Externalism and Empirical Research Programs in Semantics

The paper considers (causal) semantic externalism as a potential basis for an empirical research program in semantics and claims that externalism has not and cannot deliver in this respect. Externalism claims that content, at least for certain classes of expressions or concepts, is, at least in part, determined or individuated by factors external to the individual, the latter usually being cashed out as causal relations to the environment; internalism, on the other hand, claims that content is fully determined by factors internal to the individual. Externalism is criticized in its diachronic and its synchronic variety, and it is concluded that, for the purposes of a feasible empirical research program in semantics, organism-environment relations should not be seen as constitutive of content, but only as potential props for eliciting content, which should be seen as a mental/neural structure. The problem behind all forms of externalism is diagnosed as a certain misapplication or abuse of what I have termed the interpretative scheme, the assumption of which seems to be a necessary precondition for doing semantic description