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Meaning and Action

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

May Brodbeck
May Brodbeck*
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
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Abstract

This paper examines the current variant of the view that meaningful human actions are not amenable to causal, scientific explanation. Rather, the view examined holds that, understanding the language, we understand the meaning of other people's overt acts by analyzing the concepts appropriately applied to the situation, tracing their logical connections with other mentalistic concepts. A matter of conceptual analysis, our understanding of man is held to be a priori and necessary rather than, as with the natural sciences, a posteriori and contingent.

Various uses of ‘concept’, ‘meaning’, and ‘understanding’ are here distinguished. It is then shown, first, how the objectivist can in principle account for intentionality and for “rule-governed” behavior, that is, for the presence and efficacy of mind in the world. Secondly, current criticisms of the objectivist program are examined. An uncritical use of ‘concept’ and of ‘rule’, as well as a fusion of various uses of ‘meaning’ and ‘understanding’, gives those criticisms a specious plausibility that does not withstand close analysis. It is concluded that the objectivist program has not been shown to be untenable.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , October 1963 , pp. 309 - 324
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1963

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Footnotes

To appear also in Italian translation in Rmsta di Fiwsophia, 1963.

References

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