普特南对传统意义理论的批评

Putnam's Critique of Traditional Theories of Meaning

对语言的哲学探讨是20世纪哲学的中心任务,其中,"语词的意义是什么"是最重要的话题之一。语言学家和哲学家们围绕着这个问题进行了深入的探讨,发展和构建了意义的指称论、观念论、成真条件论、证实理论等众多的意义理论。但是,在普特南看来,他们都没有很好地说明意义是什么,从而使得语义学理论长期以来一直处于"黑暗"之中。

The central task of the 20th century philosophy is discussing the philosophical problems of language. ＂What is the meaning of a word？＂ is one of the most important topics. Linguistics and philosophers have done a lot of work on the core problem and developed a lot of theories of meaning, such as reference theory of meaning ,ideal theory of meaning, truth definition theory of meaning, verification theory of meaning, etc. Putnam argued, however, that all the traditional theories of meaning haven＇t explained what the meaning is. So the theory of semantics is still un- successful.