The individual empirical instance made by the predicting equation is not said to be empirical because the predicting equation is correct or accurate, but rather because the predicting equation makes an empirical claim, which may be falsified by the empirical test.
B. SEMANTICS
3.08 Semantical Dimension
Semantics refers to the meanings associated with syntactical symbols.
Semantics is the second of the four dimensions, and it includes the syntactical dimension. Language viewed in the semantical metalinguistic perspective is said to be “semantically interpreted syntax”, which is merely to say that the syntactical symbols have meanings associated with them.
3.09 Nominalist vs. Conceptualist Semantics
Both nominalism and conceptualism are represented in contemporary pragmatism. There are several variations of nominalism, but all contemporary nominalist philosophers advocate a two-level semantics, which in written language consists only of syntactical structures and the ontologies that are referenced by the structures, or as Quine says “word and object”. The two-level semantics is also called a referential theory of semantics, because it excludes any mid-level mental representations variously called ideas, meanings, significations, concepts or propositions. Therefore on the nominalist view language purporting to reference nonexistent fictional entities is semantically nonsignificant, which is to say literally meaningless.
On the alternative three-level view terms symbolize universal meanings, which in turn signify such aspects of extramental reality as attributes, and reference ontologies that include individual entities. When we are exposed to the extramental realities, they are distinguishable by the senses as perceived stimuli, which in turn are synthesized by the brain and registered in memory. The sense stimuli deliver information revealing similarities and differences in reality. The signified attributes are similarities found by perception, and the referenced entities manifesting the attributes are recognized by invariant continuities found in perceived change. The signification is always more or less vague, and the reference is therefore always more or less indeterminate or what Quine calls “inscrutable”. The three-level view is also called a conceptualist thesis of semantics.
The philosophy of nominalism was common among many positivists, although some like the logical positivist Carnap maintained a three-level semantics. In Carnap’s three-level semantics descriptive terms symbolize what he called “intensions”, which are concepts or meanings effectively viewed in simple supposition. The intensions in turn signify attributes and thereby reference in personal supposition what he called “extensions”, which are the individual entities identified by the signified attributes.
While the contemporary pragmatism emerged as a critique of neopositivism, some philosophers carried the positivists’ nominalism into contemporary pragmatism. Pragmatist philosophers such as Quine adopted nominalism. He rejected concepts, ideas, meanings, propositions and all other mentalistic views of knowledge due to the notational conventions of the Russellian predicate calculus, a logic that Quine liked to call “canonical”. However, in his book Word and Object (1960) Quine also uses a phrase “stimulus meaning”, which he defines as a disposition by a native speaker of a language to assent or dissent from a sentence in response to present stimuli. And he added that the stimulus is not just a singular event, but rather is a “universal”, which he called a “repeatable event form”.
Nominalism is by no means essential to or characteristic of contemporary pragmatism, and most contemporary pragmatists such as Hanson, Feyerabend and Kuhn, and most linguists except the behaviorists have opted for the three-level semantics, which is assumed herein. Also, computational philosophers of science such as Simon, Langley and Thagard, who advocate the cognitive-psychology interpretation of discovery systems instead of the linguistic-analysis interpretation, reject both nominalism and behaviorism. Behaviorism is positivism in the behavioral sciences.
Computational philosophers of science recognize the three-level semantics, and furthermore believe that they can model the mental level with computer systems. Thus in his book Mind: Introduction to Cognitive Science Thagard states that the central hypothesis of cognitive science is that the human mind has mental representations analogous to data structures and cognitive processes analogous to algorithms. Cognitive psychologists claim that their computer systems using data structures and algorithms applied to the data structures, can model both the mind’s concepts and its cognitive processes with the concepts.
3.10 Naturalistic vs. Artifactual Semantics
The artifactual thesis of the semantics of language is that the semantics of every descriptive term is determined by its linguistic context consisting of universally quantified statements believed to be true.
This means that ontology, semantics and belief mutually determined.
The contemporary pragmatist philosophy of science is distinguished by a post-positivist philosophy of language, which has replaced the traditional naturalistic thesis with the artifactual thesis of semantics. The naturalistic thesis affirms an absolutist semantics according to which the semantics of descriptive terms is acquired ostensively and is fully determined by perceived reality and the processes of perception.
Thus on the naturalistic view descriptive terms function effectively as names or labels, a view that Quine ridicules with his phrase “myth of the museum” and “gallery of ideas”. Then after the meanings for descriptive terms are acquired ostensively, the truth of statements constructed with the descriptive terms is ascertained empirically.
On the artifactual semantical thesis sense stimuli reveal mind-independent reality as semantically signified ontology. Sense stimuli are conceptualized as the semantics that is determined by the linguistic context consisting of a set of beliefs that by virtue of its belief status has a defining rôle for the semantics. When the beliefs function as test-design statements, they may occasion falsification of a theory.
The artifactual semantical thesis together with the ontological relativity thesis revolutionized philosophy of science by relativizing both semantics and ontology to belief, especially empirically warranted belief. The outcome of this new linguistic philosophy is that ontology, semantics and belief are all mutually determined and thus interdependent.
3.11 Romantic Semantics
On the romantic view the positivist semantics may be acceptable for the natural sciences, but it is deemed inadequate for understanding “human action” in the behavioral and sociocultural sciences. Human action considered by the romantic social sciences has subjective meaning for the members of a group or society, because it is purposeful and motivating for their social interactions. Therefore the semantics for these sciences explaining human action must include description of the culturally shared subjective meanings and motivations that the human actions have for the social-group members.
Romantics call the resulting subjective meaning “interpretative understanding”. The social member’s voluntary actions are controlled by this interpretative understanding, the views and values that are internalized and shared among the members of a social group by the so-called “mechanisms” of socialization and social control. This understanding is accessed by the social scientist in the process of his research. Furthermore if the researcher is a member in the society or group he is investigating, the validity of his empathetically based and vicariously imputed interpretative understanding is enhanced by his personal experiences as a participant in the group or society’s life.
3.12 Positivist Semantics
According
