[1]
For the following presentation of Husserl’s theory of meaning cf. Beyer & Weichold 2011, p. 406.
[2]
The German original runs: “Es gehört zur usuellen Bedeutung dieser Klassen von Ausdrücken, ihre Bedeutungsbestimmtheit erst der Gelegenheit zu verdanken […] [Sie orientieren] ihre jeweilige Bedeutung erst nach dem Einzelfall, während doch die Weise, in der sie dies tun, eine usuelle ist.” (Hua XIX/1, pp. 91f.) So Husserl does not subscribe to a Humpty-Dumpty view of meaning, according to which the meaning of an expression in the mouth of a speaker is solely determined by what the speaker wants the expression to mean on the respective occasion; cf. Beyer 2000, pp. 78-79.
[3]
For an overview of more recent developments in semantics and pragmatics, cf. Lepore & Smith 2006, and the entries in Barber & Stainton 2010.
[4]
Unlike mainstream semantics, Husserl considers such expressions to be ubiquitous in empirical thought and speech; cf. Husserl 2001, p. 7. The approach to meaning I shall sketch below supports this contention.
[5]
A sub-propositional content is a non-propositional content (or respective meaning) that is a subpart of a propositional content. Singular and general terms may be used to express sub-propositional contents.
[6]
The corresponding idea of different levels (Stufen) of understanding, which include the grasping of both character, content, and implicitures, is borrowed from Künne, who is also to be credited for pointing out the close similarity between Kaplan’s character/content distinction and Husserl’s distinction beween general meaning-function and respective meaning; cf. Künne 1982. In Beyer 2000, I worked out the consequences of this distinction for Husserl’s semantics and theory of intentional content (“noematic sense”) in detail, arguing that the latter is to be rationally reconstructed as a moderate version of externalism, and that it can be fruitfully compared to Evans’ (radically externalist) neo-Fregean conception of sense, among others. That Husserl’s view can be read this way lends support to Dagfinn Føllesdal’s so-called Fregean interpretation of Husserl’s notion of noema (cf. Føllesdal 1969).
[7]
Note that “semantic content” is used by some authors to refer to conventional linguistic meaning rather than respective meaning (which Kaplan calls “content”).
[8]
Husserl’s investigations into pure grammar, especially his notion of a syntactic meaning category, had an important impact on modern linguistics (due mainly to Ajdukiewicz 1935).
[9]
The epistemic availability of this means may require further means, to be found in a wider context itself not necessarily predelineated semantically.
[10]
Another option might be to admit category mistakes as semantic contents. (I wish to express my thanks to Adriana Pavic for reminding me of this option.)
[11]
Cf. Beyer 1997, p. 341, where I raise the same point in order to criticize one of Searle’s arguments for the Background Hypothesis. As for the precise content of the context principle, Robert Stainton distinguishes between three readings:
“The first [is] merely methodological, a claim about how to find out what particular words mean: To find word meanings, look at what they contribute to sentences. The second reading [is] metasemantic, a claim about why words have the meanings they do: words only have meaning because of how they affect sentence meanings. The third reading of the Principle is interpretational/psychological. […] [T]he idea underlying it is that the only things we are psychologically able to understand are whole sentences.” (Stainton 2010, pp. 88-89)
In the present context, a consequence of the metasemantic reading is intended which follows from the conjunction of that reading and the assumption that the meaning of a predicate (like “... cut …”) denotes a property or relation, if anything.
[12]
A reviewer claims that “to sever” means to cut. Even if the corresponding interpretation of “severing” were admissible, it could not be the one intended by Borg. Have a look at the preceding quotation. If you replace “severing” by “cutting” there, you obtain: “While any world where John’s actions do result in some kind of cutting of the physical unity of the mass of the sun is a world where the truth-condition [of ‘John cut the sun’] is satisfied.” If this sentence is meaningful at all, it expresses a triviality that does nothing to support Borg’s view.
[13]
See the entry on “cut” in the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English.
[14]
Following the realism inherent to ordinary language use, I assume that the everyday world of experience involves objects displaying real colours. It may be possible to eliminate real colours, but such attempts at revisionary metaphysics should have no impact on the study of the actual use of language, unless they lead to a change of language use, which has not happened yet in the case of colour words.
[15]
Cf. Beyer 2001, p. 289: “The internal truth-condition of an assertion is the state of affairs represented by the (intentional content of the) judgement actually given voice to in that assertion. Whereas the external truth-condition is the state of affairs represented by the (intentional content of the) judgement the speaker should give voice to, given (a) the linguistic meaning [i.e., the general meaning-function] of the employed sentence and (b) the external context.” The external context is the actual (observable) context of utterance, which on the neo-Husserlian approach may differ from the phenomenologically relevant (“internal”) context, which is determined by the motivational structure of experience with recourse to which the speaker could justify the judgment given voice to. In the present example, the internal context involves table 1.
[16]
As Evans acknowledges, this distinction is inspired by Putnam’s notion of a “linguistic division of labour” (see Putnam 1975, pp. 145-146); cf. Evans 1982, p. 377. I should stress that on the view proposed in this contribution, the producers do not grasp the respective meaning of relevant expressions more “fully” than the mere consumers. Rather, they help sustain the common practice necessary for those expressions to be usable (by both producers and mere consumers) to express a respective meaning (a truth-conditional “semantic content”). I should also stress that I take the producer/consumer distinction to be universally applicable, and not just in the case of rigid designators, and that on my view the capacities of the producers (unlike the capacites of what Putnam calls “experts”) need not include scientific knowledge. (Thanks to Adriana Pavic for pressing me on these points.)
[17]
The point is not that we cannot describe uncommon practices (such as using a metal saw) for actions like opening a can, say. Rather, the point is that there have to be common practices, known to the producers, in order for a sentence like “Bill opened the can” to be usable to express a respective meaning representing any practice in the first place. (Thanks again to Adriana Pavic for helping me to make this clear.)
[18]
Husserl has a dispositionalist higher-order judgment view of consciousness, according to which conscious experiences are “essentially capable of being perceived in reflection,” such that “they are there already as a ‘background’ when they are not reflected on and thus of essential necessity are ‘ready to be perceived’” (Husserl 1982, p. 99; also cf. p. 80, where Husserl cites as an example a case in which “we are reflecting on a conviction which is alive right now (perhaps stating: I am convinced that ...”). (Compare Searle 1992, p. 156: “This idea, that all unconscious intentional states are in principle accessible to consciousness, I call the connection principle […].”) In Beyer 2006, Chs. 1-2, I defend a dispositionalist higher-order judgment view of intentional consciousness and argue that it explains the unity of consciousness (1) at a time as well as (2) across time, as follows: (1) Two simultaneous intentional experiences belong to the same stream of consciousness iff they are both intentional objects of a dispositional higher-order belief of the sort “I am now having such-and-such experiences” that would be actualized by one and the same higher-order judgment (where the temporal demonstrative specifically refers to the moment of (internal) time at which both of these experiences occur). (2) Two diachronous intentional experiences belong to the same stream of consciousness iff both of them are intentional objects of a dispositional higher-order belief of the sort “I just (or earlier) had such-and-such experiences’ that would be actualized by one and the same higher-order judgment. This approach fits in well with Husserl’s contention that “[i]ntentionality is what […] justifies designating the whole stream of [experiences] as the stream of consciousness and as the unity of one consciousness” (Husserl 1982, p. 199). It also fits in well with a view on which Husserl conceives of consciousness as “pre-reflective self-awareness;” cf. Beyer 2011.
[19]
For the close connection between anticipation and (internal) horizon, cf. Husserl 1973, para. 8. For an insightful interpretation of Husserl’s notion of horizon, cf. Smith & McIntyre 1982, pp. 227–265.
[20]
The German original runs: „Ich sehe einen Gegenstand ohne einen „historischen“ Horizont [Fn.: ohne Bekanntheitshorizont und Wissenshorizont], und nun bekommt er ihn. Ich habe den Gegenstand vielfältig erfahren, „vielfältige“ Urteile habe ich über ihn gefällt, vielfältige Kenntnis von ihm in verschiedenen Zeiten gewonnen und habe sie verknüpft. Nun habe ich durch diese Verknüpfung einen „Begriff“ von dem Gegenstand, einen Eigenbegriff [...]. [D]as in [der Erinnerung] mit einem gewissen Sinn Gesetzte erfährt eine erkenntnismäßige Sinnbereicherung, das heißt, das x des Sinnes bestimmt sich näher erfahrungsmäßig.“ (Husserl 2005, p. 358).
[21]
For further neo-Husserlian principles of reference assignment, see Beyer 2000, para. 7; Beyer 2001.