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    If substitution failures in propositional attitude contex... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→The names 'Superman' and 'Clark Kent' differ in sense despite being coreferential.

    If substitution failures in propositional attitude contexts tracked genuine sense-differences, we would be forced to individuate senses so finely as to make communication across believers impossible.

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    Reasons For

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    Reason for
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    • 1.Communication requires shared conceptual content; hyperintensional sense-individuation fragments meaning into private, idiolectical units.
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    • 2.If 'Hesperus' and 'Phosphorus' differ in sense whenever substitution fails, we multiply senses beyond what speakers demonstrably grasp.
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    • 3.Practical linguistic coordination presupposes rough sense-equivalence; fine-grained senses undermine the possibility of mutual understanding.
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    Reasons Against

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    Reason against
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    • 1.Communication can succeed with partial sense-overlap; perfect sense-identity is neither necessary nor empirically characteristic of speakers.
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    • 2.Some substitution failures reflect epistemic, not semantic, differences; tracking genuine senses need not entail hyperintensional fragmentation.
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    • 3.Fine-grained senses may be computationally tractable within cognitive systems; the argument conflates metaphysical fineness with communicative opacity.
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    Key Terms

    Individuate(metaphysics)
    To identify or distinguish something as a separate, individual thing with its own unique identity.
    Sense (in philosophy of language)(what the statement says would need to be individuated (separated))
    The meaning or concept of a word or phrase—what it *means* rather than just what it *refers to*. For example, 'the morning star' and 'the evening star' refer to the same thing (Venus) but have different senses.
    Substitution failure(the problem being described in the statement)
    When you can swap one word for another word that means the same thing, but the sentence suddenly changes meaning or stops making sense.
    propositional attitude(Philosophy of language and mind)
    A mental state, such as belief, that relates a subject to a proposition.

    Connections

    1 topic

    Philosophy of Language1 linked

    Related

    Communication can succeed with partial sense-overlap; perfect sense-identity is ...Communication requires shared conceptual content; hyperintensional sense-individ...Fine-grained senses may be computationally tractable within cognitive systems; t...If 'Hesperus' and 'Phosphorus' differ in sense whenever substitution fails, we m...
    +3 moreShow less
    Practical linguistic coordination presupposes rough sense-equivalence; fine-grai...Some substitution failures reflect epistemic, not semantic, differences; trackin...

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit
    The names 'Superman' and 'Clark Kent' differ in sense despite being coreferentia...