Cesare Cozzo

PART I The first chapter contains some arguments in favour of four general requirements on a theory of meaning which Michael Dummett has formulated: connection between meaning and understanding, distinction between sense and force, compositionality, and manifestability. The second chapter contains a condensed account of the theory of meaning centered on bivalent truth-conditions, and a detailed analysis of Dummett's argument against such a theory and against classical logic. The third chapter is a description of Dummett's theory of meaning centered on the notion of direct verification, and of Prawitz's semantics which can be embedded in the latter theory of meaning so as to justify intuitionistic logic. The weakest points of Dummett's idea are two: 1) it is difficult to make verificationism compatible with the holistic character of justification; 2) logical revisionism may involve a too drastic disagreement between verificationism and linguistic practice. -/- PART II. The second part contains a presentation of a theory of meaning centered on the notion which I have called immediate argumental role. The fundamental idea of the theory is that the sense of a word is given by all the argumentation rules concerning the word. Chapters IV-VII make precise the basic idea by explaining the notion of "argumentation rule" and by defining the notion of "concerning", and other notions among which "immediate argumental role of a sentence" and "global argumental role". Chapters VIII-X deal with the main philosophical features of the theory: 1) the theory satisfies the four requirements considered in the first chapter; 2) despite its compositionality, the theory is compatible with epistemological holism; 3) the theory admits the possibility of meaningful paradoxical languages; 4) the theory distinguishes between the understandability of a language and its correctness in a given epistemic situation (understandability does not imply correctness); 5) the theory is pluralist with respect to the understandability of different logics and neutral with respect to their validity.

This study presents and develops in detail (a new version of) the argumental conception of meaning. The two basic principles of the argumental conception of meaning are: i) To know (implicitly) the sense of a word is to know (implicitly) all the argumentation rules concerning that word; ii) To know the sense of a sentence is to know the syntactic structure of that sentence and to know the senses of the words occurring in it. The sense of a sentence is called immediate argumental role of that sentence. According to the argumental conception of meaning a theory of meaning for a particular language yields a systematic specification of the understanding of every sentence of the language which consists in a specification of the immediate argumental role of the sentence. The immediate argumental role is a particular aspect of the use of a sentence in arguments. But it is not the whole use in arguments, nor is the whole use in arguments reducible to the immediate argumental role. That is why, by accepting the argumental conception of meaning, we can have epistemological holism without linguistic holism. The argumental conception distinguishes between the understanding and the correctness of a language. Such a distinction makes it possible to account for our understanding of paradoxical languages. Redundancy theory of truth, realistic conceptions of truth or epistemic conceptions of truth are all compatible with an argumental conception of sense. But here it is argued that an epistemic conception of truth is preferrable. Acceptance of the argumental conception of meaning and of an epistemic conception of truth leads to a rejection of the idea of analytic truth. The argumental conception is pluralistic with respect to the understandability of different logics, and neutral with respect to their correctness.

The author presents a theory of meaning centred upon the notion of "immediate argumental role", which distinguishes between understandability and correctness of a language. First, the theoretical and quasi-empirical criteria of adequacy and the relevant data for such a theory are described. Then the sense of a word is defined as given by a set of argumentation rules. The immediate argumental role of a sentence is determined by its syntactic structure and by the senses of the component words. The immediate argumental role of a sentence is distinguished from its global argumental role. Different conceptions of truth are compatible with the resulting theory of sense, but the author gives some reasons for preferring an epistemic conception of truth. The possibility of understandable and meaningful paradoxical languages and of many different understandable logics is a consequence of such a view.