Література

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5.Фейерабенд П. Наука в свободном обществе //Фейерабенд П. Избранные произведения по методологии науки. – М.: Прогресс, 1986. – С. 467-523.

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Summary

Roman Roshkulets. Metaphysical foundations and Weltanschauung potentiality of P.Feyerabend’s methodology. The article contains an analysis of some important methodological principles of P.Feyerabend’s philosophy of science in their metaphysical and Weltanschauung dimensions.

УДК 167.0

© Olga Kambur

Chernivtsi Trade and Economics Institute

© Alina Leidreiter

Magister Artium Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität (Bonn, Deutschland)

SEMANTIC THEORY: THE GAP BETWEEN MEANING

AND ASSERTION IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE

У статті аналізуються проблеми семантики та філософії мови, які полягають у вивченні прогалин між значенням (того, що говорить речення) та твердженням (що говорить мовець, який вимовляє речення). Мова йде про різницю між семантичним змістом речення у контексті та тим, що мовець має на увазі і стверджує, вимовляючи речення із звичайним буквальним значенням у контексті.

Many essays in semantics and the philosophy of language seem to proceed on the assumption that the proposition asserted by an utterance of a sentence in a context is the proposition semantically expressed by the sentence in that context.

What do we want from a semantic theory? A widely accepted answer is that we want it to tell us what sentences say in different contexts of utterance. This leads to the view that the meaning of S is a function from contexts of utterance to what is said by S in those contexts. One might, of course, object. After all, sentences don’t literally say anything; speakers who utter them do. A speaker who assertively utters sentences (S) (speaking literally, nonironically, nonmetaphorically, and without conversational implicatures cancelling the normal force of the remark) in a context (C) says (or asserts) what S “says” in C (also known as the semantic content of S in C) [1, p.128].

The deliverances of semantic theory are made relevant to assertions made by speakers. Since each assertion represents the world as being a certain way, it implicitly imposes conditions that the world must satisfy if it is to be the way it is represented to be. Semantic theories capture this by giving truth conditions of the things asserted (which are also things believed when one accepts that what is asserted).

The important point, for our purposes, is that whatever these things are, they are widely taken have three important properties: they are asserted and believed, they are bearers of truth conditions, and they are semantic contents of sentences.

When S is uttered, what is asserted is assumed to be S’s semantic content – except when reinterpretation of the speaker’s remark is forced, either by the speaker’s intention to be taken nonliterally, or by apparent violations of pragmatic principles. After identifying what the speaker has said, conversational maxims and other principles are used to generate further implicatures, presuppositions, or suggestions carried by the utterance.

We have come to believe that the apparent intractability of some of the most important problems in these areas can be traced to the tight connection between semantic content and assertion presupposed by the traditional picture. We shall sketch a different picture in which the relationship between semantic content and assertion is substantially looser and more indirect than it has often been thought to be. On the picture, the semantic content of S in a context constrains what S is used to assert, without always determining what is asserted, even when S is used with its normal literal meaning.

Central to the picture is a conception of meaning, or semantic content, as least common denominator. This meaning is what is common to what is asserted by utterances of S in all normal contexts in which it is used literally, without conversational implicatures cancelling its normal force. [2, p.106] Although the meaning, or content, of S is often a complete proposition, and a proper candidate for being asserted and believed, in certain cases – for example, those containing genitive constructions, like ‘John’s car’ – it may be only a skeleton, or partial specification, of such a proposition. [3, p.164]

In many contexts, the semantic content of S interacts with an expanded conception of pragmatics to generate a pragmatically enriched proposition that it is the speaker’s primary intention to assert. Other propositions count as asserted only when they are relevant, unmistakable, necessary, and apriori consequences of the speaker’s primary assertions, together with salient presuppositions of the conversational background.

If M is the meaning (or semantic content) of an indexical-free sentence S, then normal, literal uses of S (without conversational implicatures that force reinterpretation of the utterance) result in assertions of propositions that are proper pragmatic enrichments of M. When M is a complete proposition, it counts as asserted only if M is an obvious, relevant, necessary, and apriori consequence of enriched propositions asserted in uttering S, together with salient shared presuppositions in the conversation [4, p.418]. A notable consequence of this principle is that often the semantic content of the sentence uttered is not itself asserted by the speaker’s utterance.

Much about the conception of linguistic meaning and language use remains incomplete, including the development of precise theories of how pragmatic enrichment takes place, and the formulation of constraints on what constitutes a proper pragmatic enrichment of the semantic content of a sentence [5, p.47; 6, p.54].

So far, we have talked about asserting more than the proposition semantically expressed by the sentence one utters. To illustrate the point, we use a variation of Kripke’s well-known case of Peter, and the famous Polish composer and statesman, Paderewski [7, p.242].

Although Peter admires Paderewski’s music, and also knows of Paderewski’s political career, he is under the misimpression that the musician and the statesman are different men with the same name. This doesn’t prevent him from successfully using the name to refer to Paderewski, both when talking politics and when discussing music. In some cases it leads Peter to accept and reject the same sentence. For example, when talking to fellow musicians about composers, he sincerely assents to the sentence ‘Paderewski has great musical talent’, while when talking to his friends about politics he suspends judgment on this sentence, and so refuses to assertively utter or deny it, on the grounds that he has never heard of statesmen having unusual musical talent. How should we describe Peter’s beliefs? It is clear how he would report them.

When speaking about composers to musician friends, he would sincerely report :

a. we believe that Paderewski has great musical talent. (said by Peter to fellow musicians)

When speaking about statesmen to his political friends he would sincerely utter (b) and (c).

b. we don’ believe that Paderewski has great musical talent. (said by Peter to his political friends)

c. we also don’t believe that Paderewski doesn’t have great musical talent. (said in the same context)

Since the name ‘Paderewski’ is not ambiguous, and since nothing else here seems to be ambiguous or indexical, the propositions semantically expressed by these examples can’t all be true.

Pragmatic enrichment explains how this can be. The propositions Peter both primarily intended to assert, and succeeded in asserting, are those literally expressed by (2a-c).

2a. Peter believes that Paderewski, the musician, has great musical talent.

b. Peter does not believe that Paderewski, the statesman, has great musical talent.

c. Peter does not believe that Paderewski, the statesman, doesn’t have great musical talent.

The first of these is clearly true. The second is also true, since no proposition believed by Peter ascribes to Paderewski the property of being both a statesman and one possessing great musical talent; similarly for the third proposition. Although these are not the propositions semantically expressed by the sentences Peter uttered, they are proper pragmatic enrichments of those propositions, and so are asserted. [8, p.73]

Having illustrated the new conception of the relationship between semantic content and assertion, we now turn to other applications of the idea. The first involves so-called referential uses of names and definite descriptions. We start with Donnellan’s famous example, the semantic content of which is expressed by something along the lines of S.

“The man in the corner drinking champagne is a famous philosopher.

S. [the x: x is a man & x is in the corner & x is drinking champagne] x is a famous philosopher

When the description in (S) is used referentially, the speaker uses it to focus attention on a particular man ‘m’, about whom the speaker wishes to say that he is a famous philosopher. In this context, the fact that it is evident to all that ‘m’ is the intended denotation results in the pragmatic enrichment of the speaker’s remark represented by (Proposition Expressed).

PE . [the x: x is a man & x is in the corner & x is drinking champagne & x = m] x is a famous philosopher (where the content of ‘m’ is the man it designates)

This is the primary proposition asserted by the speaker. Since the propositions expressed by (PEa) and (PEb), are obvious necessary and apriori consequences of it, they, too, count as asserted.

PEa. m is a famous philosopher (with M as before)

PEb. m is a man & m is in the corner & m is drinking champagne (with ‘m’ as before)

Although not a necessary consequence of the enriched proposition (PE), it is an obvious, necessary and apriori consequence of (PE ), plus the proposition (Belief), identifying ‘m’ as the man in the corner drinking champagne.

In these cases, the speaker’s referential use of the description results in the assertion of the propositions represented by (PE), (PEa), (PEb) and (S). In situations in which ‘m’ is the man in the corner drinking champagne, all of these will be true, provided that m is also a famous philosopher. When there are two men in the corner drinking champagne, but it is, nevertheless, obvious that the speaker is talking only about (the new guy) ‘m’, the propositions – (PE), (PEa), and (PEb) – arising from pragmatic enrichment will all be true, but the semantic content (S) will not be. [9, p.300]

A further virtue of the account is the way it generalizes to parallel cases of referential misdescription involving proper names of the sort pointed out by Kripke. In Kripke’s example, two people see Smith in the distance and mistake him for Jones. The speaker says “Look, Jones is raking leaves” thereby saying something true about Smith, and something false about Jones. These results fall out of the present approach. The speaker’s utterance of (3), accompanied by the background presupposition (B3), results in the assertion of several pragmatically enriched propositions, including (PE2). [10, p.396 ]

3. Jones is raking leaves.

B3. The man, s, seen in the distance = Jones (where the content of ‘s’ is the man Smith)

PE3 [the x: x = Jones & x = s] x is raking leaves (with ‘s’ as before)

Because (S3) and (PE3a) are obvious, necessary, apriori consequences of (PE3), both are asserted. Since one is true and one false, these are the right results.

S3. j is raking leaves (where the content of ‘j’ is the man Jones)

PE3 a s is raking leaves (where ‘s’ is as before)

This example is important because it shows that the facts about referential uses of expressions – which are common to names and descriptions – are not to be explained by positing a semantic ambiguity. The new conception of the relationship between semantics and pragmatics avoids this error by exploiting the role of pragmatic enrichment in determining what a speaker says, or asserts -- taking careful note of cases in which this includes the semantic content of the sentence uttered, and cases in which it doesn’t.

Now it is appropriate to speak about Incomplete Definite Descriptions.

By an incomplete definite description is meant an expression, where more than one thing satisfies, rendering the description semantically nondenoting. Familiar examples are: ‘the book’, ‘the table’, ‘the car’, ‘the man’, and ‘the murderer’. The chief problem they pose is that they are routinely used in sentences like (4) by speakers who succeed not only in asserting truths, but also in avoiding saying anything false – despite the fact that the literal readings of these sentences are often false, in the contexts in which they are used.

4a. The book is on the table.

b. I drove the car to work.

c. The student got into an argument with a student from another school.

d. The murderer must be insane.

In dealing with these examples, let’s assume that treating definite descriptions as quantifiers the domains of which vary from one conversational context to the next is not sufficient to solve the problem – since each of these sentences can be used to state truths in contexts in which more than one thing under discussion satisfies the description. Thus, something over and above semantically determined domain restriction must be at work.

On the rejected picture, each occurrence of a quantifier phrase in a sentence is taken to contain a hidden domain variable which is contextually interpreted to range over a specially designated subset of the entire domain that is added the context as a separate parameter. In this way, each quantifier occurrence is assigned a contextually determined range as all, or part, of its semantic content relative to the context. A fatal flaw in this approach is that although contextually provided subsets of the domain may be relevant to the extensions of quantifiers, they are not parts of their semantic contents.

With this it is necessary to return to incomplete definite descriptions, and to the presumption that the speakers can use the sentences in (4) to assert truths, while avoiding the assertion of anything false, even in contexts in which the sentences themselves are literally false. The problem is to explain how this can be. One traditional strategy for solving the problem takes incomplete descriptions to be elliptical for complete descriptive phrases speakers have in mind.

For this reason, the thesis that at least some descriptions have special, semantically referential readings has been quite popular. Despite this, there are intractable difficulties facing this approach. The first arises from the fact that the distinction between complete and incomplete definite descriptions is not a linguistic one. [11, p.356]

So, if linguistic theory is to assign semantically referential readings to incomplete definite descriptions, it must assign such readings to all definite descriptions. This seems extreme.

The contextual determination of time and tense is notoriously difficult and complex. The only conclusion is that the proper framework within which to study it is the one have been sketched. In this, as in the other cases, there is a gap between the semantic content of a sentence in a context – and what speakers mean and assert when they utter it in that context with its normal literal meaning (without conversational implicatures cancelling its normal force and requiring interpretation). The gap arises from a least common denominator conception of meaning and semantic content, substantial mechanisms of pragmatic enrichment, and a crucial constraint requiring normal assertions to be proper pragmatic enrichments of semantic contents. The challenge is to articulate a precise theoretical framework incorporating these ideas, and to use it to solve recalcitrant problems in the theory of linguistic meaning and language use.

Literature

1.Kent Bach, “Conversational Impliciture,” Mind and Language 9, 1994, pp. 124-162.

2.Anne Bezuidenhout, “Pragmatics, Semantic Underdetermination and the Referential /Attributive Distinction,” Mind, 106, 1997, pp. 375-409.

3.Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson, Relevance, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 1986, pp. 155-181.

4.Robyn Carston, Thoughts and Utterances: The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication, (Oxford, Blackwell), 2002, pp. 418

5.Laurence R. Horn, “The Border Wars: a neo-Gricean Perspective,” in K. Turner & K. von Heusinger, eds., Where Semantics Meets Pragmatics, (Elsevier), 2005, pp. 21-48

6.Kenneth Taylor, “Sex, Breakfast, and Descriptus Interruptus,” Synthese, pp. 45-61.

7.Saul Kripke, “A Puzzle about Belief,” in A. Margalit, ed., Meaning and Use, (Dordrecht: Reidel), 1979, pp. 239-283.

8.Scott Soames, “Direct Reference, Propositional Attitudes, and Semantic Content,” Philosophical Topics, 15, 1987, pp. 47-87

9.Keith Donnellan, “Reference and Definite Descriptions,” Philosophical Review 75, 1966, pp. 281-304

10.Saul Kripke, “Speaker’s Reference and Semantic Reference,” in P. A. French, T. E. Uehling, Jr., and H. K. Wettstein, eds., Contemporary Perspectives in the Philosophy of Language (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press) 1979, pp. 283-401.

11.Scott Soames, “Incomplete Definite Descriptions,” Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 27, 1986, 349-375.

12.Howard Wettstein, “Demonstrative Reference and Definite Descriptions,” Philosophical Studies 40, 1981, 241-257.

УДК 165+159.955.4

© Степан Мякчило Институт философии НАН Беларуси (Минск, Беларусь)