Product Description
According to the received view of
linguistic communication, the primary function of language is to enable
speakers to reveal the propositional contents of their thoughts to
hearers. Speakers are able to do this because they share with their
hearers an understanding of the meanings of words. Christopher Gauker
rejects this conception of language, arguing that it rests on an
untenable conception of mental representation and yields a wrong
account of the norms of discourse.
Gauker's alternative starts with the observation that conversations
have goals and that the best way to achieve the goal of a conversation
depends on the circumstances under which the conversation takes place.
These goals and circumstances determine a context of utterance
quite apart from the attitudes of the interlocutors. The fundamental
norms of discourse are formulated in terms of the conditions under
which sentences are assertible in such contexts.
Words without Meaning
contains original solutions to a wide array of outstanding problems in
the philosophy of language, including the logic of quantification, the
logic of conditionals, the semantic paradoxes, the nature of
presupposition and implicature, and the nature and attribution of
beliefs