COVER BLURB

The aims of this clear, forcible and remarkably original study are two-fold. First, to argue that implicit in Wittgensteins Tractatus there is a plausible set of semantic doctrines which can be held separate from his more contentious metaphysical views and programme of analysis. Second, that these doctrines are in fact correct, deserving at the very least to be treated as a semantic paradigm, to provide the same sort of focus for contemporary debate as does the Fregean paradigm.

The doctrines are the following. First, that there is a sharp distinction to be drawn between semantic and cognitive content (conflated by Frege in his notion of sense), involving the outlines of an account of both mental representation and linguistic communication. Second, that Platonism be rejected, whether concerning propositions (senses) or universals. Third, that private thinking and public language-using are essentially on a par with one another. Fourth, that while the semantic content of a name may be equated with its bearer, names also have idiolectic cognitive contents, the reference of a name being determined by fit with the mode of thinking which it expresses of the speaker. Fifth, that predicates lack reference, the semantic content of a predicate consisting rather in a rule of classification, which applies to things in virtue of the property-tokens which they possess.

Tractarian Semantics will profoundly influence our understanding of the semantic issues raised in the Tractatus.

Abbreviations

Preface

1 Principles of Interpretation

2 Background: Frege and Russell

9 The Existence of Thoughts