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    If reference is irreducibly indeterminate, Feigl's 'surpl... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→We must distinguish between the radical empiricist's meaning of 'meaning' (epistemic reduction) and a more common-sensical meaning of 'meaning' (factual reference).

    If reference is irreducibly indeterminate, Feigl's 'surplus meaning' of theoretical terms cannot be grounded in a stable factual reference relation distinct from epistemic content.

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    Key Terms

    Epistemic content(epistemology (the study of knowledge))
    The amount of new knowledge or information something adds — how much it tells us that we didn't already know.
    Factual reference relation(philosophy of language and science)
    A stable, reliable connection between a word and the real thing it points to in the world.
    Feigl, Herbert(philosophy of science)
    A 20th-century philosopher of science who studied how scientific theories relate to observable facts. He argued that theoretical terms (like 'atom') have meaning beyond just what we can directly observe.
    Indeterminate(Reichenbach's three-valued quantum logic)
    The value of propositions that quantum theory implies cannot be assessed to be either true or false
    reference

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    (Distinguished from intension in the context of possible worlds semantics)
    The actual-world referent of an expression; what the expression picks out in the actual world.
    surplus meaning(Feigl 1950a, p. 48)
    The untranslatable factual reference of theoretical terms that goes beyond observational content.
    theoretical terms(Lewis's application to folk psychological vocabulary, drawing on Lewis 1970)
    Terms whose reference is fixed by the role they play within a theory — they denote whatever entities or kinds of entities uniquely realize that theory

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    Truth & Knowledge1 linkedPhilosophy of Language1 linked

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    We must distinguish between the radical empiricist's meaning of 'meaning' (epist...

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