PHILOSOPHICAL SKEPTICISM

Jean-Jacques Rousseau begins his discussion of the origin of language in A Discourse on Inequality by toying with a paradox:

Rousseau moves on without taking the problem seriously, but the paradox echoes through modern philosophy of language. How can we explain the genesis of speech without presupposing speech, reference without presupposing reference, meaning without presupposing meaning? A version of this paradox forms the basis of Quine's attack on the logical empiricist doctrine that logic derives its warrant from conventions of meaning — that logical truths are true and logical inferences are valid by virtue of such conventions. Quine raised the general skeptical question of how conventions of language could be established without preexisting language, as well as calling attention to more specific skeptical circularities. If conventions of logic are set up by explicit definitions, or by axioms, must we not presuppose logic to unpack those conventions?