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Volume I -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- List of Contributors -- Preface to the Second Edition -- Preface to the First Edition -- Part I Meaning and Theories`of Meaning -- Chapter 1 Metaphysics, Philosophy, and the Philosophy of Language -- 1 Two Positions -- 2 Dummett and Thought -- 3 Wittgenstein, Early and Late -- 4 Carnap and Quine -- 5 Ordinary Language Philosophy -- 6 The Turn Back -- 7 The Larger Picture -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 2 Meaning and Truth-Conditions: From Frege's Grand Design to Davidson's -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 3 Intention and Convention in the Theory of Meaning -- 1 Lewis on the Public-Language Relation -- 2 Intention-Based Semantics -- 3 An Almost-Gricean Semantics -- 4 What Endures? -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 4 Meaning, Use, Verification -- 1 Meaning as Use -- 2 Verificationism -- 3 Rules and Norms -- Notes -- References -- Postscript -- Meaning Is Use -- Use and Assertion -- A First Response: Specialized Assertion Conditions -- A Second Response: Adding to Assertion Conditions -- Fitch's Paradox or the Paradox of Knowability -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 5 Semantics and Pragmatics -- 1 Pragmatics and Semantics -- 2 Austin on Locutionary, Illocutionary, and Perlocutionary Acts -- 3 Grice on Illocutionary Acts -- 4 Grice on Basic and Derivative Illocutionary Acts -- 5 The Orthodox View -- 6 Occasion-Sensitivity -- 7 Basic and Derivative Illocutionary Acts -- 8 Conclusion -- Note -- References -- Chapter 6 Pragmatics -- 1 Semantic Properties -- 2 The Pragmatic View -- 3 Domestications -- 4 Implicature -- 5 Metaphysics -- 6 Perspective -- 7 Thoughts -- 8 Concluding Remarks -- Notes -- References -- Further Reading -- Postscript -- In Retrospect -- References -- Further Reading -- Chapter 7 On the Linguistic Status of Context Sensitivity -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Terms of Debate

AbstractWe may define words or concepts, and we may also, as Aristotle and others have thought, define the things for which words stand and of which concepts are concepts. Definitions of words or concepts may be explicit or implicit, and may seek to report preexisting synonymies, as Quine put it, but they may instead be wholly or partly stipulative. Definition by abstraction, of which Hume's principle is a much discussed example, seek to define a term-forming operator, such as the number operator, by fixing the truth-conditions of identity-statements featuring terms formed by means of that operator. Such definitions are a species of implicit definition. They are typically at least partly stipulative. Definitions of things, or real definitions, are, by contrast, typically conceived as true or false statements about the nature or essence of their definienda, and so not stipulative. There thus appears to be an obvious and head-on clash between taking Hume's principle as an implicit and at least partly stipultative definition of the number operator and taking it as a real definition, stating the nature or essence of cardinal numbers. This paper argues that this apparent tension can be resolved, and that resolving it sheds light on part of the epistemology or essence and necessity, showing how some of our knowledge of essence and necessity can be a priori.

'Existence and Essence' presents a series of writings - including several previously unpublished - by Bob Hale on the topics of ontology and modality. The essays develop and elucidate Hale's work on essence, truthmakers and several other topics. Also included are an introduction by Kit Fine and a bibliography of Hale's work.