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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'From an Ontological Point of View' and 'The Limits of Reason'

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2 ideas

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 2. Meaning as Mental
The Picture Theory claims we can read reality from our ways of speaking about it [Heil]
     Full Idea: The theory of language which I designate the 'Picture Theory' says that language pictures reality in roughly the sense that we can 'read off' features of reality from our ways of speaking about it.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 03.2)
     A reaction: Heil, quite rightly, attacks this view very strongly. I think of it as the great twentieth century philosophical heresy, that leads to shocking views like relativism and anti-realism.
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 4. Meaning as Truth-Conditions
A sentence's truth conditions are all the situations where it would be true [Button]
     Full Idea: A sentence's truth conditions comprise an exhaustive list of the situations in which that sentence would be true.
     From: Tim Button (The Limits of Reason [2013], 03.4)
     A reaction: So to know its meaning you must know those conditions? Compare 'my cat is licking my finger' with 'dramatic events are happening in Ethiopia'. It should take an awful long time to grasp the second sentence.