The role of reflexivity in content-sensitivity.

Humans can make assertions and can judge the assertions of other to be true or false. In doing so, humans represent the world. As far as we know, only human being are capable of staking a claim in this way; rocks, roses, and rabbits can't do it. The question addressed in this paper is how children become capable of doing so. Philosophers have imagined that answering this question requires us to give a theory of the nature of the representational content of an assertion – that is, of the way it represents the world. In this paper I apply what we might call the metalinguistic approach , as championed by Talbot Taylor, to the problem of representational content. I do so by providing an account of how children come to be able to engage in acts of assertion and properly respond to the assertions of others in terms of their developing skills. For telling this story, I will rely on an embodied approach to cognition. In particular, I argue that reflexive linguistic skills enable the child to develop a sensitivity to the conditions under which speech acts are correct. Once the reflexive dimension of claim-making practices has come into focus, I conclude that no theory of content is required. Instead, I propose to shift talk away from content to an ability of individuals which I refer to as content-sensitivity. • I propose a metalinguistic approach to the notion of representational content philosophers take to be central to assertions. • This approach enables embodied approaches to cognition to explain how children come to be able to make assertions. • I talk about a child's developing content-sensitivity as expressed in reflexive skills instead of seeing contents as things. • Once we understand the normative reflexive dimension of language, a theory of language's true nature is no longer required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]