Analyticity and Conceptual Content
Analyticity and Conceptual Content
This chapter defends the idea that there are analytic entailments among our sentences against two sorts of prominent objections. In response to Quine's rejection of the analytic/synthetic distinction, it suggests that analytic interrelations may be understood as grounded in (tacit, collective) legislations of the rules of use for our terms. Against objections based on a Kripkean approach to reference, it argues that those inclined to causal theories should accept a hybrid theory of reference in order to overcome both the qua problem and the problem of singular nonexistence claims. This hybrid theory acknowledges that our general and singular nominative terms have determinate reference only to the extent that they are associated with frame-level conceptual content, in the form of application and coapplication conditions that fix the category of entity to be referred to. This minimal conceptual content can underpin the analytic entailments discussed in Chapter 1.
Keywords: Quine, Kripke, causal theories of, qua problem, nonexistence, reference, hybrid theory of, application conditions, category
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