Status Updates From Semantic Externalism (New P...

McGinn argues for truth-condition-independent content via the possibility of misrepresentation: if I represent o as F, when o is not F, then there has to be a representation in my head with the content that o is F, that is not about some other o’ that is (actually) F, because that’s a) absurd and b) ad hoc.

McGinn 1989: world-dependent concepts concern how things appear to be, environment-dependent ones, how they are as opposed to how they appear to be. Dual view of content: one content for truth conditions, one for cognitive significance.

Semantic externalism: referentialist semantics, causal-historical metasemantics