Ali Saboohi

It has recently been claimed that there is a “new hard problem” for physicalism. The new hard problem, according to Goff, is based on “semantic phenomenology”, the view that conscious perceptual experience represents linguistic expressions as having determinate meanings. Goff argues that Kripke’s rule-following argument demonstrates that it is particularly difficult for a physicalist to account for semantic phenomenology. In this paper, we argue that Goff’s discussion of semantic phenomenology fails to uncover a “new” hard problem for physicalism and there is a hard problem—which Goff misses—facing philosophers who accept the reality of semantic phenomenology, but that this is as much a problem for non-reductionists about meaning as it is for physicalists. All we have been given is a familiar hard problem about rule-following, not a new hard problem about consciousness

According to the dispositional theory of meaning and content, what a speaker means by an expression is determined by her dispositions to use it. The literature contains two well-known objections against this theory: the problem of finitude and the problem of error. In his bookMeaning and Normativity, Allan Gibbard propounds a novel defence against these objections. In this paper, I argue that Gibbard’s suggestions fail to save the dispositional theory. Moreover, I argue that Gibbard’s deflationary view about facts prevents him from saying anything about the property of meaning that would hold any interest for a naturalist.Selon la théorie dispositionnelle du sens et du contenu, ce qu’un locuteur veut dire par une expression est déterminé par ses dispositions à l’utiliser. La littérature contient deux objections bien connues contre cette théorie: le problème de la finitude et le problème de l’erreur. Dans son livreMeaning and Normativity, Allan Gibbard propose une nouvelle défense de la théorie dispositionnelle du sens et du contenu. Dans cet article, je soutiens que les suggestions de Gibbard ne parviennent pas à sauver la théorie dispositionnelle. De plus, je soutiens que le point de vue déflationniste de Gibbard sur les faits l’empêche de dire quoi que ce soit à propos de la propriété du sens qui aurait un intérêt quelconque pour un naturaliste.