Parmenides on ‘naming’ and ‘meaning’: a disjunctivist reading of the Poem

Philosophy ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Erminia Di Iulio
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Empty Names ◽  
Epistemological Disjunctivism

Abstract A well-established tradition has argued that it is not legitimate to attribute to Parmenides a Fregean semantics, i.e. the distinction between ‘naming’ and ‘meaning’. Nonetheless, Parmenides claims more than once (B 8.53, B 9.1) that mortals do name reality, although incorrectly. As many scholars have emphasised, because it is fair neither to conclude that mortals’ names are ‘empty names’ nor dismiss Opinion's account (i.e., broadly speaking, the mortals’ account of reality) itself as meaningless, it seems that Parmenides is suggesting that some kind of distinction between what names refer to and what names mean must be drawn. In view of this, what is Parmenides’ account of names? My suggestion is that in order to explain the Eleatic philosophy of language (and the Eleatic account of names) a step back is required. More specifically, Parmenides’ epistemology has to be taken into account. Indeed, if we assume that Parmenides is arguing for an ‘epistemological disjunctivism’ – such that the veridical and truthful state and the erroneous and deceptive state are essentially different – it will be clear that he is further arguing for what could be defined as a ‘semantic disjunctivism’, so that true speech and false speech are essentially different as well.

Language and Meaning in the Age of Modernism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James McElvenny
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Vienna Circle ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Personal Connection ◽  
International Language ◽  
Academic Philosophy ◽  
Significant Figures ◽  
Basic English ◽  
And Linguistics

This book is a historical study of influential currents in the philosophy of language and linguistics of the first half of the twentieth century, explored from the perspective of the English scholar C. K. Ogden (1889–1957). Although no ‘Great Man’ in his own right, Ogden had a personal connection, reflected in his work, to several of the most significant figures of the age. The background to the ideas espoused in Ogden’s book The Meaning of Meaning, co-authored with I.A. Richards (1893–1979), is examined in detail, along with the application of these ideas in his international language project Basic English. A richly interlaced network of connections is revealed between early analytic philosophy, semiotics and linguistics, all inevitably shaped by the contemporary cultural and political environment. In particular, significant interaction is shown between Ogden’s ideas, the varying versions of ‘logical atomism’ of Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) and Ludwig Wittgensten (1889–1951), Victoria Lady Welby’s (1837–1912) ‘significs’, and the philosophy and political activism of Otto Neurath (1882–1945) and Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970) of the Vienna Circle. Amid these interactions emerges a previously little known mutual exchange between the academic philosophy and linguistics of the period and the practically oriented efforts of the international language movement.

Aboutness

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Yablo
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Library Science ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Major Advance ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Made In

Aboutness has been studied from any number of angles. Brentano made it the defining feature of the mental. Phenomenologists try to pin down the aboutness features of particular mental states. Materialists sometimes claim to have grounded aboutness in natural regularities. Attempts have even been made, in library science and information theory, to operationalize the notion. However, it has played no real role in philosophical semantics, which is surprising. This is the first book to examine through a philosophical lens the role of subject matter in meaning. A long-standing tradition sees meaning as truth conditions, to be specified by listing the scenarios in which a sentence is true. Nothing is said about the principle of selection—about what in a scenario gets it onto the list. Subject matter is the missing link here. A sentence is true because of how matters stand where its subject matter is concerned. This book maintains that this is not just a feature of subject matter, but its essence. One indicates what a sentence is about by mapping out logical space according to its changing ways of being true or false. The notion of content that results—directed content—is brought to bear on a range of philosophical topics, including ontology, verisimilitude, knowledge, loose talk, assertive content, and philosophical methodology. The book represents a major advance in semantics and the philosophy of language.

Beyond Concepts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Garrett Millikan
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Conceptual Development ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Language Function ◽  
Natural Signs ◽  
Transmission Of Information ◽  
The World ◽  
Natural Information ◽  
Natural Ontology

This book weaves together themes from natural ontology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and information, areas of inquiry that have not recently been treated together. The sprawling topic is Kant’s how is knowledge possible? but viewed from a contemporary naturalist standpoint. The assumption is that we are evolved creatures that use cognition as a guide in dealing with the natural world, and that the natural world is roughly as natural science has tried to describe it. Very unlike Kant, then, we must begin with ontology, with a rough understanding of what the world is like prior to cognition, only later developing theories about the nature of cognition within that world and how it manages to reflect the rest of nature. And in trying to get from ontology to cognition we must traverse another non-Kantian domain: questions about the transmission of information both through natural signs and through purposeful signs including, especially, language. Novelties are the introduction of unitrackers and unicepts whose job is to recognize the same again as manifested through the jargon of experience, a direct reference theory for common nouns and other extensional terms, a naturalist sketch of uniceptual—roughly conceptual— development, a theory of natural information and of language function that shows how properly functioning language carries natural information, a novel description of the semantics/pragmatics distinction, a discussion of perception as translation from natural informational signs, new descriptions of indexicals and demonstratives and of intensional contexts and a new analysis of the reference of incomplete descriptions.

Reflective Knowledge

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chienkuo Mi ◽  
Shane Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Extended Cognition ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
Dual Process Theory ◽  
Process Theory ◽  
Reflective Knowledge ◽  
Epistemological Disjunctivism ◽  
Recent Account

In this paper, we defend the claim that reflective knowledge is necessary for extended knowledge. We begin by examining a recent account of extended knowledge provided by Palermos and Pritchard (2013). We note a weakness with that account and a challenge facing theorists of extended knowledge. The challenge that we identify is to articulate the extended cognition condition necessary for extended knowledge in such a way as to avoid counterexample from the revamped Careless Math Student and Truetemp cases. We consider but reject Pritchard’s (2012b) epistemological disjunctivism as providing a model for doing so. Instead, we set out an account of reflection informed by Confucianism and dual-process theory. We make the case that reflective knowledge offers a way of overcoming the challenge identified. We show why such knowledge is necessary for extended knowledge, while building on Sosa’s (2012) account of meta-competence.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Wolterstorff
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Mental Activity ◽  
Philosophy Of Art ◽  
Liturgical Theology ◽  
Ritual Studies ◽  
Subsequent Discussion ◽  
Art Philosophy ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Mind

This chapter considers why contemporary analytic philosophers of religion have neglected liturgy and focused almost all of their attention on religious belief. Following Descartes, reflections on mental activity and the mind have been central in modern philosophy. But that has not prevented the emergence of philosophy of art, philosophy of language, and political philosophy, none of which deal with mental activity or the mind. So why not philosophy of liturgy? Several explanations are considered; but none is found to be fully satisfactory. The Introduction concludes with an explanation of how the subsequent discussion relates to liturgical theology and to anthropological ritual studies.

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