Words without Meaning
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loginThis book presents a critique of, and an alternative to, thereceived view of the nature of linguistic communication.According to the received view, the function of language isto enable speakers to reveal the propositional contents oftheir thoughts to hearers. So conceived, linguistic commu-nication involves two kinds of meanings. First, there are themeanings that speakers express. These are the propositionalcontents of the thoughts that speakers intend to reveal tohearers. Second, there are the meanings that words pos-sess. By virtue of these, a speaker’s words express a com-plete proposition in the context in which they are uttered.Typically, a hearer will recognize the proposition that thespeaker’s words express in light of their meanings and thecontext and may infer that the meaning that the speakerexpresses is that same proposition.
