Intuitive Grounds of Empiristic Conceptions of Meaning

Abstract

The paper presents different criteria of meaning formulated on the ground of contemporary empiricism, and shows their shortcomings. None of them respects all intuitions that empiricists have connected with the notion of meaning. The main thesis is that these intuitions can never be respected conjointly, for some of them exclude others. Consequently it is showed that the perfect empirical criterion of meaning does not exist.