Cardiff University | Prifysgol Caerdydd ORCA
Online Research @ Cardiff 
WelshClear Cookie - decide language by browser settings

Semantic inferentialism as (a form of) active externalism

Palermos, Spyridon Orestis ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0297-084X, Carter, Adam and Collin, Jamie 2017. Semantic inferentialism as (a form of) active externalism. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 16 (3) , pp. 387-402. 10.1007/s11097-016-9458-y

[thumbnail of 10.1007%2Fs11097-016-9458-y.pdf]
Preview
PDF - Published Version
Download (378kB) | Preview

Abstract

Within contemporary philosophy of mind, it is taken for granted that externalist accounts of meaning and mental content are, in principle, orthogonal to the matter of whether cognition itself is bound within the biological brain or whether it can constitutively include parts of the world. Accordingly, Clark and Chalmers (Analysis 58(1):7–19, 1998) distinguish these varieties of externalism as ‘passive’ and ‘active’ respectively. The aim here is to suggest that we should resist the received way of thinking about these dividing lines. With reference to Brandom’s (1994, 2000, Inquiry 47:236–253, 2008) broad semantic inferentialism, we show that a theory of meaning can be at the same time a variety of active externalism. While we grant that supporters of other varieties of content externalism (e.g., Putnam 1975 and Burge (Philosophical Review 95:3–45, 1986) can deny active externalism, this is not an option for semantic inferentialists: On this latter view, the role of the environment (both in its social and natural form) is not ‘passive’ in the sense assumed by the alternative approaches to content externalism.

Item Type: Article
Date Type: Publication
Status: Published
Schools: English, Communication and Philosophy
Publisher: Springer Verlag
ISSN: 1568-7759
Date of First Compliant Deposit: 27 November 2017
Last Modified: 23 May 2023 17:27
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/106983

Citation Data

Cited 4 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item Edit Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics