144. (1848) 2 Exch 654, 663 (Parke B); discussed in Lobban (n 47) 247. The terms ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ are so fraught with nebulousness – having as they do, different shades of meaning – that it might not be out of place to provide a key to the sense in which the terms are being used here, lest it lead to the perception of a tension between the ‘subjective’ tone of the promisor’s desire and its encompassing what a third person can reasonably expect – therefore, ‘objectively’ in a still unspecified sense – to be desired by the promisor. We must distinguish between ontological and semantic senses of the terms subjective and objective. In the ontological sense, the term subjective means, ‘x is constituted by the subject (person)’; and objective, as its antonym in this sense would mean ‘x is constituted by an external standard, not by the subject’. An external standard of ‘value’ which is imposed by the law would be objective in this ontological sense of the term. But there is also a much wider, semantic sense of the term used in linguistic philosophy which pertains to meaning of words. Here, subjective would mean, ‘a word means what A in her mind, subjectively intends it to mean’ and objective would mean ‘a word means what the linguistic community reasonably expects the word to me’. It is this semantically subjective sense that Humpty Dumpty sought to invoke, when he claimed that a word meant exactly what he chose it to mean – ‘neither more nor less.’ The reason why linguistic meaning can never be subjective in Humpty Dumpty’s sense is primarily epistemological – we have no access to another person’s subjective state and we are warranted to rely on external indicia that comport with reasonable expectations of the users of the language; no meaning would otherwise be possible. Now, if ‘objective’ is always used in this wider semantic sense in contract law, it would lead to the reductio ad absurdum that no contract can ever be subjective in the sense of depending on the intention of parties since all contracting uses language spoken or acted. In this context, therefore, on a proper understanding, there is no tension between the subjectivity (in the ontological sense) of desire and intention on the one hand and the objectivity (in the semantic sense) of meaning of the words or actions used to purportedly convey it. The subjective tonality of desire argued for here is meant to be ‘subjective’ in the ontological sense; and it is not at all inconsistent or in tension with the subjectivity of desire in this ontological sense to suggest that the way one epistemologically understands this ‘desire’ is not through peering into the persons subjective mind but objectively (in the semantic sense) by what is reasonably expected by a third person. For a discussion on the need to disentangle ‘intention’ qua consent in contract law from the debate on the semantic senses of objective and subjective see: Anne De Moor, ‘Intention in Law of Contract – Elusive or Illusory’ (1990) 106 Law Quarterly Review 632.
