Hermeneutics and Semantics (original) (raw)
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"In its totalizing ambition, there are many reasons to think that the project of reductively characterizing semantic structure may be undesirable in itself. As Stanley Rosen notes, “every hermeneutical program is at the same time itself a political manifesto or the corollary of a political manifesto” (2003: 141). This applies a fortiori to the programme of linguistic semantics, the goal of which is not, as in (applied) hermeneutics, to interpret texts, but to give an account of the very constituents of meaning that any textual interpretation presupposes. Since semantic analyses of language – or, to give them an older name, attempts to identify the “language of thought” – are closely related to claims about the conceptual abilities of speakers and the cultural resources of communities, we semanticists surely should be – and often are – cautious in arguing for the theoretical uniqueness for our current models of meaning. Claiming that, from the point of view of the linguistic system, such and such an expression has such and such core or central semantic properties risks reductively diminishing our picture of the complexity of languages, and hence of the linguistic practices and conceptual and cultural richness of their speakers."
Gadamer's linguisticality of understanding
This is an attempt to analyse the linguisticality of understanding as expounded by Gadamer. Language indeed clothes and unveils our openness to the world. The paper shows the difference between understanding and linguisticality of understanding. It also argues in line with Heidegger that language is the house of being. This is neither ontology nor metaphysics but rather an exercise of hermeneutics. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has shown that language affects cognition. Can we reduce being to language? How does language affect our reasoning?
Theories of Semantics: Merits and Limitations
Meaning is so intangible that one group of linguists , the structuralists , preferred not to deal with it or rely on it at all. It is a variable and not to be taken for granted. Nevertheless , many theories have been interested in the study of meaning. Because of the limited scope of this paper, the discussion will cover some of the well–known theories of meaning formulated in the last century. Mainly referential theory of meaning, non– referential theory of meaning and generative grammarian theory of meaning are discussed. Some assumptions, merits and limitations for each theory are also described. The researcher hopes that many people can benefit from this article since meaning is a complex concept and difficult to understand.
Academia Letters, 2021
This short article is a historical reading of some of the persistent traits of philosophical semantics. We observe its development through the paths outlined by the contribution of Frege, Carnap, Tarski and Davidson (occasionally inviting Quine and Etchemendy to the discussion). We're trying to identify a symptom. The form that a semantic theorization tends to take in the course of analytical philosophy by following these authors obeys the following pattern: the theory of language that formal semantics intend to simplify is a general form of the compulsion of this language itself to its interpretative stability. The semantic theories that were elaborated to account for the patterns of interpretation and communication have a recurring limitation: whenever we relativize the notion of meaning and truth (to a model, to a possible world, to a linguistic definition, to a empirical science) some complexity is added. This addition robs our theory from its ability to offer a unitary understanding of the linguistic phenomenon that the very language helps to accomplish. We will keep for the conclusion a general commentary on the circular forms that the definition of meaning in a language has taken, whenever semantic theories have tried to account for intensional and modal phenomena; and, finally, we will draw some philosophical interpretations of this phenomenon.
A hermeneutical Ontology and its Circle according to "Gadamer"
Khaled Ahmed El Sebaie 2021, 2021
This research paper aims to study the hermeneutical view of the German philosopher "Gadamer", and it seeks to reveal the development that occurred in the hermeneutical method after it was attached to an ontological understanding, then, clarifying the role one plays in the hermeneutical process, and the effect of the subjective aspects in the interpretative procedure, in addition to explain the extent to which this effect stands, as well as the effect of this on the interpretation process, and what are the foundations from which "Gadamer" derived this vision, hence, whether "Gadamer" intended to present a general theory of interpretation, based on an ontology of understanding, thus, he gives a meaning that has a special dimension of ontology, which is of a special nature, will he succeed in that, and did he have to say that the ontology of understanding is that there is another ontology on playing, this is in accordance with the importance that "Gadamer" attached to playing and the role of playing in the interpretative process, as well as examining the role of self-awareness and one's personal experience in creating interpretative understanding, hence, all of this affected his treatment of a text when he played the role of interpreter, and how the element of phenomenology found itʼs way in that, including selfdynamic and Itʼs guarantee in carrying out this role, likewise, the role played by the intellectual tributaries owned by the interpreter in terms of language, history, culture and liberation from any authority in carrying out the interpretative procedure, and what is the element that if it was adhered to, then our judgment on the interpretative procedure will be successful.
Expressivism in metaethics (Blackburn ; Gibbard , , inter alia), as I will understand it, is a conjunction of two claims: () Moral thought is non-representational.