Philosophy of Language

This is a collaborative Notes Page for Students in PHIL 425a: Philosophy of Language
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Davidson, "Truth & Meaning"

Davidson was interested in developing a theory of meaning sufficient for natural language.

His theory builds on Tarski's semantic conception of truth (which was built with formal rather than natural languages in mind). Tarski believed no formal language can contain it's own truth predicate (proof:formalization of liars paradox).

In this essay Davidson first refutes several alternative theories of meaning. Than he articulates his own notion of truth. Than he addresses several anticipated objections which might be raised.

Notion of Truth

According to Davidson to specify the conditions under which a sentence is true is also a way of specifying the meaning of a sentence.

Instead of 's means that p' Davidson prefers 's is true if and only if p'

Ex: ‘Schnee ist weiss’ is true if and only if snow is white.

Grice, "Meaning"

Grice is a use-theorist, interested in determining how expressions are endowed with content.

Davidson proposed a notion of truth to arrive at a notion of meaning. Grice instead presupposes mental states which than follow to endowment with content.

Grice is concerned with how use words (ordinary language philosophy). To him our usage breaks into natural meaning and non-natural meaning.

meaning (natural): 'smoke means fire', 'these spots mean measeles'; in these cases the meaning is naturally inherent.

meaning-nn: 'x means y', 'ump waves flag means foul'; in these cases the meaning is constructed.

Proposes a way of distinguishing between the two types of meaning.

1. Can we affirm 'This smoke means fire but there is none' while denying there being y? If so meaning-nn.
2. Can we infer from 'the fire was meant by smoke' that y was meant by x? If so meaning-nn.
3. Can we infer from 'the empire meant a foul' that someone meant y by x? If so meaning-nn.
4. Can we rephrase 'spots mean you have the measeles' so that 'mean' is followed by a quotation of y or 'that y'? If so meaning-nn.
5. Can we rephrase 'the fact that the' so as to begin with 'the fact of x'? If so than meaning, else meaning-nn.

Really the difference lies in possible interpretation. Natural meanings provides us with symbols which represent facts (necessity), whereas non-natural meanings provide evidence which indicates a likely fact (sufficent). It's the difference between something causing you to believe (natural meaning) and something giving you reason to believe(non-natural meaning).

Lewis, "Language & Languages"

Argues against Grice, wishes to forward the position that ultimately the meaning of a sentence is a function from world to truth values, or more simply a set of worlds. His goal is to reconcile formal semantics with use-theoretic approaches to meaning (such as Grice's).

Proposes a synthesis of formal semantics and use-theoretic approaches. Aims to show that the formal semantic position does not necessarily oppose the use-theoretic position. Points out that a convention of trust/truthfulness in L is required for a pop. to use Language L.

1. There is a regularity R of the appropriate kind in P. (In our case, a regularity of truthfulness and trust in L.)
2. Everyone believes that everyone else acts in accordance with the regularity.
3. There is a general preference for general conformity to R.
4. The fact that this regularity obtains gives individuals a reason (in conjunction with their other goals) to continue acting in accordance with the regularity.
5. There are other possible regularities that could in principle work as well as the actual one, if they were followed as widely.
6. All the above facts are "common knowledge," in the sense that everyone knows them, and everyone knows that everyone knows them, etc.

Strawson, "On Referring"

Proposes an alternative to Russell's Theory of Description

Hopes to distinguish between expressions and their uses. It is the use of an expression which uniquely refers, not the expression itself.

Utterance of expressions. One might use the same sentence over and over again in different situations, and subsequently make different statement with different truth values.

'sentence' = 'sentence-type' 'use of a sentence in a particular instance' = 'sentence-token'

Meaning is derived from the type but truth value is derived from the token.

Reference vs. Attribution A sentence when used to make a statement serves to roles:

1. Identifying (or referring to) something
2. Attributing something to it (saying something about it).

When (1) fails to specify a referent, (2) fails to occur, resulting in a statement devoid of truth value.

Entailment vs. Presupposition

1. The king of France is bald.
2. There is a king of France.

Russell says that in order for (1) to hold true it must entail (2). (Necessity) For Russell (1) & (2) are either TRUE or FALSE.

Strawson says that (1) presupposes (2). That is to say (1) implies (2) but does not require it. (Sufficiency) To Strawson (1) & (2) are either TRUE, FALSE, or NEITHER.

Like Frege, Strawson embraces the concept of truth-value gaps.

Distinguishes between indexicals and definite descriptions. A sentence type containing a description is indexical-free, the truth-value of any given token of that type should not depend on contextual features.

Russell, "Mr.Strawson on Referring"

Russell disagress with Donnellan's counter position.

Puts fourth 2 main arguments:

How can Starwson's position account for context free expressions? (ex. 2+3 = 5)

Problem of Egocentricity: Strawson & Russell seem to fundamentally disagree on how an indexical should be considered. "I" in particular.

Also see the difference between presupposition and entailment discussed in the Strawson section.

Donnellan, "Reference & Definite Descriptions"

Argues against both Strawson & Russell claiming that both positions have flawed assumptions.

Russell does a good job of accounting for attributive uses of description (when we learn something about the referent). However his account does little to adaquetly address reference.

Strawson's account adaquetly accounts for referential uses of description, but fails to allow for the referential use to occur successfully even though nothing satisfies the description.

Furthermore Donnellan disagrees with both theories when it comes to evaluating the truth value of descriptive sentences.

Given the sentences considered by both Strawson & Russell:

1. The king of France is bald.
2. There is a king of France.

Russell would say (1) entails (2), thus if (2) is false than (1) is necessarily false.

Strawson would say (1) implies (2), thus if (2) is false than the sentence is neither false nor true.

Donellan argues that it is possible to for (1) to be true while (2) is false. Suppose a speaker mistakenly thinks that a certain bald individual is the king of France. He might utter (1) and still state something true about the bald man he intended to refer to.

Denoting vs. Reffering

To Donnellan expressions denote while people refer. This nuance let's him cherry pick bits from both Semantic-Theories & use-theortic.

Kripke, "Naming & Necessity"

Kripke covers several specific objections to Russell's TOD.

For Kripke proper names do not have a sense. Furthermore he argues that Russell used the term 'Sense' to refer to two different things:

Sense of a designator as it's meaning; giving semantic content to the expression.

Sense as the way it's reference is determined; The description which picks out what is being referred to.

Kripke argues names cannot be synonymous with definite descriptions. Otherwise many contingent facts would be knowable a priori.

A Priority vs. Necessity Kripke believes their are 4 categories knowledge relevant to his position:

Necessary a priori	Necessary a posteriori
Contingent a priori	Contingent a posteriori

Both names & descriptions are designators:

1. Rigid Designators: designates the same object in all possible worlds. (This includes names)
2. Nonrigid Designators: designates different objects in different possible worlds.

Casual Chain

Kripke believes that there is a causal link between an initial use of a name and subsequent uses by later speakers. Also he feels that intention is important in referring.

Kaplan, "On the Logic of Demonstratives"

Proposes alternative to Frege's Sense & Reference approach to context in language.

Two key propositions:

Prefers notions of Character & Content

Character: linguistic meaning of an expression; defines a function associated by convention with an expression, which takes contextual elements as arguments and yields content as values.

Content: the proposition (or propositional component) expressed by an expression in a context; defines a function taking as arguments those elements of the circumstances of evaluation relevant to determining extension, and yielding the extension (referent or truth-value) as a value.

Thinks of propositions as a sequence of components.

Context of Utterence vs. circumstance of evaluation

makes an explicit distinction between the context of an utterance and the circumstances of evaluation of the proposition expressed by an utterance. Context can be formalized as a set composed of a speaker, a place, a time, and a possible world (and, depending on the analysis of demonstratives, perhaps a set of either demonstrations or directing intentions). Circumstances of evaluation play a role very similar to possible worlds in modal semantics.

External Links

http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/453/LectureNotes.html