Multiple meanings and stability of content
Journal of Philosophy 95 (5):255-63 (1998)
| Abstract | We examine a proposal of Eric Lormand's for dealing with perhaps the chief difficulty facing holistic theories of meaning—meaning instability. The problem is that, given a robust holism, small changes in a representational system are likely to lead to meaning changes throughout the system. Consequently, different individuals are likely never to mean the same thing. Lormand suggests that holists can avoid this problem—and even secure more stability than non-holists—by positing that symbols have multiple meanings. We argue that the proposal doesn't work, however, since multiple meanings are unstable for much the same reason that single meanings are. | |||||||||
| Keywords | meaning holism mental content semantics Lormand mental representation publicity constraint | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,701 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesStephen Laurence (1998). Multiple Meanings and the Stability of Content. Journal of Philosophy 95 (5):255 - 263.
Tadeusz Szubka (2000). Meaning Rationalism, a Priori, and Transparency of Content. Philosophical Psychology 13 (4):491-503.
James Blachowicz (1994). Unarticulated Meaning. Erkenntnis 40 (1):43 - 70.
Mark Bevir (2002). What Is a Text? International Philosophical Quarterly 42 (4):493-508.
Ned Block (1996). Holism, Mental and Semantic. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Ned Block (1996). Holism, Mental and Semantic. In Edward Craig (ed.), [Book Chapter] (Unpublished). Routledge.
Kirk A. Ludwig (1993). Is Content Holism Incoherent? Grazer Philosophische Studien 46:173-195.
K. Becker (1998). On the Perfectly General Nature of Instability in Meaning Holism. Journal of Philosophy 95 (12):635-640.
Ned Block (1995). Ruritania Revisited. Philosophical Issues 6:171-187.
Eric Lormand (1996). How to Be a Meaning Holist. Journal of Philosophy 93 (2):51-73.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads13 ( #87,971 of 549,120 )Recent downloads (6 months)2 ( #37,390 of 549,120 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
