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Critical Notice: Peter Ludlow’s Living Words: Meaning Underdetermination and he Dynamic Lexicon, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Adam Sennet  and
Tyrus Fisher Open the ORCID record for Tyrus Fisher [Opens in a new window]
Adam Sennet
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA
Tyrus Fisher*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA
*
Email: tkfisher@ucdavis.edu
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Abstract

A provocative view has it that word meanings are underdetermined and dynamic, frustrating traditional approaches to theorizing about meaning. Peter Ludlow’s Living Words provides some of the philosophical reasons and motivations for accepting one such view, develops some of its details, and explores some of its ramifications. We critically examine some of the arguments in Living Words, paying particular attention to some of Ludlow’s views about the meanings of predicates, preservation of bivalence and the T-schema, and methods of modulating meaning.

Keywords

Semanticsbivalencemeaningmeaning underdeterminationmeaning modulationdynamic meaning
Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , 2018 , pp. 106 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2017

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