Find counter arguments by entering NameVs… or …VsName.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author Vs Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Denotation Theory | Zink Vs Denotation Theory | Wolf II 153 Denotation/Zink: E.g. "Eisenhower is the former president of the United States" the representative of the denotation theory will say that the listener can understand the meaning of the name, but cannot specify the meaning: the meaning is the named thing. The strength of this objection is that this does not necessarily speak for the connotation theory because other interpretations are possible. The explanatory words allegedly contain a kind of pointer, which points to the thing. --- II 154 That would explain why it still works in the absence of the thing. ("Verbal Showing"). Denotation theory/Zink: two variants: 1. the name means the thing. The meaning is simply that thing. 2. the name means the thing in so far it gets pointed at. The meaning of the name is pointing to the thing. The two exclude each other alternately. Because the thing cannot be the same as the pointing. No object can point to itself. E.g. Although a part of the object can point to itself, like a bent back finger. Pointing includes more than just the thing: the gesture of pointing. Then understanding of the name is always more than the thing includes. --- II 155 ZinkVsDenotation: 1. to understand the "denotative" meaning, we must understand a "connotative meaning" (description). a) we need to understand a general term to understand a name. (Class expression, meaning includes the meaning of "have duration " (general term)). b) to understand a concrete thing as a single thing, we have to understand it as a general type of thing too. (General characteristic of the temporal localization, we need to understand). 2. more radical: the thing that is supposedly the meaning of the proper name , cannot be any part of its meaning! --- II 157 Individual thing/Zink: there are no things that would be mere individual things! Symbol/Zink: advantage: includes aspects that can never be isolated in reality. A word for the color, another for the expansion, although both are never separate in reality . Pointe: the meaning of a symbol (for one aspect), must include the meaning of another symbol (for a different aspect). Understanding/Zink: so the meaning of a symbol is recorded only if one also covers the meaning, designated by a different symbol. (Color/extension). But "color" does not mean the same as "expanded". So also a proper name as a symbol for a particular means everything what this general type of thing symbolizes and means. --- II 158 Meaning/names/Zink: we could decide that the meaning of a general name are those which it names. But that would be wrong! (S.U.) Names/meaning/symbols/Zink: we can now show that the things are neither for the general-name nor for the proper name part of the meaning! Argument: the condition that there is the meaning "B" is that there is a symbol S If a thing is the meaning of a symbol, then at least the thing has, as distinguished from the symbol, no meaning! have/be. Only the symbol has a meaning. (Denotation theory: thing is meaning class is meaning of the general name). --- II 162 Denotation theory/Zink: ad 2. (see above: The meaning is pointing): contain a) Pointing is included in meaning b) Pointing itself is the meaning. Vs b) may not be sufficient because we understand the name, even if no one points, or in the absence of the thing. In addition, only people, not names, are pointing to things. Pointing requires that one has already understood the meaning! a)Zink: that's right: understanding a proper name means understanding what it would mean to point at this thing that means under which circumstances one would do it. |
Zink I Sidney ZInk "The Meaning of Proper Names", in: Mind 72 (1963) S. 481-499 In Eigennamen, Ursula Wolf Frankfurt/M. 1993 K II siehe Wol I U. Wolf (Hg) Eigennamen Frankfurt 1993 |
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