[(What is Meaning?)] [Author: Scott Soames] published on

by Scott Soames

The tradition descending from Frege and Russell has typically treated theories of meaning either as theories of meanings (propositions expressed), or as theories of truth conditions. However, propositions of the classical sort don't exist, and truth conditions can't provide all the information required by a theory of meaning. In this book, one of the world's leading philosophers of language offers a way out of this dilemma.Traditionally conceived, propositions are denizens of a "third realm" beyond mind and matter, "grasped" by mysterious Platonic intuition. As conceived here, they are cognitive-event types in which agents predicate properties and relations of things--in using language, in perception, and in nonlinguistic thought. Because of this, one's acquaintance with, and knowledge of, propositions is acquaintance with, and knowledge of, events of one's cognitive life. This view also solves the problem of "the unity of the proposition" by explaining how propositions can be genuinely representational, and therefore bearers of truth. The problem, in the traditional conception, is that sentences, utterances, and mental states are representational because of the relations they bear to inherently representational Platonic complexes of universals and particulars. Since we have no way of understanding how such structures can be representational, independent of interpretations placed on them by agents, the problem is unsolvable when so conceived. However, when propositions are taken to be cognitive-event types, the order of explanation is reversed and a natural solution emerges. Propositions are representational because they are constitutively related to inherently representational cognitive acts.Strikingly original, What Is Meaning? is a major advance.

Genres: Philosophy

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Scott Soames is a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California. He specializes in the philosophy of language and the history of analytic philosophy.

Reviews

[Alexandru Stanciu · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve already read What is Life? Now also What is Meaning? I still have to read What is The? What is Is? and What is What? Because breaking things is what one does when trying to understand what things are. Maybe that’s why we don’t understand what is the meaning of them all.

[Zachary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful, little book. A very convincing sketch of what Soames calls 'the cognitive-realist view' of propositions, viz. the view that propositions are entities the structure of which mirrors syntax, which are essentially characterized by their bearing a cognitive relation to those agents that take them to be meaningful. A few concerns linger that are left unaddressed: does this view have any implications for semantic externalism? or: this book is clearly aimed at characterizing semantic meaning, but what about pragmatics? Lastly, although (in my opinion) the objections to Frege's and Russell's respective meaning ontologies are on point, Soames's treatment of Davidson seems less patient.

[Cain S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great overview of the major debates surrounding formal semantic accounts of meaning.