Abstract

A natural question to raise about words—or about their mental analogue, concepts—is: in virtue of what facts do they refer to whatever it is that they refer to? In virtue of what does the word ‘insanity’ refer to insanity, the word ‘entropy’ refer to entropy, and so forth? There is a view called “disquotationalism” according to which this question is misconceived. I’ll have something to say about that later. But putting disquotationalism aside for now, it would seem that this question about words or concepts needs an answer. And the only kind of answer we can take seriously is a naturalistic answer: the Brentanian answer that words or concepts refer by virtue of irreducibly mental connections between the mind and the world is not a serious contender. What if no naturalistic answer is possible? If we put disquotationalism aside, the only conclusion to be drawn is that the assumption that ‘insanity’ and ‘entropy’ determinately refer to insanity and to entropy is an illusion.