Philosophy 135 - Theory of Meaning

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Final Exam.  Tuesday December 15th 2009, 12:30-3:30pm


PHILOSOPHY 135 THEORY OF MEANING
ESSAY TWO
Answer ONE of the following questions in a paper of 3-5 pages, double-spaced, in a regular font. The paper is due at 9.00am on Friday November 20th, in your GSIs mailbox in 301 Moses Hall.
Late papers will not be accepted without prior arrangement.

The first paragraph of your essay must state the main thesis for which you wish to argue in the essay.
The last paragraph must restate the main thesis, summarize the way in which you have argued for it, and indicate any outstanding problems.

1. Can you know that you’re not a brain in a vat? How does Putnam respond to this question? Is Putnam right? Suppose we found a brain in a vat. Is it a problem for Putnam that this brain might use Putnam’s argument to establish that it is not ‘a brain in a vat’?

2. Explain Dretske’s notion of ‘functional meaning’. How would you explain the notion of ‘biological function’ that he uses? Does Dretske manage to explain how there could be a determinate answer to the question of the biological function of a structure such as the magnetosome? Does Dretske manage to explain how misrepresentation is possible?

3. ‘Try not to think of understanding as a “mental process” at all. – For that is the expression which confuses you. But ask yourself: in what sort of case, in what kind of circumstances, do we say, “Now I know how to go on,” when, that is, the formula has occurred to me?’ (§154). What does Wittgenstein mean by a ‘mental process’? Why does he deny that understanding is a ‘mental process’? What, on his view, is involved in understanding a term?

4. ‘Wittgenstein was right to think that what determines the meaning of a sign is not a psychological process. His mistake was to appeal to the notion of a ‘custom’ of using a sign. He ought rather to have appealed to the existence of causal links between the environment and the use of a sign.’ Discuss.

PHILOSOPHY 135 THEORY OF MEANING
ESSAY ONE

Answer ONE of the following questions in a paper of 3-5 pages, double-spaced, in a regular font. The paper is due at 9.00am on Friday October 9th, in your GSIs mailbox in 301 Moses Hall.
Late papers will not be accepted without prior arrangement.
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The first paragraph of your essay must state the main thesis for which you wish to argue in the essay.
The last paragraph must restate the main thesis, summarize the way in which you have argued for it, and indicate any outstanding problems.

1. Explain Frege’s contrast between uninformative and informative identities. How does he explain why some true identity statements are informative and others are not? What is the relation between Frege’s notion of sense and the idea that the meaning of a name is given by a description? Does Frege’s notion of sense help us to understand how it is that names refer to objects?

2. What is Russell’s Theory of Descriptions? How does it bear on the analysis of proper names? In what sense, if any, does a definite description ‘denote’ an object?

3. Does Russell think that a name can have meaning even when it does not refer? What would he say about a name like ‘Homer”? What would Frege and Searle say about the possibility of names having meaning without referring? What do you think is the correct explanation of the meaning of a sentence like ‘Homer does not exist’?

4. Kripke rejects the view that names are synonymous with definite descriptions, on the grounds that proper names are rigid designators. He also rejects the view that the reference of a proper name is fixed by a definite description or cluster of descriptions. Set out and evaluate his arguments on both of these points.

5. What is Kripke’s causal picture of reference? Is there an analogy between Kripke’s account of names and the way in which a photograph can be said to be a photograph of a particular object? Is this approach an improvement on Searle’s ‘cluster’ theory?

6. How would you explain the way in which the references of words like ‘water’ are fixed? What morals does Putnam draw from the possibility of ‘Twin Earth’ cases here? What morals would you draw?