COGNITIVE SCIENCE

COGNITIVE SCIENCE 115
independent reason for doubting that this is so; cf. "equilateral triangle" and
"equiangular triangle", both of which designate equilateral triangles in all
possible worlds.
A fortiori, I have no argument (and no grudge) against the claim that
"water is H2O" is metaphysically necessary, since I take it that the claim is
to be defended, if at all, on grounds independent of lexicography or semantics.
2. "Yes, but: is meaning in the head?" Answer: yes and no. What
determines behavior (things like what I have called belief contents) is in the
head, but you cannot get truth conditions directly out of what determines
behavior. You need pragmatic principles to tell you such things as how to
evaluate bound variables. On the other hand:
a. Barring explicit indexicals,19 none of what is outside the head but
relevant to the determination of truth conditions has been shown
to be specific to particular lexical items; so it is unclear that Earth2
examples have any implications for lexicography, or for what you
have to learn to learn a word, or for what you have to know to know
a word, . . . etc.
b. Though what is in the head does not determine extension by itself, it
does determine extension in the context of appropriate, general
pragmatic principles. So, contrary to what Putnam often suggests,
there is no reason why the usual semantics of truth and reference
should not apply when we map from belief contents onto the world;
and, if there ever was any reason to trust evidence about extensions
in establishing inferences about intensions, these reasons survive
Putnam's examples. Only, when you make such inferences, keep the
pragmatic effects in mind.
c. We have not had to tell a story about "linguistic division of labor".
No doubt communication is a cooperative enterprise and if we insist
upon being unreasonable with one another, the thing is not going to
work. But nothing about the way that "water" and "water2" operate
suggests that their meanings have somehow been delivered into the
hands of the experts. From what I have seen of how experts use
language, I would be disinclined to trust them with it.
d. Individualism is all right if the notion of de dicto beliefs is all right;
and the notion of de dicto belief is all right if and only if we can
indeed explain the behavior of organisms by reference to the contents
of their propositional attitudes. That has been clear for a long time
and despite the present excitements, nothing much would seem to
have changed around here.
You can come back, Chicken Little; I expect that everything is going
to be all right.