Truth-conditional Theory Research Articles

THE MEANINGFULNESS OF LINGUISTIC EXPRESSIONS FROM THE TRUTH-CONDITIONAL THEORY OF MEANING (A METALINGUAL SYUDY)

Meaning is the essence of language. It has been one of the main concerns in the study of language since the age of Plato and Aristotle. There have been various theories of meaning but only a few explains ‘what one knows when s/he is said to know the meaning of linguistic expressions’. Truth-conditional theory of meaning is one of them – not to say the only theory of meaning – which explains ‘what one knows when s/he is said to know the meaning of linguistic expressions’. However, it has been little paid attention to by theorists working on linguistic meaning since the decline of the ideal language philosophy. It happens so because it is basically misunderstood, i.e. the misunderstanding between linguistic proposition and epistemic proposition in the correspondence theory of truth. This paper revives the significance of the truth-conditional theory of meaning in understanding what constitutes the meaning of linguistic expressions when one is said to know it.

Should we be modest? Dummett and McDowell on Theories of Meaning

n this paper I engage with a certain debate between Michael Dummett and John McDowell on the possibility of the full-blooded theories of meaning. This is a debate on what sort of semantic theories can be of use in giving an account of the speaker’s knowledge of a language. After defining modesty and full-bloodedness for a theory of meaning, I proceed to uncover Dummett’s reasons for his two central claims: Truth-conditional theories of meaning are modest and a theory of meaning must be full-blooded. Then I critically evaluate McDowell’s and Richard Kimberly Heck’s takes on the latter claim. I conclude that with the same descriptions of our linguistic competence it is impossible to characterize our language use as a rational activity and also give a full-blooded theory of meaning that can be used to study thought.

Cultivating the Capabilities of the Marginal Person in Language Study

This paper seeks a method to cultivate the capabilities of the marginal person in language study by focusing on the concept of capability. The traditional utilitarianism and contractarianism ignore the marginal person at the beginning of the design of social structure, since one of the crucial motivations they pursued is mutual advantage. In contemporary society, Rawls innovatively mixes the Kantian ideas and the contractarian traditions, proposing the theory of justice to address the issue of inequality. Whereas, Amartya Sen find some drawbacks of Rawls’ theory and criticize it, for this reason, Amartya Sen initially and creatively came up with the concept of capability to deal with the unequal phenomenon in his book The Quality of Life. Furthermore, Martha Nussbaum, based on Amartya Sen’s capability approach, provided a core capabilities list to extend the scope of justice towards the marginal person, so as to help the disabilities and impairments get more actual opportunities to live a dignified life. She emphasized the vital roles of the government, the education, as well as the institution within her theory. In order to better find a method for understanding and supporting the marginal person, this paper would illustrate the radical interpretation model of triangulation proposed by Davidson within his method of truth-conditional theory of meaning. Consequently, combined the concept of capability with the model of triangulation, the difficulties which the marginal person have encountered could be dealt with reasonably and appropriately.

Truth-Conditional Cognitivism and the Lexical Problem

When dealing with ‘meaning’ or related notions, one cannot ignore what for a long time was the dominant paradigm in semantics (call it truth-conditional cognitivism). According to such paradigm, truth-conditional formal semantics for natural language is a theory of semantic competence. In this article, I shall discuss a foundational problem for such semantic program (call it the lexical problem). I shall first be following authors who claim that truth-conditional formal semantics is unable to provide a complete account of lexical competence, and, therefore, it suffers from incompleteness. Moreover, as a few authors observed, a coherent completion of lexical meaning/competence cannot be easily provided in the philosophical framework of truth-conditional semantics. The problem is a consequence of Kripke’s and Putnam’s arguments against the view that semantic values (intension, reference) of words are cognitively determined. I shall argue that these arguments undermine the notion that formal semantics can be, at the same time, a theory of truth-conditions and a theory of semantic competence. I shall outline and critically discuss two general attempts to solve this problem, which I shall refer to as the social/ideal route and the (Fodorian) concepts route. The conclusions of the article are deliberately open. I shall argue that both these attempts are exposed to conceptual troubles and counterintuitive consequences, and so the lexical problem still remains a deep and unresolved issue for (formal) semantics.

Antirealism/realism of Hintikka’s game-theoretical semantics

Hintikka’s game-theoretical semantics (GTS) is presented as an anti-Tarskian semantical approach to the context-dependent fragments of Englisch, which overcomes the usual notion of semantical realism. Analysing Hintikka’s critique of Tarski’s interpretation of the truth-conditional theory of meaning, its recursive fashion and the narrow notion of realism, Hintikka’s basic conception is presented in the following manner:1. the Context-Principle vs. the Frege Principle,2.First-order logic together with higher-order logic vs. the primacy of first-order logic,3.verificationist/falsificationist theory vs. Taraski’s narrow truth- conditional theory.Comparing some reviews of Hintikka’s GTS (M. Dummett, E. Itkonen, E. Saarinen, M. Hand) with a short examination of the antirealistic/realistic controversis by C. Wright and M. Dummett, the following was reached:Hintikka’s GTS introduces a new, more extended notion of realism, which embraces Taraski-type realistic semantics, Hintikka’s GTS and with this the question of the possibility to also include Dummett’s neoverificationism or other orientations, remains open.

Hobbes on the function of evaluative speech

AbstractHobbes’s interpreters have struggled to find a plausible semantics for evaluative language in his writings. I argue that this search is misguided. Hobbes offers neither an account of the reference of evaluative terms nor a theory of the truth-conditions for evaluative statements. Rather, he sees evaluative language simply as having the non-representational function of prescribing actions and practical attitudes, its superficially representational appearance notwithstanding. I marshal the evidence for this prescriptivist reading of Hobbes on evaluative language and show how it sidesteps various textual and philosophical problems that bedevil the traditional interpretations.

Against Truth-Conditional Theories of Meaning: Three Lessons from the Language(s) of Fiction

Fictional discourse and fictional languages provide useful test cases for theories of meaning. In this paper, we argue against truth-conditional accounts of meaning on the basis of problems posed by language(s) of fiction. It is well-known how fictional discourse—discourse about nonexistent objects—poses a problem for truth-conditional theories of meaning. Less well-considered, however, are the problems posed by fictional languages, which can be created to either be meaningful or not to be meaningful; both of these ultimately also provide problems for a truthconditional account of meaning, because it cannot account for the ways in which we use and evaluate such fictional languages. Instead, a pragmatic or use-based account provides a better explanation for some of the phenomena we discuss.

Prior on the semantics of modal and tense logic

In celebrating Arthur Prior we celebrate what he gave to the world. Much of this is measured by what others have made of his ideas after his death. The focus of this paper is a little different. It looks at what Prior himself thought he was accomplishing. In particular it considers Prior’s attitude to the semantic metatheory of the logics that he was interested in. The paper sets out some characteristics of the metalogical study of intensional languages in terms of an indexical theory of truth conditions stated in the language of set theory. In examining Prior’s work using these characteristics, it emerges that Prior had serious reservations about this way of studying modal and tense logics.

The Application of Constraint Semantics to the Language of Subjective Uncertainty

This paper develops a compositional, type-driven constraint semantic theory for a fragment of the language of subjective uncertainty. In the particular application explored here, the interpretation function of constraint semantics yields not propositions but constraints on credal states as the semantic values of declarative sentences. Constraints are richer than propositions in that constraints can straightforwardly represent assessments of the probability that the world is one way rather than another. The richness of constraints helps us model communicative acts in essentially the same way that we model agents’ credences. Moreover, supplementing familiar truth-conditional theories of epistemic modals with constraint semantics helps capture contrasts between strong necessity and possibility modals, on the one hand, and weak necessity modals, on the other.

On the semantics and pragmatics of epistemic vocabulary

This paper motivates and develops a novel semantics for several epistemic expressions, including possibility and necessity modals and indicative conditionals. The semantics I defend constitutes an alternative to standard truth conditional theories, as it assigns sets of probability measures rather than sets of worlds as sentential semantic values. I argue that what my theory lacks in conservatism, it makes up for in strength — namely, the theory accounts for a host of distinctive and suggestive linguistic data collected and explored in this paper. http://dx.doi.org/10.3765/sp.8.5 BibTeX info

Understanding as Knowledge of Meaning

AbstractTestimony, the transmission of knowledge through communication, requires a shared understanding of linguistic expressions and utterances of them. Is this understanding itself a kind of knowledge, knowledge of meaning? The intuitive answer is ‘yes’, but the nature of such knowledge is controversial, as is the assumption that understanding is a kind of knowledge at all. This article is a critical examination of recent work on the nature and role of semantic knowledge in the generation of the linguistic understanding needed for testimony. After describing a default view – that linguistic understanding partially consists in the possession and application of knowledge of a compositional theory of truth conditions – it scrutinizes two recent charges against this view: that linguistic understanding and knowledge of meaning are conceptually distinct, and that semantic ‘knowledge’ is knowledge without an object.

What is Meaning (Soochow University Lectures in Philosophy) * By SCOTT SOAMES

The standard conception of propositions introduces them as meanings of sentences, bearers of truth and falsity and as objects of attitudes. Are there things which have all these properties? In his recent book What is Meaning Scott Soames offers rich food for thought on the foundation of propositions. The book is divided into two parts. In the first part, we find an elaboration of the claim that for more than a century philosophers have been working with a mistaken or puzzling conception of propositions. In the second part, a cognitive realist view of propositions is defended: propositions are certain types of certain act, i.e. acts of predicating something of an object or of applying a function to an argument. In the course of the book, foundational problems in the conception of propositions are revealed. Frege’s (1892) and Russell’s (1903) conception of propositions as complex entities composed of the meanings of the constituents of the sentences that express them stumbles with the problem of the unity of proposition. Davidson’s (1967) enterprise to dispense with propositions as entities in favour of a truth-theory of understanding a language is too weak to account for the difference in meaning among extensionally equivalent sentences. An expansion of Davidson’s project so that one takes truth conditional theories to range over metaphysically possible as well as epistemically possible world states is still too weak to account for the difference in meaning between metaphysically necessary or a priori equivalent sentences. On the other hand, any conception of propositions as a formal system, either as sets of some sort or as functions of some sort is, according to the author, a dead end. Propositions are intrinsically representational, they are intrinsically truth-value bearers, while sets or functions are not.

Davidsonian Semantics and Anaphoric Deflationism

Whether or not deflationism is compatible with truth-conditional theories of meaning has often been discussed in very broad terms. This paper only focuses on Davidsonian semantics and Brandom's anaphoric deflationism and defends the claim that these are perfectly compatible. Critics of this view have voiced several objections, the most prominent of which claims that it involves an unacceptable form of circularity. The paper discusses how this general objection applies to the case of anaphoric deflationism and Davidsonian semantics and evaluates different ways of responding to it (Williams 1999, Horisk 2008 and Lance 1997). Then, three further objections to the compatibility of these theories are assessed and eventually dismissed (Horisk 2007, Patterson 2005 and Collins 2002). It is shown how these considerations shed light on core issues of the debate.

A PROBABILISTIC SEMANTICS FOR COUNTERFACTUALS. PART A

This is part A of a paper in which we defend a semantics for counterfactuals which is probabilistic in the sense that the truth condition for counterfactuals refers to a probability measure. Because of its probabilistic nature, it allows a counterfactual ‘ifAthenB’ to be true even in the presence of relevant ‘Aand notB’-worlds, as long such exceptions are not too widely spread. The semantics is made precise and studied in different versions which are related to each other by representation theorems. Despite its probabilistic nature, we show that the semantics and the resulting system of logic may be regarded as a naturalistically vindicated variant of David Lewis’ truth-conditional semantics and logic of counterfactuals. At the same time, the semantics overlaps in various ways with the non-truth-conditional suppositional theory for conditionals that derives from Ernest Adams’ work. We argue that counterfactuals have two kinds of pragmatic meanings and come attached with two types of degrees of acceptability or belief, one being suppositional, the other one being truth based as determined by our probabilistic semantics; these degrees could not always coincide due to a new triviality result for counterfactuals, and they should not be identified in the light of their different interpretation and pragmatic purpose. However, for plain assertability the difference between them does not matter. Hence, if the suppositional theory of counterfactuals is formulated with sufficient care, our truth-conditional theory of counterfactuals is consistent with it. The results of our investigation are used to assess a claim considered by Hawthorne and Hájek, that is, the thesis that most ordinary counterfactuals are false.

A PROBABILISTIC SEMANTICS FOR COUNTERFACTUALS. PART B

AbstractThis is part B of a paper in which we defend a semantics for counterfactuals which is probabilistic in the sense that the truth condition for counterfactuals refers to a probability measure. Because of its probabilistic nature, it allows a counterfactual ‘ifAthenB’ to be true even in the presence of relevant ‘Aand notB’-worlds, as long such exceptions are not too widely spread. The semantics is made precise and studied in different versions which are related to each other by representation theorems. Despite its probabilistic nature, we show that the semantics and the resulting system of logic may be regarded as a naturalistically vindicated variant of David Lewis’ truth-conditional semantics and logic of counterfactuals. At the same time, the semantics overlaps in various ways with the non-truth-conditional suppositional theory for conditionals that derives from Ernest Adams’ work. We argue that counterfactuals have two kinds of pragmatic meanings and come attached with two types of degrees of acceptability or belief, one being suppositional, the other one being truth based as determined by our probabilistic semantics; these degrees could not always coincide due to a new triviality result for counterfactuals, and they should not be identified in the light of their different interpretation and pragmatic purpose. However, for plain assertability the difference between them does not matter. Hence, if the suppositional theory of counterfactuals is formulated with sufficient care, our truth-conditional theory of counterfactuals is consistent with it. The results of our investigation are used to assess a claim considered by Hawthorne and Hájek, that is, the thesis that most ordinary counterfactuals are false.

Dynamics, Brandom-style

This paper discusses the semantic theory presented in Robert Brandom’s Making It Explicit. I argue that it is best understood as a special version of dynamic semantics, so that these semantics by themselves offer an interesting theoretical alternative to more standard truth-conditional theories. This reorientation also has implications for more foundational issues. I argue that it gives us the resources for a renewed argument for the normativity of meaning. The paper ends by critically assessing the view in both its development and motivations.

Color, context, and compositionality

Color adjectives have played a central role in work on language typology and variation, but there has been relatively little investigation of their meanings by researchers in formal semantics. This is surprising given the fact that color terms have been at the center of debates in the philosophy of language over foundational questions, in particular whether the idea of a compositional, truth-conditional theory of natural language semantics is even coherent. The challenge presented by color terms is articulated in detail in the work of Charles Travis. Travis argues that structurally isomorphic sentences containing color adjectives can shift truth value from context to context depending on how they are used and in the absence of effects of vagueness or ambiguity/polysemy, and concludes that a deterministic mapping from structures to truth conditions is impossible. The goal of this paper is to provide a linguistic perspective on this issue, which we believe defuses Travis’ challenge. We provide empirical arguments that color adjectives are in fact ambiguous between gradable and nongradable interpretations, and that this simple ambiguity, together with independently motivated options concerning scalar dimension within the gradable reading accounts for the Travis facts in a simpler, more constrained, and thus ultimately more successful fashion than recent contextualist analyses such as those in Szabo (Perspectives on semantics, pragmatics and discourse: A festschrift for Ferenc Kiefer, 2001) or Rothschild and Segal (Mind Lang, 2009).

On rules of inference and the meanings of logical constants

In the theory of meaning, it is common to contrast truth-conditional theories of meaning with theories which identify the meaning of an expression with its use. One rather exact version of the somewhat vague use-theoretic picture is the view that the standard rules of inference determine the meanings of logical constants. Often this idea also functions as a paradigm for more general use-theoretic approaches to meaning. In particular, the idea plays a key role in the anti-realist program of Dummett and his followers. In the theory of truth, a key distinction now is made between substantial theories and minimalist or deflationist views. According to the former, truth is a genuine substantial property of the truth-bearers, whereas according to the latter, truth does not have any deeper essence, but all that can be said about truth is contained in T-sentences (sentences having the form: ‘P’ is true if and only if P). There is no necessary analytic connection between the above theories of meaning and truth, but they have nevertheless some connections. Realists often favour some kind of truth-conditional theory of meaning and a substantial theory of truth (in particular, the correspondence theory). Minimalists and deflationists on truth characteristically advocate the use theory of meaning (e.g. Horwich). Semantical anti-realism (e.g. Dummett, Prawitz) forms an interesting middle case: its starting point is the use theory of meaning, but it usually accepts a substantial view on truth, namely that truth is to be equated with verifiability or warranted assertability. When truth is so understood, it is also possible to accept the idea that meaning is closely related to truth-conditions, and hence the conflict between use theories and truth-conditional theories in a sense disappears in this view.

On rules of inference and the meanings of logical constants

In the theory of meaning, it is common to contrast truth-conditional theories of meaning with theories which identify the meaning of an expression with its use. One rather exact version of the somewhat vague use-theoretic picture is the view that the standard rules of inference determine the meanings of logical constants. Often this idea also functions as a paradigm for more general use-theoretic approaches to meaning. In particular, the idea plays a key role in the anti-realist program of Dummett and his followers. In the theory of truth, a key distinction now is made between substantial theories and minimalist or deflationist views. According to the former, truth is a genuine substantial property of the truth-bearers, whereas according to the latter, truth does not have any deeper essence, but all that can be said about truth is contained in T-sentences (sentences having the form: ‘P’ is true if and only if P).

NAÏVE TRUTH-CONDITIONS AND MEANING

Critics of attempts to explain meaning in terms of truth‐conditions have tended to charge their opponents with misconceptions regarding truth. I shall argue that the ‘naïve’ version of the truth‐conditional theory which best accounts for its resilience fails for a different and more basic reason, namely, circularity arising from the contingency of meaning. One reason why this problem has been overlooked is a tendency (noted by Dummett in a different connection) to assimilate the naïve truth‐conditional theory to an idealized verificationism.