intensionalism

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to navigation Jump to search

English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

intensional +‎ -ism

Noun[edit]

intensionalism (uncountable)

  1. (semantics) The belief that language acquires meaning from thought or belief, which is fundamentally non-linguistic, and that propositions are therefore independent of language.
    Coordinate term: propositionalism
    • 1986, Ernest LePore, Truth and Interpretation, page 62:
      The first step in showing the irrelevance of Mates's problem is to separate Frege's intensionalism from intensionalism per se .
    • 1999, William C. Dowling, The Senses of the Text, page 47:
      Intensionalism in modern logic and linguistics begins in the way he demonstrated the point. For as "the Morning Star" and "the Evening Star" have different senses—i.e., objective linguistic content—so do statements.
    • 2004, Jerrold J. Katz, Sense, Reference, and Philosophy, page 115:
      It is sometimes supposed that extensional propositions—in particular Russellian propositions, which are adopted in some neo-Millian views about proper names—are incompatible with intensionalism and presuppositionalism.

Related terms[edit]