Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Justice: What's the right thing to do?' and 'Propositions'

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2 ideas

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 1. Meaning
People don't assert the meaning of the words they utter [Cartwright,R]
     Full Idea: No one ever asserts the meaning of the words he utters.
     From: Richard Cartwright (Propositions [1962], 12)
     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.
For any statement, there is no one meaning which any sentence asserting it must have [Cartwright,R]
     Full Idea: It does have to be acknowledged, I think, that every statement whatever is such that there is no one meaning which any sentence used to assert it must have.
     From: Richard Cartwright (Propositions [1962], 11)
     A reaction: This feels to me like a Gricean move - that what we are really interested in is communicating one mental state to another mental state, and there are all sorts of tools that can do that one job.