- "Meaning…is a function of the sentence or expression ; mentioning and referring and truth or falsity, are functions of the use of the sentence or expression. To give the meaning of an expression…is to give general directions for its use to refer to or mention particular objects or persons ; to give the meaning of a sentence is to give general directions for its use in make true or false assertions” (Strawson, 1950, 327)
- This is essentially Strawson's distinction from Russell: meaning, for Strawson, is dependent more on use than on the association of words and objects. Sentences do not correspond to truth values unless they are truly about something. The sentence "the king of France is bald" does not meet this criterion, (i.e. it is not about anything) therefore it is improper to assign it a truth value.
- How does Strawson avoid the possibility of any word being used arbitrarily to mean anything if the meaning of words dependent upon their utterer?
Monday, April 11, 2016
Strawson On Referring [Adam Plesser]
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I think Strawson may have to bite the bullet on this one and say that the use does determine the meaning, even if the use is arbitrary. Any word or sentence could possibly have any arbitrary meaning. However, I don't think this is too much of a problem for Strawson. I think that people have to agree on common meanings and uses for words and sentences in order to facilitate communication. The speaker has to be reasonable about how they are using their sentence. Intuitively, there has to be some restriction on what kind of uses are associated with which sentences.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, I think Strawson isn't too concerned about this. I think 'use' for Strawson is important because it allows him to bring in context for a sentence. For example with "the king of France is bald," the use depends on when the sentence is uttered. Strawson is more focused on this than letting any sentence have any arbitrary use.
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