Metasemantics, intentions and circularity

Lukas Lewerentz

Benjamin Marschall

pp. 1667-1679

in: Andrew McFarland (ed), Causation in the metaphysics of science, Synthese 195 (4), 2018.

Abstract

According to intentionalism, a demonstrative d refers to an object o only if the speaker intends d to refer to o. Intentionalism is a popular view in metasemantics, but Gauker has recently argued that it is circular. We defend intentionalism against this objection, by showing that Gauker’s argument rests on a misconstrual of the aim of metasemantics. We then introduce two related, but distinct circularity objections: the worry that intentionalism is uninformative, and the problem of intentional bootstrapping, according to which it is impossible to have referential intentions. We also show how intentionalists could respond to these new objections.