Single Idea 7013

[catalogued under 19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 2. Meaning as Mental]

Full Idea

The theory of language which I designate the 'Picture Theory' says that language pictures reality in roughly the sense that we can 'read off' features of reality from our ways of speaking about it.

Gist of Idea

The Picture Theory claims we can read reality from our ways of speaking about it

Source

John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 03.2)

Book Reference

Heil,John: 'From an Ontological Point of View' [OUP 2005], p.23


A Reaction

Heil, quite rightly, attacks this view very strongly. I think of it as the great twentieth century philosophical heresy, that leads to shocking views like relativism and anti-realism.