[NDPR] Review of Meaning without Representation (ed. by Gross S., Tebben N., Williams M.) (original) (raw)

The Tenability of Meaning Irrealism

2019

The Kripke-Wittgenstein (KW) sceptical argument, presented in Chapter 2 of Kripke’s Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982), concludes that there are no meaning facts. While realism has been denied for a great many subject matters, the meaning irrealism motivated by KW’s argument has particularly farreaching consequences. This thesis is an investigation into some of these consequences, in an effort to determine what is at stake in accepting the argument as sound. In Chapter 2, I summarise the argument, assume that it is sound, and consider the consequences for one particular body of talk: discourse about meaning itself. Three models for characterising that discourse are canvassed: error-theory, non-factualism, and mere minimalism. The latter characterisation is made available by adopting the framework for realism debates proposed by Crispin Wright in Truth and Objectivity (1992), of which I give an exposition in Chapter 1. I find in Chapter 2 that the three models of meani...

A Non-substantial Meta-semantics for Global Expressivism

Acta Analytica, 2019

Huw Price's neo-pragmatist programme of global expressivism (see Huw Price Naturalism Without Mirrors (2011) and Expressivism, Pragmatism and Representationalism (2013)) faces a challenge-it is susceptible to the charge that the proposed combination of expressivism with a deflationary account of semantics leads to inconsistency. Expressivists about a particular discourse deny that it is representational. Global expressivists face the threat of inconsistency due to their attempts to generalise this denial to include the discourse of semantics. In this paper, I explicate two meta-semantic presuppositions of this charge. I argue that such an explication enables us to construct a consistent account of global expressivism. The key point is that global expressivists should adopt two truth predicates and treat meta-semantics as non-substantial. I argue that this framework provides us with a better grasp of Price's response to the problem of inconsistency and enables global expressivists to accommodate the correspondence intuition.

Towards a represenation-based theory of meaning

The aim of the thesis is to provide the foundations for a representation-based theory of meaning, i.e. a theory of meaning that encompasses the psychological level of cognitive representations. This is in opposition to the antipsychologist goals of the Fregean philosophy of language and represents the results of a joint analysis of multiple philosophical problems in contemporary philosophy of language, which, as argued in the tesis, stem from the lack of recognition of a cognitive level in language. In the thesis, I first provide and argue a definition of cognitive/mental representations based on results in developmental psychology as well as theoretical considerations. Then, I use the definition to build upon it a richer theory of concepts and apply it to various philosophical conundra. The problems tackled include the problem of proper names (for which a solution is proposed that respects the post-Kripkean criticism), a unified meaning postulate for modalities and the epistemology and ontology of mathematical terms. The thesis concludes with a proposed application of the newly acquired framework to select social aspects of language use.

Meaning Holism and Semantic Realism, Dialectica (1992) Volume 46, Issue 1, pages 41–59.

Dialectica, 1992

Reconciliation of semantic holism with interpretation of individual expressions is advanced here by means of interpretation of sentence meaning in relation to object language theories viewed as idealizations of belief-systems. Fodor's view of the autonomy of the special sciences is emphasized and this is combined with detailed replies to his recent criticisms of meaning holism. The argument is that the need for empirical evidence requires a holistic approach to meaning. Thus, semantic realism requires semantic holism. (Abstract slightly modified for clarity.)

Language, Giving-the-Meaning and Interpretation

Entelekya Logico-Metaphysical Review, 2021

The subject that we have tried to mention in this article mainly intensifies on the meta-ontological or metaphysical field. Although we cannot know the real existence of objects, at least, we say something that cannot be expressed. Then, we should not ignore that our judgments belonging to the unknown field can be interpreted, more or less, on account of the relation to the area of the facts we know them. It is clear that trying to get the meaning of the world in itself or noumenon through the image of the concrete world is useless. Nevertheless, this condition does not mean that it should not make inquiries concerning the noumenon world and discontinue thinking about what the field of existence in itself is. Interpretations on this field of existence in itself cannot be expressed by mere knowledge of the actual area or the real notions. Because, in our image of the real world, there seems a situation that continually changes and which converts its meaning in each change.

An Observation about Truth (with Implications for Meaning and Language) [PhD dissertation]

This dissertation is a philosophical analysis of the concept of truth. It is a development and defense of the “stratified” or “language-level” conception of truth, first advanced in Alfred Tarski’s 1933 monograph The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages. Although Tarski’s paper had seminal influence both in philosophy and in more technical disciplines, its central philosophical claim has not been generally accepted. This work has two central goals: (a) to give a detailed and analytic presentation of Tarski’s theory and the problems it faces; (b) to offer a solution to these problems and assess the philosophical significance of this solution. The essay is divided in two parts. Part One contains a detailed and analytic presentation and interpretation of the stratified conception of truth. The analysis contains several steps: (a) Crucial basic assumptions, such as the limitation to formalized languages and the requirement of explicit definitions, are stated explicitly, motivated, and their philosophical significance discussed. (b) The main negative result of the stratified conception, the impossibility of semantic closure and of a universal language, is given in detail and interpreted. (c) Tarski’s criterion for adequate truth definitions, known as Convention T, is stated and motivated. (d) The deep structure of Tarski-style truth definitions and the necessary conditions for their availability are analyzed. In particular, the philosophical significance of Tarski’s notion of “essential richness” is discussed. (e) Finally, several problems are raised for the stratified conception, chief among them the unity objection, according to which the stratified conception is not a viable analysis of the concept of truth, since (by (a) above) an analysis should take the form of a definition, and on the stratified conception different languages have different definitions. There is therefore no one analysis of the concept. Part Two is a development of answers to the problems raised at the end of Part One. The crux of the answer to the unity objection is that Convention T, the adequacy criterion, connects the many definitions of truth into a single concept. However, in order to fulfill that role Convention T must apply universally, and a universal language was shown to be impossible ((c) above). The task of Part Two is therefore to develop a mode of expression that allows the universal applicability of Convention T without commitment to a universal metalanguage. The procedure is as follows. (a) Convention T is formalized in order to isolate the place in which universal applicability is required. (b) A new expressive resource of “abstract generality” is developed. To this purpose a digression into the semantics of natural language indexicals is undertaken. David Kaplan’s thesis of the direct reference of indexicals is analyzed and a new formal system is proposed that embodies it. It is shown that this formal system expresses abstract generality. (c) The notion of abstract generality is adapted to languages without indexicals and it isviii shown that Convention T can be expressed without assuming a universal language. (d) A reconstrual of the task of concept analysis is proposed, which is a generalization of the answer to the unity objection. It is often complained against Tarski’s stratified conception of truth that it is of limited philosophical significance. In this work I show that, on the contrary, the problems it faces and the solutions that can be advanced to answer these problems have substantive philosophical consequences. The notion of abstract generality gives rise to a distinction between two fundamentally different modes of discourse: a universal but merely abstract methodological discourse on the one hand, and a concrete but inevitably restricted theoretical discourse on the other. This distinction has many important implications for our understanding of the concepts of truth, meaning and language.

Truth and the Critique of Representation

Logos & Episteme, 2011

The correspondence theory of truth was regarded for many centuries as the correct position in the problem of truth. The main purpose of this paper is to establish the extent to which antirepresentationalist arguments devised by the pragmatists can destabilise the correspondence theory of truth. Thus, I identified three types of antirepresentationalist arguments: ontological, epistemological and semantic. Then I tried to outline the most significant varieties for each type of argument. Finally, I evaluated these counterarguments from a metaphilosophical perspective. The point I endeavoured to make is that these arguments are decisive neither in supporting the pragmatist theory of truth, nor in proving the failure of the correspondence theory of truth. Actually, we are dealing with two distinct modes of looking at the same problem, two theoretical approaches based on different sets of presuppositions. By examining the presuppositions of the classical theory of truth, the pragmatists engage in a theoretical undertaking with therapeutical qualities: they contributed significantly to the critical evaluation of a series of dogmas. The belief in the power of the human mind to mirror reality exactly as it is was one of these dogmas.

Introduction: Expressivisms, Knowledge and Truth

Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement

This volume accurately reproduces the talks given there. As its title indicates, the conference focused on different varieties of contemporary expressivism, and how they fare in relation to the truth-aptness of utterances with expressive meaning, and the status of knowledge claims. Expressivisms of all kinds share the negative thesis that claims with expressive meaning do not represent states of affairs 1. This semantic characterisation of the negative thesis also permits the pragmatic wording that the business of expressive discourse is something other than describing. Endorsing this negative thesis suffices for an approach to count as expressivist. The negative thesis can applied to all uses of language, and thus be global, or alternatively be restricted to some specific areas of discourse, or to some specific terms and phrases. The first kind of non-global expressivism is local expressivism, and I'll call the second kind term-focused expressivism. In term-focused expressivism, terms with expressive meaning do not contribute a component to what is said, i.e. they are semantically irrelevant. Frápolli's and Price's contributions defend global versions of expressivism, while Bar-On's, Besson's and Osorio and Villanueva's propose local versions, and Chrisman's, Soria and Stojanovic's, and Zalabardo's views are term-focused varieties. Within their respective scopes, all expressivisms stick to the negative thesis. It is the positive thesis, i.e. the thesis that identifies what expressive claims and utterances actually do, where a deeper disagreement between the different approaches lies. And at this point the options multiply. Just to give a hint of the variety, the positive thesis has attributed to expressive claims subjective as well as 1