Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Theory of Communicative Action' and 'The Material Mind'

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3 ideas

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 1. Meaning
To understand a statement is to know what would make it acceptable [Habermas]
     Full Idea: We understand the meaning of a speech act when we know what would make it acceptable.
     From: Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981], I:297), quoted by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.3:37
     A reaction: Finlayson glosses this as requiring the reasons which would justify the speech act.
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 3. Meaning as Speaker's Intention
Meaning is not fixed by a relation to the external world, but a relation to other speakers [Habermas, by Finlayson]
     Full Idea: On Habermas's view, meanings are not determined by the speaker's relation to the external world, but by his relation to his interlocutors; meaning is essentially intersubjective.
     From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.3:38
     A reaction: This view is not the same as Grice's, but it is clearly much closer to Grice than to (say) the Frege/Davidson emphasis on truth-conditions. I'm not sure if I would know how to begin arbitrating between the two views!
19. Language / D. Propositions / 1. Propositions
A proposition is what can be asserted or denied on its own [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: A proposition is what can be asserted or denied on its own, for example, 'It is day' or 'Dion is walking'.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.65
     A reaction: Note the phrase 'on its own'. If you say 'it is day and Dion is walking', that can't be denied on its own, because first the two halves must each be evaluated, so presumably that doesn't count as a stoic proposition.