| Summary: | In Philosophical Investigations §244, Wittgenstein suggests that we understand avowals (first‐person psychological utterances) as manifestations or expressions of the speaker's mental states. An interesting philosophical theory, called expressivism, then develops from this Wittgensteinian idea. However, neo‐expressivists disagree with simple expressivists on whether avowals are at the same time assertions, which are truth‐evaluable. In this paper, I pursue the expressivist debate about whether avowals must also be viewed as assertions. I consider and reject three neo‐expressivist objections against simple expressivism. Then, I offer my own account of why we should understand avowals as assertions.
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