Contexts: Meaning, Truth, and the Use of Language - Softcover

Predelli, Stefano

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199558116 ISBN 13: 9780199558117

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2009

Synopsis

Stefano Predelli comes to the defense of the traditional "formal" approach to natural-language semantics, arguing that it has been misrepresented not only by its critics, but also by its foremost defenders. In Contexts he offers a fundamental reappraisal, with particular attention to the treatment of indexicality and other forms of contextual dependence which have been the focus of much recent controversy. Predelli shows how his metasemantic approach deals with a variety of important semantic and philosophical puzzles. He analyzes the relationship between indexicality and logical validity, discussing well-known problem cases, and demonstrating the limits of token-reflexive systems. He investigates the relationships between truth-conditions and assignments of truth-values at particular points of evaluation, and shows that so-called contextualist worries do not undermine the traditional semantic approach. Finally, he shows that semantic befuddlement about the interpretation of attitude reports is based on an inadequate understanding of the scope of natural language semantics. Contexts will be of great interest to all philosophers of language, and to many linguists.

About this title

About the Author

Stefano Predelli is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nottingham

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0199558116
• ISBN 13: 9780199558117
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208