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The stability problem after holism: toward a contextualist metasemantics for human and artificial interpretation
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DOI：10.1007/s00146-026-03243-y.png)
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Abstract
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The problem of semantic stability has long been treated as an internal difficulty for semantic holism. This paper argues that the problem has been systematically misframed rather than properly resolved. Instability does not arise from the holistic relation between meaning and belief as such, but from a metasemantic underarticulation of the role of contextual constraint in both human and technologically mediated interpretation. While Henry Jackman’s moderate holism mitigates traditional indeterminacy through a many-to-one mapping between beliefs and meanings, it leaves unexplained how the range of admissible interpretations is effectively constrained across heterogeneous communicative settings. In the present framework, context is understood not merely as a pragmatic background, but as a structured set of inferential, interactional, and institutionally reinforced constraints that delimit which interpretative trajectories remain interpretatively sustainable within a given environment. This broader notion of context differs from narrowly pragmatic forms of contextualism while remaining compatible with inferential and interactional approaches developed in contemporary philosophy of language (cf. Stalnaker 1999; Recanati 2004). On this view, semantic stability emerges from constrained interpretative selection governed by contextual pressures operating across heterogeneous communicative environments. The term “metasemantic” is used here not only in the classical sense of determining semantic facts, but more specifically to designate higher-order constraints governing interpretative admissibility across heterogeneous communicative environments. Building on Donald Davidson’s later reflections on passing theories, the paper develops a form of contextualist holism in which context functions as a metasemantic regulator of interpretative space. Through analyses of translation, intralinguistic variation, and AI-mediated interpretation, the article shows that stability can persist under conditions of deep epistemic heterogeneity when contextual regulation remains sufficiently operative. Particular attention is given to AI-mediated interpretation, where systems frequently generate contextually successful interpretations without relying on shared belief structures or stable human conceptual backgrounds. This makes artificial systems especially revealing cases for understanding how semantic coordination can emerge through contextual regulation rather than through epistemic convergence. By reframing stability as a problem of constrained interpretative selection rather than belief persistence, contextualist holism provides a more explicit and operational account of how semantic variability and stability coexist.
Keywords:
Semantic holism
Metasemantics
Contextualism
Semantic stability
Interpretation
Artificial intelligence
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