Knowing who

Bo�r, Steven E.; Lycan, William G.

doi:10.1007/bf00381575

Cited by 137 publications

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“…But speakers often use language forms for purposes that diverge from conventional meanings. Further, despite apparent consensus among philosophers that conventions always involve regularities of behavior within a group (Searle 1969;Lewis 1969Lewis , 1975Schiffer 1972;Bach & Harnish 1979;Gilbert 1983Gilbert , 1989Gilbert /1992Recanati 1987 2 ), my claim is that conventions do not generally require regularities of behavior, either de facto or de jure . Probably the bestknown theory of convention and its application to language is that of David Lewis (1969Lewis ( , 1975.…”

Section: Stabilizing Functionsmentioning

confidence: 78%

On Meaning, Meaning and Meaning

Millikan¹

2012

Prospects for Meaning

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To understand how language works, we look, fi rst, to the cooperative functions that various language forms perform, understanding these on a biological model as what they accomplish for both speaker and hearer that keeps them in circulation. Next we look at language mechanics, at how language forms perform their functions. For many (but not all) language forms there are conditions in the world that would be necessary to support their functions and that vary systematically with certain variations in the forms themselves. These are truth or satisfaction conditions. Last we describe the psychological mechanisms that are involved in implementing the functions of various language forms. For extensional terms these involve methods of identifi cation of incoming information about the extension of the term, methods that are usually multiple and various for each person and that may also vary widely from person to person.

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Section: Stabilizing Functionsmentioning

confidence: 78%

On Meaning, Meaning and Meaning

Millikan¹

2012

Prospects for Meaning

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“…After all, one reason for repeating one's utterance is that the first has failed to elicit the desired response (for a question, has failed to elicit the information sought). Asking who somebody is, it has been pointed out (Boer and Lycan 1975), can be undertaken only with reference to some specific discourse context; the question "Who is that woman in the red dress?" These operators are trained specifically to request information from callers in a particular (functionally determined) order.…”

Section: Explanationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Narrative Discourses and Discoursing in Narratives: Analyzing a Poem from a Sociolinguistic Perspective

Austin¹

1989

Poetics Today

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“…6 But the observed disparity between (1) and (2) has a more natural explanation, one which is independent of the purely referential intentions of the speaker. Indeed, it would in most circumstances be natural to assume that an utterer of (1) would know who the doctor in question was; his use of the indefinite article might reflect the fact that he may wish to keep the hearer (who may also know the man) in the dark as to his identity.…”

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confidence: 92%

“…4 She has argued that in the statement (1) I believe it because I heard it from a doctor the expression 'a doctor' would obviously be used attributively in Donnellan's sense. 5 She supposes this to be the only plausible interpretation in view of the fact that some of the force of (1) is lost in (2) I believe it because I heard it from a man who lives upstairs.…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

“…7 Thus the speaker's intention in using the indefinite description might plausibly be taken by a perceptive hearer to be referential, provided we construe the speaker's having a specific individual in mind here to constitute referential commitment. 8 Since (2) may equally well leave the hearer in the dark as to the identity of the advice-giver, how are we then to explain the difference in force between (1) and (2)? An answer, it seems to me, is that, in context, (1) is likely to establish an explanatory connection between the antecedent and consequent clauses that (2) would fail to capture.…”

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confidence: 98%

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Opacity in the Attitudes

Fales

1978

Can. J. of Philosophy

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Philosophical logic has its problem-children; and among these the Principle of Substitutivity of codesignating expressions — the linguistic spawn of Leibniz's law—has achieved a place of prominence. It has become increasingly apparent that a certain style of linguistic analysis, which seeks to impose formal regimentation ruled by the constraints of classical quantification theory, does not yield results with the kind of uniformity and elegance one should hope for from a satisfyi.ng theory. The root of the difficulty, I believe, bears upon the answers to fundamental questions concerning the nature of cognitive agents and the purposes which their use of language is designed to further. If this is the case, one might expect to find some of the trouble surfacing at precisely those points where the language is used to convey information about the cognitive activities associated with the use of language by such agents. So it is.The central problem of this essay is the interpretation of referential expressions in statements involving propositional attitudes, with the focus on belief contexts. But I shall begin by placing the discussion within a broader theoretical framework.

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Knowing who

Cited by 137 publications

References 0 publications

On Meaning, Meaning and Meaning

On Meaning, Meaning and Meaning

Narrative Discourses and Discoursing in Narratives: Analyzing a Poem from a Sociolinguistic Perspective

Opacity in the Attitudes

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