Communication and intention

By Blackburn, Simon

The classic attempt to understand communication in terms of the intentions of a person making an utterance was put forward by Paul Grice in 1957. Grice was concerned ...

Searle, John (1932–)

John Rogers Searle (born July 31, 1932) is the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. This analytic philosopher has made major contributions to the ...

Implicature

By Davis, Wayne A.

A term used in philosophy, logic and linguistics (especially pragmatics) to denote the act of meaning or implying something by saying something else. A girl who says ‘I ...

Analyticity

By Bealer, George

In Critique of Pure ReasonKant introduced the term ‘analytic’ for judgments whose truth is guaranteed by a certain relation of ‘containment’ between the constituent concepts, and ‘synthetic’ for ...

Pragmatics

By Recanati, Francois

Analytic philosophers have made lasting contributions to the scientific study of language. Semantics (the study of meaning) and pragmatics (the study of language in use) are two important ...

Performatives

By Bach, Kent

There are certain things one can do just by saying what one is doing. This is possible if one uses a verb that names the very sort of ...

Animal minds

By Andrews, Kristin

By examining the mind across species, we can make better progress on questions about the nature of the mind generally. While this has been acknowledged since ancient times, ...

Meaning and communication

By Blackburn, Simon

The two fundamental facts about language are that we use it to mean things and we use it to communicate. So the philosophy of language tries to explain ...

Speech acts

By Bach, Kent

Making a statement may be the paradigmatic use of language, but there are all sorts of other things we can do with words. We can make requests, ask ...

Artistic interpretation

By Goldman, Alan H.

Interpretation aims to advance understanding by providing explanations of various kinds. In art, it should aim to maximize our understanding and appreciation of a work, and enable us ...

Meaning and truth

By Williams, Stephen G.

Analytic philosophy has seen a resurgent interest in the possibility of explaining linguistic meaning in terms of truth, which many philosophers have seen as considerably more tractable than ...

Language, philosophy of

By Crimmins, Mark

Philosophical interest in language, while ancient and enduring (see Language, ancient philosophy of; Language, medieval theories of; Language, Renaissance philosophy of; Language, early modern philosophy of), has blossomed ...

Strawson, Peter Frederick (1919–2006)

By Snowdon, Paul F.

Strawson taught at the University of Oxford from 1947, becoming Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy in 1968, and retiring in 1987. A sequence of influential books and articles ...

Mead, George Herbert (1863–1931)

By Joas, Hans

Together with Charles Peirce, William James and John Dewey, George Herbert Mead is considered one of the classic representatives of American pragmatism. He is most famous for his ...

Language, conventionality of

By Smith, Barry C.

When we say that smoke means fire or that those spots mean measles, we are noting how the presence of one thing indicates the presence of another. For ...

Metaphor

By Martinich, A.P.

A standard dictionary definition describes a metaphor as ‘a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object is used in place ...

Intention

By Dunn, Robert

Suppose that Kevin intends to brush up on his predicate logic, and acts on this intention, because he wants to conduct a good tutorial and he believes that ...

Semantics

By Crimmins, Mark

Semantics is the systematic study of meaning. Current work in this field builds on the work of logicians and linguists as well as of philosophers. Philosophers are interested ...

Propositional attitudes

By Oppy, Graham

Examples of propositional attitudes include the belief that snow is white, the hope that Mt Rosea is twelve miles high, the desire that there should be snow at ...

Grice, Herbert Paul (1913–88)

By Baker, Judith

Grice was a leading member of the post-war Oxford group of analytic philosophers. His small body of published work, together with an oral tradition, has been deeply influential ...