Abstract
This paper articulates two constraints on an acceptable account of meaning: (i) accessibility: sameness of meaning affords an immediate appearance of de jure co-reference, (ii) flexibility: sameness of meaning tolerates open-ended variation in speakers’ substantive understanding of the reference. Traditional accounts of meaning have trouble simultaneously satisfying both constraints. I suggest that relationally individuated meanings provide a promising way of avoiding this tension. On relational accounts, we bootstrap our way to de jure co-reference: the subjective appearance of de jure co-reference helps make it the case that two token representations really do co-refer.
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Schroeter, L. Bootstrapping our way to samesaying. Synthese 189, 177–197 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-012-0099-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-012-0099-6