Language in the World
A Philosophical Enquiry

A book-length treatment of relation between words and meaning using possible-worlds semantics.

M. J. Cresswell (Author)

9780521445627, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 March 1994

172 pages
22.4 x 14.4 x 1.6 cm, 0.332 kg

"The discussion is extremely thorough and clear, and the dedicated reader with almost no technical sophistication will be able to gain a solid grasp of the system. This is an admirable accomplishment." The Philosophical Review

What makes the words we speak mean what they do? Possible-worlds semantics articulates the view that the meanings of words contribute to determining, for each sentence, which possible worlds would make the sentence true, and which would make it false. M. J. Cresswell argues that the non-semantic facts on which such semantic facts supervene are facts about the causal interactions between the linguistic behaviour of speakers and the facts in the world that they are speaking about, and that the kind of causation involved is best analysed using David Lewis's account of causation in terms of counterfactuals. Although philosophers have worked on the question of the connection between meaning and linguistic behaviour, it has mostly been without regard to the work done in possible-world semantics and Language in the World is a book-length examination of this problem.

Preface
Introduction
1. A simple formal language
2. Predicates and functors
3. The isomorphism problem
4. Quantification
5. Transmundism
6. Putnam's 'Meaning of 'meaning''
7. Lewis on languages and language
8. Causation and semantics
9. Belief-desire psychology
10. Direct knowledge
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Social & political philosophy [HPS], Philosophy of language [CFA]