are, by their semantic natures, truth apt or, in the alternate, function merely expressively, we might thereby put ourselves in a position to at least settle whether moral thought and talk does or does not purport to be talk and thought of a world of objective facts.8

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(p.11) But now suppose further, at least in arguendo, that after thorough semantic and conceptual analysis we were to conclude that the correct semantics for our moral thought and talk is merely expressive rather than fact stating. At a minimum, we might then reasonably conclude that nothing in the bare semantic nature of our thought and talk requires us to suppose that there exists a world of objective moral facts. Though it would be hasty to conclude on such grounds alone that there are therefore no objective moral facts in the ultimate inventory of what there is, we would at least have shown that neither our language nor the concepts we deploy in using our language give us positive reason to presume that there are any such facts.

Or suppose, in the alternate, that thorough semantic analysis leads us to reach a different verdict about the semantic character of our moral thought and talk. Suppose it turns out that semantic analysis reveals that moral discourse and thought do purport to be fact stating rather than merely expressive. We might then take ourselves to have an initial basis for supposing that our thought and talk presuppose that there are such things as moral facts. We can grant this point, it should be said, while conceding that it would be too hasty to conclude that therefore there really must be such things as objective moral facts (p.12) in our final metaphysical inventory. The “discovery,” if we could call it that, that the statements of morality enjoy, as a consequence of their semantic characters alone, truth aptness would not yet settle whether any of those statements were in fact true. Indeed, even if some of our moral statements were to carry a felt presumption of truth, we might well have other grounds, rooted in non-semantic concerns, for overriding that presumption and thus for believing that the (positive) statements of morality are either one and all false or one and all devoid of determinate truth values, despite their intrinsic semantic truth aptness. But still, the question would remain, have we not made a decisive advance toward uncovering the metaphysical truth, using semantic analysis as an essential steppingstone?

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The answer, I want to suggest, is that we have made no step at all toward uncovering the ultimate metaphysical truth. Our semantic analysis has left us with a question. But it is a question that semantic analysis itself has no power to answer. Now since I have already conceded that metaphysics proper may sometimes begin precisely where semantics proper has come to an end, perhaps it might be thought that semantics serves as an indispensable propaedeutic to metaphysics. But the conclusion that semantic analysis is the indispensable opening act for metaphysics proper should be resisted. I have no complaint against a semantic analysis that functions as the equivalent of mood music. Semantics may indeed prepare the way by getting us in the right frame of mind for a little metaphysics. But it is not at all obvious that a mood setting detour through semantics is in any way essential to the enterprise of ultimate metaphysics—any more than it would be to the enterprise of ultimate science. Why may we not begin metaphysical inquiry straightaway, by directly asking what there is, what its nature is, and how it fits into the total scheme of things?

I have so far painted with a broad brush, but I hope that this rough sketch of the potential variety of dialectical roles for semantic analysis in metaphysical inquiry will not seem like a straw man. I concede from the outset that both first order semantics and higher order metasemantics, as well as metaphysics itself, are fields rife with (p.13) ceaseless contention and disputation. Since there is no real consensus among philosophers and linguists about the exact scope and limits of semantics in the first place, it might not be entirely surprising if on some ways of thinking about the explanatory aims and investigative methods of semantics, it would seem plausible that semantics might play a crucial dialectical role in metaphysical inquiry, while on other ways of approaching semantics it might seem less plausible that semantic inquiry could help us very much with our metaphysics. If that were the best we could do, we might simply want to distinguish semantics done in a more metaphysically modest way from semantics done in a less metaphysically modest way. And in an ecumenical spirit, we might rest content to leave each style of semantics to its own devices, judging the success of each endeavor by the results it delivers. I do not entirely disagree with such wait and see ecumenicalism. That is because I doubt that we can decisively settle, through a prior philosophical reflection alone, the best way forward in either semantics or metaphysics.

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Still, I shall not be advocating wait and see ecumenicalism here. I shall rather try to make an extended case for metaphysical modesty in semantics. I shall argue that we already have good—even if not absolutely conclusive—reasons for believing that only semantics of a metaphysically modest kind has much of chance of meeting its own explanatory aims. That is, I shall argue that the path to explanatory success in semantics, as measured by a plausible set of internal standards of semantics, rather than the external standards of metaphysics, would tend to commit us to metaphysical modesty in our semantics. That gives us a reason, fully internal to semantics, to refrain from loading metaphysical burdens onto our semantic theorizing. And it gives us grounds for wanting to disentangle semantic analysis and metaphysical theorizing to a pretty high degree.

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My overall argument depends on distinctions among three different styles or flavors of semantic inquiry—what I call narrowly linguistic semantics, on the one hand, and two flavors of what I call broadly philosophical semantics, on the other. At the highest level of generality, I distinguish specifically or narrowly linguistic semantics (p.14) from broadly philosophical semantic. This distinction rests partly on the sources of evidence to which each may appeal, partly on the explanatory ambitions which each pursues and partly on the constraints to which each enterprise is subject. I do not mean to suggest that narrowly linguistic semantics and broadly philosophical semantics are two entirely unrelated endeavors. Indeed, broadly philosophical semantics is what narrowly linguistic semantics becomes when it is augmented by certain substantive metasemantical theses about which linguistics, at least linguistics in the broadly generative tradition, is originally neutral. But more on this in due course. Now within broadly philosophical semantics, I draw a further distinction between what I call ideational semantics and what I call referential semantics. This distinction rests partly on differing metasemantical views about the natures of truth, reference, and meaning—including corresponding differences about the nature and source of conceptual content. Now the distinction between referential and ideational semantics does not purport to be an exhaustive characterization of all logically possible or even extant approaches to broadly philosophical semantics. For the most part, I leave to one side metasemantical disputes between representationalists and inferentialists. I discuss deflationism in semantics only in passing—though I shall show that one outcome of what I call the way of ideas in metaphysics is a kind of deflationary metaphysics. But deflationary metaphysics should, I think, be distinguished, at least in principle, from semantic deflationism. One can, for example, coherently believe that the semantic fundamentals like truth and reference have no substantive metaphysical nature without necessarily believing that ontological questions deserve to be deflated. In any case, the two semantic and metasemantic approaches on which I mainly focus are singled out here because within the broadly representationalist framework I set out to explore, they are the two main competing, broadly representative and encompassing central metasemantical tendencies. The crucial further point is that corresponding to these two competing metasemantical tendencies, are two competing tendencies about the dialectical role of semantic considerations within metaphysical debates. One tendency (p.15) assigns a relatively modest role to semantics with respect to metaphysical inquiry and the other tendency assigns a rather more immodest role to semantics.

The plan of this book is as follows. In Chapter2, I briefly characterize the explanatory aims and methods of narrowly linguistic semantics. I also characterize a bit more fully what I mean by metaphysical modesty. My overall aim is to argue that the foundational assumptions and presuppositions of narrowly linguistic semantics themselves do not directly justify a semantics of a

Page 9 of 17

metaphysically immodest kind. This is not to deny that there are many linguistically inclined philosophers and even some philosophically inclined linguists who have tried to draw metaphysically immodest conclusions from semantic analyses that purport to be justified solely on the basis of narrowly linguistic evidence and arguments. My only point in Chapter2is that there is nothing in the founding assumptions of narrowly linguistic semantics that independently justifies the drawing of metaphysically immodest conclusions on the basis of narrowly linguistic arguments and evidence. If I am right, then if such metaphysically immodest conclusions are to be justified, they must be justified on some other basis, one not straightforwardly grounded in the foundational principles and assumptions of narrowly linguistic semantics. The question naturally arises whether there is in fact such an alternative basis that might plausibly justify the drawing of metaphysically immodest conclusions on the basis of narrowly linguistic arguments and evidence. Much of the remainder of this book is devoted to arguing that there is, in fact, no legitimate further metasemantical basis for supposing that narrowly linguistic semantic analysis suffices to support metaphysically immodest conclusions. In Chapter3, I do some spadework that will serve as the foundation for the main argument of this book. Crucial to that argument is a metasemantical distinction between what I call referential semantics and what I call ideational semantics. Much of Chapter 3is devoted to laying out this distinction. I also outline a further, but correlative distinction between two broadly different approaches to semantically infused metaphysics. I distinguish what I call metaphysical inquiry (p.16) via the way of reference from what I call metaphysical inquiry via the way of ideas. In Chapter 4, I offer some consideration against the way of ideas in metaphysics—and, by implication, against the ideational metasemantics that inspires that form of semantically infused metaphysical inquiry. I focus on a representative but admittedly non-exhaustive sampling of advocates of this approach—including Kant, Frege, Strawson, Hale and Wright, and Brandon, among others. I do not pretend that the arguments of Chapter4decisively undermine the very possibility of metaphysical inquiry via the way ideas. Inquiry via the way of ideas covers an overlapping family of broadly similar philosophical frameworks that still differ from one another in important ways. Slogging through every possible approach to metaphysical inquiry via the way of ideas one by one would require a much longer book, focused much more on the many trees than on the overall shape of the forest. I have not chosen to write such a book. If you disagree with the wisdom of that choice, I beg your pardon. Nonetheless, I do hope that my arguments succeed at least in diminishing whatever antecedent philosophical luster this admittedly ancient and venerable, but in my view deeply mistaken tradition in semantically infused metaphysical inquiry may enjoy. Chapter5 centers on what I call the metaphysical incompleteness of the metaphysically modest referentialist semantics that I prefer. While acknowledging that metaphysical modesty in semantics is plausibly seen as a form of incompleteness, I argue that the special sciences generally are incomplete in

Page 10 of 17

just the same way. And I argue that both in semantics and elsewhere this sort of incompleteness should be embraced as welcome feature and not dismissed as an unwelcome bug. In Chapter6, I extend the arguments of Chapters3–5to argument-taking expressions in general. I argue that there is no a priori guarantee that argument-taking expressions will, in the general case, be what I call metaphysically transparent. There is no a priori guarantee, that is, that what I call the linguistically encoded semantic adicity of an argument taking expression will match the real-world metaphysical adicity of the semantic values of the relevant expression. This means that we cannot in general read the metaphysical structure of the world off of the (p.17) semantic structure of our language, at least not short of achieving a complete and comprehensive theory of the world and devising a new language fully adequate for expressing such a theory. In the absence of such a language—which our native languages almost assuredly are not—we have little reason to expect semantics to recapitulate metaphysics. In Chapter7, I introduce a distinction between what I call rules of truth and what I call rules of use. This distinction is motivated by episodes in which our language, as it stands, is to some greater or lesser extent metaphysically “embarrassed” by world. When the world has metaphysically embarrassed our language, though we often do adjust our language to make it better fit the world, we also sometimes adopt—though not necessarily with conscious intent—rules of use that enable us to go on speaking as we previously spoke, even in the face of such embarrassment. Rules of use may license us to speak in ways that are strictly speaking false or in other ways inadequate to the true metaphysics of the world. The benefit of such rules is that they sometimes enable us to achieve a high degree of coordination with one another and even, sometimes, with the world itself. I conjecture that we are not necessarily fully self-aware of the limits of our language and that more of our ordinary language than we are prepared to admit may be metaphysically embarrassed by the world. But if that is right, it may well be that unbeknownst to us many of the rules that govern our ordinary use will turn out to be mere rules of use rather than genuine rules of truth. If that is so, it would give us another reason to deny that we can take ordinary usage as a reliable guide to matters of ultimate metaphysics. I then close in Chapter8with some admittedly speculative remarks about the transition from a metaphysically modest referentialist semantics to a metaphysical inquiry that hews to the way of reference.

Notes:

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(1) Throughout I use “semantic” analysis as a broad cover term encompassing both what might be called linguistic analysis of the expressions of our language and conceptual analysis of the concepts that such expressions express. Conceptual analysis is language independent, since the same concept may presumably be expressed by expressions in different languages. Even sticking with a single language, we perhaps should not equate semantic and conceptual analysis, since a word may have a semantic function that is not exhausted by the concept the word expresses. One could have two words in the same language that express the same concept but differ in their total semantic functions. On some ways of thinking, ‘and’ and ‘but’ differ in this way. One might also have two words in two different languages that express the same concept but differ semantically in some other way. Imagine a language that contained a ‘but’ like expression but no ‘and’ like expression and another language that contained an ‘and’ like expression but no ‘but’ like expression. Clearly in translating from the one language to the other something might be lost in the translation. For the most part, we can afford to ignore the difference between linguistic and conceptual analysis—though there are parts of the argument where the difference does matter. I hope it is clear from context when this is so. I should also say that many of my claims about the scope and limits of semantics are not so much claims within semantics proper, but claims within metasemantics. Again, I will generally let context indicate when I am engaging in first level semantic inquiry and when I am engaging in metasemantic inquiry—though there may be times when it is important to explicitly address the distinction between semantics and metasemantics.

(2) See, for example, Ludlow (1999) for a defense of the view that the semantics of tensed language give us important insights into the metaphysics of time. See Stanley (2011) for an account of the metaphysics of know how that turns heavily on semantic analysis of ascriptions of know how. Examples of attempts to build metaphysical theories on the basis of what might be called a semantic evidence base could be easily multiplied.

(3) I speak throughout this book of what I call “ultimate” metaphysics. By ultimate metaphysics, I mean the investigation of the objective metaphysical structure of the mind-independent world. Ultimate metaphysics, as I conceive of it here, investigates not just such things as the nature of fundamental reality, but also the nature and existence of less fundamental realities that presumably have their existence through the “arrangement” of the fundamentals. It is no doubt contentious whether there is such a thing as the objective metaphysical structure of the mind-independent world. If there is no such structure, then the relationship between natural language semantics and “metaphysics” might well be thought to have an entirely different character. For the purposes of the current argument, I mostly just help myself to the assumption that the world does have an objective, mind-independent structure. I save debates with those who disagree for another day.

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(4) I intend the arguments of this essay to be largely neutral on the exact relationship between ultimate metaphysics and scientific inquiry. My own leanings tend toward the thoroughly naturalistic. That is, I see metaphysics as broadly continuous with science. But nothing in the main argument of this essay hangs on the thought that metaphysics must necessarily reduce to either basic science or total science writ large. I do strongly suspect that substantive progress in metaphysics is more likely to follow upon than to precede and condition the progress of total science writ large. Since I believe the total order of things may well be dappled in the sense of Cartwright (1999). I would probably substitute “total science writ large” for “physics” in the following quote from Maudlin (2007)—who says that “metaphysics, insofar as it is concerned with the natural world, can do no better than to reflect on physics. Physical theories provide us with the best handle we have on what there is, and the philosopher’s proper task is the interpretation and elucidation of those theories…when choosing the fundamental posits of one’s ontology, one must look to scientific practice rather than to philosophical prejudice.” I see total science as vast and layered labyrinth such that only taken in its sprawling totality does it reveal to us the nature of that which exist. It may be that the layers of the labyrinth may ultimately collapse into one. But that is not the sort of thing that we can know in advance. Now the thought that it is only vast and layered labyrinth of science in its totality that reveals both what exist and the nature of what exists need not amount to a crude scientism, which simply reduces metaphysics to science. This picture is still consistent, I think, with the possibility that metaphysics involves a distinctive mode of reflection, not squarely at home within ground level physics or even total science writ large more generally, even if it is at its most penetrating when it takes as its main input not our commonsense intuitions but the total deliverances of science writ large. The idea here is that metaphysics ought to be in the business of interrogating the deliverances of total science. One of the things that metaphysics may take on as its distinctive contributions is that of constructing conceptual ladders that help us navigate from a given location in the layered labyrinth to other locations in the labyrinth. But fully specifying the nature of metaphysical inquiry or an optimal methodology for metaphysics is beyond the scope of this book. Again, my proximal concern is with understanding what semantics can and cannot tell us about metaphysics, whatever exactly we take metaphysics to be.

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(5) I stress that my concern here is solely on the semantics (and syntax) of natural languages, more or less as they stand. For all I have to say here, it might well be possible to design or develop a sort of ideal language, specifically suited for the enterprise of metaphysics. Some metaphysicians like to talk of the language of Onotologese, for example—the language some metaphysicians purport to talk in the so-called ontology room. One might suppose that Ontologese will have what Sider (2011) calls a “metaphysical” semantics. A semantics is metaphysical, according to Sider, only if its meanings are what he calls “joint carving.” Strikingly, Sider seems to grant that the linguistic or cognitive semantics of natural language need not be joint carving. That claim is entirely consistent with the arguments of this essay. But Sider also seems to want to say that every language—at least every language in which truths can be expressed—has, or at least can in principle be given, metaphysical semantics. But that is not supposed to entail that we can actually carry off that trick at any given moment. I am not entirely sure what to make of this claim. The point seems to be that all non-fundamental truths can ultimately be shown to hold “in virtue of” more fundamental truths, where the fundamental truths are expressible only in a language whose semantics is perfectly joint carving. The idea seems to be that if we could articulate a metaphysical semantics for a natural language, we could make explicit how the non-fundamental truths that we manage to express in our language are grounded in the fundamental ones. Or something like that. Here too, I am not entirely sure what to make of this. At a minimum, it seems to me unlikely in the extreme that we could ever fully specify, by a priori speculation alone, what a joint carving language must look like. That is because I suspect that the capacity of the external world to metaphysically embarrass our attempts to carve up its joints should not be underestimated. I am open to the possibility that as inquiry progresses our (encyclopedic) representations (as I call them below) will become progressively more refined so as to be better cognitive instruments for cognizing and representing the ultimate metaphysical structure of the world. What we will eventually want to say about the relations between, as it were, a scientifically finished, highly evolved encyclopedic representational system and the native syntax and semantics of natural language is unclear to me, to say the least. It could, I suppose, turn out that natural language was all along inadequate for expressing any truths, but only what I below call truth-similitudes. That would certainly show that it was a deep and serious mistake to think semantic analysis of its constructions was any sort of guide to ultimate metaphysics. I am not sure that I am prepared to go that far, however.

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(6) I am not alone in urging something like metaphysical modesty for semantic theorizing. Two recent examples are Heil (2003) and Dyke (2007), though each is really more concerned with the nature of metaphysics than the nature and limits of natural language semantics. Dyke attacks what she calls the representational fallacy in metaphysics—the “general philosophical tendency to place too much emphasis on the significance of language when doing ontology.” She does not, however, discuss the different metaphysical pretensions of different approaches to the semantics of natural language. And that is one of the main things I attempt to do here, in distinguishing referential semantics from ideational semantics and the way of reference in metaphysics from the way of ideas. Heil also urges metaphysicians to refrain from attempting to read their ontologies off of the structure of language on the grounds that one could do so only if what he calls the “picture theory” of representations were true. Heil does not claim that the picture theory is anybody’s explicit view about the semantics and syntax of natural language. Nor does he really say exactly what a better approach to natural language semantics would look like. His main claim in this regard is that the picture theory, though false, is implicit in much metaphysical theorizing that starts with an analysis of language and moves outward to the world. And without the mistaken picture theory hovering in the background, he seems to think, many extant metaphysical arguments would lose plausibility. I suspect that both what I call referentialist semantics and what I call ideational semantics in this book might well count as versions of the picture theory by Heil’s lights, despite the fact that one approach tends to lead us down the path of metaphysical immodesty, while the other approach tends to lead on a more modesty trajectory. If that is right, then perhaps the picture theory, at least as Heil understands it, may be too coarse a diagnostic tool to do much work in distinguishing metaphysically modest from metaphysically immodest approaches to natural language semantics, at least as I construe that distinction. It should also be said that both Heil and Dyke are much more focused on defending their favored approaches to ontology than on exploring the metaphysical pretensions of different approaches to the semantics of natural language.

Page 15 of 17

It should also be noted that the extreme semantic minimalism of Cappalen and Lepore (2005) and Borg (2004) and Borg (2012) also represents an approach to semantics that is metaphysically modest in the extreme. As a matter of principle, the semantic minimalist tends to push off into metaphysics’ many issues that non-minimalists take to be squarely part of semantics. For example, contextualists and others tend to think that there is no such proposition as the proposition that John is (barely) ready. That is because it clearly takes one thing for John to be ready to eat, something else entirely for John to be ready to leave, and still something else for John to be ready for the exam. Typically, nonminimalists want a semantics that treats ‘ready’ as context-sensitive, while explaining how the context invariant meaning of ‘ready’ interacts with variable contextual factors to produce the precise semantic content of ‘John is ready’ as it occurs in particular contexts or speech situations. The minimalist tends to think this is a mistaken approach. It is not the job of the semanticists, she claims, to explain the metaphysics of particular forms of readiness. Semantics has done all it can do when it has given the minimal and invariant truth conditions of a sentence like ‘John is ready.’ Though minimalism naturally leads to metaphysical modesty, I suspect that one does not have to go all the way over to semantic minimalism to think that semantics should be modest in its metaphysical pretensions. My own parametric minimalism, defended in Taylor (2001) and Taylor (2007a), is a case in point. But I do not intend to adjudicate that issue fully in this book.

(

7) Talk of ontological commitments—and the linguistic encoding of such commitments—brings to mind Quine’s (1948) admonition that to be is to be the value of a bound variable. But it is not clear that all quantifiers are created equal when it comes to carrying ontological commitment. For example, it seems formally possible to “quantify over” objects that do not exist. Many sentences putatively quantifying over non-existent objects seem not just syntactically well formed, but also at least pragmatically assertible, and maybe even flat out true. At the very least, many enjoy what I below call truth similitude—for a fuller treatment of which see Taylor (2014). For further discussion of non-ontologically committed quantification, see Hofweber (2005), Yablo (1998), Azzouni (2004). One could hold that ontological commitment is not really a property of a language as such. It is really a property of us, in our use of language. Some bits of language we sometimes use in an ontologically committed way. But we can also use structurally similar bits of language in a non-ontologically committed way. Language on its own neither forces nor prohibits ontological commitment on our parts.

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(8) The meta-ethical literature on the semantics of moral language and thought is by now truly voluminous. One makes sweeping generalizations about it at one’s peril. Historically speaking, though, meta-ethics is a domain in which largely semantic arguments have been widely taken to have more or less direct metaphysical significance. The early expressivists were particularly prone to hastily infer the falsity of moral realism from an analysis of what they took to be the peculiar semantics of moral language. To be sure, moral realists, who were wont to note in response to non-cognitivism that we do, in fact, take some statements of morality to be not just truth apt but flat out true, were likewise too hasty to draw metaphysical conclusions—this time from the alleged failure of a certain sort of semantic analysis of moral discourse. In more recent times, metaethical debates have become significantly more nuanced. In particular, they have tended to evince a growing appreciation of not just the semantic subtleties of moral thought and talk but also a greater appreciation of the potential gap between semantic premise and metaphysical conclusion. Still, taken in the aggregate, it seems fair to say that meta-ethics remains an arena in which claims about the semantic analysis of language and or thought and claims about the metaphysics of morality tend to be tightly interwoven. This is not to deny that some do take great care to distinguish semantic claims about moral language or moral concepts from metaphysical claims about the nature of moral reality. Two cases in point are Gibbard (1990), (2003), (2012), and also Wedgewood (2007). It should also be said that the semantics of moral language and/or thought has become a fascinating subject in its own right, promising to open up new vistas for semantics, whatever exactly such semantic analysis entail for our views about the ultimate metaphysics of moral reality. See, for example, Schroeder (2010) for determined attempts to explore an expressivist semantics of moral thought and also Schroeder (2008) for a more wide-ranging introduction to the ins and outs of semantic issues confronting non-cognitivists more broadly. Still it remains to my mind very much an open question to what extent our understanding of the ultimate nature of moral reality must rely on the semantic analysis of moral discourse. For an approach to the metaphysics of normativity that largely eschews semantic analysis, at least semantic analysis of an ideational kind, see Taylor (2015a).

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Meaning Diminished: Toward Metaphysically Modest Semantics

Kenneth A. Taylor

Print publication date: 2019

Print ISBN-13: 9780198803447

Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2019

DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198803447.001.0001

The Metaphysical Modesty of Narrowly Linguistic Semantics

Kenneth A. Taylor

DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198803447.003.0002

Abstract and Keywords

Some foundational assumptions of the generative paradigm in linguistic semantics are outlined. It is argued that they do not suffice, on their own, to license the drawing of metaphysically immodest conclusions about the assigned semantic values on the basis of narrowly semantic premises. It is concluded that if we seek to establish metaphysical conclusions from semantic starting points, we need additional premises not provided by narrowly linguistic semantics alone. The possibility is bruited that we may be furnished such premises from some style or other of broadly philosophical semantics and metasemantics, setting the stage for a subsequent discussion of various alternative metasemantical theses about the proper dialectical role of semantic analyses visà-vis metaphysical inquiry.

Keywords: lexicon,native syntax,native semantics,generative linguistics,metasemantics, metaphysical modesty,semantic value,semantic fundamentals

Page 1 of 20

One primary aim of this book is to defend a broadly metasemantical thesis about the proper dialectical role of semantic analyses vis-à-vis metaphysical inquiry. My ultimate concern is with what I call broadly philosophical semantics rather than with what I call narrowly linguistic semantics. But the current chapter is devoted primarily to some claims about narrowly linguistic semantics. Now in distinguishing between semantics done in a broadly philosophical key and semantics done in a narrowly linguistic key, I do not mean to suggest that these are two entirely disconnected disciplines, with entirely different and nonoverlapping methods and aims. There is an extensive degree of overlap between philosophical and linguistic approaches to semantics. A not inconsiderable number of semanticists currently play equally well on either side of the divide between the two. Still, I think there is no gainsaying the fact that at least historically speaking philosophical students of language and linguistic students of language have tended to march to somewhat different drumbeats. Though the cross-fertilization between the philosophical study of language and the linguistic study of language is an entirely healthy thing, it should not obscure certain foundational differences between the two.

Page 2 of 20

Since both broadly philosophical semantics and narrowly linguistic semantics are rife with internecine conflicts, one generalizes at one’s peril. But I do not intend to wade very deeply into conflicts within (p.19) narrowly linguistic semantics. And I trust that the limited nature of the points I make about narrowly linguistic semantics is proof against any such danger. With respect to narrowly linguistic semantics, I aim only to highlight certain foundational assumptions and principles associated with the generative paradigm in linguistics and to assess what they do and do not entail, on their own, about the metaphysical modesty, or lack thereof, of semantics.1 There are two main reasons for this focus. First, despite the fact that generative paradigm has been subjected to increasing criticism over several decades now and the fact that, partly as a consequence, linguistics is perhaps an increasingly fragmented discipline, the generative paradigm is arguably still the dominant paradigm within linguistics. Second, and more importantly, the generative paradigm has had more influence than any of its competitors over linguistically minded philosophers of language and has thus played a greater role than any other linguistic paradigm in shaping philosophical thinking about language. I say this without intending to choose sides on the many issues that divide linguists amongst themselves. I seek only to show that certain foundational assumptions and principles of the generative approach do not in and of themselves suffice to directly license metaphysical immodesty in (p.20) semantics. Admittedly, that still leaves open the possibility that some alternative linguistic paradigm might do just that. But alternative possible paradigms for narrowly linguistic semantics are not my focus here. For all that I shall argue here, it may even be that certain independent philosophical principles somehow bridge the gap between semantic premises and metaphysically immodest conclusions. This last possibility is one to which this book is very much alive—though that is not the question with which the current chapter is directly seized. Indeed, one aim of this chapter is to clear the way for a more fruitful discussion of that very possibility.

The main thesis of the current chapter is normative rather than descriptive. It is a claim about how we ought to regard the relationship between narrowly linguistic semantic analysis and ultimate metaphysics, given certain foundational assumptions and principles of the generative paradigm. I do not deny that there are, as a matter of fact, both a fair number of philosophically inclined linguists and a fair number of linguistically inclined philosophers whose actual practice does not reflect the picture of the normative relationship between semantics and metaphysics that I begin to develop in this chapter. There are, in fact, many who would claim to establish metaphysically immodest conclusions based largely on narrowly linguistic semantic premises. Consider, for example, Stanley’s (2011) account of know how. Stanley claims that a formal semantic analysis of the natural language constructions via which we ascribe so-called knowledge-wh (knowledge who, what, when, how, why) is tantamount to a substantive account of the metaphysical nature of such knowledge. As he puts it:

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Discussions of semantics are often in fact discussions of metaphysics, carried out in the formal mode. When semanticists give accounts of sentences containing embedded questions, are they giving an account of what it is to bear a relation to a question, or are they giving an account of the meaning of certain sentences? The right answer is that they are doing both tasks at once; this is why so often linguistic semanticists treat philosophical discussions as contributions to formal semantics.…The theories discussed…are both explanations of the meaning of sentences containing embedded questions as well as explanations of the nature of what it is to stand in the knowledge relation to a question.

(Stanley 2011, p. 20)

(p.21) Indeed, Stanley claims that it is “hard not to view” the thought that there might possibly be a mismatch between semantics and metaphysics as “straightforwardly incoherent.” The central claim of this book is, of course, that there will quite often be just such a mismatch between semantics and at least ultimate metaphysics. So it goes without saying that I do not share Stanley’s view that the thought that there might be such is straightforwardly incoherent— though I will leave it to the reader to be the ultimate judge of that question. Although I have not taken a survey of philosophical opinion, Stanley is certainly not alone in holding that semantic analysis and metaphysics are the material and formal sides of the very same coin. Witness Peter Ludlow’s claim that:

any investigation into the nature of knowledge which did not conform to some significant degree with the semantics of the term ‘knows’ would simply be missing the point…epistemological theories might be rejected if they are in serious conflict with the lexical semantics of ‘knows.’

(Ludlow 2005, p. 13)

Examples of this sort can be easily multiplied.

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Brown, D.C.M., was appointed Actg. R.S.M. vice Harrington, who went to a cadet school.[20] On the 12th February the battalion was inspected by Sir Douglas Haig. On the 15th it retired into billets at Robecq, some seven miles further back than Bethune. The fortnight spent there was passed in strict professional training for four hours from 8.30 a.m., and equally strict recreation in the form of crosscountry running, boxing and football in the afternoon.

March brought no relief from the almost daily tale of casualties. On the 1st of the month headquarters were in the village of Loos, with the men in the trenches; and by the 17th 2nd Lieut. S. Major and 10 others had been killed and 35 wounded. On the 18th the enemy carried out a raid on our trenches and succeeded in getting a footing in them, but after a short time was ejected leaving 7 dead; but we lost 2nd Lieut. H. M. Norsworthy and 10 men killed, 2nd Lieut. Hughes and 24 wounded, besides 8 missing. This raid seemed to have had the effect of raising and fostering a very firm determination on the part of the Buffs to get “a bit of their own back,” and on the last day but one of March a party consisting of Captain Strauss, 2nd Lieuts. Brown, Davis and Griffiths and a hundred rank and file carried out a successful raid on the German front and support works, blowing up several dug-outs and bringing back a prisoner and many trophies. Four of our fellows, however, were killed and four more died of wounds. 2nd Lieut. Griffith and 29 men were wounded, and 2nd Lieut. P. W. T. Davis and 7 others originally reported missing, were afterwards found to have been killed in the action. It was estimated that about 200 of the enemy were slain during this little expedition.

On the 1st April the battalion was in support in Loos village, remaining there seven days, when a return to the trenches was made, and here the 1st Battalion was still serving when the Battle of Arras opened on the 9th.

V. 8 B

For the most of this period our 8th Battalion were near neighbours of the 1st, and indeed there were at times meetings between them.

On the 18th November it was at Mazingarbe, only three miles west of Loos, taking its usual trench tours in the “Bis” section. On the 21st Captain Vaughan was evacuated sick after serving continuously since the unit arrived in France, and leaving only Lieut. Herapath with this record.

It is interesting to note that, on the 24th and again on the 20th December, the 1st and 8th Battalions met in combat on the football ground, the former proving on each occasion too strong. As they were due in the trenches again on the 22nd December the men kept Christmas at Mazingarbe on the 20th of the month with great festivity, some of the 1st Battalion officers dining with those of the 8th. The trenches were much knocked about by the enemy during the Christmas tour of work, so much so that the front line almost ceased to exist.

The new year found the 8th in what was called the Village Line, and the German started the New Year with a heavy dose of gas and lachrimatory shells, and on the 5th January an extensive raid. Fine work was done by 2nd Lieut. Darling, who organized and led bombing squads with great success; by Captain Morley, who, with three men, held a bombing post although completely surrounded and cut off; and by Pte. Setterfield, who, being company runner, killed three of the enemy and rescued one of our own people, while carrying messages. Two days after this fight the unit moved back to billets in Mazingarbe for training work, the monotony of which was lightened by regular football.

After another turn at trench warfare a raiding party of 4 officers and 120 other ranks on the 26th January, all clad in white smocks on account of the snow, and acting in conjunction with the 12th Battalion Royal Fusiliers, started at 6.30 a.m. for the German trenches. The result of this expedition was very satisfactory and was the cause of great elation to the men. Heavy casualties were inflicted and several dug-outs were blown in. The wire had been well cut by the gunners and the enemy’s resistance did not prove very considerable, but 2nd Lieut. R. G. Phillips was killed and fourteen men were wounded. Unfortunately most of the Germans were in dug-outs and could not be extracted.

The battalion was in the front-line trenches from the 30th till the 6th February. It was what might be termed a normal tour, but very cold. In fact, the winter of 1916–1917 was almost a record for bitter and continuous frosts. The next turn in the rest areas was from the 7th February to the 2nd March, first at Mazingarbe and then at Nœux les Mines, a little further west. The time was, of course, devoted to training, and in addition to that work, done under divisional auspices, special practice was given to 125 picked men as a preliminary to another raiding expedition. On the 14th February 2nd Lieuts. Sankey and Darling were awarded M.C.’s for the recent successful little operation.

The battalion came up to the strength of 1056 about this time owing to the arrival of a draft on the 21st and the fact that a number of instructors who had been lent to a training battalion, recently organized, returned now to their own unit. By the end of the month everybody was well prepared and equipped and very ready for whatever might befall.

The 2nd March saw the brigade in a new trench line called “Angres,” taken over from Canadian troops; and a week later it was at Bully Grenay, three miles west of Loos; but the inhabitants were still in the place—children and all. It was wonderful how bravely the French peasants throughout the war stuck to their homes near the firing line, regardless of roofs broken by shells and the constant danger of being blown to atoms.

Bully Grenay was, on the 5th April, so heavily shelled that three companies had to leave the place and the fourth go into the cellars. 2nd Lieut. W. L. Donelan was killed in his billet. Gas shells also came over and one or two N.C.O.’s were badly gassed. Concerts, however, which had been arranged for certain dates early in the month, were not interfered with or postponed. The alternating process of trench work and so-called rest in billets, roughly week and week about, had been going on for a considerable time and, in fact, described the life of the unit during the early part of 1917.

On the 27th March a special party of 125 men of A Company got into position at 3.30 a.m. Captain Morrell took post in the front line,

and 2nd Lieut. Young and party moved across No Man’s Land opposite the place known as “The Pope’s Nose.” The men moved forward under a perfect barrage, just as dawn was breaking; but owing to the imperfect light the two parties converged on entering the enemy’s lines and a certain amount of confusion ensued. However, no enemy was encountered, though the left party proceeded some way down the communication trench. A dug-out was blown in. The Germans retaliated in a half-hearted sort of way and we had a man killed and two wounded.

On the 8th April our artillery bombardment on Vimy Ridge was very active and continuous, and reached its maximum about 5.30 a.m. the following day, which was to the battalion a more exciting one than can well be imagined by those who have never seen the like; for it falls to the lot of few soldiers to observe any fighting—that is to say, fighting not in their very immediate vicinity: the Canadians were attacking, and our men could tell by the way our barrage was creeping steadily forward that they were gaining their objective. The Battle of Vimy Ridge was in progress and the Buffs were watching, as if at a theatre, while the men of Canada gave a display.

VI. 6 B—A S

On the date chosen by Haig to define the end of the Battle of the Somme the 6th Battalion of the Buffs were at Beaumetz in the Arras district, and the rest of 1916 was spent in that vicinity and passed without incident. Roughly speaking, one week the battalion was in trenches and the next week out; but on the 17th December a move was made to Sombrin, a few miles west of Beaumetz, for a quiet period of rest, if arduous work at parades for a new method of attack, bombing, the use of rifle grenades, musketry, bayonet fighting and physical training can be called quiet rest. These military exercises were, however, interspersed with the usual football and other manly relaxations, and, as usual, Christmas occurred on the 25th December.

On the 9th January, 1917, the battalion being still at Sombrin, the New Year honours list was read, and the following found themselves

mentioned in despatches: Captains Hunter, Page, M.C., and Ward and Sgt. Brown. Lieut. and Qr.-Master Linwood was granted the higher rate of pay. Two days afterwards came a most gratifying inspection by the G.O.C. 12th Division, who highly complimented the battalion on its smart and soldierly appearance. This was the occasion of the presentation of the following awards: bar to Military Medal, Sgt. Setterfield; Military Crosses to C.S.M.’s Harrison and Maxted; Military Medals to Sgts. Callaghan, Knight and Ross, Corpls. Alexander and Richards, L.-Corpls. Ielden and Millington and Pte. Miller On the 13th January the battalion left for Arras in buses and went into the trenches in the bitter cold weather which prevailed at this time in France.

WINTER ON THE WESTERN FRONT

Up till the end of March the normal routine obtained. The billets were at different times in Montenescourt, Noyellette, Givenchy le

War Museum

Noble, Agnez Duisans and Lattre St. Quentin, all of which places are close to the westward of Arras except Givency le Noble, which is about fifteen miles away and where some special instruction in practice trenches was given.

On the 10th March 20 officers and 650 men, under Lt.-Colonel Cope, left Agnez Duisans for Arras for work under the orders of the 35th Brigade, the remainder of the battalion remaining at Agnez Duisans under Major Smeltzer. Arras was very considerably shelled at this time and a great deal of work was being done in the town constructing new caves and greatly enlarging existing ones. These were to be the assembly places for thousands of troops prior to the great contemplated attack, as well as a refuge for those inhabitants who had not left the city. Electric light was installed in these caves and cellars, which were linked together by tunnels and the whole connected by long subways with our trench system east of the town. On the 5th April, our 6th Battalion being then in Arras, a heavy bombardment of the German trenches commenced, as well as other preparations for Sir Douglas Haig’s spring offensive. This was the most prolonged and most furious artillery that had as yet been possible during the war.

On the 9th of the month the Battle of Arras commenced. The brigade was all formed up in the reserve trenches by 3.30 a.m. The 6th Queen’s were in first line on the right and the 7th East Surrey on the left. The 13th Liverpool Regiment of the division was on the right of the Queen’s, who had the Buffs in support; while the 6th Royal West Kent supported the East Surreys. At 5.30, the zero hour, the guns opened an intensive fire on the German lines and at the same time the whole moved forward to the attack in artillery formation. The Buffs had C Company on the right and D on the left, with A, plus one and a half platoons of B, as right support, and the remainder of B left support. After passing through the Queen’s the first objective (Black Line) was reached and quickly captured by the Buffs, without much loss. A two hours’ bombardment of the enemy’s second system of trenches (Blue Line) followed, and then the barrage lifted and the advance was resumed. More opposition was now encountered, snipers and machine guns being active on both flanks. After some

stiff hand-to-hand fighting D Company was able to get round to the flank and, by overcoming concealed machine guns, which the enemy had pushed forward into shell holes, reached and captured the point on the Blue Line which was its objective. C Company on the right was troubled by enfilade machine-gun fire operating on its right flank from the ruins of Estaminet Corner. By means of Lewis-gun fire and rifle grenading, however, these were eventually silenced and the company enabled to proceed. Then the Blue Line was consolidated, Lewis guns pushed forward and strong points dug. At 2.18 p.m. the 35th Brigade came up, passed through the 37th and pushed on to the final objective. The whole attack made on this day was entirely successful, even more so than was expected. Great numbers of prisoners, machine guns, field guns and material fell to the Buffs. All objectives were seized and consolidated and advance parties sent forward. By the afternoon no enemy was to be found except dead or prisoners in the “cages” or wired-in enclosures erected for the captured. On the 10th the cavalry went through and reached Monchy le Preux, where the battalion followed that night, having lost during the whole first Battle of the Scarpe 2nd Lieuts. R. G. K. Money and T. W. Buss and 23 men killed; Captain Gordon, 2nd Lieuts. Wilks, Good, Figgis, Thornley, Squire and Baldwin, and 149 men wounded, with 18 missing.

The Buffs were relieved on the 11th and went back into the old German lines, spending the day in clearing up the battlefield, burying the dead, forming dumps of tools and wire; after moving forward to the Brown Line they were informed that the brigade would have to relieve the 37th Division and part of the cavalry brigade before Monchy. Owing to perfectly blinding snow and as no guides were available for the Buffs or East Surrey, these two battalions had, however, to remain where they were while the Queen’s and West Kent, who got guides given them, went up into the new line. The next day the Buffs were standing by in readiness to proceed to Monchy, a German counter-attack being expected, but they were relieved at nightfall by the 29th Division and marched back by the Cambrai road to the caves in Arras. On the 14th they left that ruined city and marched for billets at Montenescourt with the band playing the

regimental march, which is an exhilarating piece of music, especially on triumphant occasions.

The battalion was out of the line only a fortnight at Noyellette, Duisan and so on, and was on the last day of April in the front at Monchy once again, all four companies being under the command of subalterns, though one of them held the acting rank of captain. The village of Fresnoy is roughly eight miles north-east of Arras, and Bullecourt, on the Hindenburg Line, is about the same distance south-east of the city. Between these two villages, on a fairly straight line and commencing from the north, are Rœux, Monchy le Preux, Cherisy and Fontaine lez Croisilles. Monchy and Cherisy are a little over three miles apart.

On the 3rd May, 1917, Haig attacked the enemy with the Third and First Armies from Fresnoy to Fontaine lez Croisilles, while the Fifth Army assaulted the Hindenburg Line about Bullecourt, and together these forces fought what is known as the Third Battle of the Scarpe. To quote the Commander-in-Chief’s despatches: “Along practically the whole of this front our troops broke into the enemy’s position. Australian troops carried the Hindenburg Line east of Bullecourt. Eastern County battalions took Cherisy. Other English troops entered Rœux and captured the German trenches south of Fresnoy. Canadian battalions found Fresnoy full of German troops assembled for a hostile attack, which was to have been delivered at a later hour. After hard fighting, in which the enemy lost heavily, the Canadians carried the village, thereby completing an unbroken series of successes.” It is necessary to remember that the 6th Battalion the Buffs was on this date at Monchy, and the 7th opposite Cherisy

In this battle our 6th Battalion was very far from being fortunate, and it is not easy to obtain a correct description of its doings, owing to abnormal casualties and great difficulty, if not impossibility, of those in the foremost fighting line communicating with their commanding officer in the rear. The chief cause of this difficulty was the darkness, for the zero hour was fixed at 3.45 a.m. The battalion was, during the preceding night, in shell holes, A being on the right, B on the left, C supporting A, and D being behind B. Punctually on

time our guns opened, and an intense barrage was timed to lift and advance one hundred yards every three minutes, and as the guns fired our men went off into the darkness, too many of them never to see the sun rise again. Every effort was made to keep communication with them, and 2nd Lieut. McAuley, the Signalling Officer, with two signallers and two orderlies, went forward to establish an advanced headquarters in what was known as Devil’s Trench, but returned at 4.30, no communication being possible. Two prisoners were sent down and apparently the battalion was advancing satisfactorily, but nothing definite could be ascertained. Even later on, when daylight came, gunfire and snipers made it hard to get any news of how matters were proceeding; but at dusk it was discovered that the Buffs had suffered much and that the line in their front was practically as before. It would seem a pity that the ground was quite unknown to the battalion which had not held the same position previously and that the orders to attack came so late that there was no time available for systematic reconnaissance.

The continuous loss of officers at this time was so serious that 2nd Lieuts. Seago and Sowter were sent for from the detail camp and, arriving about 10 p.m., were sent forward to reorganize what was left of the battalion. A bright episode occurred to lighten what must otherwise be considered as a gloomy day for the regiment, although it was a costly act of gallantry. Part of the objective allotted to the Buffs in the morning had been a spot called Keeling Copse, and it was found, after the battalion had taken stock of its losses, that 2nd Lieuts. Cockeram and Gunther with about forty men and a Lewis gun had actually got there, only to discover that they were completely isolated, the enemy having re-formed his line behind them, and both sides being in their original trenches. Thus three lines of Germans intervened between this handful of men and their comrades. Nothing daunted, however, they held their own all day, accounted for many of the enemy and then, when night fell and they had expended every cartridge and bomb they possessed, they gallantly fought their way back again, breaking through one line after another, until at last the two subalterns and thirteen of their stout lads were enabled to report themselves to battalion headquarters. Cockeram and Gunther both received the M.C. for their gallant

conduct on this occasion. It is sad to have to add that Gunther was killed shortly afterwards within half a mile of Keeling Copse gallantly defending a trench the German was attacking. Cockeram lived to do good and gallant work later on in the Flying Corps. The casualties in this terrible action were 2nd Lieuts. J. H. Dinsmore and H. V. HardeyMason killed, and Captain J. B. Kitchin died of wounds; Captain McDermott and 2nd Lieuts. Williams and Nesbitt wounded; 2nd Lieuts. C. Warnington, A. Kirkpatrick, H. W. Evans and R. L. F. Forster, Lieuts. K. L. James, Grant, King and Willis missing, of whom the first five were found to have been killed; 25 other ranks killed, 128 wounded and 207 missing.

About 2 a.m. on the 4th the remnant was relieved and got back and, next day, was reorganized into two companies each of only two platoons, No. 1 Company, 2nd Lieut. Stevens in command, with Sowter, Seago and Sankey under him; and No. 2 Company, under Captain Carter, with 2nd Lieuts. Gunther and Cockeram. It was only rested in Arras for forty-eight hours and then underwent another ten days in the trenches before being relieved on the 17th, on which day it went to Duisans.

VII. 7 B

While the 6th Battalion of the Buffs was suffering as briefly described above, their brethren of the 7th, on the night of the 2nd/3rd May, were opposite the village of Cherisy preparing for the attack: A and B were the assaulting companies, C the supporting company, and D was in reserve, in shell holes, in rear of the support trench. The Buffs were on the right of their brigade with the 54th Infantry Brigade on their right and the 8th East Surrey on the left. The Royal West Kent supported both Buffs and East Surreys, and the 7th Queen’s were brigade reserve. The orders given to our battalion were to advance in conjunction with the 54th Brigade and to capture Keeling Copse.

It must be admitted at once that the attack was a failure, due, in the opinion of all, to the intense darkness at 3.45. The attack of the Buffs and East Surreys was successful in itself, however, and both

units showed great dash, but failure on the flanks led to a subsequent retirement, and it is sad to think that, taking part in what Sir Douglas Haig describes as a successful battle, both the brigades in which battalions of the Buffs were serving failed in the part allotted to them. There seems to be no doubt that the front waves reached their objectives, but the 12th Middlesex and 11th Royal Fusiliers, both of the 54th Brigade, failed to get past the wire covering the German front line. Little opposition was experienced at first, but the second and subsequent waves came under very heavy fire, causing their progress to be slow, so that the men who started first were more or less cut off for a time. The Germans, being unable to reinforce in masses owing to our guns, dribbled up men from their rear in very small parties. As regards details of the Buffs’ advance: all companies of the battalion got clear of the front trench before the enemy’s barrage commenced, but, owing to the darkness, sections, platoons and companies soon got mingled up together and at one time part of the Middlesex belonging to the 54th Brigade came across the Buffs’ front in the dark, but the error was skilfully rectified.

At the first glimpse of dawn the village of Cherisy was reached and passed through. As it was entered the right company had touch with the Middlesex, but on reaching the bed of the Sensée river, which is just beyond, its officer, Captain Black, discovered that this touch was lost and that the flank was in the air, though the other was in proper prolongation of its left-hand neighbouring company. He therefore determined to halt and form a defensive flank along the road which runs south-east from the village across the stream. Before this could be done he was heavily attacked, and the message he sent back to that effect failed to get through.

Meanwhile the left assaulting company, reinforced by portions of C and in touch with the East Surreys, gained the first objective, or Blue Line. D Company had halted, according to order, in what was called the “Cable” trench, which was perfectly straight and which was found to be occupied at its right extremity by a considerable number of the enemy, some of whom the company destroyed or captured, together with a machine gun. However, the Germans still held one end and a bomb-stop had to be constructed and an attempt made to

progress down the trench; but it was not until a Stokes gun was brought up that any progress was made, the work being deep, narrow and difficult to bomb. Thus the situation at 9 a.m. was that Captain Black’s company (A) on the right was still open to assault and unable to move, thus causing the left, which had gained certain advantages, to lose ground for want of the support expected from the Middlesex battalion, while the reserve company was still struggling for possession of “Cable” trench, and B and C Companies had both fought their way to the Sensée river.

A little afterwards came an order that the Buffs and East Surreys were to advance to the Red Line, the West Kents to consolidate the Blue Line. About 11 o’clock reports came that a general retirement was taking place, and the enemy established an intense bombardment of our front line and back area. “Cable” trench was now full of men in addition to D Company, who had not yet been able to emerge from the trench; but our own rescuing people were hopelessly intermingled with the enemy, so that it was impossible to open fire. The Englishmen, however, who passed over and beyond the trench in their retirement, were soon rallied and brought back to the original lines, so that in half an hour or so the situation was well in hand, though “Cable” trench had been evacuated. An attempt was made at 7.15 p.m. to retake this, the assaulting battalion being the Queen’s supported by the Buffs, but the hostile machine-gun and rifle fire was too much and the attack failed. The Queen’s fell back and the Buffs occupied the original front-line trenches for the night, having suffered a casualty list of 2 officers killed, 6 wounded and 4 missing; 25 other ranks killed, 169 wounded and 174 missing.

VIII. 1 B

As this chapter is intended to record the doings of the four battalions on the Western front for the first half of the year 1917, the record will now take each in turn from the Battle of Arras up till the 30th June or thereabouts.

The great war storm that was raging south of that place caused ripples and splashes to be noticed about Loos and its

neighbourhood, and the 1st Battalion was in that village at the opening of the great spring offensive, having taken its place in the front-line trenches on the 7th April. On the 9th the battalion on the left attempted a raid which brought on a fierce hostile barrage on all trenches and back areas, causing the death of four men of the regiment and the wounding of 2nd Lieut. Harman and six others, and casualties continued at odd times for several days, the enemy appearing very alert and naturally nervous owing to the progress of our people to the southward. At 4 p.m. on the 13th the 2nd York and Lancaster Regiment, on the Buffs’ right, advanced and found that the Germans had abandoned their front-line system. B Company joined in this movement and occupied German trenches south of the Loos Crassier, and although the enemy’s rear guard offered good resistance the British advance was persisted in, and during the night a new line running south from Harts Craters was established, though it came under very considerable fire on the 14th. During the following night strong patrols found no resistance west of the Loos Crassier railway, and in the morning the York and Lancaster, aided by our B Company, attacking again, gained the railway and, being then reinforced by A Company, consolidated the new ground which had been gained and which included Fosse 12. This was done in spite of two vigorous counter-attacks.

On the 16th, commencing at noon, the right group artillery bombarded the area in front, and at 2 o’clock the 8th Bedfords on the right and the Buffs on the left commenced an advance and gained a sunken road which was resolutely held by two companies which became involved in very heavy fighting, so much so, indeed, that at last a short retirement to the Double Crassier railway line had to be made, a redistribution of the brigade being arranged after dark; by this arrangement A and B Companies, which had held the sunken road, went back into support at the enclosure and at B Keep, at the head of the Loos Crassier, where they were later on joined by C Company, D remaining in the front line. On the morning of the 17th, therefore, the front line was held by the Bedfords on the right, Shropshires on the left, York and Lancasters right support, Buffs left support. It became evident now that the Germans had managed to get up more guns, and the shelling became very severe. A strong

reconnaissance towards the sunken road, made by the Shropshire Light Infantry, met with powerful resistance, and it was not until the 18th that that regiment, aided by the Bedfords, were able to make that objective good. The following casualties were suffered during this combat: Captains A. K. Harvey James and T. A. Brown, 2nd Lieut. G. B. Saunder and 10 men killed; 2nd Lieuts. Griffiths, Groom, Walters, Witty and 65 other ranks wounded, one of whom died of his injuries.

On the 20th the Buffs retired to billets at Les Brebis for a couple of days and when there received a complimentary letter from the Commander-in-Chief which was addressed particularly to the 6th and 24th Divisions, the latter having joined in the advance on the right of the 6th Division. Many honours came to the battalion during this month, the list being: the Military Cross to 2nd Lieuts. Brown, Griffiths and Hughes; the Distinguished Conduct Medal to C.S.M. Field; and Military Medals to Sgts. Edwards, France and MacWalter, Corpls. Brownrigg, Port, Richards and Stuart, L.-Corpls. Admans and Platts, and Ptes. Carey, Downes, Eldridge, Martin and Moss.

On the 22nd April the Buffs went back into the front line of the Loos trenches and there, in three days, lost 2nd Lieuts. L. E. A. S. Bilton and T. E. G. Bullock and 3 men killed and 28 other ranks wounded.

The month of May was spent partly in huts at Mazingarbe, partly at La Bourse and partly in the trenches, a toll of casualties being still exacted by the fate of war. This month brought the M.C. to 2nd Lieuts. Waters and Worster; the D.C.M. to C.S.M. Vincer; and a mention in despatches for the Quartermaster, Lieut. Corney, as well as to Sgt. Chatfield and L.-Corpl. Ayres.

The first eight days of June passed in the trenches at Hulluch and brought casualties as usual, 2 being killed, 4 died of wounds and 22 getting wounded in that short period. On the 11th a turn came for the comparative quiet of a week on divisional reserve at Fouguieres, but C and D Companies went off to Allouagne to train for a raid; so that when A and B returned to trench work on the 20th these two only followed three days later. On the 24th a party composed of Captain

Jacob, Lieuts. Buss, Chester, Dyer, Harrington, Marshall, Moss, and Wyatt, with C and D Companies, made a raid on the German trenches in the Hulluch sector to obtain identification and inflict casualties, to capture prisoners, to destroy dug-outs and emplacements, and to draw the enemy’s attention from other parts of the divisional front. The companies attacked in three waves. The first wave, under Lieut. Marshall, crossed over and went straight for its objective, the enemy’s third line. The second, under Lieut. Moss, followed twenty-five paces behind the first; and then came the third, under Lieut. Buss, thirty paces in rear again, accompanied by the Lewis guns. This party remained in the enemy’s trenches for three and a half hours, doing very considerable damage and collecting fifteen prisoners and two trench mortars. Some trouble was experienced in getting the German out of his dug-outs, but this was effected by means of tear-bombs and mobile charges. The enemy during this raid was very unsettled. His barrage was weak and quite general. In fact, he did not seem to know from what point he was being attacked. Our barrage was excellent. Lieuts. P. C. Buss and Harrington behaved with the greatest gallantry; the former was most unfortunately killed and Harrington was wounded twice, but still continued to lead his men. Besides Lieut. Buss, 8 men were killed; Lieut. Harrington and 1 man were wounded and missing; Lieuts. Chester and Wyatt and 62 other ranks wounded; Lieut. Moss and 2 men wounded, but remained at duty; 17 other ranks missing, and 2 more missing, believed killed.

The battalion as a whole remained in the trenches till the 29th, suffering occasional casualties. After that date it returned to Mazingarbe, but left A Company with the K.S.L.I. and B with the York and Lancasters.

IX. 6 B

After its terrible experiences up to the first week in May there is but little to relate regarding the 6th Battalion for the remainder of the first half of 1917. It remained in the trenches for ten days, during which time careful reconnaissance work was carried out; and it was relieved on the 17th/18th, withdrawing to Duisans for baths, refitting

and reorganization into four companies again. On the 19th it went further back to Montenescourt, from which place, on the 24th, it was removed by bus to Ivergny, twelve miles to the south-west, for a term of drill, exercises and musketry training. On the 27th 2nd Lieut. Morley and C.S.M. Pritchard got the M.C., and Sgt. Real, Corpl. Scott, L.-Corpl. Cooling, Ptes. Middleton and Skinner were mentioned in despatches. On the 8th June Lt.-Colonel Cope,[21] who had been so long in command of the battalion, was promoted to command the 115th Brigade, and a day or two later was awarded the Legion of Honour. On the 16th June there was a parade to receive medals, when the Military Medal was handed to Ptes. Atkinson, Brooks, Hardie, Mack, McDonald and Philpott; to Sgts. Brunger and Wood and to L.-Corpl. Hook. The 19th of the month found the battalion back in Arras, where it remained for the rest of the time now under consideration.

X. 7 B

The day after its great fight at Cherisy the 7th Buffs, or what was left of it, was relieved from its place in the trenches and moved to Beaurains, close to Arras; it remained there and at Boisleux, to the south of it, for sixteen days, reorganizing and training; it was in the trenches again on the 21st May and in such close proximity to the enemy that the Germans could be heard talking. There was a good deal of patrolling work to do and this was most successfully accomplished, the line being considerably advanced; but on the 27th 2nd Lieut. S. B. Johnston and one man went forward from their post to reconnoitre and were not heard of again.

Up till the 15th June the routine was much as usual; a turn in the trenches and a turn in reserve; but on this day the brigade retired some miles into the back area and took up its headquarters at Couin, the Buffs being at Coigneux.

On the 20th Captain Black was awarded the M.C. for Cherisy, and the Corps Commander handed M.M. ribbands to C.S.M. Nevard; Sgt. Nash; Corpl. Hyde; L.-Corpls. Berry and Castleton; Ptes. Davis, Purkiss, Reynolds, Thirkettle, White and Wise.

The only other point of interest worth mentioning in the history of the 7th up to the end of June is that it won the ten-mile cross-country relay race for the 26th Division and that its old friends, the Queen’s, were second.

XI. 8 B—B M

As the 8th Battalion of the Buffs was not in action on the 3rd May its story must now be taken up from the 9th April, on which date the men were spectators, from the trenches at Angres, of the victorious advance of the Canadians, punctuated, as it was, by the steady lifting of the barrage.

There was much aerial activity at this time on both sides and some ground fighting in the vicinity, and, on the 14th April, it was found that the enemy had left his trenches, so at 4 p.m. the brigade moved forward unopposed and a new position was taken up and patrols pushed forward. On the following day, the Rifle Brigade pushing through, the Buffs followed and bivouacked that night at Lievin, which is on the road to Lens.

The Germans, however, had not retired very far and an attack on their position was arranged for the 17th. It appears to have been a poor business, but this was not the fault of the 17th Brigade. The artillery preparation was a feeble one, because sufficient guns could not be brought up in time. The enemy at once opened heavy machine-gun fire from strong points in his line and from Hill 65 outside Lens. He also shelled the advancing troops heavily, with the result that both the brigades on the right and on the left were stayed by 10.30, and, this being the case, it was obvious that the 17th would only be courting disaster if it advanced alone exposing both its flanks, so there was nothing to do but to hold the position in which our troops stood and consolidate as far as possible during the night. The Buffs had one officer and thirty other ranks put out of action. The relief came during the night, and the battalion marched away to the westward into a quieter area. Indeed, this marching, being a more or less new experience, caused a good deal of inconvenience in the way of sore feet and fatigue. However, the 21st of the month found

the brigade at Bourecq and a few days later at Erny St. Julien, and at both these places serious training was undertaken; but the stern business of war gave place each evening to football, very much to the astonishment of the Portuguese troops in the district.

On the 28th the men were back in La Bourse and from there to Robecq, Hazebrouck and Steenvoorde, all in turn. Steenvoorde was a special training area and most corps took a turn of work there when they could be spared. This visit of the Buffs lasted a fortnight, and on the 26th May they were close to Poperinghe. On this day 2nd Lieut. Lilley was awarded the Military Cross. On the 4th June the wandering troops were at Heksken, south of Poperinghe, and at midnight on the 5th/6th they moved from there to a camp situated in a wood where special stores and ammunition were issued.

The Battle of Messines commenced on the morning of the 7th June and was fought by General Plumer’s army to capture a ridge from which the Germans overlooked our lines and much of the area behind them. The preparations for this offensive action on Plumer’s part had been going on for a very long time and were thought out with the greatest care and trouble. The most remarkable point in connection with the battle was the fact that it opened by a tremendous explosion of nineteen deep mines, the noise of which was distinctly heard in parts of England. As far as the Buffs were concerned, the 8th Battalion paraded in fighting kit at 11.30 p.m. on the 6th June, proceeded to assembly positions via Dickebusch and spent the middle portion of the night in two great dug-outs, one of which held four hundred men. At 3.10 a.m. the soldiers were awakened by the most tremendous explosion they had ever heard in their lives, and this was immediately followed by the opening of the barrage. The 17th Brigade was in support near St. Eloi, and at 11.30 a.m. it moved forward to occupy the line already taken up by the 41st Division, from whence, at 3 p.m., a further attack was launched, during which the battalion reached its objective, known as the Green Line, with but few casualties.

The whole of the two following days were spent in the newly taken positions, being shelled and suffering a few casualties: mostly men of A Company, which with C was in the front line; Lieut. Sherwill was

hit on the 8th. On the 10th the Buffs were relieved by the 9th Warwicks with great difficulty: the hostile gunfire being very heavy and causing several casualties, including Captain A. F. Gulland and Lieut. H. C. Arnold, who both died of their injuries, and also Lieuts. Curtis and Hilary, who were wounded but not quite so severely. After a day’s much needed rest, which was mostly spent in sleep, the battalion at nightfall relieved the 18th London Regiment at the “triangular dump” and the 3rd Rifle Brigade in Battle Wood.

An attack on the enemy’s position was arranged for and carried out on the 14th. The Buffs were told off to take one side of the railway while the Royal Fusiliers took the other. Battalion Headquarters were in Larch Wood. 7.30 p.m. was chosen as the zero hour; before this hour a certain amount of sniping was experienced in getting to the assembly position, but luckily the enemy’s artillery did not discover our moving companies. A and C Companies led the advance, each having two platoons in front line. Our barrage was good though perhaps a little short at first, and our men kept well up under it, casualties being small; the guns lifted their range a hundred yards every four minutes. Six minutes after our opening shot the enemy began his heavy fire on our assembly positions, but by then our men were clear, or indeed they would have suffered severely. A Company had for its objective Spoil Bank, which was about thirty feet high and three hundred yards long and running parallel to the Ypres-Comines Canal. The bank had been the object of an attack by some of the 47th Division a week earlier, but was still in German hands. There was a fine view of the country beyond the canal from its summit. It was afterwards officially known as The Buffs’ Bank, out of compliment to the 6th Battalion. A good deal of savage hand-to-hand fighting took place here, and the success of the company was very largely due to the extraordinary courage and initiative of two private soldiers, Dunning and Cornell, who together rushed a German machine gun in a concrete emplacement, killed the team, captured the gun, and thus saved the lives and limbs of many of their comrades of A Company; they were both awarded the M.M. for this exploit. The other leading company, C, was directed on the tramline and suffered considerably on the way. The company commander (Captain E. F. Hall) and all the rest of the officers were

hit before the objective was reached, but 2nd Lieut. Wilkinson was able to remain with his men until it was taken and consolidated; and it was not till all work was done and midnight had come that this gallant officer withdrew to have his wounds dressed, when he had to leave his company under the command of Sgt. Pells. As soon as C Company had reached its objective, Sgt. Shute took his platoon about sixty yards ahead of the newly won line and there cleared a system of dug-outs, killed a great number of the enemy and brought back four prisoners. Touch was soon obtained with the battalion on the Buffs’ left, but the other flank was not so easy, and it was not until morning that the troops on the right were discovered. While the two leading companies had thus been busy their comrades had not been idle. D Company had come up behind the Spoil Bank and at the zero hour two platoons, less one bombing section, had advanced towards its western edge and cleared up the southern side in conjunction with A Company, while the bombing squad attended to the dug-outs on top of the bank, most of which were occupied, there being ten to twelve men in each. Several of the enemy attempted to escape across the canal at Lock 6, but these were dealt with by men of C Company and no one escaped that way. Further down Spoil Bank the enemy made a more considerable resistance, and 2nd Lieut. Paige was killed leading an attack at this point—in fact he was chasing a platoon of Germans across the canal all by himself. Many of the enemy then tried to get away round the eastern edge of Spoil Bank, but these were also shot and a German feldwebel[22] captured after a really heroic resistance. D Company then dug itself in on the southern slope of the Spoil Bank, with A Company in support on the northern slope. Digging in was no very easy matter on account of the continuous shelling, which the enemy kept up all night; however, morning found the job satisfactorily completed and the work cleverly camouflaged from aerial observation, which was a very necessary precaution, for the hostile aeroplanes showed in the morning very considerable interest in the exact position of our people. Many times they swooped right down and fired their machine guns into our trenches.