Ontological Relativity and Other Essays

Tallinna ülikool sotsiaalteaduste dissertatsioonid

Many philosophers hold that for an expression to possess meaning is for there to norms governing its use. By combining this with a further idea, namely that the relevant norms are epistemic, one arrives at an epistemic conception of meaning (EM). In this paper, I outline a problem for EM, which motivates a reassessment of the arguments in support of it. Accordingly, I consider a number of such arguments but find them to be unsuccessful. By way of diagnosis, I suggest that EM ultimately rests on a kind of act/object confusion. This in turn suggests a way in which one can accept the view that meaning is determined by norms of use without accepting that those norms are epistemic.

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On epistemic conceptions of meaning: use, meaning and normativity

Conceptual agreement theory

How do social values come about and gain legitimacy? Starting from the premise that discourses of social analysis affect the ways in which social norms develop and proliferate, this article models the evolution of professional codes and dialects using Wittgenstein’s idea of a language game. A language game is formalized as a repeated game of tacit coordination played among participants with informational asymmetries. The informational asymmetries model the different meanings that people assign to the same word used in a conversation. A language is formalized as a code that emerges as a result of repeated interactions in a language game. The paper argues that certain codes—such as those based on the real number system—lead to more reliable strategies in language games. The result is used to argue that professional dialects based on axiomatizable codes—such as physics, mathematics and economics—are less likely to experience fragmentation into intra-disciplinary ‘sects,’ camps and incommensurable paradigms than are professional dialects that are not based on an axiomatizable code—such as sociology, psychology, organization studies, and strategic management studies. The idea of a language game is extended to explore ways in which certain disciplines can establish cognitive jurisdiction over particular phenomena, starting from a particular set of codes, and thereby claim ‘cognitive monopolies.’ A rudimentary theory of the market for ideas is advanced.

Language, games and language games

background

https://philpapers.org/archive/CHAUMA.pdf

Ontological Relativity and Other Essays

Citations

Tallinna ülikool sotsiaalteaduste dissertatsioonid

On epistemic conceptions of meaning: use, meaning and normativity

Conceptual agreement theory

Language, games and language games

Understanding Meaning and World: A Relook on Semantic Externalism

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