Abstract:

What is it to understand a linguistic utterance? According to the current orthodoxy in the philosophy of language, it is to be in a mental state of one type or another. Recent theories identify linguistic understanding with a knowledge state, a belief state, or different kinds of perception-like states, e.g., seemings. I argue that the search for the single type of state responsible for all cases of linguistic understanding is a dead end. Typically, language comprehension mechanism produces more than one mental state that can be classified as a state of understanding. Each of these states is responsible for a different aspect of the subject’s understanding of an utterance.

As usual, the seminar will take place in Edgecliffe, room G03, 12-2pm.