According to Jerry Fodor, meaningful expressions denoting no actual entity, like “unicorn”, do not constitute an exception to his project of semantic naturalization based on the notion of asymmetrical dependence between causal relations. But Fodor does not give any principled reason in order to show that, say, a non- unicorn caused “unicorn”-token means UNICORN, as he on the contrary does regarding a non-X caused “X”-token for any actually existing X. Nevertheless, his claim that one such expression has a mere denotational meaning can be accounted for, though in a non-naturalistic way. Suffice it that one appeals to the weak Meinongianism contained in the thesis that one can directly refer to possible entities by means of a suitable fixing-reference description.

Is meaning without actually existing reference naturalizable?

VOLTOLINI, Alberto
1995-01-01

Abstract

According to Jerry Fodor, meaningful expressions denoting no actual entity, like “unicorn”, do not constitute an exception to his project of semantic naturalization based on the notion of asymmetrical dependence between causal relations. But Fodor does not give any principled reason in order to show that, say, a non- unicorn caused “unicorn”-token means UNICORN, as he on the contrary does regarding a non-X caused “X”-token for any actually existing X. Nevertheless, his claim that one such expression has a mere denotational meaning can be accounted for, though in a non-naturalistic way. Suffice it that one appeals to the weak Meinongianism contained in the thesis that one can directly refer to possible entities by means of a suitable fixing-reference description.
1995
50
397
414
http://www.rodopi.nl/senj.asp?SerieId=GPS
asymmetrical dependence; nonexistent objects
A. VOLTOLINI
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2318/56175
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