Abstract: The two-dimensional framework in semantics has the most power and plausibility when combined with a kind of global semantic neo-descriptivism. If neo-descriptivism can be defended on the toughest terrain — the semantics of ordinary proper names — then the other skirmishes should be easier. This paper defends neo-descriptivism against two important objections: that the descriptions may be inaccessibly locked up in sub-personal modules, and thus not accessible a priori, and that in any case all such modules bottom out in purely causal mechanisms, and that thus an externalist causal metasemantic theory will best account for them. I agree both that many descriptions are in some sense modularized, and that they bottom out in causal mechanisms. But I argue that these are not the relevant descriptions that two-dimensionalism trades in, and which make us, in an important sense, masters of our meanings

Abstract: Propositions are the referents of the ‘that’-clauses that appear in the direct object positions of typical ascriptions of assertion, belief, and other binary cognitive relations. In that sense, propositions are the objects of those cognitive relations. Propositions are also the semantic contents (meanings, in one sense ) of declarative sentences, with respect to contexts. They are what sentences semantically express, with respect to contexts. Propositions also bear truth-values. The truth-value of a sentence, in a context, is the truth-value of the proposition that it semantically expresses, in that context

Abstract: I. Standard Semantics According to what we might call ‘standard semantics’ – a theory of meaning which owes much to thinkers such as Gottlob Frege (1892), Bertrand Russell (1902),¹ C. I. Lewis (1943), Rudolf Carnap (1947), Richard Montague (1973), David Kaplan (1973), Saul Kripke (1980) and David Lewis (1980) – sentences express, relative to contexts, so-called Russellian propositions. Different constituents of sentences contribute different entities to these propositions. For example, names such as ‘Hillary Clinton’ and indexicals such as ‘I’ and ‘now’ contribute their referents, predicates such as ‘is human’ contribute properties, and so on. Russellian propositions are structured sets or collections of such worldly entities

Abstract: _the a priori role_ (for word T). For instance, perhaps anyone who understands the word _water_ is able to know, without appeal to any further a posteriori information, that _water_ refers to the clear, drinkable natural kind whose instances are predominant in our oceans and lakes (if _water_ refers at all—we will suppress this qualification from here on). Or, less controversially, perhaps anyone who understands _water_ is able to know that _water_ refers to a natural kind, or at least that it doesn’t refer to an abstract object like a number. Or, almost _un_controversially, perhaps anyone who understands _water_ is able to know that it refers to _water_. This last example shows that, plausibly, there will always be _some_ property filling the a priori role for word T that its referent uniquely possesses— _being water_ , in the case of _water_. What is entirely unobvious is whether speakers have more interesting kinds of identifying knowledge about the referents of words: say, that

Abstract: 1. Let us say that a thought is _about an object _o just in case the truth value of the thought at any possible world W depends on how things are with _o_ in W. Thus the thought that the first Chancellor of the German Empire was an astute diplomatist is not about Bismark, because that thought is true in a world W iff, in W, whoever happens to be the first Chancellor was an astute diplomatist, and that may well not be Bismark. On Russell’s view in _The Problems of Philosophy_, we cannot think about external objects like Bismark at all: we sometimes make the attempt, but “[i]n this we are necessarily defeated, since the actual Bismark is unknown to us”.¹ For example, when one thinks that (as one would put it) Bismark was an astute diplomatist, according to Russell the content of one’s thought is some descriptive proposition, for example that the first Chancellor of the German Empire was an astute diplomatist

Abstract: When I say ‘Hesperus is Phosphorus’, I seem to express a proposition. And when I say ‘Joan believes that Hesperus is Phosphorus’, I seem to ascribe to Joan an attitude to the same proposition. But what are propositions? And what is involved in ascribing propositional attitudes?

Abstract: At the April 2006 meeting of the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association, in an author-meets-critics session on Scott Soames' book _Reference and Description: The Case Against Two-Dimensionalism_ , I presented a comment on Soames' book, "Scott Soames' Two-Dimensionalism" . The other critic was Robert Stalnaker. Soames presented his response to critics . Below is a reply to Soames' response to me, for those who were at the session and interested others. Note that this response was mostly written before the session, except for one or two paragraphs where the discussion in the session is mentioned

Abstract: Scott Soames’ _Reference and Description_ contains arguments against a number of different versions of two-dimensional semantics. After early chapters on descriptivism and on Kripke’s anti-descriptivist arguments, a chapter each is devoted to the roots of two- dimensionalism in “slips, errors, or misleading suggestions” by Kripke and Kaplan, and to the two-dimensional approaches developed by Stalnaker (1978) and by Davies and Humberstone (1981). The bulk of the book (about 200 pages) is devoted to “ambitious two- dimensionalism”, attributed to Frank Jackson, David Lewis, and me. After a quick overview of two-dimensional approaches, I will focus on Soames’ discussion of ambitious two- dimensionalism. I will then turn to a system advocated by Soames that is itself strikingly reminiscent of a two-dimensional approach

Abstract: [[This paper appears in my anthology _Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings_ (Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 608-633. It is a heavily revised version of a paper first written in 1994 and revised in 1995. Sections 1, 7, 8, and 10 are similar to the old version, but the other sections are quite different. Because the old version has been widely cited, I have made it available (in its 1995 version) at http://consc.net/papers/content95.html

Abstract: 2 The contextual understanding    2.1 Orthographic contextual intensions    2.2 Linguistic contextual intensions    2.3 Semantic contextual intensions    2.4 A further problem    2.5 Hybrid contextual intensions    2.6 Token-reflexive contextual intensions    2.7 Extended contextual intensions    2.8 Cognitive contextual intensions    2.9 Summary

Abstract: There are many ways the world might be, for all I know. For all I know, it might be that there is life on Jupiter, and it might be that there is not. It might be that Australia will win the next Ashes series, and it might be that they will not. It might be that my great-grandfather was my great-grandmother's second cousin, and it might be that he was not. It might be that copper is a compound, and it might be that it is not

Abstract: Two-dimensional approaches to semantics, broadly understood, recognize two "dimensions" of the meaning or content of linguistic items. On these approaches, expressions and their utterances are associated with two different sorts of semantic values, which play different explanatory roles. Typically, one semantic value is associated with reference and ordinary truth-conditions, while the other is associated with the way that reference and truth-conditions depend on the external world. The second sort of semantic value is often held to play a distinctive role in analyzing matters of cognitive significance and/or context-dependence

Abstract: I review and reconsider some of the themes of Two notions of necessity (Daviesand Humberstone, 1980) and attempt to reach a deeper understanding and appreciation of Gareth Evans's reflections (in Reference and contingency, 1979) on both modality and reference. My aim is to plot the relationships between the notions of necessity that Humberstone and I characterised in terms of operators in two-dimensional modal logic, the notions of superficial and deep necessity that Evans himself described, and the epistemic notion of a priority

Abstract: As tends to be the way with philosophical positions, there are at least as many two-dimensionalisms as there are two-dimensionalists. But painting with a broad brush, there are core epistemological and metaphysical commitments which underlie the two-dimensionalist project, commitments for which I have no sympathies. A sketch of three significant points of disagreement

Abstract: One issue that has arisen in the debate over how best to interpret the two-dimensional framework is whether there is an interpretation that would ground an a priori-accessible, extension-fixing component of content for very many of our terms and sentences. David Chalmers in a series of recent papers aims to defend just such an interpretation and in so doing restore what he calls the “golden triangle” between meaning, reason, and modality broken, in his telling of the story, when Kripke severed the link between reason and modality (a priority and necessity) in Naming and Necessity.[1] Chalmers’ strategy for identifying such an interpretation turns on finding an interpretation of that framework that makes his Core Thesis come out true. That thesis is

Abstract: I think recent discussions of content and reference have not paid enough attention to the role of language as a convention-governed system of communication. With this as a background theme, I explain the role of A-intensions in elucidating one important notion of content and correlative notions of reference

Abstract: In his Why We Need A-Intensions, Frank Jackson argues that representational content [is] how things are represented to be by a sentence in the communicative role it possesses in virtue of what it means, a type of content Jackson takes to be broadly descriptive. I think Jackson overstates his case. Even if we agree that such representational properties play a crucial reference-fixing role, it is much harder to argue the case for a crucial communicative role. I articulate my doubts about Jackson's views on this point by contrasting them with the views of John Stuart Mill, usually regarded as an early believer in something like a direct reference account of content for names, but someone who, on my reading, teaches us a salutary lesson about the importance of separating the question of how reference is determined from the question of how we succeed in communicating

Abstract: . David Chalmerss version of two-dimensional semantics is an attempt at setting up a unified semantic framework that would vindicate both the Fregean and the Kripkean semantic intuitions. I claim that there are three acceptable ways of carrying out such a project, and that Chalmerss theory does not coherently fit any of the three patterns. I suggest that the theory may be seen as pointing to the possibility of a double reading for many linguistic expressions (a double reading which, however, is not easily identified with straightforward semantic ambiguity)

Abstract: Kripke and Putnam have convinced most philosophers that we cannot do metaphysics of nature by analysing the senses of natural kind terms –; simply because natural kind terms do not have senses. Neo-descriptivists, especially Frank Jackson and David Chalmers, believe that this view is mistaken. Merging classical descriptivism with a Kaplan-inspired two-dimensional framework, neo-descriptivists devise a semantics for natural kind terms that assigns natural kind terms so-called `primary intensions'. Since primary intensions are senses by other names, Jackson and Chalmers conclude that we can and should do metaphysics of nature by analysing the natural kind concepts competent speakers possess. I argue that neo-descriptivism does not provide a suitable basis for doing this kind of metaphysics. I first of all give a detailed account of the neo-descriptivist semantics and deflate the intuitive support neo-descriptivists try to draw from their case of the XYZ-world. I then present three arguments –; the Argument from Ignorance, the Argument from Conceptual Analysis, and the Argument from Laziness. Taken together, these arguments undermine the neo-descriptivist analysis of natural kind terms. I conclude that natural kind terms do not have senses, that we cannot do metaphysics of nature by analysing the senses of our kind terms, and that the Kripke-Putnam account still provides the best semantics for natural kind terms we have

Abstract: Stalnaker argues that, while the two-dimensional framework can be used to give expression to the claims associated with rigidified descriptivism, it cannot be used to support that position. He also puts forward some objections to rigidified descriptivism. I agree that rigidified descriptivism cannot be supported by appeal to the two-dimensional framework. But I think that Stalnaker's objections can be avoided under a descriptivism that introduces a causal as well as a descriptive element — a descriptivism in which the relevant descriptions are allowed to be, not only rigidified, but anchored in causal exposure to referents

Abstract: There are different _kinds _of two-dimensional matrix one can work with, representing different properties of an expression. One has to understand the rows and columns differently for the different matrices; but there are some formal characteristics all the matrices have in common

Abstract: This paper argues that David Chalmer's new epistemic interpretation of 2-D semantics faces the very same type of objection he takes to defeat earlier contextualist interpretation of the 2-D framework

Abstract: Frank Jackson and David Chalmers have suggested that the diagonal intensions defined by their two-dimensional framework can play the two key roles of Fregean senses: they provide a priori accessible extension conditions for a representation and they provide the identity conditions for meanings and thought contents. In this paper, I clarify the nature of the psychological abilities that are needed to underwrite the first role. I then argue that these psychological abilities are not sufficiently stable or cognitively salient to individuate meanings or thought contents

Abstract: Laura.Schroeter@arts.monash.edu.au 7 August 2003 Abstract: In “The foundations of Two-Dimensional Semantics”, David Chalmers seeks to develop a version of 2-D semantics which can vindicate the rationalist claim that there are constitutive connections between meaning, possibility and apriority. Chalmers lays out different ways of filling in his preferred epistemic approach to 2-D semantics so as to avoid controversial philosophical assumptions. In these comments, however, I argue that there are some distinctively rationalist commitments in Chalmers’s epistemic approach to 2-D semantics. I start by explaining why Chalmers’s approach requires a canonical language that affords subjects accurate a priori access to the space of possibility. I then argue that traditional worries about rationalism will simply re-emerge as worries about whether there can be a canonical vocabulary and how we could come to recognize one if there were. The moral is that Chalmers’s 2-D semantic framework builds in substantive metaphysical and epistemological commitments which stand in need of further defense

Abstract: This paper concerns the applications of two-dimensional modal semantics to the explanation of the contents of speech and thought. Different interpretations and applications of the apparatus are contrasted. First, it is argued that David Kaplan's two-dimensional semantics for indexical expressions is different from the use that I made of a formally similar framework to represent the role of contingent information in the determination of what is said. But the two applications are complementary rather than conflicting. Second, my interpretation of the apparatus is contrasted with that of David Chalmers, Frank Jackson, and David Lewis. It is argued that this difference reflects a contrast between internalist and externa list approaches to the problem of intentionality

Abstract: The essence of the associated-proposition strategy is to distinguish the necessary proposition _expressed by_ a sentence—say, ‘Water is H₂O’—from the a posteriori proposition _associated_ _with_ the sentence. This strategy lies behind a number of criticisms and explications of Kripke’s contention that there is such a thing as a posteriori necessity. The distinctive feature of the two-dimensional approach is that it provides an abstract, double-index framework that represents the deep, underlying relationship between the two sorts of propositions. Section 1 of this paper outlines a version of this framework that I previously proposed based on Stalnaker’s work. Before presenting the dual-proposition problem, I summarize in Section 2 the two-dimensional explanations of the necessary a posteriori offered by Jackson and Chalmers, explaining the core ideas they share, in particular the associated