Meaning and referent: for a linguistic approach

Abstract

A recent volume on semantics (Eco et al. 1988) groups a variety of papers under the title Meaning and Mental Representations. This volume presents different points of view concerning the problem of meaning, a cross-section of contemporary thought, in the Anglo-American world for the most part. An introductory essay sketches in broad outline the current scene, describing two approaches to linguistic meaning which appear to be quite incompatible, logical semantics and psychological semantics. It is important for semantics, as for any other discipline, to examine what brings about an apparent internal incompatibility. The vantage point of that essay is first adopted here in an attempt to bring out as sharply as possible the main point at issue between the two camps: “It is precisely on the problem of whether meaning is primarily a psychological or logical notion that they are most directly opposed” (p. 5²). Then the situation is examined from the point of view of a linguist, which is not necessarily either that of a psychologist or that of a logician, in an attempt to show that the apparent incompatibility arises from an incomplete view of language.