On how to legitimately constrain a semantic theory

Semiotica 2021 (240):97-127 (2021)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Semanticists often restrict their theories by imposing constraints on the parameters that can be employed for interpreting the expressions of a language. Such constraints are based on non-logical features of actual contexts of utterance, but they often have important effects on issues that do pertain to logic, like analyticity or entailment. For example, Kaplan’s restriction to so-called “proper contexts” was required in order to count “I am here now” as valid. In this paper I argue that constraints of this kind are often posited in an arbitrary and non-consistent way, and that they yield the intended results only at the price of imposing ad hoc principles whose justification could in turn justify further, often undesirable restrictions into the theory. I also introduce a criterion for telling whether such constraints are imposed in a legitimate manner.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 100,619

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Invariance Criteria as Meta-Constraints.Gil Sagi - 2022 - Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 28 (1):104-132.
Judgement aggregation under constraints.Franz Dietrich & Christian List - 2008 - In Thomas Boylan & Ruvin Gekker (eds.), Economics, Rational Choice and Normative Philosophy. New York: Routledge. pp. 111-123.
Judgement aggregation under constraints.Franz Dietrich & Christian List - 2008 - In Thomas Boylan & Ruvin Gekker (eds.), Economics, Rational Choice and Normative Philosophy. New York: Routledge. pp. 111-123.
Deontic Constraints are Maximizing Rules.Matthew Hammerton - 2020 - Journal of Value Inquiry 54 (4):571-588.

Analytics

Added to PP
2021-05-11

Downloads
20 (#1,025,414)

6 months
7 (#665,875)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Philosophical Investigations.Ludwig Wittgenstein - 1953 - New York, NY, USA: Wiley-Blackwell. Edited by G. E. M. Anscombe.
How to do things with words.John L. Austin - 1962 - Oxford [Eng.]: Clarendon Press. Edited by Marina Sbisá & J. O. Urmson.
Demonstratives: An Essay on the Semantics, Logic, Metaphysics and Epistemology of Demonstratives and other Indexicals.David Kaplan - 1989 - In Joseph Almog, John Perry & Howard Wettstein (eds.), Themes From Kaplan. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 481-563.
Philosophical investigations.Ludwig Wittgenstein & G. E. M. Anscombe - 1953 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 161:124-124.
The Foundations of Two-Dimensional Semantics.David J. Chalmers - 2006 - In Manuel Garcia-Carpintero & Josep Macià (eds.), Two-Dimensional Semantics. New York: Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 55-140.

View all 63 references / Add more references