Not what I thought was coming. Must have misunderstood. Probably. Did his work not encompass norms, and so on? Is that what is meant by a theory of reference? Normativity and reference, while not mutually exclisive, do not seem inclusive, contrariwise. In any case, I will read the book if time and opportunity permit.

I read Meaning Diminished (MD) and will try, as well, to get this one done in time to feedback thoughtfully. Not sure I will get there. The world is starting again in ways that dictate my time whether I refer to it or not.

If I read MD correctly Ken did not hold much hope for determining metaphysics from semantics. This fits well with the recent shows on the Vienna Circle, the diminishing returns of logical empiricism and Montaigne. What do I know is transmuted to the world. Languages are inherently and comparatively different in action and interest in Ken's perspective. This minimal view doesn’t go far enough in my understanding, but I don’t have to measure too much distance. Referring to the World is Ken’s biased measure if the intro and first chapter are on target. Let me read it and see if there is anything more to say. I’m just sorry not to hear him defend it in role of guest between Josh and Ray.

There is a world. There is a brain. Just what the two can say or do to the other is a bit up for grabs. I hope this book will shed some light. Ken had his moments in PT productions where he drew the lines between the arguments. It’s nice to have these two final works where he is in the hot seat.

The positive ontological assertion with regards to brains and the world is non-controversial. That the relationship between them is "up for grabs", however, appears much less certain. If the world includes brains, then certainly brains constitute parts of the world, which latter is in turn governed by laws of nature discoverable in the context of the quantitative sciences. A similar issue came up In 1795 when the German anatomist Samuel T. Soemmerring claimed he had discovered a "sensorium commune," said to be a location in the human brain where all sensations flowed together to produce conscious experience. This was where the nerves seemed to concentrate in certain brain cavities, or "ventricles", and terminate in a liquid that filled the cavities, which the anatomist called "brain water" and today is called cerebrospinal fluid. He claimed to have found the location of the soul in the body, upon which the mind and all conscious self-identity depends. The philosopher Kant, quite famous by that time, wrote to Soemmerring that, while admiring his work, he could not accept that he had done what he had claimed, since the soul or mind, he pointed out, can perceive itself only through the inner sense of the combination of all the outer sensations; and to stipulate a place in space for it would therefore be to attempt to make itself an external object of its own sensation, in effect, to "posit itself outside of itself," which would be a contradiction. Could a similar objection be made here, with respect to what might be called a false dichotomy between brains and the world; in contrast to a genuine dichotomy between minds and brains, where the latter are described as constituent parts of the world?

So, please allow me to re-state my inquiry. More directly: Is referring to the world what Ken Taylor had in mind? It may be construed as such, I suppose. But that is mere supposition on my part. What do you take normativity to be? Please help me here. Or, review your understanding of what Professor Taylor intended.

Haven't heard the show yet, as it is to be broadcast where I am on the radio at a later date. Ken's work can not be sufficiently estimated and its appreciation can only be in the earliest of stages. As I recall Professor Taylor was fond of the reference of the term "category mistake", where a predicate in one category, say grammar, for instance, is applied to a subject in another, say, mathematics: "geometry is algebra in the genitive case", for example; generating a nonsensical statement which nevertheless sounds initially intelligible. There's a story about a man whose dog never barked save as a response to a single stimulus. Every time the man jingled his keys, the dog let out a bark. Because he'd lived for years with this dog which had barked at nothing else, he arrived at the conclusion, which became a habitual belief, that the jingling of the keys and the dog's bark were in fact identical. By consistent correlation, the man made the category mistake of inferring quantitative identity. How is the denial of the mind's independence from the brain not committing the same error in any inference of their identity with the other?