Extensionalist semantics after Quine.
Item
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Title
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Extensionalist semantics after Quine.
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Identifier
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AAI9119625
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identifier
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9119625
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Creator
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Edwards, Michael Charles.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Jerrold J. Katz
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Date
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1991
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Philosophy
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Abstract
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Quine's work in semantics has sought to achieve a pair of results: by discrediting intensional entities and intensional logics, to show that extensionalist resources are the only ones available for the construction of a theory of meaning; and to establish that, given only the resources of extensionalism, semantic content is indeterminate beyond the yield of stimulus meaning. The present dissertation focuses upon the second of these issues.;After examining Quine's reasons for eschewing intensionalism and his case for indeterminacy, I proceed to assess the merits of five theories of meaning, those developed by Donald Davidson, David Lewis, Hilary Putnam, Gilbert Harman and Hartry Field. All these philosophers accept Quine's anti-intensionalist position, but they all dispute that semantic content and structure is limited to a theory of stimulus meaning. Each tries different methods to expand the extensionalist base, respectively: truth theory; a modal realist version of possible world semantics; stereotypes; conceptual role semantics; and a dual-aspect version of conceptual role semantics.;I argue that these theories all fail in the attempt to produce a more powerful extensionalist semantics than Quine's minimalist theory. While each fails for its own reasons, general conclusions may also be drawn. The last three theories share an empirical approach, introducing more content and structure into a language via psychology or via causal relations to the external world; in so doing, they produce either too much structure (conceptual role semantics) or too little (Putnam). The first two share a formal approach, introducing more structure via the imposition of an abstract grammar, which is only later assigned empirical content by a theory of interpretation; but extensionalist limitations on the kind of evidence available to the theory of interpretation force such grammars into the untenable position of producing semantic relations out of weaker ones. The result is that neither of the general approaches open to the extensionalist is viable.;3inally, this result has the following bearing upon the intensionalist-extensionalist debate: the principal case against intensionalist semantics remains embodied in Quine's theory of meaning.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
