Logic, Vagueness, and the Use Theory

Canadian Journal of Philosophy 33 (2):259 - 283 (2003)
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Abstract

In numerous essays over the years, and most recently in his Meaning, Paul Horwich has worked to articulate and defend a version of the use theory of meaning. At the heart of his project is the idea that the meaning of a word is constituted by a regularity in speakers’ use of it — i.e., by a regularity in speakers’ dispositions to accept as true, to reject as false, or neither to accept nor to reject sentences containing it. A ‘use regularity,’ thus construed, is a dispositional acceptance property distinctive of a particular word and, derivatively, of sentences containing the word. For example, the use regularity constituting the meaning of ‘red’ can be very roughly characterized as speakers’ disposition to accept the application of ‘red’ to observed surfaces if and only if they are clearly red. Of course, the use regularity constituting the meaning of a word can be described in different ways; in particular, in describing a use regularity we might merely mention, and not use, the corresponding word. Furthermore, not every regularity in the use of a word is meaning-constituting. The use regularity that constitutes the meaning of the word ‘tall,’ for example, does so in virtue of the fact that, taken together with general psychological laws and the use regularities governing other words, it is basic to the explanation of speakers’ overall pattern of use of ‘tall.’ Hence, a central claim of Horwich’s use theory is that linguistic use is in general to be ‘unified and explained in terms of a relatively small and simple body of factors and principles including, for each word, a basic use regularity’.

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References found in this work

Vagueness.Timothy Williamson - 1995 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 46 (4):589-601.
Précis of Vagueness.Timothy Williamson - 1997 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 57 (4):921-928.
Wittgenstein and Kripke on the nature of meaning.Paul Horwich - 1990 - Mind and Language 5 (2):105-121.

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