Description
Book SynopsisBrings together the important essays written by one of the world's foremost philosophers of language. This book illustrates the significance of linguistic concerns for a range of philosophical topics - including the relationship between language and thought; truth, vagueness, and partial definition; and, and skepticism about meaning and mind.
Trade Review"Soames's work is of an exceptionally high quality, the selections made here are truly excellent, and the organization is well thought out. Having these papers available in this form is a great boon to scholars."
—Stephen Neale, CUNY Graduate Center"Since many of these important papers are relatively inaccessible, it is particularly useful to have them collected together, and Soames has done an excellent job of selecting and arranging them. These two volumes are really terrific."
—Alex Byrne, Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyTable of ContentsThe Origins of These Essays ix Introduction 1 Part One: Presupposition 21Essay One: A Projection Problem for Speaker Presuppositions 23 Essay Two: Presupposition 73 Part Two: Language and Linguistic Competence 131 Essay Three: Linguistics and Psychology 133 Essay Four: Semantics and Psychology 159 Essay Five: Semantics and Semantic Competence 182 Essay Six: The Necessity Argument 202 Essay Seven: Truth, Meaning, and Understanding 208 Essay Eight: Truth and Meaning--in Perspective 225 Part Three: Semantics and Pragmatics 249 Essay Nine: Naming and Asserting 251 Essay Ten: The Gap between Meaning and Assertion: Why What We Literally Say Often Differs from What Our Words Literally Mean 278 Essay Eleven: Drawing the Line between Meaning and Implicature--and Relating Both to Assertion 298 Part Four: Descriptions 327 Essay Twelve: Incomplete Definite Descriptions 329 Essay Thirteen: Donnellan's Referential/Attributive Distinction 360 Essay Fourteen: Why Incomplete Definite Descriptions Do Not Defeat Russell's Theory of Descriptions 377 Part Five: Meaning and Use: Lessons for Legal Interpretation 401 Essay Fifteen: Interpreting Legal Texts: What Is, and What Is Not, Special about the Law 403 Index 425
