Abstract
In an attempt to find some new ways of tackling old problems about
meaning, I explore some possible models in which meaning may be
conceptually situated. I take a close look at a traditional realist conception
of meaning and give some reasons as to why we may have
more room to move within this than is immediately apparent. Alternative
frameworks are explored along the way.
The approach of thus situating meaning is an ontological one, but it is
also an epistemological, as well as a hermeneutical one; in that the
models put forward illuminate central issues and offer potential solutions
to outstanding puzzles ranging across (at least) all of these
broad realms of enquiry. Such solutions give a set of initial conceptualizations
of the potential role meaning can play across broader
frameworks of enquiry. As such they offer fresh inroads into otherwise
deadlocked debates over the nature and place of meaning across
philosophical enquiry in general.