Insensitive Semantics: A Defense of Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism

by Herman Cappelen (Vassar College, University of Oslo); Ernest Lepore (Rutgers University)

• ISBN13: 9780470754917
• ISBN10: 0470754915
• Format: eBook
• Copyright: 2008-04-01
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

Insensitive Semantics is an overview of and contribution to the debates about how to accommodate context sensitivity within a theory of human communication, investigating the effects of context on communicative interaction and, as a corollary, what a context of utterance is and what it is to be in one. Provides detailed and wide-ranging overviews of the central positions and arguments surrounding contextualismAddresses broad and varied aspects of the distinction between the semantic and non-semantic content of languageDefends a distinctive and explanatorily powerful combination of semantic minimalism and speech act pluralismConfronts core problems which not only run to the heart of philosophy of language and linguistics, but which arise in epistemology, metaphysics, and moral philosophy as well

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Overview

From Moderate to Radical Contextualism

Exegesis: The Methodology of Contextualism

The Instability of Context Shifting Arguments

Diagnosis: Why Context Shifting Arguments are Misused

The Instability of Incompleteness Arguments

Digressions: Binding and Hidden Indexicals

Refutation of Radical Contextualism

Objections to Radical Contextualism (I): Fails Context Sensitivity Tests

Objection to Radical Contextualism (II):Makes Communication Impossible

Objections to Radical Contextualism (III): Internal Inconsistencies

Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism

Semantic Minimalism

Semantics and Metaphysics

Semantics and Psychology

Speech Act Pluralism

References

Index

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