Abstract
I would expect many readers of my book to want to agree with either Mark Heller or Alan Sidelle. The very idea of rational constraints on (sufficient to disqualify such words as gricular and carple) will immediately suggest to many people that either (a) the constraints are of a purely pragmatic nature (Heller) or (b) there really are no such constraints (Sidelle). I can take some cold comfort in the fact that many philosophers will join me (and Alan) in rejecting (a), and many others will join me (and Mark) in rejecting (b), but since I have nothing to offer in place of these positions-except mystification-I'm afraid that few will join me in rejecting both of them. Let me, however, not exaggerate my opposition to (a) and (b). As I explain in my reply to Sidelle, I don't mind people accepting (b), as long as they acknowledge the strong intuitions to the contrary. My opposition to (a) is more adamant, but even here, as I explain in my reply to Heller, I don't necessarily deny that there may be some trivial pragmatic complaints against the strange languages (see also DR, pp. 138, 141). What I don't think-nor, I take it, does Sidelle-is that there are any complaints of the serious nature Heller talks about. In any case, I continue to (ambivalently) believe on intuitive grounds, without being able to defend it, that there are metaphysically necessary constraints on lexicons which rule out the strange words at some deep level of language or thought. As for Peter Simons's response to my book, I have to conjecture that Peter is like the philosopher in the dialogue in my precis, the philosopher who cannot understand what it means to question the Similarity Principle. It does indeed appear to me that Peter and his gaseous Jovian friend George take the Similarity Principle for granted, without acknowledging it or seeing the need to defend it. I thank the discussants for their participation in this symposium, and I will now address each of their comments in some detail.
Published Version
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