Position
Speaker-Meaning
An expression means what it does because of what speakers intend to communicate by it, so meaning in a language is built out of the intentions behind particular utterances.
Classification
- Position level
- specific
- Domains
- Philosophy of Language
Overview
Grice separated what a sentence means in a language from what a speaker means in uttering it, and then argued that the second is the more basic. A speaker means something by an utterance when they intend it to produce a response in a hearer, intend the hearer to recognise that very intention, and intend that recognition to be part of the hearer's reason for responding. The last condition does real work: Herod, showing Salome the Baptist's head, intends her to believe John is dead and to see that he intends it, yet he does not mean that John is dead, because the head alone would convince her.
Standing sentence meaning is then explained as what speakers in a community conventionally use a form to mean. The direction of explanation is what makes this an answer to the question of what grounds meaning: mind first, language second.
Position on
References
- H. P. Grice, 'Meaning', Philosophical Review 66 (1957)
- H. P. Grice, 'Meaning', Philosophical Review 66 (1957), which analyses what an utterance means in terms of the speaker's intention to produce a belief in an audience by way of that audience recognising the intention