more from Colin McGinn

Single Idea 4690

[catalogued under 19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 3. Meaning as Speaker's Intention]

Full Idea

The importance of Grice's analysis of speaker meaning is that it offers the prospect of analysing the whole phenomenon of linguistic meaning in terms of propositional attitudes… thus turning semantics into a department of the philosophy of mind.

Gist of Idea

If meaning is speaker's intentions, it can be reduced to propositional attitudes, and philosophy of mind

Source

Colin McGinn (The Making of a Philosopher [2002], Ch. 5)

Book Reference

McGinn,Colin: 'The Making of a Philosopher' [Scribner 2003], p.138


A Reaction

Although meaning being truth conditions is the most cited theory, the reduction of semantics to an aspect of mind also seems almost orthodox now. But how do the symbols 'represent' the attitudes?