Combining Texts

Ideas for 'From an Ontological Point of View', 'Semiology and Grammatology' and 'Quodlibeta'

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3 ideas

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 2. Meaning as Mental
Everything that is experienced in consciousness is meaning [Derrida]
     Full Idea: All experience is the experience of meaning (Sinn). Everything that appears to consciousness, everything that is for consciousness in general, is meaning.
     From: Jacques Derrida (Semiology and Grammatology [1968], p.26)
     A reaction: This an assertion, from a quite different philosophical tradition, of the centrality of linguistic meaning in philosophy. It links with the centrality of intentionality in our understanding of the mind.
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 / D. Propositions / 2. Abstract Propositions / b. Propositions as possible worlds
If propositions are states of affairs or sets of possible worlds, these lack truth values [Heil]
     Full Idea: When pressed, philosophers will describe propositions as states of affairs or sets of possible worlds. But wait! Neither sets of possible worlds nor states of affairs - electrons being negatively charged, for instance - have truth values.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Intro)
     A reaction: I'm not sure that I see a problem. A pure proposition, expressed as, say "there is a giraffe on the roof" only acquires a truth value at the point where you assert it or believe it. There IS a possible world where there is a giraffe on the roof.