In Oughts and Thoughts , Anandi Hattiangadi provides an innovative response to Saul Kripke's famous argument for meaning skepticism. Kripke asks what makes it the case that anybody ever means anything by any word, and argues that there are no facts of the matter as to what anybody ever means. Kripke's argument has inspired a lively and extended debate in the philosophy of language, as it raises some of the most fundamental issues in the field: namely, the reality, privacy, and normativity of meaning. Hattiangadi argues ...
Read More
In Oughts and Thoughts , Anandi Hattiangadi provides an innovative response to Saul Kripke's famous argument for meaning skepticism. Kripke asks what makes it the case that anybody ever means anything by any word, and argues that there are no facts of the matter as to what anybody ever means. Kripke's argument has inspired a lively and extended debate in the philosophy of language, as it raises some of the most fundamental issues in the field: namely, the reality, privacy, and normativity of meaning. Hattiangadi argues that in order to achieve the radical conclusion that there are no facts as to what a person means by a word, the skeptic must rely on the thesis that meaning is normative, and that this thesis fails. Since any "skeptical solution" to the skeptical problem is irremediably incoherent, Hattiangadi concludes that there must be a fact of the matter about what we mean.
Read Less