All themes

Language

This theme runs through several big questions. Here are the ones where it plays out.

The questions that illuminate it

Relation to truthThe meaning of words

Where do words get their meaning?

Depending on whether meaning comes from the thing named, from shared usage, or from the speaker's intention, a misunderstanding has a different source, and translating from one language to another becomes possible or hopeless. To take a position is to say what, at bottom, lets us understand one another, and why we sometimes fail to.

ReferentialismUse theorySpeaker'sintentionYOU

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Relation to truthUniversals

Do general properties exist, or are they merely names?

Many things are "red", many acts are "just": do redness or justice really exist, or do we have only individuals and words to sort them? The status of our concepts, and what our sciences claim to describe, depends on it.

Realism aboutuniversalsNominalismConceptualismPlatoThomas AquinasSpinozaYOU

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