Inferential Expressivism and the Negation Problem

Oxford Studies in Metaethics 16 (forthcoming)
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Abstract

We develop a novel solution to the negation version of the Frege-Geach problem by taking up recent insights from the bilateral programme in logic. Bilateralists derive the meaning of negation from a primitive *B-type* inconsistency involving the attitudes of assent and dissent. Some may demand an explanation of this inconsistency in simpler terms, but we argue that bilateralism’s assumptions are no less explanatory than those of *A-type* semantics that only require a single primitive attitude, but must stipulate inconsistency elsewhere. Based on these insights, we develop a version of B-type expressivism called *inferential expressivism*. This is a novel semantic framework that characterises meanings by inferential roles that define which *attitudes* one can *infer* from the use of terms. We apply this framework to normative vocabulary, thereby solving the Frege-Geach problem generally and comprehensively. Our account moreover includes a semantics for epistemic modals, thereby also explaining normative terms under epistemic modals.

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Author Profiles

Luca Incurvati
University of Amsterdam
Julian J. Schloeder
University of Connecticut

Citations of this work

Reasoning With Attitude.Luca Incurvati & Julian J. Schlöder - 2023 - New York: Oxford University Press USA.
Negation, expressivism, and intentionality.Alejandro Pérez Carballo - 2020 - Philosophical Quarterly 70 (279):246-267.
The Logic of Lexical Connectives.Giorgio Sbardolini - 2023 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 52 (5):1327-1353.
Epistemic Modality and Hyperintensionality in Mathematics.Timothy Bowen - 2017 - Dissertation, Arché, University of St Andrews

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Making it Explicit.Isaac Levi & Robert B. Brandom - 1996 - Journal of Philosophy 93 (3):145.

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