Meaning, understanding and the truly human

Authors

  • Fabián Bernache Maldonado Universidad de Guadalajara

Keywords:

Meaning, Understanding, Semantics, Humanity

Abstract

Meaning and understanding are, clearly, two intrinsically associated notions. This fact has not been, however, an obstacle for the attribution of some kind of primacy to the notion of meaning: establishing the meaning of a representation, whether mental or linguistic, is supposed to be a previous condition for understanding. The aim of this work is to show that such conception of the relationship between meaning and understanding is wrong. Our strategy is to expose the difficulties that arise for an influential theory that has been based on it: Informational Semantics. Our discussion will finally permits us to draw some conclusions about what might be considered the proper aspects of human being.

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References

Chalmers, D. (2003). Consciousness and its Place in Nature. En Stich, S. P. y Warfield, T. A. (Eds.) The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Mind. Oxford: Blackwell.

Dretske, F. (1981). Knowledge and the Flow of Information. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Dretske, F. (1995). Naturalizing the Mind. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Dummett, M. (1993). The Seas of Language. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Fodor, J. (1984). Semantics, Wisconsin Style. Synthese. 59, 231-250.

Fodor, J. (1990). A Theory of Content and Other Essays. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Millikan, R. G. (1984). Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Papineau, D. (1999). Normativity and Judgment. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes. 73, 17-43.

Sellars, W. (1963). Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind. En Science, Perception, and Reality. Atascadero: Ridgeview Publishing Company.

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Published

2025-11-10

How to Cite

Bernache Maldonado, F. (2025). Meaning, understanding and the truly human. Sincronía, 20(69), 3–19. Retrieved from https://revistasincronia.cucsh.udg.mx/index.php/sincronia/article/view/766

Issue

Vol. 20 No. 69 (2016): January-June

Section

PHILOSOPHY

License

Copyright (c) 2016 Fabián Bernache Maldonado

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