Open AccessMinimalism and Phenomenological Evidence
Author(s) -
Patricia Marechal
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
principia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.176
H-Index - 4
eISSN - 1808-1525
pISSN - 1414-4247
DOI - 10.5007/1808-1711.2017v21n1p141
Subject(s) - minimalism (technical communication) , grice , phenomenology (philosophy) , epistemology , philosophy , philosophy of language , linguistics , perception , meaning (existential) , psychology , pragmatics , metaphysics , computer science , human–computer interaction
It has been recently argued that the phenomenology of semantic perception casts doubts on Grice’s theory of meaning. I defend the psychological and theoretical plausibility of a form of Gricean minimalism, by setting new boundaries to the semantic-pragmatic distinction. This strategy consists in abandoning the entailment from what is said to what is meant, and advancing a conception of the semantic notion of what is said that departs from speaker-hearers’ intuitions. This proposal has important consequences both concerning the evidence that should be used by philosophers of language when evaluating semantic theories, and the way we should carve up linguistic processing.