17th Annual Student Research Conference
Interdisciplinary
Some Thoughts on Meaning and Language
Jonathan M. Livengood
Dr. Janet Davis, Faculty Mentor
Ludwig Wittgenstein suggested a skeptical paradox that reaches even to mathematics. We can have no justification for attributions of meaning to signs because there is an ineliminable slack between actual and potential experience. Wittgenstein offered a skeptical solution to his paradox, which can be profitably conjoined with Peircean pragmaticism, a move that highlights interesting parallels with David Hume's thoughts on induction. From this stance, I argue that language exhibits a tension between custom and habit, an understanding of which reconciles internalist and externalist views of meaning.
Keywords: Wittgenstein, Peirce, pragmatism, pragmaticism, Hume, meaning, language, mathematics
Topic(s):Interdisciplinary
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 44-2
Location: VH 1408
Time: 4:00