Reflections on Meaning

by Horwich, Paul

• ISBN13: 9780199251254
• ISBN10: 0199251258
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-01-05
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Paul Horwich's main aim in Reflections on Meaning is to explain how mere noises, marks, gestures, and mental symbols are able to capture the world--that is, how words and sentences (in whatever medium) come to mean what they do, to stand for certain things, to be true or false of reality. His answer is a groundbreaking development of Wittgenstein's idea that the meaning of a term is nothing more than its use . While the chapters here have appeared as individual essays, Horwich has edited them to make a continuous argument, focused on articulating and developing an important new conception of language.

Table of Contents

Preface	v
1. The Space of Issues and Options	1	(25)
2. A Use Theory of Meaning	26	(37)
3. The Pseudo-Problem of Error	63	(22)
4. The Sharpness of Vague Terms	85	(19)
5. Norms of Truth and Meaning	104	(30)
6. Meaning Constitution and Epistemic Rationality	134	(40)
7. Meaning and its Place in the Language Faculty	174	(24)
8. Deflating Compositionality	198	(25)
Bibliography	223	(8)
Provenance of the Chapters	231	(2)
Index	233