4 ideas
| 14894 | Indexicals have a 'character' (the standing meaning), and a 'content' (truth-conditions for one context) [Kaplan, by Macià/Garcia-Carpentiro] |
| Full Idea: Kaplan distinguished two different semantic features of indexical expressions: a 'character' that captures the standing meaning of the expression, and a 'content' that consists of their truth-conditional contribution in particular contexts. | |
| From: report of David Kaplan (Demonstratives [1989]) by Macià/Garcia-Carpentiro - Introduction to 'Two-Dimensional Semantics' 1 | |
| A reaction: This seems so clearly right that there isn't much to dispute. You can't understand the word 'I' or 'now' if you don't understand both its general purpose, and what it is doing in a particular utterance. But will this generalise to other semantics? |
| 14700 | 'Content' gives the standard modal profile, and 'character' gives rules for a context [Kaplan, by Schroeter] |
| Full Idea: Kaplan sees two aspects of meaning, the 'content', reflecting a thing's modal profile, which is modelled by standard possible worlds semantics, and 'character', giving rules for different contexts. Proper names have constant character; indexicals vary. | |
| From: report of David Kaplan (Demonstratives [1989]) by Laura Schroeter - Two-Dimensional Semantics 1.1.1 | |
| A reaction: This gives rise to 2-D matrices for representing meaning, and the possible worlds are used twice, for evaluating meaning and then for evaluating context of use. I've always been struck by the two-dimensional semantics of passwords. |
| 23873 | Dividing history books into separate chapters is disastrous [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The division of history textbooks into chapters will cost us many disastrous mistakes. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Fragments [1936], p.131) | |
| A reaction: Nice observation. The point is that we fail to grasp what really happened if we draw sharp lines across history. |
| 1468 | If meaning is use, then religious sentences have meaning because they are used to assert an intention about how to live [Braithwaite, by PG] |
| Full Idea: If the meaning of statements is their use (as Wittgenstein claims), then religious people use religious claims to assert an intention to follow a religious life and morality, and this intention gives their sentences meaning. | |
| From: report of R.B. Braithwaite (Empiricist View of Religion [1955]) by PG - Db (ideas) |