Abstract

RAMIREZ MOTOA, Camilo. The Problem of the Reference: The Tensión between "Quinean Internalism" and the Thesis of Minimal Externalism. Eidos [online]. 2022, n.37, pp.129-162.  Epub June 10, 2022. ISSN 1692-8857.  https://doi.org/10.14482/eidos.37.121.

In this paper I analyze the challenge that the Quinean referential indeterminacy thesis poses to a specific set of externalist theories of reference. First, a metasemantic distinction between productive and interpretivist theories is presented, indicating that indeterminacy permeates both. Subsequently, externalist attempts to refute this problem by stressing the substantive role of external objects in the fixation of reference are evaluated, pointing out that the problem persists. Finally, the "internalist" conception of Quinean reference is analyzed, which, in principle, undermines the externalist arguments about reference.

Keywords : Dualism; scheme; content enlightened empiricism; semantic externalism; referential indeterminacy; semantic internalism; metasemantics.

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