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Full Idea
Externalists are typically committed to counting expressions as 'synonymous' if they happen to be linked in the right way to the same external phenomena, even if a thinker couldn't realise that they are by reflection alone.
Gist of Idea
Externalist synonymy is there being a correct link to the same external phenomena
Source
Georges Rey (The Analytic/Synthetic Distinction [2013], 4.2)
Book Ref
'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.11
A Reaction
[He cites Fodor] Externalists always try to link to concrete things in the world, but most of our talk is full of generalities, abstractions and fiction which don't link directly to anything.
| 20294 | 'Married' does not 'contain' its symmetry, nor 'bigger than' its transitivity [Rey] |
| 20293 | Analytic judgements can't be explained by contradiction, since that is what is assumed [Rey] |
| 20297 | Analytic statements are undeniable (because of meaning), rather than unrevisable [Rey] |
| 20298 | The traditional a priori is justified without experience; post-Quine it became unrevisable by experience [Rey] |
| 20299 | If we claim direct insight to what is analytic, how do we know it is not sub-consciously empirical? [Rey] |
| 20300 | Externalist synonymy is there being a correct link to the same external phenomena [Rey] |
| 20301 | The meaning properties of a term are those which explain how the term is typically used [Rey] |
| 20302 | An intrinsic language faculty may fix what is meaningful (as well as grammatical) [Rey] |
| 20303 | Research throws doubts on the claimed intuitions which support analyticity [Rey] |