书名: How to Think about Meaning (Philosophical Studies Series)
作者: Paul Saka (Author)
出版社: Springer; 1 edition (May 14, 2007)
语言：English
ISBN-10: 140205856X
ISBN-13: 978-1402058561
Book Description
According to the dominant theory of meaning, truth-conditional semantics, to explain the meaning of a statement is to specify the conditions necessary and sufficient for its truth. Classical truth-conditional semantics is coming under increasing attack, however, from contextualists and inferentialists, who agree that meaning is located in the mind.
How to Think about Meaning develops an even more radical mentalist semantics, which it does by shifting the object of semantic inquiry. Whereas for classical semantics the object of analysis is an abstract sentence or utterance such as "Grass is green," for attitudinal semantics the object of inquiry is a propositional attitude such as "Speaker so-and-so thinks grass is green." Explicit relativization to some speaker S allows for semantic theory then to make contact with psychology, sociology, historical linguistics, and other empirical disciplines.
The attitudinal approach is motivated both by theoretical considerations and by its practical success in dealing with recalcitrant phenomena in the theory of meaning. These include: presuppositions as found in hate speech, and more generally the connotative force of evaluative language; the problem of how to represent ambiguity; quotation and the use-mention distinction; and the liar paradox, which appears to contradict truth-based semantics.
Review
"A remarkable new approach to semantic theory. With a refreshing emphasis on meaning as the expression of attitude, Paul Saka not only strikes a blow against vacuous truth-conditional theories, but demonstrates the power of his cognitive analysis in theory and in a surprising and satisfying selection of important linguistic applications. Technically exact, highly readable, and illustrated with valuable examples from many contexts of language use, here is a book to counterbalance decades of misdirected anti-psychologistic semantic dogma." -- Dale Jacquette, Pennsylvania State University, USA
Written for:
Anyone interested in the theory of meaning, especially philosophers of language and those in linguistic semantics and linguistic pragmatics
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作者: Paul Saka (Author)
出版社: Springer; 1 edition (May 14, 2007)
语言：English
ISBN-10: 140205856X
ISBN-13: 978-1402058561
Book Description
According to the dominant theory of meaning, truth-conditional semantics, to explain the meaning of a statement is to specify the conditions necessary and sufficient for its truth. Classical truth-conditional semantics is coming under increasing attack, however, from contextualists and inferentialists, who agree that meaning is located in the mind.
How to Think about Meaning develops an even more radical mentalist semantics, which it does by shifting the object of semantic inquiry. Whereas for classical semantics the object of analysis is an abstract sentence or utterance such as "Grass is green," for attitudinal semantics the object of inquiry is a propositional attitude such as "Speaker so-and-so thinks grass is green." Explicit relativization to some speaker S allows for semantic theory then to make contact with psychology, sociology, historical linguistics, and other empirical disciplines.
The attitudinal approach is motivated both by theoretical considerations and by its practical success in dealing with recalcitrant phenomena in the theory of meaning. These include: presuppositions as found in hate speech, and more generally the connotative force of evaluative language; the problem of how to represent ambiguity; quotation and the use-mention distinction; and the liar paradox, which appears to contradict truth-based semantics.
Review
"A remarkable new approach to semantic theory. With a refreshing emphasis on meaning as the expression of attitude, Paul Saka not only strikes a blow against vacuous truth-conditional theories, but demonstrates the power of his cognitive analysis in theory and in a surprising and satisfying selection of important linguistic applications. Technically exact, highly readable, and illustrated with valuable examples from many contexts of language use, here is a book to counterbalance decades of misdirected anti-psychologistic semantic dogma." -- Dale Jacquette, Pennsylvania State University, USA
Written for:
Anyone interested in the theory of meaning, especially philosophers of language and those in linguistic semantics and linguistic pragmatics
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