The Research Of Michael Dummett's Semantical Thought

With the philosophy's "linguistic turning" in 20th century, the discussion about semantics becomes very popular. The research of semantics concerns with the relationship between the object and its language representation. In this sense, semantics is a means to seek proposition's meaning, analyze thought's connotation and grasp the world. In essence, the main question of semantics is to characterize what makes language becomes thought's represention, whether language represents non-linguistic thought or whether language makes thought possible is central in this field. As a result, it is inevitable that semantical theses concern with the meaning and truth of statement. The contemporary language philosopher and logician pay close attention to these questions. It seems reasonable to say the investigation about statement's meaning has become the main content of contemporary philosophical research, this not only determines the validity of language philosophy's research, but also becomes the basis for all philosophical research. Now, for all language philosophers, it seems very easy to demonstrate the belief that the semantic question is the start point for the entire philosophical study.Along with the development of research in semantics, there are two kinds of trends in the semantical theory constructing, one has been the semantical theory since Frege that regards the statement's meaning as the content which its truth condition represents. Tarski gave a semantical characterization for the concept of truth, and formed one formal semantical viewpoint objectively. Later, the issue and viewpoint of this have been synthesized by Davisdon, and a systemic truth-conditional theory of meaning came into being. As far as this kind of theory is concerned, a statement's meaning has been regarded as decided by the objective object that its being true to correlate with. In the discussion of semantics, this theory of meaning occupies a dominanting role. The whole situation of 20th semantics research in most sense consists in the development of this theory of meaning, viz. its content system is enriched and consummated more and more, and the method of argument is developed and advanced. But this kind of semantical theory faces serious difficulties in the course of its concrete development, for example, the formal characterization and ideal research contrast with the natural language's diversity and complexity enormously, so it is possible and necessary to form a new semantical theory that beyond it. Along with people excavated Wittgenstein later philosophic thinking as well as put their focus on the language behavior, to the 1980's, there is a cognitive semantics has gradually developed, since then cognitive science and the study of mental representation has become more dominant. This kind of semantics probes into meaning's formation from the speaking action and communication action, and overcomes the rigorous requirement that classical truth theory of meaning to put on meaning's formation, i.e. regard statement's truth condition as its meaning. According to cognitive semantics, the course of meaning's formation correlates with the language exchange closely, from the point of language's use and idea's intercommunion, we can see the fact that truth-conditional theory of meaning has serious insufficiency. The situation of meaning forming in the course of idea's exchange not always obeys the characterization of meaning along the form of truth condition. Therefore, it is necessary to discuss philosophical semantics from the point of people's understanding and the formation of their cognition and knowledge. In this aspect, the contemporary England famous philosopher Dummett's viewpoint is worth being paid close attention.The main purpose of this dissertation is to inspect Dummett how to use the arguments of language's meaning formation to explain humanity's thought and solve the philosophical questions. The main proceeding way of this dissertation is:First, I rest on Dummett's key arguments in philosophy of language, regard his philosophical research as the discussion about the semantical thesis. Next, take Dummett's semantical thought as a case to portray the present cognitive semantics, and to grasp the main points of cognitive semantics detailed by study his semantical thought's concrete connotation, the theoretical framework, the principle, the logical foundation, the key thesis, the essence, the characteristic and the utility. The significance of this dissertation consists in:First, it proposes a novel angle of view to grasp Dummett's thought connotation from the point of semantics research. Second, by the study of Dummett's semantical thought, forecasts the future development of semantics research. Third, it illustrates the significance of semantics thesis to the contemporary research of philosophy of science.As far as the construction and content are concerned, the dissertation consists of three parts:the preface, the main part and the epilogue. The preface includes these contents:the meaning of the semantics and the content of semantical research, the status of Dummett's thought, the research actuality of his philosophical thought and its key thesis, it also demonstrates the significance and necessity to investigate his semantical thought.The main part consists of the first chapter to eighth chapter. There is such a logical relationship between these chapters:in the first chapter, I base on the issue which from the preface, give a brief framework of the tradition and present situation of semantics research, and present the concrete background of Dummett's semantical thought. In the second chapter to sixth chapter, I deal with Dummett's semantical thought detailed, and give a complete analysis and argument for it. In the seventh chapter and the eighth, I analyze the application of Dummett's semantical thought to characterize and analyze the theses of realism and time.The first chapter concerns with the tradition of semantics and modern development. Part one discusses the origin of semantics from the background of semantical research and exhibition. And also clarifies the correlated questions of semantical research. Part two makes it clear that Dummett's semantical thought is the main modern representation of "understanding theory of meaning".The second chapter concerns with the general situation of Dummett's semantical thought. Part one discusses the background and aim of his semantical thought, and draws the conclusion that his thought is influenced by the controversy between intuitionism and platonism in mathematics and the semantical discussion about truth, sense, reference in philosophy of language. I argue that the aim of Dummett's semantics is to resolve the questions that from metaphysics. In the view of Dummett, the metaphysical questions are not genuinely different from semantical questions. Part two analyzes the theoretic framework of Dummett's semantical thought, points out his semantical thought including theory of semantics and theory of meaning, and clarifies the relationship between them. At the end of this section, I put forward this point——the basis of meaning's formation is speaker's understanding and the social feature of language.In the third chapter, I discuss the composition principles of Dummett's theory of semantics. His theory of meaning consist of three parts, they are theory of reference, theory of sense and theory of force respectively. I also point out the main task of these theories from the relationship between reference and sense, sense and force. Part two discuses the principles that Dummett holds to construct a normal theory of semantics. These principles not only are the important guidance that Dummett to construct his theory of semantics, but also the important norms to judge a theory of meaning is whether rational or not.In the fourth chapter, I discuss the logical basis of Dummett's semantical thought. Part one argues for the semantical viewpoint that Dummett wants to construct has its own logical basis. Under the influence of intuitionism, Dummett proposed his own program to solve semantical questions. Part two demonstrates that Dummett founded his own semantical arguments on the basis of intuitionism logic. I also illustrate this kind of logic has more general applicability to clarify the semantical value and meaning of statement. The semantical theory that founds on this kind of logic will be more fit with the reality.In the fifth chapter, I discuss the key thesis of Dummett's semantical thought——the question of truth. Part one analyses the principle of C and K that Dummett put forward when he illustrated truth. Part two clarifies that his arguments for truth thesis embody the character of contextism.The sixth chapter defines the essence of Dummett's semantical thought. Part one generalizes his main semantical idea as theory of understanding, this theory indicates what the speaker knows when he knows a language. According to this, I boil the essence of Dummett's semantical thought down to a kind of theory of thought, and analyze the idea of manifestion that he maintained when argued for the meaning's theory of understanding. Part two analyzes the constructionist feature when he illustrated the formation of meaning.In seventh chapter, I analyze the characterization that Dummett gave to the thesis of realism. Part one analyzes his semantical characterization for realism. Part two analyzes the semantical characterization that Dummett gave for antirealism, and discusses the main ideas that he held for semantical antirealism, illustrates that his semantical antirealism can't predicate he is a common and thorough antirealist. Part three clarifies the philosophical significance of the semantical characterization for realist thesis, and also analyzes some criticism to this characterization.In eighth chapter, I consider the analysis and understanding that Dummett held to the question of time. Part one describes Dummett's criticism to classical time model from the point of semantics. Part two reviews the semantical construction that Dummett gave for time model, and regards his explanation for time as depend on tense. Part three appraises the semantical analysis that Dummett made for time, and points out its significance and shortcoming.In the conclusion, I summarize Dummett's semantical thought influences on modern philosophy's development.