Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T23:27:48.876Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

What is Communicative Success?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Peter Pagin*
Affiliation:
Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden

Extract

In most of our communicative transactions we are confident of success. We read the newspaper and are normally pretty sure that we have understood the text. We usually think we understand what is said in the TV broadcast and in casual conversation, and only rarely do subsequent events make us revise our judgment that we did. But that we are confident of success, even if we are right, and even if we are both right and justified, does not mean that we have a clear idea of what success consists in.

Ideas about successful communication have had a prominent place in the philosophy of language in recent decades, mostly as a step on the way to meaning theoretical claims. This has been the case with philosophers like Wittgenstein, Quine, Davidson, Dummett, and Evans. Mostly, the discussion of communicative success has been of limited extent, serving as a subordinate part of some longer argument.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Austin, J.L. 1975. How to do Things with Words, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Block, N. 1986. ‘Advertisement for a Semantics for Psychology,Midwest Studies in Philosophy 10 (1986) 615-78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byrne, A. and Thau, M.. 1996. ‘In Defense of the Hybrid View,Mind 105: 139-49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carston, R. 2002. Thoughts and Utterances. The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheney, D.L. and Seyfarth, R.M.. 1990. How Monkeys See the World. Chicago: University of.Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, D. 1986. ‘A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs,’ in LePore, ed., Truth and Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Davidson, D. 1999. ‘Reply to Pagin.’ In Davidson, Donald Truth, Meaning and Knowledge, Zeglen, U. ed. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Dummett, M. 1976. ‘What is a Theory of Meaning (II)?’ In Meaning and Truth, Evans, G. and J., McDowell eds. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Reprinted in Dummett, The Seas of Language, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1993. Page references to the reprint.Google Scholar
Dummett, M. 1978, ‘What do I Know When I Know a Language?’ pamphlet, Stockholm University. Reprinted in Dummett, The Seas of Language, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1993. Page references to the reprint.Google Scholar
Dummett, M. 1980. ‘Frege's Distinction Between Sense and Reference,’ In Truth and Other Enigmas, 2nd ed. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Dummett, M. 1989. ‘Language and Communication.’ In George, A ed., Reflections on Chomsky. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Reprinted in Dummett, The Seas of Language, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1993.Google Scholar
Evans, G. 1982. The Varieties of Reference, McDowell, John ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Fodor, J. and Lepore, E.. 1992. Holism. A Shopper's Guide. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Fodor, J. and Lepore, E.. 1999. ‘All at Sea in Semantic Space: Churchland on Meaning Similarity.Journal of Philosophy 96: 381403.Google Scholar
Frege, G. 1892. ‘Über sinn und Bedeutung.Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, NF 100: 2550. Translated by Herbert Feigl as ‘On Sense and Nominatum.’ In Readings in Philosophical Analysis, H. Feigl and W. Sellars, eds. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts 1949. Reprinted in A P Martinich, ed. The Philosophy of Language, fourth edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2001. Page references to the reprint.Google Scholar
Frege, G. 1918. ‘Der Gedanke.’ Beiträge zur Philosophie des Deutschen Idealismus 2: 58-77. Translated by A. M. and Marcelle Quinton as ‘The Thought: a Logical Inquiry.Mind 65 (1956): 289311. Reprinted in Philosophical Logic, P. Strawson, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1967. Page references to the reprint.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Føllesdal, D. 1995. ‘In What Sense is Language Public?’ In On Quine, Leonardi, P. and Santambrogio, M. eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Glüer, K. and Pagin, P.. 2003. ‘Meaning Theory and Autistic Speakers.Mind & Language 18: 2351.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harman, G. 1974. Thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Harman, G. 1987. ‘Conceptual Role Semantics,’ in New Directions in Semantics, LePore, E. ed. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Heck, R. 1995. ‘The Sense of Communication.Mind 104: 79106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D. 1997. ‘Finkish Dispositions.The Philosophical Quarterly 47: 143-58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Locke, J. 1689. Essay Concerning Human Understanding.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loar, B. 1981. Mind and Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. 1980. ‘Meaning, Communication and Knowledge.’ In Philosophical Subjects: Essays Presented to P. F. Strawson, Straaten, Z. van ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pagin, P. 1999. ‘Radical Interpretation and Compositional Structure.’ In Discussions with Donald Davidson; Truth, Meaning and Knowledge, Zeglen, U. ed. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pagin, P. 2000. ‘Publicness and Indeterminacy.’ In Knowledge, Language and Logic: Questions for Quine, Kotatko, P. and Orenstein, A. eds. Dordrecht: Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Kluwer.Google Scholar
Pagin, P. 2002. ‘Review of Success in Referential Communication, by Mattias Paul, Kluwer 1999.Theoria 57: 273-80.Google Scholar
Pagin, P. 2003. ‘Communication and Strong Compositionality.Journal of Philosophical Logic 32: 287322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pagin, P. 2004. ‘Is Assertion Social?Journal of Pragmatics 36: 833-59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pagin, P. 2006. “The Status of Charity II: Charity, Probability, and Simplicity.” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 14: 361-83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pagin, P. submitted. ‘When does Communication Succeed?’ draft.Google Scholar
Pagin, P. in preparation. ‘How (Not) to Justify Compositionality,’ draft. Paul, M. 1999. Success in Referential Communication. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Quine, W.V.O. 1960. Word and Object. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Quine, W.V.O. 1992. Pursuit of Truth, 2nd edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Quine, W.V.O. 2000. ‘Response to Pagin.’ In Knowledge, Language and Logic: Questions for Quine, Kotatko, P. and Orenstein, A. eds. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Schiffer, S. 1987. Remnants of Meaning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Shannon, C.E. 1949. “The Mathematical Theory of Communication.” In Shannon, C.E. and Weaver, W.. The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Page references to the 1998 paperback edition.Google Scholar
Sperber, D. and Wilson, D. 1995. Relevance. Communication and Cognition, 2nd edn. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Stjernberg, F. 1991. The Public Nature of Meaning. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.Google Scholar