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Single Idea 13950
[filed under theme 19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 1. Meaning
]
Full Idea
No one ever asserts the meaning of the words he utters.
Gist of Idea
People don't assert the meaning of the words they utter
Source
Richard Cartwright (Propositions [1962], 12)
Book Ref
Cartwright,Richard: 'Philosophical Essays' [MIT 1987], p.49
A Reaction
Cartwright is using this point to drive a wedge between sentence meaning and the assertion made by the utterance. Hence he defends propositions. Presumably people utilise word-meanings, rather than asserting them. Meanings (not words) are tools.
Related Idea
Idea 13951
Assertions, unlike sentence meanings, can be accurate, probable, exaggerated, false.... [Cartwright,R]
The
19 ideas
from Richard Cartwright
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9783
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While no two classes coincide in membership, there are distinct but coextensive attributes
[Cartwright,R]
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9784
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A false proposition isn't truer because it is part of a coherent system
[Cartwright,R]
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9786
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Philosophers working like teams of scientists is absurd, yet isolation is hard
[Cartwright,R]
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13952
|
Essentialism says some of a thing's properties are necessary, and could not be absent
[Cartwright,R]
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13953
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An act of ostension doesn't seem to need a 'sort' of thing, even of a very broad kind
[Cartwright,R]
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13954
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The difficulty in essentialism is deciding the grounds for rating an attribute as essential
[Cartwright,R]
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13955
|
Essentialism is said to be unintelligible, because relative, if necessary truths are all analytic
[Cartwright,R]
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13941
|
Are the truth-bearers sentences, utterances, ideas, beliefs, judgements, propositions or statements?
[Cartwright,R]
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13942
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Logicians take sentences to be truth-bearers for rigour, rather than for philosophical reasons
[Cartwright,R]
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13943
|
We can attribute 'true' and 'false' to whatever it was that was said
[Cartwright,R]
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13944
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We can pull apart assertion from utterance, and the action, the event and the subject-matter for each
[Cartwright,R]
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13946
|
To assert that p, it is neither necessary nor sufficient to utter some particular words
[Cartwright,R]
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13947
|
'It's raining' makes a different assertion on different occasions, but its meaning remains the same
[Cartwright,R]
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13948
|
For any statement, there is no one meaning which any sentence asserting it must have
[Cartwright,R]
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13951
|
Assertions, unlike sentence meanings, can be accurate, probable, exaggerated, false....
[Cartwright,R]
|
|
13950
|
People don't assert the meaning of the words they utter
[Cartwright,R]
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13945
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A token isn't a unique occurrence, as the case of a word or a number shows
[Cartwright,R]
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14961
|
Clearly a pipe can survive being taken apart
[Cartwright,R]
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14962
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Bodies don't becomes scattered by losing small or minor parts
[Cartwright,R]
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