Originally published in 1970. Many contemporary philosophers have
thought that certain philosophic disputes could be settled by using
the concept of meaninglessness. To solve philosophic problems in
this way, however, it seemed necessary to provide a reliable
criterion for deciding when a particular sentence or statement is
meaningless. But devising such a criterion has proved to be very
difficult. In fact, in recent years many philosophers have become
quite skeptical about the adequacy of the standard criteria of
meaninglessness. Some of the more radical skeptics have even argued
that the concept of meaninglessness, as it is used by philosophers,
is itself defective and would be even if an adequate criterion
could be found. Professor Erwin, in a systematic study of the
concept of meaninglessness, begins by examining the standard
criteria of meaninglessness proposed by philosophers. These
criteria include operationalist, verificationist, and type or
category criteria. Each of these criteria, he argues, is
inadequate. Erwin then turns to the question, What kinds of items,
if any, should be said to be meaningless? Most philosophers
concerned with this question have claimed that only sentences, not
statements or propositions, can be meaningless. Erwin argues,
however, that this is wrong: statements (and propositions) can be
meaningless. Once this is demonstrated, it can then be shown that
the more radical skepticism about the philosophic use of the
concept of meaninglessness is misguided. In particular, Erwin shows
that the following assertions of the radical skeptic are false:
that what is meaningless is relative to a given language or to a
given time, and that the concept of meaninglessness forces us to
condemn as nonsense metaphors comprehensible to competent speakers
of English. In his concluding chapter, Erwin considers the
implications of there not being any adequate general criterion of
meaninglessness. He then tries to show how the concept of
meaninglessness, when interpreted in the manner he suggests, can be
profitably used by philosophers, despite the many persuasive
objections to its use that philosophers have raised in their
disputes over it.
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