Communicating content

Trafford, James and Tillas, Alexandros (2015) Communicating content. Language & Communication, 40. pp. 1-13. ISSN 0271-5309

Creators:
Trafford, James and Tillas, Alexandros
Description/Abstract:

This paper aims to develop a unified account of communication, competence and reference fixing that surpasses problems with two of the most influential views on the philosophical market, neodescriptivism and the 'locking’ theory. Our charge is that the conditions upon communication are less substantive than the neo-descriptivist account requires and the conditions upon reference-fixing are more substantive than those provided by the locking-view.
In order to avoid the problems that neodescriptivist views face (e.g. holism), we suggest that the shareability of a specific set of inferences, or dispositions to infer, is not a prerequisite for conceptual shareability. In order to avoid the infamous ‘which-properties-speakers-lock-on’ problem of the locking-view, we establish a more robust causal relation between concepts and their referents.

Item Type:
Article
Official URL:
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/langcom
Date:
January 2015
Identification Number:
10.1016/j.langcom.2014.10.011
Uncontrolled Keywords or tags :
communication, neo-descriptivism, locking view, conceptual individuation conditions, shareability, reference
Schools:
School of Communications
Related URLs:
Depositing User:
Dr James Trafford
Date Deposited:
12 Feb 2015 11:11
Last Modified:
05 Mar 2022 04:31
Trafford, James:
ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6762-2918
URI:
https://research.uca.ac.uk/id/eprint/2645

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