scholarly journals Ontological disputes and the phenomenon of metalinguistic negotiation: Charting the territory

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Delia Belleri
Keyword(s):  
Ontological Disputes ◽  
Metalinguistic Negotiation

Metalinguistic Negotiation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herman Cappelen
Keyword(s):  
English Word ◽  
Conceptual Engineering ◽  
Metalinguistic Negotiation

This chapter, along with the next two, discuss alternative accounts of conceptual engineering, both for their own sake and to help bring out the author’s theory more by contrast. This chapter discusses and criticizes the appeal to the notion of metalinguistic negotiation found in both Ludlow and Plunkett and Sundell. Ludlow’s claim that we are constantly negotiating meanings is inconsistent with the claim that changes in meaning are out of control, and so should be rejected, and his appeal to microlanguages is problematic. While Plunkett and Sundell can avoid these problems, their view that engineering is a matter of metalinguistic negotiation is bad because someone who is interested in improving our representational devices for talking about torture (for example) doesn’t care about English word ‘torture’, but about torture itself. It closes by discussing some worries about the examples used to motivate the idea of metalinguistic negotiation.

scholarly journals Why Composition Matters

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (8) ◽  
pp. 934-949
Author(s):  
Andrew M. Bailey ◽  
Andrew Brenner
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Composite Objects ◽  
Ontological Disputes

AbstractMany say that ontological disputes are defective because they are unimportant or without substance. In this paper, we defend ontological disputes from the charge, with a special focus on disputes over the existence of composite objects. Disputes over the existence of composite objects, we argue, have a number of substantive implications across a variety of topics in metaphysics, science, philosophical theology, philosophy of mind, and ethics. Since the disputes over the existence of composite objects have these substantive implications, they are themselves substantive.

The Metaethics of Gender

2021 ◽  
pp. 27-53
Author(s):  
Sarah McGrath
Keyword(s):  
Carry Over ◽  
Thick Terms ◽  
Metalinguistic Negotiation

This chapter argues that some of the traditional arguments for expressivism in metaethics carry over to the case of gender ascriptions. Descriptivist views about the semantics of gender ascriptions fall short in explaining certain kinds of disagreement in ways that are similar to the ways in which descriptivist views about normative terms fall short. This suggests an argument for expressivism about gender ascriptions. to The chapter explores the idea that if gender ascriptions are normative, we might understand gender terms on the model of ethically thick terms. One way of avoiding the conclusion that gender ascriptions are expressive and/or normative is to argue that the relevant kinds of disagreement are instances of metalinguistic negotiation. After presenting some concerns associated with this explanation, the chapter closes with a discussion of some of the reasons for thinking that the realist might get back in the game.

Methodological Advantages

2020 ◽  
pp. 185-208
Author(s):  
Amie L. Thomasson
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Metaphysical Modality ◽  
Conceptual Schemes ◽  
Conceptual Engineering ◽  
Modal Normativism ◽  
Metalinguistic Negotiation

This chapter makes the case that modal normativism also brings significant methodological advantages. First, it can provide a much-needed justification of using intuitions, thought experiments, and a form of conceptual analysis, in answering metaphysical modal questions. Second, it provides a straightforward methodology for answering such questions—considered as “internal” questions—and gives reasons for thinking that some such questions are simply unanswerable. But such questions may also be addressed as external questions, where we are concerned not with what rules our terms do follow, but what rules they should follow, and what linguistic and conceptual schemes we should use. This gives us the means for understanding some debates about metaphysical modality as engaged in metalinguistic negotiation and conceptual engineering—and thereby preserving the idea that such debates may be deep and important.

Metaphysical Disputes and Metalinguistic Negotiation

2016 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amie L. Thomasson
Keyword(s):  
Metalinguistic Negotiation

The Syntactic Priority Thesis and Ontological Disputes

2012 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-164
Author(s):  
George Duke
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Philosophy Of Mathematics ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Singular Terms ◽  
Priority Thesis ◽  
Ontological Disputes

The syntactic priority thesis (henceforth SP) asserts that the truth of appropriate sentential contexts containing what are, by syntactic criteria, singular terms, is sufficient to justify the attribution of objectual reference to such terms (Wright, 1983, 24). One consequence that the neo-Fregean draws from SP is that it is through an analysis of the syntactic structure of true statements that ‘ontological questions are to be understood and settled’ (Wright, 1983, 25). Despite the significant literature on SP, little consideration has been given to this bold metaontological claim.1 My concern here is accordingly not with specific applications of SP to debates in the philosophy of mathematics, but rather with the neo-Fregean's claim that SP can constitute a decisionprocedure in relation to substantive ontological disputes. I argue that the explanatory power of SP is limited to an account of what ‘there are’ sentences are true and does not extend as far as substantive ontology.

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