He lived 560 to 636 and translated.
Realist and Nominalist philosophers studied word and object relations, object classes, and human mind.
He lived 1746 to 1794 and related Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin by describing similarities among words [1786].
Expressive aspects of language are dominant.
He lived 1832 to 1915. Metaphors are common.
He lived 1816 to 1889. Event and relation communications differ in meaning and grammar. Relation communications nest and invert phrases. Event communications can use word sequences in event order, with no transformations.
He lived 1884 to 1939. Language affects thinking {Sapir-Whorf hypothesis} [1929].
He lived 1882 to 1945, was of Vienna Circle of Logical Positivism, and led Unity of Science Movement. Movement tried to unite sciences through characteristic actions.
Epistemology
People can have knowledge through subjective and historic means. Sentence meaning is the publicly accessible outcome {outcome, meaning} of publicly accessible procedures. Group beliefs establish outcomes and procedures, even in science. Cognitive and scientific meaning requires that sentence be expressible in logical language. People have constructed subjects of discourse without foundations, like boats {Neurath's boat} built while at sea.
He lived 1893 to 1979. He developed Basic English with C. K. Ogden. Metaphor has actual topic, analogy to that topic, something in common between the topics, and reason for using analogy.
He lived 1889 to 1957 and studied semantics.
He lived 1879 to 1950 and developed General Semantics, with Hayakawa.
He lived 1909 to 1988. Models and metaphors are similar in purpose and use. Different people interpret metaphors in different ways {interaction theory}.
He lived 1906 to 1992 and helped develop semantics {General Semantics}, with Korzybski.
He lived 1901 to 1979 and studied theory of signs {semiotics}, which has semantics, pragmatics, and syntactics.
He lived 1897 to 1941. Language affects thinking {Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, Whorf} [1940].
He lived 1857 to 1913 and founded modern structural linguistics {structuralism, linguistics} {structural linguistics}.
Phonemes marks usage differences in sound or symbol systems. Phonemes are not physical, separate, independent elements.
Word values are functions of exchangeable and non-exchangeable words {substitution, word} {word substitution}. Word connections provide word meanings, so word meaning depends on all word values. Speaker and listener vocabularies must be identical to convey full meaning in communication.
He lived 1901 to 1978.
He lived 1913 to 1988. Speaker meaning is what speaker intended to make happen to audience using words {conversation implicature}. Intention is to modify audience beliefs or behavior, and audience knows intention {reflexive intention}. Meaning is about speaker and hearer mental state. Speaker meaning is first and determining, above word or sentence meaning. Speaker meaning, linguistic meaning, or semantics follows from thoughts. Actual usage does not necessarily reflect thought. Speaker meaning and word meaning can differ.
He lived 1932 to 2002 and developed projection rules to try to formalize semantics.
He lived 1905 to ? and was logical empiricist.
Description is result of physical laws.
Explanation and prediction differ only in time, because facts are deducible from other facts and at least one law {covering-law model} {deductive-nomological model}.
Sentence meaning is the publicly accessible outcome of publicly accessible procedures. Group beliefs establish outcomes and procedures, even in science. Cognitive and scientific meaning requires that sentence be expressible in logical language.
Psychology can treat internal states of people like black boxes, only checking stimuli and responses {methodological behaviorism}.
Induction can lead to statements but can also lead to statement contrapositives. Contrapositive statements are general, while statements are specific. Evidence for contrapositive statement cannot support statement. For example, "All ravens are black" is logically the same as its contrapositive, "All not black things are not ravens", and both have support from each raven observation {paradox of the ravens, Hempel} {ravens paradox, Hempel}.
Physical and material world concepts always change as people acquire new knowledge, so physicalism and functionalism are not static concepts {Hempel's dilemma}.
He lived 1940 to ?.
Statements can be true and cannot be false {necessary truth, Kripke}, like arithmetical equalities. Statements can be true, though possible to be false {contingent truth}, like historical facts. Some necessary truths are not a priori, because people can learn identities later.
Terms, such as person names or natural substances {natural kind, Kripke}, can always mean same thing in physical and all other worlds {rigid designator, Kripke}. Terms {non-rigid designator}, such as variables or descriptions, can allow different possible values in physical and/or all other worlds. People can use rigid designators to refer to same things to which previous persons referred {causal theory of reference, Kripke}.
However, time can change references.
Necessary identities involve two rigid designators, and contingent identities involve at least one non-rigid designator. Identity theories of mental state and physical state are either necessary identities or one term is non-rigid. They cannot be necessary, because people can imagine mental state, like pain, without physical state. They do not have non-rigid terms, because mental-state instance is essence, not property, and physical state specifies atom positions and motions.
Proper names are always about same object. Proper names can be about people about whom people know nothing more and so have no sense, only reference. Proper names of people about whom people know something else have sense and reference.
People can conceive of matter and consciousness as separate being, so they are both possible, and so must be different, not just different names for same thing or different levels in hierarchy of knowledge or being, because one is objective and one subjective. Mental states, representing ideas, cause linguistic responses, which report mental state using signs. Response pattern depends on similarity or relation, represented by mental state, which people do not necessarily consciously know. Because mental states vary widely, natural occurrences have incompatible expressions.
People think and speak based on social word usage {anti-individualism}. Meaning is normative, as language communities make rules, and relates to individual dispositions. Perception is also necessary for communication about objects.
People can have a priori knowledge of contingent things {mind, Kripke} and empirical knowledge of necessary truths {essence, Kripke}.
He developed projection rules to try to formalize semantics.
He studied naming.
He lived 1941 to ?.
Language and other social conventions developed unconsciously, not by agreement, to coordinate behavior. First, unstructured unrelated signals expressed intention. Later, signals gained structure. Then simple intentions used conventional form. Finally, sentences used these elements. Complex-expression meanings are functions of component meanings.
Epistemology
Roles in causing organism physical behaviors define mental concepts, states, events, and processes {causal theory of mental concepts}.
Effects depend on their causes, so if there are no such causes, there are no such effects {counterfactual dependence}.
Propositions are about possible worlds and cannot be about impossible worlds.
Properties are about possible subjects of propositions, which can be individual or category sets.
Metaphysics
Reality is local physics, which makes everything else. Quantum mechanically possible worlds are actually real {modal realism, Lewis} and are separate in time and space.
Outline of Knowledge Database Home Page
Description of Outline of Knowledge Database
Date Modified: 2022.0225