Abstract

Introduction

A certain metaphysical thesis about meaning that we will call Informational Role Semantics (IRS) is accepted practically universally in linguistics, philosophy, and the cognitive sciences: the meaning (or content, or “sense”) of a linguistic expression is constituted, at least in part, by at least some of its inferential relations. This idea is hard to state precisely, both because notions like metaphysical constitution are moot and, more importantly, because different versions of IRS take different views on whether there are constituents of meaning other than inferential role, and on which of the inferences an expression occurs in are meaning constitutive. Some of these issues will presently concern us, but for now it will do just to mention such familiar claims as that: it's part and parcel of “dog” meaning ‘dog’ that the inference from “x is a dog” to “x is an animal” is valid; it's part and parcel of “boil” meaning ‘boil’ that the inference from “x boiled y” to “y boiled” is valid; it's part and parcel of “kill” meaning ‘kill’ that the inference from “x killed y” to “y died” is valid; and so on (see Cruse, 1986, Chap. 1 and passim).