De-idealizing social externalism

Abstract

Abstract This chapter motivates and develops a de-idealization of social externalism. As developed by Tyler Burge, social externalism takes it that a term’s meaning and extension are determined by “dialectics” in which a language community determines how best to articulate a term’s appropriate applications (its extension) and its appropriate explication (its conventional meaning). Burge assumes that these dialectics won’t be influenced by social power; this chapter argues that they are systematically influenced by oppression. The chapter makes the case that oppression systematically influences which speakers defer to which others and which articulations are dismissed or taken seriously. Because Burge’s theory ignores the systematic influences of oppression, it is systematically inaccurate in its accounts of meanings, extensions, and the processes that determine them. The chapter outlines a de-idealized version of the theory that appeals to scholarship on oppression to correct for the relevant inaccuracies.