Volume 13, Issue 3, 2013
Michael Devitt
Pages 463-476
Unresponsive Bach
My paper, “Good and Bad Bach”, describes Bach’s position on the semantics-pragmatics issue and then makes four objections. The first objection is to Bach’s austere notion of what-is-said. The other three are to Bach’s conservative methodology for deciding what is “semantic”. I object to his “Modified Occam’s Razor”; to his “correspondence” principle that I describe as “the tyranny of syntax”; and to his application of his notion of standardization. Bach’s “Reply to Michael Devitt on Meaning and Reference” is very disappointing. He fails even to mention my objections to his positions on what-is-said and standardization. And he makes hardly any serious attempt to address my objections to his Modified Occam’s Razor and the tyranny of syntax. All my objections still stand.