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Philosophy and Language

How To Understand Words

Robert Horner tells us how, and then gives a linguistic philosopher’s view of the meaning of ‘the right to bear arms’.

Speakers utter words which hearers interpret. This, in the most fundamental way, is how we think language works. Communication has taken place successfully when the hearer interprets the speaker’s words (her meaning) correctly. Ah, but there’s the rub. What constitutes ‘correctly’? And that is where a theory of language gets complicated.

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