Reconciling Semantic Dispositionalism with Semantic Holism

Abstract

Dispositionalist theories of mental content have been attacked on the grounds that they are incompatible with semantic holism. In this paper, I resist important worries of this variety, raised by Paul Boghossian. I argue that his objections can be avoided by a conceptual role version of dispositionalism, where the multifarious relationships between mental contents are grounded on the relationships between their corresponding, grounding dispositions.

Simple Tasks, Abstractions, and Semantic Dispositionalism

“…For related arguments, see Boghossian (, 537–540) and Fodor (, 59–82). For a reply to Boghossian's () objection from semantic holism, see Podlaskowski (). And for an argument that semantic holism actually aids the opponent of the meaning sceptic, see Tennant (, 108–115).…”