Synopses & Reviews
This book provides a novel interpretation of the ideas about language in Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. Travis places the "private language argument" in the context of wider themes in the Investigations, and thereby develops a picture of what it is for words to bear the meaning they do. He elaborates two versions of a private language argument, and shows the consequences of these for current trends in the philosophical theory of meaning.
Table of Contents
1. Two Pictures of Semantics
2. The Making of Semantic Fact
3. The Uses of Language Games
4. Doubt and Knowledge Ascription
5. The Limits of Doubt
6. Through the Wilderness
7. The Autonomy of Fact-stating
8. The Problems with Private Semantics
Bibliography, Index