|Meaning: Differs from the reference object (reference). The object does not have to exist for an expression to have a meaning. Words are not related to objects in a one-to-one correspondence. There is an important distinction between word meaning and sentence meaning. See also use theory, sentence meaning, reference, truth.|
Books on Amazon
Meaning/Name/Lewis: may be a function of worlds in truth value - of generic names: function from worlds to quantities.
Putnam: meanings not in the head - Lewis pro: mental state does not determine the meaning - meaning cannot be found out through mental state - mental state contains too little information about causation and situation.
Carrier of meaning: speech acts - not sounds or characters! -> Intentionality, to mean.
Meaning/Lewis: Here’s a function that provides as output an appropriate extension for given combinations of factors provides as time, place, context, speaker, world - intension/Lewis: function that leads from indices (time, place, speaker, world) to appropriate extensions for a name, sentence, or general term - intensions are extension-determining functions - Carnap’s intension: provides truth value for sentences or things, for names and quantities, for general terms.
Intension/meaning/Lewis: E.g. "Snow is white or not" differs finely in the meaning of "Grass is green or not" - because of the different intensions of the embedded sentences - (intension (see above) function of indices on extensions) - Meaning/Lewis: semantically interpreted phrase markers minus the top nodes (the structure tree) - synonymy: sameness of intension.
Meaning/BenacerrafVsLewis: how can you ever "choose" meaning? - Lewis: this is a general objection Vs quantity-theoretic approaches.
Definition phrase structure rules/Lewis: = semantically interpreted phrase markers - Definition meaning: a structure tree ... - we often talk about meanings as if they were symbolic expressions, although they are not - the category meaning is simply the top node - intension: is the second component of the top node.
Schw I 216
Meaning/object/word/Lewis: thesis: our words are merely linked to conditions to be fulfilled by a potential reference - so it may be that something fulfills them of which we did not think beforehand that it would fulfill them.
Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989
Konventionen Berlin 1975
Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983
Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986
Cl. I. Lewis
Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991