A step toward dynamic externalism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ef.361718Keywords:
dynamic externalism, metasemantics, conceptual engineering, cognitive value, meaning change, externalismAbstract
Dynamic externalism offers a promising framework for explaining meaning change. However, despite references to it in foundational works and Cappelen’s incorporation of it into conceptual engineering, its theoretical foundations remain largely unexplored. This paper clarifies the relationship between Cappelen's externalist conceptual engineering and dynamic externalism, distinguishing their operational and meta-level structures. Through a critical analysis of Woodfield and Burge, this paper develops an expert-centric approach to dynamic externalism that integrates the core principles of future externalism while proposing a modified version with an inverted direction of fit. The approach employs this expert-centric framework to provide explanatory resources for semantic change in specialized domains. The resulting account emphasizes the interplay between synchronic and diachronic relations, identifies mechanisms driving semantic evolution, and offers a systematic framework for understanding how technical terminology develops within expert communities.
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