Compositional Semantics for Expressivists

Philosophical Quarterly 63 (253):633-659 (2013)
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Abstract

I here propose a hitherto unnoticed possibility of solving embedding problems for noncognitivist expressivists in metaethics by appeal to Conceptual Role Semantics. I show that claims from the latter as to what constitutes various concepts can be used to define functions from states expressed by atomic sentences to states expressed by complex sentences, thereby allowing an expressivist semantics that satisfies a rather strict compositionality constraint. The proposal can be coupled with several different types of concept individuation claim, and is shown to pave the way to novel accounts for, e.g., negation.

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Arvid Båve
University of Lisbon

Citations of this work

Conceptual Role Expressivism and Defective Concepts.James L. D. Brown - 2022 - In Oxford Studies in Metaethics 17. pp. 225-53.
Expressivism and Cognitive Propositions.James L. D. Brown - 2019 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 5 (3):371-387.
Conceptual Role Accounts of Meaning in Metaethics.Matthew Chrisman - 2017 - In Tristram Colin McPherson & David Plunkett (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Metaethics. New York: Routledge. pp. 260-274.

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References found in this work

What is the Frege-Geach problem?Mark Schroeder - 2008 - Philosophy Compass 3 (4):703-720.
Is it Possible to have Contradictory Beliefs?Richard Foley - 1986 - Midwest Studies in Philosophy 10 (1):327-355.

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