IJN colloquium

[Arapinis Alexandra]

COLLOQUIUM INSTITUT JEAN-NICOD
(Salle de réunion, pavillon jardin, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005)
11h-13h

Vendredi 17 février 2012


John COLLINS
University of East Anglia

Semantic theory and 'Sensible Ontology'


Abstract
The orthodox view is that semantic theory has ontological consequences about how the world is such that our utterances may be true or false. On the face of it, though, we are happy to refer to (speak truly about) ‘things’ whose existence we would deny, and language itself appears not to mark out the relevant constructions as peculiar. An apparent example is the average American. Kennedy and Stanley (2009) preface their account of the semantics of 'average' with a general defence of the promise of truth-conditional semantics to deliver a ‘sensible ontology’, one that does not, for example, involve a commitment to a concrete particular who is the average American. Their chief target is Chomsky, who apparently impugns truth-conditional semantics on precisely such grounds. The aim of the paper is not to refute Kennedy and Stanley’s semantic analysis of 'average' (some queries will be raised, though), but to show that the general considerations they
 marshal against Chomsky’s appeal to 'average' to undermine externalism do not tell against a general anti-externalism or internalism that may be elaborated on the back of Chomsky’s brief remarks. My claim, therefore, is that as far as Kennedy and Stanley’s arguments go, we are still in want of a good reason to demand or even expect an adequate semantics to deliver a ‘sensible ontology’, even if 'average' turns out to be unproblematic in that regard.
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