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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Railton and other Cornell realists argue that functional-role explanations in semantics are explanatorily incomplete without appeal to normative standards that govern correct application.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Normative standards are themselves semantically laden and require prior explanation, creating regress rather than completing functional-role accounts.
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    • 2.Evolutionary and learning-based accounts show how correct application norms emerge from functional roles without requiring independent normative primitives.
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    • 3.The distinction between 'is used' and 'ought to be used' may reflect pragmatic convention rather than revealing missing metaphysical content in semantics.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Functional roles alone cannot distinguish correct from incorrect applications—a symbol's causal relations exist regardless of whether its use violates semantic norms.
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    • 2.Normative standards are necessary to explain why speakers ought to apply terms a certain way, which pure descriptive functional roles cannot provide.
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    • 3.Without normative constraints, multiple incompatible functional roles could equally explain the same term's behavior, leaving semantics underdetermined.
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