Dr. Georgalis Review Response

Author’s response to a review by Joe Y.F. Lau of Mind, Language, and Subjectivity: Minimal Content and the Theory of Thought, Routledge, 2015.

In summarizing the first third of the book Joe Lau fails to even mention a central pillar of it: I introduce a new theory of thought. Nowhere in Lau’s review is any reference made to this new theory. This is a stunning omission, as much of what I subsequently argue for appeals to it. We shall see that some of his criticisms of later parts misfire because of this omission.
In the same summary paragraph he says, “In the last two chapters, [1] it is argued that the subjective determinacy of minimal content offers a straight solution to the Kripkenstein challenge of grounding meaning, [2] while also providing a rebuttal to Quine’s indeterminacy of meaning argument.” [1] is simply mistaken and [2] is misleading and a serious distortion of what I argued regarding Quine’s thesis. First, minimal content plays no role at all in my straight solution to the Kripkenstein problem. Even a superficial reading of section 11.2, where my straight solution occurs, makes this clear. I conclude that section by saying, “I have alleged to uncover a non-mental objective fact, indeed a behavioral fact … [in the agent’s] past history that would provide a determinate answer as to which function was intended [by him]” 204. There is no way that minimal content can be construed as a behavioral fact. (See also pp, 199, 200, and 203)The term ‘minimal content’ occurs only at the beginning and end of chapter 11, by way of preview as to what is to come to solve another, deeper skeptical problem than the one posed by Kripkenstein, which is taken up in chapter 12.
As to [2], what I in fact did in chapter 12 is argue that Quine’s theses of indeterminacy of translation and the inscrutability of reference are either false or trivial, and I argue this from within Quinean constraints. Minimal content itself plays no role in the latter. I further argue that in spite of this, Quine’s theses-when augmented with minimal content-has significant philosophical value but at the cost of allowing some strictly first-person concept. In particular, there is no first-person indeterminacy, though third-person indeterminacy remains. This suffices for determinate meaning. To be clear, minimal content does not determine meaning, but it does determine which meaning is the fact of the matter.
Later in his review, Lau again takes up my discussion of the Kripkenstein argument and says, Georgalis attacks this position by claiming that if we take into account the agent’s learning history, it makes no sense to say that by “plus” she meant some bizarre function, because it would have required her to learn the rule in the first place. But a deviant rule would have had to be formulated syntactically differently, and this is an objective fact that can be easily be ascertained. Lau accuses me here of begging the question “because the whole point of the skeptic is that the same instruction could have been understood differently”. Certainly, that is the skeptic’s point, but the question before us is whether the skeptic is correct in making it. I challenged this in part by appealing to the fact that the syntax of each instruction is determinate, objective, and different in the two cases. Lau maintains that the skeptic’s point stands even granting this. Well, neither Lau nor the skeptic address whether the specific syntax of the rule for addition can be interpreted as a rule for quaddition–I argued it can’t. (199-202, 2015) In fact what the skeptic relies on is simply the claim that all that is available is a finite number of cases and any appeal to a rule will ultimate rest on a finite number of cases. (197-198, 203, 2015) If there were nothing more to appeal to than that, the skeptic would be right. I argued that more evidence is available; we are not restricted to just an induction on a finite number cases. Repeating the skeptic’s general claim that any rule could be interpreted differently because ultimately which rule is used is simply based on a finite number cases, cases compatible with a different rule, does not address my argument to the contrary. It simply begs the question against it. In this portion of his review, Lau also repeats his false claim that I hold that my concept of minimal content offers a straight solution to the skeptical problem.
Lau is quick with his dismissal of my account of empty names. He relies on a grossly simplified and distorted account of my theory of proper names. My theory is an extension of Searle’s. The extension is necessitated by my criticism of Searle’s claim that while intentional content is not part of the definition of a proper name it “can figure as part of the propositional content of a statement made by a speaker using that name’. (1983, 256, quoted in my 2015, 173) I argue that Searle does not have the resources to make sense of this claim, but I show how with my extension of Searle’s theory I can save the spirit of Searle’s claim. (172-176, 2015) My extended theory explains how the conventional presuppositions associated with a name do not enter into the semantic content of a sentence yet they still play a central role in assessing the truth value of a sentence, including those in which an empty name occurs. This aspect is central to my account of empty names, but Lau’s criticism entirely ignores it.
Lau raises many questions and suggests potential difficulties regarding my central concept of minimal content, some of which I addressed in chapter 2 but which, again, he ignores. It is imperative, however, that I correct one serious misunderstanding that leads Lau to attribute to me a feature of minimal content which I decidedly reject. Lao says:

Georgalis rejects the view that meaning and understanding are associated with or constituted by distinctive qualitative experiences, unlike some philosophers who defend the idea of “phenomenal intentionality”. … Georgalis needs to provide an explanation of how we can know from introspection [the first-person perspective] that minimal content is determinate, if in fact we lack direct conscious access to it.

I am incredulous that any one reading my book could conclude that I hold that we do not have direct conscious access to minimal content. While I have argued against the idea of phenomenal intentionality, when this is construed as implying that intentionality has essentially qualitative character [my 2003 and 2006], I have insisted, over and over, and argued for our direct conscious access to minimal content (in my earlier 2006 and in chapter 1 of the reviewed 2015). Perhaps Lau holds that consciousness is to be identified with qualitative experience. This would explain his misunderstanding of my position and the resulting false conclusion he draws. My arguments against phenomenal intentionality include a diagnosis as to why so many have mistakenly assumed the identification of conscious experience with qualitative experience. Apparently it is Lau’s acceptance of this identification that leads him to conclude that I hold that we do not have direct conscious access to minimal content, as I reject the idea that it or, more generally, intentionality has any qualitative nature. Even so, it is hard to comprehend how anyone could read what I have written on minimal content and think that I deny direct conscious access to it. On my view direct conscious access to minimal content is central and fundamental to this concept.
I could go on, but what’s the point?