From Metaphilosophy to Semantics

Jonathan Berg (University of Haifa)

Abstract:

I aim to show how a commonly accepted metaphilosophical assumption has important consequences for a hotly debated issue in the philosophy of language. The seemingly innocuous metaphilosophical claim is this:

The Principle of Philosophical Thought Experiments

Philosophical theories must be compatible (ceteris paribus) with the intuitions elicited by philosophical thought experiments.

The controversial semantic claim it supports is this:

Strict Semantics

Every disambiguated sentence has a determinate semantic content, relative to an assignment of contents to its indexical expressions, and not necessarily identical to what may be conveyed (pragmatically) by its utterance.

After considering each of these claims individually, I shall suggest how the first provides evidence for the second.