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Single Idea 20301

[filed under theme 19. Language / E. Analyticity / 1. Analytic Propositions ]

Full Idea

It may be that the meaning properties of a term are the ones that play a basic explanatory role with regard to the use of the term generally, the ones in virtue ultimately of which a term is used with that meaning.

Gist of Idea

The meaning properties of a term are those which explain how the term is typically used

Source

Georges Rey (The Analytic/Synthetic Distinction [2013], 4.3)

Book Ref

'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.12

A Reaction

[He cites Devitt 1996, 2002, and Horwich 1998, 2005) I spring to philosophical life whenever I see the word 'explanatory', because that is the point of the whole game. They are pointing to the essence of the concept (which is explanatory, say I).

Related Idea

Idea 20292 Analytic judgements clarify, by analysing the subject into its component predicates [Kant]

The 20 ideas with the same theme [propositions that just seem to be about words]:

8734 Non-subject/predicate tautologies won't fit Kant's definition of analyticity [Shapiro on Kant]
7314 How can bachelor 'contain' unmarried man? Are all analytic truths in subject-predicate form? [Miller,A on Kant]
20291 If the predicate is contained in the subject of a judgement, it is analytic; otherwise synthetic [Kant]
20292 Analytic judgements clarify, by analysing the subject into its component predicates [Kant]
16926 Analytic judgements say clearly what was in the concept of the subject [Kant]
16927 Analytic judgement rests on contradiction, since the predicate cannot be denied of the subject [Kant]
9370 A statement is analytic if substitution of synonyms can make it a logical truth [Frege, by Boghossian]
8743 Frege considered analyticity to be an epistemic concept [Frege, by Shapiro]
7725 'P or not-p' seems to be analytic, but does not fit Kant's account, lacking clear subject or predicate [Frege, by Weiner]
13345 Sentences are 'analytical' if every sequence of objects models them [Tarski]
9371 Analytic statements are either logical truths (all reinterpretations) or they depend on synonymy [Quine]
20294 'Married' does not 'contain' its symmetry, nor 'bigger than' its transitivity [Rey]
20293 Analytic judgements can't be explained by contradiction, since that is what is assumed [Rey]
20297 Analytic statements are undeniable (because of meaning), rather than unrevisable [Rey]
20301 The meaning properties of a term are those which explain how the term is typically used [Rey]
20302 An intrinsic language faculty may fix what is meaningful (as well as grammatical) [Rey]
20303 Research throws doubts on the claimed intuitions which support analyticity [Rey]
14099 'Bachelor' consists in or reduces to 'unmarried' male, but not the other way around [Rosen]
14488 Analyticity is revealed through redundancy, as in 'He bought a house and a building' [Thomasson]
17725 'Analytic' can be conceptual, or by meaning, or predicate inclusion, or definition... [Jenkins]