Theories of meaning according to various schools of Indic philosophy.

The first aim of this paper is to remind the reader of a very original theory of meaning which in many aspects has not been surpassed by subsequent theories. The theory in question is Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz’s Directival Theory of Meaning. In the first section I present a version of this theory which, I trust, retains the gist of the original but loses its outdated language. In the second section I analyze some problematic consequences of (...) the directival theory and show how they can be addressed. The second aim of this paper is exploiting some of the similarities between the directival theory and later theories of meaning. In the third section I argue that using the directival theory as an interpretative tool enables us to create explications of some of the notoriously vague notions which contemporary theories of meaning employ. (shrink)

This book presents a new approach to semantics based on Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz’s Directival Theory of Meaning, which in effect reduces semantics of the analysed language to the combination of its syntax and pragmatics. The author argues that the DTM was forgotten because for many years philosophers didn’t have conceptual tools to appreciate its innovative nature, and that the theory was far ahead of its time. The book shows how a redesigned and modernised version of the DTM can (...) deliver a new solution to the problem of defining linguistic meaning and that the theory can be understood as a new type of functional role semantics. The defining feature of the DTM is that it presents meaning as a product of constraints on the usage of words. According to the DTM meaning is not use, but the avoidance of misuse. Readers will see how the DTM was shelved for reasons that we don’t find so dramatic anymore, and how it contains enough original ideas and solutions to warrant developing it into a full-blown contemporary account. It is shown how many of the underlying ideas of the theory have been embraced later by philosophers and treated simply as brute facts about natural languages or even as new philosophical discoveries. Philosophers of language and researchers with an interest in how languages and the mind work will find this book a fascinating read. (shrink)

This paper argues that Wittgenstein opposed theories of meaning, and did so for good reasons. Theories of meaning, in the sense discussed here, are attempts to explain what makes it the case that certain sounds, shapes, or movements are meaningful linguistic expressions. It is widely believed that Wittgenstein made fundamental contributions to this explanatory project. I argue, by contrast, that in both his early and later works, Wittgenstein endorsed a disjunctivist conception of language which rejects the assumption underlying (...) the question that such theories seek to answer—namely, the assumption that the notion of a meaningful linguistic expression admits of non-circular analysis. Moreover, I give two arguments in favor of the view I ascribe to Wittgenstein: one based on later Wittgenstein's discussion of meaning skepticism and one based on considerations concerning the identity of linguistic expressions. (shrink)

The verification theory of meaning aims to characterise what it is for a sentence to be meaningful and also what kind of abstract object the meaning of a sentence is. A brief outline is given by Rudolph Carnap, one of the theory's most prominent defenders: If we knew what it would be for a given sentence to be found true then we would know what its meaning is. [...] thus the meaning of a sentence (...) is in a certain sense identical with the way we determine its truth or falsehood; and a sentence has meaning only if such a determination is possible. [4: 420] In short, the verification theory of meaning claims that the meaning of a sentence is the method of its verification. (shrink)

According to Horwich’s use theory of meaning, the meaning of a word W is engendered by the underived acceptance of certain sentences containing W. Horwich applies this theory to provide an account of semantic stipulation: Semantic stipulation proceeds by deciding to accept sentences containing an as yet meaningless word W. Thereby one brings it about that W gets an underived acceptance property. Since a word’s meaning is constituted by its (basic) underived acceptance property, this decision (...) endows the word with a meaning. The use-theoretic account of semantic stipulation contrasts with the standard view that semantic stipulation proceeds by assigning the meaning (reference) to W that makes a certain set of sentences express true propositions. In this paper I will argue that the use-theoretic account does not work. I take Frege to have already made the crucial point: "a definition does not assert anything but lays down something ["etwas festsetzt"]” (Frege 1899, 36). A semantic stipulation for W cannot be the decision to accept a sentence containing W or be explained in terms of such an acceptance. Semantic stipulation constitutes a problem for Horwich's use theory of meaning, especially his basic notion of acceptance. (shrink)

This paper endeavors to delineate the salient features of the theory of meaning and to show how meaning converges with metaphysics. For the British classical linguistic philosophers, meaning concerns only autonomous propositions, which allegedly in isolation clarify thought and facilitate understanding of language. But for the American philosophers W. V. O. Quine and Donald Davidson, meaning is inextricably related to human life and its problems. According to them, our experiences are interrelated and cannot be separated (...) from one another. A statement cannot be meaningful in isolation; that is to say, it cannot have meaning without holistic connections and metaphysical presumptions. (shrink)

Glüer and Pagin (2003) have claimed that autistic speakers are a counterexample to HOT theories of meaning and communication. Through analysis of their argument and a re‐examination of the literature, I show that autistic speakers are not a counterexample to HOT theories, but, conversely, that such theories are necessary to account for their communicative peculiarities.

Meaning in philosophy, by K. Lehrer.--Meaning in linguistics, by A. Lehrer.--Theories of meaning, by W. Alston.--Of names, by J. S. Mill.--Of words, by J. Locke.--Of language, by G. Berkeley.--Signs and behavior situations, by C. Morris.--Meaning and verification, by M. Schlick.--Meaning and use, by R. Wells.--The meaning of a word, by J. Austin.--Meaning and speech acts, by J. R. Searle.--Meaning and linguistic analysis, by C. C. Fries.--The semantic compound of a linguistic description, by (...) J. J. Katz.--Componential analysis and universal semantics, by J. Lyons.--Bibliographical essay (p. 213-216). (shrink)

This chapter highlights that what is today perhaps most commonly called a “theory of meaning” (i.e., one where there is a robust sense of “theory” not exemplified in Wittgenstein's work) will in most cases be “pure” in Rorty's sense (i.e., it will have no direct epistemological concerns) and can (in Dummett's sense) only be a modest one, since it does not explain what “being in command of a concept” consists in. It typically treats a logical system of (...) the kind developed by Frege as a point of comparison to shed light on some aspects of natural languages. Aspects of language that might be brought into focus by such a comparison are the “calculus” side of language (the side to which our “algebraic understanding” applies). (shrink)

Donald Dvaidson has claimed that a theory of meaning identifies the logical constants of the object language by treating them in the phrasal axioms of the theory, and that the theory entails a relation of logical consequence among the sentences of the object language. Section 1 offers a preliminary investigation of these claims. In Section 2 the claims are rebutted by appealing to Evans's paradigm of a theory of meaning. Evans's theory is deliberately (...) blind to any relation of logical consequence among the sentences of the object language, and entails only what Evans takes to be a distinct and deeper relation of structural validity among the sentences of the object language. In Section 3 we turn to Evans's motivation in order to compare the two paradigms of a theory of meaning. Evans laid down criteria under which a theory of meaning gives what he called a ‘transcendent’ semantic classification of the lexicon of the object language, in contrast to a mere ‘immanent’ classification. However, when these criteria are applied we find that, pace Evans, they favour Davidson's paradigm over Evans's. In the final section we show that Evans's conception of structural consequence turns out to be a deeper formulation of logical consequence. (shrink)

In this article, I expound and assess two theories of meaning in life informed by the indigenous sub-Saharan African philosophical tradition. According to one principle, a life is more meaningful, the more it promotes community with other human persons. According to the other principle, a life is more meaningful, the more it promotes vitality in oneself and others. I argue that, at least upon some refinement, both of these African conceptions of meaning merit global consideration from philosophers, but (...) that the vitality approach is more promising than the community one for capturing a wider array of intuitions about what confers meaning on a life. I further argue, however, that there are objections that apply with comparable force to both theories; neither one does a good job of entailing that and explaining why certain types of reason and progress can make a life more meaningful. Although these objections are characteristic of a ‘modern’ western outlook, I maintain that they are difficult for contemporary African philosophers to ignore and consider some ways they might respond to the objections. (shrink)

Distributional semantics is an area of corpus linguistics and computational linguistics that seeks to model the meanings of words by producing a semantic space that captures the distributional properties of those words within a corpus. In this paper, I provide an overview of distributional semantic models, including a broad sketch of how such models are constructed. I then outline the reasons for and against the claim that distributional semantic models can serve as a theory of meaning, paying special (...) attention to those within the field who have defended this claim. Finally, I conclude by arguing that despite the fact that such models are holistic, they nevertheless avoid the objections raised against holistic theories of meaning, particularly from Fodor & Lepore (1992) (Holism: a shopper’s guide. Blackwell, 1992) and Fodor & Lepore (1999). (shrink)

A theory of word meaning developed jointly by Adrienne and Keith Lehrer is summarized, which accommodates the empirical facts of natural languages, especially the diversity of types of words. Reference characterizes the application of words to things, events, properties, etc. and sense the relationship among words and linguistic expressions. Although reference and sense are closely connected, neither can be reduced to the other. We use the metaphor of vectors to show how different, sometimes competing forces interact to provide (...) an understanding of what a word in context means. Topics discussed include vagueness, indeterminacy, the role of experts, possible worlds, pragmatic influences, semantic change, semantic networks, fields, and entailments. A formal theory for understanding the relationship of idiolects, dialects, and communal languages is proposed to account for the dynamic interaction of individuals and communities which occurs continuously. (shrink)

To begin with the former, representation is as familiar as it is puzzling. The English sentence ‘ Santiago is east of Sacramento’ represents the world as being a certain way. So does my belief that Santiago is east of Sacramento. In these examples, one item—a sentence or a belief—lays claim to something else, a state of affairs, which may be far removed in space and time. This is the phenomenon that naturalist theories of meaning aim to explain. How is (...) it possible for one thing to stand for something else in this way? (shrink)

Can normative words like "good," "ought," and "reason" be defined in non-normative terms? Stephen Finlay argues that they can, advancing a new theory of the meaning of this language and providing pragmatic explanations of the specially problematic features of its moral and deliberative uses which comprise the puzzles of metaethics.

There are two basically different sorts of theory of meaning and the sort of theory one adopts has a great deal to do with the view one takes of the learning of language. Corresponding to the two kinds of theory of meaning two theories of the learning of language are delineated and the issues that are disputed by them clarified. The logical question of whether each theory is intelligible in itself is first discussed, and, (...) it being concluded that both are genuine empirical hypotheses, an examination is made of psychological grounds for preferring one or the other. While no final decision is arrived at, it is argued that there are grounds for preferring one of the theories. (shrink)

The theory of meaning may either attempt to explain what it is to have the concepts expressible in a particular language, or merely to associate concepts with words in that particular language. A theory of meaning suggested by Davidson, according to which knowing the meaning of a sentence consists in the ability to produce a T‐schema for that sentence, is a modest theory. But such a theory will be either a translation manual, or (...) will have to be construed holistically. (shrink)

Donald Davidson has claimed that for every logical truth 5 of a language L, a theory of meaning for L will entail that S is a logical truth of L. Jim Edwards has argued (2002) that this claim is false if we take 'entails' to mean 'has as a logical consequence. In this paper, I first show that, pace Edwards, Davidson's claim is correct even under this strong reading. I then discuss the argument given by Edwards and offer (...) a diagnosis of where he went wrong. (shrink)

Research into logical syntax provides us the knowledge of the structure of sentences, while logical semantics provides a window into uncovering the truth of sentences. Therefore, it is natural to make sentences and truth the central concern when one deals with the theory of meaning logically. Although their theories of meaning differ greatly, both Michael Dummett’s theory and Donald Davidson’s theory are concerned with sentences and truth and developed in terms of truth. Logical theories and (...) methods first introduced by G. Frege underwent great developments during the past century and have played an important role in expanding these two scholars’ theories of meaning. (shrink)

A number of important legal theorists have recently argued for metaphysically realist approaches to legal determinacy grounded in particular semantic theories or theories of reference, in particular, views of meaning and reference based on the works of Putnam and Kripke. The basic position of these theorists is that questions of legal interpretation and legal determinacy should be approached through semantic meaning. However, the role of authority (in the form of lawmaker choice) in law in general, and democratic systems (...) in particular, require that these realist solutions to the problem of legal determinacy be rejected, or at least significantly revised. (shrink)

In this paper, I try to argue that what Schutz enterprises can be integrated into what Husserl calls phenomenological psychology. My interpretation is based on Schutz’s own remarks, which are though more or less dismissed by most of the interpreters of Schutz. Beginning with an articulation of the social theory of Schutz, I explore the meaning of phenomenological psychology in Husserl as next in order to point out that despite the disagreement with Husserl’s transcendental approach to intersubjectivity Schutz (...) has a closer adherence to Husserl than commonly held. (shrink)

Glüer and Pagin (2003) have claimed that autistic speakers are a counterexample to HOT theories of meaning and communication. Through analysis of their argument and a re-examination of the literature, I show that autistic speakers are not a counterexample to HOT theories, but, conversely, that such theories are necessary to account for their communicative peculiarities.

Reprint of an article that first appeared in a special issue of the South African Journal of Philosophy devoted to life's meaning in the African tradition.

Without directly addressing the Demarcation Problem for logic—the problem of distinguishing logical vocabulary from others—we focus on distinctive aspects of logical vocabulary in pursuit of a second goal in the philosophy of logic, namely, proposing criteria for the justification of logical rules. Our preferred approach has three components. Two of these are effectively Belnap’s, but with a twist. We agree with Belnap’s response to Prior’s challenge to inferentialist characterisations of the meanings of logical constants. Belnap argued that for a logical (...) constant to exist, its rules must be conservative over a previously given consequence relation and guarantee the uniqueness of the constant. The twist is that we require logical vocabulary to be provably conservative, not over a previously given formal consequence relation, but over a previously given meaningful vocabulary of a language. Uniqueness is also a feature defined in terms of provability: if two syntactically distinguished expressions are governed by the same rules, then formulas with them as main operators are interderivable. Belnap’s criteria are not only those for the existence of a logical constant, but more: they are what distinguishes logical vocabulary from all other expressions. It is the defining mark of a logical constant that it is provably conservative over the fragment of the language which excludes it and that its rules guarantee its uniqueness. The third component is the topic neutrality of logic. The provable conservativeness of logic over a previously given vocabulary of a language is motivated, in part, by appeal to molecularism in the theory of meaning. Molecularity is a feature endorsed by the theory of meaning as a whole, so it does not distinguish logical constants from other expressions. The same is true for conservativeness. We argue that molecularity, and hence conservativeness, are implicit presuppositions of speakers’ use of language: the addition of new vocabulary to a language is presupposed to be conservative. But this presupposition is one that we should be able reflectively to endorse (such as when attempting a rational reconstruction of the use of the vocabulary). Thus, where conservativeness is found to fail, this defect should be remedied and the use of the vocabulary corrected (as in classical negation) or excised altogether (as in pejoratives). We go on to characterise a notion of topic neutrality, which we argue applies to logical vocabulary. We then note that reflective endorsement of the conservativeness of a topic neutral vocabulary requires a proof that the vocabulary is conservative relative to any base vocabulary. Thus we require that logical vocabulary be demonstrably conservative. Allying this requirement, distinctive of logic, to a general consideration about the commitments of assertion yields a mode of justification for logical constants akin to some conceptions of Harmony, i.e., to the idea that the consequences of assertion of a logical complex need to be warranted by the grounds and ought to be the strongest consequences warranted by the grounds. Intuitionistic logic acquires a somewhat familiar justification but emanating from a new motivation. (shrink)

The Pauṣkara briefly discusses the meaning-expressing nature of śabda (constituted of phonemes, varṇa) and the means to the cognition of word and sentence meaning. According to this dualistic Śaiva Tantra, meaning is denoted by nāda, a capacity of varṇas. Varṇas also are the means to the cognition of meaning through a capacity (saṃskāra) manifested in them. Although the meaning-denoting capacity is natural to varṇas, the relation of words (which are nothing but groups of varṇas) with (...) objects is fixed by convention. This article translates and analyzes the relevant passages from the sixth and eighth chapters. Certain arguments of plagiarism levelled against the eighth chapter of the Pauṣkara are examined in the concluding part of the article. (shrink)

This paper is a critique of coercive theories of meaning, that is, theories (or criteria) of meaning designed to do down ones opponents by representing their views as meaningless or unintelligible. Many philosophers from Hobbes through Berkeley and Hume to the pragmatists, the logical positivists and (above all) Wittgenstein have devised such theories and criteria in order to discredit their opponents. I argue 1) that such theories and criteria are morally obnoxious, a) because they smack of the totalitarian (...) linguistic tactics of the Party in Orwell’s 1984 and b) because they dehumanize the opposition by portraying them as mere spouters of gibberish; 2) that they are profoundly illiberal since if true, they would undermine Mill’s arguments for free speech; 3) that such theories are prone to self-contradiction, pragmatic and otherwise; 4) that they often turn against their creators including what they were meant to exclude and excluding what they were meant to include; 5) that such theories are susceptible to a modus tollens pioneered by Richard Price in his Review Concerning the Principle Questions of Morals(1758); and 6) that such theories are prima facie false since they fail to ‘predict’ the data that is it their business to explain (or, in the case of criteria, fail to capture the concept that they allegedly represent). The butcher’s bill is quite considerable: some of Hobbes, a fair bit of Locke, half of Berkeley, large chunks of Hume, Russell's Theory of Types, verificationism in its positivist and Dummettian variants, much of pragmatism and most of Wittgenstein - all these have to be sacrificed if we are to save our souls as philosophic liberals. (shrink)

This study presents and develops in detail (a new version of) the argumental conception of meaning. The two basic principles of the argumental conception of meaning are: i) To know (implicitly) the sense of a word is to know (implicitly) all the argumentation rules concerning that word; ii) To know the sense of a sentence is to know the syntactic structure of that sentence and to know the senses of the words occurring in it. The sense of a (...) sentence is called immediate argumental role of that sentence. According to the argumental conception of meaning a theory of meaning for a particular language yields a systematic specification of the understanding of every sentence of the language which consists in a specification of the immediate argumental role of the sentence. The immediate argumental role is a particular aspect of the use of a sentence in arguments. But it is not the whole use in arguments, nor is the whole use in arguments reducible to the immediate argumental role. That is why, by accepting the argumental conception of meaning, we can have epistemological holism without linguistic holism. The argumental conception distinguishes between the understanding and the correctness of a language. Such a distinction makes it possible to account for our understanding of paradoxical languages. Redundancy theory of truth, realistic conceptions of truth or epistemic conceptions of truth are all compatible with an argumental conception of sense. But here it is argued that an epistemic conception of truth is preferrable. Acceptance of the argumental conception of meaning and of an epistemic conception of truth leads to a rejection of the idea of analytic truth. The argumental conception is pluralistic with respect to the understandability of different logics, and neutral with respect to their correctness. (shrink)

The object of this paper is to argue that the relationship between intentions and meaning has been misconstrued by some influential recent theories of meaning. The theories I have in mind derive from earlier work by H. P. Grice, but have undergone extensive development and modification in the hands of Grice himself,, Stephen Schiffer, Jonathan Bennett and others. There have been, during much the same period, developments of Austin’s work on speech acts in which the same Gricean influence (...) is unmistakable; indeed, such influence has affected interpretations of Austin’s work itself, by such writers as Strawson, Searle, and Vendler. (shrink)

This paper is a contribution to the historical roots of the analytical tradition. As Michael Dummett points out in his Origins of Analytic Philosophy, many tendencies in Central European thought contributed to the early development of analytic philosophy. Dummett himself concentrates on just one aspect of this historical complex, namely on the relationship between the theories of meaning and reference developed by Frege and by Husserl in the years around the turn of the century. It is to this specific (...) issue that the present essay is devoted, though we attempt a more sympathetic reading of Husserl's views on these matters than is to be found in Dummett’s work. Topics covered include Husserl’s theory of intentionality, his view of meanings as types or essences of mental acts, of the relation between meaning and expression, of states of affairs, and of indexicality. (shrink)

This paper advances a general argument, inspired by some remarks of Davidson, to show that appeal to meanings as entities in the theory of meaning is neither necessary nor sufficient for carrying out the tasks of the theory of meaning. The crucial point is that appeal to meaning as entities fails to provide us with an understanding of any expression of a language except insofar as we pick it out with an expression we understand which (...) we tacitly recognize to be a translation of the term whose meaning we want to illuminate by the appeal to assigning to it a meaning. The meaning drops out as irrelevant: the work is done, and can only be done, by matching terms already understood with terms they translate. (shrink)

In 1931–1934 Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz formulated two versions of the theory of meaning (A1 and A2). Tarski showed that A2 allows synonymous names to exist with different denotations. Tarski and Ajdukiewicz found that this feature disparages the theory. The force of Tarski’s argument rests on the assumption that none of adequate theories of meaning allow synonymous names to exist with different denotations. In the first part of this paper we present an appropriate fragment of A2 and Tarski’s (...) argument. In the second part we consider an elementary interpreted language in which individual constants occur, but not functional symbols. For such a language we define semantically a relation of synonymity for simple names and show that it fulfills syntactical conditions formulated by Ajdukiewicz in A2 and allows synonymous names to exist with different denotations. (shrink)

Attempting to compare scientific theories requires a philosophical model of meaning. Yet different scientific theories have at times—particularly in early chemistry—pre-supposed disparate theories of meaning. When two theories of meaning are incommensurable, we must say that the scientific theories that rely upon them are meta-incommensurable. Meta- incommensurability is a more profound sceptical threat to science since, unlike first-order incommensurability, it implies complete incomparability.

This chapter reviews interpretations of Davidson's project in the theory of meaning and argues against a variety of views according to which Davidson intended to reduce meaning to some variety of truth conditions or replace the project of giving a theory of meaning with a theory of truth, and in support of interpreting him as offering an indirect way of achieving the goals of the traditional project by appeal to knowledge of facts about a (...) semantic theory of truth for the language, including that it was confirmable from the standpoint of the radical interpreter. (shrink)

In this book, T. L. Short corrects widespread misconceptions of Peirce's theory of signs and demonstrates its relevance to contemporary analytic philosophy of language, mind and science. Peirce's theory of mind, naturalistic but nonreductive, bears on debates of Fodor and Millikan, among others. His theory of inquiry avoids foundationalism and subjectivism, while his account of reference anticipated views of Kripke and Putnam. Peirce's realism falls between 'internal' and 'metaphysical' realism and is more satisfactory than either. His pragmatism (...) is not verificationism; rather, it identifies meaning with potential growth of knowledge. Short distinguishes Peirce's mature theory of signs from his better-known but paradoxical early theory. He develops the mature theory systematically on the basis of Peirce's phenomenological categories and concept of final causation. The latter is distinguished from recent and similar views, such as Brandon's, and is shown to be grounded in forms of explanation adopted in modern science. (shrink)

This Book Offers A Fresh Exposition Of The Buddhist Theory Of Meaning (Apohavada) Against The Backdrop Of Indian Linguistic Thought And Shows How This Theory Is Positioned Vis-A-Vis Current Issues And Assumptions In Language. Consists A Very Useful Glossary.

One has some idea of what to expect from the theory of meaning offered in The Grammar of Meaning even before opening the book, since Bob Brandom, who should know, says on the book’s jacket that, according to the authors.