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Full Idea
Nobody now thinks that the reduction of the meaning of English sentences to facts about the communicative intentions of English speakers - or to any facts about mental states - is likely to go through.
Gist of Idea
It seems unlikely that meaning can be reduced to communicative intentions, or any mental states
Source
Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 6)
Book Ref
Fodor,Jerry A.: 'In Critical Condition' [MIT 2000], p.66
A Reaction
Most attempts at 'reduction' of meaning seem to go rather badly. I assume it would be very difficult to characterise 'intentions' without implicit reference to meaning.
5280 | Language co-exists with consciousness, and makes it social [Marx/Engels] |
13977 | When I utter a sentence, listeners grasp both my meaning and my state of mind [Ryle] |
7751 | Meaning needs an intention to induce a belief, and a recognition that this is the speaker's intention [Grice] |
7752 | Only the utterer's primary intention is relevant to the meaning [Grice] |
7753 | We judge linguistic intentions rather as we judge non-linguistic intentions, so they are alike [Grice] |
15668 | Meaning is not fixed by a relation to the external world, but a relation to other speakers [Habermas, by Finlayson] |
2482 | It seems unlikely that meaning can be reduced to communicative intentions, or any mental states [Fodor] |
2998 | Grice thinks meaning is inherited from the propositional attitudes which sentences express [Fodor] |
4690 | If meaning is speaker's intentions, it can be reduced to propositional attitudes, and philosophy of mind [McGinn] |