Inferential role semantics

Inferential role semantics (also conceptual role semantics, functional role semantics, procedural semantics, semantic inferentialism) is an approach to the theory of meaning that identifies the meaning of an expression with its relationship to other expressions (typically its inferential relations with other expressions), in contradistinction to denotationalism, according to which denotations are the primary sort of meaning.[1]

Overview

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is considered an early proponent of what is now called inferentialism.[2][3] He believed that the ground for the axioms and the foundation for the validity of the inferences are the right consequences and that the axioms do not explain the consequence.[3]

In its current form, inferential role semantics originated in the work of Wilfrid Sellars.

Contemporary proponents of semantic inferentialism include Robert Brandom,[4][5] Gilbert Harman,[6] Paul Horwich, and Ned Block.[7]

Jerry Fodor coined the term "inferential role semantics" in order to criticise it as a holistic (i.e. essentially non-compositional) approach to the theory of meaning. Inferential role semantics is sometimes contrasted to truth-conditional semantics.

Semantic inferentialism is related to logical expressivism[8] and semantic anti-realism.[9] The approach also bears a resemblance to accounts of proof-theoretic semantics in the semantics of logic, which associate meaning with the reasoning process.

gollark: It's probably not too hard to fix, at least.
gollark: There's actually a bug with block value which never got fixed as far as I know because it doesn't affect the original krist server.
gollark: I tried that, it... did not go well.
gollark: Or run your own krist server (hahahaha good luck).
gollark: Just use bitcoin.

References
  1. Proof-Theoretic Semantics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
  2. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Wissenschaft der Logik Vol. II, Meiner, 1975 [1932], pp. 466 and 474.
  3. P. Stekeler-Weithofer (2016), "Hegel's Analytic Pragmatism", University of Leipzig, pp. 122–4.
  4. "Pragmatism and Inferentialism"
  5. Brandom, Robert (2000). Articulating Reasons: An Introduction to Inferentialism. Harvard University Press. p. 230. ISBN 0-674-00158-3.
  6. "(Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics" by Gilbert Harman
  7. "Conceptual Role Semantics" by Ned Block
  8. J. Peregrin, Inferentialism: Why Rules Matter, Springer, 2014, ch. 10.
  9. R. Ramanujam, Sundar Sarukkai (eds.), Logic and Its Applications, Springer, 2009, p. 260.


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