vocabulary. I will refer to this aspect of the analytic project as its commitment to ‘semantic logicism’. If we ask were the vocabulary-kinds whose semantic relations it was thought to be which important to investigate during this period, at least two of classical analytic core programs philosophy show up: and These venerable modern philosophical empiricism naturalism. traditions in epistemology and ontology respectively were transformed in the twentieth century, first by being transposed into a key, and second by the application of the newly semantic available vocabulary to the self-consciously semantic programs they then became. logical As vocabularies, different species of appealed to phenomenal base empiricism vocabulary, expressing how things appear, or to secondary-quality vocabulary, or, less demandingly, to observational vocabulary. Typical vocabularies include objective target vocabulary formulating claims about how things actually are (as opposed to how they merely appear), primary-quality vocabulary, theoretical vocabulary, and modal, normative, and semantic vocabularies. The generic challenge is to show how what is expressed by the use of such target vocabularies can be reconstructed from what is expressed by the base vocabulary, when it is elaborated by the use of logical vocabulary. As base vocabularies, different species of appealed to the vocabulary of naturalism fundamental physics, or to the vocabulary of the natural sciences (including the special sciences) more generally, or just to objective descriptive vocabulary, even when not regimented by incorporation into explicit scientific theories. Typical targets include normative, semantic, and intentional vocabularies. II. The Pragmatist Challenge
vocabulary. I will refer to this aspect of the analytic project as its commitment to ‘semantic logicism’. If we ask which were the vocabulary-kinds whose semantic relations it was thought to be important to investigate during this period, at least two core programs of classical analytic philosophy show up: empiricism and naturalism. These venerable modern philosophical traditions in epistemology and ontology respectively were transformed in the twentieth century, first by being transposed into a semantic key, and second by the application of the newly available logical vocabulary to the self-consciously semantic programs they then became. As base vocabularies, different species of empiricism appealed to phenomenal vocabulary, expressing how things appear, or to secondary-quality vocabulary, or, less demandingly, to observational vocabulary. Typical target vocabularies include objective vocabulary formulating claims about how things actually are (as opposed to how they merely appear), primary-quality vocabulary, theoretical vocabulary, and modal, normative, and semantic vocabularies. The generic challenge is to show how what is expressed by the use of such target vocabularies can be reconstructed from what is expressed by the base vocabulary, when it is elaborated by the use of logical vocabulary. As base vocabularies, different species of naturalism appealed to the vocabulary of fundamental physics, or to the vocabulary of the natural sciences (including the special sciences) more generally, or just to objective descriptive vocabulary, even when not regimented by incorporation into explicit scientific theories. Typical targets include normative, semantic, and intentional vocabularies. II. The Pragmatist Challenge
Analytic%20Pragmatism%20Expressivism%20and%20Modality%2014-10-2%20a.docx