Meaning, Expression and Thought

Abstract

This philosophical treatise on the foundations of semantics is a systematic effort to clarify, deepen and defend the classical doctrine that words are conventional signs of mental states, principally thoughts and ideas, and that meaning consists in their expression. This expression theory of meaning is developed by carrying out the Gricean programme, explaining what it is for words to have meaning in terms of speaker meaning, and what it is for a speaker to mean something in terms of intention. But Grice's own formulations are rejected and alternatives developed. The foundations of the expression theory are explored at length, and the author develops the theory of thought as a fundamental cognitive phenomenon distinct from belief and desire, argues for the thesis that thoughts have parts, and identifies ideas or concepts with parts of thoughts. This book will appeal to students and professionals interested in the philosophy of language.

Consumer dominant value creation

“…This is known as 'communicators meaning'. To define, the meaning of a propositional or symbolic expression, E, is determined by what the communicator, C, intends E to mean for the targeted recipients, R. Thus by expressing E, C means that p to the extent that C -by communicating E -intends R to believe that p in light of C's intentions (Davis, 2002;Grice, 1989;Neale 1992).…”

Convention and Ritual (Im)politeness

“…Of special interest to us here are objections that not all conventions arise in response to coordination problems and that Lewis ignored the normative aspect of social conventions. With respect to the first objection, critics (e.g., Davis 2003;Marmor 2009) have pointed out that conventions in the sense of regularities of behavior can also arise in competitive situations but such regularities (despite being equilibria in game-theoretic terms) would not qualify as conventions in Lewis's sense. Moreover, Lewis is said to have overlooked a type of convention that does not involve coordinating one's actions with those of other players but rather "constitutes" a social practice, in the sense of helping to define what the practice is and how to engage in it correctly.…”

“…By making convention a matter of people's actual behavior (clause (1) of his definition above), Lewis must deny that sending thank-you notes is a convention, contrary to many critics' intuition (cf. Davis 2003;Millikan 2005). If in the case of thank-you notes (and, generally, conventions that seem to be falling out of fashion) the consequences of non-compliance are negligible, the opposite is true of conventions that are in full effect, such as waiting for one's turn to be served at a food stall: here, non-compliance can lead to serious consequences, ranging from negative evaluation to tangible forms of punishment or exclusion.…”

A Semantic Study on the Perception of EFL Learners of Conceptual versus Associative Meaning

“…Language "is the system of human expressions by the means of words" (Mayor, 2009, p. 549); and if words are the skeleton of a language, meaning is its heart (Davis, 2003). As a matter of fact, meaning is the ultimate purpose of language and without the capacity to express meaning, language does not only lose one of its most essential aspects but it is also characterized as pointless and futile.…”