What is meant by 'what is said'? A reply to Cappelen and Lepore

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17 Scopus citations

Abstract

In a recent paper Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore challenge an assumption that they rightly claim is pervasive among contemporary philosophers of language. According to this assumption (MA), an adequate semantic theory T for a language L should assign p as the semantic content of a sentence S in L if and only if in uttering S a speaker says that p. I claim that the arguments of Cappelen and Lepore are based upon an uncharitable interpretation of MA. If 'saying' is understood in a roughly Gricean sense, MA emerges as an eminently plausible assumption.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)598-604
Number of pages7
JournalMind and Language
Volume13
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 1998

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Language and Linguistics
  • Philosophy
  • Linguistics and Language

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