Philosophical Essays. Volume 1, Natural Language: What It Means and How We Use It / Scott Soames.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Soames, Scott, author.

Series:

Philosophical Essays ; Volume 1.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Language and languages--Philosophy.

Linguistics.

Semantics.

Local Subjects:

Language and languages--Philosophy.

Linguistics.

Semantics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (441 pages)

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [2008]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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 1980's and 1990's, 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.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

The Origins of These Essays

Introduction

PART ONE. Presupposition

ESSAY ONE. A Projection Problem for Speaker Presuppositions

ESSAY TWO. Presupposition

PART TWO. Language and Linguistic Competence

ESSAY THREE. Linguistics and Psychology

ESSAY FOUR. Semantics and Psychology

ESSAY FIVE. Semantics and Semantic Competence

ESSAY SIX. The Necessity Argument

ESSAY SEVEN. Truth, Meaning, and Understanding

PART THREE. Semantics and Pragmatics

ESSAY NINE. Naming and Asserting

ESSAY TEN. The Gap between Meaning and Assertion: Why What We Literally Say Often Differs from What Our Words Literally Mean

ESSAY ELEVEN. Drawing the Line between Meaning and Implicature - and Relating Both to Assertion

Part Four. Descriptions

ESSAY TWELVE. Incomplete Definite Descriptions

ESSAY THIRTEEN. Donnellan's Referential/Attributive Distinction

ESSAY FOURTEEN. Why Incomplete Definite Descriptions Do Not Defeat Russell's Theory of Descriptions

PART FIVE. Meaning and Use: Lessons for Legal Interpretation

ESSAY FIFTEEN. Interpreting Legal Texts: What Is, and What Is Not, Special about the Law

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

ISBN:

9786612964961

9781282964969

1282964968

9781400837847

1400837847

OCLC:

707067732