[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
the latter, but not the former, constrains concept possession.
Second Assumption: Semantic Access
So far we have it, by assumption, that dog and DOG mean dog because
dog expresses DOG, and DOG tokens fall under a law according to
which they reliably are (or would be) among the effects of instantiated
doghood. I now add the considerably less tendentious assumption that if
there are such meaning-making laws, they surely couldn t be basic. Or, to
put it another way, if there is a nomic connection between doghood and
cause-of-DOG-tokeninghood, then there must be a causal process whose
operation mediates and sustains this connection. Or, to put it a third way,
if informational semantics is right about the metaphysics of meaning,
there must be mechanisms in virtue of which certain mental (-cum-neural)
structures resonate to doghood and Tuesdayhood.2 Or, to put it a last way,
informational semantics is untenable unless there s an answer to questions
like: how does (or would) the instantiation of doghood cause tokenings of
DOG? I propose to call whatever answers such a question a mechanism
of semantic access . Mechanisms of semantic access are what sustain our
ability to think about things.
What such mechanism might there be in the case of dogs? Un-
surprisingly, the sort of inventory that suggests itself looks a lot like what
you d get if you asked for the mechanisms that mediate our epistemic
access to dogs. Unsurprisingly because there can be no epistemic access
without semantic access; what you can t think about, you can t know
about.3 Informational semantics says that it s because the mediation
2
I borrow J. J. Gibson s phrase (see e.g. 1966) but not his metaphysics. Roughly,
informational semantics is Gibsonian semantics, but without the ban on mental processes;
just as, roughly, it is Skinnerian semantics without the behaviourism. (See below and Fodor
1990.)
3
Cf. Antony (1995: 433): no device can be said to have epistemic access to any aspect
of its environment unless it is a device that represents its environment . This doesn t go the
other way around, of course: semantic access doesn t guarantee epistemic warrant. With
any luck, all of this ought to come out right if your semantics is informational and your
theory of knowledge is reliabilist. Since content supervenes on purely nomic relations
that is, on certain lawful relations among properties and since lawful relations can
presumably hold among properties that are, de facto, uninstantiated, the metaphysical
conditions for content can in principle be met entirely counterfactually: no actual tokens of
DOG have actually to be caused by dogs for the counterfactuals that its content supervenes
on to be in place. Epistemic warrant, by contrast, has to do with the causal history of one
or another actual belief token: the warranted belief has to have been acquired by reliable
means. So it should turn out that the conditions for epistemic access include, but aren t
exhausted by, the conditions that semantic access imposes.
Chaps. 3 & 4 11/3/97 1:11 PM Page 76
76 The Demise of Definitions, Part II
between dogs and DOG-tokens is reliable that there is a community of
dog-thinkers, creatures whose mental processes fall under the intentional
laws about dog-thoughts. Just so, epistemologists (have been known to)
say that it s the reliability of the mediation between dogs and one s dog-
thoughts that justifies one s knowledge claims about dogs. This
convergence of views is all to the good, of course; the requirements that
epistemology places upon epistemic warrant ought to be ones that the
theory of content allows many of one s beliefs actually to meet.
The psychological and physiological mechanisms that mediate the
perception of middle-sized events and objects must surely head the list of
the mechanisms of semantic access. It s about as reliable as the empirical
generalizations of intentional psychology ever get that if you put a DOG-
owner, eyes open, in a dog-filled environment and you turn up the lights,
dog-thoughts will ensue. Or, to say it the way that RTM wants us to, the
mechanisms of visual perception normally function to insure that IT S
DOGGING gets tokened in the subject s belief box in such well-lit, doggy
situations. De facto, our capacities for thinking about dogs, and hence our
possibilities for knowing about them, both depend heavily on the reliability
with which the mechanisms of visual perception do this.
Note, however, that I did not just claim that one s possession of the
concept DOG is constituted by the fact that seeing dogs causes tokens of
DOG in one s belief box. To the contrary: one s possession of that concept [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl ocenkijessi.opx.pl
the latter, but not the former, constrains concept possession.
Second Assumption: Semantic Access
So far we have it, by assumption, that dog and DOG mean dog because
dog expresses DOG, and DOG tokens fall under a law according to
which they reliably are (or would be) among the effects of instantiated
doghood. I now add the considerably less tendentious assumption that if
there are such meaning-making laws, they surely couldn t be basic. Or, to
put it another way, if there is a nomic connection between doghood and
cause-of-DOG-tokeninghood, then there must be a causal process whose
operation mediates and sustains this connection. Or, to put it a third way,
if informational semantics is right about the metaphysics of meaning,
there must be mechanisms in virtue of which certain mental (-cum-neural)
structures resonate to doghood and Tuesdayhood.2 Or, to put it a last way,
informational semantics is untenable unless there s an answer to questions
like: how does (or would) the instantiation of doghood cause tokenings of
DOG? I propose to call whatever answers such a question a mechanism
of semantic access . Mechanisms of semantic access are what sustain our
ability to think about things.
What such mechanism might there be in the case of dogs? Un-
surprisingly, the sort of inventory that suggests itself looks a lot like what
you d get if you asked for the mechanisms that mediate our epistemic
access to dogs. Unsurprisingly because there can be no epistemic access
without semantic access; what you can t think about, you can t know
about.3 Informational semantics says that it s because the mediation
2
I borrow J. J. Gibson s phrase (see e.g. 1966) but not his metaphysics. Roughly,
informational semantics is Gibsonian semantics, but without the ban on mental processes;
just as, roughly, it is Skinnerian semantics without the behaviourism. (See below and Fodor
1990.)
3
Cf. Antony (1995: 433): no device can be said to have epistemic access to any aspect
of its environment unless it is a device that represents its environment . This doesn t go the
other way around, of course: semantic access doesn t guarantee epistemic warrant. With
any luck, all of this ought to come out right if your semantics is informational and your
theory of knowledge is reliabilist. Since content supervenes on purely nomic relations
that is, on certain lawful relations among properties and since lawful relations can
presumably hold among properties that are, de facto, uninstantiated, the metaphysical
conditions for content can in principle be met entirely counterfactually: no actual tokens of
DOG have actually to be caused by dogs for the counterfactuals that its content supervenes
on to be in place. Epistemic warrant, by contrast, has to do with the causal history of one
or another actual belief token: the warranted belief has to have been acquired by reliable
means. So it should turn out that the conditions for epistemic access include, but aren t
exhausted by, the conditions that semantic access imposes.
Chaps. 3 & 4 11/3/97 1:11 PM Page 76
76 The Demise of Definitions, Part II
between dogs and DOG-tokens is reliable that there is a community of
dog-thinkers, creatures whose mental processes fall under the intentional
laws about dog-thoughts. Just so, epistemologists (have been known to)
say that it s the reliability of the mediation between dogs and one s dog-
thoughts that justifies one s knowledge claims about dogs. This
convergence of views is all to the good, of course; the requirements that
epistemology places upon epistemic warrant ought to be ones that the
theory of content allows many of one s beliefs actually to meet.
The psychological and physiological mechanisms that mediate the
perception of middle-sized events and objects must surely head the list of
the mechanisms of semantic access. It s about as reliable as the empirical
generalizations of intentional psychology ever get that if you put a DOG-
owner, eyes open, in a dog-filled environment and you turn up the lights,
dog-thoughts will ensue. Or, to say it the way that RTM wants us to, the
mechanisms of visual perception normally function to insure that IT S
DOGGING gets tokened in the subject s belief box in such well-lit, doggy
situations. De facto, our capacities for thinking about dogs, and hence our
possibilities for knowing about them, both depend heavily on the reliability
with which the mechanisms of visual perception do this.
Note, however, that I did not just claim that one s possession of the
concept DOG is constituted by the fact that seeing dogs causes tokens of
DOG in one s belief box. To the contrary: one s possession of that concept [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]