Meaning and argument. A theory of meaning centred on immediate argumental role
| Abstract | 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. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,705 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Only published papers are available at libraries |
Similar books and articlesGary Kemp (2002). Reply to Heck on Meaning and Truth-Conditions. Philosophical Quarterly 52 (207):233-236.
Jay David Atlas (1989). Philosophy Without Ambiguity: A Logico-Linguistic Essay. Oxford University Press.
Richard Heck (2002). Meaning and Truth-Conditions: A Reply to Kemp. Philosophical Quarterly 52 (206):82–87.
Douglas Patterson (2005). Deflationism and the Truth Conditional Theory of Meaning. Philosophical Studies 124 (3):271 - 294.
Peter Carruthers (1985). Ruling-Out Realism. Philosophia 15 (1-2):61-78.
Markus Schrenk (2008). Verificationist Theory of Meaning. In U. Windhorst, M. Binder & N. Hirowaka (eds.), Encyclopaedic Reference of Neuroscience. Springer.
Susanne Bobzien (1996). Stoic Syllogistic. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 14:133-92.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads75 ( #10,894 of 549,372 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,397 of 549,372 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
