The Unity of Linguistic Meaning

by Collins, John

• ISBN13: 9780199694846
• ISBN10: 0199694842
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-11-15
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The problem of theunity of the propositionis almost as old as philosophy itself, and was one of the central themes of early analytical philosophy, greatly exercising the minds of Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, and Ramsey. The problem is how propositions or meanings can be simultaneously unities (single things) and complexes, made up of parts that are autonomous of the positions they happen to fill in any given proposition. The problem has been associated with numerous paradoxes and has motivated general theories of thought and meaning, but has eluded any consensual resolution; indeed, the problem is sometimes thought to be wholly erroneous, a result of atomistic assumptions we should reject. In short, the problem has been thought to be of merely historical interest. Collins argues that the problem is very real and poses a challenge to any theory of linguistic meaning. He seeks to resolve the problem by laying down some minimal desiderata on a solution and presenting a uniquely satisfying account. The first part of the book surveys and rejects extant 'solutions' and dismissals of the problem from (especially) Frege and Russell, and a host of more contemporary thinkers, including Davidson and Dummett. The book's second part offers a novel solution based upon the properties of a basic syntactic principle called 'Merge', which may be said to create objects inside objects, thus showing how unities can be both single things but also made up of proper parts. The solution is defended from both philosophical and linguistic perspectives. The overarching ambition of the book, therefore, is to strengthen the ties between current linguistics and contemporary philosophy of language in a way that is genuinely sensitive to the history of both fields.

Author Biography

John Collins is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia. He has published widely in the philosophies of language and mind, and has a special interest in generative linguistics, the concepts of truth and meaning, and early analytical philosophy. He is the author of numerous articles in leading journals and Chomsky: A Guide for the Perplexed .

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. xv
Thoughts, sentences, and unities	p. 1
Introduction	p. 1
Interpretable unities	p. 2
Conclusion	p. 15
The unity problem(s)	p. 17
Introduction	p. 17
The unity of the proposition: Russell's problem	p. 18
Two unity problems	p. 22
Frege: an essential asymmetry	p. 36
Asymmetry and combination	p. 41
States of affairs and unity	p. 47
The priority thesis: judgement over naming	p. 51
Introduction	p. 51
Judgement over naming	p. 51
The differences words make	p. 59
Vehicles and contents	p. 64
A'solution'after Wittgenstein	p. 69
Q&A	p. 71
The reign of disunity	p. 74
Introduction	p. 74
Rules	p. 75
Unity and the copula: sense without reference	p. 78
Unity and the copula: doing without sense	p. 81
Unity and causal asymmetry	p. 85
Multiple relations: unities without propositions	p. 88
Syntax and die creation of objects: towards an explanation of unity	p. 99
Introduction	p. 99
Morals of unity: back to Kant?	p. 99
Merge as the basic principle of combination	p. 105
The properties of concatenation and Merge	p. 106
The syntax of Merge: heads and hierarchy	p. 110
The co-interpretability of words	p. 117
Satisfying the desiderata	p. 125
Conclusion	p. 127
Clarification and defence	p. 128
Introduction	p. 128
Explanation, not description	p. 128
Circularity	p. 130
Merge and logical form	p. 132
Intemalism vs. externalism in semantics	p. 137
Predication and representation	p. 149
The linguistic status of Merge	p. 158
Introduction	p. 158
Defending Merge	p. 158
On the putative duality of Merge	p. 165
Concatenation and ancient language	p. 169
Type theory	p. 172
The semantic neutrality of Merge	p. 175
Models and reality	p. 178
References	p. 180
Index	p. 197
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