Mark Richard: Conceptual evolution

Lecture by Mark Richard (Harvard), organized by the Department of Theoretical Philosophy

In this talk, I’ll sketch a picture of meaning --I won’t much distinguish between concepts and meanings --on which they are something like biological species: Species are abstractions from the biological history of a population lineage; meanings are abstractions from the semantic history of a lineage of collections of speakers in actual and potential communication. On this picture, meanings, like species, enjoy a certain amount of...(continue reading...)