Herman Cappelen, Ernest Lepore

Insensitive Semantics (eBook, PDF)

A Defense of Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

Insensitive Semantics is an overview of and contribution to the debates about how to accommodate context sensitivity within a theory of human communication, investigating the effects of context on communicative interaction and, as a corollary, what a context of utterance is and what it is to be in one. * Provides detailed and wide-ranging overviews of the central positions and arguments surrounding contextualism * Addresses broad and varied aspects of the distinction between the semantic and non-semantic content of language * Defends a distinctive and explanatorily powerful combination of semantic minimalism and speech act pluralism * Confronts core problems which not only run to the heart of philosophy of language and linguistics, but which arise in epistemology, metaphysics, and moral philosophy as well

Produktdetails

• Verlag: John Wiley & Sons
• Seitenzahl: 232
• Erscheinungstermin: 8. Mai 2008
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780470754917
• Artikelnr.: 38189153

Autorenporträt

Herman Cappelen is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Vassar College and the University of Oslo. He has published extensively in philosophy of language and mind, including articles in Noûs, Mind, Mind & Language, Analysis, and Synthese. Ernie Lepore is Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. He is author of Meaning and Argument (revised edition, Blackwell, 2003) and, with Jerry Fodor, of Holism (Blackwell, 1991). He is editor of Truth and Interpretation (Blackwell, 1989), and co-editor, with Zenon Pylyshyn, of What is Cognitive Science? (Blackwell, 1999), as well as general editor of the Blackwell series Philosophers and Their Critics.

Inhaltsangabe

Preface. Acknowledgements. 1. Overview. Part I: From Moderate to Radical Contextualism. 2. Exegesis: The Methodology of Contextualism. 3. The Instability of Context Shifting Arguments. 4. Diagnosis: Why Context Shifting Arguments are Misused. 5. The Instability of Incompleteness Arguments. 6. Digressions: Binding and Hidden Indexicals. Part II: Refutation of Radical Contextualism. 7. Objections to Radical Contextualism (I): Fails Context Sensitivity Tests. 8. Objection to Radical Contextualism (II):Makes Communication Impossible. 9. Objections to Radical Contextualism (III): Internal Inconsistencies. Part III: Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism. 10. Semantic Minimalism. 11. Semantics and Metaphysics. 12. Semantics and Psychology. 13. Speech Act Pluralism. References. Index

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Preface and Acknowledgements.

Part I: From Moderate to Radical Contextualism.

Part II: Refutation of Radical Contextualism.

Part III: Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism.

References.

Index

Rezensionen

"This book is an ingenious defense of two positions notwidely thought to be compatible: truth-conditional semantics andsemantic minimalism. Cappelen and Lepore's highlycontroversial views are already, and will continue to be, at thecenter of inquiry into the nature of linguisticcommunication." Jason Stanley, University ofMichigan

"Cappelen and Lepore have performed a singular service inbringing together the threads of the contextualist debate, and informulating a minimalist alternative to some current trends."James Higginbotham, University of Southern California

"This is a pleasingly spare yet instructivelysophisticated account of how Davidsonians can accommodate themassive context sensitivity of language use. Good stuff."Paul Pietroski, University of Maryland

"This is a book of considerable importance, which dealswith a topic currently at the center of research in the philosophyof language. As a result, Insensitive Semantics has been andwill continue to be widely discussed ...This book pushes thediscussion of context-sensitivity forward in new and usefuldirections. Read it and learn from it." Journal ofLinguistics