O dwóch dylematach dotyczących roli semantyki w badaniach nad językiem (On Two Dilemmas Concerning the Role of Semantics in the Study of Language). In: E. Kochan i P. Ziemski (red.), Oblicza kultury. Człowiek — poznanie — twórczość. Profesor Halinie Perkowskiej w darze, Szczecin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego 2008, 185-210.

Abstract

The chapter analyzes two philosophical dilemmas concerning the role of semantics in the study of language, arising from postmodern critiques and from contemporary debates on the semantics–pragmatics distinction. The first dilemma concerns the autonomy of semantics and is reconstructed through the dispute between literalism and contextualism, especially in light of the phenomenon of semantic underdetermination. The second dilemma concerns the realist character of semantics and the challenge posed by universalist semiotics, often associated with the postmodern thesis that everything is text. The author argues that these two dilemmas are independent: rejecting the autonomy of semantics does not entail rejecting semantic realism. Drawing on relevance theory and Ruth Millikan’s biosemantic account of natural signs, the chapter proposes a contextualist yet realist conception of meaning. On this view, linguistic expressions acquire truth-conditional content only within language games, but their interpretation relies on the same cognitive capacities that underlie our interaction with a mind-independent reality.