When Syntax Is Asked to Bear Too Much: The Frege–Geach Problem and the Limits of Linguistic Invariance
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866901859796516864 |
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| author | Willis, Bry |
| author_facet | Willis, Bry |
| contents | <p>The Frege–Geach problem is often taken to demonstrate a fundamental incompatibility between expressivist accounts of moral language and logical embedding. According to the standard objection, if moral judgments do not express truth-apt propositions, then they cannot figure coherently in conditionals, negations, or other embedded contexts. Since ordinary moral discourse routinely embeds, expressivism appears unable to account for the inferential roles moral statements play.</p> <p>This paper offers a different diagnosis. Rather than locating the difficulty in moral language, it argues that the persistence of the Frege–Geach problem reflects misplaced expectations about what natural language syntax can support. Formal logic was developed precisely to supplement the limitations of ordinary language by enforcing semantic invariance under transformation. Treating this engineered invariance as a universal criterion of semantic adequacy reverses that historical lesson.</p> <p>Drawing on the Language Insufficiency Hypothesis, the paper locates moral predicates within a broader class of <strong>recruitable expressions</strong>: expressions whose full evaluative load is attenuated under embedding whilst a thinner <strong>structural-inferential skeleton</strong> remains available for reasoning. The standard of <strong>practical inferential adequacy</strong> replaces the demand for semantic identity: what ordinary reasoning requires is not unrestricted invariance but inferential sufficiency.</p> <p>This pattern is not peculiar to moral language. Thick evaluative terms, epistemic contestables, and institutional vocabulary exhibit analogous redistribution under embedding. Frege–Geach is therefore dissolved as a demand for unrestricted semantic invariance and resolved insofar as the behaviour it identifies is explained, predicted, and shown to be general.</p> <p><strong>Revision note for v1.1:</strong> This version makes limited clarificatory revisions, including moderating some terminology, sharpening the account of structural-inferential role, and narrowing the scope of certain claims. No substantive expansion of the paper’s central argument has been made.</p> <p><strong>Revision note for v1.2:</strong> This version adds a new Section 4, “A Positive Account of Embedded Moral Predicates”, introducing the category of recruitable expressions, the standard of practical inferential adequacy, and non-moral parallels demonstrating the generality of the redistribution pattern. The conclusion has been revised accordingly, and section numbering has been updated.</p> |
| format | Recurso digital |
| id | zenodo_https___doi_org_10_5281_zenodo_19412313 |
| institution | Zenodo |
| language | eng |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| publisher | Zenodo |
| record_format | zenodo |
| spellingShingle | When Syntax Is Asked to Bear Too Much: The Frege–Geach Problem and the Limits of Linguistic Invariance Willis, Bry Frege–Geach problem expressivism moral language compositionality Philosophy of language metaethics Language Insufficiency Hypothesis Philosophy Ethics semantic invariance logical embedding inferential role semantics contextualism semantic fracture functional distribution of meaning Contestables and Fluids limits of compositionality analytic philosophy normativity meaning and use <p>The Frege–Geach problem is often taken to demonstrate a fundamental incompatibility between expressivist accounts of moral language and logical embedding. According to the standard objection, if moral judgments do not express truth-apt propositions, then they cannot figure coherently in conditionals, negations, or other embedded contexts. Since ordinary moral discourse routinely embeds, expressivism appears unable to account for the inferential roles moral statements play.</p> <p>This paper offers a different diagnosis. Rather than locating the difficulty in moral language, it argues that the persistence of the Frege–Geach problem reflects misplaced expectations about what natural language syntax can support. Formal logic was developed precisely to supplement the limitations of ordinary language by enforcing semantic invariance under transformation. Treating this engineered invariance as a universal criterion of semantic adequacy reverses that historical lesson.</p> <p>Drawing on the Language Insufficiency Hypothesis, the paper locates moral predicates within a broader class of <strong>recruitable expressions</strong>: expressions whose full evaluative load is attenuated under embedding whilst a thinner <strong>structural-inferential skeleton</strong> remains available for reasoning. The standard of <strong>practical inferential adequacy</strong> replaces the demand for semantic identity: what ordinary reasoning requires is not unrestricted invariance but inferential sufficiency.</p> <p>This pattern is not peculiar to moral language. Thick evaluative terms, epistemic contestables, and institutional vocabulary exhibit analogous redistribution under embedding. Frege–Geach is therefore dissolved as a demand for unrestricted semantic invariance and resolved insofar as the behaviour it identifies is explained, predicted, and shown to be general.</p> <p><strong>Revision note for v1.1:</strong> This version makes limited clarificatory revisions, including moderating some terminology, sharpening the account of structural-inferential role, and narrowing the scope of certain claims. No substantive expansion of the paper’s central argument has been made.</p> <p><strong>Revision note for v1.2:</strong> This version adds a new Section 4, “A Positive Account of Embedded Moral Predicates”, introducing the category of recruitable expressions, the standard of practical inferential adequacy, and non-moral parallels demonstrating the generality of the redistribution pattern. The conclusion has been revised accordingly, and section numbering has been updated.</p> |
| title | When Syntax Is Asked to Bear Too Much: The Frege–Geach Problem and the Limits of Linguistic Invariance |
| topic | Frege–Geach problem expressivism moral language compositionality Philosophy of language metaethics Language Insufficiency Hypothesis Philosophy Ethics semantic invariance logical embedding inferential role semantics contextualism semantic fracture functional distribution of meaning Contestables and Fluids limits of compositionality analytic philosophy normativity meaning and use |
| url | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19412313 |