Sobre a normatividade do significado : uma pseudo-restrição à semântica naturalizada

Abstract

This work intends to discuss a problem very recent in philosophy of language, namely the problem of the normativity of meaning. The fundamental locus of discussion is the position of Saul Kripke in Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, whose main ingredient is the idea that meaning is an intrinsically normative notion. Several philosophers have assumed this position as a kind of pre-theoretical restriction to assess reasonable theories, discarding all those that cannot accommodate, somehow, the restriction of Kripke . What animates the contemporary debate about this is precisely the possibility of disposing a descriptivist and naturalistic approach of meaning, based on the claim that such approaches fail or offer a plausible explanation of the relevant sense of normativity or fail to ensure a reasonable criterion for semantic correctness. The overall goal of this work is to show that, from the position of Wittgenstein in the Philosophical Investigations, it is not necessary to assume such a restriction, since in many ways it does seem to contradict our ordinary intuitions about the notions of meaning and use . This study aims to show, in other words, that the restriction of normativity is particularly harmless to a semantic model naturalized. The general strategy would be to deny the hypothesis that meaning is an intrinsically normative notion and show that its relevant normative aspects can be immediately derived from certain basic regularities of use.