ABSTRACT
On the Intention-Based Semantics (IBS) strategy, the authors imagine two agents A and B who share no common language, when A attempts to convey a message to B (that there is quicksand down that path, say). Notwithstanding its attractions, IBS faces two challenges which we may term the problem of analytical priority, and the problem of cognitive load. According to the problem of cognitive load, IBS places unduly high cognitive demands on speakers whom we would, intuitively, think capable of meaning things. Such speakers include young children as well as those who, regardless of their age, have a compromised theory of mind. In either case, it is not plausible that the speaker would have the cognitive sophistication to intend to bring about an effect in an audience's cognitive state by means of that audience's recognition of their intention. Calling certain organically meaningful traits and behaviors functionally referential or predicative may just reflect laudable theoretical parsimony.
