316 Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic

Katz 's new clothes Katz's new view about language and linguistics comes in two parts: platonism and nonreductionism. Those of us who have been skeptical about the empirical basis for claims that have arisen from within linguistics will welcome Katz's defection to our side in respect of platonism, but we will be dismayed by his refusal to adopt the rest of our methodology concerning reductionism, and his continuing espousal of (what he has called) "Semantic Theory" (henceforth ST). It is these overall positions I wish to discuss; but along the way I shall take the liberty of making disparaging remarks about various of the specific proposals Katz puts forward within ST, with an eye to showing that the program can't be done in the manner he favors. Katz's recent book [11] outlines what he takes platonism in linguistics to be, and vigorously argues against (what he calls) conceptualism in linguistics. His article in the present volume [12] follows this up with his reasons for rejecting (what he calls) reductionism in semantics, and gives his vision of the enterprise of semantic theory. "Conceptualism" as used in [11] is actually a cover term for a variety of theories which in one way or another have the common feature that a language is viewed as a social phenomenon, or as a psychological phenomenon, or as a cultural phenomenon, or as a biological phenomenon, or in some way depends upon or requires users of the language for its existence. In this way, conceptualism is contrasted with two other views: those that take a language to be the set of utterances which have heretofore been produced ([11] "nominalism") and those that take a language to be a timeless, unchangeable objective structure ("platonism"). Katz identifies nominalism with "the discredited doctrine of structuralist linguistics that *Thanks to Bernard Linsky and John Heintz for discussion. Thanks also to the editors of NDJFL for their patience.