Fol.r major accounts of linguistic meaning are considered. A referential theory of meaning as developed by Bertrand Russell is considered and rejected on the grounds of some critical observations made by P. F. Strawson. An instrumentalistic theory of meaning as adopted by Ludwig Wittgenstein is next considered and found after an evaluation by C. S. Chihara and J. A. Fodor to be inconclusive. A behavioristic theory of meaning as advocated by Charles W. Morris is considered next. Based on questions posed by L. O. Kattsoff this theory of meaning is found to be, at best, incomplete. Finally, an ideational account of meaning is considered. The traditional ideational account posed by John Locke is rapidly rejected on the basis of his theory of idea; but a theory of idea proposed by Brand Blanshard is found to serve an ideational theory of meaning quite well. Concluding the thesis is a brief summary and a prospectus.

Thesis--Cologne. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 338-343).

Naturalistic philosophers aim to understand the world on the basis of science. A naturalist takes empirical evidence to be the ultimate arbiter of our beliefs. As naturalists, our investigations of the nature of truth itself should respect this empiricist methodology. In this essay, I argue that the existence and character of truth are open empirical questions, to be answered by scientific inquiry. I then argue against an a priori proof of the existence of truth. / text

According to Eli Hirsch many ontological disputes are verbal because, in these disputes, each side is most charitably interpreted as speaking the truth in its own language. In this thesis I argue that the ontological disputes Hirsch targets can’t be verbal. The problem with Hirsch’s proposal is that these ontological disputes are explicable in terms of ancillary disagreements about the explanatory value of intrinsic properties. If Hirsch believes that the ancillary disagreements are nonverbal, I argue, then he should interpret ontological disputes as being nonverbal as well. Alternatively, in order for Hirsch to interpret the ancillary disagreements as being verbal, he must reject an assumption implicit in ontologists’ existence assertions. In this case, he ought to interpret ontologists’ positive existence assertions as false. Either way, there is no plausible way to interpret the disputes Hirsch targets as being verbal.

In this thesis, Semantics, Meta-Semantics, and Ontology, I provide a critique of the method of truth in metaphysics. Davidson has suggested that we can determine the metaphysical nature and structure of reality through semantic investigations. By contrast, I argue that it is not semantics, but meta-semantics, which reveals the metaphysically necessary and sufficient truth conditions of our claims. As a consequence I reject the Quinean (semantic) criterion of ontological commitment. In Part I, chapter 1, I argue that the metaphysically primary truth bearers are not propositions, but rather concrete representations, either beliefs or sentences. I show, in chapter 2, that we can give sense to a truth predicate applying to sentences, given a truth operator and quantification into sentence position. I argue that this strategy does not commit us to the existence of propositions serving as truth bearers. In Part II I argue that although we must assign semantic values to sentences and/or predicates, the meaningfulness of these expressions is not thereby explained. In chapter 3 I articulate Davidson’s problem of predication and his solution, but argue that he was wrong to attribute this solution to Tarski. In chapter 4 I examine the semantics of modal languages; I conclude that although they require semantic values for predicates and/or sentences we should be instrumentalists about these theories. In Part III I consider the relationship between truth and existence. In chapter 5, I defend Pluralism about truth: in some (though not all) domains of discourse, I claim, semantic reference plays a merely instrumental role in explaining truth. In chapter 6, I show that Hume’s Principle, which is committed by the Quinean criterion to the existence of numbers, can be true even though numbers do not exist. In doing so, I appeal to meta-semantic and diachronic considerations. In the conclusion I compare my views on ontology and commitment to Jody Azzouni’s; and in the appendix I suggest how one might pursue diachronic linguistics.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 210-229).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 215-219).

Thesis (Ph.D.) in History--University of Maine, 2008. / Includes vita. Abstract, table of contents in French and English. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 320-360).

Richard Rorty's seminal work, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), a text that critiques the foundationalist aspirations of philosophy, locates John Locke within a line of thinkers primarily concerned with discerning and accurately representing either the external "reality" of the world or the internal essence of human beings. Such thinkers, according to Rorty, have perpetuated the conception of philosophy as foundational-that is, mediating between "reality" and all other claims to knowledge in order to adjudicate accuracy of representation. Contending that the conception of philosophy as foundational derives from an obsolete vocabulary inherited from the seventeenth century, Rorty locates philosophic texts on par with all other texts, whose relation to the world is functional rather than foundational. Rorty then proposes that philosophy assume a more pragmatic cultural role as the promoter, but not the arbiter, of more fruitful redescriptions of ourselves to deal with the historically specific complexity of the world. Rorty's conception of language as a tool that underpins his argument that texts bear a functional as opposed to foundational relation to the world forms the theoretical framework for my analysis of John Locke's An Essay concerning Human Understanding. Although the putative impetus of Locke's Essay is discerning the origin of our ideas as the foundations of all knowledge, this thesis proffers an alternate reading of Locke's Essay by attending to its rhetorical structure. More specifically, I argue that the Essay is an experiential and experimental text that insistently involves the reader in the textual exegesis of mind. Based on my reading of the rhetorical movements and literal denotation of the Essay, I propose that the primary aim of the text was not to represent accurately the cognitive processes of the mind forming ideas about the world as the foundations of all knowledge; rather, I suggest that the Essay self-consciously functions metaphorically by proffering a new vocabulary with which to think about mind, world, language, and society as a viable alternative to endless sectarian strife. Using Rorty's vocabulary to redescribe Locke's rhetorical project in the Essay, I suggest that Locke's text not only embodies an awareness of its own contingency, but functions within its historical context in the role which Rorty proposes for philosophy. In this regard, Locke and Rorty become aligned on an imaginative continuum in their shared rhetorical project of redescription with specifically pragmatic aims. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Contemporary scholars of Indian philosophy are of the opinion that the Vedas are purely ritualistic. This opinion finds support in the translations and commentaries of Sayanacharya and Mahidhara, on which their scholarship is based. The interpretation of the Vedas by the above mentioned authors is against the root derivatives of the words and antagonistic to the expositions of the various hymns given by the Vedic sages and Riahia. In order to be a valid translation it has to be in conformity with the ideas and derivatives contained in Vedanga, Alteraya, Shatpatha, Brahmans, etc. Sayanacharys says that all the four Vedas em- phasize the Karmakand (rituale), only.| However, it can easily be seen that amongst the many topics, the Vedas deal with four Important ones, namely: (I) Karma, (2) Vijuana, (3) worship (upasana) sod (4) Jana. Mundak Upanisad in part says: