Semantics, Meaning, Truth and Content: Disentangling Linguistic

University of Connecticut OpenCommons@UConn Doctoral Dissertations University of Connecticut Graduate School 7-6-2017 Semantics, Meaning, Truth and Content: Disentangling Linguistic and Philosophical Approaches to the Study of Meaning Toby Napoletano University of Connecticut, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations Recommended Citation Napoletano, Toby, "Semantics, Meaning, Truth and Content: Disentangling Linguistic and Philosophical Approaches to the Study of Meaning" (2017). Doctoral Dissertations. 1585. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/1585 Semantics, Meaning, Truth and Content: Disentangling Linguistic and Philosophical Approaches to the Study of Meaning Toby Napoletano, PhD University of Connecticut, 2017 Abstract: The purpose of this dissertation is to clarify the relationship between two research programs engaged in the investigation of linguistic meaning. The first is the research program which we can think of as modern philosophy of language, broadly conceived. The second is semantics as it is pursued in contemporary linguistics, and in particular, semantics as it is pursued within generative linguistics. It is often assumed that philosophers of language and semanticists in linguistics are working broadly within the same research program, addressing the same questions about language, its meaning, and its use. At least, it is assumed that the two research programs are continuous with one another, so that each places important constraints on the other. Philosophical theories of meaning|or of the meanings of some fragment of natural language|the thought goes, must square with the findings of our best linguistics, accommodating our best theories in syntax, semantics, language acquisition, and so on. Linguistic semantics, on the other hand, is typically taken to give \theories of meaning" for natural languages, or accounts of what our knowledge of meaning or \semantic competence" consists in. But just what sort of knowledge this is, and just what its object could be are arguably philosophical matters, and so philosophy of language plays a major role in determining the form that semantic theories must take if they are to be adequate qua semantic theories. Consequently, notions that have been central to the philosophical study of meaning| notions of meaning, content, and truth|are also taken to play central roles in semantic theories. The dissertation argues that this view is mistaken. Semantic theories are not Toby Napoletano { University of Connecticut, 2017 theories of meaning in any philosophically important sense, the semantic value of an expression does not even partly determine the content it is used to express, and facts about the truth-conditions and truth-conditional contributions of expressions do not play any explanatory role in truth-conditional semantics. The upshot is that the relations which notions of meaning, content and truth bear to linguistic semantics are more distant than is typically assumed, as are the relations between contemporary linguistics and the philosophy of language. Semantics, Meaning, Truth and Content: Disentangling Linguistic and Philosophical Approaches to the Study of Meaning Toby Napoletano B.A., University of Connecticut, Summa Cum Laude, 2007 M.A., University of Connecticut, 2012 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut 2017 i Copyright by Toby Napoletano 2017 ii Approval Page Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation Semantics, Meaning, Truth and Content: Disentangling Linguistic and Philosophical Approaches to the Study of Meaning Presented by Toby Napoletano, B.A., M.A. Major Advisor Lionel Shapiro Associate Advisor Michael P. Lynch Associate Advisor William G. Lycan University of Connecticut 2017 iii Acknowledgements First, I must express my deep gratitude to Lionel Shapiro, whose generosity, encour- agement, persistence, attention to detail, and insistence on clarity were all essential for the development and refinement of the ideas that appear in the dissertation. Thanks to Lionel, I have never suffered from a lack of critical feedback with which I needed to wrestle with, and the contribution this has made to the quality of my work cannot be overstated. Gratitude is also due to Michael Lynch, William Lycan, ZoltánSzabó,and the members of the UConn LEM and Yale ELLMM City working groups for valuable feedback on earlier drafts of chapters. Finally, I must thank the rest of the UConn Philosophy Department, its faculty and its graduate students for their support and their invaluable role in my development as a philosopher. Among the faculty|in addition to Lionel Shapiro and Michael Lynch|I am especially indebted to Paul Bloomfield, Don Baxter, Tom Bontly, and Crawford Elder. Among current and past graduate students, thanks to Benjamin Nelson, Jared Henderson, Alycia LaGuardia-Lobianco, Junyeol Kim, and especially Michael Hughes, Casey Johnson, Ross Vandegrift, and Hanna Gunn for their friendship, support, and continual enrichment of my intellectual life. iv Introduction The purpose of this dissertation is to clarify the relationship between two research programs engaged in the investigation of language and meaning. The first is the research program which we can think of as modern philosophy of language, broadly conceived. The second is contemporary linguistics, and in particular, the generative linguistics research program. Within the philosophy of language, I include those theorists who study language roughly within the tradition that is typified by the work of figures like Frege, Wittgen- stein, Russell, Carnap, Quine, Sellars, Davidson, Dummett, Montague, Lewis, Kaplan, to name just a few. There are, of course, distinct research programs to be recognized within the philosophy of language, but they are all engaged in answering at least some of the central questions of the philosophy of language. For instance: \What is a language?" \In virtue of what do we have our language?" \How do we come to know the meanings of expressions in our language?" \What sorts of things are meanings?" \What does such-and-such (philosophically interesting) expression in such-and-so language mean?" \In virtue of what does an expression mean what it does?" \What are the desiderata that must be met by an adequate theory of meaning?" v \What is communication and how are we able to do it?" There are also any number of questions which are, perhaps, conceptually less central to the philosophy of language than those on the above list, but which are nevertheless a focus of the philosophy of language, and which concern its relation to other areas of philosophy. Upon considering a theory of meaning, we might ask, for instance, what metaphysical, epistemological, or logical commitments we might incur (if any) were we to endorse it, or what other positions might be justified if that theory of meaning were true. One might think, for example, that endorsing a truth-conditional theory of meaning commits them to a realist metaphysics, or that endorsing a particular semantics for the English `knows' will enable one to avoid skeptical paradoxes. Central to the philosophy of language research program is the project called \semantics". Semantics, to a first approximation, is that part of philosophy of language which is concerned with pairing the expressions of a language with their meanings.1 The project is conceptually distinct from, but is obviously very tightly tied to questions about the nature of meaning, language, communication, and of the conditions of adequacy for a semantic theory. There is also a project called \semantics" which is central to contemporary linguistics. It, too, is conceived of as attempting to pair expressions with their meanings. Very often, linguistic semanticists employ the same formal tools and central concepts in their theories as do philosophical semanticists, and seem to offer similar sorts of explanations. It is natural to wonder, then, whether there is any theoretically interesting difference between what I am calling `philosophical semantics' and `linguistic semantics'. Perhaps the difference only reflects which building the semanticist does her work in. In that case, the findings of linguists would bear directly not only on the philosophy of language, but also on related subfields of philosophy. Likewise, findings in, e.g., metaphysics and 1Even this formulation is philosophically loaded, since it suggests that there are entities that are meanings. Cf. Davidson (1967). vi other subfields of philosophy would directly constrain linguistic theorizing. In this dissertation, I argue that, despite appearances, there is considerable theo- retical distance between linguistic semantics and philosophical semantics (and related philosophical subfields). In particular, I will argue that the relationships linguistic semantics bears to notions of meaning, content, and truth, are more distant than is typically assumed. I will not and can not defend any general thesis concerning the relationship between generative linguistics and the philosophy of language. The reason is that it is not clear there is currently anything to say about their relationship conceived at that level of generality that would be accurate and illuminating. Even if we hold fixed a particular linguistic research program, conceptions of philosophical pursuits are varied. Further, the relationship between the two research programs will depend on answers to linguistic and philosophical

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