Semantic Realism, Actually

Metaphysica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-254
Author(s):  
Simon Hewitt
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Semantic Realism ◽  
Michael Dummett

AbstractMichael Dummett offered a semantic characterisation of a variety of realism-antirealism debates. This approach has fallen out of fashion. This has been to the detriment of metaphysics. This paper offers an accurate characterisation of Dummett’s view, often lacking in the literature, and then defends it against a range of attacks (from Devitt, Miller and Williamson). This understanding of realism debates is resilient, and if we take it seriously the philosophical terrain looks importantly different. In particular, the philosophy of language has a foundational role with respect to metaphysics.

Truth, Objectivity, and Realism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanford Shieh
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Approach ◽  
Crispin Wright ◽  
Semantic Realism ◽  
Michael Dummett ◽  
Ontological Approach ◽  
Flexible Framework

This chapter is concerned with a semantic (as opposed to ontological) approach to metaphysics, developed by Michael Dummett and Crispin Wright, that takes truth as fundamental, and explicates debates about realisms in terms of truth. On this approach realism is fundamentally concerned with the objectivity of truth, where objectivity does not consist in the existence of entities. The chapter shows that Dummett worked with three separable criteria for the objectivity of truth, which support a subtle and flexible framework for characterizing various degrees of realism. It argues that Dummett’s so-called “manifestation” arguments against semantic realism can handle many objections that have been brought against them. It discusses Wright’s minimalism about truth, his four semantic criteria of realism, their inter-relations, and their connections to Dummett’s criteria. It concludes with reflections on the meta-philosophical status of the semantic approach: the reasons in favor of pursuing it and its adequacy to metaphysical reflection.

scholarly journals Dummett’s Legacy: Semantics, Metaphysics and Linguistic Competence

Disputatio ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (41) ◽  
pp. 207-229
Author(s):  
Massimiliano Vignolo
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Linguistic Competence ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Important Lesson ◽  
Philosophical Inquiry ◽  
Michael Dummett ◽  
Theory Of Meaning

Abstract Throughout his philosophical career, Michael Dummett held firmly two theses: (I) the theory of meaning has a central position in philosophy and all other forms of philosophical inquiry rest upon semantic analysis, in particular semantic issues replace traditional metaphysical issues; (II) the theory of meaning is a theory of understanding. I will defend neither of them. However, I will argue that there is an important lesson we can learn by reflecting on the link between linguistic competence and semantics, which I take to be an important part of Dummett’s legacy in philosophy of language. I discuss this point in relation to Cappelen and Lepore’s criticism of Incompleteness Arguments.

Realism and Antirealism

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Miller
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
External World ◽  
Semantic Realism ◽  
Theory Of Meaning ◽  
Linguistic Understanding

This article questions whether, once the conception of metaphysics as grounded in the philosophy of language has been jettisoned, Dummett's arguments against semantic realism can retain any relevance to the realist/antirealist debate. By focussing on realism about the external world as an example, it reaches the conclusion that even without Dummett's conception of philosophy as grounded in the theory of meaning, his arguments against semantic realism do retain a limited but nevertheless genuine significance for the metaphysical debate. It emerges, though, that a certain key assumption, connecting the notions of linguistic understanding and knowledge, and necessary if Dummett's arguments are to have even this limited significance, is both underexplained and underdefended. The article concludes with some brief remarks on the cogency of the manifestation argument against semantic realism.

Curbing the Realist's Flights of Fancy

Dialogue ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Davies
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Linguistic Meaning ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Evil Demon ◽  
Semantic Realism ◽  
Michael Dummett ◽  
Local Case ◽  
Language L ◽  
Brain In A Vat ◽  
Realist Conception

In his paper “Fanciful Arguments For Realism,” Alan H. Goldman offers what he terms a “local case” argument as part of a more general defence of “semantic realism” against the anti-realist manoeuvres of Michael Dummett and Hilary Putnam. Semantic realism, here, is the thesis that sentences in a natural language L may have content that transcends any verification or assertability conditions associated with these sentences by competent speakers of L: an adequate semantics, the realist maintains, must equate the content of an assertoric sentence with its realist truth-conditions. Goldman contends that his local case argument demonstrates both the need to accord a central role to a realist conception of truth in an account of linguistic meaning, and the manner in which we acquire such a conception. He further maintains that the argument cannot be countered by any of the strategies that anti-realists are wont to deploy against “global case” arguments for realism (“evil demon” and “brain in a vat” scenarios, for example), and that, given the local case argument, we can recognise the fallacy in such anti-realist strategies and thereby rehabilitate the global case arguments that a full-blown semantic realism requires. I argue that Goldman's local case cannot fulfil its intended function in the overall economy of his argument, and that his strategy for defending semantic realism is fundamentally flawed. In so doing, I attempt to curb the realist's flight of fancy before it leaves the ground.

Language and Meaning in the Age of Modernism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James McElvenny
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Vienna Circle ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Personal Connection ◽  
International Language ◽  
Academic Philosophy ◽  
Significant Figures ◽  
Basic English ◽  
And Linguistics

This book is a historical study of influential currents in the philosophy of language and linguistics of the first half of the twentieth century, explored from the perspective of the English scholar C. K. Ogden (1889–1957). Although no ‘Great Man’ in his own right, Ogden had a personal connection, reflected in his work, to several of the most significant figures of the age. The background to the ideas espoused in Ogden’s book The Meaning of Meaning, co-authored with I.A. Richards (1893–1979), is examined in detail, along with the application of these ideas in his international language project Basic English. A richly interlaced network of connections is revealed between early analytic philosophy, semiotics and linguistics, all inevitably shaped by the contemporary cultural and political environment. In particular, significant interaction is shown between Ogden’s ideas, the varying versions of ‘logical atomism’ of Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) and Ludwig Wittgensten (1889–1951), Victoria Lady Welby’s (1837–1912) ‘significs’, and the philosophy and political activism of Otto Neurath (1882–1945) and Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970) of the Vienna Circle. Amid these interactions emerges a previously little known mutual exchange between the academic philosophy and linguistics of the period and the practically oriented efforts of the international language movement.

Aboutness

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Yablo
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Library Science ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Major Advance ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Made In

Aboutness has been studied from any number of angles. Brentano made it the defining feature of the mental. Phenomenologists try to pin down the aboutness features of particular mental states. Materialists sometimes claim to have grounded aboutness in natural regularities. Attempts have even been made, in library science and information theory, to operationalize the notion. However, it has played no real role in philosophical semantics, which is surprising. This is the first book to examine through a philosophical lens the role of subject matter in meaning. A long-standing tradition sees meaning as truth conditions, to be specified by listing the scenarios in which a sentence is true. Nothing is said about the principle of selection—about what in a scenario gets it onto the list. Subject matter is the missing link here. A sentence is true because of how matters stand where its subject matter is concerned. This book maintains that this is not just a feature of subject matter, but its essence. One indicates what a sentence is about by mapping out logical space according to its changing ways of being true or false. The notion of content that results—directed content—is brought to bear on a range of philosophical topics, including ontology, verisimilitude, knowledge, loose talk, assertive content, and philosophical methodology. The book represents a major advance in semantics and the philosophy of language.

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