Between Saying and Doing: Towards an Analytic Pragmatism

Between Saying and Doing: Towards an Analytic Pragmatism

<em>Between Saying and Doing</em> aims to reconcile pragmatism (in both its classical American and its Wittgensteinian forms) with analytic philosophy. It investigates the relations between the <em>meaning </em>of linguistic expressions and their <em>use</em>. Giving due weight both to what one has to <em>do </em>in order to count as <em>saying </em>various things and to what one needs to <em>say </em>in order to specify those <em>doings</em>, makes it possible to shed new light on the relations between <em>semantics </em>(the theory of the meanings of utterances and the contents of thoughts) and <em>pragmatics </em>(the theory of the functional relations among meaningful or contentful items). Among the vocabularies whose interrelated use and meaning are considered are: logical, indexical, modal, normative, and intentional vocabulary. As the argument proceeds, new ways of thinking about the classic analytic core programs of empiricism, naturalism, and functionalism are offered, as well as novel insights about the ideas of artificial intelligence, the nature of logic, and intentional relations between subjects and objects.<br>