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Contexts and Constraints on Use
Author(s) -
Georgi Geoff
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
theoria
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.34
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1755-2567
pISSN - 0040-5825
DOI - 10.1111/theo.12199
Subject(s) - indexicality , bridge (graph theory) , meaning (existential) , epistemology , philosophy of language , semantics (computer science) , appeal , natural (archaeology) , linguistics , formal semantics (linguistics) , function (biology) , natural language , computer science , sociology , philosophy , metaphysics , law , political science , medicine , archaeology , evolutionary biology , biology , history , programming language
One requirement of a theory of meaning for a natural language such as English is that it generate constraints on what speakers can use expressions to strictly and literally say or assert. Yet one significant recent philosophical defence of formal semantics, based on the technical innovations in semantics due to Kaplan, does not satisfy this requirement. On such a theory, meaning is a function from contexts to contents. But contexts in a Kaplanian theory are not uses of indexicals. Thus without some further bridge principle linking uses of indexicals to the contexts of a Kaplanian theory, functions from contexts to content do not determine any constraints on what an indexical can be used to strictly and literally say or assert. A great deal of recent work on Kaplanian theories has been dedicated to identifying the correct bridge principle in response to this challenge, but such work is doomed to fail. I argue that appeal to any such bridge principle in defence of a Kaplanian theory leads to an unacceptably weak account of the role of formal semantics in the study of human linguistic communication.