This book criticizes the methodology of the recent semantics-pragmatics debate in the theory of language and proposes an alternative. It applies this methodology to argue for a traditional view against a group of "contextualists" and "pragmatists", including Sperber and Wilson, Bach, Carston, Recanati, Neale, and many others. The author disagrees with these theorists who hold that the meaning of the sentence in an utterance never, or hardly ever, yields its literal truth-conditional content, even after disambiguation and reference fixing; it needs to be pragmatically supplemented in context.

The standard methodology of this debate is to consult intuitions. The book argues that theories should be tested against linguistic usage. Theoretical distinctions, however intuitive, need to be scientifically motivated. Also we should not be guided by Grice's "Modified Occam's Razor", Ruhl's "Monosemantic Bias", or other such strategies for "meaning denialism". From this novel perspective, the striking examples of context relativity that motivate contextualists and pragmatists typically exemplify semantic rather than pragmatic properties. In particular, polysemous phenomena should typically be treated as semantic ambiguity. The author argues that conventions have been overlooked, that there's no extensive "semantic underdetermination" and that the new theoretical framework of "truth-conditional pragmatics" is a mistake.

Autorentext

Michael Devitt is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of CUNY. He is the author of the following books: Designation (1981); Realism and Truth (1984/1991/1997); Language and Reality (with Kim Sterelny, 1987/1999); Coming to Our Senses (1996); Ignorance of Language (2006); Putting Metaphysics First (2010); Biological Essentialism (forthcoming). He has co-edited (with Richard Hanley) The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Language (2006)

Inhalt
PREFACE
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1.1 Background1.2 Summary of Chapters
CHAPTER 2: RELIANCE ON INTUITIONS:2.1 The Received View2.2 The Task?2.3 Experimental Semantics 2.4 Cartesianism2.5 A Priori Knowledge?2.6 Embodied Theory?2.7 Competence as a Skill2.8 Intuitions as Empirical Judgments2.9 Rejecting Voice of Competence2.11 Conclusion
CHAPTER 3: THE SEMANTICS-PRAGMATICS DISTINCTION3.1 Introduction3.2 The Theoretical Motivation3.2.1 Human Thoughts3.2.2 Animal Communication3.2.3 Human Language3.2.4 Our Theoretical Interest in a Language3.3 Terminology3.4 Communication3.5 The Semantics-Pragmatics Dispute3.6 The Evidence3.7 Conclusion
CHAPTER 4: SPEAKER MEANINGS AND INTENTIONS4.1 Intending to Refer4.1.1 Objection 1: Implausible Starting Point4.1.2 Objection 2: Incomplete4.1.3 Objection 3: Redundant4.1.4 Objection 4: Misleading4.2 Intending to Communicate4.3. Constraints on Intentions
CHAPTER 5: LINGUISTIC CONVENTIONS AND LANGUAGEPART I: THE POSITION5.1 Conventions and Linguistic Meanings5.2 Linguistic ConventionsPART II: CONVENTION DENIERS5.3 Collins Against Conventions5.4 Chomsky Against Linguistic Conventions5.5 Chomsky against Common Languages5.6 Davidson, Malapropisms, Spoonerisms, and Slips
CHAPTER 6: BACH AND NEALE ON WHAT IS SAIDPART I: BACH6.1 Bach's Notion6.2 Criticisms of Bach6.3 Bach's ResponsePART II: NEALE6.4 Neale's Notion6.5 Criticisms of Neale
CHAPTER 7: CONFUSION OF THE METAPHYSICS OF MEANING WITH THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF INTERPRETATIONPART I: THE CONFUSION7.1 The Meaning/Interpretation Distinction7.2 Confusing Meaning and Interpretation7.3 Examples of the Confusion7.3.1 Jason Stanley and Zoltan Szabo7.3.2 Dan Sperber and Deidre Wilson7.3.3 François Recanati 7.3.4 Anne Bezuidenhout7.3.5 Robert Stainton7.3.6 Kepa Korta and John Perry 7.4 A Principled Position?PART II: DEFENDING THE CONFUSION7.5 Elugardo and Stainton's Defense7.6 Tidying Up the Defense7.7 Two Major Failings of the Defense
CHAPTER 8: MODIFIED OCCAM'S RAZOR AND THE DENIAL OF LINGUISTIC MEANINGS8.1 Embracing the Razor8.2 The Falsity of the Razor (as Commonly Construed)8.3 The Explanatory Onus8.4 Objections to Semantic Polysemy8.4.1 The Failure of the tests8.4.2 Too Psychologically Demanding8.4.3 Distinguishing Polysemy From Homonymy8.4.4 Nunberg on the Arbitrariness of Meanings8.5 Bach on the Razor8.6 Bach's Standardization
CHAPTER 9: REFERENTIAL DESCRIPTIONS: A CASE STUDY9.1 Introduction9.2 The Argument from Convention9.3 The Incompleteness Argument Against Pragmatic Explanations9.4 Bach's Pragmatic Defense of Russell9.5 Bach's Response9.6 Three Further Arguments for Semantic or against Pragmatic Explanations9.7 Neale's Illusion9.8 Conclusion
CHAPTER 10: SATURA...