Mental arthritis - The metalinguistic formulation of beliefs in Tyler Burge's experiment on thought

The thought experiment offered by Tyler Burge in Individualism and the Ment al is intended to show that the propositional content of our mental states is at least in part individuated by the social environment. But if we give a metalinguistic reformulation of his though experiment, it no longer count s as relevant for the issue of propositional content. Keith Donnellan offer ed a metalinguistic reformulation of the thought experiment, but his soluti on fails to adequately account for the linguistic phenomena Burge draws our attention on. However, the metalinguistic reformulation may be presented i n a different version from that offered by Donnellan, in such a way that it accomodates the relevant linguistic phenomena. This version seems to resis t to the objections that have been raised by Burge himself and by Pierre Ja cob. Therefore, there is reason to doubt that Burge's thought experiment su pports his conclusion about propositional content.