Definition and dispute : a defense of temporal externalism / Derek Ball.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ball, Derek (Lecturer in philosophy), author.

Series:

Oxford scholarship online.

Oxford scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Definition (Philosophy).

Semantics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (184 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2024.

Summary:

Derek Ball argues that disputes about matters of definition are not just about the meanings of words or our concepts, and they do not typically involve change of meaning. Instead, engaging in an investigation or a discussion helps determine the meanings of our words without changing them; what is determined is the meaning our words had all along.

Contents:

Intro

Halftitle page

Title page

Copyright page

Contents

Acknowledgements

1. Introduction

1. Malcolm on Knowledge

2. First Main Theme: Conservatism about Practice

3. Semantics and Pragmatics

4. Second Main Theme: Meaning Sameness

5. Third Main Theme: Temporal Externalism

6. Jackman's Temporal Externalism

7. Summary

Part 1. Conservatism about Practice and Meaning Sameness

2. Verbal Dispute and Metalinguistic Negotiation

1. Are Definitional Disputes about Words?

2. Verbal Dispute and Metalinguistic Negotiation: What Is at Issue?

3. Definitional Disputes Are Not Verbal: The Wrong Kinds of Reasons Argument

4. Definitional Disputes Are Not Metalinguistic Negotiations: The Argument Argument

5. Conclusion

3. Conceptual Engineering: Ambitious or Anodyne?

1. Cappelen's Master Argument

2. Ramsey-Carnap-Lewis Metasemantics

3. The Appropriateness of Meaning to Theory

4. RCL and TE

5. Are There Cases of Ambitious Conceptual Engineering?

6. Conclusion

4. Why Are Paradoxes Hard? On the Explanatory Inefficacy of Inconsistent Concepts

1. Truth and Inconsistent Concepts

2. Responses and Alternatives

3. Towards an Explanation of Hardness

4. Conclusion

Part II. Temporal Externalism

5. Definition: What and When

1. Definitions: Beginning or End?

2. The Puzzle

3. Hobbes's Advice: Evaluation

4. Burge on Normative Meaning-Giving Characterisations

6. Stipulation Reconsidered: Temporal Externalism

1. Stipulation Reconsidered

2. Covert Implicit Definition

3. Distinguishing Two Roles

4. The Argument from Charity

5. The Metasemantic Desiderata

6. Analyticity

7. Conclusion

Appendix A: A Case Study

1. Constraints on an Account of the Dispute

2. Analysis of the Dispute.

7. The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Backwards Determination

1. Can the Future Determine the Past?

2. The Metaphysics of Time

3. Can the Future Explain the Past?

4. Self-Knowledge and Disquotation

5. Vagueness, Persistence, and Meaning Change

8. Contextualism, Relativism, and Metasemantics

1. A Formal Framework

2. Some Metasemantic Questions

3. Debating Gradable Adjectives

9. Temporal Externalism, Context Sensitivity, and Matters of Taste

1. Three Desiderata

2. Lewis on Accommodation

3. Temporal Externalist Meta-Contextualism_ Beyond Lewis

4. The Metasemantics of Predicates of Taste

5. Conclusion: The Explanatory Role of Metasemantics

10. Temporal Externalism: Choice Points

1. Issue 1: To What Meaning-Bearing Entities Does TE Apply?

2. Issue 2: How Much Does Meaning Vary?

3. Issue 3: How Revisionary Can We Be?

4. Issue 4: In Virtue of What Is TE True?

5. Issue 5: Which Future Facts Matter?

6. Issue A: Whose Judgements Matter?

7. Issue B: Which Judgements Matter? Analyticity and Holism

8. Issue C: How Must Judgements Be Arrived At?

9. Issue D: What If There Are No Settled Judgements?

10. Conclusion

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Also issued in print: 2024.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource and publisher information; title from PDF title page (viewed on December 5, 2023).

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0-19-890621-8

0-19-890619-6

0-19-890620-X

OCLC:

1411838093