Abstract

Twenty years ago, Hilary Putnam first proclaimed that meaning ain't in the head. Since then, semantic externalism---the thesis that a subject's intrinsic states, described independently of her physical and social environment, do not fully determine the semantic properties of her words or concepts---has become the new philosophical orthodoxy. Despite this popularity, I believe the underlying motivations for semantic externalism and its philosophical significance have been widely misunderstood. Semantic externalism has been accepted on the basis of a series of powerful thought experiments which elicit our everyday intuitions about how to interpret a subject's thoughts and words. However, these thought experiments alone don't really establish that internalist accounts of reference are unacceptable---for internalists can offer a debunking pragmatic explanation for why we have the interpretive intuitions we do. Why, then, should we accept semantic externalism? ;I argue that the real rationale for semantic externalism is to be found in certain very basic intuitions about our fallibility and the efficacy of rational inquiry. Common sense tells us one needn't know exactly what it takes to count as an instance of gold in order to refer to it. Moreover, we think one can discover the defining characteristics of gold through careful empirical inquiry. Semantic externalism can vindicate these epistemic convictions, internalism cannot. These basic intuitions about rational inquiry, I contend, explain the appeal of Putnam's externalism about natural kind terms. ;I then consider whether semantic externalism is compatible with our apriori access to how the reference of our concepts is fixed. This compatiblist view is attractive since it provides a clear epistemic account of how rational inquiry into the nature of familiar objects and properties is possible. However, I argue that this position cannot ultimately be reconciled with the epistemic intuitions which I take to motivate semantic externalism in the first place. ;Finally, I consider Tyler Burge's argument for the external determination of thought content. Burge backs up his initial appeal to thought experiments with a principle of methodological conservatism. I argue that this strategy is flawed: Burge must give a positive argument in favor of his position