CONTEXTUALITY IN KAPLAN’S AND KATZ’S SEMANTICS
DOI: 10.23951/2312-7899-2022-3-111-117
Semantic theories by Kaplan and Katz represent a view on ordinary language opposed to the view of the late Wittgenstein, Strawson, and others. Both Kaplan’s and Katz’s theories accommodate phenomena of contextuality, whereas Wittgenstein and Strawson held that contextuality makes a semantic theory for ordinary language impossible. I compare the two theories and show that both are based on analogous fourfold distinctions. In Kaplan, it is the distinction of expression, character, content, and reference. The analogous distinction in Katz is the distinction of expression, the sense of expression-type, the sense of expression-token, and reference. The analogy between Kaplan’s character and Katz’s sense of expression-type is established by the fact that both are, formally speaking, functions from contexts. Content (Kaplan) and the sense of expression-token (Katz) are similar in that both determine reference (extension) with respect to a possible world. So we can conclude that both theories represent the same approach to contextuality.
Keywords: ordinary language, contextuality, semantics, Katz, Kaplan
References:
Frege, G. (2000). Logika i logicheskaya semantika [Logic and logical semantics] (pp. 230–246). Translated from German. Aspekt Press.
Griffiths, P. (2006). An Introduction to English Semantics and Pragmatics. Edinburg University Press.
Kaplan, D. (1979). On the Logic of Demonstratives. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 8(1), 81–98.
Kaplan, D. (1989). Demonstratives: An Essay on the Semantics, Logic, Metaphysics, and Epistemology of Demonstratives and Other Indexicals. In J. Almog, J. Perry, & H. Wettsetin (Eds.), Themes from Kaplan (pp. 481–563). Oxford University Press.
Katz, J. (1990a). Has the Description Theory of Meaning Been Refuted? In G. Boolos (Ed.), Meaning and Method. Essays in Honor of Hilary Putnam (pp. 31–62). Cambridge University Press.
Katz, J. (1990b). The Metaphysics of Meaning. MIT Press.
Kripke, S. (1980). Naming and Necessity. Harvard University Press.
Ladov, V. (2019). Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and a Hierarchical Approach to Solving Logical Paradoxes. Filosofija. Sociologija, 30(1), 36 – 43.
Strawson, P. (1982). On Referring. In N. D. Arutyunova (Ed.), Novoe v zarubezhnoy lingvistike [New in foreign linguistics] (vol. 13, pp. 55–86). Raduga. (In Russian).
Wittgenstein, L. (2018). Filosofskie issledovaniya [Philosophical Investigations]. Translated from German. AST.
( 249.92 kB ) 
( 246.21 kB )
Issue: 3, 2022
Series of issue: Issue 3
Rubric: ARTICLES. LANGUAGE MEANING AND LINGUISTIC REALISM IN CONTEXT OF ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY
Pages: 111 — 117
Downloads: 1416