André Leclerc

La pensée fondamentale de Wittgenstein affirme que les constantes logiques ne représentent pas, ne fonctionnent pas sémantiquement comme des noms. En apparence triviale, cette pensée, nous le montrerons, à des ramifications étonnantes dans la philosophie du premier Wittgenstein, en particulier en ce qui concerne sa conception de la logique. Notre but est d'interpréter l'aphorisme en question en montrant comment il se rapporte aux thèses et théories les plus importantes du Tractatus, et comment il permet de les faire tenir ensemble d'une façon cohérente, justifiant par là son caractère "fondamental". Nous tentons également d'apporter une réponse aux questions suivantes : les propositions complexes sont-elles encore - comme les propositions atomiques - des "images" de la réalité? et quelle est cette "logique des faits" dont parle Wittgenstein dans l'aphorisme sous examen?

The aim of this paper is to show that the plasticity of sense, the fact that tokens of the same type frequently express different Sinne, does not constitute a threat to human linguistic communication. The first part presents the phenomenon. I try to make clear that the appropriate notion of meaning for natural languages is not the one developed in logical semantics; meanings in natural languages are not fixed once and for all, stable. Consequently, What Is Said by an utterance is not something determined exclusively by literal meaning. The second part shows that the plasticity of sense was known in the ideational theories of language, especially that of Arnauld & Nicole. The third part introduces the notions of Plan and Mindreading and show how they contribute to the success of communication.O objetivo deste artigo é mostrar que a plasticidade do sentido, o fato de que os exemplares de um tipo, freqüentemente, não expressam o mesmo Sinn, não constitui uma ameaça para a comunicação lingüística humana. A primeira parte apresenta o fenômeno da plasticidade do sentido. Tentarei mostrar que a noção de significado apropriada para as línguas naturais não é aquela desenvolvida na semântica lógica; o significado, nas línguas naturais, não é estável, fixado de uma vez por todas. Conseqüentemente, o que é dito em uma enunciação não é algo determinado exclusivamente pelo significado literal. A segunda parte mostra que a plasticidade do sentido era conhecida nas teorias ideacionais da linguagem, particularmente a de Arnauld & Nicole. A terceira parte introduz as noções de Plano e Leitura de mente e mostra como elas contribuem a explicar o sucesso da comunicação

After the seminal works of Putnam (1975), Burge (1979), and Kripke (1982), the next important contribution to externalism is certainly Davidson’s (mainly 1987, 1988, 1989, 2001). By criticizing the positions of these philosophers, Davidson elaborated his own brand of externalism. We shall first present some features of Davidson’s externalism (the importance of historical-causal connections for the foundation of language and thought, for the explanation of how language can be learned, and how attitudes can be identified by the interpreter, and finally how mental content is determined by appealing to the idea of triangulation), to prepare the discussion of a few problems. We then discuss two questions in Davidson’s externalism. First, how to reconcile the fact that external factors determine mental content, as Putnam, Burge and Davidson himself argued convincingly, with token-physicalism, the thesis that mental events are identical with physical events occurring “in the head” (or the thesis that mental events supervenes locally on brain activities)? The second main problem is how to reconcile the first person authority with some prima facie consequences of externalism, mainly that we should know the relevant parts of our (natural and social) environment in order to know the content of our own thoughts? We argue that Davidson’s answer to the first question is not successful, while his answer to the second was a breakthrough