ABSTRACT
This chapter lays out main contours of the development of philosophical semantics in the last 50 years or so and looks at implications for translation and the study of religion. Because translations are thought to aim at preserving meaning, it makes sense to look at philosophical discussion of just what ‘meaning’ means. Atomistic-representationalist and holistic-antirepresentationalist views of meaning are contrasted. Problems with the first and advantages of the second are considered. Implications of the latter for the study of religion include the rejection of a sharp distinction between translation and interpretation more broadly, a network approach to making sense of and translating comparative concepts, methodological parallels between interpreting text and ritual, criteria for preferring theories of translation, and the rejection of ‘private’ views of meaning (ineffability and insiderism) and of specifically religious meaning.
