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HandWiki. Meaning (Philosophy of Language). Encyclopedia. Available online: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/35778 (accessed on 03 October 2026).
HandWiki. Meaning (Philosophy of Language). Encyclopedia. Available at: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/35778. Accessed October 03, 2026.
HandWiki. "Meaning (Philosophy of Language)" Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/35778 (accessed October 03, 2026).
HandWiki. (2022, November 22). Meaning (Philosophy of Language). In Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/35778
HandWiki. "Meaning (Philosophy of Language)." Encyclopedia. Web. 22 November, 2022.
Meaning (Philosophy of Language)
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In the philosophy of language, meaning "is a relationship between two sorts of things: signs and the kinds of things they intend, express, or signify". The types of meanings vary according to the types of the thing that is being represented. Namely:

  • There are the things in the world, which might have meaning;
  • There are things in the world that are also signs of other things in the world, and so, are always meaningful (i.e., natural signs of the physical world and ideas within the mind);
  • There are things that are always necessarily meaningful, such as words, and other nonverbal symbols.

The major contemporary positions of meaning come under the following partial definitions of meaning:

  • Psychological theories, involving notions of thought, intention, or understanding;
  • Logical theories, involving notions such as intension, cognitive content, or sense, along with extension, reference, or denotation;
  • Message, content, information, or communication;
  • Truth conditions;
  • Usage, and the instructions for usage; and
  • Measurement, computation, or operation.
language philosophy meaning

References

  1. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Supp., "Truth", auth: Michael Williams, p572-573 (Macmillan, 1996)
  2. Blackburn, Simon, and Simmons, Keith (eds., 1999), Truth, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Includes papers by James, Ramsey, Russell, Tarski, and more recent work.
  3. Hale, Bob; Wright, Crispin, eds (1999). "A Companion to the Philosophy of Language". A Companion to the Philosophy of Language. pp. 309–330. doi:10.1111/b.9780631213260.1999.00015.x. ISBN 9780631213260. https://archive.org/details/companiontophilo00hale. 
  4. Horwich, Paul, Truth, (2nd edition, 1988),
  5. Field, Hartry, Truth and the Absence of Fact (2001).
  6. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.2, "Correspondence Theory of Truth", auth: Arthur N. Prior, p223 (Macmillan, 1969) Prior uses Bertrand Russell's wording in defining correspondence theory. According to Prior, Russell was substantially responsible for helping to make correspondence theory widely known under this name.
  7. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.2, "Correspondence Theory of Truth" by Arthur N. Prior, pp. 223-224 (Macmillan, 1969)
  8. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.2, "Correspondence Theory of Truth" by Arthur N. Prior, p 224, Macmillan, 1969.
  9. "Correspondence Theory of Truth", in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-correspondence
  10. Summa, I, Q.16, A.2 http://www.newadvent.org/summa/index.html
  11. "Correspondence Theory of Truth", in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (citing De Veritate Q.1, A.1 and 3; cf. Summa Theologiae Q.16). http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-correspondence
  12. See, e.g., Bradley, F.H., "On Truth and Copying", in Blackburn, et al. (eds., 1999),Truth, 31-45.
  13. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.2, "Correspondence Theory of Truth", auth: Arthur N. Prior, pp. 223 ff. Macmillan, 1969. See especially, sections on "Moore's Correspondence Theory", 225-226, "Russell's Correspondence Theory", 226-227, "Ramsey and Later Wittgenstein", 228-229, "Tarski's Semantic Theory", 230-231.
  14. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.2, "Correspondence Theory of Truth" by Arthur N. Prior, p. 223 ff. Macmillan, 1969). See section on "Tarski's Semantic Theory", 230-231.
  15. Immanuel Kant, for instance, assembled a controversial but quite coherent system in the early 19th century, whose validity of meaning and usefulness continues to be debated even today. Similarly, the systems of Leibniz and Spinoza are characteristic systems that are internally coherent but controversial in terms of their utility and validity.
  16. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.2, "Coherence Theory of Truth", auth: Alan R. White, p130-131 (Macmillan, 1969)
  17. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.2, "Coherence Theory of Truth", auth: Alan R. White, pp. 131–133, see esp., section on "Epistemological assumptions" (Macmillan, 1969)
  18. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.2, "Coherence Theory of Truth", auth: Alan R. White, p130
  19. May, Todd, 1993, Between Genealogy and Epistemology: Psychology, politics in the thought of Michel Foucault' with reference to Althusser and Balibar, 1970
  20. See e.g. Habermas, Jürgen, Knowledge and Human Interests (English translation, 1972).
  21. See e.g. Habermas, Jürgen, Knowledge and Human Interests (English translation, 1972), esp. Part III, pp 187ff.
  22. Rescher, Nicholas, Pluralism: Against the Demand for Consensus (1995).
  23. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.5, "Pragmatic Theory of Truth", 427 (Macmillan, 1969).
  24. Peirce, C.S. (1901), "Truth and Falsity and Error" (in part), pp. 716–720 in James Mark Baldwin, ed., Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, v. 2. Peirce's section is entitled "Logical", beginning on p. 718, column 1, and ending on p. 720 with the initials "(C.S.P.)", see Google Books Eprint. Reprinted, Collected Papers v. 5, pp. 565–573. https://archive.org/details/dictionaryphilo00baldgoog/page/n33
  25. James, William, The Meaning of Truth, A Sequel to 'Pragmatism', (1909).
  26. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.2, "Dewey, John", auth Richard J. Bernstein, p383 (Macmillan, 1969)
  27. Sahakian, W.S. & Sahakian, M.L., Ideas of the Great Philosophers, New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966
  28. Feynman, Richard (1967). The Character of Physical Law. MIT Press. p. 150. ISBN 9780262560030. https://archive.org/details/characterofphysi0000feyn_u5j3/page/150. 
  29. G. E. Moore, A Defence of Common Sense (1925) http://www.ditext.com/moore/common-sense.html
  30. S. N. Ganguly, Logical Positivism as a Theory of Meaning, Allied Publishers, 1967, p. 180.
  31. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1999). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Dover Publications Inc.. p. 39. ISBN 0-486-40445-5. 
  32. Chomsky, Noam (1975). Reflections on Language. Pantheom Book. https://archive.org/details/reflectionsonlan00chom. 
  33. Chomsky, Noam (1980). Rules and Representations. Columbia University Press. https://archive.org/details/rulesrepresentat0000chom. 
  34. Chomsky, Noam (2000). New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind. The MIT Press. 
  35. Chomsky, Noam (2012). The Science of Language. Interviews with James McGilvray. Cambridge University Press. 
  36. Chomsky, Noam (1975). The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory. University of Chicago Press. 
  37. Cipriani, Enrico (2016). "Some reflections on Chomsky's notion of reference". Linguistics Beyond and Within 2: 44-60. 
  38. Rescorla, Michael, "Convention", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 Edition) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/convention/#Lew
  39. Grigoris Antoniou, John Slaney (eds.), Advanced Topics in Artificial Intelligence, Springer, 1998, p. 9.
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