Idealisation in semantics: truth-conditional semantics for radical contextualists

Dupre, Gabriel

Abstract

In this paper, I shall provide a novel response to the argument from context-sensitivity against truth-conditional semantics. It is often argued that the contextual influences on truth-conditions outstrip the resources of standard truth-conditional accounts, and so truth-conditional semantics rests on a mistake. The argument assumes that truth-conditional semantics is legitimate if and only if natural language sentences have truth-conditions. I shall argue that this assumption is mistaken. Truth-conditional analyses should be viewed as idealised approximations of the complexities of natural language meaning. From this perspective, disparity between the scientific model and its real-world target is to be expected. I elaborate on what such an approach to semantics would look like.

Citation

Dupre, G. (2020). Idealisation in semantics: truth-conditional semantics for radical contextualists. Inquiry, 1 - 30. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2020.1712225

• Acceptance Date: Dec 10, 2019
• Publication Date: Jan 9, 2020
• Journal: Inquiry
• Print ISSN: 0020-174X
• Publisher: Routledge
• Pages: 1 - 30
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2020.1712225
• Public URL: https://keele-repository.worktribe.com/output/421720
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0020174X.2020.1712225?needAccess=true