Abstract

Several influential philosophical accounts of assertion have recently been claimed by Peter Pagin to commit a fundamental mistake. The present paper argues that Pagin's defence of that claim is flawed: The criterion he proposes for evaluating theories of assertion is unreliable; and even if it were supposed to be in itself reliable, it could not be used, in the way he proposes, either against the kinds of theories he intends to undermine or in favour of the kind of theory he intends to support.