Meaning

Edited by Steven Gross (Johns Hopkins University)
About this topic
Summary

Words and phrases have meaning. But what are meanings? Maybe they are the objects and properties that our words are about. But then ‘Mark Twain’ and ‘Samuel Clemens’ would have the same meaning, even though one and the same person can affirm the sentence ‘Mark Twain was a great writer’ but reject the sentence ‘Samuel Clemens was a great writer.’ And what makes it the case that some squiggles or sounds are meaningful? Perhaps it’s because of the mental states of language users, but then in virtue of what do those states have their meaning or content? Might the explanation run in the other direction, so that our mental states have content only because we are language users? Also, can our grasp of what words mean explain our basic logical and mathematical knowledge and otherwise underwrite a compelling conception of the a priori? Perhaps it’s because we know what ‘and’ means that we know that ‘A and B’ is true just in case ‘A’ is true and ‘B’ is true. This category subsumes work that ranges over these and other questions concerning meaning and its bearing on a variety of philosophical topics.

Key works

Frege 1892 and Russell 1905 are seminal works on meaning and reference. Kripke 1980 and Putnam 1975 argue, among other things, that semantic properties are determined by factors external to language users. Grice 1957 and Davidson 1973 explore the relation of language and thought. Quine 1951 rejects the idea of philosophically interesting truths in virtue of meaning and knowledge in virtue of knowledge of meaning.

Introductions Speaks 2010 provides a survey with references. Richard 2003 is a good collection of articles.
Related
Subcategories
Intentionality* (12,988 | 1,908)
History/traditions: Meaning

Contents
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  1. Abstrakte Gegenstände: Semantik und Ontologie.Wolfgang Künne - 1980 - Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
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  2. Sinnfrage als Selbstüberstieg.Jörg Splett - 1983 - In Horst Jürgen Helle & Günter Eifler (eds.), Sinn im Wissenschaftshorizont. Studium Generale der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität.
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  3. Selbsttätigkeit, reden, rechnen, gehen.Klaus Mollenhauer - 1983 - In Horst Jürgen Helle & Günter Eifler (eds.), Sinn im Wissenschaftshorizont. Studium Generale der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität.
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  4. Die Gottesfrage der Moral.Dietmar Mieth - 1983 - In Horst Jürgen Helle & Günter Eifler (eds.), Sinn im Wissenschaftshorizont. Studium Generale der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität.
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  5. Zur Diätetik der Sinnerwartung.Odo Marquard - 1983 - In Horst Jürgen Helle & Günter Eifler (eds.), Sinn im Wissenschaftshorizont. Studium Generale der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität.
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  6. Forschung, Verantwortung, Anwendung, Innovation.Heinz Maier-Leibnitz - 1983 - In Horst Jürgen Helle & Günter Eifler (eds.), Sinn im Wissenschaftshorizont. Studium Generale der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität.
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  7. Sinn und Symbol in der verstehenden Soziologie.Horst Jürgen Helle - 1983 - In Horst Jürgen Helle & Günter Eifler (eds.), Sinn im Wissenschaftshorizont. Studium Generale der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität.
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  8. Sinn im Wissenschaftshorizont.Horst Jürgen Helle & Günter Eifler (eds.) - 1983 - Mainz: Studium Generale der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität.
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  9. Filosofskie problemy logiki: (semanticheskie aspekty).V. V. T︠S︡elishchev - 1984 - Moskva: "Vysshai︠a︡ shkola". Edited by V. V. Petrov.
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  10. Le devenir de l'autre: sur les fondements ontologiques de l'épistémologie de Piaget.Piergiorgio Quadranti - 1984 - Genève: Droz.
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  11. Semanticheskiĭ analiz poni︠a︡tiĭ v istoriko-filosofskikh issledovanii︠a︡kh: sbornk nauchnykh trudov.V. V. T︠S︡elishchev (ed.) - 1984 - Novosibirsk: [S.N.].
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  12. Des Lebens tiefster Sinn.Ivo Höllhuber - 1984 - Wien: Böhlau.
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  13. Keishiki imiron nyūmon: gengo, ronri, ninchi no sekai.Kenʼichirō Shirai - 1985 - Tōkyō: Sangyō Tosho.
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  14. Tiedon ehdot ja syvällisyys semanttisena ja kasvatusfilosofisena ongelmana.Kimmo Lapintie - 1985 - Hämeenlinna: Tampereen yliopiston Hämeenlinnan opettajankoulutuslaitos.
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  15. Od misli do jezika.Nenad Miščević - 1987 - Rijeka: Izdavački centar Rijeka.
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  16. Kontekst i značenje.Nenad Miščević & Matjaž Potrč (eds.) - 1987 - Rijeka: Izdavački centar Rijeka.
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  17. A Simple Logic of Concepts.Thomas F. Icard & Lawrence S. Moss - 2023 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 52 (3):705-730.
    In Pietroski ( 2018 ) a simple representation language called SMPL is introduced, construed as a hypothesis about core conceptual structure. The present work is a study of this system from a logical perspective. In addition to establishing a completeness result and a complexity characterization for reasoning in the system, we also pinpoint its expressive limits, in particular showing that the fourth corner in the square of opposition (“ Some_not ”) eludes expression. We then study a seemingly small extension, called (...)
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  18. Kont︠s︡eptualizat︠s︡ii︠a︡ i smysl: sbornik nauchnykh trudov.I. V. Poli︠a︡kov (ed.) - 1990 - Novosibirsk: "Nauka," Sibirskoe otd-nie.
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  19. Ren xing, ji hao yu wen ming.Xiuhuang He - 1992 - Taibei Shi: Zong jing xiao San min shu ju.
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  20. Merkityksen käsite ihmistutkimuksen ja kasvatuksen perusteiden analyysin lähtökohtana.Juhani Aaltola - 1992 - Kokkola: Jyväskylän yliopisto, Chydenius-instituutti.
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  21. Social Delusion and Inferentialism.Kamil Lemanek - forthcoming - Theoria.
    This work sets out to present how the notion of delusion may be understood (and extended) within the semantic framework of Robert Brandom’s inferentialism. The mechanisms of reliability and community-oriented proprieties, among others, provide inferentialists with effective tools for understanding commitments (and so beliefs) in communities. These tools may be used to describe and assess both commitments that we might consider sound and commitments that we might consider delusional, both in terms of how they arise and in terms of how (...)
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  22. Kulʹtura, smysl, soznanie: soznanie v predmete filosofii kulʹtury.S. I. Golenkov - 1996 - Samara: Izd-vo "Samarskiĭ universitet".
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  23. Predelʹnye znachenii︠a︡ v filosofii.Vladimir Ivanovich Krasikov - 1997 - Kemerovo: Kuzbassvuzizdat.
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  24. The Evolutionary Foundations of Common Ground.Josh Armstrong - forthcoming - In Bart Geurts & Richard Moore (eds.), Evolutionary Pragmatics. Oxford University Press.
    (Penultimate Draft). I consider common ground in its evolutionary context and argue for several claims. First, common ground is widely (though not universally) distributed among social animals. Second, the use of common ground is favored (i.e. is predicted to emerge and subsequently persist) among populations of animals whose members face recurrent interdependent decision-making problems in which the benefit of their courses of action are contingent on the variable choices of their stable social partner(s). Third, humans deploy cognitive and social mechanisms (...)
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  25. Hermeneutyczno-dydaktyczny wymiar symbolu i implikacje pedagogicznoreligijne: studium pedagogicznoreligijne w wymiarze interdyscyplinarnym.Cyprian Rogowski - 1999 - Lublin: Tow. Nauk. Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego.
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  26. Metafora kak sredstvo filosofskogo poznanii︠a︡.I. V. Polozova - 1999 - Samara: Izd-vo SamGPU.
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  27. Mezi jazykem a vědomím.Vladimír Havlík (ed.) - 1999 - Praha: Filosofia.
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  28. Yi yi yu fu hao.Zhixiao Gou - 1999 - [Guangzhou]: Guangdong ren min chu ban she.
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  29. كيف تشكل اللغة أفكارنا.Salah Osman - manuscript
    تعمل الكلمات كروابط لإدراكات متباينة، ما يسمح لنا بتجميع التجارب الحسية المختلفة تحت مُسمى واحدًا. ينطبق هذا بشكل خاص على المفاهيم التي تُشير إلى أشياء يمكننا رؤيتها أو لمسها، لكننا ما زلنا لا نفهم حقًا كيف تعمل اللغة في تشكيل معنى المفاهيم الأكثر تجريدًا، أو كيف تسمح لنا بتجميع الخبرات معًا تحت مظلة مصطلح واحد يشير إلى شيء لا يمكننا الإشارة إليه أو رؤيته أو لمسه. هذا ما تناقشه «ماريانا مارسيلا بولونيسي» (الأستاذ المشارك بقسم اللغات والآداب والثقافات الحديثة بجامعة بولونيا) (...)
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  30. Was sind Begriffe und wozu sind sie gut?: Plädoyer für einen Verzicht.Axel Klie - 2001 - Berlin: WVB, Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Berlin.
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  31. Het teken en de wereld: over betekenis en referentie in de analytische taalfilosofie.Filip Buekens - 2001 - Leuven: Acco.
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  32. Logika smysla: teorii︠a︡ i ee prilozhenie k analizu klassicheskoĭ arabskoĭ filosofi i kulʹtury.A. V. Smirnov - 2001 - Moskva: I︠A︡zyki slavi︠a︡nskoĭ kulʹtury.
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  33. Zhe xue zhong de yu yan xue.Zeno Vendler - 2002 - Beijing Shi: Huaxia chu ban she. Edited by Jiaying Chen.
    本书是语言哲学较晚期重要人物万德勒的一部代表著作,他运用了现代语言学的手段来讨论语言哲学问题。.
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  34. Neslovesnoe myshlenie: monografii︠a︡.N. T. Abramova - 2002 - Moskva: T︠S︡OP Instituta filosofii RAN.
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  35. Metaforologii︠a︡: teoreticheskie aspekty.O. N. Laguta - 2003 - Novosibirsk: Novosibirskiĭ gos. universitet.
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  36. Smysl, kont︠s︡ept, intent︠s︡ionalʹnostʹ.O. A. Alimuradov - 2003 - Pi︠a︡tigorsk: Pi︠a︡tigorskiĭ gos. lingvisticheskiĭ universitet.
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  37. Lacan and Augustine's De Magistro.John Gale - 2022 - Vestigia 3 (2):178-194.
    This paper is concerned with the background to Lacan’s Seminar I, chapter xx on Augustine’s De magistro, its manuscript sources, editions and structure. The discussion of Augustine’s treatise was suggested to Lacan by Louis Beirnaert but he seems not to have known the text. We argue that there are reasons to think the suggestion came from his Jesuit confrere Paul Henry, the learned co-editor of the Enneads, who was helping to organise an international congress in Paris that year on Augustine. (...)
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  38. The Opacity of Law: On the Hidden Impact of Experts’ Opinion on Legal Decision-making.Damiano Canale - 2021 - Law and Philosophy 40 (5):509-543.
    It is well known that experts’ opinion and testimony take on a decisive weight in judicial fact-finding, raising issues and perplexities that have long been under scholarly scrutiny. In this paper I argue that expert’s opinions have a much wider impact on legal decision-making. In particular, they may generate a problem that I will call ‘the opacity of law’. A legal text, such as a statute or regulation, becomes opaque if a legal authority is not able to grasp its full (...)
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  39. How can the inferentialist make room for the distinction between factual and linguistic correctness?Kaluziński Bartosz - 2023 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    Brandom (Citation1994) made inferentialism an intensely debated idea in the philosophy of language in the last three decades. Inferentialism is a view that associates the meaning of linguistic expression with the role said expression plays in inferences. It seems rather uncontroversial that the correct theory of meaning should distinguish between linguistic correctness and factual correctness. For instance, speaker S can be wrong in saying ‘I have arthritis’ in two distinct ways: (i) S fails to apply a word correctly to make (...)
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  40. Frege's equivalence thesis and reference failure.Nathan Hawkins - 2021 - Organon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu 28 (1):198-222.
    Frege claims that sentences of the form ‘A’ are equivalent to sentences of the form ‘it is true that A’ (The Equivalence Thesis). Frege also says that there are fictional names that fail to refer, and that sentences featuring fictional names fail to refer as a result. The thoughts such sentences express, Frege says, are also fictional, and neither true nor false. Michael Dummett argues that these claims are inconsistent. But his argument requires clarification, since there are two ways The (...)
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  41. Can the reference of a use of “That” change? Assessing nonstandard approaches to the semantics of demonstratives.Jakub Rudnicki - 2023 - Journal of Pragmatics 209:31-40.
    The debate over the semantics of demonstratives is in a stalemate between those positions attributing some referential significance to a speaker's referential intentions and those not doing so. The latter approach is supported by cases driving the non-intentional intuition in which the speakers mistakenly point at objects other than the ones they intend to refer to. The intentionalists, such as Martin Montminy, reply that once we think of potential extensions of such cases in which the speaker explains to the hearer (...)
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  42. Samethinking.Romain Bourdoncle - 2022 - Dissertation, École Normale Supérieure
    This thesis investigates the nature of the relation between mental representations in successful verbal communication, thought attribution, agreement, and disagreement — a relation which I call “samethinking”. The nature of samethinking raises several foundational questions about the nature of (non-natural) meaning, and the cognitive underpinnings of the emergence of culture. It bears on long-lasting puzzles in the philosophy of mind and language (such as Frege’s puzzle and Kripke’s puzzle about belief). Samethinking does not amount to sharing a reference (with “sharing" (...)
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  43. This strange eventful history: a philosophy of meaning: pairs of thinkers in philosophy, religion, science and art.Paul Bradley - 2011 - New York: Algora.
    Jean Paul Sartre and Michael Foucault -- Socrates and the Buddha -- Sigmund Freud and Richard Dawkins -- Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh -- Carl Jung and Mircea Eliade -- Charles Darwin and Michael Behe -- Frans de Wall and Barbara King -- Paul Maclean and Michael Persinger -- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Francis Collins -- John Hick and the Dalai Lama.
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  44. Urworte: zur Geschichte und Funktion erstbegründender Begriffe.Michael Ott & Tobias Döring (eds.) - 2012 - München: Wilhelm Fink.
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  45. Ḥaqīqat va maʻnā dar falsafah-ʼi taḥlīlī-i muʻāṣir.Riz̤ā Baygʹpūr - 2011 - Tihrān: Intishārāt-i Ḥikmat.
    Semantics (philosophy) knowledge theory of truth.
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  46. Liberté de dire.Angèle Kremer-Marietti - 2012 - Paris: L'Harmattan.
    Liberté de dire parce que tel est l'apanage de l'humain, et qu'il feint parfois curieusement de l'ignorer. Avec cet ouvrage, est recherchée et dégagée la profonde et permanente "intention de signification" qui, au coeur des sociétés, anime tout langage et toute pensée de la philosophie de l'esprit dans son travail authentique de cognition et de communication, parti du peu probable ou du probable pour envisager et actualiser le certain, édifiant l'action humaine pleinement réussie.
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  47. What’s the Linguistic Meaning of Delusional Utterances? Speech Act Theory as a Tool for Understanding Delusions.Julian Hofmann, Pablo Hubacher Haerle & Anke Maatz - 2023 - Philosophical Psychology.
    Delusions have traditionally been considered the hallmark of mental illness, and their conception, diagnosis and treatment raise many of the fundamental conceptual and practical questions of psychopathology. One of these fundamental questions is whether delusions are understandable. In this paper, we propose to consider the question of understandability of delusions from a philosophy of language perspective. For this purpose, we frame the question of how delusions can be understood as a question about the meaning of delusional utterances. Accordingly, we ask: (...)
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  48. The Bounds of Sense.A. W. Moore - 2023 - In Jens Pier (ed.), Limits of Intelligibility: Issues from Kant and Wittgenstein. London: Routledge.
    This is an updated version of an essay originally written for a special issue of Philosophical Topics on the links between Kant and analytic philosophy. It explores these links by focusing on: Wittgenstein’s Tractatus; the logical positivism endorsed by Ayer; and the (very different) variation on that theme endorsed by Quine. The claim defended is that in all three cases we see analytic philosophers trying to attain and express a general philosophical understanding of why the bounds of sense should be (...)
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  49. Is meaning cognized?David Balcarras - forthcoming - Mind and Language:1-20.
    In this article, I defend an account of linguistic comprehension on which meaning is not cognized, or on which we do not tacitly know our language's semantics. On this view, sentence comprehension is explained instead by our capacity to translate sentences into the language of thought. I explain how this view can explain our capacity to correctly interpret novel utterances, and then I defend it against several standing objections.
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  50. What Welby Wanted.James Pearson - 2022 - In Jeanne Peijnenburg & Sander Verhaegh (eds.), Women in the History of Analytic Philosophy. Cham: Springer. pp. 23-43.
    Although the significs movement that Victoria, Lady Welby (1837–1912) inspired was dedicated to better understanding meaning, she has largely been forgotten by analytic philosophers of language. Significs was to educate “the great world of hearers and the growing world of readers” to better interpret science and philosophy, evincing a focus on the audience for intellectual activity that it remains vital for academics to consider. Her arguments that the metaphorical associations of terminology are part of their significance for others also pertain (...)
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