David Bourget (Western Ontario)
David Chalmers (ANU, NYU)
Rafael De Clercq
Jack Alan Reynolds
Learn more about PhilPapers
Philosophy of Science 26 (4):277-294 (1959)
This paper approaches a theory relating authorship, meaning and purpose by semiformalized developments of two "presupposed theories": of purposeful behavior and of sign-reading. The theory of purposeful behavior is made to rest upon two undefined predicates. `Wt(a,p,q)' abbreviates the claim that at time t, person a works at bringing it about that p in order to bring it about that q. `Bt(a,p)' abbreviates the claim that at time t, person a brings it about that p. A number of definitions and laws are based upon these two predicates. One practical utility of the symbolism is a constraint to symbolize differently a purpose, according as what is intended is a purposing or a thing purposed. The theory of sign-reading undertakes to assimilate sign-reading to inference. The theory proposes `Rt(a,p,q)' as a basic undefined predicate, abbreviating the claim that at time t, person a reads that p as a sign that q. The theory of deliberate sign-production, and more particularly of authorship, is approached by permitting the two above sets of symbols to supply arguments one for the other. Specifically, making a deliberate or a candid sign is defined as bringing about a state of affairs in order that an addressee will read the bringing about by the sign-maker of that state of affairs as a sign that such and so. The laws of the two first parts of the paper are then appealed to in order to show that when the sign-making is candid (defined in the paper), the such and so mentioned above must be a feigned or actual purpose of the author. The paper concludes with a brief consideration of what in this total signified purpose of the sign-making might be indentified by reference to the conventional sign-type (sentence) presented. Thus "meaning" of a sentence is thence viewed as an abstraction from the signified meaning (always a purpose) of the uttering
|Keywords||No keywords specified (fix it)|
|Categories||categorize this paper)|
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server
Configure custom proxy (use this if your affiliation does not provide a proxy)
|Through your library|
References found in this work BETA
No references found.
Citations of this work BETA
No citations found.
Similar books and articles
Laurent Cesalli & Nadja Germann (2008). Signification and Truth Epistemology at the Crossroads of Semantics and Ontology in Augustine's Early Philosophical Writings. Vivarium 46 (2):123-154.
Todd Buras (2009). The Function of Sensations in Reid. Journal of the History of Philosophy 47 (3):pp. 329-353.
Claus Emmeche (2002). The Chicken and the Orphean Egg: On the Function of Meaning and the Meaning of Function. Σημιοτκή-Sign Systems Studies 1 (1):15-32.
Jacques Derrida (2011). Voice and Phenomenon: Introduction to the Problem of the Sign in Husserl's Phenomenology. Northwestern University Press.
Kenneth A. Taylor (2007). Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign! [REVIEW] Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (3):703–709.
Karen Emmorey (2005). Sign Languages Are Problematic for a Gestural Origins Theory of Language Evolution. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28 (2):130-131.
Sissel Redse Jørgensen & Rani Lill Anjum (eds.) (2006). Tegn Som Språk. Gyldendal Akademisk.
Added to index2009-01-28
Total downloads7 ( #204,422 of 1,410,163 )
Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #155,015 of 1,410,163 )
How can I increase my downloads?