Philosophical essays / Scott Soames

Includes bibliographical references and index

v. 1. Natural language : what it means and how we use it: The origins of these essays -- Introduction -- Presupposition -- A projection problem for speaker presupposition -- Pt. 2. Language and linguistic competence -- Linguistics and psychology -- Semantics and psychology -- Semantics and semantic competence -- The necessity argument -- Truth, meaning, and understanding -- Truth and meaning in perspective -- Pt. 3. Semantics and pragmatics -- Naming and asserting -- The gap between meaning and assertion : why what we literally say often differs from what our words literally mean -- Drawing the line between meaning and implicaturem and relating both to assertion -- Pt. 4. Descriptions -- Incomplete definite descriptions -- Donnellan's referential/attributive distinction -- Why incomplete descriptions don't refute Russell's theory of descriptions -- Meaning and use : lessons for legal interpretation -- Interpreting legal texts : what is and what is not special about the law --

v. 2. The philosophical significance of language-- Pt. 1 Reference, propositions, and propositional attitudes -- Direct reference, propositional attitudes, and semantic content -- Why propositions can't be sets of truth-supporting circumstances -- Belief and mental representation -- Attitudes and anaphora -- Pt. 2. Modality -- The modal argument: wide scope and rigidified descriptions -- The philosophical significance of the Kripkean necessary a posteriori -- Knowledge of manifest natural kinds -- Understanding assertion -- Ambitious two-dimensionalism -- Actually -- Pt. 3. Truth and vagueness -- What is a theory of truth? -- Understanding deflationism -- Higher-order vagueness for partially defined predicates -- The possibility of partial definition -- Pt. 4. . 4. Kripke, Wittgenstein, and following a rule -- Skepticism about meaning: indeterminancy, normativity, and the rule-following paradox -- Facts, truth conditions, and the skeptical solution to the rule-following paradox.