Colloque

Intensions and intentions from the perspective of a semantic naturalism

Sofia Inês Albornoz Stein

Membre a labase

Sofia Inês Albornoz Stein

Résumé de la communication

As Henri Lauener states in “Truth and Reference” (VANDERVEKEN (Org.), Logic, Thought and Action, Springer, 2005), if one wants to determine the truth of a theory, it is necessary to determine the reference and the sense of terms for objects in that theory. Quine, as Lauener interprets it, contradicts himself when he sustains a physicalist realism, from a ontological point of view, and, at the same time, argues for the inscrutability of the reference of terms, as his naturalistic-behavioristic analysis shows. Moreover, Lauener argues that the notion of meaning would be related to the notion of rule, that is to say, intensions and extensions would be “fixed by the totality of the rules which prescribe the correct use of the expressions”. That notion of meaning has, accordig to Lauener, a transcendental status and is opposed to any concept of meaning that could be formulated by a naturalistic perspective. The normativity intrinsic to linguistic activity isn’t, as Lauener states, something that one could describe solely by a naturalistic and extensional discourse. I intend to question the relevance of Lauener’s criticism against the naturalistic point of view in semantics, starting from a distinction between Quine’s naturalistic-behavioristic standpoint and other possible naturalistic standpoints in semantics that would't exclude the discourse about itensions and intentions.

Résumé du colloque

Cette activité de discussion théorique interdisciplinaire sur langage, pensée et action servira aussi de lancement au Québec du livre collectif de Daniel Vanderveken LOGIC, THOUGHT & ACTION paru dans la collection Logic, Epistemology and the Unity of Science de Springer en 2005. Les directeurs de la collection, John Symons (de l’université du Texas) et Shahid Rahman (de l’université de Lille) seront présents. Des conférenciers de marque étrangers et canadiens y participeront.