# HORNSBY ON THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPEECH **Abstract:** The central claim is that Hornsby’s argument that semantic knowledge is practical knowledge is based upon a false premise. I argue, contra Hornsby, that speakers do not voice their thoughts directly. Rather, our actions of voicing our thoughts are justified by decisions we make (albeit rapidly) about what words to use. Along the way, I raise doubts about other aspects of the thesis that semantic knowledge is practical knowledge. E pistemologists who write on knowledge of language tend to focus upon an analogy between understanding and perception. It is therefore a familiar point that one can think of understanding as a case of perception, with the evidence for one’s belief that x said that p being a non-inferential experience of understanding that p on the basis of an utterance of x. In her contribution to this symposium, Hornsby pursues a refreshingly distinctive course. Instead of concentrating on the epistemology of language understanding, she focuses on language production. She argues for a distinctive phenomenological claim, which she uses in defence of her thesis that semantic knowledge is practical. There are some immediate advantages to focusing on language production versus language understanding in seeking to argue that linguistic competence is practical. Those who hold that language understanding is akin to some kind of non-inferential perceptual grasping face the obvious objection that the pervasive context-sensitivity and ambiguity of natural language sentences fo **Authors:** [[Jason Stanley]]