Philosophical inquiry on the problem of meaning is as old as philosophy. There are two approaches to the study of meaning . the first is associated with formal theories of meaning, proposed by Frege, earlier Wittgenstein, Quine, Davidson and Dummett. The second is associated with use theories of meaning, which was supported by later Wittgenstein , Austin, Grice, Strawson and Searle. Formal theories are concerned with the formal structure of language and the interrelations between sentences. The use theories put central (...) emphasis on speakers and what they do in their account of meaning. Paul H. Grice (1913-1988) - English philosopher- gives central place to speakers and their intentions when accounting for meaning. The Gricean intentionalistic theory of meaning can be regarded as having two stages. The first aims to analyze a concept of speaker’s meaning. The second aims to use the concept of speaker’s meaning, along with the notion of a convention, as the foundation of theory of linguistic meaning. This paper seeks to achieve the following aims : 1- Providing a critical examination of Grice’s theory. 2- Discussing the most important objections to this theory and modifications which have been suggested by philosophers wishing to refine it, such as Strawson, Searle and others. 3- Forging important connections between intentionalist theory ( in semantics ) and theory of conversational implicature ( in pargmatics). In my mind, the two theories are supportive and the first serves as a foundation for the second. إن البحث الفلسفي في مشكلة المعنى قديم قدم الفلسفة . وهناك طريقتان لدراسة المعنى، ترتبط الأولى بالنظريات الصورية في المعنى التي اقترحها فريجه، وفتجنشتين المبكر، وكواين، وديفيدسون، ودميت. وترتبط الثانية بنظريات الاستعمال في المعنى التي اقترحها فتجنشتين المتأخر، وأوستن، وجرايس، وستراوسون، وسيرل. تهتم النظريات الصورية بالبنية الصورية للغة والعلاقات المتبادلة بين الجمل. وتضع نظريات الاستعمال توكيداً أساسياً على المتكلمين وما يفعلونه في تقريرهم عن المعنى. وبول جرايس ( 1913-1988 ) - الفيلسوف الإنجليزي - هو الفيلسوف الذي أعطى المتكلمين ومقاصدهم مكانة محورية عند تفسير المعنى. ويمكن النظر إلى النظرية القصدية في المعنى عند جرايس على أنها تأتي على مرحلتين : تهدف المرحلة الأولى إلى تحليل مفهوم المعنى لدى المتكلم . وتسعى الثانية إلى استعمال مفهوم المعنى لدى المتكلم ، بالإضافة إلى فكرة الموضعة ، كأساس لنظرية في المعنى اللغوي. ويسعى هذا البحث إلى تحقيق الأهداف التالية: 1- تقديم فحص نقدي لنظرية جرايس في المعنى. 2- مناقشة الاعتراضات المهمة على هذه النظرية والتعديلات التي اقترحها الفلاسفة الذين راموا تنقيحها وتعديلها مثل ستراسون ، وسيرل ، وغيرهما. 3- صياغة العلاقات المهمة بين النظرية القصدية (في علم الدلالة) ونظرية الاقتضاء التخاطبي ( في علم الاستعمال ) والرأي عندي أن النظريتين تؤيد إحداهما الأخرى، وتصلح الأولى أساساً للثانية، وإن شئت فقل : إن الثانية جزء من الأولى. (shrink)

In this book some options concerning the greenhouse effect are assessed from a welfarist point of view: business as usual, stabilization of greenhouse gas emissions and reduction by 25% and by 60%. Up to today only economic analyses of such options are available, which monetize welfare losses. Because this is found to be wanting from a moral point of view, the present study welfarizes (among others) monetary losses on the basis of a hedonistic utilitarianism and other, justice incorporating, welfare ethics. (...) For these welfarist evaluations information about the social consequences of the four options are collected from the literature and eventually corrected; then the consequences for individual well-being are assessed based on psychological research about well-being dependent on the social situation of the individual; finally the aggregation formulas of the respective welfare ethics are applied to these data. Assessments by other types of ethics, e.g. Kantian ethic, are included. The strongest abatement option is found to be optimum with great unanimity. - In addition a cost-welfare analysis of greenhouse gas abatement is undertaken revealing efficient cost-welfare ratios for these measures and the most efficient ratio for the strongest option. - A final, more theoretical part discusses the moral obligations following from such evaluations. The notion of 'moral obligation' is explained in a way that, apart from moral goodness of the required act, reinforcement by formal or informal sanctions is another necessary condition for moral obligations. This leads to a conception of a historical morality according to which the demands of morality rise in the long run. Applying this conception to the greenhouse effect implies that presently we have the moral duty to raise the standards of greenhouse gas abatement as much as is politically feasible. (shrink)

Peter Hanks and Scott Soames both defend pragmatic solutions to the problem of the unity of the proposition. According to them, what ties together Tim and baldness in the singular proposition expressed by ‘Tim is bald’ is an act of the speaker : the act of predicating baldness of Tim. But Soames construes that act as force neutral and noncommittal while, for Hanks, it is inherently assertive and committal. Hanks answers the Frege–Geach challenge by arguing that, in complex sentences, the (...) force inherent in the content of an embedded sentence is cancelled. Indrek Reiland has recently objected to Hanks’s proposal that it faces a dilemma: either force cancellation dissolves the unity of the proposition secured by the cancelled act of assertion, or Hanks’s proposal reduces to Soames’s. In this paper, I respond to Reiland by offering an analysis of force cancellation which gets rid of the alleged dilemma. The proposal is based on a set of distinctions from speech act theory : between two senses of ’force’, two types of act, and two types of context. The role of simulation in force cancellation is emphasized, and connections drawn to broader issues such as the evolution of complex language. (shrink)

This paper — a sequel to my 'Open Quotation' (Mind 2001) — is my reaction to the articles discussing open quotation in the special issue of the Belgian Journal of Linguistics edited by P. De Brabanter in 2005.

The notion of “intentionality” is much invoked in various foundational theories of meaning, being very often equated with “meaning”, “content” and “reference”. In this paper, I propose and develop a basic distinction between two concepts and, more fundamentally, properties of intentionality: intentionality-T and intentionality-C. Representationalism is then defined as the position according to which intentionality-T can be reduced to intentionality-C, in the form of representational states. Nonrepresentationalism is rejecting this reduction, and argues that intentionality-T is more fundamental than intentionality-C. Non-representationalism (...) allows for a new layered view of the relations between cognitive intentionality and linguistic intentionality; this view is presented at the end of the paper. (shrink)

Explicatures are not cancellable. Theoretical considerations.

This article addresses issues in the philosophy of fiction from the perspective of a relevance theoretic approach to communication: first, how should we understand the notion of ‘voice’ as it is used in the analysis of free indirect style narratives; and, second, in what sense can the person responsible for free indirect representations of fictional characters' thoughts be regarded as a communicator? The background to these questions is the debate about the roles of pretence and attribution in free indirect style. (...) I argue that the role of expressives in sustaining the illusion that fictional characters speak their inner thoughts suggests that ‘voice’ should be understood in two distinct ways. On the one hand, there are cases in which the use of expressive devices leads to the formation of thoughts which are understood to resemble other (attributed) thoughts. On the other hand, there are other cases in which expressives are used as a means of simulating a fictional character's behaviour or style. At the same time, I argue that in order to accommodate free indirect thought representation in a relevance theoretic model of communication, the responsibility for ensuring that the effort of processing the text will be rewarded by optimal relevance must be decoupled from the point of view that is being represented. While the (constructed) author is responsible for orchestrating our interpretation of free indirect thought representations so that the effort of processing will result in optimal relevance, the reader does not necessarily assume this function is being performed by someone who intends to communicate their own thoughts: the relevance of the act of narration may instead lie in the sense of mutuality achieved between reader and character. (shrink)