Contexts

Abstract

This book discusses the views of meaning and truth implicit in the traditionalapproach to natural-language semantics. Its main thesis is that the philosophical presuppositions entailed by that approach have often been misunderstood even by its foremost defenders, and that such a misunderstanding has fuelled an unjustified but increasingly popular sceptical attitude. This conclusion is defended by focusing on the distinction between the essential philosophical traits of traditional natural-language semantics, and certain accidental features allegedly characteristic of some of its typical applications to the study of particular utterances. As a result, the book puts forth claims about the logical profile of indexical expressions, about the semantic behaviour of attitude reports, and about phenomena such as discourse about fiction, approximation, and contextual dependence. In its central chapters, it challenges the adequacy of a token-reflexive approach to indexicality, and questions the urgency of the so-called contextualist view of communication.