Analyzing (Normative) Properties: Having Your Millian Cake and Analytically Defining It Too

Stephen Finlay (University of Southern California)

***NB: the seminar starts at 2.30pm (instead of the usual 2pm timing)***

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https://monash.zoom.us/j/86351045263?pwd=1gHMLhmDnXiFJIV0Jl8s6GxhgBgylb.1 

Meeting ID: 863 5104 5263 // Passcode: 184791

Abstract: Traditional conceptual analysis aims at reaching reductive definitions of properties or relations (e.g. goodness) by investigating the conceptual meanings of natural language terms (e.g. 'good'). This project stands largely in disrepute today following the development of semantic externalism ("meaning ain't in the head") and the popular appeal of the Millian view that the meaning of a referring term is just its reference. I propose a way of reconciling traditional (non-Canberra) conceptual analysis with Millianism specifically for property-predicating terms like 'good', drawing on the ideology that the mark of the mental is intentionality (Brentano). Our concept of a thing (or its cognitive significance) just is an individuating property of that thing. In the case of entity- or substance-referring terms like 'Aristotle' and 'water', our concept must be distinct from the meaning or reference. But in the case of property-predicating terms like 'good' there is another, direct option: our concept may just be the property itself. In this case, conceptual analysis is metaphysical reduction.