Contexts and Constraints on Use

Bibliographic Data

ID20142005
AuthorsGeoff Georgi (0000-0002-2799-6309, West Virginia University, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume87
Issue1
Pages136-151
Publication date2021-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTheoria (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0040-5825 • E-ISSN: 1755-2567
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/theo.12199
OpenAlexW2968708256
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited29

One requirement of a theory of meaning for a natural language such as English is that it generate constraints on what speakers can use expressions to strictly and literally say or assert. Yet one significant recent philosophical defence of formal semantics, based on the technical innovations in semantics due to Kaplan, does not satisfy this requirement. On such a theory, meaning is a function from contexts to contents. But contexts in a Kaplanian theory are not uses of indexicals. Thus without some further bridge principle linking uses of indexicals to the contexts of a Kaplanian theory, functions from contexts to content do not determine any constraints on what an indexical can be used to strictly and literally say or assert. A great deal of recent work on Kaplanian theories has been dedicated to identifying the correct bridge principle in response to this challenge, but such work is doomed to fail. I argue that appeal to any such bridge principle in defence of a Kaplanian theory leads to an unacceptably weak account of the role of formal semantics in the study of human linguistic communication

Appeal · Bridge (graph theory) · Epistemology · Formal semantics (linguistics) · Function (biology) · Indexicality · Linguistics · Meaning (existential) · Metaphysics · Natural (archaeology) · Natural language · Philosophy of language · Semantics (computer science) · Sociology · Computer Science · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation