Kaplan, Daniel
(2022)
Substructural Content.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
It is nearly ubiquitous for philosophers interested in meaning and consequence to first provide a semantics for sentences and next define what it means for sentences to follow from one another. Structural features of consequence such as monotonicity, transitivity, contraction, and reflexivity are rarely acknowledged except insofar as they are presupposed by whatever we intend with "follows from". Since "follows from" succeeds sentence meaning, structural features are taken to presuppose robust constraints on the latter. My dissertation argues that this setup is mistaken; it misunderstands the connection between sentence meaning and what structural features require of content. For example, monotonicity is taken to follow from strong assumptions concerning the compositionality of sentence meaning. As a result the setup assumes that substructural consequence relations require different understandings of content. If we reject this setup and posit a closer relationship between meaning and consequence, then we are better able to understand what sorts of constraints are placed on semantic content by structural rules. I develop a view in which the two are maximally close: meaning just is contribution to consequence. I argue that this notion of content, when precisified yields a completely tractable, robust semantics. Refiguring the relationship between meaning and consequence also yields surprising insights for the philosophy of language and meta-ethics.
Share
| Citation/Export: |
|
| Social Networking: |
|
Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
|
| ETD Committee: |
|
| Date: |
6 June 2022 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
17 December 2021 |
| Approval Date: |
6 June 2022 |
| Submission Date: |
10 December 2021 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Number of Pages: |
269 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Philosophy |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
philosophy of language, philosophical logic, substructural logic, inferentialism, defeat, defeasible reasoning, radical contextualism, semantic minimalism, moral particularism |
| Date Deposited: |
06 Jun 2022 15:54 |
| Last Modified: |
06 Jun 2022 15:54 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/42065 |
Metrics
Monthly Views for the past 3 years
Plum Analytics
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
![[feed]](/images/feed-icon-32x32.png){kind=icon}