Treatise on Basic Philosophy: Semantics I: Sense and Reference

ISBN-13: 9789027705723 / Angielski / Miękka / 1974 / 186 str.

M. Bunge

Opis

In this Introduction we shall sketch a profile of our field of inquiry. This is necessary because semantics is too often mistaken for lexicography and therefore dismissed as trivial, while at other times it is disparaged for being concerned with reputedly shady characters such as meaning and allegedly defunct ones like truth. Moreover our special concern, the semantics of science, is a newcomer - at least as a systematic body - and therefore in need of an introduction. l. GOAL Semantics is the field of inquiry centrally concerned with meaning and truth. It can be empirical or nonempirical. When brought to bear on concrete objects, such as a community of speakers, semantics seeks to answer problems concerning certain linguistic facts - such as disclosing the interpretation code inherent in the language or explaning the speakers' ability or inability to utter and understand new sentences ofthe language. This kind of semantics will then be both theoretical and experimental: it will be a branch of what used to be called 'behavioral science'.

Spis treści

of Semantics I.- 1. Goal.- 2. Method.- 1. Designation.- 1. Symbol and Idea.- 1.1. Language.- 1.2. Construct.- 1.3. Predicate.- 1.4. Theory and Language.- 2. Designation.- 2.1. Name.- 2.2. The Designation Function.- 3. Metaphysical Concomitants.- 3.1. Basic Ontology.- 3.2. Beyond Platonism and Nominalism.- 2. Reference.- 1. Motivation.- 2. The Reference Relation.- 2.1. An Unruly Relation.- 2.2. Immediate and Mediate Reference.- 2.3. Reference Class.- 2.4. Factual Reference and Object Variable.- 2.5. Denotation.- 2.6. Reference and Evidence.- 2.7. Misleading Cues in the Search for Referents.- 3. The Reference Functions.- 3.1. Desiderata.- 3.2. Principles and Definitions.- 3.3. Some Consequences.- 3.4. Context and Coreference.- 4. Factual Reference.- 4.1. The Factual Reference Class.- 4.2. The Factual Reference Class of Scientific Theories.- 4.3. Spotting the Factual Referents: Genuine and Spurious.- 4.4. The Strife over Realism in the Philosophy of Contemporary Physics.- 5. Relevance.- 5.1. Kinds of Relevance.- 5.2. The Paradox of Confirmation as a Fallacy of Relevance.- 6. Conclusion.- 3. Representation.- 1. Conceptual Representation.- 2. The Representation Relation.- 2.1. A Characterization.- 2.2. The Multiplicity of Representations.- 2.3. Transformation Formulas and Equivalent Theories.- 3. Modeling.- 3.1. From Schema to Theory.- 3.2. Problems of Modeling.- 4. Semantic Components of a Scientific Theory.- 4.1. Denotation Rules and Semantic Assumptions.- 4.2. Philosophical Commitment of the SA’s.- 4.3. Application to Quantum Mechanics.- 5. Conclusion.- 4. Intension.- 1. Form is not Everything.- 1.1. Concepts of Sense.- 1.2. Extension Insufficient.- 1.3. ‘Intensional’: Neither Pragmatic nor Modal.- 2. A Calculus of Intensions.- 2.1. Desiderata.- 2.2. Principles and Definitions.- 2.3. Main Theorems.- 2.4. Intensional Difference and Family Resemblance.- 3. Some Relatives — Kindred and in Law.- 3.1. Logical Strength.- 3.2. Information.- 3.3. Testability.- 4. Concluding Remarks.- 5. Gist and Content.- 1. Closed Contexts.- 1.1. Closed Contexts and Their Structure.- 1.2. The Logical Ancestry of a Construct.- 2. Sense as Purport or Logical Ancestry.- 2.1. Purport and Gist.- 2.2. The Gist of a Basic Construct.- 2.3. The Gist of a Theory.- 2.4. Changes in Gist.- 3. Sense as Import or Logical Progeny.- 3.1. The Logical Progeny of a Construct.- 3.2. Import.- 3.3. Theory Content.- 3.4. Empirical and Factual Content.- 3.5. Changes in Import and Content.- 4. Full Sense.- 5. Conclusion.- Index of Names.- Index of Subjects.