Philosophy Concordance - online philosophical quotations

When we start to use a suitable piece of stone to drive nails, it undoubtedly gains, thereby, in significance; but it seems that the difference between a meaningful word and a meaningless sound or inscription is something worlds apart from the difference between a stone used for driving nails and one that is of no use. When we say that the former stone, in contrast to the latter one, means something to us, we would seem to be employing means in a sense which is totally different from the sense in which we are using it when we say that a word means thus and so. Is not saying that a word has a meaning in the sense that it is useful for some purpose something quite different from saying that the word has meaning in the sense of having a 'semantic value'?

But this, I think, is not the most important lesson (in fact, as I will try to indicate later, such an outcome is not so surprising given the pragmatic nature of the turn); a more important lesson is that meanings, at least as usually conceived, are perhaps less crucial for semantic theory than previously thought.

What else is a semantic theory than a theory of meaning?

So semantic theory, apparently, need not be defined as the theory of meaning, but rather as the theory of meaningfulness of words.

Before continuing, let me point out, by way of digression, another important aspect of the 'pragmatic turn': the fact that it brings about a certain amount of semantic holism.

Hence, Quine concludes, the analysis of language, including its semantic aspect, cannot but be behavioristic.

Quine himself is unambiguous: for him meanings are decoys, misguiding our attention from the true subject matter of semantic theory.

In my view, here it is essential to pause and distinguish two different theses: (1) The primary target of semantic theory are linguistic practices (aka language games).

Does it imply that semantic theory states no facts and hence is no genuine theory?

We have rejected Quine's eschewing of meanings as premature; and we have concluded that though after the 'pragmatic turn' meanings are no longer the fundamental subject matter of semantic theory, they may still be pertinent – especially as tools of the theory.