Assumptions about Communication, etc.

[dan everett]

     Folks,

     I have missed most of this discussion. Has anyone brought up the
     epistemological literature wrt these issues? Putnam, Rorty, Searle,
     Davidson, Quine, Russell, Plantinga, and *many* others have spoken to
     these issues with considerable sophistication. Perhaps we are straying
     slightly beyond the expertise afforded by linguistics training in
     discussing intentionality? (And John Searle used to say that the
     quickest way to spot that someone has misunderstood the issue of
     intentionality is that they will try to derive it from intensionality
     with an s, as many a bad PhD dissertation in philosophy has tried to
     do, so John says. I think I saw one reference to intensionality on
     this list discussion, but cannot remember.)

     I am pessimistic about linguists shedding much light on the matter,
     unless they are able to translate this into empirical linguistic
     issues, with predictions and some bases for choosing between the
     predictions (the usual way linguists help philosophers think through
     issues).

     Dan Everett