Metasemantics: New Essays on the Foundations of Meaning by Alexis Burgess

Author:Alexis Burgess [Burgess, Alexis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780199669592
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2014-10-30T04:00:00+00:00

1 As I use the term here, a constitutive account need not be reductive—i.e., it need not use only terms or resources that are explanatorily more basic than the target phenomenon. For example, understanding of the target phenomenon can be gained by explicating how it is connected to other phenomena and what explanatory work it does. I will use “constitutive account of F,” “account of what it is to be F,” and “account of the nature or essence of F” interchangeably. For further discussion of constitutive accounts, see Greenberg (2005).

2 Gideon Rosen’s (2010) excellent discussion offers a closely related conjecture about the explanation of grounding by essence. Rosen’s conjecture is much stronger than my claim, and my main arguments are different from his. An important way in which my claim is weaker is that I do not try to argue that a full explanation of grounding can always be provided by the natures of relevant phenomena. As will be obvious, my discussion, like Rosen’s, owes much to Fine (1994).

3 In Greenberg (2005), I argue that we obtain a better understanding of the space of possibilities in the field of mental content by understanding theories of content as offering constitutive accounts rather than specifications of modal determinants or of constitutive determinants (in effect, grounds, though I do not use that term).

4 I will take facts to be true propositions, where propositions are structured entities that are individuated by their constituents and their manner of composition.

5 I have found that, once it is clear that “←” is being used to express grounding, there is a split among philosophers. Some take (1)–(3) to be paradigms of true grounding statements. Others, however, take (l)–(3) to be false because they hold that, in each case, the fact on the right‐hand side is identical to the fact on the left‐hand side, and no fact can ground itself. Since I take facts to be true propositions, I take the fact that a is water and the fact that a is H2 O to be distinct facts, as they have distinct constituents. I will mostly assume that (l)–(3) and the like are true grounding statements (more generally that if G is the nature of F and a is F, then as being F is grounded in a’s being G), but even without this assumption, arguments along similar lines could be developed as long as it is granted that there is an explanatory asymmetry—i.e., that something’s being H2O explains why it is water, but not vice versa. See also footnotes 11 and 14.

6 I am using the term grounding fact for the fact that one fact is grounded in another, not for the lower‐level fact that grounds the target fact. For example, the fact that a is water in virtue of a’s being H2 O is a grounding fact.

7 Of course, those who take (l)–(3) to be false will not be tempted in this direction, and they can skip the next four paragraphs.

8 One can imagine a regimentation of grounding statements according to which (l)–(6) are all, strictly speaking, incomplete.

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