Internalist Explorations Of Meaning is an interdisciplinary reading group in the Department of Linguistics at Harvard University. We focus on questions about the relation between language and the external world, and what it means to study meaning in natural language internalistically. The reading group is accompanied by a series of talks, which will be made available here.To learn more about the project, visit our website: http://people.fas.harvard.edu/~dott/internalism/Contact: Dennis, dott@fas.harvard.edu
Unfortunately, the speaker introduction is missing from this recording for technical reasons. Internalist Explorations Of MeaningJuan Uriagereka (Maryland)How Much Meaning Can Syntax Carve Out?In this talk, delivered at Harvard University on November 20th 2007, Juan Uriagereka seeks to answer the question how much of natural-language meaning is rooted in syntactic properties of the Language Faculty. Uriagereka argues for a multi-dimensional syntax that provides "spaces" of meaning, from which ...
Internalist Explorations Of MeaningRay Jackendoff (Tufts)Conceptual SemanticsIn this talk, delivered at Harvard University on November 13th 2007, Ray Jackendoff elaborates on his internalist approach to the study of meaning, called Conceptual Semantics. According to Jackendoff, it is necessary for semanticists to study not language in isolation, but conceptual structure ("thought"), the domain-general medium of mental representation.The talk was part of the interdisciplinary reading group Inte...
Internalist Explorations Of MeaningNoam Chomsky (MIT)"On Referring" RevisitedIn this talk, delivered at Harvard University on October 30th 2007, the most eminent linguist of modern times argues for a strictly internalist treatment of questions of natural-language meaning. Chomsky discusses externalist approaches of Putnam, Kripke and others who hold that crucial aspects of meaning rely on the nature of an independently given external world. This cherished tenet of philosophy of language, Choms...
Internalist Explorations Of MeaningHilary Putnam (Harvard)Externalism: Its Motivation And Its CriticsIn this talk, delivered at Harvard University on October 4th 2007, one of the major proponents of semantic externalism revisits the subject matter of his 1975 paper "The Meaning Of 'Meaning'," extending and updating his views about the nature of meaning and why it "ain't in the head."The talk was part of the interdisciplinary reading group Internalist Explorations Of Meaning. For more informati...
