Abstract

"Meaning, Truth, and Communication" is an attempt to explore the underlying philosophical foundations of Davidsonian and Gricean theories of meanings. These theories represent rival attempts to explain how it is that a sentence means what it does. The Gricean theory attempts to explicate the concept of meaning by providing a detailed specification of the complex communication-intentions speakers have when they utter sentences. The Davidsonian theory, in an effort to avoid any appeal to complex psychological states, offers an explication of the concept of meaning by providing an account of the evidentiary base which would lend empirical support to a theory of truth. The evidentiary base in this approach is to be fully captured by the concept of "holding a sentence true." Thus whereas a Gricean provides a "metaphysical reduction" of the concept of meaning to the more primitive notions of intentions and beliefs, a Davidsonian provides an "epistemological reduction" of the concept of meaning to the evidentiary concept of holding a sentence true. ;Each theory is evaluated in light of the more substantive charges and criticisms which each levels at the other. I construct a defense of the Gricean program, arguing in favor of a novel interpretation of the goals of any reduction of meaning to communication-intentions. With regard to the Davidsonian program, I argue that its success ultimately depends on a rich conception of the notion of the circumstance under which a sentence is held true. This rich conception, however, is inconsistent with the very principles on which the program is based. In order to state constraints on a theory of truth that are subtle enough to discriminate among competing specifications of meanings, a Davidsonian is forced to make use of evidentiary concepts which presuppose a knowledge of the meanings in question. This is precisely the problem he finds with the Gricean approach. Nevertheless, there are still unresolved problems in the theory of communication-intentions, particularly with regard to its unquestioned appeal to psychological states. I suggest that work now being done in the philosophy of mind presents the best direction in which to pursue them