Is natural semantics possible?

ordinary English, formal deformations-cum-reformations and the limits of model theory

Joseph Almog

pp. 49-108

in: Hans van Ditmarsch, Paul-Gabriel Sandu (eds), Jaakko Hintikka on knowledge and game-theoretical semantics, Berlin, Springer, 2018

Abstract

The essay is dedicated to the memory of Jaakko Hintikka and Hilary Putnam, two logically inventive philosophers who, nonetheless, showed deep judgment in bringing to the fore the limits of reducing natural languages to formal languages, via the use of logical forms and model theory. Writing in parallel ecologies, the two proposed rather similar "limitative" theses about the popular logical-form-cum-model theory methodology.

Cited authors

Putnam Hilary

Hintikka Jaakko