Rethinking Language Mind And Meaning

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Rethinking Language, Mind, and Meaning

Scott Soames
Rethinking Language Mind and Meaning Book PDF

Author : Scott Soames
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 253 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2020-09-08
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780691211497

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Rethinking Language, Mind, and Meaning by Scott Soames Pdf

In this book, Scott Soames argues that the revolution in the study of language and mind that has taken place since the late nineteenth century must be rethought. The central insight in the reigning tradition is that propositions are representational. To know the meaning of a sentence or the content of a belief requires knowing which things it represents as being which ways, and therefore knowing what the world must be like if it is to conform to how the sentence or belief represents it. These are truth conditions of the sentence or belief. But meanings and representational contents are not truth conditions, and there is more to propositions than representational content. In addition to imposing conditions the world must satisfy if it is to be true, a proposition may also impose conditions on minds that entertain it. The study of mind and language cannot advance further without a conception of propositions that allows them to have contents of both of these sorts. Soames provides it. He does so by arguing that propositions are repeatable, purely representational cognitive acts or operations that represent the world as being a certain way, while requiring minds that perform them to satisfy certain cognitive conditions. Because they have these two types of content—one facing the world and one facing the mind—pairs of propositions can be representationally identical but cognitively distinct. Using this breakthrough, Soames offers new solutions to several of the most perplexing problems in the philosophy of language and mind.

Rethinking Language, Mind, and World Dialogically

Per Linell
Rethinking Language Mind and World Dialogically Book PDF

Author : Per Linell
Publisher : IAP
Page : 515 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2009-05-01
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781607521983

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Rethinking Language, Mind, and World Dialogically by Per Linell Pdf

Per Linell took his degree in linguistics and is currently professor of language and culture, with a specialisation on communication and spoken interaction, at the University of Linköping, Sweden. He has been instrumental in building up an internationally renowned interdisciplinary graduate school in communication studies in Linköping. He has worked for many years on developing a dialogical alternative to mainstream theories in linguistics, psychology and social sciences. His production comprises more than 100 articles on dialogue, talk-in-interaction and institutional discourse. His more recent books include Approaching Dialogue (1998), The Written Language Bias in Linguistics (2005) and Dialogue in Focus Groups (2007, with I. Marková, M. Grossen and A. Salazar Orvig).

Beyond Meaning: A Journey Across Language, Perception and Experience

Gaetano Fiorin,Denis Delfitto
Beyond Meaning A Journey Across Language Perception and Experience Book PDF

Author : Gaetano Fiorin,Denis Delfitto
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 331 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2020-06-17
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9783030463175

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Beyond Meaning: A Journey Across Language, Perception and Experience by Gaetano Fiorin,Denis Delfitto Pdf

Natural languages – idioms such as English and Cantonese, Zulu and Amharic, Basque and Nicaraguan Sign Language – allow their speakers to convey meaning and transmit meaning to one another. But what is meaning exactly? What is this thing that words convey and speakers communicate? Few questions are as elusive as this. Yet, few features are as essential to who we are and what we do as human beings as the capacity to convey meaning through language. In this book, Gaetano Fiorin and Denis Delfitto disclose a notion of linguistic meaning that is structured around three distinct, yet interconnected dimensions: a linguistic dimension, relating meaning to the linguistic forms that convey it; a material dimension, relating meaning to the material and social conditions of its environment; and a psychological dimension, relating meaning to the cognitive lives of its users. By paying special attention to the puzzle surrounding first-person reference – the way speakers exploit language to refer to themselves – and by capitalizing on a number of recent findings in the cognitive sciences, Fiorin and Delfitto develop the original hypothesis that meaningful language shares the same underlying logical and metaphysical structure of sense perception, effectively acting as a system of classification and discrimination at the interface between cognitive agents and their ecologies.

Conjoining Meanings

Paul M. Pietroski
Conjoining Meanings Book PDF

Author : Paul M. Pietroski
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2018-04-12
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780192540898

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Conjoining Meanings by Paul M. Pietroski Pdf

Humans naturally acquire languages that connect meanings with pronunciations. Paul M. Pietroski presents an account of these distinctive languages as generative procedures that respect substantive constraints. Children acquire meaningful lexical items that can be combined, in certain ways, to form meaningful complex expressions. This raises questions about what meanings are, how they can be combined, and what kinds of meanings lexical items can have. According to Pietroski, meanings are neither concepts nor extensions, and sentences do not have truth conditions. He argues that meanings are composable instructions for how to access and assemble concepts of a special sort. More specifically, phrasal meanings are instructions for how to build monadic concepts (a.k.a. mental predicates) that are massively conjunctive, while lexical meanings are instructions for how to fetch concepts that are monadic or dyadic. This allows for polysemy, since a lexical item can be linked to an address that is shared by a family of fetchable concepts. But the posited combinatorial operations are limited and limiting. They impose severe restrictions on which concepts can be fetched for purposes of semantic composition. Correspondingly, Pietroski argues that in lexicalization, available representations are often used to introduce concepts that can be combined via the relevant operations.

Language and Reality from a Naturalistic Perspective

Andrea Bianchi
Language and Reality from a Naturalistic Perspective Book PDF

Author : Andrea Bianchi
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 466 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2020-10-19
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9783030476410

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Language and Reality from a Naturalistic Perspective by Andrea Bianchi Pdf

This book celebrates the many important contributions to philosophy by one of the leading philosophers in the analytic field, Michael Devitt. It collects seventeen original essays by renowned philosophers from all over the world. They all develop themes from Devitt’s work, thus discussing many fundamental issues in philosophy of linguistics, theory of reference, theory of meaning, methodology, and metaphysics. In a long final chapter, Devitt himself replies to the contributors. In so doing, he further elaborates his views on various of these issues, for example defending his claim (in opposition to Chomskyan orthodoxy) that languages are external rather than internal; his well-known causal theory of reference; his “shocking” idea that meanings can be causal, non-descriptive, modes of presentation; his methodological naturalism; his commitment to scientific realism; and his version of biological essentialism. The volume will appeal to all scholars and students interested in contemporary theoretical analytic philosophy, and will be a must-read for any serious researcher in philosophy of language. It provides a deep insight into the work of one of the most important living philosophers, and will help readers to better understand language and reality from a naturalistic perspective.

Essays on Linguistic Realism

Christina Behme,Martin Neef
Essays on Linguistic Realism Book PDF

Author : Christina Behme,Martin Neef
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing Company
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2018-07-26
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027263940

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Essays on Linguistic Realism by Christina Behme,Martin Neef Pdf

This book contains new articles by leading philosophers and linguists discussing a promising philosophical framework distinct from currently dominant ones: Linguistic Realism. As opposed to Nominalism and Chomskyian Conceptualism, this approach distinguishes between use of language, knowledge of language, and language as such. The latter is conceived as part of the realm of abstract objects. The authors show how adopting Linguistic Realism overcomes entrenched problems with other frameworks and suggest that Linguistic Realism will best serve those interested in formal linguistics, the cognitive dimension of natural language, and linguistic philosophy. The essays offer different perspectives on Linguistic Realism, either supporting this paradigm or taking it as a starting point for developing modified conceptions of linguistics and for further tying linguistics to the kind of formal theories of sensory cognition that were pioneered in visual perception by David Marr—whose work is predicated on exactly the object/knowledge distinction made by Linguistic Realists.

The Analytic Tradition in Philosophy, Volume 1

Scott Soames
The Analytic Tradition in Philosophy Volume 1 Book PDF

Author : Scott Soames
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 676 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2014-03-23
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781400850457

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The Analytic Tradition in Philosophy, Volume 1 by Scott Soames Pdf

This is the first of five volumes of a definitive history of analytic philosophy from the invention of modern logic in 1879 to the end of the twentieth century. Scott Soames, a leading philosopher of language and historian of analytic philosophy, provides the fullest and most detailed account of the analytic tradition yet published, one that is unmatched in its chronological range, topics covered, and depth of treatment. Focusing on the major milestones and distinguishing them from the dead ends, Soames gives a seminal account of where the analytic tradition has been and where it appears to be heading. Volume 1 examines the initial phase of the analytic tradition through the major contributions of three of its four founding giants—Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and G. E. Moore. Soames describes and analyzes their work in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and the philosophy of language. He explains how by about 1920 their efforts had made logic, language, and mathematics central to philosophy in an unprecedented way. But although logic, language, and mathematics were now seen as powerful tools to attain traditional ends, they did not yet define philosophy. As volume 1 comes to a close, that was all about to change with the advent of the fourth founding giant, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and the 1922 English publication of his Tractatus, which ushered in a "linguistic turn" in philosophy that was to last for decades.

The Routledge Handbook of Propositions

Chris Tillman,Adam Murray
The Routledge Handbook of Propositions Book PDF

Author : Chris Tillman,Adam Murray
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 569 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2022-09-30
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781351982276

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The Routledge Handbook of Propositions by Chris Tillman,Adam Murray Pdf

Propositions are routinely invoked by philosophers, linguists, logicians, and other theorists engaged in the study of meaning, communication, and the mind. To investigate the nature of propositions is to investigate the very nature of our connection to each other, and to the world around us. As one of the only volumes of its kind, The Routledge Handbook of Propositions provides a comprehensive overview of the philosophy of propositions, from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Comprising 33 original chapters by an international team of scholars, the volume addresses both traditional and emerging questions concerning the nature of propositions, and our capacity to engage with them in thought and in communication. The chapters are clearly organized into the following three sections: I. Foundational Issues in the Theory of Propositions II. Historical Theories of Propositions III. Contemporary Theories of Propositions Essential reading for philosophers of language and mind, and for those working in neighboring areas, The Routledge Handbook of Propositions is suitable for upper-level undergraduate study, as well as graduate and professional research.

The Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Reference

Stephen Biggs,Heimir Geirsson
The Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Reference Book PDF

Author : Stephen Biggs,Heimir Geirsson
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 601 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2020-12-23
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781000226768

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The Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Reference by Stephen Biggs,Heimir Geirsson Pdf

This Handbook offers students and more advanced readers a valuable resource for understanding linguistic reference; the relation between an expression (word, phrase, sentence) and what that expression is about. The volume’s forty-one original chapters, written by many of today’s leading philosophers of language, are organized into ten parts: I Early Descriptive Theories II Causal Theories of Reference III Causal Theories and Cognitive Significance IV Alternate Theories V Two-Dimensional Semantics VI Natural Kind Terms and Rigidity VII The Empty Case VIII Singular (De Re) Thoughts IX Indexicals X Epistemology of Reference Contributions consider what kinds of expressions actually refer (names, general terms, indexicals, empty terms, sentences), what referring expressions refer to, what makes an expression refer to whatever it does, connections between meaning and reference, and how we know facts about reference. Many contributions also develop connections between linguistic reference and issues in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science.

Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Language Volume 2

Ernest Lepore,David Sosa
Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Language Volume 2 Book PDF

Author : Ernest Lepore,David Sosa
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 323 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2022-02-24
Category : Mathematics
ISBN : 9780192844613

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Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Language Volume 2 by Ernest Lepore,David Sosa Pdf

Philosophy of language has been at the center of philosophical research at least since the start of the 20th century. Since that 'linguistic turn' much of the most important work in philosophy has related to language. But until now there has been no regular forum for outstanding original work in this area. That is what Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Language offers. Anyone wanting to know what's happening in philosophy of language could start with these volumes.

The Pragmatics of Indirect Reports

Alessandro Capone
The Pragmatics of Indirect Reports Book PDF

Author : Alessandro Capone
Publisher : Springer
Page : 364 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2016-11-03
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783319410784

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The Pragmatics of Indirect Reports by Alessandro Capone Pdf

This monograph on indirect reports offers insights on the semantics/pragmatics interface and a refinement of the notion of explicature. The volume is written in an engaging style and guides the reader through the theoretical problems and their ramifications. The thorniest problem in the study of indirect reports is their polyphonic nature, and how the listener distinguishes between the reporter’s voice and the original speaker’s voice, either by contextual clues or, in the absence of such clues, by resorting to pragmatic principles. The introductory chapter discusses the main issues that will be addressed in the volume. The next chapters focus on the various aspects of indirect reports, covering both theory and practical applications.

Further Advances in Pragmatics and Philosophy

Alessandro Capone,Marco Carapezza,Franco Lo Piparo
Further Advances in Pragmatics and Philosophy Book PDF

Author : Alessandro Capone,Marco Carapezza,Franco Lo Piparo
Publisher : Springer
Page : 299 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2018-01-18
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783319721736

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Further Advances in Pragmatics and Philosophy by Alessandro Capone,Marco Carapezza,Franco Lo Piparo Pdf

This book builds on the idea that pragmatics and philosophy are strictly interconnected and that advances in one area will generate consequential advantages in the other area. The first part of the book, entitled ‘Theoretical Approaches to Philosophy of Language’, contains contributions by philosophers of language on connectives, intensional contexts, demonstratives, subsententials, and implicit indirect reports. The second part, ‘Pragmatics in Discourse’, presents contributions that are more empirically based or of a more applicative nature and that deal with the pragmatics of discourse, argumentation, pragmatics and law, and context. The book presents perspectives which, generally, make most of the Gricean idea of the centrality of a speaker’s intention in attribution of meaning to utterances, whether one is interested in the level of sentence-like units or larger chunks of discourse.

Force, Content and the Unity of the Proposition

Gabriele M. Mras,Michael Schmitz
Force Content and the Unity of the Proposition Book PDF

Author : Gabriele M. Mras,Michael Schmitz
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 267 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2021-12-30
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781000517323

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Force, Content and the Unity of the Proposition by Gabriele M. Mras,Michael Schmitz Pdf

This volume advances discussion between critics and defenders of the force-content distinction and opens up new ways of thinking about force and speech acts in relation to the unity problem. The force-content dichotomy has shaped the philosophy of language and mind since the time of Frege and Russell. Isn’t it obvious that, for example, the clauses of a conditional are not asserted and must therefore be propositions and propositions the forceless contents of forceful acts? But, others have recently asked in response, how can a proposition be a truth value bearer if it is not unified through the forceful act of a subject that takes a position regarding how things are? Can we not instead think of propositions as being inherently forceful, but of force as being cancelled in certain contexts? And what do assertoric, but also directive and interrogative force indicators mean? Force, Content and the Unity of the Proposition will be of interest to researchers working in philosophy of language, philosophical logic, philosophy of mind and linguistics.

Meaning and Metaphysical Necessity

Tristan Grøtvedt Haze
Meaning and Metaphysical Necessity Book PDF

Author : Tristan Grøtvedt Haze
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 187 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2022-06-16
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781000605785

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Meaning and Metaphysical Necessity by Tristan Grøtvedt Haze Pdf

This book is about the idea that some true statements would have been true no matter how the world had turned out, while others could have been false. It develops and defends a version of the idea that we tell the difference between these two types of truths in part by reflecting on the meanings of words. It has often been thought that modal issues—issues about possibility and necessity—are related to issues about meaning. In this book, the author defends the view that the analysis of meaning is not just a preliminary to answering modal questions in philosophy; it is not merely that before we can find out whether something is possible, we need to get clear on what we are talking about. Rather, clarity about meaning often brings with it answers to modal questions. In service of this view, the author analyzes the notion of necessity and develops ideas about linguistic meaning, applying them to several puzzles and problems in philosophy of language. Meaning and Metaphysical Necessity will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophical logic.

The Logic of Sortals

Max A. Freund
The Logic of Sortals Book PDF

Author : Max A. Freund
Publisher : Springer
Page : 173 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2019-06-25
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9783030182786

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The Logic of Sortals by Max A. Freund Pdf

Sortal concepts are at the center of certain logical discussions and have played a significant role in solutions to particular problems in philosophy. Apart from logic and philosophy, the study of sortal concepts has found its place in specific fields of psychology, such as the theory of infant cognitive development and the theory of human perception. In this monograph, different formal logics for sortal concepts and sortal-related logical notions (such as sortal identity and first-order sortal quantification) are characterized. Most of these logics are intensional in nature and possess, in addition, a bidimensional character. That is, they simultaneously represent two different logical dimensions. In most cases, the dimensions are those of time and natural necessity, and, in other cases, those of time and epistemic necessity. Another feature of the logics in question concerns second-order quantification over sortal concepts, a logical notion that is also represented in the logics. Some of the logics adopt a constant domain interpretation, others a varying domain interpretation of such quantification. Two of the above bidimensional logics are philosophically grounded on predication sortalism, that is, on the philosophical view that predication necessarily requires sortal concepts. Another bidimensional logic constitutes a logic for complex sortal predicates. These three sorts of logics are among the important novelties of this work since logics with similar features have not been developed up to now, and they might be instrumental for the solution of philosophically significant problems regarding sortal predicates. The book assumes a modern variant of conceptualism as a philosophical background. For this reason, the approach to sortal predicates is in terms of sortal concepts. Concepts, in general, are here understood as intersubjective realizable cognitive capacities. The proper features of sortal concepts are determined by an analysis of the main features of sortal predicates. Posterior to this analysis, the sortal-related logical notions represented in the above logics are discussed. There is also a discussion on the extent to which the set-theoretic formal semantic systems of the book capture different aspects of the conceptualist approach to sortals. These different semantic frameworks are also related to realist and nominalist approaches to sortal predicates, and possible modifications to them are considered that might represent those alternative approaches.