Inferentialism

This article offers an overview of inferential role semantics. We aim to provide a map of the terrain as well as challenging some of the inferentialist’s standard commitments. We begin by introducing inferentialism and placing it into the wider context of contemporary philosophy of language. §2 focuses on what is standardly considered both the most important test case for and the most natural application of inferential role semantics: the case of the logical constants. We discuss some of the (alleged) benefits of logical inferentialism, chiefly with regards to the epistemology of logic, and consider a number of objections. §3 introduces and critically examines the most influential and most fully developed form of global inferentialism: Robert Brandom’s inferentialism about linguistic and conceptual content in general. Finally, in §4 we consider a number of general objections to IRS and consider possible responses on the inferentialist’s behalf

Generative Linguistics Meets Normative Inferentialism: Part 2

This is the second installment of a two-part essay. Limitations of space prevented the publication of the full essay in a previous issue of the Journal (Pereplyotchik 2020). My overall goal is to outline a strategy for integrating generative linguistics with a broadly pragmatist approach to meaning and communication. Two immensely useful guides in this venture are Robert Brandom and Paul Pietroski. Squarely in the Chomskyan tradition, Pietroski’s recent book, Conjoining Meanings, offers an approach to natural-language semantics that rejects foundational assumptions widely held amongst philosophers and linguists. In particular, he argues against extensionalism—the view that meanings are (or determine) truth and satisfaction conditions. Having arrived at the same conclusion by way of Brandom’s deflationist account of truth and reference, I’ll argue that both theorists have important contributions to make to a broader anti-extensionalist approach to language. Part 1 of the essay was largely exegetical, laying out what I see as the core aspects of Brandom’s normative inferentialism (1) and Pietroski’s naturalistic semantics (2). Now, in Part 2, I argue that there are many convergences between these two theoretical frameworks and, contrary to first appearances, very few points of substantive disagreement between them. If the integration strategy that I propose is correct, then what appear to be sharply contrasting commitments are better seen as interrelated verbal differences that come down to different—but complementary—explanatory goals. The residual disputes are, however, stubborn. I end by discussing how to square Pietroski’s commitment to predicativism with Brandom’s argument that a predicativist language is in principle incapable of expressing ordinary conditionals

Subatomic Inferences: an Inferentialist Semantics for Atomics, Predicates, and Names

Inferentialism is a theory in the philosophy of language which claims that the meanings of expressions are constituted by inferential roles or relations. Instead of a traditional model-theoretic semantics, it naturally lends itself to a proof-theoretic semantics, where meaning is understood in terms of inference rules with a proof system. Most work in proof-theoretic semantics has focused on logical constants, with comparatively little work on the semantics of non-logical vocabulary. Drawing on Robert Brandom’s notion of material inference and Greg Restall’s bilateralist interpretation of the multiple conclusion sequent calculus, I present a proof-theoretic semantics for atomic sentences and their constituent names and predicates. The resulting system has several interesting features: (1) the rules are harmonious and stable; (2) the rules create a structure analogous to familiar model-theoretic semantics; and (3) the semantics is compositional, in that the rules for atomic sentences are determined by those for their constituent names and predicates

Generative Linguistics Meets Normative Inferentialism: Part 1

This is the first installment of a two-part essay. Limitations of space prevented the publication of the full essay in present issue of the Journal. The second installment will appear in the next issue, 2021 (1). My overall goal is to outline a strategy for integrating generative linguistics with a broadly pragmatist approach to meaning and communication. Two immensely useful guides in this venture are Robert Brandom and Paul Pietroski. Squarely in the Chomskyan tradition, Pietroski’s recent book, Conjoining Meanings, offers an approach to natural-language semantics that rejects foundational assumptions widely held amongst philosophers and linguists. In particular, he argues against extensionalism—the view that meanings are (or determine) truth and satisfaction conditions. Having arrived at the same conclusion by way of Brandom’s deflationist account of truth and reference, I’ll argue that both theorists have important contributions to make to a broader anti-extensionalist approach to language. What appears here as Part 1 of the essay is largely exegetical, laying out what I see as the core aspects of Brandom’s normative inferentialism (§1) and Pietroski’s naturalistic semantics (§2). In Part 2 (next issue), I argue that there are many convergences between these two theoretical frameworks and, contrary to fi rst appearances, very few points of substantive disagreement between them. If the integration strategy that I propose is correct, then what appear to be sharply contrasting commitments are better seen as interrelated verbal differences that come down to different—but complementary—explanatory goals. The residual disputes are, however, stubborn. I end by discussing how to square Pietroski’s commitment to predicativism with Brandom’s argument that a predicativist language is in principle incapable of expressing ordinary conditionals

Generative Linguistics Meets Normative Inferentialism: Part 1

This is the first installment of a two-part essay. Limitations of space prevented the publication of the full essay in present issue of the Journal. The second installment will appear in the next issue, 2021 (1). My overall goal is to outline a strategy for integrating generative linguistics with a broadly pragmatist approach to meaning and communication. Two immensely useful guides in this venture are Robert Brandom and Paul Pietroski. Squarely in the Chomskyan tradition, Pietroski’s recent book, Conjoining Meanings, offers an approach to natural-language semantics that rejects foundational assumptions widely held amongst philosophers and linguists. In particular, he argues against extensionalism—the view that meanings are (or determine) truth and satisfaction conditions. Having arrived at the same conclusion by way of Brandom’s deflationist account of truth and reference, I’ll argue that both theorists have important contributions to make to a broader anti-extensionalist approach to language. What appears here as Part 1 of the essay is largely exegetical, laying out what I see as the core aspects of Brandom’s normative inferentialism (§1) and Pietroski’s naturalistic semantics (§2). In Part 2 (next issue), I argue that there are many convergences between these two theoretical frameworks and, contrary to fi rst appearances, very few points of substantive disagreement between them. If the integration strategy that I propose is correct, then what appear to be sharply contrasting commitments are better seen as interrelated verbal differences that come down to different—but complementary—explanatory goals. The residual disputes are, however, stubborn. I end by discussing how to square Pietroski’s commitment to predicativism with Brandom’s argument that a predicativist language is in principle incapable of expressing ordinary conditionals

Formal Representations of Salience in Dynamic Semantics

Lewis’ (1973; 1979) salience analysis of definite description reference suggests that an utterance of ‘the F’ refers to the most salient F, according to a contextual salience ranking. This analysis was created to account for referring improper definite descriptions. As shown by von Heusinger (2004), the salience analysis can also be used to explain anaphoric definite descriptions. Any formalization of the salience analysis will require a method for formally representing salience, such as Lewis’ order-theoretic method or von Heusinger’s choice-theoretic method. In this thesis, I will argue that the order-theoretic method explains certain features of salience that the choice-theoretic method does not, and therefore the order-theoretic method should be favored. I will also show how von Heusinger’s Dynamic Semantics with Choice Functions can be adapted to utilize the order-theoretic method, thus providing a formal modeling of the context change described by the salience explanation of anaphoric definite descriptions.Master of Art

Truth-Theoretic Semantics and Its Limits

Donald Davidson was one of the most influential philosophers of the last half of the 20th century, especially in the theory of meaning and in the philosophy of mind and action. In this paper, I concentrate on a field-shaping proposal of Davidson’s in the theory of meaning, arguably his most influential, namely, that insight into meaning may be best pursued by a bit of indirection, by showing how appropriate knowledge of a finitely axiomatized truth theory for a language can put one in a position both to interpret the utterance of any sentence of the language and to see how its semantically primitive constituents together with their mode of combination determines its meaning (Davidson 1965, 1967, 1970, 1973a). This project has come to be known as truth-theoretic semantics. My aim in this paper is to render the best account I can of the goals and methods of truth-theoretic semantics, to defend it against some objections, and to identify its limitations. Although I believe that the project I describe conforms to the main idea that Davidson had, my aim is not primarily Davidson exegesis. I want to get on the table an approach to compositional semantics for natural languages, inspired by Davidson, but extended and developed, which I think does about as much along those lines as any theory could. I believe it is Davidson’s project, and I defend this in detail elsewhere (Ludwig 2015; Lepore and Ludwig 2005, 2007a, 2007b, 2011). But I want to develop and defend the project while also exploring its limitations, without getting entangled in exegetical questions

INFLATIONARY TRUTH-THEORETIC SEMANTICS

I argue that satisfaction and reference—and therefore, truth—are multiply realizable properties. I advocate a novel approach motivated by a commitment to the robustness and fruitfulness of truth-theoretic approaches to natural language semantics. DEFLATIONISM: Philosophers keen on deflating the metaphysical pretensions of truth theories claim that we need not appeal to a substantive truth-property. Recently, however, some philosophers have sought to combine deflationism about truth with the view that our concept of truth or the truth-predicate can play an important role in natural language semantics. TRUTH-THEORETIC SEMANTICS: The goal of a formal semantic theory of a natural language is to provide both the semantic values of that language’s lexically primitive items as well as the semantically significant modes of combining those basic elements into meaningful and more complex expressions. Most approaches have in common a commitment to finite stateability and compositionality as well as a commitment to something like Davidson’s “Convention T.” PLURALISM: Pluralists about truth argue that different areas of discourse have different truth-properties. Can pluralism successfully be combined with a commitment to truth-theoretic semantics? OPEN SEMANTIC FUNCTIONALISM: The pluralist approaches to truth are unsatisfactory for a variety of reasons. The only option, I argue, is to regard truth as multiply-realizable. Specifically, we should view the set of truth’s realizers as possessing non-actual members—as being “open.” Truth is defined in the usual way in terms of reference and satisfaction, but these latter two relations are to be understood as multiply realizable but open. The property of truth can be specified using the Ramsey/Lewis method. My final view—Open Semantic Functionalism—respects compositionality and finite stateability, avoids triviality, handles plurality, and fits with robust, explanatorily significant natural language semantic theories