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  1. Physical Possibility and Determinate Number Theory.Sharon Berry - manuscript
    It's currently fashionable to take Putnamian model theoretic worries seriously for mathematics, but not for discussions of ordinary physical objects and the sciences. But I will argue that (under certain mild assumptions) merely securing determinate reference to physical possibility suffices to rule out nonstandard models of our talk of numbers. So anyone who accepts realist reference to physical possibility should not reject reference to the standard model of the natural numbers on Putnamian model theoretic grounds.
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  2. Davidson's Philosophy: Truth, Meaning and the Mental.G. Preyer (ed.) - forthcoming - Oxford University Press.
  3. Reference Magnetism Beyond the Predicate: Two Putnam-Style Results.Rohan Sud - forthcoming - Journal of Philosophy.
    Many accept David Lewis's (1983) claim that, among the candidate meanings for our predicates, some are more natural than others -- they do better or worse at ``carving nature at its joints''. Call this claim predicate naturalism. Disagreement remains over whether the notion of naturalness extends ``beyond the predicate'' (à la Sider, 2011). Are the candidate meanings of logical vocabulary also more or less natural? Call this claim logical naturalism. -/- One motivation for predicate naturalism comes from its supposed ability (...)
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  4. Radical parochialism about reference.Will Gamester & J. Robert G. Williams - 2023 - Noûs 57 (3):600-617.
    We can use radically different reference‐schemes to generate the same truth‐conditions for the sentences of a language. In this paper, we do three things. (1) Distinguish two arguments that deploy this observation to derive different conclusions. The first argues that reference is radically indeterminate: there is no fact of the matter what ordinary terms refer to. This threat is taken seriously and most contemporary metasemantic theories come with resources intended to rebut it. The second argues for radical parochialism about reference: (...)
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  5. Explaining Away Kripke’s Wittgenstein.Derek Green - 2023 - Erkenntnis 88 (3):991-1011.
    The paradox of rule-following that Saul Kripke finds in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations purports to show that words and thoughts have no content—that there is no intentionality. This paper refutes the paradox with a dilemma. Intentional states are posited in rational explanations, which use propositional attitudes to explain actions and thoughts. Depending on which of the two plausible views of rational explanation is right, either: the paradox is mistaken about the a priori requirements for content; or, a fatal flaw in content (...)
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  6. Davidsonian Metasemantics and Radical Interpretation.Maciej Tarnowski - 2023 - Axiomathes 33 (1):1-18.
    In the current debate on the metaphysical grounding of semantic properties Donald Davidson is usually taken to represent interpretationism, a stance according to which the meaning of expressions is metaphysically grounded by the process of assigning them semantic values which maximize certain parameters such as truth or rationality of the speaker. This stance is often contrasted with productivism, which takes circumstances of expression’s production, not interpretation, to ground its meaning. In this article, I argue that this widespread understanding of Davidson’s (...)
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  7. The structuralist approach to underdetermination.Chanwoo Lee - 2022 - Synthese 200 (2):1-25.
    This paper provides an exposition of the structuralist approach to underdetermination, which aims to resolve the underdetermination of theories by identifying their common theoretical structure. Applications of the structuralist approach can be found in many areas of philosophy. I present a schema of the structuralist approach, which conceptually unifies such applications in different subject matters. It is argued that two classic arguments in the literature, Paul Benacerraf’s argument on natural numbers and W. V. O. Quine’s argument for the indeterminacy of (...)
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  8. Reference by proxy.Michael Rieppel - 2022 - Synthese 200 (3):1-18.
    Formal semantic theories are generally thought to make contact with pre-theoretic semantic notions of aboutness and reference. The nature of that contact is, however, not always straightforward. This paper addresses two debates where that issue assumes a significant role. I begin with Simchen’s recent argument that Lewisian Interpretationism succumbs to referential indeterminacy. I develop a proposal about the relationship between the theoretical notion of a term’s semantic value and the pre-theoretic notion of reference, and argue that the indeterminacy Simchen identifies (...)
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  9. Scientific Realism and Anti-realism in Quine’s Philosophy.Amir Hajizadeh - 2021 - Journal of Philosophical Investigations 15 (37):974-996.
    In this essay, we try to address a fundamental issue in the philosophy of science, namely the conflict between realism and antirealism in Quine's philosophy. There seems to be an inner tension in his views on the question of the reality of unobservable entities or reference of theoretical terms. In order to refute his seemingly inconsistent position, we first begin with the concept of ontological commitment, which he formulated in contrast to the position of his teacher, Carnap. In the following, (...)
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  10. The Indeterminacy of Translation and Radical Interpretation.Ali Hossein Khani - 2021 - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    The Indeterminacy of Translation and Radical Interpretation The indeterminacy of translation is the thesis that translation, meaning, and reference are all indeterminate: there are always alternative translations of a sentence and a term, and nothing objective in the world can decide which translation is the right one. This is a skeptical conclusion because what it … Continue reading The Indeterminacy of Translation and Radical Interpretation →.
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  11. Turning Aboutness About.Alexander Sandgren - 2021 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (1):136-155.
    There are two families of influential and stubborn puzzles that many theories of aboutness (intentionality) face: underdetermination puzzles and puzzles concerning representations that appear to be about things that do not exist. I propose an approach that elegantly avoids both kinds of puzzle. The central idea is to explain aboutness (the relation supposed to stand between thoughts and terms and their objects) in terms of relations of co-aboutness (the relation of being about the same thing that stands between the thoughts (...)
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  12. The Conflict of Rigidity and Precision in Designation.Daniele Bertini - 2020 - Logos and Episteme 11 (1):19-27.
    My paper provides reasons in support of the view that vague identity claims originate from a conflict between rigidity and precision in designation. To put this stricly, let x be the referent of the referential terms P and Q. Then, that the proposition “that any x being both a P and a Q” is vague involves that the semantic intuitions at work in P and Q reveal a conflict between P and Q being simultaneously rigid and precise designators. After having (...)
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  13. Confused Terms in Ordinary Language.Greg Frost-Arnold & James R. Beebe - 2020 - Journal of Logic, Language and Information 29 (2):197-219.
    Confused terms appear to signify more than one entity. Carnap maintained that any putative name that is associated with more than one object in a relevant universe of discourse fails to be a genuine name. Although many philosophers have agreed with Carnap, they have not always agreed among themselves about the truth-values of atomic sentences containing such terms. Some hold that such atomic sentences are always false, and others claim they are always truth-valueless. Field maintained that confused terms can still (...)
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  14. Thinking about many.James Openshaw - 2020 - Synthese 199 (1-2):2863-2882.
    The notorious problem of the many makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that almost coincident with any ordinary object are a vast number of near-indiscernible objects. As Unger was aware in his presentation of the problem, this abundance raises a concern as to how—and even whether—we achieve singular thought about ordinary objects. This paper presents, clarifies, and defends a view which reconciles a plenitudinous conception of ordinary objects with our having singular thoughts about those objects. Indeed, this strategy has (...)
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  15. Inscrutability and Its Discontents.Laura Schroeter & François Schroeter - 2020 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 50 (5):566-579.
    Our main focus in this paper is Herman Cappelen’s claim, defended in Fixing Language, that reference is radically inscrutable. We argue that Cappelen’s inscrutability thesis should be rejected. We also highlight how rejecting inscrutability undermines Cappelen’s most radical conclusions about conceptual engineering. In addition, we raise a worry about his positive account of topic continuity through inquiry and debate.
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  16. Descriptivism about the Reference of Set-Theoretic Expressions: Revisiting Putnam’s Model-Theoretic Arguments.Zeynep Soysal - 2020 - The Monist 103 (4):442-454.
    Putnam’s model-theoretic arguments for the indeterminacy of reference have been taken to pose a special problem for mathematical languages. In this paper, I argue that if one accepts that there are theory-external constraints on the reference of at least some expressions of ordinary language, then Putnam’s model-theoretic arguments for mathematical languages don’t go through. In particular, I argue for a kind of descriptivism about mathematical expressions according to which their reference is “anchored” in the reference of expressions of ordinary language. (...)
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  17. Roads to Reference: An Essay on Reference Fixing in Natural Language.Mario Gomez-Torrente - 2019 - Oxford, Reino Unido: Oxford University Press.
    How is it that words come to stand for the things they stand for? Is the thing that a word stands for - its reference - fully identified or described by conventions known to the users of the word? Or is there a more roundabout relation between the reference of a word and the conventions that determine or fix it? Do words like 'water', 'three', and 'red' refer to appropriate things, just as the word 'Aristotle' refers to Aristotle? If so, (...)
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  18. Open Texture and Schematicity as Arguments for Non-referential Semantics.Christopher Gauker - 2017 - In Klaus Petrus Sarah-Jane Conrad (ed.), Meaning, Context, and Methodology. Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 13-30.
    Many of the terms of our language, such as “jar”, are open-textured in the sense that their applicability to novel objects is not entirely determined by their past usage. Many others, such as the verbs “use” and “have”, are schematic in the sense that they have only a very general meaning although on any particular occasion of use they denote some more particular relation. The phenomena of open texture and schematicity constitute a sharp challenge to referential semantics, which assumes that (...)
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  19. Metasemantics and Singular Reference.Ori Simchen - 2017 - Noûs 51 (2):175-195.
    I consider two competing approaches to metasemantics: productivism, whereby endowment with semantic significance emerges directly from conditions surrounding the production or employment of the items semantically endowed; and interpretationism, whereby endowment with semantic significance emerges directly from conditions surrounding the interpretive consumption of such items. Focusing on the version of interpretationism developed by Lewis and his followers, I present a novel argument to the conclusion that such an approach cannot secure determinacy for singular reference. I then draw a larger moral (...)
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  20. The Metaphysical Commitments of Logic.Thomas Brouwer - 2013 - Dissertation, University of Leeds
    This thesis is about the metaphysics of logic. I argue against a view I refer to as ‘logical realism’. This is the view that the logical constants represent a particular kind of metaphysical structure, which I dub ‘logico-metaphysical structure’. I argue instead for a more metaphysically lightweight view of logic which I dub ‘logical expressivism’. -/- In the first part of this thesis (Chapters I and II) I argue against a number of arguments that Theodore Sider has given for logical (...)
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  21. Counting Stages.Emanuel Viebahn - 2013 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91 (2):311-324.
    This paper defends stage theory against the argument from diachronic counting. It argues that stage theorists can appeal to quantifier domain restriction in order to accommodate intuitions about diachronic counting sentences. Two approaches involving domain restriction are discussed. According to the first, domains of counting are usually restricted to stages at the time of utterance. This approach explains intuitions in many cases, but is theoretically costly and delivers wrong counts if diachronic counting is combined with fission or fusion. On the (...)
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  22. Davidson, first-person authority, and the evidence for semantics.Steven Gross - 2012 - In Gerhard Preyer (ed.), Donald Davidson on Truth, Meaning, and the Mental. Oxford University Press. pp. 228-48.
    Donald Davidson aims to illuminate the concept of meaning by asking: What knowledge would suffice to put one in a position to understand the speech of another, and what evidence sufficiently distant from the concepts to be illuminated could in principle ground such knowledge? Davidson answers: knowledge of an appropriate truth-theory for the speaker’s language, grounded in what sentences the speaker holds true, or prefers true, in what circumstances. In support of this answer, he both outlines such a truth-theory for (...)
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  23. Indeterminacy, A Priority, and Analyticity in the Quinean Critique.Gurpreet Rattan - 2010 - European Journal of Philosophy 18 (2):203-226.
    Significant issues remain for understanding and evaluating the Quinean critique of the analytic/synthetic distinction. These issues are highlighted in a puzzling mismatch between the common philosophical attitude toward the critique and its broader intellectual legacy. A discussion of this mismatch sets the larger context for criticism of a recent tradition of interpretation of the critique. I argue that this tradition confuses the roles and relative importance of indeterminacy, a priority, and analyticity in the Quinean critique.
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  24. The Price of Inscrutability.J. R. G. Williams - 2008 - Noûs 42 (4):600 - 641.
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  25. Permutations and Foster problems: Two puzzles or one?J. Robert G. Williams - 2008 - Ratio 21 (1):91–105.
    How are permutation arguments for the inscrutability of reference to be formulated in the context of a Davidsonian truth-theoretic semantics? Davidson takes these arguments to establish that there are no grounds for favouring a reference scheme that assigns London to “Londres”, rather than one that assigns Sydney to that name. We shall see, however, that it is far from clear whether permutation arguments work when set out in the context of the kind of truth-theoretic semantics which Davidson favours. The principle (...)
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  26. Gavagai Again.Robert Williams - 2008 - Synthese 164 (2):235 - 259.
    Quine (1960, "Word and object". Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, ch. 2) claims that there are a variety of equally good schemes for translating or interpreting ordinary talk. 'Rabbit' might be taken to divide its reference over rabbits, over temporal slices of rabbits, or undetached parts of rabbits, without significantly affecting which sentences get classified as true and which as false. This is the basis of his famous 'argument from below' to the conclusion that there can be no fact of the (...)
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  27. Reference, knowledge, and scepticism about meaning.Elisabetta Lalumera - 2007 - Sorites (19):1-18.
    This paper explores the possibility of resisting meaning scepticism – the thesis that there are many alternative incompatible assignments of reference to each of our terms - by appealing to the idea that the nature of reference is to maximize knowledge. If the reference relation is a knowledge maximizing-relation, then some candidate referents are privileged among the others - i.e., those referents we are in a position to know about – and a positive reason against meaning scepticism is thus individuated. (...)
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  28. Eligibility and inscrutability.J. Robert G. Williams - 2007 - Philosophical Review 116 (3):361-399.
    Inscrutability arguments threaten to reduce interpretationist metasemantic theories to absurdity. Can we find some way to block the arguments? A highly influential proposal in this regard is David Lewis’ ‘ eligibility ’ response: some theories are better than others, not because they fit the data better, but because they are framed in terms of more natural properties. The purposes of this paper are to outline the nature of the eligibility proposal, making the case that it is not ad hoc, but (...)
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  29. 'Thisgrue' and 'thisemerald-part': Reply to John Welch.Theo A. F. Kuipers - 2005 - Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 83 (1):138-140.
  30. A Simple Realist Account of the Normativity of Concepts.Elisabetta Lalumera - 2005 - Disputatio 1 (19):1-17.
    I argue that a concept is applied correctly when it is applied to the kind of things it is the concept of. Correctness as successful kind-tracking is fulfilling an externally and naturalistically individuated standard. And the normative aspect of concept-application so characterized depends on the relational (non-individualistic) feature of conceptual content. I defend this view against two objections. The first is that norms should provide justifications for action, and the second involves a version of the thesis of indeterminacy of reference.
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  31. Inscrutability and its discontents.Vann McGee - 2005 - Noûs 39 (3):397–425.
    That reference is inscrutable is demonstrated, it is argued, not only by W. V. Quine's arguments but by Peter Unger's "Problem of the Many." Applied to our own language, this is a paradoxical result, since nothing could be more obvious to speakers of English than that, when they use the word "rabbit," they are talking about rabbits. The solution to this paradox is to take a disquotational view of reference for one's own language, so that "When I use 'rabbit,' I (...)
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  32. Quine l’extensionaliste. Entre naturalisme et esthétisme.Fabien Schang - 2005 - Philosophia Scientiae 9 (2):279-293.
    La position résolument extensionaliste de Quine a été appuyée par des arguments de nature différente, dans ses multiples articles destinés à rejeter le projet de logique modale. On peut classer ces arguments en trois catégories : un argument naturaliste, où l’auteur tente de baser le langage scientifique sur une notation tâchée de décrire la “structure ultime de la réalité” ; un argument esthétique, où Quine fait allusion à des raisons de clarté et d’efficacité démonstrative pour privilégier la théorie des fonctions (...)
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  33. Quine's double standard: undermining the indispensability argument via the indeterminacy of reference.Otávio Bueno - 2003 - Principia 7 (1-2):17-39.
    Quine has famously put forward the indispensability argument to force belief in the existence of mathematical objects (such as classes) due to their indispensability to our best theories of the world (Quine 1960). Quine has also advocated the indeterminacy of reference argument, according to which reference is dramatically indeterminate: given a language, there’s no unique reference relation for that language (see Quine 1969a). In this paper, I argue that these two arguments are in conflict with each other. Whereas the indispensability (...)
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  34. Correspondence Theories, Natural-Selective Truth, and Unsurmounted Skepticism.Douglas V. Henry - 2003 - Philosophia Christi 5 (1):93-112.
  35. Radical Interpretation and Indeterminacy.Timothy McCarthy - 2002 - Oxford, England: Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    McCarthy develops a theory of radical interpretation--the project of characterizing from scratch the language and attitudes of an agent or population--and applies it to the problems of indeterminacy of interpretation first described by Quine. The major theme in McCarthy's study is that a relatively modest set of interpretive principles, properly applied, can serve to resolve the major indeterminacies of interpretation.
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  36. Referenz und Fallibilismus: zu Hilary Putnams pragmatischem Kognitivismus.Axel Mueller - 2001 - New York: ISSN.
    This is a two tiered investigation. On the one hand, the author presents a systematic account of the philosophy of Hilary Putnam. Being the first comprehensive account to be published in the German-speaking world, the author traces the development of Putnam's realism and philosophy of language and their connections from the early 1950's to 2000. Contrary to the popular view of the discontinuity of Putnam's philosophy, he demonstrates that Putnam maintains certain semantic, pragmatic and epistemological foundations for the rational confirmability, (...)
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  37. Semantic Perversity.Francisco Calvo GarzóN. - 2000 - Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 19 (2):65-77.
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  38. The underdetermination/indeterminacy distinction and the analytic/synthetic distinction.A. W. Moore - 1997 - Erkenntnis 46 (1):5-32.
    Two of Quine's most familiar doctrines are: that there is a distinction between underdetermination and indeterminacy; and that there is no distinction between analytic and synthetic truths. An argument is given that these two doctrines are incompatible. In terms wholly acceptable to Quine and based on the underdetermination/indeterminacy distinction, an exhaustive and exclusive distinction is drawn between two kinds of true sentences, which, it is argued, corresponds to the traditional analytic/synthetic distinction. An appendix is used to develop one aspect of (...)
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  39. Reference from the first person perspective.Brian Loar - 1995 - Philosophical Issues 6:53-72.
  40. Syntactic interpretations of truth and semantic underdetermination.Timothy McCarthy - 1989 - Philosophical Psychology 2 (1):37 – 50.
  41. Referential inscrutability: Coming to terms without it.John R. Welch - 1984 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 22 (2):263-273.
    According to Quine, terms of divided reference like 'rabbit' have two sorts of problems: problems of direct and deferred ostension. Hence the reference of these terms is inscrutable. This article holds that the problems of deferred ostension can be handled by Goodman's theory of projection, and that the problems of direct ostension turn out to be pedestrian problems of signs.
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  42. How to think about reference.Stephen Leeds - 1973 - Journal of Philosophy 70 (15):485-503.
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