Abstract
Insensitive Semantics is mainly a protracted assault on semantic Contextualism, both moderate and radical. Cappelen and Lepore argue that Moderate Contextualism leads inevitably, like marijuana to heroin or masturbation to blindness, to Radical Contextualism and in turn that Radical Contextualism is misguided. Assuming that the only alternative to Contextualism is their Semantic Minimalism, they think theyâve given an indirect argument for it. But they overlook a third view, one that splits the difference between the other two. Like Contextualism it rejects Propositionalism, the conservative dogma that every indexicalfree declarative sentence expresses a proposition. Unlike Contextualism, it does not invoke context to fill semantic gaps and, indeed, denies that filling those gaps is a semantic matter. In rejecting Propositionalism, it is more radical, indeed, more minimalist than Cappelen and Leporeâs brand of Semantic Minimalism. It does not imagine that sentences that intuitively seem not to express propositions at least express âminimal propositions.â Radical Semantic Minimalism, or simply Radicalism, says that the sentences in question are semantically incomplete â their semantic contents are not propositions but merely âpropositional radicals.â [PPR commentary on Cappelen and Lepore, Insensitive Semantics] The Excluded Middle: Semantic Minimalism without Minimal Propositions
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