Expressions and Their Representations

It is plausible to think that our knowledge of linguistic types can bejustified by what we know about the tokens of these types. But one then hasto explain what it is about the relation a type bears to its tokens that makespossible the move from knowledge of the concrete to knowledge of the. I argue...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Philosophical quarterly 1999-04, Vol.49 (195), p.145-163
Main Author: Szabo, Zoltan Gendler
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abstract entities
Ambiguity
Empirical knowledge
Instantiation
Linguistics
Lions
Passengers
Philosophical logics. Philosophy of language
Philosophy
Platonism
Pronunciation
Words
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Summary:It is plausible to think that our knowledge of linguistic types can bejustified by what we know about the tokens of these types. But one then hasto explain what it is about the relation a type bears to its tokens that makespossible the move from knowledge of the concrete to knowledge of the. I argue that the standard solution to this difficulty, that the relevant relation is instantiation and that the transition is inductive generalization, is inadequate. I propose an alternative, according to which tokens are representations of the type they belong to. I also defend this view against the charge that it cannot account for the systematic ambiguity of expressions like ‘word’ or ‘sentence’, and the objection that it leads to an implausible form of Platonism.
ISSN:0031-8094
1467-9213
DOI:10.1111/1467-9213.00134