Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Two-Dimensional Semantics' and 'fragments/reports'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


2 ideas

18. Thought / C. Content / 5. Twin Earth
Your view of water depends on whether you start from the actual Earth or its counterfactual Twin [Schroeter]
     Full Idea: Your verdicts about whether the stuff on Twin Earth counts as water depends on whether you think of Twin Earth as a hypothesis about your actual environment or as a purely counterfactual possibility.
     From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 2.2.3)
     A reaction: This is the 'two-dimensional semantics' approach to the Twin Earth problem, which splits meaning into two components. Whether you start from the actual world or from Twin Earth, you will rigidly designate the local wet stuff as 'water'.
18. Thought / C. Content / 7. Narrow Content
Rationalists say knowing an expression is identifying its extension using an internal cognitive state [Schroeter]
     Full Idea: In rationalist views of meaning, based on the 'golden triangle', to be competent with an expression is to be in an internal cognitive state that puts one in a position to identify its extension in any possible world based only on apriori reflection.
     From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 2.3.1)
     A reaction: This looks like a proper fight-back against modern rampant externalism about meaning. All my intuitions are with internalism, which I think points to a more coherent overall philosophy. Well done, David Chalmers! Even if he is wrong.