Posted by zeugma on August 28, 2005, at 15:01:09
In reply to Re: and what this has to do with the brain... » Phillipa, posted by alexandra_k on August 24, 2005, at 1:37:02
Okay so... Just in case Zeugma or someone hits the boards... I have many confusions around meaning... Philosophy of language is really very hard (IMO).>
hi alexandra, you know I can't resist this topic!
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> Two dimensional modal semantics / logic in particular…>The variant developed by David Kaplan which is indeed a modal semantics (he calls it ‘two sorted’, my perception is kinda fuzzy right now so looking at it I can’t tell if it’s two dimensional or not…
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> The two dimensions aren't 'dennotation and connotation'. My mistake - the two dimensions are extension / reference and intension (standard meaning).
>Denotation and connotation is a variant terminology for extension/intension.
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> You can do all kinds of funny stuff with indexicals by evaluating their truth / falsity in modal contexts (across other possible worlds):
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> 'I am here now'.
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> This statement is necessarily true.
But is it true that I am here now, barely dressed and in front of my computer, is a necessary truth?
The utterance-type 'I am here now' is one that gets assigned value 'T' every time it's used. The two dimensions of demonstrative logic (which I believe you're talking about) are content and character. The character of 'I am here now' is such that it cannot be used falsely. But its content is just everyday contingent truth. I could be somewhere else on a Sunday afternoon (though highly unlikely, of course).
Both content and character are aspects of sense or intension. Content is the part that ties in with possible worlds, and hence propositions (if you consider that a proposition is either the possible world that makes the utterance true, or the ordered triple of persons, places, and times that make up what I mean when I say 'I am here now.')Character is the route by which we proceed to the proposition. I use the utterance-type, 'I am here now,' to convey the content that I am here now, and you do not know what it means until (getting to the reference part of the equation) you know the referents of each of those terms I just used, including the indexicals 'I', 'here', and 'now' (such bewildering little words). This is kind of neat because utterances have two varieties of sense (content and character) and words have extension (reference), and the doctrine that words acquire meaning only in the context of a sentence is borne out.
So, it is not the referents that vary across possible worlds... it is the senses. I wish, of course, that I (designatum here) could vary at will from world to world, but I can't. I'm stuck here for now. But this world has Alexandra in it :-)
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> It is true that I am here now.
> But it is also possible that I be somewhere else now.Very possible :-)
-z
poster:zeugma
thread:541758
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20050807/msgs/547669.html