Philosophical Essays, Volume 1

Natural Language: What It Means and How We Use It
Erscheinungsjahr 2008
ISBN: 978-0-691-13681-3
Verlag: Princeton University Press

Buch, Englisch, 440 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 748 g

The two volumes of Philosophical Essays bring together the most important essays written by one of the world's foremost philosophers of language. Scott Soames has selected thirty-one essays spanning nearly three decades of thinking about linguistic meaning and the philosophical significance of language. A judicious collection of old and new, these volumes include sixteen essays published in the 1980s and 1990s, nine published since 2000, and six new essays. The essays in Volume 1 investigate what linguistic meaning is; how the meaning of a sentence is related to the use we make of it; what we should expect from empirical theories of the meaning of the languages we speak; and how a sound theoretical grasp of the intricate relationship between meaning and use can improve the interpretation of legal texts. The essays in Volume 2 illustrate the significance of linguistic concerns for a broad range of philosophical topics--including the relationship between language and thought; the objects of belief, assertion, and other propositional attitudes; the distinction between metaphysical and epistemic possibility; the nature of necessity, actuality, and possible worlds; the necessary a posteriori and the contingent a priori; truth, vagueness, and partial definition; and skepticism about meaning and mind. The two volumes of Philosophical Essays are essential for anyone working on the philosophy of language.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Soames, Scott

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften Sprachphilosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sprachphilosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

The Origins of These Essays ix

Introduction 1

Part One: Presupposition 21
Essay One: A Projection Problem for Speaker Presuppositions 23

Essay Two: Presupposition 73

Part Two: Language and Linguistic Competence 131

Essay Three: Linguistics and Psychology 133

Essay Four: Semantics and Psychology 159

Essay Five: Semantics and Semantic Competence 182

Essay Six: The Necessity Argument 202

Essay Seven: Truth, Meaning, and Understanding 208

Essay Eight: Truth and Meaning--in Perspective 225

Part Three: Semantics and Pragmatics 249

Essay Nine: Naming and Asserting 251

Essay Ten: The Gap between Meaning and Assertion: Why What We Literally Say Often Differs from What Our Words Literally Mean 278

Essay Eleven: Drawing the Line between Meaning and Implicature--and Relating Both to Assertion 298

Part Four: Descriptions 327

Essay Twelve: Incomplete Definite Descriptions 329

Essay Thirteen: Donnellan?s Referential/Attributive Distinction 360

Essay Fourteen: Why Incomplete Definite Descriptions Do Not Defeat Russell?s Theory of Descriptions 377

Part Five: Meaning and Use: Lessons for Legal Interpretation 401

Essay Fifteen: Interpreting Legal Texts: What Is, and What Is Not, Special about the Law 403

Index 425