Psychology Dictionary of ArgumentsHome![]() | |||
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Use theory, philosophy of language: the term was formed following a thesis of L. Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations, § 43. (Original in German) You can explain the use of the word "meaning" for a large class of cases - though not in all cases of its use - as the meaning of a word is its use in the language." - This thesis applies to words and cannot be extended to whole sentences. See also use, word meaning, sentence meaning, language acquisition, meaning theory, reference._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
Author | Concept | Summary/Quotes | Sources |
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Robert Brandom on Use Theory - Dictionary of Arguments
I ~ 169 Rule/Sellars/Brandom: Sellars: I'll interpret our judgments that A causes B as an expression of a rule for the use of "A" and "B". >Causation, >Use. I 490 DummettVsUse Theory: if there is no key idea regarding the meaning, then it is unclear what the meaning of a word is in contrast to that of a sentence. Dummett: Key idea: understanding a word needs to consist only in understanding its contribution to the sentence. Force: pragmatic significance, sentantial content - meaning: semantic content, sub-sentential (!) content. >Content, >Subsententials. Brandom: according to this analogy, the sentences are divided in equivalence classes by performative significance in a way that the force is maintained in case of substitution. >Equivalence class, >Substitution. --- II 43f Use theory/realism/Brandom: our use of concepts such as "electron" depends not only on our dispositions to inferential approvals, but also on "what is going on with the world" - use is not limited to approval of inferences - whether inferences are correct depends on what "really follows" - contents are what they are because we use concepts as we do, not because we believe that they are. - This does not argue that concepts have a representational dimension. >Concepts, >Representation. II 246 Accounting/Brandom: completes use theory - does not imply that all players have the disposition that they should have. >Attribution, >Dispositions._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Bra I R. Brandom Making it exlicit. Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment, Cambridge/MA 1994 German Edition: Expressive Vernunft Frankfurt 2000 Bra II R. Brandom Articulating reasons. An Introduction to Inferentialism, Cambridge/MA 2001 German Edition: Begründen und Begreifen Frankfurt 2001 |