ABSTRACT
This paper explores some characteristic distinctions in Brian Loar’s work between certain externalist theses about reference and truth conditions on the one hand, and on the other hand certain internalist theses about meaning and content. In §1, I will discuss some motivations for externalism about reference; §2 is dedicated to some grounds for internalism about meaning. In §3, I turn to Loar’s distinctions between “socially deferential” concepts and various others which lack that feature (such as “recognitional concepts” (1990, 1991), “subjective concepts” (1994, 1995), or “narrow concepts” (2003)). Finally, in §4 I summarize how these distinctions afford an insightful synthesis of the considerations raised in §§1–2, allowing us to “introduce a social element into determining reference and fixing belief contents, without implying that all meaning and content are socially constituted” (Loar 2006, p. 88).
