>
> Attempt at a theory of meaning coherence with context;
>
> If a coherence theory of truth states that the truth of any (true)
> proposition consists in its coherence with some specified set of
> propositions and truth is primarily a property of whole systems of
> propositions and can be ascribed to individual propositions only
> derivatively according to their coherence with the whole, in general,
> then, truth requires a proper fit of elements within the whole system
> and the truth conditions of propositions consist in other propositions
> and even propositions about propositions have propositions as their
> truth conditions; then maybe the same idea would work for the source
> of meaning from context; for the infinte regress of meaning
> justification could confront the same dilemma as proposition
> justification where: any proposition requires a justification and any
> justification itself requires support, since nothing is true “just
> because”. This means that any proposition whatsoever can be endlessly
> questioned; If this regress of emperical justification does not
> terminate in basic emperical beliefs, then it must either: (1)
> terminate in unjustified beleifs; (2) go on infinitely (without
> circularity); (3) circle back upon itself in some way, then if there
> is no way to justify emperical beliefs apart from an appeal to other
> justified emperical beliefs, and if an infinite sequence of distinct
> justified beliefs is ruled out, then the presumably finite system of
> justified emperical beliefs can only be justified from within, by
> virtue of the relations of its component beliefs to each other,
> therefore a proper coherence theory of meaning being justified by
> context is realatively true if and only if this meaning justification
> coheres with a system of other beliefs, which together form a
> comprehensive account of reality
>
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherence_theory_of_truth
>
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-coherence/
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regress_argument
>
> ------------------------------------------------------
> rest of your linked article reference;
>
> "Inscrutability (Quine later called it indeterminacy - SV) of
> reference (is) (t)he doctrine ... that no empirical evidence relevant
> to interpreting a speaker's utterances can decide among alternative
> and incompatible ways of assigning referents to the words used; hence
> there is no fact that the words have one reference or another" - even
> if all the interpretations are equivalent (have the same truth
> value).
>
> Meaning comes before context and is not determined by it.
> Wittgenstein, in his later work, concurred.
>
> Inevitably, such a solipsistic view of meaning led to an attempt to
> introduce a more rigorous calculus, based on concept of truth rather
> than on the more nebulous construct of "meaning". Both Donald Davidson
> and Alfred Tarski suggested that truth exists where sequences of
> objects satisfy parts of sentences. The meanings of sentences are
> their truth-conditions: the conditions under which they are true.
>
> But, this reversion to a meaning (truth)-determined-by-context results
> in bizarre outcomes, bordering on tautologies: (1) every sentence has
> to be paired with another sentence (or even with itself!) which endows
> it with meaning and (2) every part of every sentence has to make a
> systematic semantic contribution to the sentences in which they
> occur.
>
> Thus, to determine if a sentence is truthful (i.e., meaningful) one
> has to find another sentence that gives it meaning. Yet, how do we
> know that the sentence that gives it meaning is, in itself, truthful?
> This kind of ratiocination leads to infinite regression. And how to we
> measure the contribution of each part of the sentence to the sentence
> if we don't know the a-priori meaning of the sentence itself?!
> Finally, what is this "contribution" if not another name for ....
> meaning?!
>
> Moreover, in generating a truth-theory based on the specific
> utterances of a particular speaker, one must assume that the speaker
> is telling the truth ("the principle of charity"). Thus, belief,
> language, and meaning appear to be the facets of a single phenomenon.
> One cannot have either of these three without the others. It, indeed,
> is all in the mind.
>
> We are back to the minds of the interlocutors as the source of both
> context and meaning. The mind as a field of potential meanings gives
> rise to the various contexts in which sentences can and are proven
> true (i.e., meaningful). Again, meaning precedes context and, in turn,
> fosters it. Proponents of Epistemic or Attributor Contextualism link
> the propositions expressed even in knowledge sentences (X knows or
> doesn't know that Y) to the attributor's psychology (in this case, as
> the context that endows them with meaning and truth value).
>
> III. The Meaning of Life: Mind or Environment?
>
> On the one hand, to derive meaning in our lives, we frequently resort
> to social or cosmological contexts: to entities larger than ourselves
> and in which we can safely feel subsumed, such as God, the state, or
> our Earth. Religious people believe that God has a plan into which
> they fit and in which they are destined to play a role; nationalists
> believe in the permanence that nations and states afford their own
> transient projects and ideas (they equate permanence with worth,
> truth, and meaning); environmentalists implicitly regard survival as
> the fount of meaning that is explicitly dependent on the preservation
> of a diversified and functioning ecosystem (the context).
>
> Robert Nozick posited that finite beings ("conditions") derive meaning
> from "larger" meaningful beings (conditions) and so ad infinitum. The
> buck stops with an infinite and all-encompassing being who is the
> source of all meaning (God).
>
> On the other hand, Sidgwick and other philosophers pointed out that
> only conscious beings can appreciate life and its rewards and that,
> therefore, the mind (consciousness) is the ultimate fount of all
> values and meaning: minds make value judgments and then proceed to
> regard certain situations and achievements as desirable, valuable, and
> meaningful. Of course, this presupposes that happiness is somehow
> intimately connected with rendering one's life meaningful.
>
> So, which is the ultimate contextual fount of meaning: the subject's
> mind or his/her (mainly social) environment?
>
> This apparent dichotomy is false. As Richard Rorty and David Annis
> noted, one can't safely divorce epistemic processes, such as
> justification, from the social contexts in which they take place. As
> Sosa, Harman, and, later, John Pollock and Michael Williams remarked,
> social expectations determine not only the standards of what
> constitutes knowledge but also what is it that we know (the contents).
> The mind is a social construct as much as a neurological or
> psychological one.
>
> To derive meaning from utterances, we need to have asymptotically
> perfect information about both the subject discussed and the knowledge
> attributor's psychology and social milieu. This is because the
> attributor's choice of language and ensuing justification are rooted
> in and responsive to both his psychology and his environment
> (including his personal history).
>
> Thomas Nagel suggested that we perceive the world from a series of
> concentric expanding perspectives (which he divides into internal and
> external). The ultimate point of view is that of the Universe itself
> (as Sidgwick put it). Some people find it intimidating - others,
> exhilarating. Here, too, context, mediated by the mind, determines
> meaning.
>
>
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/54979
>
