Reference-Fixing and Presuppositions

TLDR: García-Carpintero et al. as mentioned in this paper make a distinction between semantic and non-semantic (pre or post) facts in referencefixing, presuppositionally understood.

Abstract: Kripke (1980, 55) distinguishes between using a description to fix the reference of an expression and using it to give its meaning. Kaplan and Stalnaker then articulated a distinction between semantics and metasemantics or foundational semantics, ascribing complementary roles to each. To the former category belong theories that assign meanings to their bearers, prominent among them linguistic expressions. To the latter belong theories that provide “the basis” for ascribing such meanings (Kaplan 1989b, 573– 574) or state “what the facts are” that give these meanings to their bearers (Stalnaker 1997, 535). This is a metaphysical undertaking on the grounding of meaningfacts, on what determines, fixes, or constitutes them. This distinction is sometimes used to consign to “mere” metasemantics descriptive material that, on both intuitive and theoretical grounds, plays a linguistically significant role in the determination of the referents of names and other expressions. In previous work (GarcíaCarpintero 2000, 2006a, 2018a), I appealed to referencefixing presuppositions with the aim of undermining this application of the distinction. Following Heim, I assumed that linguistic presuppositions are features of linguistic meaning (GarcíaCarpintero 2018b). Indeed, in the ensuing years the view that descriptive referencefixing presuppositions are part of linguistic meaning has become mainstream in semantics (cf., e.g., Heim 2008; Hunter 2013; Maier 2010, 2016). For such descriptive material— I have argued— Kripke’s distinction only tracks a contrast between “planes” or “levels” of content— “at issue” vs. “backgrounded”. However, it is not straightforward to understand how the relevant presuppositions that semanticists posit play the referencefixing role that Kripke was envisaging. In this contribution I want to confront this issue. I will approach it by assuming an account of the semantics vs. metasemantics divide that I have provided elsewhere (GarcíaCarpintero 2012, forthcominga). I advance there a version of the Austinian normative approach originally promoted by Alston (1964), Austin (1962) and Searle (1969). Although displaced for a while by the influence of Gricean and Chomskian views on the issue, it is becoming popular again among philosophers and linguists. On this view, meaningfacts about natural languages are determined by social norms and social conventions. In what follows, I will articulate in that framework the distinction between semantic and nonsemantic (“pre”or “post”semantic) facts in referencefixing, presuppositionally understood.