Aboutness Paperback - 2016

Name: Aboutness (Carl G. Hempel Lecture Series)
Price: 28.66 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Yablo, Stephen
ISBN: 9780691173658

by Stephen Yablo

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From the publisher

Aboutness has been studied from any number of angles. Brentano made it the defining feature of the mental. Phenomenologists try to pin down the aboutness-features of particular mental states. Materialists sometimes claim to have grounded aboutness in natural regularities. Attempts have even been made, in library science and information theory, to operationalize the notion.

But it has played no real role in philosophical semantics. This is surprising; sentences have aboutness-properties if anything does. Aboutness is the first book to examine through a philosophical lens the role of subject matter in meaning.

A long-standing tradition sees meaning as truth-conditions, to be specified by listing the scenarios in which a sentence is true. Nothing is said about the principle of selection--about what in a scenario gets it onto the list. Subject matter is the missing link here. A sentence is true because of how matters stand where its subject matter is concerned.

Stephen Yablo maintains that this is not just a feature of subject matter, but its essence. One indicates what a sentence is about by mapping out logical space according to its changing ways of being true or false. The notion of content that results--directed content--is brought to bear on a range of philosophical topics, including ontology, verisimilitude, knowledge, loose talk, assertive content, and philosophical methodology.

Written by one of today's leading philosophers, Aboutness represents a major advance in semantics and the philosophy of language.

From the rear cover

"This is an excellent book. Aboutness is highly original and represents a major contribution to metaphysics and the philosophy of language."--Thomas Hofweber, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

"Aboutness is a major achievement. Yablo is one of the most distinctive philosophical writers of our time. Every sentence of this landmark book is a joy, and the discussion is elegant throughout. In this part of philosophy, it doesn't get better than this."--Gideon Rosen, Princeton University

Details

Title Aboutness
Author Stephen Yablo
Binding Paperback
Edition Reprint
Pages 240
Volumes 1
Language ENG
Publisher Princeton University Press
Publication date 2016-11-08
Features Bibliography
ISBN 9780691173658 / 0691173656
Weight 0.82 lbs (0.37 kg)
Dimensions 9.21 x 6.14 x 0.54 in (23.39 x 15.60 x 1.37 cm)
Themes
- Aspects (Academic): Philosophical
Category Language Arts / Linguistics / Literacy
Dewey Decimal Code 110

About the author

Stephen Yablo is professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of "Things: Papers on Objects, Events, and Properties" and "Thoughts: Papers on Mind, Meaning, and Modality."