Can minimalism about truth embrace polysemy?

Synthese 195 (3):955-985 (2018)
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Abstract

Paul Horwich is aware of the fact that his theory as stated in his works is directly applicable only to a language in which a word, understood as a syntactic type, is connected with exactly one literal meaning. Yet he claims that the theory is expandable to include homonymy and indexicality and thus may be considered as applicable to natural language. My concern in this paper is with yet another kind of ambiguity—systematic polysemy—that assigns multiple meanings to one linguistic type. I want to combine the characteristics of systematic polysemy with the Kaplanian insight that meanings of expressions may be defined by semantic rules which assign content in context and to ask the question if minimalism about truth and meaning is compatible with such rule-based systematic polysemy. I will first explain why the expressions that exhibit rule-based systematic polysemy are difficult to combine with a truth theory that is based on a use theory of meaning before proceeding to argue that indexicals and proper names are such expressions.

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Katarzyna Kijania-Placek
Jagiellonian University

Citations of this work

Descriptive Indexicals, Deferred Reference, and Anaphora.Katarzyna Kijania-Placek - 2020 - Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric 62 (1):25-52.
Names of places.Katarzyna Kijania-Placek - 2021 - Semiotica 2021 (240):187-210.
Indexicals and Names in Proverbs.Katarzyna Kijania-Placek - 2016 - Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric 46 (1):59-78.

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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.
Ethics without principles.Jonathan Dancy - 2004 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Truth.Paul Horwich - 1990 - Oxford, GB: Clarendon Press. Edited by Frank Jackson & Michael Smith.
Naming and Necessity.S. Kripke - 1972 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 45 (4):665-666.

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