Internalism to the Rescue?

Abstract

If meanings are interestingly like species, meanings are multitudes and what our words mean isn’t up to us. This chapter doesn’t deny that one finds things that can reasonably be labeled ‘meanings’ at the level of the individual, or that these are of theoretical interest. It does deny that internalist theorizing about meaning provides a way to resuscitate the notion of analyticity. It also argues that meanings turn out to be much like diachronic ensembles of mental states related by analogs of descent—i.e. analogous to species. The first half of this chapter discusses a popular response to ‘Two Dogmas’ and demonstrates that this response requires an untenable picture of meaning. The second half takes up an internalist response to Quine due to David Chalmers, who suggests we think of conceptual constancy only in the intrapersonal case, identifying it with constancy of conditional credence. Chalmers’ proposal is worth serious consideration. But even from an internalist perspective, it’s unacceptable.