Laura Schroeter

A characteristic form of philosophical inquiry seeks to answer ‘what is x?’ questions. In this paper, we ask how philosophers do and should adjudicate debates about the correct answer to such questions. We argue that philosophers do and should rely on a distinctive type of pragmatic and meta-representational reasoning – a form of rationalizing self-interpretation – in answering ‘what is x?’ questions. We start by placing our methodological discussion within a broader theoretical framework. We posit a necessary connection between epistemic methodology and metasemantics. In our view, the correct semantic assignment for a representation must be justifiable from the epistemic perspective of the subject herself, given suitable empirical information and cognitive powers. So the upshot of your own ideal, fully informed epistemic methods will determine the correct answers to ‘what is x?’ questions. The bulk of the paper is devoted to articulating and defending our rationalizing self-interpretation account of philosophical methodology. By working through a specific example, we seek to isolate the relevant inputs into deliberation and the methods for adjudicating between competing answers to a ‘what is x?’ question. We suggest that the self-interpretive methods we isolate generalize across the board as a way of identifying the real nature of familiar topics. We also explain how these methods undercut the case for a priori conceptual analysis.

Can mere conceptual competence explain the apriori? Many contemporary theorists believe that conceptual competence grounds apriori conceptual truths – and that this fact helps explain how thinkers can have apriori justification for accepting these truths and reasoning in accord with them. In this chapter, I'll examine several contemporary defenses of the conceptual approach to apriority in order to clarify their core commitments about the nature of concepts. The common thread, I'll argue, is a picture of concepts that combines a conceptual role model of conceptual competence with a rationalizing approach to the determination of semantic contents. My first aim is to show how this model of concepts has the potential to ground apriori truth and justification. My second aim is to show how the model involves problematic commitments about concepts, which can be avoided on an alternative relational model of concepts.

Twenty years ago, Hilary Putnam first proclaimed that meaning ain't in the head. Since then, semantic externalism---the thesis that a subject's intrinsic states, described independently of her physical and social environment, do not fully determine the semantic properties of her words or concepts---has become the new philosophical orthodoxy. Despite this popularity, I believe the underlying motivations for semantic externalism and its philosophical significance have been widely misunderstood. Semantic externalism has been accepted on the basis of a series of powerful thought experiments which elicit our everyday intuitions about how to interpret a subject's thoughts and words. However, these thought experiments alone don't really establish that internalist accounts of reference are unacceptable---for internalists can offer a debunking pragmatic explanation for why we have the interpretive intuitions we do. Why, then, should we accept semantic externalism? ;I argue that the real rationale for semantic externalism is to be found in certain very basic intuitions about our fallibility and the efficacy of rational inquiry. Common sense tells us one needn't know exactly what it takes to count as an instance of gold in order to refer to it. Moreover, we think one can discover the defining characteristics of gold through careful empirical inquiry. Semantic externalism can vindicate these epistemic convictions, internalism cannot. These basic intuitions about rational inquiry, I contend, explain the appeal of Putnam's externalism about natural kind terms. ;I then consider whether semantic externalism is compatible with our apriori access to how the reference of our concepts is fixed. This compatiblist view is attractive since it provides a clear epistemic account of how rational inquiry into the nature of familiar objects and properties is possible. However, I argue that this position cannot ultimately be reconciled with the epistemic intuitions which I take to motivate semantic externalism in the first place. ;Finally, I consider Tyler Burge's argument for the external determination of thought content. Burge backs up his initial appeal to thought experiments with a principle of methodological conservatism. I argue that this strategy is flawed: Burge must give a positive argument in favor of his position

Traditional normative realists are committed to the idea that different individuals manage to pick out on the very same property with terms like ‘morally right’, despite variations in their understanding and use of the term. How is this possible? In this chapter, we sketch a metasemantic account that promises to vindicate traditional normative realism within a broadly rationalist framework. We will first introduce a metasemantic principle that ties reference determination to what is justifiable from the perspective of the conceptually competent subject. This type of metasemantic approach has been andstill is the most influential general model of reference determination. We explain how this metasemantic principle can help vindicate something close to the traditional rationalist claim that normative truths can be known a priori. We will then show how an anti-individualist version of this principle can handle the problem of radical disagreement among competent speakers. Finally, we explain how the principle can help to vindicate the traditional rationalist thesis that moral requirements entail valid reasons for action.