Cover -- Half-title -- Dedication -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- part i SCEPTICISM AND LANGUAGE -- 1 The Prison-House of Language -- i. Scepticism and the content of "commonsense" -- ii. "Tree" and "demonic possession" -- iii. The Correspondence Theory of Meaning -- 2 Referential Realism -- i. From correspondence to realism -- ii. Semantic foundationalism -- iii. Spontaneity and receptivity -- iv. Hyperempiricism -- v. Meaning and Prima Philosophia -- 3 Out of the Prison-House -- i. Reference, Meaning, and Intention -- ii. Word and practice, practice and world -- iii. Truth, reference, and "language games" -- iv. Resisting reductionism -- v. Adequating (or not adequating) concepts -- vi. Relative Realism -- part ii NAMES AND THEIR BEARERS -- 4 Russell's Principle and Wittgenstein's Slogan -- i. Understanding Algernon -- ii. Russell's Principle -- iii. Knowing-how and knowing-that -- iv. Names and propositions -- v. Wittgenstein's reservations -- vi. "Logic must take care of itself " -- vii. Meeting the demands of the Slogan -- viii. The Tractatus and its failure -- ix. Russell's Principle and Wittgenstein's Slogan -- 5 The Name-Tracking Network -- i. Nomothetic objects -- ii. Actual and nominal descriptions -- iii. Describing and locating -- iv. The whereabouts of Easthampton -- v. Naming practices -- vi. Some further examples -- vii. The Name-Tracking Network -- viii. "Logic must take care of itself" -- ix. "Name-Bearerships" as nomothetic entities -- x. Odysseus and Bunbury -- xi. Postscript on Russell and Strawson -- 6 Rigidity -- i. From Mill to Kripke -- ii. Rigid designation and nominal description -- iii. Accounting for rigidity -- 7 Descriptions and Causes -- i. The causal theory -- ii. Evans's critique of the causal theory -- iii. Evans's account.

iv. The Name-Tracking Network versus the Dominant Cluster Theory -- v. Cases involving misapprehension -- vi. Causality versus intentionality -- vii. Speakers' beliefs and intentions -- viii. The requirement of unique discriminability -- ix. Wittgenstein and Descartes -- x. Relativism and social convention -- xi. Labels and "real names" -- xii. Proper names and personal identity -- xiii. Mind, world and practice -- xiv. The meaning of a name -- 8 Knowledge of Rules -- i. Wittgenstein's Slogan and the later Wittgenstein -- ii. Practices and rules -- iii. The theoretical representation of linguistic competence -- iv. Rule-scepticism -- v. Guided or random? -- vi. Kripke and Dummett -- vii. Martians and chessplayers -- viii. A further example -- ix. Kripke and his critics -- x. Kripke and Wittgenstein -- xi. On not answering Kripke's sceptic -- xii. Goddard on counting -- xiii. The meaning of "signpost" -- xiv. Devitt and Sterelny on knowing-how -- xv. Objectivity, the individual and society -- xvi. The difference between swimming and speaking Spanish -- xvii. Wittgenstein and "full-blooded conventionalism" -- part iii PROPOSITIONS -- 9 Meaning and Truth -- i. Sense and truth-conditions -- ii. What is it to know the truth-conditions of a statement? -- iii. Translation and interpretation -- iv. "True" as an undefined primitive -- v. Assertion and registration -- vi. Quine on translation -- Wittgenstein on ostensive definition -- 10 Truth and Use -- i. Negative description -- ii. Affirmation-denial content connectors -- iii. On not knowing the content of denial -- iv. What determines affirmation-denial content connectors? -- v. Practice, predication, and the concept of truth -- vi. Concepts and the natural world -- vii. Semantic and contingent alternatives -- viii. Two further examples -- ix. Feature-placing statements -- x. Ostensive definition again.

xi. The sensory evidence for meaning -- xii. Two senses of "truth-conditions" -- xiii. Refutation of the Verifiability Theory of Meaning -- 11 Unnatural Kinds -- i. Universals -- ii. Putnam's poser -- iii. Twin Earth -- iv. Direct reference -- v. Rigidity and indexicality -- vi. Stereotypes -- vii. The thinness of linguistic knowledge -- viii. Salience and segmentation -- ix. Cataloguing the world -- x. Colours, species, kinds of stuff -- xi. Linguistic and factual knowledge -- xii. Indexicality, rigidity and kinds -- xiii. Qualified internalism -- 12 Necessity and "Grammar" -- i. Extensionality and the analytic -- ii. Two senses of "logical grammar" -- iii. Logical grammar and conventionalism -- iv. Analyticity -- v. Incompatibilities of colour -- vi. Intrinsic relations -- vii. Essences -- part iv PARADOXES OF INTERPRETATION -- 13 Indeterminacy of Translation -- i. Introduction -- ii. Empiricism at odds with itself -- iii. Quine's linguist and his Native subjects -- iv. Observation sentences -- v. Are "observation sentences" sentences? -- vi. Are observation sentences a part of language? -- vii. Ontology and the background language -- viii. Psychological and linguistic salience -- ix. Nature and human decision -- x. Referential Realism as the root of Quine's difficulties -- 14 Linguistic Competence -- i. Paradox and understanding -- ii. Kripke's principles -- iii. The paradox -- iv. Kripke's challenge -- v. The Principle of Insulation -- vi. How not to generate Kripke's Paradox -- vii. The content of minimal linguistic competence -- viii. The puzzle disappears -- ix. Dissolution versus redescription -- x. DQ and T -- xi. Externalism and Russell's Principle -- 15 Paradox and Substitutivity -- i. Kripke's cautionary lessons -- ii. Substitutivity of identicals -- iii. Kripke's constraints on the construction of the puzzle.

iv. "Normal practices of translation and disquotation" -- v. How to avoid substitutivity: DQ -- vi. How to avoid substitutivity: T -- vii. Paradigmatic roots of DQO -- viii. The puzzle restated and DQO recast -- ix. The puzzle as a paradox -- x. Meaning -- xi. Translation as based on propositional content -- xii. Externalism unmasked -- xiii. The root of the problem -- xiv. The solution -- EPILOGUE -- Epilogue: Relative Realism -- i. Realism Restored -- ii. Brains in vats -- iii. Meaning-Realism -- iv. The idea of a logically perfect language -- v. The human and the subjective -- Notes -- Introduction -- Chapter One -- Chapter Two -- Chapter Three -- Chapter Four -- Chapter Five -- Chapter Six -- Chapter Seven -- Chapter Eight -- Chapter Nine -- Chapter Ten -- Chapter Eleven -- Chapter Twelve -- Chapter Thirteen -- Chapter Fourteen -- Chapter Fifteen -- Epilogue -- Index.