"Meaning Naturalism, Meaning Irrealism, and the Work of Language"
Abstract
I defend the hypothesis that the producers and consumers of meanings
tend to use, and should use, the simplest procedures to produce and
recognize meaningful utterances. This should be a basic principle of
any naturalist theory of meaning, which must begin with the
recognition that the production and understanding of meanings is work.
One measure of such work is the minimal amount of space resources that
must go into storing a procedure to produce or recognize a meaningful
utterance. This cost has an objective measure, called Kolmogorov
Complexity. I illustrate the use of this measure by showing how it
offers a straight solution to one of the most influential arguments
for meaning irrealism: the skeptical challenge posed by Kripke
Synthese, 154 (2): 231-257.