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Semantic Facts and a Priori Knowledge1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 January 2017
Abstract
This paper is a response to a paper by Marcus Giaquinto in which he argues that lexical meaning is moderately indeterminate and that this poses a problem for the linguistic view of a priori knowledge. I argue that accepting the moderate indeterminacy thesis as he presents it is perfectly compatible with both the linguistic view in general and the specific suggestion that some a priori knowledge can be explained by appealing to synonymy. I also argue that, in fact, Giaquinto's considerations speak in favour of the linguistic view rather than against it. The general lesson is that, contrary to what might be suspected, the linguistic view does not presuppose an implausibly simple and tidy conception of lexical meaning.
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- Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2017
Footnotes
1
I am grateful to Tim Button and Luke Cash for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.
References
2 This view has a long history. It has roots in the writings of Hobbes (cf. De Corpore, part I, chapter 3, section 9), had its heyday in the era of logical positivism (cf. e.g. Ayer, A. J., Language, Truth and Logic (London: Gollancz, 1936)Google Scholar, ch. 4, and Carnap, Rudolf, Meaning and Necessity (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1947)Google Scholar, §2) and has a contemporary defender in Boghossian, Paul (cf. ‘Analyticity Reconsidered’, Noûs 30 (1996), 360–391 CrossRefGoogle Scholar).
3 Giaquinto, Marcus, ‘The Linguistic View of a Priori Knowledge’, Philosophy 83 (2008), 89–111 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 Quine, W.V., Word and Object (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1960)Google Scholar, ch. 2.
5 Op. cit. note 3, 91.
6 Op. cit. note 3, 90.
7 If the linguistic view is to be an explanation of a priori knowledge in general, it is not enough to show that logic is knowable a priori; it must also be shown that the a priori status of logic can be explained in a way that is consistent with the tenet of the linguistic view.
8 It is often pointed out that this is implausible in the case of public languages. It is less clear what to say if we are dealing with idiolects, as for instance Boghossian does (cf. e.g. note 2 in: Boghossian, Paul, ‘Inferentialism and the Epistemology of Logic: Reflections on Casalegno and Williamson’, Dialectica 66: 2 (2012), 221–236 CrossRefGoogle Scholar).
9 A fourth worry concerns the inference itself: Is it valid? Can this be known a priori? And if so, can this knowledge be explained by the linguistic view?
10 Op. cit. note 3, 92.
11 Op. cit. note 3, 92.
12 Op. cit. note 3, 92–93.
13 Op. cit. note 3, 93–96.
14 Op. cit. note 3, 97–98.
15 Op. cit. note 3, 96.
16 There are famous problem cases for the linguistic view (e.g. colour incompatibility), but this seems to have little to do with semantic indeterminacy.
17 Op. cit. note 3, 111.
18 It is rarely suggested that synonymy is the sole basis of a priori knowledge, though Ayer appears to say this at one point (op. cit. note 2, 85). Note, however, that in the present context this is not an option since the synonymy model presupposes that we already have some a priori knowledge.
19 Op. cit. note 3, 100–101.
20 Op. cit. note 3, 101.
21 Op. cit. note 3, 99.
22 Op. cit. note 3, 89.
23 Op. cit. note 3, 101.
24 Quine referred to something like this conception as ‘the myth of a museum’, where ‘[…] the exhibits are meanings and the words are labels.’ ( Quine, W.V., ‘Ontological Relativity’, The Journal of Philosophy LXV(7) (1968), 185–212 CrossRefGoogle Scholar).