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    Content must determine reference for subsentential expres... — Carmelics
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    Home/Philosophy of Language
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    Content must determine reference for subsentential expressions, just as it does for sentences.

    Philosophy of Language
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    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.If two subsentential expressions have the same content but differ in reference, then two sentences differing only by the substitution of those expressions would have the same content.
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    • 2.Two sentences which differ only by the substitution of expressions with the same content must have the same content.
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    • 3.For any pair of expressions that differ in reference, there exists some pair of sentences differing only by substitution of those expressions that differ in truth-value.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Frege's distinction between Sinn and Bedeutung shows that co-referential expressions (e.g., 'Hesperus'/'Phosphorus') differ in cognitive content without differing in reference.
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    • 2.If content is identified with cognitive significance rather than reference, two expressions can share content while determining different references in modal or belief contexts.
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    • 3.The claim conflates the semantic role of fixing reference with the epistemic role of expressing content, which Frege's puzzle demonstrates must come apart.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Putnam's Twin Earth argument establishes that 'water' has identical narrow psychological content for Oscar and Twin-Oscar yet refers to different substances (H₂O vs. XYZ).
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    • 2.If reference is partly determined by external environment rather than internal content, then content and reference can systematically diverge for natural kind terms without contradiction.
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    • 3.The claim's supporting argument assumes a descriptivist picture of content that Kripke's modal arguments against descriptivism have given strong independent reason to reject.
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    Topics

    Philosophy of Language

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    Related

    For any pair of expressions that differ in reference, there exists some pair of ...Frege's distinction between Sinn and Bedeutung shows that co-referential express...If content is identified with cognitive significance rather than reference, two ...If reference is partly determined by external environment rather than internal c...
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    If two subsentential expressions had the same content but differed in reference,...If two subsentential expressions have the same content but differ in reference, ...Putnam's Twin Earth argument establishes that 'water' has identical narrow psych...The claim conflates the semantic role of fixing reference with the epistemic rol...The claim's supporting argument assumes a descriptivist picture of content that ...Two sentences cannot express the same proposition yet differ in truth-value.Two sentences which differ only by the substitution of expressions with the same...

    Similar

    If two subsentential expressions have the same content but differ in r...84%Inferential relations hold between sentences, not between subsententia...84%The semantic properties of sentences must be explained prior to the se...82%If reference fully determined the truth-value contribution of expressi...79%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
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    If this holds for sentences, does it also hold for subsentential expressions? It seems that it must. Suppose for reductio that two subsentential expressions, e and e*, have the same content but differ in reference. It seems plausible that two sentences which differ only by the substitution of expressions with the same content must have the same content. (While plausible, this principle is not uncontroversial; see entry on compositionality.) But if this is true, then sentences which differ only
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit