Semantic Realism Research Articles

There is no opposition between Formal and Cognitive Semantics

The history of modern semantics is characterised by two research tradi- tions which are based on radically dierent views concerning both con- ceptual motivation and the purpose of semantic research. Realistic semantics conceives of semantics as characterising the rela- tionsship between linguistic expressions and reality. In most cases this re- lationship is explicated by means of modeltheoretic concepts. The follow- ing quote from one of the founding fathers of realistic semantics clearly rejects a mentalist stance. I distinguish two topics: first, the description of possible languages or grammars as abstract semantic systems whereby symbols are associated with aspects of the world; and second, the description of the psychological and sociological facts whereby a particular one of these abstract semantic systems is the one used by a person or a population. Only confusion comes of mixing these two topics. Lewis (1972), p 170

Meaning Holism and Semantic Realism

Summary Reconciliation of semantic holism with interpretation of individual expressions is advanced here by means of a relativization of sentence meaning to object language theories viewed as idealizations of belief-systems. Fodor's view of the autonomy of the special sciences is emphasized and this is combined with detailed replies to his recent criticisms of meaning holism. The argument is that the need for empirical evidence requires a holistic approach to meaning. Thus, semantic realism requires semantic holism.

Compositionality and the Manifestation Challenge

I address the question whether Dummett’s manifestation challenge to semantic realism can be disarmed by reflection on the compositionality of meaning. Building on work of Dummett and Wright, I develop in §§12 what I argue to be the most formidable version of the manifestation challenge. Along the way I review attempts by previous authors to deploy considerations about compositionality in realism’s favour, and argue that they are unsuccessful. The formulation of the challenge I develop renders explicit something which I argue to be implicit in Dummett’s and Wright’s presentations: that the challenge depends on a contention about the constitution of speakers’ states of declarative sentence understanding: i.e., that many such states incorporate abilities to recognize whether the associated sentences’ truth conditions are satisfied. In §3 I argue that reflection on the compositionality of meaning reveals, first, that this contention must be rejected by the realist, and second, that it is unmotivated. This result does not settle the debate over the manifestation challenge, but it implies that the onus of argument does not currently rest with the realist.

Hodges’ Theorem Does not Account for Determinacy of Translation. A Reply to Werning

Werning applies a theorem by Hodges in order to put forward an argument against Quine’s thesis of the indeterminacy of translation (understood as a thesis on meaning, not on reference) and in favour of what Werning calls ‘semantic realism’. We show that the argument rests on two critical premises both of which are false. The reasons for these failures are explained and the actual place of this application of Hodges’ theorem within Quine’s philosophy of language is outlined.

Realismo Semântico e Consciência do Momento

An article by Moulines presents an interesting argument against semantic realism, using Calderôn’s play La Vida en Sueño as a literary device to develop his point. He introduces in the play a new character, a realist philosopher who tries to persuade Prince Segismund to abandon the anti-realist position he maintains, after the experience he undergoes in the play. I introduce a second imaginary realist, who argues for conjectural realism instead of the semantic variety, by means of several sceptical arguments intended to defeat scepticism itself, throwing it in the same boat as anti-realist solipsism.

A Semantic Approach to the Completeness Problem in Quantum Mechanics

The old Bohr-Einstein debate about the completeness of quantum mechanics (QM) was held on an ontological ground. The completeness problem becomes more tractable, however, if it is preliminarily discussed from a semantic viewpoint. Indeed every physical theory adopts, explicitly or not, a truth theory for its observative language, in terms of which the notions of semantic objectivity and semantic completeness of the physical theory can be introduced and inquired. In particular, standard QM adopts a verificationist theory of truth that implies its semantic nonobjectivity; moreover, we show in this paper that standard QM is semantically complete, which matches Bohr's thesis. On the other hand, one of the authors has provided a Semantic Realism (or SR) interpretation of QM that adopts a Tarskian theory of truth as correspondence for the observative language of QM (which was previously mantained to be impossible); according to this interpretation QM is semantically objective, yet incomplete, which matches EPR's thesis. Thus, standard QM and the SR interpretation of QM come to opposite conclusions. These can be reconciled within an integrationist perspective that interpretes non-Tarskian theories of truth as theories of metalinguistic concepts different from truth.

Compositionality, Context, Categories and the Indeterminacy of Translation

The doctrine that meanings are entities with a determinate and indepen- dent reality is often believed to have been undermined by Quine's thought experiment of radical translation, which results in an argument for the indeterminacy of translation. This paper argues to the contrary. Starting from Quine's assumption that the meanings of observation sentences are stimulus meanings, i.e., set-theoretical constructions of neuronal states uniquely determined by inter-subjectively observable facts, the paper shows that this meaning assignment, up to isomorphism, is uniquely extendable to all expressions that occur in observation sentences. To do so, a theorem recently proven by Hodges is used. To derive the conclusion, one only has to assume that languages are compositional, abide by a generalized context principle and by what I call the category principle. These assumptions originating in Frege and Husserl are coherent with Quine's overall position. It is concluded that Quine's naturalistic approach does not justify scepticism with regard to meaning, but should rather result in a view that affiliates semantics with neuroscience. The philosophy of language in the twentieth-century, with a grain of salt, can be regarded as the rise and fall of semantic realism. The century began with an outline of what it would mean that meanings exist as in- dependent entities. To make this view explicit and to defend it was a major achievement of Gottlob Frege and Edmund Husserl. 1 In the second half of the century scepticism about meanings became prevalent. It was fostered importantly by two challenges, one due to W. V. Quine (1960) and well- known as the thesis of the indeterminacy of translation, the other often attributed to Hilary Putnam (1983) and discussed as the model-theoretic argument against metaphysical realism. Frege and Husserl set the rules for the game when they formulated three principles as constraints for any theory of meaning. The first one became known as the principle of com- positionality and says that the meaning of an expression is determined by the meanings of its parts. The second one is what I call context principle. It claims that two expressions fail to differ in meaning just in case a sub- stitution of one for the other has no effect on the meaning of any of their embedding contexts (Throughout the text I understand 'context' to mean linguistic rather than situational context). While the former two principles go back to Frege, the last one, the category principle, is due to Husserl.

Locality and Measurements Within the SR Model for an Objective Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

One of the authors has recently propounded an SR (semantic realism) model which shows, circumventing known no-go theorems, that an objective (noncontextual, hence local) interpretation of quantum mechanics (QM) is possible. We consider here compound physical systems and show why the proofs of nonlocality of QM do not hold within the SR model, which is slightly simplified in this paper. We also discuss quantum measurement theory within this model, note that the objectification problem disappears since the measurement of any property simply reveals its unknown value, and show that the projection postulate can be considered as an approximate law, valid FAPP (for all practical purposes). Finally, we provide an intuitive picture that justifies some unusual features of the SR model and proves its consistency.

Wittgenstein's Rule‐Following Paradox and the Objectivity of Meaning

1. The past few years have seen a revival of interest in Kripke’s controversial reading of Wittgenstein’s remarks about rule-following. Thus, on the one hand, George Wilson has tried to defend Kripke’s claim that Wittgenstein can be understood as providing a sceptical solution to a sceptical problem about meaning – a solution which, though sceptical, can nonetheless, according to Wilson, yield a kind of semantic realism. On the other hand, John McDowell and other ‘new Wittgensteinians’ have attempted to show that Wittgenstein intended to dissolve, rather than solve, all philosophical problems about meaning and so intended to leave no room for any philosophical account of meaning whatsoever. It seems to me, however, that Wilson’s sceptical solution is more scepticism than solution and that McDowell’s quietism also leaves untouched a problem that really needs to be addressed. Moreover, I believe that Wittgenstein himself recognized this need. The problem I have in mind concerns the normativity and objectivity of meaning; it is different from the rule-following paradox, though we are led into the paradox by certain ways of trying to solve it. Contra McDowell, I shall argue that dissolving the paradox leaves the problem, and hence the need for constructive philosophy, still standing. But I shall also argue, contra Wilson, that it is only by

Quantified Negative Existentials

This paper suggests that quantified negative existentials about fiction - statements of the form There are some / many / etc. Fs in work W who don't exist - offer a serious challenge to the theorist of fiction: more serious, in a number of ways, that singular negative existentials. I argue that the temptation to think that only a realist semantics of such statements is plausible should be resisted. There are numerous quantified negative existentials found in other areas that seem equally true but where a realist semantics imports ontological commitments that few would want to embrace. In the final part of the paper I sketch an alternative pretense account of one such quantified negative existential, and suggest that the account gives us some reason to believe that quantified negative existentials in general, including quantified negative existentials about fiction, can also be understood in pretense terms.

What is so Magical About a Theory of Intrinsic Intensionality?

Curiously missing in the vast literature on Hilary Putnam's so-called model-theoretic argument against semantic realism is any response from would-be proponents of what Putnam would call magical theories of reference. Such silence is surprising in light of the fact that such theories have occupied a significant position in the history of philosophy and the fact that there are still several prominent thinkers who would, no doubt, favor such a theory. This paper develops and examines various responses to Putnam's argument on behalf of the proponent of a magical theory of reference. While Putnam's explicit replies to such responses to his argument seem to involve little more than name calling, I develop arguments that show that there are significant problems facing any would-be proponent of such a view. While magical theories of reference are far from the strawmen Putnam seems to take them to be, there are, I argue, genuine reasons for a semantic realist to prefer a non-magical theory of reference.

Manifestability and Semantic Realism

Abstract: This paper provides a critical discussion of Alexander Miller's recent attack on antirealist arguments against semantic realism that are based on manifestability requirements. Miller attempts to defend semantic realism against Wright‐Hale arguments from manifestability. He does so in reliance on a McDowell type assertion‐truth platitude. This paper argues in both general terms and in relation to the details of Miller's argument, that attempts to defend semantic realism while accepting a Dummettian‐Wittgensteinian framework on theories of meaning, are misconceived and likely to fail, as I believe is true in Miller's case. Semantic realism is best defended within a context of metaphysical realism, and naturalistic‐causal theories of meaning and explanation.

The Significance of Semantic Realism

This paper is concerned with the relationship between the metaphysical doctrine of realism about the external world and semantic realism, as characterised by Michael Dummett. I argue that Dummett's conception of the relationship is flawed, and that Crispin Wright's account of the relationship, although designed to avoid the problems which beset Dummett's, nevertheless fails for similar reasons. I then aim to show that despite the fact that Dummett and Wright both fail to give a plausible account of the relationship between semantic realism and the metaphysical doctrine of realism, the semantic issue and the metaphysical issue are importantly related. I outline the precise sense in which the evaluation of semantic realism is relevant to the evaluation of realism about the external world, a sense overlooked by opponents of Dummett, such as Simon Blackburn and Michael Devitt. I finish with some brief remarks on metaphysics, semantics, and the nature of philosophy, and suggest that Dummett's arguments against semantic realism can retain their relevance to metaphysical debate even if we reject Dummett's idea that the theory of meaning is thefoundation of all philosophy.

What is the Manifestation Argument?

I consider the well known “manifestation challenge” to semantic realism propounded by Michael Dummett, and further developed by Crispin Wright and Bob Hale. I distinguish between strong and weak versions of the challenge, and show that anti–realists effectively concede that realism can meet the strong version. I then argue that the weak version is unmotivated. Building on work by John McDowell and Peter Strawson, and responding to criticisms from Wright, I argue further that the semantic realist can meet even the weak version. It emerges, inter alia, that there are some serious ambiguities in the standard anti–realist characterisations of semantic realism.

Foreword

This special issue of Mathematical Structures in Computer Science contains the final Proceedings of the Tutorial Workshop on Realizability Semantics and Applications, which was held between June 30 and July 1, 1999 in Trento, Italy, as one of the satellite workshops associated to the Federated Logic Conference.

Does Ontology Exist?

Early analytic philosophers like Carnap, Wittgenstein and Ryle regarded ontology as a branch of metaphysics that is either trivial or meaningless. But at present it is generally assumed that philosophy can make substantial discoveries about what kinds of things exist and about the essence of these kinds. My paper challenges this ontological turn. The currently predominant conceptions of the subject, at any rate, do not license the idea that ontology can provide distinctively philosophical insights into the constituents of reality. I distinguish four main sources of analytic ontology—Strawson's descriptive metaphysics, Kripke's realist semantics, the Austro-Australian truth-maker principle, Quine's naturalistic conception of ontology—and indicate briefly why the first three do not rehabilitate ontology. In the remainder, I concentrate on the most influential and promising position. Quinean ontology seeks to bring out and reduce the ontological commitments of our best scientific theories through logical paraphrase. Against this programme, I argue that Quine's conception of ontological commitment is inadequate, and that his logical paraphrase cannot contribute to the exploration of reality, but at most to the clarification of our conceptual framework.

Defending semantic realism

The underlying question is how much and in what way speaker's understanding should be a determinant in theories explaining meaning. It is argued that semantic realism is best defined and defended within a metaphysical realism most naturally associated with externalist, causal, explanations of meaning. Attempts to defend semantic realism within a Wittgesteinian–Dummettian framework assume that theories of meaning must be theories of understanding, and that theories of understanding must be theories of use, such that use is manifestable in outward behavioural capacities. I argue that attempting to defend semantic realism in such frameworks leads inevitably to near paradoxical positions.

Could Aquinas Reject Semantic Realism? Reply to De Anna

While accepting that metaphysical realism is incompatible with semantic anti-realism, De Anna has argued in The Philosophical Quarterly, 50 (2000), pp. 82–7, that Aquinas'metaphysical realism is compatible with the negation of semantic realism. In reply, I show that De Anna's case for this claim has two serious shortcomings: first, it fails to recognize the cognitive issues arising from the distinction between adequate and inadequate effects; secondly, it incorrectly assumes that the analogical use of language can extend one's recognitional capacities.

Agnostic empiricism versus scientific realism: Belief in truth matters

This paper aims to defend scientific realism against two versions of agnostic empiricism: a naive agnostic position, which suggests that the only rational option is to remain agnostic as to the truth of theoretical assertions, and van Fraassen's more sophisticated agnostic empiricism - which may be called "Hypercritical Empiricism". It first argues that given semantic realism, naive agnostic empiricism cannot be maintained: there is no relevant epistemic difference between theoretical assertions and observational ones. It then focuses on van Fraassen's more sophisticated alternative to scientific realism and suggests that an attitude towards science which involves less than aiming at theoretical truth and believing in theories would be, in some concrete respect that empiricists should recognize, worse off than the recommended realist attitude. To this end, the paper develops the so-called conjunction argument into a diachronic argument for scientific realism.

10.1023/A:1006318918197

This paper discusses the difference between the factual and the legal, both as to terms and as to statements, on the analogy of the methodologists' distinction of the observational and the theoretical. No absolute distinction exists, and pure ‘brute facts’ do not exist in law because of the socialisation of physical world and juridification of the social world.; also, the effect of evidentiary constraints. Law/fact distinction depends on ‘applicability rules’. The problem of ‘mixed terms’ is partly a matter of judicial pragmatics, partly to do with the character of applicability rules, and their extensiveness. Semantic realism versus semantic instrumentalism in respect of legal terms -- the latter preferred. Tendency to abstract terms in advanced legal orders.