Critical Pragmatics: An Inquiry into Reference and Communication

by Kepa Korta , John Perry

• ISBN13: 9780521748674
• ISBN10: 0521748674
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-09-26
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Critical Pragmatics develops three ideas: language is a way of doing things with words; meanings of phrases and contents of utterances derive ultimately from human intentions; and language combines with other factors to allow humans to achieve communicative goals. In this book, Kepa Korta and John Perry explain why critical pragmatics provides a coherent picture of how parts of language study fit together within the broader picture of human thought and action. They focus on issues about singular reference, that is, talk about particular things, places or people, which have played a central role in the philosophy of language for more than a century. They argue that attention to the 'reflexive' or 'utterance-bound' contents of utterances sheds new light on these old problems. Their important study proposes a new approach to pragmatics and should be of wide interest to philosophers of language and linguists.

Author Biography

Kepa Korta is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country. He is the co-author (with John Perry) of articles in Mind and Language, Synthse, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, and The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. John Perry is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University. He is the author of The Problem of the Essential Indexical (1993, 2000), Reference and Reflexivity (2001), Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness (2001), and Identity, Personal Identity and the Self (2002), and co-author (with Jon Barwise) of Situations and Attitudes (1983).

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
A conversation at Hondarribia airport	p. 1
Three ideas	p. 3
The anatomy of an utterance	p. 8
Singular reference	p. 12
The plan	p. 14
A short history of reference	p. 15
Introduction	p. 15
One hundred-plus years of reference	p. 15
The problem of cognitive significance	p. 21
From Kaplan to utterances	p. 22
Acts, roles, and singular reference	p. 25
Introduction	p. 25
Acts and actions	p. 25
Roles	p. 28
Signs and information	p. 30
Gricean reference	p. 31
Elements of reference	p. 37
Introduction	p. 37
Cognition and information: an analogy	p. 37
A modest theory of ideas	p. 38
Paradigm referential plans	p. 40
Examples	p. 43
Demonstratives	p. 46
Introduction	p. 46
The professor and the portrait	p. 47
Forensics	p. 48
Walking through Donostia	p. 51
Truth-conditions	p. 53
Demonstratives and the problems of cognitive significance	p. 55
Context sensitivity and indexicals	p. 59
Role-contexts	p. 59
Indexicals	p. 60
Using 'I'	p. 63
Indexicals, dates, and time	p. 69
Technology and indexicals	p. 71
Names	p. 74
Introduction	p. 74
Names and nambiguity	p. 74
Networks and reference	p. 76
Names and roles	p. 82
Names as role-coordination devices: examples	p. 83
Names and cognitive significance	p. 85
The no-reference problem	p. 88
Definite descriptions	p. 90
Introduction	p. 90
Incomplete descriptions	p. 92
Designational truth-conditions and referring*	p. 94
Inaccurate descriptions	p. 96
Conclusion	p. 100
Implicit reference and unarticuiated constituents	p. 102
Introduction	p. 102
Unarticuiated constituents and the supplemental nature of language	p. 102
Three kinds of unarticuiated constituents	p. 104
Whence unarticuiated constituents?	p. 109
Are unarticuiated constituents a myth?	p. 111
Locutionary content and speech acts	p. 114
Introduction	p. 114
Locutionary content versus what is said	p. 114
Locutionary acts and locutionary content	p. 116
Locuted but not said: some examples	p. 118
Locutionary versus propositional content	p. 120
Conclusion	p. 124
Reference and implicature	p. 125
Introduction	p. 125
Grice and what is said	p. 126
Eros'thirst	p. 128
Identity, implicature, and cognitive significance	p. 130
The man who has run out of petrol	p. 132
The maxim of manner of reference	p. 134
Conclusion	p. 138
Semantics, pragmatics, and Critical Pragmatics	p. 139
Introduction	p. 139
Situating semantics	p. 140
Semantic content, raw and refined	p. 142
Minimalism, contextualism, and Critical Pragmatics	p. 143
Grice's circle	p. 147
Harnessing information	p. 150
Introduction	p. 150
Content	p. 150
Propositions and the structure of action	p. 158
Coding and classification	p. 160
Back to Hondarribia	p. 163
Examples	p. 166
Bibliography	p. 170
Index	p. 175
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