Meaningfulness in human affairs manifests itself in at least three ways: in thought, in speech, and in intentional action. In our day-to-day communicative interactions, we clearly presume to draw substantive, explanatory connections between these three: we hear what people say, we understand this as the expression of cognitive activity, and we see them engaging in intentional actions which, when all goes well, corroborate our attributions of specific cognitive states to them.
I take this to embody rudimentary, though essentially correct, model of communicative understanding. My dissertation seeks to contribute to our understanding of this model and the constraints it imposes on a philosophical theory of meaning. A comprehensive theory of meaning, I argue, should provide a satisfactory account of all three elements of the model and of the conceptual and epistemic relations between them. Minimally, any sketch of a theory of meaning, however partial, should show it capable of serving in implementations of such a model.
The bulk of my dissertation takes the form a critical exploration of Tyler Burges anti-individualism. Anti-individualism trades on the idea that normatively infused conventionally established concepts, shared among speakers of a language, must play a crucial role in underwriting cognition and communication. My dissertation constitutes a sustained argument to the effect that this strategy will not work. Its prima facie plausibility notwithstanding, I argue that theories taking this idea as their starting point will fail to satisfy the constraints laid out in the basic model, and will, as a consequence, end up misrepresenting the basic pattern of our communicative interactions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-07082008-072439 |
| Date | 29 October 2008 |
| Creators | Begby, Endre |
| Contributors | Thomas Ricketts, Robert B. Brandom, Kieran Setiya, John McDowell, J.E. McGuire |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-07082008-072439/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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