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Speaking and Signifying

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2019

William Charlton
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Abstract

After (1) a brief introduction I (2) compare accounts of what it is to say something I find in Plato, Frege and Grice, and I distinguish linguistic from practical meaning and words that signify things from ‘syncategorematic’ or ‘grammatical’ words. I then (3) argue that the relation between a signifying word and what it signifies must be understood in terms of two complementary acts, already recognised in antiquity, quantifying and predicating. Discussing quantification (4), I show how problems about universals can be avoided by accepting Aristotle's distinction between possible and actual existence. Discussing predication (5), I defend Aristotle's view that there are more forms of predication than one, and consider this issue in connection with non-mathematical discourse.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 94 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 3 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2019 

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