engleski

Externalism, Naturalizability of Content and Research Programs in Semantics

The paper considers (causal) semantic externalism as a potential basis for a research program whose aim is to naturalize content, and claims that externalism has not and cannot deliver in this respect. Two kinds of research programs in semantics are distinguished, namely description programs and naturalization programs. The naturalization programs are based either on externalism or on internalism: the former claims that naturalizing meaning will at least partly be concerned with cashing it out in terms of causal relations between the organism and its environment, whereas the latter claims that whatever is described whilst studying meaning must ultimately be naturalized as something that is in the head, a neural structure. Externalism is criticized in its diachronic and its synchronic variety, and it is concluded that, for the purposes of a feasible naturalization program, organism-environment relations should not be seen as constitutive of content, but only as potential props for eliciting content, which should be seen as a mental/neural structure. A feasible naturalization program in semantics seems therefore to be this: to find out how certain mental structures, viz. those described by the best description program, are instantiated in the brain.

externalism; naturalizability; content; semantics

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