Psychologism and the Principle of Relevance in Semantics

Abstract

To begin with let us pose a question: what do I mean by psychologism in semantics, in the context of this paper? It seems that we can distinguish two degrees of this theoretical standpoint, a moderate version of psychologism and a strong version. After an attempt to define them briefly, I am going to argue against both of these versions. The strong version of psychologism — in accordance with the above differentiation — is presented by Tadeusz Kotarbiński, in the first pages of his Elementy, as follows “… words and, in general, phrases of language, express the experiences of speakers, their impressions, ideas, thoughts”, and ‘expression’ is understood, thus conceived, as the essential constitutive function of language. “Stating”, Kotarbiński says further, “is therefore a case of expressing: if a given sign states a given experience, then it expresses that experience, but the converse does not necessarily hold true. The elements of intentionality and communicative function are joined here to in producing an expression.” However, intentionality and communicative function are treated in semantic psychologism as additional elements, which have no bearing on the structure of language itself, and are thus disregarded in the description of this structure.