Context and meaning: radical contextualism and the truth-conditions of a statement

• Grant number: 16/16504-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: January 01, 2017
• End date: February 28, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Philosophy of Language
• Agreement: Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES)
• Principal Investigator: João Vergílio Gallerani Cuter
• Grantee: Eduardo Caliendo Marchesan
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 18/07457-0 - Saying and meaning: intention's role in fixing propositional content, BE.EP.PD

Abstract

The project concerns contextualism's main claim, namely the thesis that the truth-conditions of a sentence are not determined by the meaning of its words. Its main purpose is to assess three difficulties that result from this negative thesis. That is, I seek to examine three central problems that the critics of a contextualist perspective have raised. The problems are the following. 1) The problem of accounting for the determinacy of meaning once a truth-functional account has been rejected. 2) The problem of accounting for the relation between the truth of a given statement and the state of affairs that makes the statement true. 3) The problem of the generalization of the truth-conditions of a statement. To the first two problems corresponds the threat of a skepticism regarding meaning and truth. The second problem gives rise to the threat of a relativist position, restricting the truth-conditions of a statement to a single utterance. Advancing the solution to these three problems generated by contextualism's negative thesis, this project's main goal is to contribute to developing a positive thesis about the contextual delimitation of a statement's truth-conditions. In order to do so, I propose to go back to Austin's notion of speech acts, highlighting the normative aspect of the actions that inform our words. (AU)