Around here I don’t think we worry too much about the burden of proof :P
Anyhow the objections mostly stem from the fact that we don’t live in a world of formal logic—we live in a world of probabilistic logic (on our good days). For example, if you know that gorblax has a 50% chance of meaning “robin,” and I say “look, a gorblax,” my statement isn’t completely meaningful or meaningless.
But how would we come to an estimate of its meaning in the first place? I suppose by understanding how the utterance constrains the expectations of the utterer, no? What is this other than knowing the truth conditions of the utterance? And truth conditions have to be just flatly something that can satisfy an anticipation. If we reraise the problem of meaning here (why should we?) we’ll run into a regress.
Around here I don’t think we worry too much about the burden of proof :P
Anyhow the objections mostly stem from the fact that we don’t live in a world of formal logic—we live in a world of probabilistic logic (on our good days). For example, if you know that gorblax has a 50% chance of meaning “robin,” and I say “look, a gorblax,” my statement isn’t completely meaningful or meaningless.
But how would we come to an estimate of its meaning in the first place? I suppose by understanding how the utterance constrains the expectations of the utterer, no? What is this other than knowing the truth conditions of the utterance? And truth conditions have to be just flatly something that can satisfy an anticipation. If we reraise the problem of meaning here (why should we?) we’ll run into a regress.