Devitt Localism and Analyticity PDF

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nternational Phenomenological Society

Localism and AnalyticityAuthor(s): Michael DevittSource: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 53, No. 3 (Sep., 1993), pp. 641-646Published by: International Phenomenological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2108086 .Accessed: 14/02/2014 20:36

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Philosophy and Phenomenological ResearchVol. LIII, No. 3, September 1993

Localism and Analyticity

MICHAEL DEVHIT

University of Maryland, College Park

I have two points to make, an interpretative one and a substantive one.

I: INTERPRETATIVE POINT: WHAT QUINE SHOWED

An extreme semantic localist holds that the meaning of any word is consti-

tuted solely by direct referential links to reality of some sort. A more moder-

ate localist holds that the meanings of some words are partly (at least) consti-

tuted by a few, but not many, of their inferential properties. So the moderate

localist distinguishes between inferential properties that are constitutive andthose that are not; for example, the fact that you are disposed to infer 'x is

unmarried' from 'x is a bachelor' may be constitutive of the meaning of

'bachelor,' but the fact that you are disposed to infer 'x is frustrated' from it

may not be.Is the moderate localist thereby committed to something worthy of the

name analytic/synthetic distinction? Perhaps, but it is very important to

note that she is not thereby committed to the epistemic dimension of the tra-

ditional a/s distinction.' According to this dimension, if 'All bachelors are

unmarried' is analytic then it can be known a priori. Much of the motivation

for a/s came from its alleged explanation of a priori knowledge. That explana-

tion rested on the assumption that a person who is competent with a word

has propositional knowledge of its meaning.2 So, if a link to 'unmarried'

does indeed partly constitute the meaning of 'bachelor,' leading to the analy-

ticity of 'All bachelors are unmarried,' then the competent speaker knows that

it does and hence knows that all bachelors are unmarried. This idea thatspeakers have some sort of privileged access to meanings is still very popu-

Of course the localist's distinction is about inferential properties which are clearlyepistemic: they are significant in belief formation (and so too are direct referentiallinks to reality). The point is that the distinction between the ones that constitutemeaning and the ones that do not need have no epistemic significance at all: it entails

nothing about the epistemic status of any sentence.2 It also rested on the gratuitous assumption that logical truths like 'All unmarrieds areunmarried' are know a priori.

FODOR/LEPORE YMPOSIUM 641


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lar. Nevertheless it is a Cartesian egacy that the localist certainly need notaccept and, in my view, should not accept.3

Quine argued that hankering after a priori knowledge was a mistake, thussaving the attractive mpiricist dea that all knowledge is derived from experi-ence. The idea faced an embarrassing roblem that dogged empiricism: some

truths-most notably those of mathematics and logic-did not seem open toempirical confirmation or disconfirmation. t did not seem possible that suchtruths could be revised in the way that 'All swans are white' was by thesighting of black swans in Australia. Quine, following in the footsteps ofDuhem, argued that we must break free of the naive picture of confirmationsuggested by the swan example and view confirmation n a much more holis-tic way. We can then see how any sentence, even those of mathematics andlogic, might be ultimately answerable to experience; the web of belief is

seamless.Jerry Fodor and Ernest Lepore ( F&L ) ccept Quine's argument nd hence

reject an epistemologically based a/s distinction p. 56). So they insist thatmoderate ocalism cannot distinguish the inferential properties hat constitutemeaning from the ones that do not on epistemic grounds like apriority. Yetthey emphasize that Quine's argument does not show that there could not bea nonepistemic distinction between the two sorts of properties and hence anonepistemic a/s distinction (pp. 56, 58). And, as I pointed out, moderate o-calism does not entail any epistemic distinction. So moderate localism sur-vives Quine's argument.4

Despite this official position F&L write much of the time as if Quinehas shown not merely that an epistemic a/s distinction is untenable but thatany a/s distinction is. So, according to this unofficial position, the moder-ate localist lacks a criterion or her distinetion-it has no principled basis -and the only way to avoid holism is to be an extreme localist, denying that

any inferential properties constitute word meaning. For example, F&L statebaldly that if Quine is right in 'Two Dogmas,' then what you mean can't bereduced to what inferences you are prepared o accept ; .e. if Quine is rightmoderate ocalism is wrong. Why?

Because, Quine argues, what inferences you are prepared to accept.. .depends not only onwhat you intend your words to mean, but also on how you take the (nonlinguistic) world tobe. And there is no principled way to separate the respective contributions of these factors.

3 I have argued this in various places, most recently in Realism and Truth (Oxford: BasilBlackwell, 2nd edition revised, 1991): 270-75.

4 I have argued this at length in A Critique of the Case for Semantic Holism, Philo-sophical Perspectives 7-8, in press. The argument addresses the concern that, accord-ing to moderate localism, it is not possible for a token to change certain of its inferen-tial properties without changing its meaning. I argue that this sort of unrevisabilityis harmlessly metaphysical. It has no more epistemic significance than the fact thatit is not possible for a person to change certain of her economic properties withoutceasing to be a capitalist.

642 MICHAEL EVONr

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Knowing which inferences someone accepts doesn't tell you which of them he accepts apriori; so it doesn't tell you which of them is analytic. (p. 57)

Yet this argument s simply irrelevant to a moderate ocalism that does notemploy an epistemic criterion. (i) It is not part of this localism that what in-ferences you are prepared o accept depends only on what you intend your

words to mean. The theory has nothing whatever to say on why you are pre-pared to accept inferences. It just says that being prepared o accept certain ofthem, for whatever reason, is constitutive of meaning. (ii) It is not part ofthis localism that the speaker accepts the constitutive inferences a priori orindeed that anyone accepts anything a priori.

This discussion is particularly striking in that it comes in between state-ments of the official position. What is going on? The answer is that, whileF&L think that Quine's argument eally counts only against an epistemic cri-terion and so leaves open the possibility of a nonepistemic one-the officialposition-they find the idea of a nonepistemic one so unimaginable as to bea mere empty possibility that can safely be ignored most of the time. So, ineffect, Quine showed that no distinction is possible and hence that moderatelocalism is impossible-the unofficial position.

If moderate ocalism uses an epistemic criterion to distinguish the consti-tutive inferential properties, F&L have Quine's argument against it. If mod-

erate localism does not, F&L have nothing against it except an unarguedconviction that another criterion cannot be found.Although the conviction is unargued n print it is not unsupported n con-

versation. Fodor likes, in his inimitable way, to mock the chances of findinga criterion: Color doesn't seem to work, nor does weight in grams. Perhapsit is the inferences drawn on Tuesday that count. If not, there are all the otherdays of the week to try. Is it ok if rdon't hold my breath? Yet, ironically,insofar as a criterion s needed, it turns out that the most promising one is al-

ready at work in many semantic theories, including Fodor's own. That is mysubstantive point.

II. SUBSTANTIVE POINT: A PRINCIPLED CRITERION

Meanings are properties we choose to ascribe in 'that clauses' for semanticpurposes, to explain behavior, learn about the world, or whatever. In whatrespect does the moderate ocalist need a criterion or her distinction? Contraryto what F&L seem to suggest, not to distinguish the inferential propertiesthat constitute he meanings we do as a matter offact ascribe from the proper-ties that do not constitute those meanings. We no more need a criterion forthis than we do to distinguish the properties that constitute being a planet, acapitalist, or whatever. With meanings, as with everything else, some proper-ties are constitutive, some aren't, and that's that. There may be a problemtelling what is constitutive, of course, but we need no special criterion to




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solve it for meaning. What the localist does need a criterion for is to distin-guish the inferential properties hat constitute he meanings we should ascribefor semantic purposes from other nferential properties hat we should not as-cribe for those purposes.'

Consider what I shall call Representationalism. his is the common, al-though not established, view that the properties we need for semantic pur-poses are all representational. At the level of words, this is the view that theproperties we need are all referential. An obvious version of this is, in effect,6the direct-reference iew that the meaning of a word simply is its propertyof referring o its referent. That is extreme localism. I want to emphasize thepossibility of another version, for this one yields the criterion needed formoderate ocalism. This other version counts a word's mode of reference as areferential property and hence a candidate for meaning.7 So inferential

properties hat determine eference are candidates. And the needed criterion s:the difference between a word's inferential properties that constitute ameaning we should ascribe for semantic purposes and its other inferentialproperties s that only the former determine ts reference.

Direct-reference heorists, ike everyone else, need to explain the nature ofthe meaning they ascribe to a word. The only plausible explanation for themis that it is some kind of causal link between the word and reality. Any suchexplanation faces a question: What distinguishes the links that constitute ameaning we should ascribe from the many other causal links between theword and reality? This question is precisely analogous to the one we are ad-dressing to the moderate ocalist: What distinguishes he inferential propertiesthat constitute a meaning we should ascribe from other such properties? Thestrength of representationalism s that it gives the one good answer to bothquestions: we should ascribe only word. meanings constituted by propertiesthat determine eference.

Fodor is a direct-reference heorist. He thinks that a certain asymmetriccounterfactual constitutes a word's meaning.8 But why does he choose thatcausal relation to serve our semantic purposes and not any of the other onesthe word has to reality? Not because of its color presumably. It's because he

5These claims, and some others to follow, could do with some argument. I attempt toprovide this in Coming to Our Senses: A Program for Semantic Localism, forthcoming.

6 The qualification is necessary because direct-reference theorists seldom consider whatpurposes meanings serve. It often seems rather as if 'meaning' and 'semantics' are be-ing arbitrarily defined to make the theory true.

7 Another version allows some meanings to be narrow provided those meanings areconstituted from properties that, given an external context, determine reference; thenarrow meanings it allows must be abstracted rom wide referential meanings.

8 Psychosemantics (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1987).

644 MICHAEL DEVrIT



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thinks hat that relation determines reference. And that's how the moderate o-calist chooses too.9 There's the irony.'0

What criterion can be offered by someone who thinks that meaning is notrepresentational, r not only so; for example, by a two-factor theorist? I thinknone. Once we set aside the determination f a word's reference, no plausiblesemantic purpose is served by constituting meanings one way rather han an-other out of the word's inferential properties. This is the truth underlying theconviction of F&L and others that moderate ocalism lacks a principled basis.

The usual moral drawn from this truth s that we must be holists. But thatis entirely the wrong moral. Choosing to ascribe holistic word meaningswould serve no semantic purpose at all. The simplest, least theory-laden, rea-son for this is that these meanings would not satisfy the desire for generalitythat accompanies any purpose we might have in ascribing meanings. We

want to ascribe word meanings that are instantiated n the one person at dif-ferent times, in different cognitive areas of the one mind, in different minds,and perhaps even in different types of mind. Holistic meanings are most un-likely to meet any of these wants.

The moral Fodor draws is that we must be extreme localists. That is alsothe wrong moral. The right moral is that we must be representationalists, aposition that is compatible with both moderate and extreme localism. A the-ory of anything has to show why the properties it identifies serve its pur-poses. If a non-representationalist heory of meaning lacks the required crite-rion then it fails to show this and should be abandoned.

To say that holism is not a threat is not to say that localism has won.Localism depends on representationalism which is, as yet, very far from hav-ing all the answers. Nevertheless, representationalism ermits a good deal ofprogress. We often have fairly persuasive evidence about which inferentialproperties of a word do and do not determine ts reference. And we have sev-eral attractive, f not yet finally persuasive, ideas about the sorts of causal re-lation to reality on which reference must ultimately depend. But a deep ques-tion remains troubling: Why do relations of these sorts serve the purposes weattach o reference and representation.

9 Because F&L overlook this referential criterion, they wrongly think that moderate lo-calism requires an inferential-role semantics. Inferential properties that determine ref-erence are part of truth-referential emantics.

10Experience suggests the wisdom of a pre-emptive strike. Suppose that the moderate lo-calist responded to Quine's argument by pointing out that even theories that explainmeaning in direct causal terms are committed to analyticities (as F&L agree; pp. 56-58). F&L like to point out that this localist would be comforting herself with a red her-ring because Quine's argument s not aimed at those sorts of analyticities; it is aimed atones that explain meaning in inferential terms. I am not drawing that herring. Mypoint is not to save moderate localism from Quine's argument, for it is already saved(see part I). The point is to show that the nonepistemic referential criterion used by ex-tremists can also be used by moderates.




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The real threat s eliminativism. If we cannot make representationalismwork, then we may have to conclude that our whole practice of ascribingmeanings is mistaken. Given the importance of this practice in our lives, andits apparent uccess, this strikes me as an unlikely outcome.

In sum, F&L's official position is that Quine's argument counts onlyagainst a moderate ocalism that uses an epistemic criterion or distinguishingthe constitutive inferences. Their unofficial position is that the argumentcounts against any moderate ocalism because there is no chance of finding anonepistemic criterion. Yet, insofar as localism needs a criterion, it has oneto hand: attribute meanings constituted by properties hat determine reference.The criterion stems from representationalism nd is plausible. Fodor cannotconsistently deny it. Should representationalism ail, holism is not a seriousalternative. The real threat s eliminativism.

I am indebted to the following for comments that led to improvements: Ned Block,Brian McLaughlin, Georges Rey, and Michael Slote.

646 MICHAEL EVIT

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