"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."--Jacket.

lgrsnf/28.pdf

scihub/10.1007/978-1-4020-5857-8.pdf

Saka, Paul

Kluwer Academic Publishers

Springer Netherland

Philosophical Studies Series, 1 edition, May 15, 2007

Philosophical studies series, Dordrecht, cop. 2007

United States, United States of America

sm22966759

producers:
Acrobat Distiller 7.0.5 (Windows)

978-1-4020-5857-8_BookFrontMatter_OnlinePDF.pdf 2
HOW TO THINK ABOUT MEANING 2
CONTENTS 7
PREFACE 11
NOTATIONAL CONVENTIONS 13
978-1-4020-5857-8_1_OnlinePDF.pdf 14
PARTI Theoretical Issues 14
Introduction 15
Semantics with Attitude 15
Ends and Means 20
The State of Play 30
Truth Theory and Model Theory 31
Direct Reference and Mediated Reference 33
Realism and Verificationism 34
Assertability Semantics 36
Technical and Formalist Semantics 37
Minimalism and Contextualism 39
Speech-Act Theory 40
Intention-Based Semantics 42
Conceptual Role Semantics 43
Cognitive Semantics 44
978-1-4020-5857-8_2_OnlinePDF.pdf 47
The Case of the MissingTruth-Conditions 47
The Argument from Ignorance 48
Ignorance Regarding Non-Declaratives 48
Ignorance ad Nauseam 51
Truth-Conditionalist Maneuvers 53
Ignorance of Meaning 54
Knowledge of Disquotational T-Sentences 55
Half and Half 56
Dialects 57
Extending the Argument from Ignorance 59
Depth of TCs: Total vs. Partial 59
Breadth of TCs: General vs. Delimited 59
Strength of TCs: Strong vs. Weak 60
Status of TCs: Epistemic vs. Ontic 61
Modality of TCs: Explanatory vs. Nominal 66
Role of TCs: Flat, Structured, Holistic 67
Nature of Truth: Realist vs. Verificationist 67
Locus of TCs: Semantics vs. Pragmatics 68
978-1-4020-5857-8_3_OnlinePDF.pdf 70
Foundations of Attitudinal Semantics 70
Motivating Attitudinal Semantics 70
Elaborating Attitudinal Semantics 72
The Analytic Framework 73
The Propositional Attitudes 80
Matters of Interpretation 86
Versions of Charity 86
Charity is Untenable 88
The Case for Charity is Untenable 92
Some Implications 96
``Contents'' and ``Containers'' 99
978-1-4020-5857-8_4_OnlinePDF.pdf 102
Objections and Replies 102
The Determination Argument 102
The Covariance Argument 104
The Cognitive Argument 106
Dogmatism 108
A Transcendental Argument 110
The Success Argument 111
The Paradigm Argument 115
Compatibility? 117
The Irrelevance Objection 118
The Regress Objection 120
The Self-Refutation Objection 121
Skeptic Anxieties 122
Attitude Objections 124
The Ho-hum Objection 126
978-1-4020-5857-8_5_OnlinePDF.pdf 129
PARTII Case Studies 129
Hate Speech 130
The Disquotational Theory 131
The Conjunction Theory 132
The Stereotype Theory 134
The Non-Proposition Nonsense Theory 136
Non-Propositionality 136
Nonsense 138
The Non-Proposition No-Reference Theory 140
The Bracket Theory 143
The Multi-Proposition Theory 147
The Attitudinal Theory 149
Extensions & Elaborations 152
978-1-4020-5857-8_6_OnlinePDF.pdf 163
Ambiguity 163
Disjunctive Truth-Conditions 164
Conjunctive Truth-Conditions 166
Conjunctive Truth-Conditions with Subscripts 170
Ambiguities are Unnumbered 171
Ambiguities are Innumerable 174
An Ambiguity Test 180
Attitude Conditions 182
978-1-4020-5857-8_7_OnlinePDF.pdf 187
Quotation and Use-Mention 187
The Demonstrative Theory 189
Quoted Matter Belongs to the Sentence 190
Quotation Marks do not Refer 194
Plain Mentioning is Legitimate 197
The Use-Mention Distinction is Relevant 201
The Attitudinal Theory 204
Ostension and Construction: Principle (P) 205
Use and Mention: Principle (Q) 206
Scare Quotes 209
Metalinguistic Citation 211
Mixed Discourse Reports 213
Direct Discourse Reports 218
Other Conventions 220
Conclusion 221
978-1-4020-5857-8_8_OnlinePDF.pdf 224
Liars and Truth-Tellers 224
The Pi Paradox 224
The Significance Theory 227
The Gap Theory 230
The Dialethic Theory 232
The Hierarchy Theory 236
The Contextualist Theory 237
Tokens & Truth 237
Tokens & Reference 240
Tokens & Assertions 241
The Revision Theory 241
The Attitudinal Theory 243
The Liar Paradox 243
The Truth-Teller 249
The Omniscience Paradox 251
Other Paradoxes 252
978-1-4020-5857-8_BookBackMatter_OnlinePDF.pdf 254
CONCLUSION 254
REFERENCES 262
INDEX 278

<p><P>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.<p>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 &#8220;Grass is green&#8221;, for attitudinal semantics the object of inquiry is a propositional attitude such as &#8220;Speaker so-and-so thinks grass is green&#8221;. Explicit relativization to some speaker S allows for semantic theory then to make contact with psychology, sociology, historical linguistics, and other empirical disciplines.<p>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&#58; 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.</p>

According to truth-conditional semantics, to explain the meaning of a statement is to specify the conditions necessary and sufficient for its truth. This book develops a more radical mentalist semantics by shifting the object of semantic inquiry. Classical semantics analyzes an abstract sentence or utterance such as "Grass is green"; in attitudinal semantics the object of inquiry is a propositional attitude such as "Speaker so-and-so thinks grass is green".

2014-04-04