 Clearly individual speakers must have some implicit assumptions about the reference of a word that guide their verdicts about whether it applies to particular cases (Jackson 1998a, 29–42). Your judgments about whether a particular Gettier case counts as knowledge, for instance, are guided by your prior understanding of the term ‘knowledge’, and your answer is only justified insofar as it reflects that prior understanding. An empiricist seeks to explain these facts by positing a stable internal psychological state—something like an internal reference-fixing template—that guides your verdicts no matter what the actual world turns out to be like.