The Possible in the Actual

Abstract

7The phrasing is a little foxy here, since I've suddenly switched to talking of understanding sentences instead of talking straightforwardly of sentence truth value. This is because of difficulties with attributing truth value to ambiguous sentences-more of which will be said below. My justification turns on Davidson's claim that one sense of understanding the meaning is knowing the truth conditions. The way one would know the truth conditions using the incorrect (T 2) would not allow a proper understanding of what was being said to the child. 8 This also raises a difficulty for Davidson if the notion of the speaker's changing meaning or intent involves us in irreducible notions of linguistic meaning. See below for remarks on this. 9 The qualification 'reasonable' is here because there is a good bit of leeway in deciding what is to go into syntax. For example, some of the things Chomsky mentions in [1] as possibilities for inclusion in syntax have generally been considered part of semantics. 10 There is considerable discussion of this problem in literature in the philosophy of science. I discuss the problem and its effects on reference in On Criteria of Meaning Change, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 22 (1971), 131-144.