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The Natural Background of Meaning

  • Book
  • © 1999

Overview

Authors:
  1. Arda Denkel

    1. Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey

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Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science (BSPS, volume 197)

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
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  2. Introduction: Regularities and the Objective Background of Communication

    • Arda Denkel
    Pages 1-34

  3. The Problem of Meaning and its Lockean Solution

    • Arda Denkel
    Pages 35-61

  4. Thinking and Language

    • Arda Denkel
    Pages 62-85

  5. Natural Meaning and Evolution

    • Arda Denkel
    Pages 86-116

  6. Some Reflections upon the Speaker’s Meaning

    • Arda Denkel
    Pages 117-134

  7. Nonnatural Meaning Naturalized

    • Arda Denkel
    Pages 135-166

  8. The Ontology of Objective Connections

    • Arda Denkel
    Pages 167-193

  9. Causation

    • Arda Denkel
    Pages 194-212

  10. The Flow of Time

    • Arda Denkel
    Pages 213-237

  11. Back Matter

    Pages 238-252
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Keywords

About this book

In The Natural Background to Meaning Denkel argues that meaning in language is an outcome of the evolutionary development of forms of animal communication, and explains this process by naturalising the Locke-Grice approach. The roots of meaning are contained in observable regularities, which are manifestations of objective connections such as essences and causal relations. Denkel's particularistic ontology of properties and causation leads to a view of time that harmonises B-theory with transience. Time's passage, he argues, is a necessary condition of communication and meaning.
The book connects some central topics in the philosophies of language, science and ontology, treating them within the framework of a single theory. It will interest not only professional philosophers doing research on meaning, universals, causation and time, but also students, who can consult it as a textbook examining Grice's theory of meaning.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Arda Denkel

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