ABSTRACT
The understanding of the term “meaning” has been a major source of debate in the philosophy of language (cf., for instance, from different traditions, Hume, Locke, Berkeley; Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein; Strawson, Burge; Putnam, Kripke; Peirce). Additionally, within the tradition of Linguistic Pragmatics (see Chapter 2) conceptions of “meaning” have perhaps been more vigorously and endlessly debated, than almost any other problems. A brief consideration of some potentially equivalent terms will serve to illustrate the problems involved in how we are to understand the term “meaning.” In no particular order, we might say that a word or expression’s “meaning” =
its sense
its reference
its intension
its extension
its definition
its denotation
its connotation
the intention that its speaker has in using it
the understanding that its hearer has in receiving it its use
its interpretation
its significance
what it represents or stands for
