Philosophy Stack Exchange
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Questions tagged [semantics]

Semantics, in philosophy, often refers to "relation between signs and the things to which they refer and is seen, often, within the school of rhetoric.

Semantics, in philosophy, often refers to "relation between signs and the things to which they refer" and is seen, often, within the school of rhetoric.

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When are semantically non-hostile expressions equivalent to pragmatically hostile ones?

An example being the phrase "White lives matter" (or even "All lives matter") as a response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Another example would be: "I'm straight and I'm not ashamed," as a response to the LGBTQ movement. I personally feel…
Samuel Novelinka
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Why is it wrong to answer a question with a tautology? Isn't "2+2" correct when answering 'What is "2+2"'?

Many times in class, we are asked to answer, "What is 2+2?" or "What is the derivative of the function x?". It would not be the intended answer to write "2+2" or "The derivative of the function x". But, why not? A tautology is technically a correct…
user107952
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How can one refute John Searle's "syntax is not semantics" argument against strong AI?

There are many refutations of John Searle's Chinese Room argument against Strong AI. But they seem to be addressing the structure of the thought experiment itself, as opposed to the underlying epistemic principle that it is trying to illustrate.…
Alexander S King
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Is "This sentence is written in English" nonsense?

Wittgenstein and many others have said that our language gives the appearance of truth to some nonsense. Do you think the very simple "This sentence is written in English." is such nonsense which seems true? It seems true, but if you translate it…
François
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What are the dialetheist semantics for logical negation?

This question is in a sense a follow-up, or elaboration, of the question "What are the motivations for Dialetheism?". Reflecting on the way I phrased that question, and the way I remarked on answers, it has occurred to me that my central confusion…
Niel de Beaudrap
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Is mathematics a language?

Galileo gave the metaphor that the natural world is written in the language of mathematics, but is mathematics even a language?
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Is the statement "They like curry chicken." an objective or subjective statement?

I'm inclined to believe it's objective because isn't them liking curry chicken the case regardless of how anyone else feels about it?
Jayden
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What is put on what (the mayo or the eggs) and why?

What are some branches of philosophy that could be used to analyze the question "did I put mayo on my eggs, or eggs on my mayo?" I understand that the question itself is very weak, but I am just struggling to classify this type of thought. Sort of…
Kebtiz
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Is music just another language?

In this video (starting around 00:28:30) the interviewer, Bryan Magee, and Noam Chomsky discuss musical composition as a form of thinking without language. But it seems trivial to me that music is a language like any other: a set of sound symbols…
Alexander S King
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Shouldn't statements be considered equivalent based on their meaning rather than truth tables?

Consider the following truth table, which serves to define the logical connective ⇔, P | Q || P⇔Q T | T || T T | F || F F | T || F F | F || T According to the above truth table, the logical connective ⇔ is defined as the binary operation which…
EthanAlvaree
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Why isn't the dictum "something can't come from nothing" a matter of consensus?

Isn't it obvious that from nothing (in the philosophical sense, i.e. absolute nonexistence) comes nothing? Isn't it also clear that physics has absolutely no saying on this dictum, as physics only deals with our spacetime, the latter simply being…
AimaneSN
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How to implement the so called 'principle of charity'?

The 'principle of charity' has been considered of great importance especially in scholarly communication. It is not very clear, nonetheless, how the principle can be implemented, even in simple context of studying philosophy and writing philosophy:…
L.M. Student
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What is Quine's rebuttal to Grice and Strawson's In Defense of Dogma?

In response to Quine's rejection of the analytic-synthetic distinction, Strawson and Grice appear to reduce Quine's rejection (or skepticism) of synonymy to a rejection of meaning. What is/would be Quine's response?
nietsnegttiw
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Understanding Grice's Theory of (Non-Natural) Meaning

I am trying to understand Paul Grice's famous essay "Meaning". So consider a computer system which is fed a dictionary of every English word in existence. The computer system then randomly spits out a finite number of words. Let us suppose this…
George
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Supervaluationism and Theories of Truth

How does the supervaluationalist defend his/her theory of truth since the correspondence theory of truth seems to presuppose bivalence? It would seem then that the only truth is Super-Truth. And, the only false is Super-False. So, while…
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