Nearly four decades ago, Saul Kripke articulated a semantic version of scepticism, according to which no finite goings-on, either mental or behavioural, can establish what someone means by an expression. Link
In his landmark study of Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private
Language, Kripke takes Wittgenstein to claim that “There can be no such thing as
meaning anything by any word” (1982: 55). This is scepticism in the ontological
sense – there are no meanings – rather than the epistemological sense – we don’t
know what those meanings are.
The core thesis can be restated in various ways to make its relationship to
key theoretical notions more explicit. The following forms emphasise the bearing
of the thesis on the notion of sentence meaning and speaker meaning respectively.
(1) No sentence expresses any proposition.
(2) No speaker means any proposition by their utterances
I guess I haven't been reading all that much of VA's output recently as the tiresome rut he is stuck in just isn't worth the bother. But I seem to have missed something here, is anyone able to share any insight into why he's suddenly veering into Kripkenstein territory? It seems far beyond his talent tbh.
FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Jun 14, 2023 2:24 pm
I guess I haven't been reading all that much of VA's output recently as the tiresome rut he is stuck in just isn't worth the bother. But I seem to have missed something here, is anyone able to share any insight into why he's suddenly veering into Kripkenstein territory? It seems far beyond his talent tbh.
Because that's where all philosophy goes. Normative semantics.
Nearly four decades ago, Saul Kripke articulated a semantic version of scepticism, according to which no finite goings-on, either mental or behavioural, can establish what someone means by an expression. Link
In his landmark study of Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private
Language, Kripke takes Wittgenstein to claim that “There can be no such thing as
meaning anything by any word” (1982: 55). This is scepticism in the ontological
sense – there are no meanings – rather than the epistemological sense – we don’t
know what those meanings are.
The core thesis can be restated in various ways to make its relationship to
key theoretical notions more explicit. The following forms emphasise the bearing
of the thesis on the notion of sentence meaning and speaker meaning respectively.
(1) No sentence expresses any proposition.
(2) No speaker means any proposition by their utterances
Nearly four decades ago, Saul Kripke articulated a semantic version of scepticism, according to which no finite goings-on, either mental or behavioural, can establish what someone means by an expression. Link
In his landmark study of Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private
Language, Kripke takes Wittgenstein to claim that “There can be no such thing as
meaning anything by any word” (1982: 55). This is scepticism in the ontological
sense – there are no meanings – rather than the epistemological sense – we don’t
know what those meanings are.
The core thesis can be restated in various ways to make its relationship to
key theoretical notions more explicit. The following forms emphasise the bearing
of the thesis on the notion of sentence meaning and speaker meaning respectively.
(1) No sentence expresses any proposition.
(2) No speaker means any proposition by their utterances
Nearly four decades ago, Saul Kripke articulated a semantic version of scepticism, according to which no finite goings-on, either mental or behavioural, can establish what someone means by an expression. Link
In his landmark study of Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private
Language, Kripke takes Wittgenstein to claim that “There can be no such thing as
meaning anything by any word” (1982: 55). This is scepticism in the ontological
sense – there are no meanings – rather than the epistemological sense – we don’t
know what those meanings are.
The core thesis can be restated in various ways to make its relationship to
key theoretical notions more explicit. The following forms emphasise the bearing
of the thesis on the notion of sentence meaning and speaker meaning respectively.
(1) No sentence expresses any proposition.
(2) No speaker means any proposition by their utterances
Poor old Saul Kripke. He died about 6 months before this conversation, so he left this Earth with no idea what a huge fan of VA we are about to find out he is.
