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    Behaviorist accounts of meaning (Quine's 'stimulus meanin... — Carmelics
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    Supports→The notion of synonymy cannot be given serious explanatory grounding

    Behaviorist accounts of meaning (Quine's 'stimulus meaning') show that synonymy cannot be defined without smuggling in intensional notions the physicalist must reject.

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    1 reason for
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    Reasons For

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    Reason for
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    • 1.Stimulus meaning reduces to physical dispositions to respond, but synonymy requires sameness of meaning content, not behavioral equivalence.
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    • 2.Any account of when two stimuli produce identical behavioral responses requires reference to intentional states (beliefs, desires) external behaviorism excludes.
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    • 3.Quine's own indeterminacy of translation thesis shows stimulus meaning cannot ground sameness of meaning across different speakers or contexts.
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    Reasons Against

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    • 1.Stimulus meaning need not define synonymy; it can establish sufficient conditions for meaningful discourse without capturing perfect synonymy.
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    • 2.Physicalism can incorporate functional or computational roles without treating them as irreducibly intensional—they're physical organization patterns.
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    • 3.The claim assumes physicalists must reject all intensional talk; they can accept intentionality as emergent from physical systems without contradiction.
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    Truth & Knowledge1 linkedPhilosophy of Language1 linked

    Related

    Any account of when two stimuli produce identical behavioral responses requires ...Physicalism can incorporate functional or computational roles without treating t...Quine's own indeterminacy of translation thesis shows stimulus meaning cannot gr...Stimulus meaning need not define synonymy; it can establish sufficient condition...
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    Stimulus meaning reduces to physical dispositions to respond, but synonymy requi...The claim assumes physicalists must reject all intensional talk; they can accept...The notion of synonymy cannot be given serious explanatory grounding

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    2 (1 for, 1 against)
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