but that truth-telling isn't important. Is there empirical evidence that it is? — mcdoodle

Why not go a day without it, or assuming anyone does, and see how far you get?

Also, it does no good to claim that truth conditional things are often prone to exaggeration, lie, custom, and so on. Insofar as these deviate from truth-telling, their effect only makes sense against the assumption that one isn't lying (in fact, it seems a convention where lying is the default doesn't make sense, since it would become the new truth). Everything you talk about is truth-conditional in the relevant sense, and that includes fictional statements as well, though of course they have a funny sort of internal logic.

One also wonders what to make of everything you just said to me...or whether in your daily routines, you're never struck by the desire or need to tell anybody anything, or ask anybody to tell you anything. Very odd perspective.

All complete theories have partial theories embedded in them. It has to be that way if you think the phenomena are at all diverse. — The Great Whatever

I'm not sure this is true. To be honest I'm not sure we can even make sense of a 'partial theory'. Theories that don't explain things (and obviously 'partial' ones don't) are plainly dreadful theories. Can you give me an example of a successful partial theory?

Evolution is a successful partial theory. It explains the development of biological organisms but not astronomical bodies.

Mmm, I don't think it is ABOUT astronomical bodies though.

And Davidson theory on truth isn't about other elements of language.

It is about meaning isn't it?

So a theory of evolutionary biology is actually pretty complete when it comes to astronomical bodies. I assume that a necessary condition for biological evolution would be that the entity is biological, that is part of the theory. Planets are not and the theory thus explains why they don't biologically evolve. A theory of meaning then needs to explain meaning fully, but it is no problem if some things don't HAVE meaning, just like it is no problem if some things don't evolve. But we need a rule for why.
A partial theory of why tigers evolve would also need to explain why the theory was specific to tigers or else it would be just rubbish.

Davidson's paper is about a theory of truth, which forms part of a theory of meaning. He accepts that there is more to a theory of meaning than a theory of truth, but also claims rightly that a theory of truth must form a large part of it.

What is the reasoning that you take to support a claim that a theory of truth must form part of a theory of meaning, rather than that a theory of meaning must form part of a theory of truth?

For me, it depends on what you mean by 'truth'. Taking it in the strictly propositional sense I agree with you. Mostly, speakers are not so much concerned with asserting propositions, in the kind of formulated truth-functional sense. But on the other hand I think there is always a background understanding that what is said should be true, in the sense that of revealing and dealing with the actual, or at least the speaker's interpretation of what she takes to be actual.

It is always simply taken for granted that the things we say refer to commonly agreed upon things, and this is true as much of speech acts such as commanding, soliciting, imploring, reassuring, intimidating, deceiving, and so on.

Truth is revealing, and falsity is concealing. Truth and falsity are of one logical piece that constitutes meaning. I don't think it makes sense to say that a theory of truth is part of a theory of meaning or vice versa; to say this would be to assume that truth and meaning can be atomistically disconnected, or treated in a kind of mereological way as whole and part.

Because meaning is a broader phenomenon than truth. Even linguistic meaning is. Thus 'hello' is not truth-conditional, but it is linguistically meaningful. There may be notions of truth that transcend language, like having true beliefs, but it seems like the truth predicate these theorists are after are usually explicitly about linguistic truth. And clearly linguistic truth is only a part, though a major part, of linguistic meaning.

This sounds reasonable at first glance; but I am not convinced 'hello' has a linguistic meaning.

In any case any statement of linguistic meaning is a truth conditional statement.

Also. I would contend that any wider context of meaning, beyond the merely propositional, is also a wider context of truth, beyond the propositional.

This sounds reasonable at first glance; but I am not convinced 'hello' has a linguistic meaning.

Well, if you consider things like programming languages to be modeled based on human language (which they are), then there is the equivalent of "hello" in programming languages, which are things like code for signals waiting to receive data. This is similar to humans when they say "hello", which is to signify that they would like to exchange data of some sort, be it actual conversation, or even acknowledgement of the other person as being a part of a societal context.

This sounds reasonable at first glance; but I am not convinced 'hello' has a linguistic meaning. — John

That doesn't strike me as a plausible position.

That you think that is nice to know; to know why you think that would be even nicer.

In any case, whether it does or does not have a linguistic (which I take to mean 'concrete') meaning is not critical to my response anyway.

I don't understand why I'm obligated to provide a reason when you haven't, especially since your view is clearly at first blush the more ridiculous one.

linguistic (which I take to mean 'concrete') — John

I don't know why you would take 'linguistic' to mean 'concrete.' Those words don't even mean close to the same thing.

If to be linguistically meaningful is not necessarily to refer to something concrete, then what does it consist in?

Are you merely saying that any mark or sound should be counted as linguistically meaningful provided it produces a more or less predictable response?

The answer to what linguistic meaning is can only be provided in the context of an entire theory of semantics. But I would say that clearly, 'linguistic' means 'having to do with language,' not 'concrete.'

But I would say that clearly, 'linguistic' means 'having to do with language,' not 'concrete.' — The Great Whatever

Then it must be a mere tautology that any example of language has a linguistic meaning.

For me, if a sentence counts as having a linguistic meaning then the meaning can be given in concrete terms, which means it can be translated.

If a sentence is linguistically meaningless, then its meaning cannot be given in concrete terms; that is it is non-sense, and cannot be translated. This seems obvious because to translate a sentence is to render it in different words without changing the sense. If a sentence is non-sense, however....you get the point, no?

Now, you said that 'hello' has a linguistic meaning. I actually don't think words have meanings at all; but they do have linguistic references if they refer to concrete things. Words like 'and' 'the' and so on do not have linguistic reference but do have a logical sense, and a linguistic function. 'Hello' has a kind of logical sense and a linguistic function, insofar as it is a greeting, but I would not count that as having a linguistic meaning.

The problem is, all these terms 'linguistic', 'meaning' 'concrete' 'sense' and so on can obviously themselves be interpreted in different ways, so we can simply be talking past one another.

For me, if a sentence counts as having a linguistic meaning then the meaning can be given in concrete terms, which means it can be translated. — John

But 'hello' obviously can be translated, and is in almost any pedagogical language text.

I actually don't think words have meanings at all — John

That doesn't seem plausible, especially given your contention about translation: we can perfectly well translate many single words, not just sentences.

My initial excitement soon dissipated as I began reading the essay. I've read it twice and I still haven't been able to wrap my head around it. At least I'm not the only one.

Thanks to those of you who tried to explicate it in this discussion. Breaking it down into key points was helpful.

Ok, 'hello' can be translated, or at least has it's equivalent functors in other languages or in English. But it does not refer to anything specific.

I don't think words can be considered to be the units of linguistic meaning, because a word by itself has no particular context.

For me 'translation' best refers to finding equivalent contexts and not merely words. I think a sentence is a minimal context.

Ok, 'hello' can be translated, or at least has it's equivalent functors in other languages or in English. But it does not refer to anything specific. — John

That seems to support the thesis that meaning does not require reference, but only function.

On the other hand, my old buggy buddy here can only be understood, it seems to me, as referring to a leaf. A one word language of camouflage? Or perhaps one could better say that reference does not require language either?

I certainly agree that meaning as such does not require reference, but I have been contending that linguistic meaning can only be understood in terms of reference, and also that both meaning and truth are broader than language, language that is considered as mere linguistics.

I don't know whether it is right to say that your little green buddy refers to a leaf; resembles a leaf certainly.

But again, all these terms we are trying to analyze and understand are themselves subject to different interpretations.

That seems to support the thesis that meaning does not require reference, but only function. — unenlightened

It seems to only support the thesis that meaning does not require reference, but only function in some cases.

On the other hand, my old buggy buddy here can only be understood, it seems to me, as referring to a leaf. A one word language of camouflage? Or perhaps one could better say that reference does not require language either? — unenlightened

Can you explain why? I don't know the name of that species, but I'm guessing it's common name includes the word "leaf". But even if so, it still wouldn't refer to a leaf; it'd refer to a species of insect. Though it would relate to a leaf, and it's common name would be properly understood in relation to a leaf.

I don't think words can be considered to be the units of linguistic meaning, because a word by itself has no particular context. — John

But the meaning of the individual word can equally be seen as a template for what it contributes given some context: clearly speakers have this sort of knowledge of the meanings of individual words, or else dictionaries would be literally incomprehensible, let alone writeable.

Quick question: wouldn't "Hello!" be treated as a sentence in linguistics?

Yes. It's a minor (word) sentence and sentence word.

Yes, sentences are just strings of words starting with capital letters and ending in some form of punctuation, usually a full stop. Clauses are more easily identifiable and much more effective units for studying meaning than sentences I would say. But it depends on the level, type and subject of analysis.

I don't think words can be considered to be the units of linguistic meaning, because a word by itself has no particular context. — John

Linguistic meaning often can't be analysed in terms of words, but that's not to say a word like "Hello!" doesn't have linguistic meaning. It does. A case where you can't analyse linguistic meaning at the level of a word would be, for example, a phrasal verb. You can't analyze the meaning of "I gave in" by analyzing the meaning of each word in turn for obvious reasons. The appropriate semantic units are "I" + "gave in". In the case of a morpheme, the semantic unit can be less than a word, and in the case of a proverb it can be a whole sentence, and so on. Anyhow, this is all semantics. Context of utterance comes into play later when you consider pragmatics. They're two different levels of analysis.