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Pragmatism and the Evolution of Semantic Systems

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Evolution of Semantic Systems

Abstract

This paper discusses two classical pragmatists and their theories about the relation of semantics and pragmatics: Peirce’s evolutionary pragmatism and its naturalistic reconstruction by Dewey. Two questions are addressed: how do these philosophers understand the origin and development of meaning and how might their theories contribute to an explanation of the evolution of semantic systems? Pragmatism could play a very important role in our understanding of the dynamics of meaning if it integrated theories and models of structural science. This would lead to a new version of pragmatist thought, ‘structural pragmatism.’

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Peirce criticizes evolutionary theories that, as he sees them, overemphasize either the role of necessity (e.g., August Weismann’s) or the role of chance (e.g., Charles Darwin’s), in his 1893 paper, Evolutionary Love (see [2, p. 358 ff.]).

  2. 2.

    For Peirce, the main evolutionary principle is thus neither necessity nor chance but habit (see [2, p. 360 ff.]).

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  1. Frege Centre for Structural Sciences, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany

    Stefan Artmann

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  1. , Frege Centre for Structural Sciences, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Zwätzengasse 9, Jena, 07743, Germany

    Bernd-Olaf Küppers

  2. Jena University Language & Information E, Frege Centre for Structural Sciences, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Fürstengraben 30, Jena, 07743, Germany

    Udo Hahn

  3. , Frege Centre for Structural Sciences, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Zwätzengasse 4, Jena, 07743, Germany

    Stefan Artmann

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Artmann, S. (2013). Pragmatism and the Evolution of Semantic Systems. In: Küppers, BO., Hahn, U., Artmann, S. (eds) Evolution of Semantic Systems. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34997-3_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34997-3_2

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