Apriority and Semantic Content

Abstract

The author argues that apriority/aposteriority of identities of linguistic expressions is not to be regarded as a factor related to the semantic content of those expressions. The author regards the Principle of Leibniz as a fundamental semantic criterion for the sameness of semantic content of linguistic expressions and argues that theories which treat apriority/aposteriority as semantically relevant (i.e. as relevant for the truth conditions of sentences) fail to comply with the this Principle. Consequently, they fail to cope satisfactorily with the problem of interchangeability of expressions with the same meaning. As examples of such unsatisfactory theories the author considers the conceptions of Gottlob Frege and David Chalmers and discuss those aspects of their theories which he views as shortcomings.