Meaning in Speech and in Thought

This lucid, closely argued, and stimulating book offers Horwich's latest formulation and defence of his Use Theory of Meaning (UTM) – a version of what is commonly called conceptual role semantics-in light of objections provoked by earlier presentations of it, especially his Meaning (1998). All but one of its chapters have appeared previously, although their contents have been modified and revised, in some cases substantially, for the current publication. Chapter 1 provides a brief overview of the philosophical issues that bear on the question of what linguistic meaning is. The second chapter is devoted to the important task of presenting the UTM. Chapter 3 argues against imposing a certain explanatory requirement on reductive accounts of meaning. Chapters 4 and 5 deal with the nature of vagueness and the normativity of meaning respectively. The sixth chapter examines the relationship between the rules that constitute word-meaning and epistemic rationality. The penultimate chapter concerns how UTM looks from the perspective of Chomskian psycho-linguistics. And the last chapter focuses on the issue of compositionality. Despite being inspired by Wittgenstein's famous reminder that meaning is use, UTM is intended to show something far stronger and more controversial than that suggests, namely, how literal semantic meaning is explained in terms of a purely naturalistic conception of use as (roughly) the disposition to accept various marks and noises or their mentalese correlates. The theory, as Horwich puts it,

What is the relation between language and thought-or, more exactly, between the representational, or intentional, characteristics of language and those of propositional attitudes such as believing and intending? An answer many find attractive is that we must "explicate the intentional characteristics of language by reference to believing and to other psychological attitudes." 1 In other words, it is only our intentional mental states-believing, intending, and the like-that have original intentionality, intentionality that doesn't have its source in something else's intentionality; the intentionality of words and speech acts is derived intentionality, intentionality inherited from that of associated mental states. That answer raises two questions:

2018

This work is an investigation into a phenomenon introduced by John Perry that I call 'totally unarticulated constituents.' These are entities that are part of the propositional content of a speech act, but are not represented by any part of the sentence uttered or of the thought that is being expressed-that is, they are fully unarticulated. After offering a novel definition of this phenomenon, I argue that totally unarticulated constituents are attested in natural language, and may in fact be quite common. This raises fatal problems for a prominent theory of underspecification defended by Jason Stanley, according to which all contextsensitivity (including unarticulated constituents) can be traced to covert variables in the syntax. I then use these findings to draw out important lessons for the philosophy of language, including a rejection of a long-standing Gricean issue known as the "meaningintention problem." I also explore the dialectic between Paul Grice's intention-based semantics and Ruth Millikan's teleosemantics, arguing that Millikan's perception-based response to the problem of underspecification is untenable unless it is modified to give prominence to the speaker's intentions.

1997

Derek Bolton seeks to "deconstruct" a number of traditional dichotomies. Among these are the dichotomies delineated by Karl Jaspers and other early writers in the Geisteswissenschaften between meaningful and causal connections, and the correlative methodological dichotomy between hermeneutic interpretation and causal explanation. Bolton attempts to surmount these traditional dichotomies by attributing a causal role to meaning: meaning, as encoded in the brain, causes various behaviors; in particular it causes intentional or goal-directed behaviors. Bolton contends that, when fully explicated, the notion of a neuro-causal role for meaning gives rise to a new research program that he calls "cognitive-behavioral semantics." This research program can provide the theoretical basis for the science of psychopathology as well as for other psychological and social sciences. Bolton's cognitive-behavioral semantics may prove to be a fruitful research program. Like all research programs, the proof will lie in its capacity to guide scientific investigations that do in fact make new discoveries. We wonder, however, why Bolton thinks it necessary to view his program as somehow "deflating" previous distinctions among conceptual and methodological approaches. We can discern no reason to believe that the causal properties of meaning, if there are such, are the only properties of meaning: meaning may have other properties as well, properties that can be characterized only by taking conceptual approaches quite different from Bolton's. Or, expressed slightly differently, there is no reason to assume that the neurological role of meaning in causing human behavior is the sole role of meaning in human life. Consequently, Bolton's cognitive-behavioral semantics can provide only one approach to the reality of meaning, one approach among others. We see no reason to follow Bolton in his attempt to "deconstruct" other, non-causal approaches to meaning. Indeed, we think this would be a serious mistake: it would blind us to properties of meaning that could be illuminated only from those other perspectives. By reasoning in this way we are, of course, simply endorsing Jaspers' multiperspectivalism (Jaspers 1963a, 555-62; 1965, 464-70; 1956, 149-239; McHugh et al., 1986; Schwartz et al., 1988).

Erkenntnis, 2007

According to Horwich’s use theory of meaning, the meaning of a word W is engendered by the underived acceptance of certain sentences containing W. Horwich applies this theory to provide an account of semantic stipulation: Semantic stipulation proceeds by deciding to accept sentences containing an as yet meaningless word W. Thereby one brings it about that W gets an underived acceptance property. Since a word’s meaning is constituted by its (basic) underived acceptance property, this decision endows the word with a meaning. The use-theoretic account of semantic stipulation contrasts with the standard view that semantic stipulation proceeds by assigning the meaning (reference) to W that makes a certain set of sentences express true propositions. In this paper I will argue that the use-theoretic account does not work. I take Frege to have already made the crucial point: "a definition does not assert anything but lays down something ["etwas festsetzt"]” (Frege 1899, 36). A semantic stipulation for W cannot be the decision to accept a sentence containing W or be explained in terms of such an acceptance. Semantic stipulation constitutes a problem for Horwich's use theory of meaning, especially his basic notion of acceptance.

The issue of intended meaning is an open problem in the study of linguistic processes. The paper presents a notion of intended meaning based on the idea of speaker's preference for a state of affairs to which a sentence refers. Its argument has two components. The first is the conception of meaning developed by analytic philosophy of language; that is, the meaning of a sentence depends on the truth conditions of the sentence, and the meaning of an expression depends on contribution of that expression to the truth value of the sentence in which it appears. The second is the notion of agent's interest, as a state of affairs which implies a goal of agent, as developed by cognitive social theory. The paper maintains that a speaker's intended meaning establishes when the truth conditions of a sentence and the possibility conditions of the state of affairs preferred by the agent match. The last part of the paper illustrates three linguistic disputes to support its theoretical intuitions. The first dispute concerns syntactic ambiguity, while the other two disputes concern semantic ambiguity. The paper deals with the general problem of the semantic underdeterminacy of the conventional meaning of natural language sentences. Its specific contribution relates to the problem of intended meaning in communicative processes and to meaning negotiation processes in conflicting interactions.

Ratio, 2004

Paul Horwich claims that theories of meaning ought to accommodate the commonsense intuition that meanings play a part in explaining the use of words. Further, he argues that the view that best does so is that according to which the meaning of a word is constituted by a disposition to accept, in some circumstances, sentences in which it features. I argue that if meanings are construed thus, they will in fact fail to explain the use of words. I also argue that if we insist, as Horwich does, on the commonsense assumption that meanings are a species of entity, all versions of the view that meaning is constituted by our dispositions to use words will have to be rejected. I do not, however, claim that such theories ought to be rejected. My point is that they are incompatible with the requirements of commonsense. Further, I suggest that it is premature to impose such requirements on theories of meaning.

Philosophical Quarterly, 2000

2010

The issue of intended meaning is an open problem in the study of linguistic processes. The paper presents a notion of intended meaning based on the idea of speaker's preference for a state of affairs to which a sentence refers. Its argument has two components. The first is the conception of meaning developed by analytic philosophy of language; that is, the meaning of a sentence depends on the truth conditions of the sentence, and the meaning of an expression depends on contribution of that expression to the truth value of the sentence in which it appears. The second is the notion of agent's interest, as a state of affairs which implies a goal of agent, as developed by cognitive social theory. The paper maintains that a speaker's intended meaning establishes when the truth conditions of a sentence and the possibility conditions of the state of affairs preferred by the agent match. The last part of the paper illustrates three linguistic disputes to support its theoretical intuitions. The first dispute concerns syntactic ambiguity, while the other two disputes concern semantic ambiguity. The paper deals with the general problem of the semantic underdeterminacy of the conventional meaning of natural language sentences. Its specific contribution relates to the problem of intended meaning in communicative processes and to meaning negotiation processes in conflicting interactions.

Manuscrito, 2008

Abstract Paul Horwich: The goal here is to demystify the relation of aboutness that associates thoughts and their linguistic expression with particular features of the world. It is argued that the main obstacle to providing a naturalistic account of this relation is a misguided ('inflationary') view of truth. A deflationary perspective, on the other hand, enables us to see how the basic use of a mental or physical term establishes its referent, thereby determining what the sentences containing it are about. Abstract response: My disagreement with the deflationist treatment of truth affects my attitude to Paul Horwich’s approach to meaning and intentionality. In my response I summarize objections to the deflationist account of truth developed in some detail in chapters 2, 7, and 12, and argue that the notion of intentionality should be treated naturalistically in a broader context than the context of the referential import of the locution “means that”.