Is meaning cognized?

Mind and Language 38 (5):1276-1295 (2023)
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Abstract

In this article, I defend an account of linguistic comprehension on which meaning is not cognized, or on which we do not tacitly know our language's semantics. On this view, sentence comprehension is explained instead by our capacity to translate sentences into the language of thought. I explain how this view can explain our capacity to correctly interpret novel utterances, and then I defend it against several standing objections.

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10.1111/mila.12452

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David Balcarras
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Citations of this work

What Is It To Have A Language?David Balcarras - 2023 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 104 (4):837-866.
Functionalism and tacit knowledge of grammar.David Balcarras - 2023 - Philosophical Perspectives 37 (1):18-48.

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References found in this work

Demonstratives: An Essay on the Semantics, Logic, Metaphysics and Epistemology of Demonstratives and other Indexicals.David Kaplan - 1989 - In Joseph Almog, John Perry & Howard Wettstein (eds.), Themes From Kaplan. Oxford University Press. pp. 481-563.
Rules and representations.Noam Chomsky (ed.) - 1980 - New York: Columbia University Press.
The Modularity of Mind.Robert Cummins & Jerry Fodor - 1983 - Philosophical Review 94 (1):101.
Rules and representations.Noam Chomsky - 1980 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (1):1-15.
The Language of Thought.J. A. Fodor - 1978 - Critica 10 (28):140-143.

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