Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-21T17:53:55.147Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Inscrutability and Its Discontents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 June 2020

Laura Schroeter  and
François Schroeter
Laura Schroeter*
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne, Philosophy Discipline, Melbourne, Australia
François Schroeter*
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne, Philosophy Discipline, Melbourne, Australia
*
Email: [email protected]; [email protected]
Email: [email protected]; [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Our main focus in this paper is Herman Cappelen’s claim, defended in Fixing Language, that reference is radically inscrutable. We argue that Cappelen’s inscrutability thesis should be rejected. We also highlight how rejecting inscrutability undermines Cappelen’s most radical conclusions about conceptual engineering. In addition, we raise a worry about his positive account of topic continuity through inquiry and debate.

Keywords

Cappelensemantic externalismmetasemanticsconceptual engineering
Type
Author meets critics
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 50 , Issue 5 , July 2020 , pp. 566 - 579
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Boyd, Richard. 1980. “Scientific Realism and Naturalistic Epistemology.” PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association Vol. 2: 613–62.Google Scholar
Boyd, Richard. 2013. “Semantic Externalism and Knowing Our Own Minds: Ignoring Twin-Earth and Doing Naturalistic Philosophy.” Theoria 79: 204–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, Tyler. 1979. “Individualism and the Mental.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 4: 73–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, Tyler. 1986. “Intellectual Norms and Foundations of Mind.” Journal of Philosophy 83: 697–720.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, Tyler. 1988. “Individualism and Self-Knowledge.” Journal of Philosophy 85: 649–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cappelen, Herman. 2018. Fixing Language: An Essay on Conceptual Engineering. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chalmers, David. 2006. “The Foundations of Two-Dimensional Semantics.” In Two-Dimensional Semantics: Foundations and Applications, edited by Garcia-Carpintero, M. and Macia, J., 55–140. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dorr, Cian, and Hawthorn, John. 2014. “Semantic Plasticity and Speech Reports.” Philosophical Review 123: 281–338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, Gareth. 1973. “The Causal Theory of Names.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp. 47: 187–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Frank. 1998. From Metaphysics to Ethics: A Defence of Conceptual Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kripke, Saul. 1980. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, David. 1974. “Radical Interpretation.” Synthèse 23: 331–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millikan, Ruth Garrett. 1984. Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Millikan, Ruth Garrett. 1993. “White Queen Psychology: or, The Last Myth of the Given.” In White Queen Psychology and Other Essays for Alice, 279–363. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Millikan, Ruth Garrett. 2017. Beyond Concepts: Unicepts, Language, and Natural Information. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peacocke, Christopher. 1992. A Study of Concepts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Putnam, Hilary. 1975. “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’.” Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 7: 131–93.Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard. 1961. “Recent Metaphilosophy.” Review of Metaphysics 15: 299–318.Google Scholar
Schroeter, Laura. 2007. The Illusion of Transparency. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85: 597–618.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schroeter, Laura, and Schroeter, François. 2015. “Rationalizing Self-Interpretation.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophical Methods, edited by Daly, C., 419–47. London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strawson, P. F. 1963. “Carnap's Views on Conceptual Systems versus Natural Languages in Analytic Philosophy.” In The Philosophy of Rudolph Carnap, edited by Schilpp, P. A., 503–18. Chicago: Open Court.Google Scholar
Williamson, Timothy. 1994. Vagueness. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Williamson, Timothy. 2007. The Philosophy of Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yablo, Stephen. 2008. “No Fool's Cold: Notes on Illusions of Possibility.” In Thoughts: Papers on Mind, Meaning, and Modality, 151–70. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar