16.488, Books: Cog Sci/Pragmatics/Semantics: Millikan

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-16-488. Thu Feb 17 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.488, Books: Cog Sci/Pragmatics/Semantics: Millikan

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Wayne State U <aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry at linguistlist.org>

Reviews (reviews at linguistlist.org)
        Sheila Collberg, U of Arizona
        Terry Langendoen, U of Arizona

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/

The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, Wayne
State University, and donations from subscribers and publishers.

Editor for this issue: Megan Zdrojkowski <megan at linguistlist.org>
================================================================

Links to the websites of all LINGUIST's supporting publishers
are available at the end of this issue.


===========================Directory==============================

1)
Date: 16-Feb-2005
From: David Weininger < dgw at mit.edu@mit.edu >
Subject: Varieties of Meaning: Millikan

	
-------------------------Message 1 ----------------------------------
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:27:03
From: David Weininger < dgw at mit.edu@mit.edu >
Subject: Varieties of Meaning: Millikan




Title: Varieties of Meaning
Subtitle: The 2002 Jean Nicod Lectures
Series Title: Bradford Books

Publication Year: 2004
Publisher: MIT Press
	   http://mitpress.mit.edu/
	

Book URL: http://mitpress.mit.edu/promotions/books/FL20040262134446


Author: Ruth Garrett Millikan

Hardback: ISBN: 0262134446 Pages: 256 Price: U.S. $ 35


Abstract:

The many different things that are said to mean things seem to have little
in common: people mean to do various things; tools and other artifacts are
meant for various things; people mean various things by using words and
sentences; natural signs mean things; representations in people's minds
also presumably mean things. In Varieties of Meaning Ruth Garrett Millikan
argues that these apparently different kinds of meaning can only be
understood in relation to each other.

What does meaning in the sense of purpose (when something is said to be
meant for something) have to do with meaning in the sense of representing
or signifying? Millikan argues that the explicit human purposes, explicit
human intentions, are represented purposes. They do not merely represent
purposes; they possess the purposes that they represent. She argues further
that things that signify, intentional signs such as sentences, are
distinguished from natural signs by having purpose essentially; therefore,
unlike natural signs, intentional signs can misrepresent or be false.

Part I discusses "Purposes and Cross-Purposes"--what purposes are, the
purposes of people, of their behaviors, of their body parts, of their
artifacts, and of the signs they use. Part II then describes a previously
unrecognized kind of natural sign, "locally recurrent" natural signs, and
several varieties of intentional signs, and discusses the ways in which
representations themselves are represented. Part III offers a novel
interpretation of the way language is understood and of the relation
between semantics and pragmatics. Part IV discusses perception and thought,
exploring stages in the development of inner representations, from the
simplest organisms whose behavior is governed by perception-action cycles
to the perceptions and intentional attitudes of humans.

Ruth Garrett Millikan is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Connecticut. She is the author of Language, Thought, and
Other Biological Categories (MIT Press, 1984) and White Queen Psychology
and Other Essays for Alice (MIT Press, 1995) and On Clear and Confused Ideas.



Linguistic Field(s): Cognitive Science
                     Philosophy of Language
                     Pragmatics
                     Semantics


Written In: English  (ENG)
	
See this book announcement on our website:
http://linguistlist.org/get-book.html?BookID=13493


MAJOR SUPPORTERS

	Cascadilla Press
		http://www.cascadilla.com/	

	Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd
		http://www.continuumbooks.com	

	Edinburgh University Press
		http://www.eup.ed.ac.uk/	

	Elsevier Ltd.
		http://www.elsevier.com/locate/linguistics	

	Hodder Arnold
		http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk	

	John Benjamins
		http://www.benjamins.com/	

	Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
		http://www.erlbaum.com/	

	MIT Press
		http://mitpress.mit.edu/	

	Mouton de Gruyter
		http://www.mouton-publishers.com	

	Rodopi
		http://www.rodopi.nl/	

OTHER SUPPORTING PUBLISHERS	

	Graduate Linguistic Students' Assoc., Umass
		http://glsa.hypermart.net/

	Kingston Press Ltd
		http://www.kingstonpress.com/

	Multilingual Matters
		http://www.multilingual-matters.com/

	Pacific Linguistics
		http://pacling.anu.edu.au/

	SIL International
		http://www.ethnologue.com/bookstore.asp

	Utrecht Institute of Linguistics / LOT Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistic
		http://www-uilots.let.uu.nl/
	



-----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-16-488