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Words and Intentions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Edmond L. Wright
Edmond L. Wright
Affiliation:
Pembroke College, Oxford
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Extract

The relationship of word-meaning to speaker's-meaning has not been examined thoroughly enough. Some philosophical problems are solved and others made plainer if the full consequences of a proper relationship between these two is worked out.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 52 , Issue 199 , January 1977 , pp. 45 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1977

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References

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9 It is ironic to see in these very same sections the Master himself being corrected by his editor. In section 226 of PI, p. 86e, the manuscript read, ‘Suppose someone gets the series of numbers, 1, 3, 5, 7, … by working out the series x 2+1’. The editor has corrected this to ‘Suppose someone gets the series of numbers 1, 3, 5, 7, … by working out the series 2x+1’. How do we know that this is what Wittgenstein meant? Perhaps he meant ‘Suppose someone gets the series of numbers 1, 2, 5, 10, … by working out the series x 2+1’—which takes the variable x to move through the values 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, … Or perhaps he meant ‘… the series 2, 5, 26, 676, … by working out the series x 2+1’—taking the value of the variable x to be first 1, and thereafter the number produced by the formula. Or perhaps …

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