Compositionality and the Metaphysics of Meaning

“This is not the first time such a view has been put forward. If it could be worked out in detail, so rigorously that not the smallest doubt remained, that, it seems to me, would be a result not entirely without importance.” - Gottlob Frege University of Alberta Compositionality and the Metaphysics of Meaning by Jeffery Fedorkiw A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Philosophy ©Jeffery Fedorkiw Fall 2011 Edmonton, Alberta Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission. Dedicated to Helen Fedorkiw Abstract The principle of compositionality states that the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the meanings of its con- stituent parts and the way those parts are combined. Jerry Fodor has argued that semantic productivity and systematicity requires compositionality and that compositionality requires atomism about semantic values. Atomism is here the thesis that there are simple meanings which are assigned to grammatical terms completely inde- pendent of any other (i.e. regardless of anything like context) and that users can grasp any one of these atomic meanings without grasping any other. This thesis argues against Fodor's claim through a defense of Robert Brandom's holistic semantics. I will argue that Brandom's semantics is able to account for linguistic productivity and systematicity without atomism, even though his molecular ontology of semantic values, whereby complex meanings are prior to simple ones, might at first seem intuitively less plausible than atomism. Acknowledgements First, all the examining members of my thesis committee de- serve thanks for reading this overly long work and providing a challenging oral examination. Many thanks to my external exam- iner, Christina Gagné, in this regard. I definitely would not have been able to tackle this sub- ject matter if I was not able to draw on the work of my super- visor, Jeff Pelletier, who also provided insightful and challenging criticism on several drafts. Bernard Linsky sparked my interest in philosophy of language, and most of what I know about it grew from two undergraduate classes I took with him. Ingo Brigandt went far beyond his mere duties in reading several versions of this thesis and sending me many helpful comments. I did not take a course with him, but I sure wish I had. I believe the idea to write about compositionality was first suggested to my by Nathalie Schapansky, with whom I took two courses on syntax and semantics as an undergrad. The idea of comparing Fodor and Brandom on this point came from a graduate seminar I took with Wes Cooper. I set out there to show that Brandom's semantics were untenable but ended up defending him. This thesis is my second failed attempt to prove Fodor right. Thanks to Andrei Buleandra for encouraging discussions about Brandom and Fodor early in the process. I have had many inspiring teachers. Though not involved in this specific project, I would like to thank Amy Schmitter, Adam Morton and Randy Wojtowicz, all of whom challenged me to improve. Table of Contents Introduction.....................................................1 1. Does Compositionality Demand Atomism?........................21 1.1 What is Semantic Compositionality?.......................25 1.2. What is Semantic Atomism?...............................39 1.3 Does Productivity Demand Atomism?........................45 Summary......................................................61 2. A Brief History of a Humble Property.........................64 2.1 Socrates' Dream..........................................67 2.2 The Limits of Language Games.............................75 2.3 Russell's Logical Atomism................................90 2.4 Two Principles in Frege.................................104 Summary.....................................................111 3. Fodor's Conceptual Atomism..................................113 3.1 Compositionality as a Consequence of RTM................114 3.2 Compositionality and Concept Possession.................131 3.3 Compositionality and Concept Acquisition................141 3.4 Skepticism about Concepts...............................149 Summary ....................................................156 4. Brandom's Conceptual Holism.................................159 4.1 The Priority of Propositions............................164 4.2 From Inferences to Meanings.............................173 4.3 From Words to the World.................................194 4.4 Holism's Plausibility...................................204 Summary.....................................................210 Conclusion.....................................................212 Bibliography...................................................216 Introduction Ask anything you like about meaning: perhaps, “What is the meaning of the word ‘meaning’?” or “How is meaningful communica- tion possible?” or even “what is the meaning of ‘brick’?” One distinction we can immediately employ in our answer is between simple and complex meanings. In natural languages these two kinds of meaning seem to be clearly encoded in words and sentences (respectively) or morphemes and utterances (respectively). As a first step we could try to clarify the relation between simple meanings and complex ones, and their relations in turn to simple and complex signs. For example, what is the relation between the complex meaning of “the cat is on the mat" and the simple meanings of ‘the cat’, ‘the mat’? Does the meaning of the sentence depend on the meaning of the parts? Or do we only come to know the true meaning of “cat” and “mat” through their use in such sentences? A broad goal of mine is to work out some of these different answers to such questions which result from two opposing views about the relation between simple and complex meanings. One option is to hold that the simple meanings of words are building blocks from which the complex meanings of sentences are composed according to rules of composition (a grammar). Simple word-meanings are prior to complex sentence-meanings, as bricks are prior to buildings, and the buildings (sentences) are just bricks (words) arranged in a certain way. Positions like this are called semantic atomism. An incompatible option is to hold that Page 1 Introduction complex-meanings at least partially determine simple-meanings, as buildings illustrate an important usage of bricks. A brick is a brick and not just a rock partially because it is sometimes used to make buildings. Perhaps we are lead to this by the belief that the building is more than the bricks and how they are arranged. Other factors, perhaps function, are also essential to making it a building rather than just a pile of bricks. In semantic theory this is often put in slogans such as “meaning is determined by use”. Positions like this are called semantic holism. This problematic of semantic atomism versus holism might strike the reader as inappropriate or uninteresting in a number of ways. It might, for example, seem like a chicken-egg sort of pseudo-problem. Maybe both sides are right about different things. But these two approaches provide incompatible answers on a seemingly straightforward question: What kinds of object can serve as the meaning of “brick”? Atomists tend to think that it is pretty clear that some objects are bricks and that any of them might be meant by “brick”. Holists maintain that the meaning of “brick” must include something in addition to the physical objects which helps us identify the bricks among the non-bricks. Some people claim that the atomist position is the only sensible one and see holism as a non-starter. They charge that the holists are sneaking in confused claims about what meaning is based on skeptical arguments about what we can know. But the holists might Page 2 Introduction counter that the atomist position amounts to nothing more than dogma if we cannot, in principle, evaluate how it could be demon- strated true or false. One might see no hope that one side could convince the other through reasoned argumentation, since both sides presuppose such disparate methods of evaluation. Yet debates between these two positions are long-ranging both historically and culturally. The disagreement can almost al- ways be found implicit in any discussion of semantics. Sometimes it is explicitly discussed. Indian philosophers and grammarians, for example, had already in ancient times contributed much argumentation to both sides. It would seem that even then the atomist side constituted the common-sense majority.1 Indeed, semantic holists sometimes delight in the counter-intuitive shock value of rejecting atomism, as in this following bit of infamously strange reasoning from Chinese antiquity: “[t]he term ‘horse’ does not involve any choice of color and therefore either a yellow horse or a black one may answer.

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