Normativism A phenomenon is normative if it cannot be adequately described in merely descriptive terms (but must instead be described using such terms as ‘ought’ or ‘should’). Normativism about mental phenomena can take various forms: it can be a thesis about empirical psychology, about folk psychology, or about a specific property or phenomenon, such as intentional content or meaning.

Normativism and Rationality Normativism about meaning is often discussed in connection with rationality because (1) rationality is thought to be normative (“you ought to draw this conclusion, not that one”) and (2) a concept’s meaning or content has often thought to be a function of the inferences one is prepared to draw when reasoning with it.

The Roots of Normativism Quinean-Davidsonian-style argument: The meaning of any statement is constituted by its method of verification. The method of verifying the application of an attribution of meaning is normative. Thus, the meanings of sentences that attribute meanings are normative. (Thus meaning itself is normative.)

Attributions of meaning An attribution of meaning to someone’s statement: “Tammy means that both candidates are unqualified.” Questions about the method of verification become especially clear when we think of radical translation: the attribution of meanings to statements in a language wholly new to us (as in anthropological study).

Simple Case (Quine) A local native utters ‘gavagai’ as a rabbit hops past. To what does ‘gavagai’ refer? Rabbits? Collections of undetached rabbit parts? Time slices of rabbits? Differentiated units of the essence of rabbithood? To resolve the issue, we project our way of referring onto the native. ‘Gavagai’ refers to rabbits.

Is Meaning Therefore Normative? There a difference between saying, (1) “I’m going to attribute to the native what I would be referring to if I were she,” and saying, (2) “The native should be referring to rabbits,” where ‘should’ is supposed to express a normative property that is beyond the merely physical realm.

Questioning the Argument’s Verificationist Basis Even if the interpretive process is heavily loaded with normative judgments about what other people should mean, this need not constitute the very meaning of attributions of meanings. Nor does it tell us what meanings actually are, if they exist independently of our attributions of them.

Normativism and the Explanation of Behavior The folk explanation of people’s behavior presupposes that people are rational (Dennett). We attribute to people the beliefs and desires that would make their behavior rational – such that what they did do is what they should have done given the beliefs and desires we attribute to them. (In the first instance, we attribute the beliefs and desires people should have given their environment and biological needs).

Semantic Externalism Again, and Semantic Atomism At one point, Rey contrasts Wedgwood’s view with Fodor’s (and Horwich’s). What view does Rey have in mind? Semantic atomism: All of the (cognitively) indivisible conceptual units – the conceptual atoms – have an externalist semantics. And, all meaningful thoughts are composed entirely out of conceptual atoms.

Simple version of Fodor’s Asymmetric Dependence Theory of Content: A semantic atom A represents (refers to, is about) natural kind or property K if -K’s cause the tokening (i.e., the activation) of A, in accordance with laws of nature -For any other kind H that causes the tokening of A, the “laws” that allow H’s to cause A are asymmetrically dependent on the laws in keeping with which K’s cause A’s.

Asymmetric dependence of laws: The law “H’s cause A’s” is a. d Asymmetric dependence of laws: The law “H’s cause A’s” is a.d. on the law “K’s cause A’s” if, and only if, if the first were to go out of effect, the second would remain in effect, but not vice versa. Cashed out in terms of possible worlds: in the nearest possible worlds in which H’s no longer cause A’s, K’s still do; but in the nearest possible worlds in which K’s no longer cause A’s, H’s don’t cause A’s.