Threats and challenges to the scientific representation of semantics

Carnap, Quine, and the Lessons of Semantic Skepticism

Abstract

We will approach the problem of semantic skepticism by comparing Quine's view with Carnap's strategy for finding intensional equivalences that guarantee a solution to the paradox of analysis; and then we will consider how the Intensionalists use these possible solutions to save the scientificity of semantics. Quine disagrees with Carnap that plausible solutions to the question of intensional equivalence provide us with explanations for the difficult problems. These are ones where, in contrast to mere extensional indistinguishability of expressions, we need a stronger determination to choose the right interpretation. And then he has a skeptical answer to which the semanticist-linguist cannot remain insensitive. The problem is that a semanticist can only say that he has an "object" of inquiry if a normative property can be reconstructed, but that is not guaranteed by the mathematical theory used to infer intensional values. Finally, we would like to point out the relevance of skeptical doctrines about semantics that go beyond the mere haunting of relativism or quietism about meaning. Without a skeptical approach, we argue, we lose sight of the unique nature of language and its peculiar property of being an object shaped by pressures on its own ability to be theorized.