Incoherent Meanings

IF 0.2 4区 哲学 0 PHILOSOPHY
Michael Devitt
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Abstract

Stojnić holds the radical view that coherence relations determine the reference of context-sensitive language. I argue against this from the theoretical perspective presented in Overlooking Conventions (2021). Theoretical interest in language comes from an interest in thoughts and their communication. A language is a system of symbols, constituted by a set of governing rules, used (inter alia) to communicate the meanings (contents) of thoughts. Thought meanings, hence speaker meanings, are explanatorily prior to semantic meanings. So, we start our consideration of the theoretical place of coherence by considering the bearing of coherence on thought meanings. The paper argues that a person can have any thought at all, however incoherent. So, a thought’s meaning is independent of its coherence. Any thought can be expressed in an utterance. The semantic meaning of any utterance governed by the linguistic rules will be the meaning of the thought it expresses. So, the utterance’s meaning is independent of its coherence. The paper concludes that coherence has no place in the theory of meaning or reference. Nonetheless, it has a place in the theory of communication. I suspect that the error exemplifi es the widespread confusion of the metaphysics of meaning with the epistemology of interpretation.
不连贯的含义
斯托伊尼奇持有激进的观点,认为连贯关系决定了语境敏感语言的所指。我从《俯视约定俗成》(2021 年)一书中提出的理论视角反驳了这一观点。对语言的理论兴趣来自对思想及其交流的兴趣。语言是一套符号系统,由一系列管理规则构成,用于(除其他外)传达思想的意义(内容)。思想的意义,也就是说话人的意义,在解释上先于语义的意义。因此,我们在探讨连贯性的理论地位时,首先要考虑连贯性对思想意义的影响。本文认为,一个人可以有任何思想,无论多么不连贯。因此,思想的意义与其连贯性无关。任何思想都可以通过语篇表达出来。受语言规则制约的任何语篇的语义都是它所表达的思想的意义。因此,语篇的意义与其连贯性无关。本文的结论是,连贯性在意义或指称理论中没有地位。然而,它在传播理论中却占有一席之地。我怀疑,这一错误体现了意义形而上学与解释认识论的普遍混淆。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
0.20
自引率
0.00%
发文量
15
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