The Citadel Itself: Defending Semantic Internalism

Semantic internalism is the view that linguistic meaning amounts to forms of conceptual instructions, and that the process of forming linguistic representations does not involve reference to extra-mental entities. Contemporary philosophy of language remains predominantly externalist in focus, having developed systems of extensional reference which depart from classical rationalist assumptions. I will defend semantic internalism using a broad range of case studies, accruing what I see at the most convincing arguments in its favour. Particular focus will be placed on exemplar cases such as natural kind and artifactual terms. Copredication via inherent polysemy will be used as a strong source of evidence for internalism, countering the received view of the externalist character of meaning. Overall, my aim is to comprehensively defend internalism against its critics and to push the exploration of linguistic content and meaning “back into the brain”.

The geometry vs. the algebra of meaning

In this paper Gärdenfors’s geometric approach to meaning in natural language is compared to Jackendoff's algebraic one, and this is done against the backdrop of formal semantics. Ultimately, the paper tries to show that Jackendoff's framework is to be preferred to all others. The paper proceeds as follows. In Section 2, the common theoretical commitments of Gärdenfors and Jackendoff are outlined, and it is attempted to argue briefly that they are on the right track. In Section 3, the basics of the two frameworks to be compared are laid out, and it is assessed how they deal with some central issues in semantic theory, namely reference and truth, lexical decomposition, and compositionality. In Section 4, we get into the nitty-gritty of how Gärdenfors and Jackendoff actually proceed in semantic analysis, using an example of a noun and a verb (embedded in a sentence). In Section 5, the merits of Gärdenfors's empiricism when it comes to word learning and concept acquisition are assessed and compared to the moderate nativism of Jackendoff, and it is argued that Jackendoff's nativism is to be preferred. In the sixth section, the semantic internalism common to both frameworks is commented on.

The autonomy of grammar and semantic internalism

In his post-Tractatus work on natural language use, Wittgenstein defended the notion of what he dubbed the autonomy of grammar. According to this thought, grammar - or semantics, in a more recent idiom - is essentially autonomous from metaphysical considerations, and is not answerable to the nature of things. The argument has several related incarnations in Wittgenstein?s post-Tractatus writings, and has given rise to a number of important insights, both critical and constructive. In this paper I will argue for a potential connection between Wittgenstein?s autonomy argument and some more recent internalist arguments for the autonomy of semantics. My main motivation for establishing this connection comes from the fact that the later Wittgenstein?s comments on grammar and meaning stand in opposition to some of the core assumptions of semantic externalism.

Semantic Internalism and Externalism

The function of certain expressions in the language is to refer to things, and expressions refer to things in virtue of their meaning. This is so obvious that it almost defies explanation or supporting argument. What we learn when we learn the meaning of the expression is precisely that it is used to talk about a certain thing. And if two expressions like the ‘Morning Star’ and the ‘Mont Blanc’ refer to different things, this must be in virtue of the difference in their meanings. Of course, there are names like ‘Pegasus’ which do not refer to anything, but this is also a consequence of their meaning; compare ‘Pegasus’ and ‘Bucephalus’.