Hmm I don't remember ever seeing such a use of 'proposition', can you give an example? — Fafner

Well I just tried to use that way, but I didn't get away with it.

As for paraphrase, that's an interesting thing. But I was talking about a step before you really get to content. Something like this: Jones said, last Saturday, "I've got it," referring to the money he owed. You can normalize this to: On July 1, 2017, Jones says that Jones has the money Jones owes. That's a kind of paraphrase, but the goal is just to put the sentence into a particular timeless form and remove a certain amount of context dependence.

OK. I don't know how this fits in to the conversation. Lost track, I guess. — Mongrel

I only answered your original question:

A proposition is semantic content. What do you mean they don't have semantics? — Mongrel

OK. Anyway.. you're wrong about the type/token thing. Read more Soames.

What is a brand such that millions can own the same one? Does it have physical wheels? — Mongrel

I'm only pointing out that this is a natural use of "the same". Don't you use and understand sentences such as "me and my brother have the same hair color" (e.g. blonde) outside philosophy? I'm surprised that I even need to explain this.

And the point of type identity is not to refer to a particular car with which the other cars are token identical (as I said it is not the same as numerical identity), but to say that the relevant cars belong to the same group or type of cars (and the type is not a car itself).

As for paraphrase, that's an interesting thing. But I was talking about a step before you really get to content. Something like this: Jones said, last Saturday, "I've got it," referring to the money he owed. You can normalize this to: On July 1, 2017, Jones says that Jones has the money Jones owes. That's a kind of paraphrase, but the goal is just to put the sentence into a particular timeless form and remove a certain amount of context dependence. — Srap Tasmaner

OK I see what you mean, but I would assume that if you press most philosophers on this, they would say something like that is not the "strictly correct" use of the term 'proposition' but only a 'loose' one.

I'm only pointing out that this is a natural use of "the same". Don't you use and understand sentences such as "me and my brother have the same hair color" (e.g. blonde) outside philosophy? I'm surprised that I even need to explain this.

And no, the point of type identity is not to refer to a particular car (as I said it is not the same as numerical identity), but to say that the relevant cars belong to the same group or types of cars (and the type is not a car itself). — Fafner

So you utter A

I utter A

If A is a type, then there must be a token aspect to the situation. Your A (your token) is different in some way from my A (my token).

What's the difference?

Again no, what is identical is not the token but the type to which they belong.

Is the sentence "objects A and B have an identical color" an assertion that A and B are the same object?

Again no, what is identical is not the token but the type to which they belong. — Fafner

Obviously tokens are not identical. Last try:

You utter A. (here we see your token of the type A)

I utter A. (here we see my token of the type A)

The tokens are not identical. Right?

The tokens are not identical. Right? — Mongrel

Right. (that is, they are not numerically identical)

I don't see how what you say contradicts what I said about Fodor. — Fafner

You have the bigger picture in mind and I just have the quote you posted. In the quote he explains the applicability of "good" to any noun phrase as not being due to "good" having many meanings we could list, but something else. Your concern earlier seemed to be that there could be a sentence where the meaning of a word in that sentence could not possibly have been specified in advance. Fodor's thing about "good" insists that the one meaning specified in advance will, in this case, always be enough. I don't know what he says in general, though, and you do.

Right. (that is, they are not numerically identical) — Fafner

If they aren't identical, then what's the difference between them?

Don't answer. I'm giving up. What we might have eventually discussed was how truth figures in a scene where sentences are the truth-bearer. It's not pretty.

Yes, this is my reading of Fodor as well, and what you said about the meaning of a word not being specifiable in advance is also the view that I've been arguing for.

Wait, did you assume that I quoted Fodor as someone who agrees that meaning cannot be specified in advance? Because I quoted him as an example of someone who believes the opposite of what Travis does.

No, I read him as saying, at least for the word "good", that you don't need a new meaning for each new use of good, so it's easy to specify the meaning in advance. Something else deals with the unanticipated usage.

It's reminiscent of Grice's response to Strawson. Strawson argued, roughly, that the logical constants have different meanings in different situations. Grice split meaning into, on the one hand, what you might call the "literal" meaning without going too far wrong, and implicature, and argued that the variation Peter saw, quite rightly, was explainable in terms of what is (either conventionally or conversationally) implicated by an utterance on a particular occasion, rather than by shifts in "literal" meaning.

Yes exactly, Travis' argument is aimed precisely against views that employ Grice's distinction. Conversational impicature seems to be the favorite device of philosophers nowadays for dealing with alleged context dependence of meaning (it's all over the literature, and not only in the philosophy of language).

Btw, there's a (barely readable) paper by Travis called "annals of analysis" which criticizes Grice's distinction, you might enjoy it...

Cool. It goes on the list.

There are plenty of times where we use perfectly sensible sentences and people still don't get what it is that you mean. Just look at this philosophy forum and try to count how many times people ask for clarification, or ask "what do you mean", or talk past each other, etc. It would be a misuse, even when using the correct grammar and spelling, when you didn't take into account the reader's own understanding of words and their experience with them. Using words requires more than simply uttering sounds in the correct order, with the correct number of syllables, etc. It requires that you get into the listener or reader's head. — Harry Hindu

I realise that this is how you are using the term 'misuse', but this is not how I am using the term 'misuse'. You would be aware of this if you had checked inside my head. Did you check?

If you can note someone's incorrect grammar, YET still understand what they mean then, using your own words, meaning isn't the same as correct grammar. You may say that you understood what they meant to say, meaning that you understood what the words they should have said in order to refer to some state-of-affairs. The state-of-affairs is what they mean, or what they are referring to, not the correct use of grammar. If you correct them, you aren't correcting their meaning, only their grammar. — Harry Hindu

What constitutes correct grammar? Someone could use a word such as 'sanguine' incorrectly, thinking that it means pessimistic. If they had intended to use a word with a meaning opposite to 'sanguine' then my correction of their 'grammar' is a correction of their meaning. I understood what they meant to say, given the context of the utterance, but the word they actually used had the opposite meaning compared to what they were trying to say. Context plays a large part in meaning because when and where and why you use words is all a part of the use of those words. Is context a part of grammar?

I did use the correct grammar and spelling, no? So how is it that you don't get my meaning if I used the correct grammar and spelling? If we can be grammatically correct and have the correct spelling and people still can't understand what was said, then meaning cannot be related to correct grammar and spelling of words. — Harry Hindu

Despite your impeccable grammar and spelling, you didn't state why you disagree with Wittgenstein.

Whatever it means in the context of "the meaning of a word". According to Wittgenstein, and probably other philosophers, it would be wrong to interpret this as "the intention of a word".

Also whatever it means in the context of "my girlfriend means a lot to me". It would be wrong to interpret this as "my girlfriend intends a lot to me".

Or whatever it means in the context of "if the grass is wet then it means that it rained earlier". It would be wrong to interpret this as "if the grass is wet then it intends that it rained earlier"

And any other contexts in which the word "mean" isn't synonymous with "intend". — Michael

Let me make this simple for you. Say I agree with you that meaning is use and by "use" we both mean the conventional use of the word. When I go and look up the conventional use of the word, "meaning", it doesn't say anything about use. It mentions intent. So, if the meaning is tied to the conventional use of a word, then all these other "uses" of "meaning" you have just provided would be a misuse of the term, precisely because it isn't part of the definition. So either you or Merriam-Webster is wrong. If Merriam-Webster is wrong, then you are wrong as well in saying that meaning is the conventional use of the word because Merriam-Webster is providing you the conventional use of the word, "meaning" yet you deny that is the conventional use. Your whole argument defeats itself.

To say, "my girlfriend means a lot to me" is to say that I value my girlfriend. Value isn't part of the conventional use of the word, "meaning" and so it would be a misuse of the word.

As I have said, numerous times, meaning is the relationship between the effect and it's cause. I'm not saying that the meaning IS the intent. It is the relationship between cause and effect - the relationship between your intent to convey something and the use of the word. That is what the meaning if a word is. This allows us to use the term, "meaning" in referring to rain causing the ground to be wet. The ground being wet means it rained earlier. It's all about causation.

There's a neat argument by Charles Travis that I think illustrates quite well what was meant by Wittgenstein when he said "meaning is use", and it also shows that the traditional view of meaning is mistaken (like that a word means that which it stands for or refers to etc.). — Fafner

How convenient. Meaning is use where "use" is the conventional, or traditional, use of a word, EXCEPT for the term, "meaning". I can use that term how I want and say that the conventional use of the term as provided by Merriam-Webster is wrong.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meaning

"Meaning", according to Merriam-Webster (which shows the conventional/traditional use of words), has to do with intent. To use it any other way (like meaning is use) would be a misuse of the term, "meaning".

Travis gives an example of a sentence that can be used in one context to say something true and in another context to say something false about the very same object. And so if Travis' example is convincing, then it shows that the meaning we associate with each word in a sentence (whatever it is) is not sufficient to determine the meaning or content of the whole sentence on the occasion of utterance (and by 'content' Travis means truth-evaluable content, i.e. that which determines the truth conditions for the sentence).

Suppose we utter the sentence "the leaves are green", and point to a bunch of dead brown leaves that have been painted green. Is the sentence true or false? It depends according to Travis on the purpose for which we use the sentence: if we are interested in the superficial color of the leaves, then we would be saying something true when we use the sentence, whereas if we are, say, interested in botany then we would say that the same sentence is false (or imagine a cease of brown leaves that are lit by intense green light, or leaves that glow green in the dark and so on).

So the moral is this: whatever 'meaning' we associate with the sentence or any of the words of which it is composed, it doesn't determine in advance what the sentence means on a particular occasion of use. Knowing what 'leaves' and 'green' mean doesn't by itself tell you how to use the sentence when you talk about some particular leaves, because you have countless options to choose from. The sentence can have a determined meaning (i.e. to say something concrete about the leaves) only if we have a clear purpose in mind for which we want to use the sentence on a given occasion. — Fafner

Then what you mean is what you intend to convey. Do you intend to convey that the leaves are green because they are painted or that they are green because of photosynthesis? What did you intend to convey?

Then what you mean is what you intend to convey. Do you intend to convey that the leaves are green because they are painted or that they are green because of photosynthesis? What did you intend to convey? — Harry Hindu

Of course there is intent in the example, but the point is that what one can 'intend' to mean is constrained by the context of the utterance; that is, the purpose for which it is used (in other words, the words that you use plus the context provide you different possible 'meanings' for the sentence to choose from, so it's not wholly up to you to decide what your words can mean).

Of course there is intent in the example, but the point is that what one can 'intend' to mean is constrained by the context of the utterance, that is, the purpose for which it is used (in other words, the words that you use plus the context provide you different possible 'meanings' for the sentence to choose from). — Fafner

It is constrained by the information you intend to convey. "Purpose" is the goal you intend to accomplish. So you can say that it is constrained by your intent. Your intent is what chooses the words to say in order to convey the right information in order to accomplish your goal.

How convenient. Meaning is use where "use" is the conventional, or traditional, use of the word, EXCEPT for the term, "meaning". — Harry Hindu

But do you agree that the sentence 'the leaves are green' has different meanings in the two different examples?

It is constrained by the information you intend to convey. "Purpose" is the goal you intend to accomplish. So you can say that it is constrained by your intent. Your intent is what chooses the words to say in order to convey the right information in order to accomplish your goal. — Harry Hindu

So are you disagreeing with me? I'm not sure what is your objection (if you have any) to the argument about the leaves.

So either you or Merriam-Webster is wrong. If Merriam-Webster is wrong, then you are wrong as well in saying that meaning is the conventional use of the word because Merriam-Webster is providing you the conventional use of the word, "meaning" yet you deny that is the conventional use. Your whole argument defeats itself.

To say, "my girlfriend means a lot to me" is to say that I value my girlfriend. Value isn't part of the conventional use of the word, "meaning" and so it would be a misuse of the word. — Harry Hindu

Given that using the word "meaning" in the context of talking about value, as in "my girlfriend means a lot to me", is a conventional use of the term, clearly Merriam-Webster doesn't provide an exhaustive account of the word "meaning".

Dictionaries aren't the authority. The actual ways we communicate are the authority.

As I have said, numerous times, meaning is the relationship between the effect and it's cause. I'm not saying that the meaning IS the intent. It is the relationship between cause and effect - the relationship between your intent to convey something and the use of the word. That is what the meaning if a word is. This allows us to use the term, "meaning" in referring to rain causing the ground to be wet. The ground being wet means it rained earlier. It's all about causation.

What does "the relationship between cause and effect" even mean?

And how does this account for the situation where I intend for you to turn left but instead say "turn right"? Or the case of Del Boy thinking that "au revoir" is French for "hello"? The meaning of the terms has nothing to do with the speaker's intention at all.

But do you agree that the sentence 'the leaves are green' has different meanings in the two different examples? — Fafner

Of course, but how does the same string of symbols mean different things? You're saying it is because of context. I'm saying it is the information one intends to convey. Is one talking about the paint or photosynthesis? It depends on what the speaker intends to convey.

Of course there is intent in the example, but the point is that what one can 'intend' to mean is constrained by the context of the utterance, that is, the purpose for which it is used (in other words, the words that you use plus the context provide you different possible 'meanings' for the sentence to choose from). — Fafner

It is constrained by the information you intend to convey. "Purpose" is the goal you intend to accomplish. So you can say that it is constrained by your intent. Your intent is what chooses the words to say in order to convey the right information in order to accomplish your goal. — Harry Hindu

So are you disagreeing with me? I'm not sure what is your objection (if you have any) to the argument about the leaves. — Fafner

What I'm disagreeing with is your circular reasoning. You said, "the point is that what one can 'intend' to mean is constrained by the purpose for which it is used". I pointed out that "purpose" is equivalent to intent. The purpose of saying what you said is dependent upon the information you intend to convey. So what you are really saying is, "the point is that what one can 'intend' to mean is constrained by the intent (or goal) for which it is used. If the goal is to convey that the leaves are painted green, then that is what you mean. If the goal is to convey that the leaves process the energy of the sun in such a way that makes them green, then that is what you mean.

Given that using the word "meaning" in the context of talking about value, as in "my girlfriend means a lot to me", is a conventional use of the term, clearly Merriam-Webster doesn't provide an exhaustive account of the word "meaning".

Dictionaries aren't the authority. The actual ways we communicate are the authority. — Michael

Then dictionaries are useless? I'm not sure how much further we can carry on here if that is what you really think.

Another problem you have is that another conventional use of the word, "meaning" is, "I looked up the word in the dictionary to find it's meaning." If people use the word, "meaning" in a conventional way to refer to the dictionary as providing meaning for words, then the conventional use of the word, "meaning" in this sense contradicts you saying that dictionaries don't provide the conventional use of words. People use, "meaning" to refer to the dictionary as providing the conventional use of words.

Earlier in this thread, Fafner said,

What dictionaries do is to replace words which the speaker doesn't know their conventional use, with words that the speaker does know how to use, because if he didn't then the dictionary would be completely useless to him. — Fafner

Fafner seems to agree that dictionaries provide the conventional use of words and both of you are making the same "meaning-is-use" argument. Maybe you two should figure out what dictionaries are for before you and I can continue our discussion.

It is true that dictionaries don't provide an exhaustive account of how every words is used. Dictionaries don't provide metaphorical uses of the words. It is possible that the misuse of words takes hold in the population and the general population begins using those terms in that way, but this is no different than someone saying something that isn't true and that falsehood gets spread around and treated as if it were truth in the general population. The misuse of words can be spread around the same way. What you have to explain is how the single misuse of a word becomes the conventional use of the word.

Another issue is that once we have several meanings for a word, we no longer have a conventional use of the word. The word now has several conventional uses, and what is to stop if from acquiring more to the point of there being no conventional use of the word? The questions you need to answer are are:
How many people must use the word in the new way for it to become "conventional"?
How many different meanings must a word acquire before it no longer has a conventional use?

What does "the relationship between cause and effect" even mean? — Michael

The same thing as the relationship between you and your mother, the same as the relationship between you studying for an exam and getting an A on the exam, the same as the relationship between your intent to convey information and the words that come from your mouth.

And how does this account for the situation where I intend for you to turn left but instead say "turn right"? Or the case of Del Boy thinking that "au revoir" is French for "hello"? The meaning of the terms has nothing to do with the speaker's intention at all. — Michael

You once said that I'm conflating meaning with intent. It is you that is conflating meaning with the conventional use of words. The way you are using meaning here is to make a distinction between what the scribbles or sounds "left" and "right" refer to. What the words refer to is what they mean, and if I intend to convey for you to turn right instead of left, then 1) I had better know what word refers to which direction if I'm to convey my intent correctly. and 2) I need to know that the listener understands what the words refer to as well, or else I fail to accomplish my goal. This is no different than having the goal to build a house and having an understanding of how to use the tools to build a house, in order to accomplish the goal of building a house. The conventional use of the tools isn't the meaning. It is the intent of building a house that is the meaning of me using those tools. What is it that you intend in using those tools (those words)?

Then dictionaries are useless? I'm not sure how much further we can carry on here if that is what you really think. — Harry Hindu

I didn't say that. I said that they're not the authority – they don't dictate what words mean – and that if Merriam-Webster doesn't account for the "value" definition of "meaning" then it doesn't provide an exhaustive account.

What the words refer to is what they mean, and if I intend to convey for you to turn right instead of left, then 1) I had better know what word refers to which direction if I'm to convey my intent correctly.

So the meaning of the word is independent of your intent (or, rather, the relationship between the word and your intent, or whatever it is you're saying)?

Your statement here directly confirms the point I've been making. The meaning of the word is one thing, and the speaker's intent is something else. And this is where you conflate. Just because we can replace the word "intends" with the word "means" in the sentence "what the speaker intends", it doesn't follow that we can replace the word "meaning" with the word "intention" in the sentence "the meaning of the word".

Then you are no longer arguing for meaning is use. You are now arguing that meaning is what a symbol refers to.

If the dictionary doesn't provide an exhaustive account, then how does the conventional use of a term provide an exhaustive account? I can use the term in any way the dictionary doesn't describe then, and as long as someone else understands what I mean, I have successfully used the word in a way that is unconventional. This is how metaphors start. It is an unconventional use of the word that eventually becomes conventional, but only after users understand the new way it is used, or what it refers to, or what it means. So you have the problem of explaining how unconventional uses of words DO have meaning prior to them becoming a conventional (common) use of the word.

How did any word get it's meaning? One person had to make a sound or a scribble and then persuade others to use the sound and scribble in the same way. Before the majority used the sound/scribble to refer to something, it had a meaning, and it wasn't it's conventional use because only one person used it that way. It was what the word refers to.

When I talk about meaning referring to intent, I'm talking about causation. Your intent is the cause of your use of words. If you had no intent to convey information, then would you use words? Yes, or no? and the information you intend to convey dictates the words you use? Yes, or no?

What I'm disagreeing with is your circular reasoning. You said, "the point is that what one can 'intend' to mean is constrained by the purpose for which it is used". I pointed out that "purpose" is equivalent to intent. The purpose of saying what you said is dependent upon the information you intend to convey. So what you are really saying is, "the point is that what one can 'intend' to mean is constrained by the intent (or goal) for which it is used. If the goal is to convey that the leaves are painted green, then that is what you mean. If the goal is to convey that the leaves process the energy of the sun in such a way that makes them green, then that is what you mean. — Harry Hindu

So do you want to say something like "meaning of a sentence=intent"? If so, then I think it is very implausible that intending something by a sentence is sufficient to make it mean what you intend.

For example, can you intend to mean that it is sunny outside by the sentence "it is raining"? Suppose someone asks you what is the whether outside, and you answer "it is raining" while intending to convey to him that it is sunny; would you say that you've told a lie or the truth? (and suppose that it is indeed sunny outside). It seems to me that in this example, what you really intend has little to do with the meaning of the sentence that you are using, on a pretty intuitive notion of "meaning".

I think the moral from this story is that for a sentence to mean something that you intend, it must be (in some sense) appropriate to use that sentence to say this particular thing. And what makes it appropriate to use a sentence such as "it is raining" on certain circumstances and not some others, is not decided solely by what one intends. Therefore intention by itself doesn't look like a plausible explanation of linguistic meaning.

When I talk about meaning referring to intent, I'm talking about causation. Your intent is the cause of your use of words. If you had no intent to convey information, then would you use words? Yes, or no? — Harry Hindu

But what does that have to do with the meaning of the word? You might intend for me to turn left, and this might cause you to say "turn right" – but as you've admitted, this would be the wrong thing to say, given that "turn right" doesn't mean "turn left". So the meaning of the word "right" has nothing to do with your intent or its causal relationship to the actual utterance – your intent can cause you to say the wrong word (and it's still the wrong word even if the person you're speaking too recognises that you've misspoken and correctly infers your intent).

If the dictionary doesn't provide an exhaustive account, then how does the conventional use of a term provide an exhaustive account? I can use the term in any way the dictionary doesn't describe then, and as long as someone else understands what I mean, I have successfully used the word in a way that is unconventional. This is how metaphors start. It is an unconventional use of the word that eventually becomes conventional, but only after users understand the new way it is used, or what it refers to, or what it means. So you have the problem of explaining how unconventional uses of words DO have meaning prior to them becoming a conventional (common) use of the word.

How did any word get it's meaning? One person had to make a sound or a scribble and then persuade others to use the sound and scribble in the same way. Before the majority used the sound/scribble to refer to something, it had a meaning, and it wasn't it's conventional use because only one person used it that way. It was what the word refers to.

You're taking the term "conventional" too literally. I only brought it up to address your claim that if meaning is use then you can simply utter any sounds you like and, given that you've used them, they must have a meaning. That's not what Wittgenstein means by "meaning is use". "Use" isn't synonymous here with "utterance". It's closer to "function". The meaning of a word is its function or role in the language-game – which may be a language-game involving only a small number of people.

As an example, think of the expression "check!" in the language-game of chess. To explain what the expression "check!" means is just to explain its use/function/role, which is concerned with threatening the opponent's King. It would be wrong to "translate" it as being synonymous with the English phrase "your King in under threat of capture at my next move" (and even if our intent with both utterances is the same).

And as a similar example, the expression "check!" or the equivalent knock-on-table when playing a game of poker and not wanting to fold or raise.