more from Timothy Williamson

Single Idea 19532

[catalogued under 19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 7. Extensional Semantics]

Full Idea

Truth-conditional referential semantics is an externalist programme. In a context of utterance the atomic expressions of a language refer to worldly items, from which the truth-conditions of sentences are compositionally determined.

Gist of Idea

Truth-conditional referential semantics is externalist, referring to worldly items

Source

Timothy Williamson (Knowledge First (and reply) [2014], p.6)

Book Reference

'Contemporary Debates in Epistemology (2nd ed)', ed/tr. Steup/Turri/Sosa [Wiley Blackwell 2014], p.6


A Reaction

I just don't see how a physical object can be part of the contents of a sentence. 'Dragons fly' is atomic, and meaningful, but its reference fails. 'The cat is asleep' is just words - it doesn't contain a live animal.