Metasemantics, intentions and circularity

Lewerentz, Lukas; Marschall, Benjamin

doi:10.1007/s11229-016-1290-y

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…This desideratum of extensional adequacy can be justified on several grounds. First, it follows from the function of metasemantic theorising -which typically takes certain semantic facts for granted and seeks to explain why these facts obtain (Burgess and Sherman 2014: 3; Lewerentz andMarschall 2018: 1670-72). Such semantic facts are given by our first-order moral judgments -for instance, I might judge that donating money to charity is morally right; the corresponding semantic fact, then, is that my judgement attributes the property of moral rightness to the act of donating.…”

Section: Information Dependencementioning

confidence: 99%

Against Metasemantics-First Moral Epistemology

Hambly,

Yeo

2023

J Ethics

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Moral metasemantic theories explain how our moral thought and talk are about certain properties. Given the connection between what our moral terms are about and which moral claims are true, it might be thought that metasemantic theorising can justify first-order ethical conclusions, thus providing a novel way of doing moral epistemology. In this paper, we spell out one kind of argument from metasemantic theories to normative ethical conclusions, and argue that it fails to transmit justification from premises to conclusion. We give three reasons for this transmission failure, which together pose a serious challenge to such metasemantic arguments.Moral metasemantic theories tell us in virtue of what our moral thought and talk pick out a property. 1 Because of this foundational role in fixing what our moral terms are about, metasemantic theories seem to yield a distinctive way of doing normative ethics: we simply argue from the metasemantic theory, plus the premise that a certain descriptive property fulfils the theory's reference-determining conditions, to the conclusion that this descriptive property co-occurs with a moral property. In this paper, we spell out and critically examine this way of theorising -which we call metasemantics-first moral epistemology. We argue that such theorising faces serious challenges.1 Metasemantic theories tell us about (1) what makes it the case that terms or sentences are about a certain property/object, or (2) what makes it the case that concepts or beliefs (psychological representations) are about a property/object. Our discussion is largely framed around (1) but everything we say could be put in terms of (2). We will remain neutral in this paper between referentialist (Braun 2016; Edwards 2014) and non-referentialist (Chalmers 2011; Segal 2000) views of content, which differ on whether the content of a term or concept is exhausted by its referent.

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Section: Information Dependencementioning

confidence: 99%

Against Metasemantics-First Moral Epistemology

Hambly,

Yeo

2023

J Ethics

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“…7 In an earlier paper (Gauker 2008) I briefly stated the objection of begging the question. Lewerentz and Marschall (2018) have published a critique of that passage. My answer to the objection in Sect.…”

Section: Some Examples Of the Speaker-intention Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Against the speaker-intention theory of demonstratives

Gauker

2018

Linguist and Philos

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It is commonly supposed that an utterance of a demonstrative, such as ''that'', refers to a given object only if the speaker intends it to refer to that object. This paper poses three challenges to this theory. First, the theory threatens to beg the question by defining the content of the speaker's intention in terms of reference. Second, the theory makes psychologically implausible demands on the speaker. Third, the theory entails that there can be no demonstratives in thought.Against the speaker-intention theory of demonstratives 113Against the speaker-intention theory of demonstratives 125

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“…While different versions of this view have been put forward, Intentionalists agree that the semantic value of an intention‐sensitive expression e in a context c is an object o only if the speaker intends o to be the value of e in c (see e.g. Kaplan , Siegel , Åkerman , Stokke , King , , Speaks and Lewerentz & Marschall ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ways of Using Words: On Semantic Intentions

Viebahn¹

2018

Philos Phenomenol Research

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Intentionalism is the view that demonstratives, gradable adjectives, quantifiers, modals and other context‐sensitive expressions are intention‐sensitive: their semantic value on a given use is fixed by speaker intentions. The first aim of this paper is to defend Intentionalism against three recent objections, according to which speakers at least sometimes do not have suitable intentions when using supposedly intention‐sensitive expressions. Its second aim is to thereby shed light on the so far little‐explored question of which kinds of intentions can be semantically relevant.

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Metasemantics, intentions and circularity

Cited by 4 publications

References 18 publications

Against Metasemantics-First Moral Epistemology

Against Metasemantics-First Moral Epistemology

Against the speaker-intention theory of demonstratives

Ways of Using Words: On Semantic Intentions

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