Description
Book SynopsisBetween Saying and Doing aims to reconcile pragmatism (in both its classical American and its Wittgensteinian forms) with analytic philosophy. It investigates the relations between the meaning of linguistic expressions and their use. Giving due weight both to what one has to do in order to count as saying various things and to what one needs to say in order to specify those doings, makes it possible to shed new light on the relations between semantics (the theory of the meanings of utterances and the contents of thoughts) and pragmatics (the theory of the functional relations among meaningful or contentful items). Among the vocabularies whose interrelated use and meaning are considered are: logical, indexical, modal, normative, and intentional vocabulary. As the argument proceeds, new ways of thinking about the classic analytic core programs of empiricism, naturalism, and functionalism are offered, as well as novel insights about the ideas of artificial intelligence, the nature of logi
Trade ReviewBetween Saying and Doing is an enriching, enlivening book. This is the work of a generous philosopher at the height of his powers stretching readers to the height of theirs. * Maximilian de Gaynesford, Times Literary Supplement *
Table of ContentsLecture One: Extending the Project of Analysis ; Lecture Two: Elaborating Abilities: The Expressive Role of Logic ; Appendix to Lecture Two ; Lecture Three: Artificial Intelligence and Analytic Pragmatism ; Lecture Four: Modality and Normativity: From Hume and Quine to Kant and Sellars ; Lecture Five: Incompatibility, Modal Semantics, and Intrinsic Logic ; Appendix to Lecture Five ; Lecture Six: Intentionality as a Pragmatically Mediated Semantic Relation ; Afterword
