Find counter arguments by entering NameVs… or …VsName.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author Vs Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Soames, S. | Schiffer Vs Soames, S. | I 217 Compositional Semantics/Comp.sem./Understanding/Explanation/Scott Soames/Schiffer: (Soames 1987) Thesis: comp.sem. is not needed for explaining the language understanding, nevertheless natural languages have a comp.sem .: Language understanding/Soames: you should not look at the semantics to explain semantic competence. Instead one needs comp.sem you. for the explanation of the representational character of the language. The central semantic fact about language is that it is needed to represent the world. Propositions encode systematic information that characterize the world so and so. We need comp.sem. for the analysis of the principles of this encoding. SchifferVsSoames: Instead, I have introduced the expression potential. One might assume that a finally formulated theory should be able to formulate theorems for the attribution of expression potential to each proposition of the language. But would that then not be a compositional theory?. I 218 E.g. Harvey: here we did not need comp.sem. to assume that for each proposition of M (internal language) there is a realization of belief, that means (µ)(∑P)(If μ is a proposition of M and in the box, then Harvey believes that P). (s) Although here no connection between μ and P is specified). Schiffer: Now we could find a picture of formulas of M into German, which is a translation. But that provides no finite theory which would provide a theorem for every formula μ of M as If μ is in the box, then Harvey thinks that snow is sometimes purple. Propositional attitude/Meaning theory/Schiffer: Problem: it is not possible to find a finite theory which ascribes verbs for belief characteristics of this type. Pointe: yet the terms in M have meaning! E.g. "Nemrac seveileb taht emos wons si elprup" would realize the corresponding belief in Harvey and thus also mean trivially. SchifferVsCompositionality: when the word-meaning contributs to the proposition-meaning, then it is this. Then expressions in M have meaning. But these are not characteristics that can be attributed to a finite theory. We could find only the property to attribute to each proposition of M a particular belief, but that cannot happen in a finite theory. mental representation/Mentalese/Schiffer: the formulas in M are mental representations. They represent external conditions. Propositions of E, Harvey's spoken speech, received their representational character via the connection with mental representations. Therefore Mentalese needs no comp.sem. SchifferVsSoames: So he is wrong and we need the comp.sem. not even for an illustration of how our propositions represent the world. I 219 We had already achieved this result via the expresion potentials. Because: representational character: is indistinguishable from the expression potential. |
Schi I St. Schiffer Remnants of Meaning Cambridge 1987 |
| |||
The author or concept searched is found in the following theses of the more related field of specialization.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compositionality | Soames, Sc. | Schiffer I 217 Compositional Semantics/understanding/explanation/Scott Soames/Schiffer: (Soames 1987) Thesis: compositional semantics is not used to explain speech understanding, yet natural languages have a compositional semantics: Language Mastery/Soames: one should not look at semantics to explain semantic competence. Instead, compositional semantics is needed to explain the representational character of the language. The central semantic fact about language is that it is used to represent the world. Sentences systematically encode information that characterizes the world so and so. We need compositional semantics for the analysis of the principles of this coding. SchifferVsSoames: instead I introduced the expression potential. One could assume that a finitely formable theory should be able to formulate theorems for the attribution of AP to each sentence of the language. But wouldn't that be a compositional theory? |
|
| |||