Abstract
One of the tasks of logic is the development of inferential calculi, which would capture consequence as well as possible; and the common view is that Gödel proved that this could be never achieved perfectly, that 'semantics is more than syntax'. On the other hand, it is we, users of language, thanks to whom the statements have their meanings, without which they could not entail one another.
And there are reasons to believe that the meanings of statements are the matter of inferential rules which govern the use of our words and sentences. This would mean that there is a sense in which 'semantics is not more than syntax' – that ever meanings and consequence are somehow established by inferential rules.
Hence in this paper I explore the sense in which the semantics of logical calculi can be seen as wholly instituted by their inferential structures. The conclusion is that that we can construe the common creatures of formal semantics, such as intensions or updates, as ‘encapsulated inferential roles’.