Naturalistic philosophers of meaning try to define the recalcitrant concept of reference in terms respected by the empirical science, such as causality or teleology. In this thesis, after a brief introduction to these trials is given, Fodors theory of content in terms of asymmetric dependence is examined in some depth. I claim that although this theory involves an important insight, it is an unsatisfactory attempt at reduction of the notion of reference. I develop a new theory of content, which does not have the defects of the analyses in terms of asymmetric dependence, and more successfully deals with notorious cases, such as pansemanticism and the possibility of misrepresentation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/1138320/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 September 2003 |
| Creators | Aytekin, Tevfik |
| Contributors | Sayan, Erdinc |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.S. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for public access |
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