Semantic relationism is the view that there is a semantic relation between representations that is not determined by sameness or difference in their local or intrinsic content. Following Fine (Semantic relationism, Blackwell, Oxford, 2007), let us call this semantic relation coordination. One apparent challenge for semantic relationism is that, in cases in which there is only a single occurrence of a name, it seems unclear what representation the name is coordinated with. Fine (Philos Phenomenol Res 81(2):475–484, 2010) suggests a solution to this problem by introducing the notion of a “token individual.” Pinillos (in: Bianchi (ed) On reference, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 322–334, 2015) argues against Fine’s suggestion based on a case in which coordination is not transitive across speakers. In this paper, I argue that an example of the sort that Pinillos uses does not undermine Fine’s proposal. In particular, I argue for the following claims. First, I argue that Pinillos’s conclusion is too hasty, since alternative readings, on which inter-personal coordination is transitive, are available to semantic relationists. I present two such alternative readings. Second, and more importantly, I argue that there are reasons in favor of one of the two alternative readings. In doing so, I present an important difference between intra- and inter-personal coordination, which is often overlooked by semantic relationists.
