Han Feizi’s 韓非子 thought, I argue, contains a political theory that justifies principled, law-governed government. A key element of his theory is a solution to the problem of rectifying names. He recognized that the same word can have varying criteria of application depending on the purpose of the practice that requires a criterion. Some criteria for a practice are good and some bad. A wise ruler knows which criteria are good and appropriate to ruling. His view is illuminated by considering (...) the phenomenon of paradiastole and a contemporary view about the relationship between meaning and criteria of application. (shrink)

Es una opinion muy extendida la de mantener que la "teoria representativa del lenguaje ("picture theory of language"; "trl" en adelante), cuya presentacion mas fuerte la hizo wittgenstein en el "tractatus logico-philosophicus", no sobrevivio al ataque que el mismo le hizo en sus "investigaciones filosoficas" y al que le hicieron los filosofos del "lenguaje ordinario" de oxford. en este ensayo sostengo que la "trl" sobrevive, de hecho, en oxford, mostrando que tanto j l austin como p f strawson aceptan la (...) que llamare "la teoria del lenguaje de la correspondencia" ("tlc"), que consta de las siguientes cuatro proposiciones: (c1) el lenguaje es una cosa, el mundo es otra. (c2) cuando menos algunos de los elementos del lenguaje estan correlacionados con algunos objetos en el mundo. (c3) la estructura basica del lenguaje debe ser similar a la estructura basica del mundo. (c4) la relacion entre palabras y mundo es convencional. estas proposiciones son, o bien las mismas o bien tan solo ligeramente mas debiles que cuatro proposiciones que caracterizan la trl. (shrink)

Russell said that the measure of a theory is its ability to solve puzzles. i show that frege's theory of sense and denotation is the equal of russell's theory of definite descriptions for solving the latter's three puzzles of denoting. i then show that their theories have some important features in common, which are key to solving two of the puzzles. the most important of these features is that each theory denies that the meaning of a description is its denotation.